Grief in the Workplace: Support, Empathy, and Healing

Bossed Up

How do you navigate grief in the workplace in an empathic and supportive way? We all experience loss, and we might default to assuming the only place for grief is in the home. The truth is that a loss permeates every aspect of our lives, sometimes for years or even decades, and it certainly crosses into the workplace.

Krista St-Germain experienced a devastating loss in 2016 when her husband was killed by an impaired driver. That trauma propelled her into grief, then therapy, then research. Today, she is the founder of the Mom Goes On group coaching program and the host of the Widowed Mom podcast. She shares her hard-won wisdom on what we need to know about grief and how to navigate it in the workplace, both for ourselves and in support of others.

Question your assumptions about grief and learn to better support yourself or others who are navigating it, including:

• How we’ve come to misunderstand the grieving process;
• The role time plays when we are healing from a loss;
• How to navigate interactions with grieving coworkers;
• The possibilities of life beyond grieving and post-traumatic growth.

Related Links:

• Learn more about Krista’s work - https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/
• Follow Krista on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lifecoachkrista/
• Connect with Krista on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/coachingwithkrista
• The Widowed Mom Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-widowed-mom-podcast/id1468127632
• The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’Connor - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-grieving-brain-the-surprising-science-of-how-we-learn-from-love-and-loss-mary-frances-o-connor/16976128?ean=9780062946249
• Report from the Death Studies Journal on the Dual Process Model - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10848151/
• Brené Brown - Silver Linings Clip - https://brenebrown.com/videos/rsa-short-empathy/
• On Death & Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy & Their Own Families by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross - https://bookshop.org/p/books/on-death-dying-what-the-dying-have-to-teach-doctors-nurses-clergy-their-own-families-elisabeth-kubler-ross/9165298?ean=9781476775548
• On Grief & Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross - https://bookshop.org/p/books/on-grief-grieving-finding-the-meaning-of-grief-through-the-five-stages-of-loss-david-kessler/6699869?ean=9781476775555
• Episode 468: Disrupting Elder Care: We Need To Talk More About Working Daughters - https://www.bossedup.org/podcast/episode468
• LEVEL UP: a Leadership Accelerator for Women on the Rise - https://www.bossedup.org/levelup
• Bossed Up Courage Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/927776673968737/
• Bossed Up LinkedIn Group - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7071888/
• Follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/emiliearies