Guest writer Cardy Camara writes about the support that coaching provided during a period of grieving.

I was thinking today about what tools I had available to me and what I had used when trying to deal with my grief. Today is, or would have been, my brother’s birthday and I still miss him dreadfully.

I’ve tried various types of support such as counselling, exercise, art (drawing/painting/writing), mindfulness, and coaching to help me on my grief journeys. They have all helped me in different ways. For context my father died when I was 20 and I dealt with my grief by leaving my job, my home and country and finding work overseas! Eventually after several years, I was sent to see a psychiatrist who told me I had a difficult life! I was then diagnosed with seasonal depression and received light therapy and prescription medicine. When my mother died 20 years later, my grief went into overdrive, and I did not cope very well for a long time. I did try to get grief counselling but when my letter advising me of my appointment was received after my appointment and I then contacted the doctors I was told I would have to reapply, and it all seemed too much effort, so I never received any specific grief counselling. Eventually I was referred to group counselling, I only took this option because you got more sessions if you had group sessions. The group counselling brought up a lot of traumas from my childhood and was therefore a very difficult process but ultimately helpful.

My brother died when I was 58 and whilst struggling with grief, I was offered coaching as part of a training course provide by my employers. It was probably too early in my journey to have grief counselling, but I found that the coaching sessions really helped me. One of the most helpful ideas I got from my coach was to write a letter to my brother asking him all the unanswered questions that I wanted to ask him. For context my brother was hiding his own trauma of our mother’s death by hoarding which I didn’t find out about until after his death. He also had quite the financial legacy I had to try and unpick. Again, I wasn’t aware of any of this, so I had many, many questions to ask him after his death. We worked out that writing things down was better for me than ruminating and keeping things in my head.

So I picked up my pen and wrote. I wrote the questions in floods of tears and asked and asked and asked. The process helped me to decide what I wanted to ask and why I wanted to ask them. As you may know you’re held to account in coaching, we reviewed my progress at the next session. Again, floods of tears but also lightness. Coaching helped me to ask my brother Gerry all the questions that I wanted to, and the sessions helped me to navigate my feelings and helped me to find a positive way forward.

It’s funny isn’t it, I’m a trained coach but it never occurred to me that coaching could help with grief, but it has helped me. I know that grieving is a deeply personal and complex journey. I would say take all the support that is offered to you as they can help at different times and in different ways. Of course, you must choose the tools that are best for you and I hope you find solace.

Cardy Camara is a trained coach and a member of the staff coaching network at the University of Manchester. She attended a development programme for disabled staff at University of Manchester run by Result in 2017, where her coach was Jane Cordell.