Validating Grief and Supporting Others Over Mother’s Day. Interview with Archie and Donny STAR 106.3 Radio

Mother’s Day for most is a lovely day this Sunday, but for some it can be incredibly challenging – you might have lost your mum, or this is your first Mother’s Day without your mum, or maybe you’re trying really hard to be a mum and unfortunately it’s not happening for you. So we thought we’d talk to an expert this morning. Michelle Moriarty is with us, she’s the founder of Grief Connect. Good morning Michelle, how are you doing?

Michelle: Yeah, good morning.

Host: Michelle, for those struggling this Sunday, what advice do you have for them to try and get their heads up high still, on what is such a beautiful day for so many people?

Michelle: Look, firstly I just want to acknowledge how challenging grief can be for so many of us out there. My late partner died around seven years ago, so I certainly understand that grief experience coming into Mother’s Day, and quite often the build-up to Mother’s Day can be really intense and horrendous to get through. It’s really important that we validate that if we are the ones experiencing grief, and it’s also really important that people around us are able to validate our grief and check in with us as we go forward into Mother’s Day.

Host: So Michelle, what should someone do if you’ve got a friend who you know has lost their mum? Is it appropriate to reach out to them, and if so, what do you say, apart from “I’m just thinking of you”?

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. It is so important that if you have a friend who’s grieving and missing their mother, and you have that intuition or that sense that says, oh, I should check in with Sally, or I should check in with John, whoever your friend is – act on that intuition, act on that sense of reaching out to them and just checking in. And one of the most beautiful ways of checking in with someone is to ask a question like, how are you travelling? You can ask that question in person or send a text message with that question. What it does is really acknowledge that person’s grief and shows that you care. And even if that person who’s grieving isn’t able to respond – for example, in my early grief I had so many text messages come through and I wasn’t able to actually respond to all of them, or as the messages dropped off, even the ones I got through, I just didn’t have it in me to respond – at the same time, I remember how I felt, because I felt like people were checking in, I felt like I was being cared about, and I felt like I wasn’t doing grief on my own.

Host: When you’re in that situation, Michelle, and you don’t feel like you can reply to anyone, you don’t feel like you can pick up the phone – everyone obviously deals with grief differently and everyone’s going through their own mental health battle – is it better to sit in it on a day like that, or is it better to try and reach out to people?

Michelle: If you have it in you, I really encourage you to reach out and connect with people, because quite often that connection is what can help lift our energy levels or lift our spirits – it might be the most minuscule way that it does lift, but at least it’s one step forward to being able to help process our grief. Grief in itself makes us feel really isolated, it has this impact on us that affects our mental health and almost disables us from being able to reach and connect with other people. But if you can respond and push yourself just that little bit, that can be really helpful to stay connected with others around you, and also to have that additional support from people who care about you.

Host: Thank you so much, Michelle. We didn’t really know how to tackle the subject here on the show, but I think it’s really important, based on a couple of conversations we’ve had with people, that it’s easy to get swept up in the day – it’s less easy to talk about how challenging, for some people, it can be the worst day of the year. So we do really appreciate you sharing all those tips about how you can manage yourself throughout this period, if you fall into that category, or maybe a friend does, like you touched on. So it’s lovely to speak to you, the founder of Grief Connect, Michelle Moriarty, all the way from Western Australia – you got up really early for us. We really do appreciate you chatting to us ahead of Mother’s Day this year. Thank you for your time.

Michelle: Thanks for having me on the show.