This is Here After and I'm your host, Megan Divine. This week's show is a repeat performance. We'll be back with season two soon enough, but for right now, enjoy this episode and visit the back catalog of episodes too while you're at it. This is Here After and I'm your host, Megan Divine. Each week we tackle big questions from nurses, therapists, and other helpful folks that let us explore how to show up after life goes horribly wrong. This week, friends, we have to talk about the stages of grief. You know what I'm talking about, right, The stages of grief. Everybody seems to know that neat and tidy five step path from denial to acceptance. Spoiler alert, those stages do not exist. Stay tuned to find out the dirt on the stages, with questions about pop culture references and how to throw out what you learned in grad school. We'll be right back after this break. Before we it started, one quick note, while I hope you find a lot of useful information in our time together. This show is not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision related to your work. Okay, if you don't know me personally, you just sort of listen to me, or you see me on Instagram. You might think I'm a pretty chill person. My team is smirking. I mean, I am a chill person mostly, but it doesn't take a whole lot for me to fly off into a rage. Especially when I see somebody like a person or an animal, or even a beautiful old building being treated poorly. I snap pretty fast. The same thing applies when I see pop culture references to the stages of grief, or I hear from yet one more grieving person that their doctor told them they weren't moving through the stage. Is fast enough you know what I'm talking about, right, I mean, the stages of grief are everywhere, so I'm pretty sure you know what they are. But just in case y'all need a refresher. The stages of grief our denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then the holy grail of grief work acceptance. The very first viral article I wrote, which I think was like way back in, was about the stages of grief and how they are a complete and total lie. Actually, I'm going to read from that old article for a little background here, since it was pretty concise, and when I ramble, I'm not always so concise. The stages of grief were developed by Dr Elizabeth Coobler Ross in nineteen sixty nine as she listened to and observed people living with terminal diagnoses. What began as a way to understand the emotions of the dying became a way to strategize grief. With the publication of her book on Death and Dying, the stages of grief became the go to model for grief of all kinds. The griever is expected to move through a series of clearly delineated stages denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, eventually arriving at acceptance, at which time their grief work is complete. I'm not going to read the whole article to you. Will will link it in the show notes so that you can read the entire thing. But that stages of grief stuff started in nineteen sixty nine. So why am I talking about this old dinosaur of a grief theory? Now, I mean it's over fifty years old. Well, here's the thing. We've had so many advances in so many different areas of life, but with grief, we're still stuck in the dark ages. This reductive, stage based way of looking at grief has fully infiltrated human society. You can still find the stages of grief and introductory college courses in grad school, in grief and loss workshops. They come up in pop psychology and in clinical scientific studies. They show up in movies and in storylines, and they show up at family gatherings where somebody asks you what stage you're in and why you're lingering so long in anger? Damn things are everywhere and they're horrible. Now before you at me, hold on a second. Sometimes I actually get some hate mail when I talk about the stage of regrief, with people running to defend Dr Coogler Ross for her groundbreaking work and telling me to step off a little bit. So what might not be entirely clear so far in today's show is that I am a complete fan of Dr Coogler Ross. Her work revolutionized end of life careage, jump started conversations about death and dying when literally no one else was talking about it. She's one of the greats. My work exists in part because of what she did over a fifty years ago, and one of my favorite things about her is her outrage over the way her work got twisted into something she never intended. In her later years, she wrote that she regretted writing the stage is the way that she did, and that people mistook them as being both linear and universal. The stages she outlined were meant to normalize and validate what somebody might experience inside loss and death and grief, not what they had to you. She didn't set them down in a specific order. She never said they needed to be in a linear path. She never meant them to be the metric by which we judge grief, our own or others. Folks, the stages of grief don't exist. They never did. I mean, I can rant about this stuff for a really long time, you know I can. And again, I'm gonna link to those articles that I've written about the stages of grief before, so you can get the full catastrophe and my opinions about it. But I want to root all of this in some listener questions so you can see that this anti stages of a grief thing is not just me being cranky. You're ready, Here's question one. This listener wrote, a couple of people in my life suggested I watched Melissa McCarthy's movie The Starling. I think because they thought it would help me. And while I did see a lot of my own experience in the story, some of it was really distressing. There is this scene where Melissa McCarthy's character is told by the therapist character that it sounds like she's in the bargaining stage of grief and that next she'll move into stage three anger. I had to turn it off for a minute because I know that's not what happens. I guess my question here is how am I supposed to respond to those folks who suggested the movie when they ask me if it helped. I know they're going to ask. Okay, so everybody, if you don't know what this listener is referring to. The Starling is a movie about grief. Specifically, it's about the different ways two people deal with the death of their infant to sits. The scene in question is where Kevin Klein's character, who plays a therapist, tells Melissa McCarthy's character that stage three of the grieving process anger usually comes after stage two of the grieving process bargaining, and that depression comes next. It's a quick little scene in a movie that honestly does not get a whole lot right about grief or loss or life. It's easy to dismiss all this. It's just a movie. It's no big deal. No one really cares about a one off comment about the stages of grief in a movie that came out months ago. Let's just be thankful they're talking about baby loss at all. Now. I'm not making up that pushback. Actually, when the movie first came out, I, no surprise, ranted about it on Instagram, and some of the comments I got back we're from actual, real life grieving people who are like, I'm just glad they said something about dead babies. Yes, I am all for portrayals of losses, but not like this. Here's the thing, entertainment industry. Portrayals of grief are where we learn what's normal inside grief. It's also where we learned how to support other people in their grief. We learn by watching. We take cues from our entertainment, even if we aren't aware of it. These one off comments, they aren't benign. They're powerful influences on our understanding of the world. Storytelling matters even in those one off moments. There's something else this movie does that lots of other narratives due to are not just going to pick on the startling today, okay, but to pick on the starling. It dictates in this storyline that there is one correct way to do grief, and it shames anyone who deviates from that one correct way. Now, you would have to watch the whole thing to know exactly what I'm talking about here. But none of this is anything new. It doesn't just belong to this one movie. Most media portrayals of grief are horrible. Very few get it even close to correct. And the fact that the producers of this movie didn't even know that the stages of grief were not exactly a modern theory of talking about grief. They didn't know that the stages of grief fell out of favor a long time ago. The fact that they wrote this movie with the stages of grief and it shows how far we still have to go until real portrayals of real grief show up in the movies. We've got a lot of work to do to change all of this. Also, Netflix, if you happen to be listening, I can write you a grief storyline that is way better than this tired old stuff. Real life is far more compelling. Basing storylines on real life, as I said, has that added bonus of teaching people how to be better humans. So if you're out there and you're listening, and you're working on a project, hit me up, I can help you. Okay, So, media portrayals of grief that are fifty plus years out of a date just deepen our misunderstanding of grief, making things harder for grieving people and friends and family who want to help. So to get back to answering this listener's question finally rant over for the moment. The listeners question was how can I respond when a well meaning person says, so, how did you like that movie? Did it help you? Maybe this can help you move through your own anger and get clo sarch of acceptance. I'm imagining that conversation and how that's going to go here, But right, it's pretty standard some things you might say in a scenario like this Option one, Educate your helper. You might say something like I did watch the movie I'm glad to see Baby Lost hit mainstream media. There are a lot of outdated ideas about grief in that though, and it's just not how it works, and then you might open a conversation about reality versus the movies. To get into a conversation with this well meaning person about what helps them, what doesn't, and their approach and and all of those things. I do want to say that it's not on you to educate the people around you when you have loss that has erupted into your life. It is exhausting to educate the people around you. So I when I say educate your helper say this and say this like, that's a lot of work and a lot of emotional labor, and you don't have to right, do it if you want, don't do it if you don't want whatever, So option too, you can say some thing like, well, acceptance isn't my goal. Some things are unacceptable. Anger is a healthy emotion too. How about you would you learn I'm watching that movie? So what you did there was to like state the truth, defend your right to grieve, and deflect the conversation back to the person trying to help so that you don't have to get into it, right. I mean, I'm an educator. There's some education even in that defend and deflect option. But you know what I'm going for here, You don't have to argue about the stages, or about your own grief or whether the movie got it right. If you don't want to remember that that tool in your toolbox of simply saying thanks for thinking of me, it was an interesting movie. How's your day? That acknowledge and walk away and change the subject. You never have to get into anything unless you really want to. One more thing I want to say about this movie before I let this particular thing go. I promise I will let it go. This scene we're dissecting reinforces the stereotype that therapists are going to roll out these unhelpful, simplistic tropes when you go to them for help. I mean, if that's what you think therapy is going to be, I don't blame you for not seeking help, even if you don't know the ins and outs of why the stages of grief aren't helpful. Everyone kind of feels it when they're being patronized and reduced to a formula. So these no big deal media scenes have what I am sure is an unintended consequence of painting a therapist as a bumbling old school a dolt. That stuff's not going to help anything it's not cool. You know who did do it right, at least in my very picky opinion, Ted Lasso. Yes, I am a ted Lasso fan, so what ted Lasso got right? And we're probably gonna do an entire show on this, but just super briefly to sort of balance out the all entertainment is trash. No, no, no, all entertainment is not trash. What I loved and Ted Lasso, not specifically the therapist storylines, but the whole thing, from the unconditional positive regard to the exception of emotions no matter how mess see, to the modeling of accountability and communication, that whole thing is just a joy to watch. All right, enough on that movie. Next up, a little bit more about the stages of grief, messy personal and professional boundaries, and how HR departments try hard to make things right. We'll be right back, friends, Book back friends. I'm going to jump right into question two here you ready, Okay, wait, fair warning, both of our listener questions this time our death related questions. Stick with it. I am going to totally make this relevant to non death questions after we do this one. Okay or here it is. My boss recently died from complications related to COVID. I've been tasked with leading staff meetings to approach our grief together. My boss and I had a very complicated relationship, and I'm having a hard time navigating my own grief, let alone leading there's through theirs. The other thing is that HR suggested we use the stages of grief as a guide for the discussions, and the stages don't feel like they apply here any suggestions. Okay, that is a lot to put on a person. I bet that in your job description it does not say lead your entire team through grief from denial through acceptance, or even if we through the stages of grief out like most people are not equipped to support themselves through grief, let alone get their entire teams going through it. So I want to just say that first to the person who asked this question and any of you who might be in similar situations where HR or your boss or whatever you're they're asking you to steward other people's emotional journeys. That's a lot to put on a person. Two, It's okay to have complicated feelings. This listener said, my boss and I had a complicated relationship, and I'm having a hard time navigating my own grief. I think there's a question that I actually get often via social media, which is like, somebody died and I had a very complicated relationship with them, I didn't actually like them, or they were abusive. You can grieve a relationship that wasn't perfect. In fact, most relationships are not perfect. There's a whole big spectrum. They're from awesome to abusive. So again normalizing, it's okay to have complicated feelings. The other thing, in this workplace, I bet you're not the only one who has a complex set of emotions around this boss relationship. It's it's not usually just one person who has an issue. It's usually an ecosystem wide thing. So in a well boundaried way, which we'll get into it a second, but in a well boundaried way, you can say something like, you know, everybody had a different relationship with this person, and we're all going to grieve in different ways. Just that one little sentence covers a whole bunch of things. It covers maybe you didn't like this person, maybe you really liked this person. Maybe you don't know why you're sitting in this meeting right now. So You don't have to go into specifics and make sure you name every single contingency when you're doing this stuff. But a simple statement like everybody had a different relationship and different interactions with this person, and everybody's going to have a different emotional response to it. Just normalizing normal human response and the complexity of normal human relationships. I mean, honestly, even just doing that is head and shoulders above what other people would normally hear. So I think that's a really simple thing to do. The other thing, though, work is not therapy. This is related to what I was talking about with this request from HR. Is a lot to put on somebody, even if you're cool with running sort of a focus group or you know, some emotional support sessions with your coworkers. Work is not therapy. This is not a therapeutic relationship. You may need to say that to your HR teams, which we will get into in a second, how you turn this down or how you reframe it. But I want you to know that you're not required to fix grief for anyone. You're not required to fix grief for anyone. That's true in the workplace, in your family system, and out in the world. It's not your job to fix anybody else's experience. If you are put into this position in your task with this job, your job is to create an environment where people can express what they need to express within the boundaries of the professional environment. That's sort of jumbie HR speak, but basically like, don't start asking people to dive into their emotional experience and have an encounter like no, really, keep it focused on what we want to do in our time here together. Is just acknowledge how weird this is and how we're all going to have some different responses. If you have some needs or some feelings that feel bigger than you, here are the things that HR can do to support you. Right now that we're talking about how HR can support you, and they deputized you to do this work for them. Before you jump into any planning or you jump into, you know, suddenly having to do these meetings with your coworkers or your teammates, I would put it back to HR. What outcome are they looking for? Go back to your HR contact and say I am willing to take this on and to host these gatherings, but tell me what you're looking for. What HR is looking for as an outcome or as a performance metric, just to be blunt about it. That's going to dictate or help you understand how to shape what you're doing. It's also going to help you know if they are being absolutely unrealistic, are they hoping to avoid any liability issues? Like know what you're getting into. Not only is that going to help you frame what you're doing so that you can meet their expectations, it also just gives you sort of a roadmap to something that as you you're having a hard time navigating your own grief, it's always useful to have a bit of a structure to work inside so that you don't get lost in all of this stuff. Right, very quickly, I want to jump onto the stages of grief thing because you say in your question HR suggested that I use the stages of grief as a guide for my discussions. You're already being asked to do a whole lot here, so I don't know that you need to break out into an anti stages education campaign for HR similar to what we were talking about before. You don't have to educate your HR department on modern approaches to inclusive grief support. What you could do is very simply point out that the stages are an outdated model without getting terribly into it. You can just say the stages are an outdated model. But here are some better resources that I'm going to use when I talk about this, and you might want to add them to the HR support guide. Other resources I will link in the show notes here. They are out there. There are even some great company these out there that are helping HR departments deal with these emotional events internally. We will link some of those in the show notes. But boundaries are really important here, right, So check in with the HR people about what their expectations are the outcomes for these groups. Let them know that you're not going to use the stages model and you're going to use X y Z instead. And remember that it's not your job to fix anybody in these work meetings, in these staff meetings, in your family meetings out in the world. Your role as the guide in these events is to normalize the breadth and depth of human emotion. Let people know where they can go from more help, and let them know that they can come talk to you or some other designated person in your company should they need more. Yeah, Okay, the whole issue of grief in the workplace. We're going to have so many episodes on grief in the workplace and HR requests and how we deal with this stuff. So there's definitely more that we can get into here. We haven't even touched yet in this episode on therapists who learned the stages of grief during their grad school experience. But I know you're out there listening. So speaking of acknowledgment, I want to say that I see you, and I know that a worldview change on this stuff can be tough, not just for therapists, for doctors and nurses and social workers and HR leaders and community members, and changing a worldview can be tough, and that's part of why this show exists. To help people unlearn the stuff that doesn't help and learn the things that actually help these people we care about and help ourselves in the process. It's basically a learning Okay, So speaking of learning, you know what's coming Right after this break. We are going to do questions to carry with you so that you can start playing around with all of these things we talked about today and all the things I ranted about. You know that I love to give you all homework. I'm also going to tell you how to submit your questions for me to answer in a future show. Okay, don't miss that part of Friends. We'll be right back. Each week I leave you with some questions to carry with you until we meet again. It's part of that whole This stuff gets easier with practicing. This week more reflection questions. Apparently I am really committed to these reflection questions lately. So where did you learn about the stages of grief? What's your experience been with them, either as a believer or as a skeptic. Has your relationship with the stages of grief idea changed over time and with personal experience. As always, there's no one right answer to this, but this process of reflection and questioning is useful. You actually get some bonus homework this time. Okay, bonus homework sort of. It involves watching television and movies and reading books. Watch for grief storylines in the shows you're watching and the books you're reading. What do you notice about both the storyline and the characters. Which movies or books do things well from your perspective? What do they get right? And the ones who don't do such a great job? Why not be specific what do you see happening in there? I'd actually love for you to consume media with an eye towards what the story is teaching people about what it means to love and to be loved, what it means to grieve and to struggle. I get emotional about everything everybody, but the idea that y'all are out there consuming your media looking for grief and for love. That gets me right. And the educator feels when you do find something that's good because it is definitely out there. Ted Lasso and others. Maybe let the producers or the authors know there really is a lot of great stuff out there, and encouragement is always a nice thing for creators to hear. That's it for this week. I want to submit your question for me to possibly address on the air. This show is nothing without your questions. It is literally a Q and a show. You can ask me anything you'd like. Bring me your clinical questions, your frustrations about the workplace, the things that scare you. Ask me how to handle that one thing that always makes you feel like a deer in the headlights, and you really need a script for it. Let's talk it out. Call us at three two, three six four, three, three, seven, six eight and leave a voicemail. If you missed it, you can find that number in the show notes or visit Megan Divine dot c O. If you'd rather send an email, you can do that too. Write on the website Megan Divine dot CEO. We want to hear from you. This show, this world, the media empire. We all need your questions. Together, we can make things better even when they can't be made right. You know how most people are going to scan through their podcast app looking for a new thing. They're going to see the show description for Hereafter and think, I don't want to talk about that stuff. Well, here's where you come in your reviews. Let people know it really isn't all that bad. In here we talk about heavy stuff, but it's in the service of making things better for everyone. So everyone needs to listen. Spread the word in your workplace, in your social world on social media and click through to leave a review. Subscribe to the show, download episodes, and send in your questions. Want more Here After? Grief education doesn't just belong to end of life issues. Life is full of losses, from everyday disappointments to events that clearly divide life into before and after. Learning how to talk about all that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic think positive posters is an important skill for everyone. Find trainings, workshops, books and resources for every human trying to make their way in the world after something goes horribly wrong at Megan Divine dot c. O Hereafter with Megan Divine is written and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown, co produced by Kimberly Cowen, Tanya Jujas, and Elizabeth Fozzio, Edited by Houston Tilly and studio support by Chris Urn. Music provided by Wave Crush.

This is Here After and I'm your host, Megan Divine. This week's show is a repeat performance. We'll be back with season two soon enough, but for right now, enjoy this episode and visit the back catalog of episodes too while you're at it. This is Here After and I'm your host, Megan Divine. Each week we tackle big questions from nurses, therapists, and other helpful folks that let us explore how to show up after life goes horribly wrong. This week, friends, we have to talk about the stages of grief. You know what I'm talking about, right, The stages of grief. Everybody seems to know that neat and tidy five step path from denial to acceptance. Spoiler alert, those stages do not exist. Stay tuned to find out the dirt on the stages, with questions about pop culture references and how to throw out what you learned in grad school. We'll be right back after this break. Before we it started, one quick note, while I hope you find a lot of useful information in our time together. This show is not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision related to your work. Okay, if you don't know me personally, you just sort of listen to me, or you see me on Instagram. You might think I'm a pretty chill person. My team is smirking. I mean, I am a chill person mostly, but it doesn't take a whole lot for me to fly off into a rage. Especially when I see somebody like a person or an animal, or even a beautiful old building being treated poorly. I snap pretty fast. The same thing applies when I see pop culture references to the stages of grief, or I hear from yet one more grieving person that their doctor told them they weren't moving through the stage. Is fast enough you know what I'm talking about, right, I mean, the stages of grief are everywhere, so I'm pretty sure you know what they are. But just in case y'all need a refresher. The stages of grief our denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then the holy grail of grief work acceptance. The very first viral article I wrote, which I think was like way back in, was about the stages of grief and how they are a complete and total lie. Actually, I'm going to read from that old article for a little background here, since it was pretty concise, and when I ramble, I'm not always so concise. The stages of grief were developed by Dr Elizabeth Coobler Ross in nineteen sixty nine as she listened to and observed people living with terminal diagnoses. What began as a way to understand the emotions of the dying became a way to strategize grief. With the publication of her book on Death and Dying, the stages of grief became the go to model for grief of all kinds. The griever is expected to move through a series of clearly delineated stages denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, eventually arriving at acceptance, at which time their grief work is complete. I'm not going to read the whole article to you. Will will link it in the show notes so that you can read the entire thing. But that stages of grief stuff started in nineteen sixty nine. So why am I talking about this old dinosaur of a grief theory? Now, I mean it's over fifty years old. Well, here's the thing. We've had so many advances in so many different areas of life, but with grief, we're still stuck in the dark ages. This reductive, stage based way of looking at grief has fully infiltrated human society. You can still find the stages of grief and introductory college courses in grad school, in grief and loss workshops. They come up in pop psychology and in clinical scientific studies. They show up in movies and in storylines, and they show up at family gatherings where somebody asks you what stage you're in and why you're lingering so long in anger? Damn things are everywhere and they're horrible. Now before you at me, hold on a second. Sometimes I actually get some hate mail when I talk about the stage of regrief, with people running to defend Dr Coogler Ross for her groundbreaking work and telling me to step off a little bit. So what might not be entirely clear so far in today's show is that I am a complete fan of Dr Coogler Ross. Her work revolutionized end of life careage, jump started conversations about death and dying when literally no one else was talking about it. She's one of the greats. My work exists in part because of what she did over a fifty years ago, and one of my favorite things about her is her outrage over the way her work got twisted into something she never intended. In her later years, she wrote that she regretted writing the stage is the way that she did, and that people mistook them as being both linear and universal. The stages she outlined were meant to normalize and validate what somebody might experience inside loss and death and grief, not what they had to you. She didn't set them down in a specific order. She never said they needed to be in a linear path. She never meant them to be the metric by which we judge grief, our own or others. Folks, the stages of grief don't exist. They never did. I mean, I can rant about this stuff for a really long time, you know I can. And again, I'm gonna link to those articles that I've written about the stages of grief before, so you can get the full catastrophe and my opinions about it. But I want to root all of this in some listener questions so you can see that this anti stages of a grief thing is not just me being cranky. You're ready, Here's question one. This listener wrote, a couple of people in my life suggested I watched Melissa McCarthy's movie The Starling. I think because they thought it would help me. And while I did see a lot of my own experience in the story, some of it was really distressing. There is this scene where Melissa McCarthy's character is told by the therapist character that it sounds like she's in the bargaining stage of grief and that next she'll move into stage three anger. I had to turn it off for a minute because I know that's not what happens. I guess my question here is how am I supposed to respond to those folks who suggested the movie when they ask me if it helped. I know they're going to ask. Okay, so everybody, if you don't know what this listener is referring to. The Starling is a movie about grief. Specifically, it's about the different ways two people deal with the death of their infant to sits. The scene in question is where Kevin Klein's character, who plays a therapist, tells Melissa McCarthy's character that stage three of the grieving process anger usually comes after stage two of the grieving process bargaining, and that depression comes next. It's a quick little scene in a movie that honestly does not get a whole lot right about grief or loss or life. It's easy to dismiss all this. It's just a movie. It's no big deal. No one really cares about a one off comment about the stages of grief in a movie that came out months ago. Let's just be thankful they're talking about baby loss at all. Now. I'm not making up that pushback. Actually, when the movie first came out, I, no surprise, ranted about it on Instagram, and some of the comments I got back we're from actual, real life grieving people who are like, I'm just glad they said something about dead babies. Yes, I am all for portrayals of losses, but not like this. Here's the thing, entertainment industry. Portrayals of grief are where we learn what's normal inside grief. It's also where we learned how to support other people in their grief. We learn by watching. We take cues from our entertainment, even if we aren't aware of it. These one off comments, they aren't benign. They're powerful influences on our understanding of the world. Storytelling matters even in those one off moments. There's something else this movie does that lots of other narratives due to are not just going to pick on the startling today, okay, but to pick on the starling. It dictates in this storyline that there is one correct way to do grief, and it shames anyone who deviates from that one correct way. Now, you would have to watch the whole thing to know exactly what I'm talking about here. But none of this is anything new. It doesn't just belong to this one movie. Most media portrayals of grief are horrible. Very few get it even close to correct. And the fact that the producers of this movie didn't even know that the stages of grief were not exactly a modern theory of talking about grief. They didn't know that the stages of grief fell out of favor a long time ago. The fact that they wrote this movie with the stages of grief and it shows how far we still have to go until real portrayals of real grief show up in the movies. We've got a lot of work to do to change all of this. Also, Netflix, if you happen to be listening, I can write you a grief storyline that is way better than this tired old stuff. Real life is far more compelling. Basing storylines on real life, as I said, has that added bonus of teaching people how to be better humans. So if you're out there and you're listening, and you're working on a project, hit me up, I can help you. Okay, So, media portrayals of grief that are fifty plus years out of a date just deepen our misunderstanding of grief, making things harder for grieving people and friends and family who want to help. So to get back to answering this listener's question finally rant over for the moment. The listeners question was how can I respond when a well meaning person says, so, how did you like that movie? Did it help you? Maybe this can help you move through your own anger and get clo sarch of acceptance. I'm imagining that conversation and how that's going to go here, But right, it's pretty standard some things you might say in a scenario like this Option one, Educate your helper. You might say something like I did watch the movie I'm glad to see Baby Lost hit mainstream media. There are a lot of outdated ideas about grief in that though, and it's just not how it works, and then you might open a conversation about reality versus the movies. To get into a conversation with this well meaning person about what helps them, what doesn't, and their approach and and all of those things. I do want to say that it's not on you to educate the people around you when you have loss that has erupted into your life. It is exhausting to educate the people around you. So I when I say educate your helper say this and say this like, that's a lot of work and a lot of emotional labor, and you don't have to right, do it if you want, don't do it if you don't want whatever, So option too, you can say some thing like, well, acceptance isn't my goal. Some things are unacceptable. Anger is a healthy emotion too. How about you would you learn I'm watching that movie? So what you did there was to like state the truth, defend your right to grieve, and deflect the conversation back to the person trying to help so that you don't have to get into it, right. I mean, I'm an educator. There's some education even in that defend and deflect option. But you know what I'm going for here, You don't have to argue about the stages, or about your own grief or whether the movie got it right. If you don't want to remember that that tool in your toolbox of simply saying thanks for thinking of me, it was an interesting movie. How's your day? That acknowledge and walk away and change the subject. You never have to get into anything unless you really want to. One more thing I want to say about this movie before I let this particular thing go. I promise I will let it go. This scene we're dissecting reinforces the stereotype that therapists are going to roll out these unhelpful, simplistic tropes when you go to them for help. I mean, if that's what you think therapy is going to be, I don't blame you for not seeking help, even if you don't know the ins and outs of why the stages of grief aren't helpful. Everyone kind of feels it when they're being patronized and reduced to a formula. So these no big deal media scenes have what I am sure is an unintended consequence of painting a therapist as a bumbling old school a dolt. That stuff's not going to help anything it's not cool. You know who did do it right, at least in my very picky opinion, Ted Lasso. Yes, I am a ted Lasso fan, so what ted Lasso got right? And we're probably gonna do an entire show on this, but just super briefly to sort of balance out the all entertainment is trash. No, no, no, all entertainment is not trash. What I loved and Ted Lasso, not specifically the therapist storylines, but the whole thing, from the unconditional positive regard to the exception of emotions no matter how mess see, to the modeling of accountability and communication, that whole thing is just a joy to watch. All right, enough on that movie. Next up, a little bit more about the stages of grief, messy personal and professional boundaries, and how HR departments try hard to make things right. We'll be right back, friends, Book back friends. I'm going to jump right into question two here you ready, Okay, wait, fair warning, both of our listener questions this time our death related questions. Stick with it. I am going to totally make this relevant to non death questions after we do this one. Okay or here it is. My boss recently died from complications related to COVID. I've been tasked with leading staff meetings to approach our grief together. My boss and I had a very complicated relationship, and I'm having a hard time navigating my own grief, let alone leading there's through theirs. The other thing is that HR suggested we use the stages of grief as a guide for the discussions, and the stages don't feel like they apply here any suggestions. Okay, that is a lot to put on a person. I bet that in your job description it does not say lead your entire team through grief from denial through acceptance, or even if we through the stages of grief out like most people are not equipped to support themselves through grief, let alone get their entire teams going through it. So I want to just say that first to the person who asked this question and any of you who might be in similar situations where HR or your boss or whatever you're they're asking you to steward other people's emotional journeys. That's a lot to put on a person. Two, It's okay to have complicated feelings. This listener said, my boss and I had a complicated relationship, and I'm having a hard time navigating my own grief. I think there's a question that I actually get often via social media, which is like, somebody died and I had a very complicated relationship with them, I didn't actually like them, or they were abusive. You can grieve a relationship that wasn't perfect. In fact, most relationships are not perfect. There's a whole big spectrum. They're from awesome to abusive. So again normalizing, it's okay to have complicated feelings. The other thing, in this workplace, I bet you're not the only one who has a complex set of emotions around this boss relationship. It's it's not usually just one person who has an issue. It's usually an ecosystem wide thing. So in a well boundaried way, which we'll get into it a second, but in a well boundaried way, you can say something like, you know, everybody had a different relationship with this person, and we're all going to grieve in different ways. Just that one little sentence covers a whole bunch of things. It covers maybe you didn't like this person, maybe you really liked this person. Maybe you don't know why you're sitting in this meeting right now. So You don't have to go into specifics and make sure you name every single contingency when you're doing this stuff. But a simple statement like everybody had a different relationship and different interactions with this person, and everybody's going to have a different emotional response to it. Just normalizing normal human response and the complexity of normal human relationships. I mean, honestly, even just doing that is head and shoulders above what other people would normally hear. So I think that's a really simple thing to do. The other thing, though, work is not therapy. This is related to what I was talking about with this request from HR. Is a lot to put on somebody, even if you're cool with running sort of a focus group or you know, some emotional support sessions with your coworkers. Work is not therapy. This is not a therapeutic relationship. You may need to say that to your HR teams, which we will get into in a second, how you turn this down or how you reframe it. But I want you to know that you're not required to fix grief for anyone. You're not required to fix grief for anyone. That's true in the workplace, in your family system, and out in the world. It's not your job to fix anybody else's experience. If you are put into this position in your task with this job, your job is to create an environment where people can express what they need to express within the boundaries of the professional environment. That's sort of jumbie HR speak, but basically like, don't start asking people to dive into their emotional experience and have an encounter like no, really, keep it focused on what we want to do in our time here together. Is just acknowledge how weird this is and how we're all going to have some different responses. If you have some needs or some feelings that feel bigger than you, here are the things that HR can do to support you. Right now that we're talking about how HR can support you, and they deputized you to do this work for them. Before you jump into any planning or you jump into, you know, suddenly having to do these meetings with your coworkers or your teammates, I would put it back to HR. What outcome are they looking for? Go back to your HR contact and say I am willing to take this on and to host these gatherings, but tell me what you're looking for. What HR is looking for as an outcome or as a performance metric, just to be blunt about it. That's going to dictate or help you understand how to shape what you're doing. It's also going to help you know if they are being absolutely unrealistic, are they hoping to avoid any liability issues? Like know what you're getting into. Not only is that going to help you frame what you're doing so that you can meet their expectations, it also just gives you sort of a roadmap to something that as you you're having a hard time navigating your own grief, it's always useful to have a bit of a structure to work inside so that you don't get lost in all of this stuff. Right, very quickly, I want to jump onto the stages of grief thing because you say in your question HR suggested that I use the stages of grief as a guide for my discussions. You're already being asked to do a whole lot here, so I don't know that you need to break out into an anti stages education campaign for HR similar to what we were talking about before. You don't have to educate your HR department on modern approaches to inclusive grief support. What you could do is very simply point out that the stages are an outdated model without getting terribly into it. You can just say the stages are an outdated model. But here are some better resources that I'm going to use when I talk about this, and you might want to add them to the HR support guide. Other resources I will link in the show notes here. They are out there. There are even some great company these out there that are helping HR departments deal with these emotional events internally. We will link some of those in the show notes. But boundaries are really important here, right, So check in with the HR people about what their expectations are the outcomes for these groups. Let them know that you're not going to use the stages model and you're going to use X y Z instead. And remember that it's not your job to fix anybody in these work meetings, in these staff meetings, in your family meetings out in the world. Your role as the guide in these events is to normalize the breadth and depth of human emotion. Let people know where they can go from more help, and let them know that they can come talk to you or some other designated person in your company should they need more. Yeah, Okay, the whole issue of grief in the workplace. We're going to have so many episodes on grief in the workplace and HR requests and how we deal with this stuff. So there's definitely more that we can get into here. We haven't even touched yet in this episode on therapists who learned the stages of grief during their grad school experience. But I know you're out there listening. So speaking of acknowledgment, I want to say that I see you, and I know that a worldview change on this stuff can be tough, not just for therapists, for doctors and nurses and social workers and HR leaders and community members, and changing a worldview can be tough, and that's part of why this show exists. To help people unlearn the stuff that doesn't help and learn the things that actually help these people we care about and help ourselves in the process. It's basically a learning Okay, So speaking of learning, you know what's coming Right after this break. We are going to do questions to carry with you so that you can start playing around with all of these things we talked about today and all the things I ranted about. You know that I love to give you all homework. I'm also going to tell you how to submit your questions for me to answer in a future show. Okay, don't miss that part of Friends. We'll be right back. Each week I leave you with some questions to carry with you until we meet again. It's part of that whole This stuff gets easier with practicing. This week more reflection questions. Apparently I am really committed to these reflection questions lately. So where did you learn about the stages of grief? What's your experience been with them, either as a believer or as a skeptic. Has your relationship with the stages of grief idea changed over time and with personal experience. As always, there's no one right answer to this, but this process of reflection and questioning is useful. You actually get some bonus homework this time. Okay, bonus homework sort of. It involves watching television and movies and reading books. Watch for grief storylines in the shows you're watching and the books you're reading. What do you notice about both the storyline and the characters. Which movies or books do things well from your perspective? What do they get right? And the ones who don't do such a great job? Why not be specific what do you see happening in there? I'd actually love for you to consume media with an eye towards what the story is teaching people about what it means to love and to be loved, what it means to grieve and to struggle. I get emotional about everything everybody, but the idea that y'all are out there consuming your media looking for grief and for love. That gets me right. And the educator feels when you do find something that's good because it is definitely out there. Ted Lasso and others. Maybe let the producers or the authors know there really is a lot of great stuff out there, and encouragement is always a nice thing for creators to hear. That's it for this week. I want to submit your question for me to possibly address on the air. This show is nothing without your questions. It is literally a Q and a show. You can ask me anything you'd like. Bring me your clinical questions, your frustrations about the workplace, the things that scare you. Ask me how to handle that one thing that always makes you feel like a deer in the headlights, and you really need a script for it. Let's talk it out. Call us at three two, three six four, three, three, seven, six eight and leave a voicemail. If you missed it, you can find that number in the show notes or visit Megan Divine dot c O. If you'd rather send an email, you can do that too. Write on the website Megan Divine dot CEO. We want to hear from you. This show, this world, the media empire. We all need your questions. Together, we can make things better even when they can't be made right. You know how most people are going to scan through their podcast app looking for a new thing. They're going to see the show description for Hereafter and think, I don't want to talk about that stuff. Well, here's where you come in your reviews. Let people know it really isn't all that bad. In here we talk about heavy stuff, but it's in the service of making things better for everyone. So everyone needs to listen. Spread the word in your workplace, in your social world on social media and click through to leave a review. Subscribe to the show, download episodes, and send in your questions. Want more Here After? Grief education doesn't just belong to end of life issues. Life is full of losses, from everyday disappointments to events that clearly divide life into before and after. Learning how to talk about all that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic think positive posters is an important skill for everyone. Find trainings, workshops, books and resources for every human trying to make their way in the world after something goes horribly wrong at Megan Divine dot c. O Hereafter with Megan Divine is written and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown, co produced by Kimberly Cowen, Tanya Jujas, and Elizabeth Fozzio, Edited by Houston Tilly and studio support by Chris Urn. Music provided by Wave Crush.