On Tuesday we were honoured to host a seminar entitled “Understanding Bereavement and Wellbeing” as part of Compassionate Sheffield’s Life, Loss and Death Festival 2024. Seventeen people attended and we had some wonderfully positive feedback. If you’d like to check out the notes and slides from the session you can find them below.
Our main aim was to connect the resources and techniques associated with wellbeing to the processes and feelings we go through in grief. Often these two things aren’t talked about together, yet we’d estimate 50% of the individuals we talk to would say that a bereavement experience has contributed directly to a wellbeing or mental health challenge.
We wanted to be positive in this seminar - to highlight the concepts of “re-organised life” (Parkes) and a non-linear, movement focused approach to emotions (Kubler-Ross.) We then highlighted four concepts which are tried and tested in our work to help wellbeing challenges linked to bereavement. They are:
Grounding
Self-awareness
Emotional Openess
Seeking Support
Read the notes and slides for more.
Starting a regular monthly Bereavement Support Group
Building on this event, it’s our aim to start a monthly bereavement support group, working with Compassionate Sheffield. To get a sense of what would be helpful, we wondered if you would complete this short survey if you’re interested in coming along
Bereavement, loss and grief is never easy and so often it takes us by surprise and can affect our wellbeing and health. If you’re struggling right now and would like some support, why not come along to one of these events or contact us at Space to Breathe to get some support. If you want to be supported email us at info@spacetobreatheuk.com.
FINDING OTHER BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT
In our session we highlighted the place that outside support has in our journeys. We are grateful to be part of the Voluntary Sector in Sheffield and can highlight these great organisations. We are grateful to the Sheffield Mental Health Guide for this link page below
LISTENING TO LOSS
Lastly we wanted to highlight again our work on Listening to Loss. Between September 2023 and February 2024 we spent time making creative spaces where people could come along in a gentle and healthy way to talk about grief and loss. As well as providing support in these spaces we asked people to share about:
what is loss to them?
what challenges have they experienced?
what helped them during their period of grief and loss?
what did they wish was there, but wasn’t?
The report, along with it’s seven recommendations can be downloaded below.