Grief Support 101: One-on-One, Peer-Led, and Specialist-Led Groups

Host Nina Rodriguez explores the complexities of grief and the various support options available for those navigating loss. She discusses the importance of community, the differences between one-on-one support, and peer-led and specialist-led support groups, and addresses common fears associated with sharing grief in a group setting. She addresses common fears associated with joining support groups and the benefits of professional facilitation in creating a safe and nurturing environment for sharing experiences.

Nina also highlights the unique challenges of sibling grief and the need for specialized support groups.  Ultimately, she encourages listeners to seek the support that resonates with them, whether through peer-led groups or professional guidance.

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Join “Forever a Sister”, a 4-week grief support experience for bereaved siblings.
foreverasister.com
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Takeaways:

• Sharing stories in a safe environment helps process and integrate loss.
• Grief support can take many forms, including one-on-one and group settings.
• Community support is essential for healing and reducing feelings of isolation.
• Professional facilitation in support groups can provide structure and safety.
• Vulnerability in sharing grief can lead to deeper connections and reestablishing a sense of harmony.
• Grief is best navigated with the right tools and support.
• Establishing agreements in support groups creates a sense of safety and trust.
• Community can alleviate feelings of isolation.
• Peer-led groups offer shared experiences but may lack professional guidance.
• Specialist-led groups provide structure and tools for healing.
• Vulnerability in grief support is met with compassion.
• The bond between siblings is unique and deserves dedicated space for processing grief.
• Sharing stories can help rewire the brain to cope with trauma.
• It's important to know what to look for when it comes to support, and finding the one that feels right to you can be beneficial and transformational.

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Join THE COMMUNITY | A virtual space where we can navigate grief, together.
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Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

• @griefandlight
• griefandlight.com
• 1:1 Grief Support
• Subscribe to my newsletter
• Join Grief and Light: The Community

Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

Chapters

• 0:27 Navigating Grief: Where to Start?
• 2:45 Understanding Grief Support Options
• 4:35 Exploring Group Support: Benefits and Considerations
• 8:54 Peer-Led vs. Specialist-Led Support Groups
• 12:12 The Benefits of Grief-Informed Facilitation
• 15:02 Addressing Common Fears in Grief Support
• 22:12 The Science-backed benefits of Sharing Grief
• 23:56 Finding the Right Support for You

Transcript

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Talking about our grief, hearing it reflected back in others' experiences and receiving support helps us integrate the loss into our lives in a way that's healing rather than stifling. You just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief-colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started.

Hello and welcome back. hope you are doing well today and that you're being gentle with yourself. Today we're diving into a question that I often hear from grievers and that is where the heck do I start? I have no idea where to start. Should I join a grief group? Should I do one-on-one support? What do I do? I'll also talk about the differences between peer-led support groups and those facilitated by a grief support specialist like myself to help you better understand the differences and your options.

Before we get started, I want to mention my upcoming Forever Sister Grief Support Group, which is a four-week grief support experience designed for bereaved siblings navigating the holidays, specifically for sisters. As a bereaved sister myself, I lost my only sibling in 2019. I deeply, deeply, deeply understand how hard the weeks leading up to the holidays can be. So I want to be the resource I wish I had in my grief, especially for other sisters navigating the holidays.

One of the biggest pain points that I hear in my one-on-one consultations is I miss being their sister. I miss my brother. I miss my sister. And I miss being their sister. We miss the role of being a sibling, especially if you've lost your only sibling or if you come from a small family. But it really affects us across the board. Unfortunately, the reality is we'll never get our siblings back. But we can create a dedicated time and space to be in our sibling energy.

with other siblings. We get to be their sibling in this new context. Like I always say, death ends a life, but not the relationship. So in what ways can our sibling relationship, can our sibling role still be intact? And I'm talking about siblings because that's specific to this program, but think about the person you lost and how you still get to be their person in the context of how you showed up in the world in relation to them. So if you were

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their spouse or if you were their parent or if you were their child, how can you still show up as that in this new context? Obviously, everything's changed, but there are little ways that we can still feed that beautiful energy that we had with them, that beautiful dynamic and relationship that we still had with them. So I will be leading this group that is going to start on November 7th. The early bird registration is open until October

24th, that's this week, so you could go to ForeverASister.com. Let me say that again, ForeverASister.com, and it will take you to the main page where you can see all of the details. The idea is to meet twice in November, so it's once a week, twice in November, before Thanksgiving, and then once a week, twice in December, before the holidays.

best of all, you will have access to the portal to connect with other siblings who have signed up for this program before, during, and after. So you will have continuity well into the next year. And if you're listening to this episode after December, 2024, then I encourage you to visit griefandlight.com and see what upcoming events we have posted there. And I'm always working on more ways to support Grievers. So.

Let's dive into the conversation. The first part I'm going to address is one-on-one grief support versus group support. So when you're deciding between one-on-one grief support or joining a group, it's helpful to understand what each offers. Both can provide meaningful support, but in different ways. One-on-one support offers a more personalized and intimate space for you to explore your grief. In these one-on-ones, the focus is entirely on you, your feelings,

your story, and your journey. This type of support can be especially helpful if you want to dive deeply into your personal grief experience, or if you prefer a private and more confidential environment, or if you're just not ready to share your grief with others. The one-on-one support groups provides the opportunity to work through emotions at your own pace with someone who has been trained and who can offer strategies that are tailored to your specific needs. This can look like...

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Developing rituals to honor your loved one, working through difficult dates like anniversaries, navigating anticipatory grief, or addressing what feels most difficult to handle that particular week or day. Another advantage is that it's more flexible. It could fit into your schedule and over time you build a deeper relationship with your grief support specialist. It's somebody walking hand in hand with you in your grief and who will know some of the deepest, most

intimate details about your loss as it shows up and they will help guide you as you move forward. One point of nuance though is that I encourage you to ask questions before you sign up with somebody. Please ask questions. Just because somebody calls themselves a grief coach doesn't mean that they have been trained. There is a difference between being supported by somebody who has been through a loss and that's understandable because they have their wisdom and knowledge as a bereaved person.

and the person who has been a bereaved person and been trained on supporting grievers in different types of losses and understanding the nuances of grief-informed support. This is very important. Just because somebody has experienced grief does not necessarily make them qualified to be able to help others in grief. Everybody grieves differently, and it is very important to know what's helpful to one person may not actually be helpful to another.

And also just remember that generally speaking, grief support is not the same as therapy. So when we talk about support in this context, I am not talking about therapy. Grief support is an additional tool in your toolkit as you navigate grief. As we know, grief affects us, mind, body, spirit, energy, family dynamics, work in every aspect of our lives. And for each one, we need different tools to navigate each scenario.

I did months of training with Megan Debein, who is a well-known and respected psychotherapist. She is the author of It's Okay Not to Be Okay. There we trained on the differences between types of losses, how you address grief, traumatic grief versus normal grief or anticipatory grief versus compounded grief or sudden loss versus somebody who's been seeing their person decline over months and years.

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each one has its own nuance and somebody who has trained on these differences will be able to know how to navigate each one. So ask your support person what kind of training they have, what kind of experience they have, and if they have personally experienced loss because that makes a huge, huge difference as well. Now, when would you consider a grief support group, for example? So let's say the one-on-ones, that sounds great, but maybe you could benefit from a group setting as well. And a caveat,

You don't have to necessarily pick one over the other. You could actually do both. But some people have expressed concern about being in a group setting. Some people say, I'm very shy. I don't like sharing publicly. I'd rather just talk to somebody in person. And then other people say, I'd rather be in a group setting. So fill it out as I describe these different settings, and you will see which one you resonate with most. So why would you consider a support group? There is something undeniably healing about community.

about being in a space where people understand even without words. Grief can feel so isolating, but science tells us that we are not meant to process such heavy emotions alone. A growing body of research shows that sharing our stories in community settings can reduce feelings of loneliness and alleviate some of the intense emotional pain that grief can bring. Studies have also found that individuals who participated in grief support groups reported significantly lower levels of depression and anxiety compared to those who did not.

support groups provide what psychologists call social support buffers, reducing the negative effects of grief on mental health and physical health. So by joining a grief support group, for example, you give yourself the opportunity to be seen and heard in your loss, which can be deeply healing. So for many, it's not just about sharing their story, but hearing other people share theirs. You gain so much perspective on what everybody's carrying and you realize that you're not alone in how you feel. So much of

the pain and suffering for grievers is feeling like, am I normal? Is what I'm feeling normal? And when you hear other people basically say exactly how you feel without having to explain how you feel, that is powerful, powerful medicine. So this sense of connection is key. As humans, we are hardwired for connection. I believe we're not meant to do this alone. And sharing our grief and community can be one of the more powerful ways to reclaim

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a sense of harmony in our lives. Grief support groups offer that community and shared experience and they allow you to connect with others alleviating a sense of isolation. So you have your shared experience, your collective wisdom, the groups allow you to hear how others are coping and what strategies are working from them. And it increases your overall level of empathy and compassion when you see other people being vulnerable, it invites you to be more

vulnerable and compassionate with yourself. We need to give ourselves permission to grieve and sometimes that is unlocked by hearing other people give themselves permission to grieve. There's also a sense of safety and numbers, a shared understanding that everyone in the room gets it, even if the stories are different. And that collective energy can be incredibly empowering as you navigate the complexities of your own grief. Now, within the grief support groups, there are different types and

Generally speaking, you can categorize them in peer-led grief support groups versus specialist-led grief support groups. That was a mouthful. So peer-led versus support-led support groups, right? Peer-led support is typically run by individuals who have experienced significant losses themselves and are offering the space for others to share their grief in a more communal setting.

These groups provide an opportunity to give and receive support in a mutual way without professional facilitation. So for example, these groups can offer a sense of equality because everyone in the group is a peer and there's a feeling of shared vulnerability of we're all equal here. There's no professional guiding the discussion. So everybody's just kind of sharing on a whim, whatever comes up and resonating with each other. There's a sense of community building.

These groups often feel less formal and more grassroots. And then there's that emotional support aspect from a lived experience. However, obviously as the name implies, the peer led groups do not have a professional facilitator. So sometimes the emotional intensity can be a little overwhelming if the participants are not familiar with how to set boundaries or navigate tough conversations. It can also be a little bit tricky because

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A lot of grief can be tied to trauma and can be tied to codependent behavior. could be tied to screwy dynamics. So there's nobody guiding the conversation without training and some additional context as to what behaviors can lead to undesirable territory. These groups tend to often be the ones that you find online or are for free and everybody joins and that's great. Just be aware that

there are some risks in having these conversations without the proper leadership. Now for the groups that are led by a grief specialist, this is somebody who has training in grief-informed support. So somebody who has the certification, like I mentioned earlier, I trained under Megan Devine, and there's other qualified trainers, and this is something that you would find out through doing your own research, through asking them questions, through researching the person who is leading these groups.

you will see what kind of training and support they had. Additionally, there could be grief therapists, but I'm not talking about that in this context, I'm talking about grief support. So I wanna make that difference. So grief support groups led by a grief specialist. For example, as somebody who has completed her grief care specialist certification under Megan Devine, I will be leading the Forever a Sister group. And this is a group that

provides structure and guidance throughout the group process. It combines the benefit of community support and the professional facilitation creating a space where you can be both emotionally supported and guided. In this particular program, for example, each meeting will build on top of the previous one. I will start with foundations and then we'll build from there with specific

to guide the participants through the holidays. This is knowledge I've acquired through training. So for example, some of the benefits of a grief group by somebody who has been trained includes a guided conversation. The grief supporter will steer the conversation in a way that helps participants reflect on their grief. We ask the deeper questions. We explore your emotions without getting stuck at any one point. And the idea is to create a sense of safety and non-judgment where you could

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become undone and you could explore the magnitude of this experience in a way that feels safe and contained. Because one of the biggest fears that I hear is, I'm afraid I'll start crying and I won't stop. And that's just not true. But it is a fear and I want to acknowledge that. So we create the sense of safety where you can feel it all, experience it all in a way that feels safe. You also get tools and strategies unlike

A peer-led group, the professional groups, provide participants with specific tools to navigate grief, such as mindfulness practices or journaling prompts or rituals or somatics. So there are empowering tools that we provide as different situations arise. There's also boundaries and emotional safety. A professional facilitator can manage the emotions and the tone of the group, ensuring that they don't feel overwhelmed or triggered by each other's

So facilitators are trained to hold space for intense emotions while offering ways to process them healthily. And the most important part that I've harped on is the education. A trained facilitator can offer educational insights about grief, how it affects the mind, the body, the spirit, which can help participants better understand their own healing journey. For example, in the Forever Sister group, we will explore a sibling loss as a unique type of grief.

offering the tools to navigate the holidays and incorporate other practices to help process the emotional weight of the season. So as a trained grief facilitator, I also guide the group in creating meaningful rituals to honor your loved ones, ensuring everyone has a chance to share and reflect and have the fullness of the experience in a safe container. For example, all of my groups have a set of agreements that everybody has to agree to before we even get started.

We also do a blessing of our space, and this is not in a religious context. This is an intention setting for our time together. And I ensure that everybody's on the same page before we even start. This creates trust. This creates a sense of connection with each other, and it makes it so much easier for people to connect because there are people that feel afraid to join these groups for so many reasons. And I want to acknowledge and explore some of these concerns because they're

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so valid and they deserve attention. One of them is the fear of being vulnerable. One of our biggest fears is to share our truth in front of other people. This can stem from a belief that showing emotions in front of others might make you feel exposed or weak. And in reality, vulnerability, as I like to say, is a superpower. Vulnerability and grief support groups is often met with compassion and non-judgment.

In fact, sharing in a group can reduce the burden of carrying everything alone. And vulnerability is not about having all the answers or putting on a brave face. It's about showing up as you are in the fullness of your truths. And sometimes that means sitting in silence, just showing up. That's okay too. In the groups, I never ever force anybody to talk if they don't want to. Boundaries are super important. You could just be there in embodied presence, listening, participating. That's okay.

But what I find is everybody ends up sharing anyway because somebody will say something that makes you feel so seen, so heard that you want to share your experience with them and say, I see you too. And I feel the same way too, right? Another fear is the fear of being judged. What if people don't get it? What if I say too much? What if I say the wrong thing? What if my loss is not as important as somebody else's? This is...

natural to feel, but they are not true, especially in a support group. Most of these spaces are built on principles, like I said, we establish the sense of security and expectations before we get started, we create a space of non-judgment and compassion. So there's a sense of psychological safety where everybody's grief is honored. This is very important. It's also important to recognize that no two grief journeys are the same and that's okay. Your story

matters. It doesn't matter if you think that your story is less than in relation to somebody else's because the worst grief is our own. So within a group setting, all grief, I find it's met with empathy and understanding rather than judgment. Another fear is being triggered, which is completely understandable. A lot of people worry that they will just get triggered and start crying and won't be able to stop and that's embarrassing and all the things, right? So while that's valid,

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Part of why we create agreements in the first place is how we put agreed upon boundaries around what we can share and how we share it. The goal is not to overwhelm you, but to provide a supportive environment where you can process emotions at your own pace. So if this is something that resonates with you, consider attending a group with an experienced facilitator who can guide the discussion and offer coping tools if the emotions become overwhelming. Another one,

that I'll address is the fear of not fitting in. Some people worry that they're going to not fit into the group and they won't be able to connect with other people. And this fear can be especially present if you feel like your grief is too specific or too unique. So for example, sibling loss is a kind of grief that is not always acknowledged in the same way that the loss of a parent or child might be. And that's exactly why I offer the specific support group for bereaved siblings, because it's a

lays to process exactly that the sibling wants, especially as we approach the holidays, which can be so overwhelming with memories and reminders of our person not being there, that sibling who's been a witness to our entire life story not being there, and that is a painful, painful thing to navigate. So in this case, I'll address very quickly the group for siblings. Why just for siblings? Because sibling grief can feel so invisible.

Society doesn't provide space for it in the same way that other kinds of loss, but the bond between siblings is often the longest relationship we'll ever have. Like I said, they are our life's witness. In our Forever a Sisters group, we're going to create a space to honor all of these bonds, share our memories, and navigate the intense emotions that can surface during the holidays, which can be especially tough. So we'll talk about rituals, traditions, signs, how we interact.

with our family in this new context, how we set up boundaries, how we deal with our triggers, how we can express our grief, how can we make room while being a parent and a daughter and dealing with extended family and how can we create pockets of joy, grief amidst our grief. So this space is going to provide us a safe space for us to share our experiences, process our pain and honor our siblings and meaning.

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in meaningful ways. get to be siblings in this context together. So overall, I hope this gives you a better understanding. There are so many benefits to sharing. So returning to the science for a moment, for example, research shows that verbally expressing our grief can help our brains process traumatic experiences. In the study published in the Journal of Loss and Trauma,

It demonstrated that sharing stories in a safe environment not only allows emotional release, but also helps to rewire the brain to better cope with trauma and loss over time. So talking about our grief, hearing it reflected back in others' experiences and receiving support helps us integrate the loss into our lives in a way that's healing rather than stifling. I learned early on in grief that if you ever hear somebody

repeating the same story over and over and over again, the story of their loss over and over again, almost in a very circular pattern, years, decades later. Oftentimes that means that that person did not have the right support early on in their grief to be able to process. They feel this sense of needing to repeat themselves to feel acknowledged. While grief lasts a lifetime, there are some things that we can do to reduce the suffering. The pain gets tended.

the suffering gets adjusted and we are working on the suffering that comes with loss, on tending to our grief and reducing the suffering. The sooner we do it, the more we do it in community with the right tools, with the right support, with the right facilitators, the better we fare in the long term. So to close, ask yourself, do you feel like you need more support than you're currently getting?

Are you craving a space where you can express your grief without fear or judgment? Would hearing other people's experience help you feel less alone? Do you want to learn from people who are navigating similar emotions? Do you want to explore your grief outside of yourself, outside of your journal, outside of your family? Do you want to talk to somebody who has been there? I encourage you to look into support.

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whether that's one-on-one and or a grief group. And if you're a brief sibling looking for a space to navigate the holidays, I would love for you to join us. The website will be linked in the show notes, foreverassister.com. I also offer one-on-one grief support. You can go to griefandlight.com and find all of the options there from one-on-one support group to my monthly grief circles to the dedicated programs that I've built. I'm always coming up with ideas to support.

meet you where you are. I also have Grief and Light the Community which is a virtual space for grievers and this way if you're not ready to interact one-on-one in a live setting you can connect there whenever wherever. So this is a on-demand community in the virtual space where you can connect with other grievers and you can continue the conversation there. Grief is not something we get over it's something we learn to carry and when we carry it together the weight gets a little

lighter. The beauty of having different options, whether that's the one-on-one, the peer-led, the coach-led, the online groups, is that you find the right type of support that's for you. There's no rush to join a support group if you're not ready, but if you are, the benefits can be truly transformative. And if you're a bereaved sibling, our Forever Assist Your Grief group may be a perfect place to start. I hope you join us. I hope this was helpful for you, so let me know.

in comments wherever you're listening or you could send me a message on my Instagram, which is at grief and light. Let me know what you think. And if you'd like to connect with me, go to grief and light.com. There is support out there when you need it. Thank you so much for listening today and for being here until next time. May you always find spaces where your grief is honored and may you always be met with light. That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the grief and light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories.

Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight. Or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember, you are not alone.