Bereavement Room

Hi Folks, it's the 3rd and final season of Bereavement Room Podcast, well time has flown in this room hasn't it! The final season is sponsored by friends near and far, some of my former guests, listeners and loyal supporters in the online grief community. 

Bereavement Room is a British born podcast that garnered a worldwide listen, and so in the final season we will also be hearing from our friends across the pond in the states. 

We will be covering family estrangement and abuse, what it means to grieve half way across the world and not make it on time for the funeral due to religious customs, the impact of child bereavement and the upheaval that comes with it and the loss of a father and how grief intersects with travel. What it means to be parentless and find meaning in life after both parents are no longer with us and how do we decolonize our mind, body and soul considering the collective history our ancestors, grandparents and parents have gone through. 

I'll also be speaking to professionals in the psychology and healthcare fields, dissecting what it means to be informed, healthcare access, barriers and how to manage health for long term benefits. 

Having gone through horrendous experiences in therapy, bereavement training, and my grief that followed after the death of my mother and brother at the hands of the system, the space I created here has been healing, loving, hilarious and heartbreaking all at once.

The shock that followed in series 1 when my father suddenly died, this has been an experience I will never forget and will always treasure in my heart for it's sheer reflection and vulnerability, spiritual truth and meaning from the perspective of communities across the diaspora and myself where we very rarely get the opportunity to speak our truth. 

I will close the podcast at the end of the season with a wrap of 3 seasons of Bereavement Room, my final reflections, what i learned and where do we go now?

You can find Bereavement Room on twitter, instagram and Clubhouse by searching either my name or 'bereavement room' and to make a donation to keep the podcast up as long as possible please see the gofund me page to make a donation. 

Thank you for joining me in this final season, i know how much Bereavement Room means to you and so i hope the final season brings love, light and reflection to wherever you are in the world. 

Thank you for listening, 

Your host,

Callsuma Ali 

Today's episode is the last in Series 2. I begin with reading out some feedback and comments received over the past year followed by a reading of a heartfelt letter written by Tasneem and my own personal reflections. I close the episode with a Q&A, thank you to everyone that sent in questions. Covering off DNACPR, what makes someone comfortable in opening up in sharing a deeply personal account of their life, statutory bereavement leave and emotions. 

Series 2 of BR bought us perspectives from an array of guests on why they do what they do while sharing their experiences of grief and loss. 

I hope Bereavement Room Podcast bought love, light, knowledge and reflection to wherever you are in your journey. 

To stay in touch please follow us on twitter and instagram and if you're listening in Apple Podcasts please leave a star rating and review so more people can find the podcast.

See you in the same room in the summer of 2021.

As always thanks for listening,

Your host,

Callsuma Ali

Today's episode is the penultimate episode of Series 2. As the creator and host of Bereavement Room Podcast I want to remind everyone why we are here in the first place.

Bereavement Room was created following the multiple deaths I had in my family coupled with poor experiences of therapy as well as inadequate support from mainstream bereavement charities particularly when I came up with the idea of a death cafe for BAME communities and spoke about Muslim Funerals. 

Bereavement Room is a podcast that addresses the conversation around life, death, grief and identity from the perspective of ethnic minoritised communities across the diaspora, this means we navigate the unspoken truths about grief within our communities including the many layers that sit within it, such as healthcare, racism, therapy, family dynamics, faith, culture and so much more. 

Halfway through Series 1 my dad unexpectedly fell ill, having recovered and on rest in hospital he died suddenly after 2 hours of deterioration that was ignored by staff on duty in the very early hours of one morning after almost what was a 2 week stay in hospital.

It is inconceivable that yet again I was going through another bereavement and this time my beautiful and caring father. The difference this time is that unexpected and sudden deaths just hit you out of nowhere, like a rug being pulled from underneath you. 

I share some memories and what it was like saying goodbye to my dad and the home i grew up in and that grief is universal but the narrative around bereavement is not. 

I include here a 4 minute podcast episode from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that outlines why hospital deaths happen amongst the elderly population and that they can be prevented according to research from the BMJ. We can love the NHS and challenge it too. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/london-school-hygiene-tropical-medicine-audio-news/id311462747?i=1000122883492

I also include here a podcast I stumbled across after my fathers death called £3 pounds in my pocket, stories of pioneering migrants who were invited to Britain from the Indian subcontinent in the 1950s and 1960s.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xq6h7 

A eulogy from a child of the Diaspora

My father was a former subject of the British Raj. He was invited to England in the 50's after the destruction of WW2 to rebuild this country alongside many others. Made huge sacrifices and contributions our generation could never imagine. He was a great man. My best friend. 

As always, thank you so much for listening.

Your host

Callsuma Ali

Today's guest is Myira a BACP Accredited Counsellor, Therapeutic Coach and qualified Supervisor, working in private practice, under her organisations ‘Myira Khan Counselling’ and ‘Grow To Glow’.  

Myira is also the Founder of the Muslim Counsellor and Psychotherapist Network (MCAPN). MCAPN connects Muslim counsellors, therapists and psychologists.

In this episode of Why We Do What We Do we open our discussion on how 2020 has treated us, Myira and I also discuss microaggression, unconscious bias and islamophobia, that sometimes our view of the world will be shaped by our lived experience of it.

An inspiration to many as a Muslim and East African-Asian counsellor, supervisor and coach Myira represents diversity within the profession and promotes counselling to minority and marginalised communities, to break the stigma of mental health and therapy. For her work Myira was awarded the Mental Health Hero Award in 2015.

We look at fish bowl practice in training, personally I think fish bowls are not very effective, i believe most people give biased feedback based on their relationship or view of the people in the fish bowl itself.

So therefore we have to ask ourselves is fish bowl a effective aspect of training and maybe we need to bring that into group process to discuss how we give feedback and that sometimes it will derive from our opinions, likeness and assumptions of a person and not the work in the fish bowl itself.

I am going to project if you like my "own stuff' here unashamedly, i do feel there are far too many white middle class females training and that's likely to be because they have more money in the bank than they know what to do with and to be frank I think they probably do go into the world after qualifying still naive to a degree. Perhaps that's the whole point until more diverse client experience has been gained. Clock up those BACP hours wisely now!

I ask Myira to share some wisdom that might help women, particularly Muslim women when it comes to finding your tribe. 

We close the episode with Myira's reflection on the loss of her father and the legacy and guidance he left behind that has lead her to where she is today. 

We covered so much ground in this episode but still ran out of time! I'll have to invite her back on a future season. 

As always thank you so much for listening. 

Your host,

Callsuma Ali

Today's guest is Humanistic Gestalt Counsellor Marvis Stewart.

She joins Callsuma in the room for a chat about Gestalt therapy, practicing self compassion, forgiveness and her own experience of bereavement when her grandmother died.

Marvis has been living in England for more than a decade and is British Venezuelan, we look at Latinx bereavement and grief noting that one size does not fit all and that there are communities within communities that may have various practices and rituals depending on their belief and faith. 

She specialises in working with children and young people as well as trainee counsellors. Working in primary school settings while also holding a private practice for adults.  Some of her other professional interests revolve around multicultural issues, LGBTQ+ allyship and self-compassion. 

You can find Marvis on twitter @marviStewart1 or over on her website www.marviscounselling.co.uk 

To help Bereavement Room meet it's goals please donate to the community fundraiser on our GoFundMe page; https://uk.gofundme.com/f/bereavement-room-podcast-community-fundraiser

As always thank you so much for listening.

Your host,

Callsuma Ali

Today I am joined by 2/2 Co-hosts of Thinking Out Loud Podcast, Jermaine Omoregie.

Thinking Out Loud is a podcast that explores the unspoken truths about grief, mental health, masculinity and much more from the perspective of Black British male voices.

Representation in the bereavement and grief space is very low so when i stumbled across Jermaine and Ben I just knew I had to get them in the room. 

Jermaine joins Callsuma to talk about his mum who died in Nigeria whilst on holiday in 2015, he opens up about the impact grief has had on him reflecting on the flight back to the U.K after having laid his mum to rest. 

We discuss faith and cultural traditions, sometimes cultural traditions can be problematic, is it time to make them redundant and what challenges might come with having this conversation carefully noting that faith and culture are not the same thing. 

Jermaine reflects it is important to choose carefully who to be vulnerable with as not everyone in our environment has the capacity to hold a safe space, that sometimes there is a conditioning and ego when it comes to being open with male emotions. 

Today's food for thought, are our white counterparts better at talking about their emotions in comparison to black and brown communities? 

This is something we have explored in series 1 that has popped up again. You might want to consider the following aspects culture, systemic racism, faith, heritage, lack of opportunities and representation, as well as poor access to therapy and mental health support. 

You can listen to Thinking Out Loud Podcast on Spotify or Google.

You can also find Thinking Out Loud on instagram. 

As always thank you for listening.

Your host

Callsuma Ali

Today I am joined by 1/2 Co-hosts of Thinking Out Loud Podcast, Ben Acquaah.

Thinking Out Loud is a podcast that explores the unspoken truths about grief, mental health, masculinity and much more from the perspective of Black British male voices.

Representation in the bereavement and grief space is very low so when i stumbled across Ben and Jermaine I just knew I had to get them in the room. 

Ben joins me to talk about his mum who died in hospital from Kidney failure in 2015, he opens up about the impact grief has had on him as a young man studying at College at the time and now as he co-exists without his mum in his 20s. 

We discuss the need for increasing conversations around grief within the school environment so that there is a wider awareness of grief starting from a young age. 

Ben reflects that there is nothing wrong with men talking about their emotions and mental health, being vulnerable is a good thing but it is important to choose carefully who to be vulnerable with as not everyone can hold a safe space when it comes to grief.

Today's food for thought, are our white counterparts better at talking about their emotions in comparison to black communities?  This is something we have explored in series 1 that has popped up again. You might want to consider the following aspects culture, systemic racism, faith, heritage, lack of opportunities and representation, as well as poor access to therapy and mental health support. 

You can listen to Thinking Out Loud Podcast on Spotify or Google.

You can also find Thinking Out Loud on instagram. 

As always thank you for listening.

Your host

Callsuma Ali

Today's guest is Sherine Kerr, Sherine is a qualified integrative therapist and the founder of the Black families support group based in Suffolk for local black/brown people.

She has joined Callsuma in the room to talk about her mum who died of Cancer in 2008, we explore what it means to grieve forever, family dynamics, and the power of being heard. 

Sherine's mum was of Windrush generation where nearly half a million people from the Caribbean were invited to Britain because of severe labour shortages in the wake of the Second World War.