Tag Archives: Loss

Uncovering your story of loss and grief through photographs

Most of the images I use on this website are my own. The two images in my header are examples. The nature image (original uncropped version to the left) is from a time when I was in a period of deep reflection. I was dealing with a lot of pain and a sense of loss – the dream had not worked out as planned and my body was consuming my energy – the bushes that seemed dead in their dryness and grayness captured those feelings for me.

At the same time, there was this incredible vibrant green moss – a sharp contrast. In the moment of taking the photograph I resonated with that contrast. I wanted to shift how I was feeling. As I look at the image now I see my pain and feeling lost. I also see the energy of growth and potential – discovering who I was and what I was meant to do in the world. The image gave me a way to honour both.

Fast forward a few years, one spinal fusion surgery later, a new career, and my “head shot” was taken in the back yard. I was using a tripod, a remote control for my camera, and I had music playing. I was literally swaying and dancing in different locations in the backyard, taking photos as I went. The smile is genuine. I was feeling happy. (One of the many shots from that day is on the right.) While it felt rather vulnerable to be doing this craziness in the backyard – what if someone should see me?? – I loved the sense of me capturing me with renewed energy and a new sense of purpose.

Did I have all of this understanding of what these photographs mean to me in the moments they were taken? No, but I do believe there was some inner knowing I was tapping into in those moments such as the resonance with the contrast of the dryness and the vibrancy in my nature image. What I am appreciating is that I took the photographs in the first place. The ongoing gift is that I can see more and new meanings in the images as time passes, connecting with the evolution of my story.

When I look at those photographs now, they represent the walk I have been taking with my life.

The Invitation…

Take photographs. They don’t have to be of you, but they can be. They don’t have to be of other people, but they can be. Be in nature. Be in a city. Don’t worry about the ‘rule of thirds’ and composition or having anything in focus. In other words this is not about taking ‘perfect’ pictures, just take pictures. And then give yourself a little time and space to really look at them and ask about you, the photographer.

What were you feeling when you took the photo?

What are you feeling now as you ponder the photo?

What are you wanting as you look at the photo?

What else are you noticing or resonating with in the photograph and in you?

Perhaps you will connect with a sense of loss, joy, anger, despair, possibility, hope, harmony – any or all of the above. Perhaps you will connect with a sense of the passage of time and remembering. Perhaps you will connect with hurt. Perhaps with healing. Perhaps with creativity and inspiration.

The meaning of the image for you, as is the case for me and my images, comes later. So the blurry image, the whonky placement, the different lighting – any and all of that might be where you see the meaning. So I say again, it is not about taking a perfect picture, rather it is about taking pictures and then giving them some purposeful consideration.

I encourage you to be fluid with timelines. Maybe you take the picture and look at it with consideration in a week’s time, or five weeks, a year, or five years later. (I’ve done all of that.) I value that my story evolves each time I look at the photographs.

What is the story of you your photographs are telling? What if your story of loss and grief can be found in your photographs?

If this theme of grief and photography has sparked an interested, here’s a few other links to get you started on your exploration….

http://blog.sevenponds.com/soulful-expressions/artist-andy-goldsworthys-brother-suffered-the-death-of-his-beloved-wife

http://blog.sevenponds.com/professional-advice/%E2%80%A8how-does-grief-affect-the-creative-process-an-interview-with-photographer-sarah-treanor-part-one

Photo Grief: http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/resource-for-coping-with-grief/ OR http://photogrief.com/

Exploring a connection between grief and customer loyalty.

Here’s a typical customer service scenario…

You are calling to touch base with an existing, up-to-date client. Perhaps you are calling around renewal time and using that as an opportunity to both get feedback from your client and to encourage them to renew or you’re wanting to let the client know about some new service offerings. The conversation might go something like this:

Can I speak with David* please?

He’s not available.

This is Work It Gym*. We’d like to speak with David about his annual membership. When would be a good time to call?

My son David is dead.

What to do now?

The above scenario is a real example (*with names changed). In the course of the bereavement support work I do, it is not uncommon for me (and the rest of the group) to hear stories about a bereaved person’s experience with companies they have had to connect with in their time of loss.

This is a pivotal moment – Work it Gym has an opportunity to be helpful or unhelpful in how they approach this scenario.

So what did Work It Gym do? They called back weeks later and again asked for David. You can imagine that each of those calls triggered a wave of grief for the family member answering the call, reminding them of their loss. It ended up taking several calls, delivery of a death notice, and multiple family members getting involved in order to have Work It Gym stop calling and asking for David. And by the way, in one of the calls it was confirmed that there was a note on the company’s file indicating they had been told David was dead, yet the company kept asking for him. Helpful? Definitely not.

It can be a challenge for both parties involved to figure a way forward in these types of circumstances particularly because the conversations can be uncomfortable. The family is most likely in uncharted waters. It would appear Work it Gym was too, but they didn’t need to be.

Helpful can enhance loyalty

Here’s the thing, Work It Gym could have process and training in place for this type of scenario. It doesn’t have to be hard. Acknowledging the loss of the bereaved person they are speaking with is a starting point. Offering a simple approach with as few and easy steps as possible to take care of any “business” that needs to happen is the follow-up. This however requires fore-thought.

For David’s family, there was no positive feedback about their experience with Work It Gym. All of us in the support group that evening heard words to the effect “I would never ever get a membership there.”

While it is a difficult and potentially awkward scenario for all, a little compassion and an easy process to make any necessary updates to an account’s status can go a long way. From the same family, we heard about another company – one that first and foremost acknowledged the family’s loss and offered a supportive, straightforward process for closing out David’s account. All positive things were said about the company. Other family members had accounts with them already and were happy to continue doing so.

Helpful or unhelpful? A Call to Action…

I’m issuing a call to action. In your organization answer the following questions. Think of it as a continuous improvement project. Make the changes to find yourselves on the helpful side of the customer service equation in the context of grief and loss.

What is our current process around clients who die?
What needs to happen to the status of an account?
What information do we need in order to close/modify an account in the circumstances of death?
What happens to billing and/or contract fees?
What happens to the information/data we have on that client?
What happens in the context of our customer relationship management approaches? (For example what triggered the call to David in the first place? David should not be on the call list going forward.)
Are there proactive steps we want to take when we set-up a new client that would facilitate the process at time of death? (For an example Facebook has put in place a number of policies and procedures: What will happen to my account if I pass away?)
What do we want to say to the bereaved person/family we are working with?
What might ease in our approach look like from their perspective?
Overall, how can we have our administrative needs met, acknowledging that sometimes for privacy and other legal requirement things like a death notice are required, and be compassionate in our approach, acknowledging we are working with a bereaved individual?

Here’s hoping I hear more and more stories in the bereavement support groups about how helpful companies have been at a family’s time of need.

P.S. If you have a helpful company story from your own loss experience, I encourage you to share it in the comments to offer some examples of positive practices that work.

Acknowledging Your Losses

As part of the course work I was taking to become a certified Life Coach we dipped into art therapy. Each of us in the class was invited to pick up a piece of clay and play with it our hands. We could squish it, pound it, shape it however we wanted. I started squishing the clay around in my right hand having it ooze through my fingers, then my left, and then back to my right.

We were also asked to connect with the clay through as many senses as possible exploring texture, colour, smell, weight, etc. I opened my right hand and first noticed the shape the clay had taken looked a lot like the images of the vertebrae I had seen in the x-rays of my back. The round core and the “jutty out” parts of the facet joints. Then I noticed the weight – how heavy the clay felt in my hands. And the tears began to flow. And flow. And flow.

I literally cried for hours that day because in that briefest of moments the weight of the clay connected me with the weight, with the burden that my back had been for me for over 20 years. I’ve come to be grateful for that pain because it has lead to so many amazing things in my life. In that moment however I needed to acknowledge my sadness associated with the choices I couldn’t make because of my back. I needed to acknowledge the energy my back and pain had consumed. The weight of that clay represented the moments of sweating profusely because of the pain I was in when all I was trying to doing was stand there and teach, the times I had to say “no” to a friend’s invitation because I was too exhausted and in too much pain, the trips I couldn’t take, the high-heels I couldn’t wear, the gardening I couldn’t do, the racket sports I had put aside.

Until that time I had focused on getting healthy and happy. At this point in my life journey I had left academia. I was now living in Vancouver, supported by friends and family to make a new set of choices. I had but two months earlier undergone an 8 hour double level spinal fusion surgery that had been extremely successful. I had connected with and was excited by the idea of becoming a life coach or counsellor so had gone back to school to better appreciate the differences, and to hone my skills so that I could feel confident in my ability to hold a client and their needs safely and professionally. I was told that the fusion would not fully take hold for at least a year, maybe two so it seemed like the right timing to go back to school. So yes I could acknowledge having made progress – amazing progress as a matter of fact though I would never have labelled it that at the time – and yet here I was crying for hours.

I am so grateful to the facilitator in class that day. He brought to my awareness that I had grieving to do. That I needed to acknowledge my losses. Clearly there were many. Yet they were not the kind of losses we typically think about. I hadn’t lost a person or relationship close to me. I wasn’t terminally ill – I had recovered. Yet I understand now my “stiff upper lip”, “solder on” attitudes served me in one way and harmed me in another.

If you’re brave enough to say “goodbye”, life will reward you with a new “hello”. ~ Paul Coehlo

Grieving is a very natural human process. The reality is we experience loss daily and it needs to be grieved. This doesn’t mean you have to grieve for days or months or years even – though sometimes, depending on the loss and your process, that’s exactly what you’ll do. There doesn’t have to be public displays of mourning though sometimes there will be that as well. What I do advocate is that we take time to acknowledge our losses – big and small – because there are no beginnings without an ending. We are effected by losses and rather than pushing those emotions back inside, I’m inviting acknowledging them so that the e-motion (energy in motion) can be released. That energy release can lead to new things. It certainly did for me.

The next day after my clay experience I was exhausted and I absolutely felt lighter. I also felt calmer. I could begin to see all the changes that I had made in a different light – I could begin to celebrate them rather than stay focused on “What is the next thing I need to get done? Keep going. Keep going. Soldier on.”

My own experience with loss has inspired me to study the processes of grief more closely and bring it more deeply into my work. I have seen the value of acknowledging losses and stepping into the associated sadness – the sense of freedom it garnered, the relaxation, the sense of opening and even more possibility.

If sharing my story of losses has struck a cord, I invite you to contact me. I am also offering a workshop on Creative Hurt: Turning Loss into Learning and Growth. (March 1st. More details on my Schedule page.) The invitation is to begin to acknowledge your losses and in so doing discover what catalysts those could be for you moving forward.

Catherine Hajnal

Life Fundamentals: Acknowledging pain and loss. Igniting hope and possibility.