Acute grief at work

These are ideas for people waiting helplessly for updates from far away or for people who are grieving. There are a lot of healthy ways to cope, including toggling between “pretending to be normal” and feeling feelings. Everyone experiences each loss differently.  Ignore anyone who tells you you’re doing it wrong – you don’t need guilt on top of everything else. And extend yourself as much compassion and grace as you would your best friend.

Keep auto response messages up, especially for people outside your institution. Delegate decisions (especially when people ask you to do things a few months away) to a “no” committee of trusted mentors/peers/supervisors.

Pre-negotiate (and re-negotiate) deadline extensions. Things take longer longer while your mind and body are grappling with grief.

Simplify your professional to-do list as much as you can. In the month after my father died, I cleared off nearly everything but one paper I could analyze and write myself, the one that was least triggering.

Make space in your life for one “self-care” activity each day. This could be time for the extra sleep your body may need, exercise (even a short walk outside), allowing yourself to cry, laying on the floor and staring at the ceiling, and more.

Create a “menu” of both work and self-care activities, ranked from high to low cognitive/emotional load (or ask someone to do this for you), to reduce decision fatigue. Or use the Eisenhower matrix to help organize work tasks.

Accept offers for help, even though it feels really weird. Others feel helpless in the face of your loss and grief, or may be reminded of their own losses. Accepting help is a gift to those around you who care.

Ask other people to write emails that you can’t or shouldn’t (especially moving deadlines or explaining what’s happening). And I use “can’t” liberally here - there are a lot of things I can force myself to do. But perhaps the cost is higher than need be, and others could help.

Check in with yourself about what you are wishing for or wanting (aside from a time machine or magic wand). In early days I dreamed of running away for a long thru-hiking backpacking trip, but it wasn’t until a colleague encouraged me to take time off that I realized that’s what my brain was telling me I needed. It helped to have external encouragement to listen to myself. I’ve gotten better about listening, and putting these needs into words.

Recommend that people around you listen to this podcast with the founder of Grief Warrior, which teaches HR and managers how to support grieving employees.