When Helen was 5, her baby brother Martin died in a cot death. She remembers his little white coffin being put into the neighbours car, her other brother, who was four at the time, remembers that car registration number to this day, over fifty years later.

Decades later, Helen went on to found the Children’s Grief Centre in Limerick, supporting children who are grieving. In this conversation, Helen and Liz discuss children’ grief and draw on their experience as counsellors to discuss some of the important themes that can come up for children who are grieving and offer some really practical suggestions on how to best support grieving children, whether their loss be through bereavement or parental separation.

For more information on children's grief, see https://www.childhoodbereavement.ie, the website of the Irish Childhood Bereavement Network.

The Children's Grief Centre in Limerick can be contacted here https://www.childrensgriefcentre.ie. See their video here https://youtu.be/jgKcdZeW5rs

And for people in the USA, The Dougy Centre for grieving children can be contacted here https://www.dougy.org and in the UK, https://www.childbereavementuk.org

The article by Daniel McConnell that Helen refers to can be read here https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/analysis/every-child-has-right-to-be-heard-829640.html

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

At just 23 years of age, Australian Palliative care doctor Merran Cooper became a widow when Mark, her childhood sweetheart and husband, died of leukaemia. Forced to move out of her home while still shell-shocked at her husband’s death, it would be three more decades until Merran followed her heart and studied medicine, becoming a palliative doctor to help change the broken system on how we approach dying and grief.

In this moving account of loss and a complete rebuilding of the self, Merran introduces us to her newly developed Electronic End of Life Plan - she is passionate about opening up better conversations about death and dying and helping people to take responsibility for how their end of life could be.

To watch Merran’s beautiful 12 minute film on dying, see https://vimeo.com/366741393 Password is TLCSTC and is kindly offered for free to Shapes Of Grief listeners.

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

#grief #bereavementoverload #palliativecare #endoflife #dying #death #endoflifeplan #hospice #thinkahead #griefpodcast #bestgriefpodcast

It was wonderful to speak to Roy Remer, Executive Director of the Zen Caregiving Project (formerly Zen Hospice Project), talk about what brought him to be drawn to work with people at the end of their life and what he has learnt from accompanying hundreds of people through the dying process. Roy shares some great wisdom with Liz about how we might approach accompanying our dying loved ones and what really matters. As always, this is a rich and educational conversation. 

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

#zenhospice #agooddeath #dying #death #grief #presence #caregiving #hospice #palliative #bereavement #royremer #

I was delighted to be joined by Dr. Kathryn Mannix for another episode of Shapes Of Grief. In this episode, we discuss the #ihfforum 2019 'Dying is Everybody's Business', at which Kathryn was keynote speaker. We take a look at what it takes to be an effective caring professional, how to avoid burnout and, when someone is dying, how do we know when "enough is enough". 

People who care for other people may find this episode particularly useful, so please do share it!

We mention the Irish Hospice Foundation's 'Think Ahead' programme, details of which can be found here https://hospicefoundation.ie/programmes/public-awareness/think-ahead/ and the gift of Organ Donation https://ika.ie/organ-donation-transplant-ireland/?doing_wp_cron=1572109326.2442059516906738281250

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

When Ger was 9 years old, he found his father dead at home. Unable to process his grief, it would be shut inside for many years until Ger found his way, as a young adult, into a caring profession and gradually began to address his own inner landscape and wounding. His early experience of his father's sudden death and unexpressed grief caught up with him eventually and he developed stomach issues which lead him to discover Somatic Psychotherapy, opening a door into working psychotherapeutically with others. Ger talks to me about his personal experience of grief, how it unfolded in layers over the years and how a spiritual perspective can be a great resource for us in times of overwhelm. We talked about ways that we can manage the collective grief we feel about climate change and the environmental legacy we are leaving our children. Such a rich conversation with Ger Murphy on a range of grief perspectives and a little poetry woven throughout. 

Ger's website is http://www.iccp.ie. One of the poems that Ger shares with us in the podcast features in this video put together by justmultimedia and can be seen here https://youtu.be/_UrdhfTAkKU

In the conversation, Ger mentions the work of http://marknepo.com and https://www.joannamacy.net/main

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

Eight years ago, Gretta Manners had a full time career in teaching and was a busy (and exhausted) mother of three young children; Hazel, 4, Maria, 2 and Tadhg, 6 months. She began to feel unwell and eventually went to the Emergency Dept. of her local hospital to find out what was wrong with her. It would be almost a year before Gretta got home again. What followed was months in hospital due to a rapid onset brain injury of unknown cause. Gretta lost her ability to talk, to walk, to determine the difference between her conscious and sleeping mind. She was plagued with a ‘ticker tape’ of nightmares and felt like she had ‘gone mad’. An encounter with a trial drug, along with a dedicated consultant (Prof. Tubridy), meant that Gretta’s deteriorating condition was thankfully stopped in its tracks and she would be able to start to slowly rebuild the broken brain connections, needing to learn to walk and talk all over again. The dedication of her family who didn’t leave her side during all of those institutionalised months and a consultant who really cared, meant that Gretta was given the best possible chance at life again, against all the odds.

Whilst Gretta defied many of the medical opinions in that she learnt to walk again, manages to run a couple of laps of the running track, can walk and drive and do day to day activities, she did not make a full recovery. Her balance remains a challenge and she often has difficulty with her short-term memory. She gets easily overwhelmed by a lot of conversation and sometimes it’s just too difficult for her to process what is going on in a busy room. In this conversation, we hope to highlight the losses that can be associated with acquired brain injury and hopefully make people more aware of this invisible condition that is often accompanied by invisible struggle. What comes across utmost in this conversation is how compassionate medical care and a dedicated circle of family and friends can really make a difference to a person’s outcome.

Acquired Brain Injury Ireland are available to provide support to individuals and families affected by Acquired Brain Injury. Here is a link to their website https://www.abiireland.ie

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

Thirteen years ago, Declan Hammond received a phonecall that is every parent's worst nightmare; his son had been involved in a mining accident abroad and was killed instantly.  Declan was spiralled into what felt like an alternative reality, his life would never be the same again. In this brutally honest account of his grief, Declan describes how, for a number of years, he felt mad with grief. It was in the company of other bereaved parents where he found understanding, as many of his former friends fell away, unable to tolerate his grief. Declan speaks about how his grief transformed him over the years and how he has now made meaning from his loss.

Declan recorded this short video for another podcast, it's well worth a listen to https://youtu.be/Nhgnu3xZITw

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

For more on Declan’s work, see www.declanhammond.com/[email protected]

#grief #parentalbereavement #loss #accident #bereavement #griefpodcast #bestgriefpodcast

For many of us, we take it for granted that our text will read something like “a beautiful baby girl was born at 5.55am, 8.2lbs, mother and baby doing great”, but for Annemarie McCarthy and her husband, the reality was far from this. The 20 week scan showed anomalies that would render the rest of Annemarie’s pregnancy a constant source of stress and worry. When baby Ruth took her first breaths alone, her parents hoped that the worst was over and, once reparative surgery would be completed, they would take Ruth home and get on with their lives. Little did they know that their epic journey to keep their baby alive was just beginning. Ruth’s complications were a lot more than they and the medical team first realised, resulting in numerous surgeries, interventions and four years on  a life-support machine.  By the time Ruth was well enough to shed her reliance on the various machines that kept her alive for the first few years of her life, her mother Annemarie describes herself as ‘an empty shell’. Trying to keep her daughter alive for five years had taken it’s toll on Annemarie and after her second child was born, she realised that she was in dire need of therapeutic intervention to help her to rebuild herself after the years of stress and trauma that her family had been through. In this honest and open conversation, Annemarie gives us an insight into the disenfranchised grief of having a sick child and how that experience would change everything about her life in the weeks, months and years that followed. It is truly such a privilege to bear witness to these stories. 

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

#nicu #childrenshospital #disenfranchisedgrief #hiddenloss #livinginhospital #separation #divorce

Aisling Fitzgibbon and her mother Martha were inseparable. As well as mother and daughter, they were best friends and soul mates. Following a few years of depression in her early twenties, Aisling went on a journey of finding meaning and purpose in her life, accompanied every step of the way by her beloved mother Martha. When Martha suddenly became critically ill, all of Aisling's spiritual learnings were put to the test and she had to dig deep to be able to come to terms with her mother's impending death. Aisling takes us through that journey and talks about how she accompanied her mother in her dying process and how finding meaning in her mother's death helped her to cope with the enormous grief she experienced. Listen to Aisling and be inspired!

'Fairytale' - a song by Richie Ros, which Martha listened to as she was dying https://youtu.be/WgaDYR9LcGU

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

#grief #bereavement #seizures #dying 

When Siobhan was two years old, both her parents, her older brother who was seven and her aunt all died in a drowning tragedy on Carlingford Lough. Siobhan, her  eleven month-old brother Terry and a nine-year-old sister Orla, were separated from each other and taken in by two sets of grandparents and were raised in a society that didn’t condone mourning or talk of grief.  Siobhan tells us about how she created an imaginary life for herself as a child and how this loss coloured her life experience and influenced her life choices. Decades later, Siobhan still feels anxious whenever she has to wait for someone and how she finds solace in the company of family and friends. She finds healing in the work she does with grieving children who come to the Rainbows programme which Siobhan facilitates and offers advice to anyone supporting a grieving child.

#rainbows #grief #carlingfordlough #drowning #grief #bereavement

About Shapes of Grief:

Shapes of Grief is an internationally recognized organization dedicated to enhancing competency around loss, grief and bereavement literacy. Curated by Psychotherapist and grief specialist Liz Gleeson, Shapes of Grief equips individuals with the tools and expertise necessary for understanding and supporting the complex needs of the bereaved, or people grieving any type of loss.

With a curriculum that has been meticulously developed to include the most comprehensive evidence-based material available, Shapes Of Grief stands out as the only program to feature contributions from international grief experts. The award-winning online programme offers different levels of training to accurately meet the needs of each learner.

Don’t wait to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, sign-up HERE for our FREE Masterclass in Loss & Grief.

Note from Liz:

I hope you're all getting something really beneficial from the Shapes Of Grief podcast. I want to send out a huge thanks to those of you who have sponsored the podcast so far. I'm delighted to let you know that there is a new sponsorship option of just $1 per month - I'm hoping this will encourage more listeners to sponsor us and help to keep us going.

Become a sponsor for as little as $1 per month! Your support is much appreciated. ♥️

https://www.patreon.com/shapesofgrief

BBC coverage of the commemoration https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-northern-ireland-49318332/carlingford-lough-haulbowline-lighthouse-memorial-for-dead?ns_mchannel=social&ns_linkname=northern_ireland&ns_campaign=bbc_news_ni&ns_source=twitter