Grief Recovery in the Workplace: Healing Beyond Loss with Michele Mariscal

I'm sorry forgive me tell me again esoteric philosophy. Wow so molecular biology to esoteric philosophy so you are a searcher that's that's what I am picking up from this right. Searcher. There's not a nook and cranny that you and Rocky haven't looked under right to kind of that's that's cool that's really cool.

I do find in the grief journey boy I many of my clients are thrown into those big questions in life really why am I here who am I these big questions that all of us get to and so in my life I wanted to have you know I did the educational route and in I've always worked with groups of people. And so you know I've always been able to have conversations to test things out like what do you guys think about this. Yes yeah that that's great wow I don't yeah that's I mean I'm glad that we're talking about this because I I didn't have this on my notes on what to cover but but again I'm really just impressed with the the the breath and the width of where you wanted to look for answers you know I mean that's great. That's really incredible so so usually what we'll do I'm sure you're familiar Michelle but I love to just kind of ask a question what what got you on the path to look at getting certified in the grief recovery method kind of how did that that unfold if you will sure yes so in a 2015 from the period 2015 to early 2017 I had two family members die.

And in 2015 at Christmas it was my dad and so both my parents were gone then and there was just something completely unexpected that happened to me in my my whole emotional life felt like it had turned upside down I felt like a tree that had been uprooted and suddenly I was saying to myself oh my goodness I'm an orphan. Now that makes no intellectual sense but again in grief we know our feelings are our feelings they don't have to make sense this is what we're feeling and I was feeling that I was also having the sense of I'm I'm the elder now I'm an elder and so just in a short period of time my two brothers and I had kind of melted a little closer and then we am my mother and I'm going to get married. That was my mother and my mother and I was going to get married and I was going to get married and I was going to get married.

I was still working and and felt like I was doing an okay job but also realized one day this is what happened I was booking a trip to go see family and I booked a trip on top of a whole other business trip that had already been on the books and had been planned and everything that I did was going to do. I was going to get the flight, the lodging, the conference that had all been put in place and then right on top of that I booked this trip and I don't to this day I don't even know how that could have happened but again in the brain fog well I guess I wasn't checking calendars or I don't know but it occurred to me later that day I have a problem because I'm so out of time that if I'm this confused I'm not going to be able to do that. I really need to seek some help and I think why I hadn't really looked further in the past with past losses I had been to support groups that I actually didn't find all that supportive it was more sharing of emotion but then we would just come back and share the same emotions and that wasn't helpful to me.

The therapy route somewhat helpful but also didn't seem to move me in ways that I needed to move so I got on the internet and I was actually quite irritated that I had never found the group recovery method before 2017 learning of its history. So very quickly registered and then very quickly became a certified provider of the work and I just found for me because I do tend to live in my head to begin with I'm a surcher and I always I would just keep going back to school because I like to learn so I like my head being challenged and I'm going to be able to do that. I'm really active so I really appreciated the grief recovery method being cut to me I call it a template it's a template and it's a set of tools and it helps you do this very difficult thing called getting out of your head or at least making sense of what's in your head and then allowing yourself to gently just move into those very different ways of doing it.

I was very tough feelings that I was trying to figure out and I couldn't figure out because it was like a big bowl of rubber bands like I just couldn't pull them apart so that was how I found the great recovery method in 2017. Okay well I am sure glad you found us I always say that I I hate that we are needed and around but again when when these things happen in our lives I am I am grateful when people find us. So so you initially came for those losses right and then so did you do the work first in like a community program with a specialist or did you come right to certification and do your personal work during the certification. Yes I did that came and did my work and became certified.

Okay sounds good sounds good and in terms of how you put that into practice right how the types of people you work with leading groups leading one on one so if you don't mind getting into those kind of early days of actually using these tools this template I love that you called it a template I totally agree right that's what I think the real value of our work is. And I also you know have to say and mention that it is very very very very common for people to kind of express what you expressed which is almost a frustration that they didn't find this work you know earlier on in their process. Because what I find is a lot of the time right after we we we get the news of this tragic loss that you know we did not ask for we did not want I feel like sometimes sometimes support groups can be very helpful just just again to express to to not feel isolated to see that other people are struggling.

But like you touched on if we don't round the corner at some point and go look for some tools it can really trap people right and and it's if we just are talking about the same emotions over and over it can be very hard and you know again I know a lot of very very good effective therapist but therapy kind of was not designed around grief specifically and that's that's where yes I'm biased but that's where I love our work is it's it's a tool for grief it's a template it allows me to do that. So you get this template you get these tools you see how it feels for you and how did you first start getting into the work with other people. Yeah so my first pilot group who I worked with were people in my workplace and so they they found they found great benefit and I got to experience how to lead this and and really find how the work itself helps.

People find for themselves there's so many a haze that can happen for people when we go back and look at our lost history and recognize oh there's more here than I realized so I moved forward from there wanting to work with groups but in in the meantime what was happening then is people started referring people. So I'm not talking about people to me who wanted to work individually so I have to say I have done more one on one work with people and I do I do appreciate that and each each time that I meet with someone I who talk about and I help them determine for themselves do you feel like a group experience is what you would like because truly there are people who would like that experience and it helps them feel not so alone they like that sense that they are working alongside others and having you know these very some very intimate deep conversations with people who may become their new.

Friends in life so so I do work with both individuals and and with groups and online mostly online yeah yeah and you know one one thing that I don't think we've explored too much on this podcast but I would love to dive a little bit deeper because it is a huge piece of of the puzzle. Can you tell me a little bit more about grief in the workplace and working with people you know at at a place of work and you know what what we're what did you see happen to those people you know on the team because I do think there's a lot of benefits for employers to offer grief recovery in their in their work in their departments so can you tell me a little bit about your your experience on what you saw after people in the workplace you know did this work. Yeah sure and and I also paint the picture to I think for me it's it's not only that I had so much of my own experience during my professional career but I also worked in training and development and works I wellness so oh okay got you kind of a natural yeah I'm not sure I painted that part of the picture yeah so it was kind of a natural for me to do that.

I think I'm going to realize oh wow I don't think in you know the wellness conferences I go to this is this is a new and deeper area certainly we would see things topics like suicide prevention for managers things around leadership training but after I had my experience and after this small group that I facilitated I realized gosh this is you know what I'm doing is I'm doing this. This is you know what workplaces are always striving for is is keeping employees number one that's just to be blunt and one of the things that I researched I was asked to speak for the international benefits association last year. So I did a little bit of research and hadn't realized that the search in general had done this whole survey in in the employee base around mental health there was a whole grant for mental health research and what came out of that research were some pretty important pieces for employers to hear and that was that about 90% of am I going to do that.

So the employee said it was important or very important for their employer to offer and provide for their emotional and mental health and then there were also these statistics about I don't remember the percentages but people leaving if they worked for a company who did not value this element. And I think we always thought of growth in our career as these very linear technical aspects and that is not the workplace of today at all. It's it's concurrent it is this concurrent ability for one to be supported in their in their life and I'll call it personal in who they are as much as the technical aspects of the workplaces. So I think that's important information for employers to listen to so in my experience I realized wow just that we we call the grief recovery method a psycho educational program with therapeutic benefit in that piece of the education that could be so helpful for workplaces is around the level of the workplaces.

So it is around these myths and misinformation like don't feel bad and and very often when I'm talking to people about that they will say something to me like oh my gosh I would never say don't feel bad and I said I get that and have you ever used the words at least when you are comforting a person who is grieving. And they'll think to themselves and so we move into this space of any time I find almost always any time we're starting with the words at least and I'll give you an example that's very common in the workplace woman's pregnant she has a miscarriage she comes back to work and someone will say something like well at least you have two other children. And that completely intellectually true and until we understand as someone supporting another that that hurts we don't we don't get that if we have not thought that experience we don't get that that may be hurting someone and it's I mean that's absolutely meant as a comfort but that is such a that seems like such a strong.

So I think that's a very important thing to do is to get a job in a working area where this education could be so helpful to help when we think of employees coming back to work just like I did after loss after loss mom then dad then brother. Just being able to move down the hallway and feel like. Not have to be wary am I going to run into someone because I really don't feel like talking on what they're going to say like all of that could just be. That we could learn about that together as employees it could bring a different level of camaraderie and support so being that would go just such a long way so I put together this top called the grief informed workplace just to talk about that and when I do speak to employee groups they so appreciate being able to ask well I don't know what to say what what should we say and what.

Should we say and what shouldn't we say so it's is there's just such an opportunity to to bring some of that education to workplace yeah no I love this I love that we're going here Michelle because. By the way before I go where I was going to go do you have have you recorded that talk do you have that where that talk anywhere on the internet or is it usually live don't know it's usually live. Well when you do record it let us know because I want to put in the show notes because I love for people to watch that right and that's a great idea and and here's what I was going to say. There's obviously very very known grief events that employees would go through right so if if mom dies or you know someone close to them dies right that's a grief event and you know obviously that alone can really inhibit someone's productivity in the workplace right and if we don't help them with that that can that can affect them for years and years to come right Michelle talked about earlier in the podcast booking two trips on top of each other because of of kind of just the fog that we are in during grief events well a lot of the time for for for people that doesn't just simply fade away and go away right so our decision making our productivity all of those things can be robbed of both the individual and the company for years to come if we don't address the the you know those those grief events but I want to you know Michelle help me out here too but I want to also let people know how many other grief events are happening on a daily basis in the workplace that people aren't really maybe giving credit to his grief so let me give you an example when I was at a large corporation and there was a couple of people up for a promotion and guess guess who wanted the promotion me right and guess who didn't get the promotion me.

So a lot of the time with grief recovery we talk about a lot of the time we are grieving hopes dreams and expectations for the future that were not met that did not happen right so if I knew that there was this promotion for six months and they were going to keep an internal so I thought I was in the running for it and then one day I hear that they brought in someone from from some other company I had a hope a dream and expectation that I would get that promotion and I didn't get that promotion. Okay and you know a lot of people say we'll suck it up keep going and look for the next one right and and okay that's an aspect of it but you also if you honor that there is grief in that and you help someone work through that they can let go of that because I'll tell you right now a lot of people that go to different companies it's because they have some grief built up in that company and then they kind of almost have to move and sometimes it looks like it's because of the money or sometimes it looks like there's a lot of money in that.

It's a better opportunity and you know those are all factors but I'll tell you I'm from someone who was in a large corporation for seven years and then worked as an employer you know for grief recovery here for a long time. Unresolved grief incomplete feelings and thoughts over individuals in the company play a huge role in people's decisions to either stay loyal or want to be there or be bought into the mission or kind of get a little bit disenfranchised and kind of want to go somewhere else right so. You know I see it in promotions I see it sometimes when our managers say something that hurts our feelings and we don't know how to forgive them right by the way do this indirectly don't forgive them directly right Michelle knows this process but you know the beauty of grief recovery is it gives you tools at how to deal not only with relationships where the person has died it also gives you tools on how to grieve and complete things that are unfinished in your living relationships this goes for your spouse or your partner this goes for your children this goes for your parents or your friends or your siblings but it also goes for people you work with okay because as human beings we step on each others toes we hurt each other's hearts sometimes we know it sometimes we don't but if that stuff builds and accumulates and we don't know how to process that stuff that backpack it's very heavy right and we build a case on on wire employer doesn't care or our manager doesn't care and then we're looking to move somewhere else when when a lot of people are in the company that's not the right thing.

So when when a lot of the time that's not necessary right and and so you you hit the nail on the head Michelle I mean first and foremost right employers want to develop talent keep talent and they are losing a lot of talent because of unresolved grief right I can't say it any any any clearer than that and and I'm not just talking about you know someone someone dying I'm talking about all of the inner workings on a daily basis of just the apparatus of a company and all of the different ways people get hurt and people have hope streams or expectations and they're shot down or they're not met all of that stuff can be addressed with grief recovery and you can build a much stronger team that is much more resilient if you apply these tools and you know you know you empower your employees to have these tools right so some of the some of the most important stuff I need is maintenance like emotional maintenance in my relationship so give an example.

That's a great term emotional me. I'm going to write that down emotional maintenance. I don't think I've ever said that. Okay so let me give you an example.

Okay. Just the other day someone on my team scheduled a call with me and my wife and you know me and my wife kind of helped lead the company and you know this person I loved dearly and several months ago. There was a there was an instance where she did not feel supported by me and she didn't feel supported by a couple of other team members on the team right and instead of eating that and saying it could have been worse and you know having someone else they don't feel bad she decided to schedule a call and talk directly to me and Ashley about these feelings she had and I saw her point of view and I I basically looked at what my part in it was and I definitely had a part in it and there's some other people. That had parts in it but I wanted to own my part right and I I apologized for my part in it.

I also told her what was going on with me in those kind of several days just so she could be aware of some of the feelings I was navigating over something completely separate. But the point is we all got to complete what was unfinished in that exchange. There's no blaming. There's no pointing fingers.

There was just hey we were two human beings and and we kind of you know feelings were hurt. And how do we move forward because we love each other right and it was the most beautiful thing and I hope I can't put myself in this individual shoes but I hope she felt hurt I hope she got to process some stuff. I hope she heard me and I got to like honestly I got to process some stuff and tell her some stuff that was important on my heart that I was dealing with that she wasn't aware of and then there was compassion and empathy I think my way to And trust me I am far far far from the world's best you know manager or employer you know I got a lot of work to do but to watch grief recovery play out in this little exchange right where like how many how many employees and managers have conversations like that.

Yeah, I would say not that often right. And so what what happens if we don't get to have that conversation and she doesn't get to feel hurt and express what she wanted to feel right. Maybe it builds maybe resentment builds maybe she starts seeing me less and less as a human being and and more and more is just you know this guy that really doesn't care about people right and and then that it can escalate and then you know and so Anyway, I want the world I don't care if it's neighbors family workplace you know co-workers I want the world to have these tools to emotionally communicate things and have you know I'm going to have an R&X to this registered trademark you know emotional maintenance. I want people that I want to I want the people to have the ability to have emotional maintenance in their daily relationships and that includes the workplace right and so that's where people aren't going to necessarily look at grief recovery as a tool to help with that part of the workplace they'll just be like oh I get a grief recovery you help people if someone's mom dies and then they can come back to the work it's like yeah we actually are very effective at that and that's very needed because the absenteeism people who are in cubicles but they're not really in their cubicles are in their office but they're not really in their office they could care less about work because you know like you said that your tree was uprooted you feel like a um um what was the word you said I love it yeah you felt like an orphan like when you said that that was like that hit my heart there are so many people out there in the world that feel that way and no one is addressing it right and they're like well you know uh see how that lost two months ago so time-healed that she's over it let's have her get this next report going and she still feels like an orphan in that office right and no one's addressing it and how isolating for her so anyway um it's an epidemic I mean grief unresolved grief in this country is an epidemic I will say it until the day I die um and we need to equip people with tools to communicate with each other and to support each other like you said so anyway thank you for bringing that up and thank you for the work that you've done in in in the workplace and I would love what like I said when you get that talk recorded let me know we need to share that I'm excited to announce our premium in-person certification training individuals who have a desire to help other people with grief and loss join us for a four-day event that you will remember forever this is based on the proven four-day certification we've done before the curriculum is the same but now you're going to get a ton of stories and education and training from Sandy these are tangible tools that help people in any area of their life you're going to get a ton of stories and education and training from me we will have double the amount of trainers to answer questions you have I want to help people find this missing information this missingly I'm an advocate for the grieving process because I know that's like why would you not tell somebody to heal there's going to be some tears in there there's going to be some tissues but well I think what will surprise people that are considering this training is if you sat outside of the room when this training is happening you wouldn't believe how much laughter is happening in this training you wouldn't believe how much joy and hope you can see on people's faces as we're breaking and people are coming out of the room it's everything the thing she was saying made me feel seen and normal and validated and not insane I saw grief as this really bad dark thing instead of seeing it as the actual healing process as someone who's been in this field for 15 years now I would have loved to have been trained under these circumstances it's just such a premier training you're going to probably walk away with some like lifelong friends we did not want to say goodbye to each other at that end of that four days be able to help walk them through that and and give them that same light bulb that came on in my head it was trend it's transformative it was such a rich time of learning and engaging listening to people's stories being present being focused with who you're talking to is such a big part of the grief recovery work I had done a lot of things I'd done coaching I've been in therapy I've had done a lot of other modalities and they were helpful but when I did the grief recovery method and when I walked through the method and continued to use the tools life began to have color I went from being very emotionally disconnected to being very connected do not wait seats are filling up sign up you will not regret it I cannot wait to see you have a great day okay can I say a couple of things that pop up of course please please so it occurred to me and for our listeners one of the things that we learn about in the grief recovery method is the these the the development or enshrinement of an individual and what I was realizing as you were talking if we are not equipped in the workplace with these tools how easy it is to just have these feelings of resentment with our supervisor or our peer and we and and then this is how the the nest can form that you know is called what's the word I used to be called into solve a lot of these problems with training when it wasn't training at all it was something to be for that was needed but this be development of peers or supervisors can happen so easily and then you're out of there the when these these tools you know they are I and I am trying to figure out how to represent the step and the breadth of these tools because I too you know seven years down the line now I've I keep doing my own work and all all the ones who've departed from my life we're done with that oh man look at all the work I can do with my living people how what a change it makes in these relationships keeping them clean and clear and just like you shared how the gift that would be in workplaces for people to be able to have this lens of wow that I really got my feelings searched that's a loss and if we view that in the lens of grief here's a set of tools and how we can have this conversation that sets us both up for being what we call a heart with ears when we listen from that place we realize oh this happened I felt this and I want to apologize or this happened and I felt and can we talk about that like it just opens up such a judgment-free zone which is not easy to find in the workplace and the other thing the other picture I think that you mentioned the word backpack and I always I love the analogy of the backpack and that's another thing that can happen in the workplace so our backpack is what we're holding on our back and each time we experience a loss there is another rock just going in that backpack and imagine you come in as a person that you are with all your personal background experience philosophy and your losses in life some of which you may not even realize are cause for grief but you've had these losses and now you're in this workplace having these experiences getting your feelings or not getting the promotion just piling in these other rocks and when we use that analogy and recognize for our self that yeah I should actually figure out what do we need to do start taking those rocks out you know and in the workplaces we do we do a lot of different things to create camaraderie a lot of you know there's different ways that we do that jigsaw puzzles some break room tables so that we can be people together not just coming in doing our jobs but yeah the what's available in these tools in in the workplace having them once and you recognize oh yes my mom died and I got to process that but wow look at what a great tool for conversation this could be yeah no absolutely I I remember before these tools I kind of had a pattern where again I would I would let emotional stuff build up and it was usually towards um you know again my manager or somebody at the company and I would find a way almost to sabotage my whole such situation because I it would build up and then it would be this absolute mountain and I was the victim and they were you know they were they did all this stuff wrong and and then I would like ruin my situation right and you I would be like fired or would be so awkward or whatever um and and I and then with these tools right I learned how to to get complete with things where I felt like I was wrong or I was hurt or my opinion didn't matter I wasn't listen to or you know they they chose something else and it was like and and it was great because the other thing like you said going back to the development and and shryement this helps you actually create an accurate memory picture of that person when you review right and so you know I had a boss who was my mentor and he was a high powered executive and he taught me so much about business and so much about life right but he also had a lot of stressful moments where I was his assistant so I was getting the brunt of you know a lot of that stuff it was a real relationship there was good there was bad there were stuff I was grateful for there were stuff I was definitely not grateful for yeah right but it's like I let I let the intensity of that relationship build a place where again I didn't process anything so that backpack gets very heavy and and the t-kettle the pressure builds and then if we don't know what to do with that it explodes right and that's a you know I said something one time and I was he was like dude you were you are so close to getting fired for that like you are right on the edge you know and that's how I pushed it and it's like with the grief or recovery tools I never had to get to that edge again I could slowly process stuff I could do stuff indirectly of him that's the beauty like going back to this conversation I had with one of my employees I know she did work around this hurt that she had indirectly of me and so the stuff she was presenting to me was stuff where it was how she felt right but it was also the things that she was presenting to me were enough for me to kind of see without making this be a massive attack on me and that's the beauty agree for cover is some stuff we do indirectly of that living individual and then some of the stuff we can bring right to into into that individual and it it a lot of the time it just helps us get closer right because it doesn't have to blow up and I don't have to be like well you just came at me very aggressively and so now my gut reaction is I'm going to defend myself and I'm going to tell you about stuff you've done right it doesn't have to be that way so the way that she um set up the conversation was so beautiful and I knew she had these tools because of the way the conversation was set up and it allowed me some grace to really look at my part see my part make some apologies I need to do some of this you know a lot of the stuff she said was very very valid right you know and and but it didn't feel like an attack it was more like here's here's where I was coming from Cole and I just wanted to say that because it hurt right and then that gives me an opportunity to not have to defend myself just kind of own up to my stuff and anyway the way she she structured this conversation was text book grief recovery I know she's training grief recovery so I could appreciate it and I could also after all of that still see my part in in a making apology there you know and it's like anyway it's just it it's so crazy that this conversation happened I don't know if it was recently day or two ago that this happened and we're having this conversation because again right if people are not heard they're going to go to someone else in their workplace that will hear them yeah right and they'll you you've seen this and I've seen it where people want to build their case they want to create a mutiny they want to have three or four other people doesn't doesn't he do that to you too right and then all of a sudden like you said you're being called in for these bigger problems yeah like a lot of the time they don't have to turn into bigger problems but but us human beings who are just out there doing the best we can we're not trained in these tools we don't know how to be pressure valves and release pressure and you know forgive people we need to forgive them and apologies apologize when we need to apologize we don't you know we just haven't spent a lot of time navigating that and it's not that hard right that's I think where my frustration is is these tools are not hard to pick up with a little bit of a talk with a little bit of practice and all of a sudden like we are avoiding so many conflicts uh I was talking to someone about it the other day I'm a firm believer that all police officers need to learn jiu jitsu because they can disarm and have a lot more confidence in their abilities where in a lot of really scary violent encounters they could go to jiu jitsu which would be a lot more gentle than going to pepper spray or taser or you know god forbid a gun if they had this tool of jiu jitsu they could deescalate a lot of stuff and I firmly believe that people in HR and managers in the workplace need grief recovery because they could they if they would just employ these tools and teach their team how to employ these tools we would have so much less conflict and so many less kind of blow ups in the workplace you know um it's it's it's not even close right so anyway um thank you for bringing this up and and thank you for you know doing the work you're doing yeah yeah yeah I love my work all right so yeah go ahead I love my work good good okay and and tell me a little bit I'm not familiar but again I going back to the very start we know you're a surcher we know you you have been looking for you know just I think tools and how to help human beings that's what I'm getting from you you know and so you found this this thing called heart math so can you tell us a little bit about that work as well that you do sure yeah so heart math and it is the word heart with the word math or mathematics just all squished together um heart math uh they came out came on to the scene in the early 90s and their interest was really to see to really form a scientific basis for what everyone was considering this really squishy area called emotions so they really set out in what they uh established very early on that was important is that there are far more signals going from the heart as a result of emotional signals so so signals from the heart to the brain then there were the brain going down I don't know about you but if you ever studied any biology or um you know I studied a little more uh neuro science it was all about the brain the brain was king and it was all about what was coming from here down so that was that was really their claim to fame early is oh we should really be paying attention to what emotions we are experiencing because it has far more influence than we realized and um so they across industries and across different aspects like health um immune system health nervous system activity hormonal activity they were doing lots and lots of research and at the same time establishing these ways that um end users could have some kind of technology to measure what they were seeing so now in the field there's lots of people who study um this thing called heart rate variability so a lot of the you know the oral rings lots of lots of gadgets that you can get um but to my knowledge the technology of heart math and when you are getting that biofeedback with your emotional states you are literally training your nervous system real time um and where I found application for this is um again I I think I ended up realizing that working with our emotions is kind of where my work felt most satisfying to me and one of the things that I found and where heart math really has had application in my own life and in my work and in my community here is because it can so quickly stabilize and synchronize nervous system activity in the face of all of these storms that we had here last year um we you know grief recovery method absolutely has we have these are tools for grief and not necessarily first responder kind of tools yeah I would agree with that absolutely yeah and so what I found was needed to offset the trauma that was starting to set in I I live in a little community it's actually below Tampa it's called Gulfport and our sea wall still is not rebuilt we still have a beach that is you got resandered and then rained out again we have some big rains um so we're in recovery and think about all these places that are I mean it's constant the yeah disasters that are happening so anyway um I was working with heart math in the work place as a tool to help um just people be more resilient and so again coming from workplace wellness that that was just one that everybody wanted everyone was stressed out so uh and and most lately here in the last year I was you know everywhere I could in the community just offering my services and I would um be calling them grief circles and what we can do as grief recovery specialist absolutely is to be able to bring people together and just start the process of what are you feeling what are you experiencing let's have a place to just cry together that that is a part of what I could do out of my grief recovery background um and then just being able to do these heart math tools of just settling the nervous system down so now where I'm at is I'm getting in person classes here for the grief recovery method going because now they're ready yes yes um that that's that's great right and that's the thing I love is uh uh I'd say most of our specialists they come to the certification with other tools that they believe in that they've had success with and you know we know we're not the only game in town and and I'm glad for that and so I love that that you're using things in conjunction right and you're you know when the right time to apply one tool versus another tool um and so I want to just kind of spell that out a little bit right you said that grief recovery is not really a tool for first responders right and I and I kind of agreed with that and and so here is what we're talking about okay if if I've been evacuated and there's like a you know level five whatever storm coming in and um and I don't even know if I still have a home or not right and someone says hey do you want to do some work around your grief on this do you want to do grief recovery work it can it can be viewed as insensitive right it can kind of because because they are they're in a far different place in that moment right they're in survival mode they're they're wanting to make sure that their meat their needs are met their survival needs like do I have shelter do I have food for the family uh did my you know my animals make it out do I have a home like those are the questions on their mind the grief yes there's grief there's trauma happening right there in real time but but again they're they're in no place to really look at those things yet and so I think that's what Michelle you were talking about is like hey there's another tool I have for that part and then some time went by and we don't have a set time point but some time went by and Michelle is kind of reading okay this is more where grief recovery would be appropriate right so um it you know we had this tragedy in my my area where uh and this was national news you know a month a month ago or two where you know someone set a fire to the area lured in firefighters and then shot and killed several firefighters right and the community is absolutely heartbroken and you know these these these these these men have died um and it wasn't the appropriate time you know days after that to start asking you know family members of these victims do they want to do grief recovery work it's not the appropriate time to do that right they they're they're they're just completely off guard on this horrible horrible tragedy um they are having to you know again manage their family do a bunch of like paperwork that seems so insane at the time when we have these losses but their headspace is not recovering from that loss you know three days after the loss occurred and so we want to especially this is always be very very loving and very aware of like when this is an appropriate you know tool to see if someone wants to take and and and days after these events is is is not the appropriate time right so that's I just wanted to spell that out a little bit and I love that you have different tools for different parts of someone's journey um that would be appropriate more in different times but I love that you mentioned like and then you know you're in and our whole towns and recovery and we're kind of like catching our breath maybe that's an appropriate time to do grief recovery on on kind of these these big emotions that happen throughout this last year and stuff so I just wanted to touch on that a little bit because sometimes new specialists again their hearts in the right place they want to get in there and start helping right away and we kind of have to explain well maybe that person isn't really in the mindset yet to to be ready to do grief recovery right to pick up the pieces to figure out how because they're not even quite sure all what all their feelings are around the event you know days or weeks or something you know often months after the event so um anyway that's that um well I can't believe at Michelle but we're at 48 minutes right now so do you have any um do you have any closing closing thoughts that you kind of wanted to leave with the audience anything that you wanted to say before we wrap sure wow we've had some my my heart is so full this has been such a rich conversation and I think what there is for me to say is you know as we say 100% of us are grievers and I just encourage each and every one of you listening to consider doing the grief recovery method we are all over the place you can find this everywhere and it is just such a it's such a life giving tool and one that you know we can never say to someone how it will be or what the exact results are but so many of my clients have been surprised amazed and so glad they put in the work and and I will call it that I think sometimes we have a a little bit of a fear walking into what feels like really murky dark waters but just know that any specialist any groups that you find we are all trained to walk you through and incredibly um powerful program that just holds you um you will you will get through those those tough feelings and and for people also who um may feel like well I don't have any grief another experience in grief it's um I invite you to do the grief recovery method and allow yourself to be surprised what is actually in your backpack and how great it would feel to take off 10 pounds there's just something available for everyone given that 100% of us are grievers yeah beautifully said I can't follow that up um what will well said Michelle I want to thank you on on behalf of the whole institute I want to thank you for all the work that you do all the clients you help using these tools like I said I'm so grateful that you found this work and and you've been out there just again helping society with these tools so where can people find you if they want to you know talk to you and work with you what's the best place for them to reach out yeah so I'm out on LinkedIn quite a lot since my kind of my niche is our people who like me you know working in the working world and suddenly having all of these experiences so LinkedIn I'm on Facebook and then also my website energym.org great so we will link to those in the show notes and in the description on YouTube so if you want to get in touch with Michelle just find those links and you can click on them and get in in touch with Michelle again Michelle thank you so much for being here I look forward to episode two at some point we'd love to have you back and and for all of those listening I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day or evening whenever you're listening to this please like share leave a review spread the message if you know anybody who again is in an HR department or an EAP program or connected with a company please share this with them right hopefully this will give them a little bit more insight on all of the different grief events that are happening literally minute by minute day by day at their place of work it is not just when that person is left for three to five days because someone died right that is absolutely a grief event we want to help people with that but that is only the surface of what is happening in people's backpacks you know in their hearts on a day-to-day basis with with feelings being heard with with grief with things not ending up happening that they hope happening with with all of that and we can we can help with that we have for a long time so again please share with anybody that you think would would benefit from this episode and until next time this is the feel free again podcast thank you for listening