Navigating Grief in Leadership with Sarah Hines

Carolyn: Welcome to evolve a new era of leadership. I’m Carolyn Swora, your host. And today I have the pleasure of welcoming onto the show. Sarah Hines. Sarah has spent two decades of her life serving those at end of life and supporting many in their journey with grief. It, uh, it was something that she did while having a job in sales. And in

2019, she started an organization called

griefadvocacy. com. I’m going to ask her about that journey. I’m going to ask her how it came to be and then what happened in 2020 because as we all know, that was a very big turning point. many of us.

I’m going to be talking about how to deal with grief at work, not only in ourselves, but also within our teams. That’s where our conversation is going to go today. And while it might feel like a heavy topic, Sarah is a really fun, She’s got great stories. And so it’s just a great conversation with a bit of levity, but also with the research, the seriousness that this topic deserves, and I think you’re going to learn some really cool things here, enjoy the show.

 Well, hello, Evolve listeners. Just having a little giggle here with our next guest, Sarah Hines. Sarah, welcome to the show. 

Sarah: Thank you, Carolyn. It’s a pleasure to 

this is our second conversation in life. And I think there’ll be many more because you are really fun. it’s important too, cause you know, the type of work that you do can feel heavy, just like the topic that we are going to talk about today is grief.

Carolyn: And. I think it’s probably an indicator of why you do what you do and likely why you’re really good at it. How do we talk about a heavy thing like grief, but do it with levity and lightness so that we can walk into it and not walk away from it? why don’t we start off like, you know, you do grief advocacy work.

Like, why don’t you just tell us a little bit like what brought you into this space? 

Sarah: I started doing home hospice care about 20 years ago, and I alwaysfound myself running to the bedside, right? I’ve always been the one that people call when things go really wrong. and so after spending, you know, 25 years in corporate and my hobby was spending time with people who were dying and needed grief care.

I realized that perhaps I needed to bring these two worlds together. And that’s how grief advocacy became a thing.

Carolyn: And when did you bring these two worlds together?

Sarah: Oh, goodness. 2019. So right before

the 

Carolyn: you go. It’s like somebody was saying, Sarah, we need this. 

Sarah: It’s called Grief

Carolyn: so we’ve gone from supporting people through loss, a very obvious loss in death. in your organization, if you want to just let the folks know, what’s it called?

Sarah: and we focus on grief in the workplace and how organizations and leaders can be better at taking care of their employees who are going through grief experiences, whether it be through coaching, consulting, support, or HR bereavement process consulting.

Carolyn: So In 2019, how did you see a space for this? Cause COVID hadn’t happened yet. So grief at work. Oh, we don’t need to talk about it. Let’s kind of just put it over here and we’ll deal with people. We were carried, but we don’t need to overtly talk about it.

How did that jump happen? 

Sarah: my best friend died suddenly in 2015 and you know, she wasn’t blood related and there aren’t any rules around that, that technically under the rules, you don’t really get anything for

that, but Knowing and feeling how deeply that loss was for me.

I knew that things had to change. I was leading a team at the time and they were of course, wonderful around. They were, Oh, we understand, take all the time you need. But your reports due at the end of the month and don’t forget about, right. so there was all these yeah, we really want the best for you, but.

Carolyn: 

Sarah: So it was kind of this real eye opener that that’s not the way things should be and there’sno actual policy around the loss of a best friend.

Carolyn: and no one knows, my relationship with her what my relationship was with her.

Sarah: And they don’t know if she was like a ride or die. If she was my ride or die like, we’re going into the deep darks And honestly, probably harder than a lot of other people may have gone through if it was a mother, or a sibling, or, so everybody’s relation is so different.

And the fact that there were no rules around it, that it was very loose, and yet there were expectations around it was really the first kind of red flag for me in this work.

Carolyn: And so 2019 grief advocacy was born. You’re based in Canada.

Sarah: I am.

Carolyn: Yay Canada. And then 2020 happened.

Sarah: It sure did.

Carolyn: So What does grief have to do with 2020? 

Sarah: in my corporate life, my big corporate life, I was in sales. So, I had built a really good network over, 20 years of being a salesperson. so when I decided to go to my own, what salespeople are really good at is networking. So I started calling friends, I’m like, Hey, what do you think about this?

Do you think this would be a good idea? And what do you think this would do in your organization? Just so I can get a feel. So it was kind of in that researchy, Mode and I had seen, the pandemic was kind of, no, still very uncertain. We weren’t sure what was going to happen. There was this idea that it was going to be short lived, right. that it was a winter problem. And then One of those phone calls was to a national organization here in Canada that does long term care and retirement homes. And she just said, we need this so bad, like it’s desperate.

And I said, 

Carolyn: she need? What did she need?what were you selling them?

Sarah: Well, at the time I was just like, Hey if your employees are going through something hard, I’ll just coach them through it.

I had really a small vision around this and with her and her amazing organization, we just kept expanding and they were like, yes, we need this. This is so good for our, residents and for our employees, they’re going through such a hard time. but we want it all done in person.

And if anybody knows a salesperson, they know they say yes to everything.

So I couldn’t, 

Carolyn: in person. 

Sarah: right,

I was like, yes. And then I like got off the phone and I’m like, Oh my God, yeah, I just agreed to. So I ended up building a team of 35 people that went into long term care and retirement homes across Canada on a monthly basis and supported their employees and their residents through grief, loss, and trauma.

Carolyn: All right, let’s just take a moment. You said 35, not 3 to 5.

Sarah: No, 35, 3 5.

Carolyn: and so going in and supporting long term care facilities. So, a lot of people saw that, right? It and so high level, what would those folks do when you say they went in and they help people through grief, loss and trauma?

Was it like an hour workshop? Was it like counseling therapy? What would, tell me more.

Sarah: Ultimately, it was space holding. So, the company we were working with agreed to have one hour for their whole employee base to be able to come together once a month to kind of unburden a little bit.

On the caveat that there was also going to be, some kind of data collection and not personal data, of course, but the idea of it was that we were going to take all the stories. All the burdens, all the quibbles, we were going to take them all in, and we were going to basically aggregate them and alchemize them into their corporate culture so that we would take all this.learning and then go back into corporate and say, these are the things we heard, and this is what we think you should do with it.

So it really became this process of deep listening. And change at the leadership level.

Carolyn: How powerful. Like, It wasn’t we’re going to come in and teach you and just the simplicity of what you said, spaceholding. Great. 

Sarah: Also we did workshops, right? We went through all their leadership teams, and we did workshops. Where we talked about how do you have grief literacy? What does inclusivity look like? How do you hold grief as a leader? How do you hold for 

your team?

Or inside of your team? And how do you sustain and be proactive about emotional wellness? That was what we focused on as a training, but for the front lines, they were in it, right? They had lost colleagues. I mean, I don’t know if you remember, and I’m not sure this was a bit of a global thing, but at the very beginning, we didn’t have enough PPE

Carolyn: I remember that here. 

Sarah: and they were sharing PPE,

right?

Carolyn: I remember seeing an article in 2020, probably, I’m thinking it was maybe, I don’t remember if it was like early days of the pandemic, if it was after George Floyd, I don’t know where, there’s so many things I think that happened in 2020 that just peeled the layer of

Sarah: The veneer. 

Carolyn: And so I remember just seeing this article about grief and it came up in, in Harvard business review. So it’s Oh, well, okay. It’s in Harvard, business review. I’m a business leader. I better pay attention to it, even though it’s existed there all along. And so what do you think that did for helping well intentioned leaders recognize the importance or the role that grief is, was, will continue to play in how our organizations function.

Sarah: I mean, it’s, it’s such an interesting question because I actually have to step it back a little bit because even the idea of any of that holding grief was new. The idea that I would assign that word grief to those experiences didn’t make sense. I had to actually tell them why this was a grief experience. 

Carolyn: was it really new? so really people didn’t understand that losing colleagues was a grief experience.

Sarah: So yes, they understood that, but when we’re talking about the whole experience of long term care, and just so the simple sentence of, well, you knew what you were getting into when you decided to work in long term care, right? And we’ve all said stuff like that, right? We’ve all said, Oh, you know what you were going to get into when you decided and fill in the blank.

The idea that you would have an emotion around that experience was easily dismissed by that one sentence.

Carolyn: Right. sentence held all of the emotion back from it and said, well, this is just what long term care is. We do things like this and we move on. And we’re also talking about people that have to go into a room and watch the loneliest person on the planet die alone. Take eight steps. and reset and to go into the next room, have that grief experience, eight steps later, walk into the next. So they’re very good at taking an emotion and putting it away. So the idea that I could turn around and say, this is grief. And they’re like, well, yeah, it’s grief because a lot of people died, but this isn’t a grief experience.

Sarah: And I’m like, it most certainly is to the point where they were telling me to take grief out of my name, because people did not want to connect with the word grief.

Carolyn: Well, it sounds like the word vulnerability. Come talk to us about being courageous, but don’t talk about vulnerability.

Sarah: That’s exactly 

Carolyn: So Sarah, can you give us a definition of grief then just so to ground us doesn’t have to be like a formal Miriam Webster version, but

Sarah: No, I have. I do have one. And it takes a little bit of kind of holding in order to really see through it. But grief never leaves us. . so it will ebb and flow throughout our whole life. It will never be gone. And. It really does two things for us. It reminds us that love is important–

and it dares us to love again.

And that’s it. 

and it’s so simple, when my girlfriend died, she didn’t have any children. she was the youngest in her family. And so I was responsible to carry on her legacy. And so my children know a lot about her and our, my last conversation with her was a bit of a tough one.

And because of that, my kids will never leave my house without hearing. I love you. And it is because of her. And so there’s this willingness for me to realize that this moment, this visual on my kid, leaving the house is really important for me to connect to.

Carolyn: Yep.

Sarah: And it’s also important to let them go out the door knowing it might be the last time I see them.

And it’s also important that when they come home that I’m willing to re engage and re love and get angry at them for not cleaning their room or doing all these other things, right? So it’s just this way of interacting at every ending and every beginning that changes for me. And it’s because of that.

Carolyn: Oh, thank you for sharing that, Sarah.

Sarah: Thanks.

Carolyn: What was your friend’s name?

Sarah: Best.

Carolyn: Thank you, Bess. So is grief a feeling? Is it a state? it a place?

Sarah: I like to think of it in a couple ways, but I do believe it’s a skill. And I know that this is hard for a lot of us to hold on to. Well, I mean, ultimately, I think grief is not the problem. Our grief is a normal experience that we have throughout life. It is what makes love so important.

Carolyn: Right.

Sarah: Andit’s not grief that needs to be healed, it’s our relationship to it. We don’t hold sad things easily.

We dismiss them, we shame them, we isolate them, we feel guilty over them.

Carolyn: We try and get rid of them,

Sarah: You gotta get rid of them, move past them this is the price we pay for love. And in my estimation that willingness to be able to hold on to that particular mindset changes it into what have I learned? How am I going to love differently? Will the next love hold on to the burdens or the heirlooms of my past loves? and maybe it’s both, and maybe it needs to be both, but it does need to hold on. So, my skill with grief changeswith every grief, with every relationship, with every loss, with every change.

I liken it to job change. You take your past experiences in a particular job and it ended, let’s say you were laid off and you moved into your next role and you’re like, I’ll never do this again. I’ll never do that again. And this is what I really loved about this job. And this is what I didn’t love about this job.

And it is an emotional journey. And I think the same is true on a very high level with grief, it’s just holds on only holds emotion, right? So how do we build skill around being able to hold on and capacity build around our emotions?

Carolyn: I just love the way you’ve, described that. I read a book called Ambiguous Loss by Pauline Boss. And I’ve heard several people reference that work. It informed, a bit of my work. And I think. If I look back to 2020, I think that was a collective experience of ambiguous loss.

I don’t remember exactly how Pauline described it at this exact moment, but it’s sort of like, how can I grieve something that I didn’t actually have? When I think of my one son didn’t have a prom, way to drive through graduation, come in, get your diploma, wear your mask out of here.

So how do you grieve a prom? that you didn’t have. Now, he actually doesn’t care that he didn’t have, prom. But just think of all the different things in life. Like, you know, I never had a brother or sister. Do I grieve that? Just did that. That didn’t match up for me until I learned of this term, ambiguous loss.

So holding the space for change and growth. And what are we learning? I really like those elements even included into Greek as a skill.

Sarah: Well, and to make it a little bit, perhaps a little more textured, It’s this idea that even deeply joyful moments that we have worked deeply hard for hold loss.

When we get married, there’s a loss of independence.

And you may not feel it but there’s a part of you that goes, Oh, now I have to like, check in,

 

Sarah: you have to, my weekend plans. I have to check. And we don’t that’s a bad thing because of course it is. And it means we get to have partnership and we get to, to come up with maybe together something better.

But there’s also this loss of, I get to have ownership over everything. I do.

 

Sarah: Another good example is empty nesting. When our kids decide, or we’ve pushed them off into university spaces, or to travel, or to do whatever that happens to be, we’re excited because we’ve finally raised humans in a way that we’re willing to let them go out into this world.

Yet, we’re so sad to see them go. So, there’s this real paradox that happens even in joyful moments that happen to be about ambiguous law, that are ambiguous, right?

Carolyn: love the texture. I love that word too. And so These are just ways of experiencing the world. And if we look at our workplaces are gatherings of humans trying to do a collective work towards a goal, they’re not going to leave their humanity at the door, which means grief is always going to be present. What do we need to talk about then, Sarah, as it pertains to grief and leadership,

Sarah: There’s so many lenses to see it through. well, the first one is what happens when we’re grieving as a leader,

Right? how does that actually affect our days?

Carolyn: So let’s start there. I’ve been there. I think everybody listening has been there, right? we don’t need to compare what we’re grieving over, but we’ve all been there.

Sarah: that’s it at some capacity, right? It clouds our decision making. There are studies that talk a lot about brain fog and the effects of brain fog on our decision making. It, it’sresults have financial implications on our organizations. It changes who we are emotionally, sometimes physically, sometimes mentally.

And we need to lead differently because of it.

Carolyn: So what would you say to the people listening when you say lead differently? What does that look like? What are some things that they could do?

Sarah: Yeah. So honoring self is a big one. I think I want to hold onto this idea that we can build and I’ll use your words around a vulnerable space that builds trust at the same time, so that we as leaders know that we belong to our team and our team belongs to us. A good example especially with brain fog is a leader being willing to say in a meeting as an example guys, listen, I have significant brain fog today, but this topic is so important to me.

Can someone take notes and email them out? And I will look it over. And if I have anything to add, I’ll be able to do that after cause this is too important for me. And I just don’t think I can be here fully.

Carolyn: you know what I love? What you just did there, Sarah, is you didn’t have to disclose anything. You didn’t have to say why you didn’t validate. It was just, this is important and here’s the action.

Sarah: It’s three things, right? It honors the emotional space I’m in right now, without having to share with a bit of a boundary. It honors the people in the room by not faking things, right? And it honors the work that we’re focused on. So it actually does all 3 of those things.

And that’s why I really love it. And there’s loads of versions of that, right? There’s loads of different things. If typically, you know, finances or details are not kind of your thing as a leader and unfortunately, it’s part of the job you have to take on as in your role, maybe there’s someone on your team that’s looking for something new to do.

they wanted to find that path to leadership. Maybe there’s. Things that you can, and I’ll use bunny ears on this, but offload onto other people on your team to give them some of that experience so that you don’t have to take on it all and make mistakes and then beat yourself up for it, right?

It ends up being this real cycle of guilt, shame, and isolation.

Carolyn: Yep. All of which are not helpful to be human, and they’re definitely not helpful when we’re trying to lead.

Sarah: No. When it respects the people around us, right?

Carolyn: Yep.

Sarah: That’s the goal. Yeah.

Carolyn: Now, I think it’s safe to say a lot of us are trying to work through brain fog. on far too regular a basis, like every day, sadly. What are some other things about grief and that reality? Like, Is it fair to say we’re carrying a lot of grief every day in our workplaces?

Sarah: yes, and it’s a different type of grief a new dynamic around griefthat we’re experiencing these days because It’s layered with a lot of that ambiguous grief that we’ve now labeled, that we never labeled before. It’s also that,anticipatory grief, right?

We’ve got elections coming up. We’ve got kind of weird things happening in,in our countries. There’s war. There’s all of these, Things happening inside of our society that we’re clenched around that, we wake up every morning and we hear about and it’s fill in the blank and we’re just like, my God, we’re exhausted.

And this really leads to that conversation and that leads to brain fog. We also have messaging out. I see a lot of it on LinkedIn and a lot of it in podcasts and a lot of it in blog posts around how leaders can be more empathetic. And I’m having a very difficult time supporting that mentality right now, because I don’t think we have the capacity to, nor do I think we should.

Carolyn: Well, and let’s, so let’s go, we’re going to go into this part. I want to be clear it’s not that you’re saying leaders don’t need to care, but we need to get really clear about what is empathy and where could leaders be going instead of going to empathy?

Sarah: for sure. Empathy is a hard one. And I think this is coming from learnings inside of healthcare. you know, they’re hearing all of the messaging around being an empathetic leader as well. And that is a vocation

that deeply demands an empathetic heart. So they’re empathetic already and they’re burnt.

Out we can list all the examples or the, the rationale to agree with that. So empathy is actually not doing leaders, any favors,

Carolyn: And how would you define empathy? 

Sarah: Empathy is when we absorb the energy. of the people that we’re supporting. It is us prioritizing the problem rather than the solution.

So we want to talk about the problem. We want to get into the problem. We want to be what the problem needs, right? Where we want to, protect this person. And it becomes almost a form of activism.

Carolyn: It’s become like a very broad word. I know in, some of my work, I like to really identify cognitive empathy. From affective empathy, which is, as you said, like taking on, but I can cognitively. Connect with your emotion, the word of your emotion, but let’s take this one step further because Where’s the place that leaders could go that is going to be less energy sucking for lack of a better word.

Sarah: That’s what I was going to say. But yeah, so I love compassion.

So empathy has got a lot of, spotlights on it. And it’s got a lot of, purposeful leadership around it. But I think we’re forgetting about the word compassion a little bit. And I, I think that, 

Sure. Compassion, I think, is witnessing energy rather than absorbing energy.

It is supportive. It is prioritizing, not the problem, but actions and care.

Carolyn: Right. Actions And care. That’s the big piece there.

Sarah: That’s it. and I can tell you as someone who sat in, circles for four years with healthcare people hearing all of their problems on a month to month basis that I could not prioritize their problem.

I had to prioritize action and care.

It was the only way I was going to make it through and keep doing this work.

Carolyn: And sorry if I may, compassion still has a very like, caring quality to it. It’s not I don’t care, I’m not taking on your stuff. It’s, I care a lot, and I’m going to prioritize myself, and I’m going to take action to show my care or to do something.

Sarah: I liken it tothinking of the problem as a bit of a container, right? So empathy, in empathy, I am in the container. right. So it’s me and the person and the problem all sitting inside of this container with compassion. I’m the leader holding the container, but I’m not in it. I’m holding the container and I’m walking around finding places to put the container.

I can see it. I know that it’s a problem. I know it’s important and it’s a priority, but I’m going to carry it into a new space.

Carolyn: And is it fair to say Sarah that we’re not saying like away with empathy? We’re saying that empathy and compassion need to be together.

Sarah: They sure do.

And 

Carolyn: own self care.

Sarah: for our own self care, right? As a leader, I think it’s so on a simple level, right? When we go into a job interview, we all lean forward, right? And we lean forward so we can get in every single detail. We want to make sure that we look attentive, that we’re deeply invested. The problem with it is that when we do that in a situation that requires leadership in an emotional event, we’re Absorbing ourselves into the story, but if we simply physically just lean back and we just take this process of leaning back a little bit, we allow the story to kind of flow by us a little bit it gives us space to pick out the emotion of the story. We don’t have to hear the whole story. We just have to hear the emotion in the story. So try this with your kids or your partner, right? So they come home from work or they come home from school and they’re super frustrated about something and instead of kind of leaning in and say, well, what did you say and how did she say, just physically lean back and say, Oh, it sounds like you’re feeling, it sounds like you’re feeling pretty frustrated. And then they’ll say, yeah, you know what? I am. That’s what it is. I’m frustrated. And it just changes the way that we interact with what’s happening. Because when we interact the other way, when we’re deeply into it, we want to know the details. We want to know the order of events. And in a compassionate way, we’re just leaning back and we’re finding where they are right now emotionally.

And that I think is the important part, because we’re not hearing the story. We’re not carrying it. We’re just carrying the emotion so that we can have action.

Carolyn: What I’m hearing here to Sarah is like when we’re leaning in and really close, like it’s almost like we’re motivated to fix it. Like, how can, how can I get us out of here? What I’m hearing with your example is leaning back is instead of resisting the emotion and resisting is we’re giving a bit more space to just allow it to exist and be, which if we know the science, right?

If we allow emotions, motion, energy in motion, if we give space for that energy to move, it can be processed. And that’s the action that I’m hearing you talk about.

Sarah: That’s it. And I think that comes from being able to sit inside of grief. Because I know that there is absolutely nothing I can say or do in the immediate interim that will change grief. if it did, if those things were possible, like everyone Right? And then everybody would have a six pack and a Ferrari, right?

There’s no, there’s no, There’s no one solution. And maybe the solution is just letting them speak their emotion so that they can hear it for the first 

Carolyn: 

Sarah: time.

Carolyn: And to witness it, there’s so much power in witnessing.

 So the reality is there’s grief in our workplaces.

there’s grief in us. How do we find a new way forward?

Sarah: There’s no, such a loaded question. I believe it starts with leadership.

we cannot change, and we’re talking specifically at work, right? it is, to go after bereavement policy, I think is nice, but not a priority, because no one follows them anyway, right? If we go after HR, it just becomes a bit of a process. now we’re talking about EAP programs and all these other things. I believe it has to start with leadership and being willing to have and hold the conversation. And it doesn’t mean you have to fix the problem. You just need to witness the problem and figure out how to hold space for that person that’s on bereavement leave or for yourself in a very trusting way.

So that you can build belonging on your team, right? It’s interesting. I’ll give you an example. I did a little wee podcast a while ago and we had a guest on from Expedia and he had lost his partner and when he found out, he found out in a boardroom. And when he came back to work, his boss ensured that none of his meetings would ever be in that boardroom until he said it was okay again.

Carolyn: oh my goodness. That boss deserves

a lot of. Recognition for such a heartfelt caring moment. 

It’s amazing.

Sarah: Amazing, right? The hardest part of grief at work is coming back to work. 

No one wants to, right? No one wants to, but they have to, and we, our organizations are changing at the speed of light. And if you’re off because you need to, your mother has died in India, and you have to, you don’t have any money.

And you’re stressed about that, you’re stressed about being there, the bureaucratic system is very paper based, perhaps, you have to be there, you’re worried about your job, you’re not going to get paid, now you’re on leave, someone’s not eating because of it, and your boss is going and saying, what? And it’s that, answering that what question. Is probably the most important part of the whole thing and yeah, that’s, I mean, there’s lots of things I can do that day, but I don’t, I don’t know if there’s time for them, but

Carolyn: Well, and I think, I mean, just having this conversation about grief is. That’s why I do this podcast is to bring people on like you that are looking at leadership through some different lenses. And do we have all the answers? No, but what I’m hearing you say is there is a behavioral component that comes down to the individual and there are policies, yes, and there are processes and supports. Those are there. However, if we are actually going to be able to, I don’t even want to say leverage them, but use them for the purpose that’s intended, we need to let vulnerability in our interactions and know that we aren’t going to know, we aren’t there to fix it. But we can witness, we can find a connection to that emotion.

We can show compassion.

Sarah: I think if I had to give one thing that someone could do when a leader, one thing a leader could do if there, if someone on their team was off on bereavement leave. Often we say we’re going to take all their work and pull it out and they don’t have to think about a thing that actually can cause damage.

I would probably record all of our Zoom meetings. And in every meeting, I would say, does anybody have anything to say to Sarah before we go and take turns? Someone says something to Sarah in the recording, we take the recording and we send it to them and say, when you have time, you’re more than welcome to listen to it.

And it gives them the emotional space away from their family. cause we need excuses sometimes. I need a reason. And blame work. Blame work every time. Go ahead. You have to go listen to a thing. And all they got to do is pop on some headphones, see their whole team. And now in this recording, there’s this little lovely message where Caroline has said to Sarah, We miss you, and we know you’re going through a hard time.

We’re thinking about you, and we can’t wait to see you again.

Carolyn: It just creates that whole belonging. It’s takes the isolation of grief and just creates a beautiful container. There you are. We’re in the container.

Sarah: We’re in the container, and I’m holding the container by saying, as a leader, We’re going to record all of these meetings. We’re going to send them off to Sarah on the first one. You’re going to say something the second time. So think of your message that you’re going to say to Sarah.

I’ll go first. and so every meeting has a little cute little message inside of it. Right and it gives them the excuse to walk out of a family emotional.

Carolyn: Or not. And the other thing 

I’m hearing too is, They don’t have to listen to this message either.

Sarah: they don’t have 

Carolyn: yeah. So it’s 

not like we’re giving you work. It’s, here’s a 

lifeline kind of.

Sarah: that’s it, right? So simple. You don’t even have to do anything. You hit record. That’s it. 

Carolyn: Yeah. I mean, I just, I really I’m really grateful you came on to the show and, helped, you know,helped open a door to help us understand these feelings, like vulnerabilities about feelings and how can we walk with them and let them move through us instead of, well, thank you. Stay away.

Is there anything else that we haven’t touched upon that you think is helpful to just bring into this conversation before we close off?

Sarah: take it slow. I, if it feels hard, take it slow. There’s no rush. There’s absolutely no rush. We get stuck in a, we’re in a very, Rush based, here, now, immediate world. And you’re playing the long game, so take it easy. 

Carolyn: Cue the eagles. Take it easy.

Sarah: So Sarah, where could people find more about grief advocacy? 

Grief advocacy.com is the best place to find us. We’re on Instagram too at Grief Advocacy. It’s, we’re kind of all over the place, but the best place is our website. and LinkedIn, of course, LinkedIn. I’m always on LinkedIn.

Carolyn: And I know you’ve got this like great resource. I’m on your mailing list and just, some helpful tools. There’s like that free tool that you can download. Great resource for people to know exists for them.

Sarah: That’s it. So, it’s just a download on how to make grief inclusivity as part of your DEI initiative, which is kind of an interesting spin or lens on DEI. 

Carolyn: Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the show. But before we cut you loose, I got three evolved questions. so the first question has to do with self awareness, and these are three elements of leadership that I really think as we move into the future, we really need to focus our skills in these areas.

So, the 1st, 1 is self awareness and self awareness. I know has been heralded as a differentiator in the past between leaders good leaders and great leaders. So, I just like to hear stories. So a story or an anecdote that. Really was an aha moment for you or an aha experience. It took your level of awareness from here to here.

Sarah: I was, it’s around agendas.

we were trying to do some work in our long term care and retirement homes and we were, creating all of these agenda items each month and we, I would sit down and I’d be like we’re going to talk about this thing, right?

And it was kind of forcing the topic. But there’s all these underlying emotions happening in the room. When I was like this, I’m not helping. I felt it. I felt this lack of that. I was fully aware that I was controlling a room that didn’t need control. It needed support. And the moment I took agendas off the table.

It just opened up the space for what people wanted to talk about rather than forcing them into what I wanted to talk about.

Carolyn: Wow.

Sarah: It eventually got to the topics that we wanted to cover, but it came to it in a very beautiful, natural way without me having to shape it. 

Carolyn: it. Yeah. Ooh, that’s cool. That’s a great story. Great story. Great insight. so second, question for you is about routines, cues, things that you do that help you move with your emotions, self regulation, we might call it instead of letting them over you. Great. 

Sarah: I’m a bit of a wildling.

The moment I went out into my own business, I was like, I get to write and talk and philosophize all day. And then I realized I really need the discipline of routine and honor. of the work that I’m doing in order to sustain the work that I’m doing.

And the moment I got there, I now have a very particular process each day, before each call, at the beginning and end of every week, the beginning and end of every month, and the beginning and end of every quarter, and the beginning and end of every year.

Carolyn: Wow.

Sarah: And so it’s a full ripple that goes throughout my year. That holds kind of the same intention at each stage, but it required, ultimately it required discipline. And in fact, that discipline was kind of the wildness of my wild thing, right? Like it was very strange for me to be very disciplined because I’m not a, I was a salesperson at

first. I like, you’re the wild west where you’re going off and doing crazy things all the time to get a sale. Then I went into my own business. I’m like, what is this discipline? And I realized it was so foreign to me that I had to set up these processes. So I don’t know if that, it’s not specific.

Carolyn: no, but it’s an interesting take on that question. I mean, I’ve, done this with dozens and dozens of people, we’re getting into the hundreds now and I’ve never heard it put that way, there’s some structure that allows you to process each day versus just letting it spin wildly out of control.

Sarah: it has to happen. Right? And, And it started because the work I was doing was so heavy. So like, I often recommend leaders who are going through loss. To just schedule a couple minutes to themselves just hold on to it for five, two seconds.

Carolyn: Yep.

Sarah: Before you walk into that room, what are you holding on to?

What do you let go now? Walk in.

Carolyn: That’s every day, Sarah, you know what? I mean, we just like go back to back and now it’s just like a click of a button and then into the next meeting. And so how can we just pause on here right now? Feet on the ground. What am I feeling? So, final question. And this has to do with this notion of being co regulated and connected with all these other.

people in our world. Is there a song or genre of music that really brings you to this place of connection?

Sarah: I do a practice with music. That is around anger, grief, and love.

And I use that I have 15 playlists and I pick one of my playlists and I do this movement practice around those three songs and they regulate the heck out of me.

Carolyn: Is there a genre? Cause this is also like, that takes us into question two as well. Is there a song or like a genre that you could share with each of those? 

Sarah: I’m at the point where instrumental tends to be where I go. So classical tends to go inside of that practice for me, but when I start it with other people we do, we have to use words because it’s new. But so it is, it is classical that really kind of just, I can hold on to it and settle it down.

Carolyn: Wow. Wow. And aligning that to an emotion.

Sarah: while aligning it to where, what I want to hold on to or or aligning it to an intention.

Carolyn: That is very, Sarah, your responses are so unique, just like the work that you do. It’s beautiful and wonderful. And thank you so much for replying to my LinkedIn message. And I’m just so glad that you came on the show. I hope that our listeners check out you and your work.

Sarah: Thank you. And it’s just an honor to know you and know that you’re out there doing this fantastic stuff and we will sing together again,

Carolyn: We will. We will.

Sarah: I look forward to

Carolyn: Me too.I’m just so happy that we were able to get Sarah onto the show, for those of you who have followed any of my story or read my book, you’ll know that grief is something that I have run from. I have acknowledged it cognitively. I’ve used the words, but I didn’t really fully understand how pervasive it is.

It is, and also how connected to love that it is, and grief isn’t something to push away. It’s, as we learned from Sarah, it’s a skill, and we can learn from it. We can grow with it, and it doesn’t really serve us to push it away. And when we look at our workplaces, and we understand that we are humans coming in to do a set of tasks and projects together, we We are going to have better teams, more psychologically safe teams, better leadership when we create a bit of space to let grief breathe. And in my conversation with Sarah today, I hope you were able to approach this topic with a bit of curiosity and hear how as leaders, we can give it a little bit of space to breathe.

Get our work done and do it in a way that feels right. Thank you so much for tuning in. I’m really happy that you’re here and I hope you can continue to listen and even subscribe to this podcast. We’re bringing great guests with the intention of inspiring you as a leader to.

Think of new ways of leading to bring new approaches to question old ways and welcome in new ways and to co create this together. So you can find out more about me on my website, www.carolynswora.com. And I hope we see you back here again on the Evolve soon. Thanks.