We've been so enjoying receiving feedback from coaches since we launched our new practitioners' course, that we asked Dr Denise Quinlan, Co-Founder of Coping With Loss, to share our three best grief coaching techniques.
Denise says, “The three best grief coaching techniques I’m sharing this month have essentially been voted for by coaches. These are the techniques you have told the Coping With Loss team were the ‘standout’ learnings and were your most useful takeaways from the course. Even more encouraging, a number of you said that these were techniques you haven’t found in any other grief training”.
By popular acclaim, here are the three best grief coaching techniques transforming the practice of even the most highly trained grief coaches.
Read on to learn more about how you could start using these techniques in your work.
Every coach wants to be able to share nuggets of wisdom with their clients - key phrases or expressions that clients can relate to, absorb, and easily remember. The ‘nuggets’ are what clients most easily hold on to and remember, making them more likely to remember, even in their most difficult moments, the learning and insights they’ve gained through their time with you.
As ‘pracademics’, we specialise in translating the scientific evidence-base into easy-to-use, practical tools, tips and techniques. Our courses are filled with catchy, simple, memorable summaries of important information. Coming up with these ‘nuggets’ ourselves is one of the things that we as a team enjoy doing most. We road test them in our live training, which allows us to see the ones that really stick; it’s easy to spot an ‘aha moment’ from the level of frantic head nodding and note taking! That way, you get the best of the best.
The ‘nuggets’ coaches tell us they love most in our new course are:
These are the ones proving particularly effective and popular with coaching clients so far.
Each of these phrases summarises important evidence supporting Resilient Grieving. Taken together, the tools and practices of our work build Grief Literacy - an important and often ignored aspect of health literacy. We know that literacy is most easily developed when it’s memorable, easy to absorb, relatable, and usable - which is why we’re so passionate about our ‘nugget’ phrases! Building them into your work will boost the effectiveness of the grief support you offer clients and improve your results.
Many people feel blindsided by grief. It’s one of the most significant challenges a person faces in life, and they can feel hugely vulnerable and lost. Reminding your clients that they have strengths and are capable and competent in many ways helps put them back in the driving seat of their lives. As a coach, we know you want to empower and equip your clients to use their strengths.
As a strengths researcher and practitioner, I’ve worked with people all over the world to identify and use their strengths, so I’ve seen first hand the impact it can have. Some of the strengths nuggets from my work that participants say are most inspiring and helpful include:
On our most recent Grief and Growth course, almost 60% of participants said thinking about their strengths was insightful and, for over 10% ‘fantastic’. Only 12% of participants were already familiar with their strengths, showing there is a long way to go in getting this information out there!
Amidst a sea of difficult emotions, the fact that positive emotions can still occur in grief and have a purpose, often surprises people! We regularly receive messages from grievers and coaches alike telling us how validating, liberating, and helpful it was to learn that positive emotions have an important role to play in grief. Positive emotions provide much- needed respite from the misery of grieving, and are part of healthy adaptation to loss.
I’ll never forget the grieving widow who said to me “you gave me permission to laugh with my sons at a time when I really needed to, but didn’t feel it was okay”. And hearing last week from one grief coach who told us “‘thank you for clarifying the value of positive emotions and experiences, and how they differ from toxic positivity”.
Emotional intelligence is about learning to make intelligent use of emotions. On that basis, it is not emotionally intelligent to deny oneself or others access to emotions that provide relief and respite from grief. Positive emotions provide restorative moments of relief from grieving. It’s in these moments where the griever’s physiology and psychology get a break from the hard, exhausting work of grieving.
Positive emotions can come from gratitude for love and support, for good times with a person who has died or in a valued career. Finding the silver lining, appreciating what’s still good in the world or connecting with experiences of awe in nature, music or spirituality are all ways that grieving people tap into positive emotions.
If you’re still on the fence about the value of positive emotions, listen to my interview with Prof. Judith Moskowitz whose research demonstrates how positive emotions help people facing significant life challenges, including chronic and terminal illness, and grief.
Grief is an inevitable part of life. Every one of us will at some point lose someone or something that we hold dear. The natural, healthy response to significant loss and transition is grief for what has been lost. Being able to recognise loss and help your clients navigate their grief in healthy, adaptive ways is a valuable skillset that will increase the effectiveness of every coach and mental health practitioner.
The techniques we’ve shared today encourage coaches and practitioners like you to make important mental health messages memorable and easy to use. They also remind coaches and mental health practitioners that, at this vulnerable time, it’s especially helpful to focus on client strengths to build agency and hope. Positive emotions and experiences give the grieving a break from the hard work of coping with loss and should be an essential tool in every coach’s toolkit.
If you’re a coach or mental health practitioner and want to support clients with up to date, evidence-based information from both resilience psychology and contemporary grief theory, head to our website to find out more about the self-paced Introduction to the Science and Practice of Resilient Grieving.
Accredited at 9 points for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) by the Health Coaches Association of New Zealand and Australia (HCANZA), the course provides valuable coaching skills and tools you’ll want to add to your toolkit! You can also explore the free resources and other courses on our website to share with clients or for yourself. We hope you enjoy them!
Learn More About Grief Coaching Techniques
You will learn practical tools and techniques to ensure you are as empowered and prepared as possible to get your life back on track, and work towards a greater sense of control and calm.
