Picture your typical day at work. now imagine a colleague/stakeholder has recently experienced a death in their family. They come into your workspace and crack a joke. Or ask you whether you caught the Raptors game, or the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones...
What is your gut reaction? Do you think nothing of it and continue along with the path of conversation, or is there a small part of you that pauses and wonders how this individual is speaking so nonchalantly? Do you automatically think that the individual is covering up their grief, or is there even a millisecond that you question whether they are grieving 'properly'?
It's human to have any of the above reactions. But it's something we need to work on. The truth is that those who are grieving even the most personal loss can have moments of joy, laughter, silliness... you name it. And our society is still stuck in the death-denying realm of believing that 'normal grief' looks like the bereft wearing black and walking around crying constantly.
Spoiler - there is no normal grief. Especially in the workplace.
Here is a starting point to learning more about the duplicity of a grieving state:
https://www.ted.com/talks/nora_mcinerny_we_don_t_move_on_from_grief_we_move_forward_with_it/up-next?language=en&utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=talk&utm_term=
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