This is the transcript for Grief Out Loud Ep. 350 What If Grief Care Is Preventative Care? Dr. Kailey Bradley. Find the audio version of the episode here.
SPEAKERS
Jana DeCristofaro (host)
Dr. Kailey Bradley (guest)
Jana 0:08
Hey listeners, it's Jana. Welcome back to Grief Out Loud.
My guest today is Dr. Kailey Bradley, a counselor, educator, and someone who brings both professional expertise and personal experience to the conversation. Kailey shares about growing up with chronic illness, being diagnosed with premature ovarian failure at age 12, and how those early experiences shaped her understanding of grief; both death and non-death losses. In our conversation we explore what it actually means to process grief, why anger and big questions are such important parts of the experience, and how grief shows up differently depending on who we are – including for neurodivergent kids and adults. We also talk about something I hear more and more in this field – the idea that grief care isn’t just responsive, it’s preventative, and what might change if we created communities that were prepared for grief before a crisis happens. And as always, we come back to the small acts that can be so powerful in grief support. Things like giving kids choices on how they participate or simply making space to sit with someone without trying to fix how they are thinking or feeling. Kailey is a prolific trainer, avid reader, and dedicated student of all things grief. So whether you are grieving, or supporting someone who is, I know you’re going to learn a lot. OK, here’s our conversation.
Jana 01:37
Kailey, welcome to Grief Out Loud. This conversation is a long time coming, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Dr. Bradley 01:45
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I feel very honored. I love this podcast. As I said, I'm a frequent listener, so super excited to be here.
Jana 01:54
And now you get to listen to yourself, once this episode's up.
Dr. Bradley 01:58
Which is, yeah, I don't always like hearing my own voice, so you know...
Jana 02:05
Well, so many of us in this field, not all of us, but many of us have our own stories of grief that we bring into the work. And I'm wondering which losses you'd like to share about today.
Dr. Bradley 02:16
Yeah, I would say that I have quite a few non-death losses that I'd love and feel honored to share a little bit about. I was a sick kid, with lots of chronic illness and pediatric illness, and found myself often having a lot of big questions because of that. Which I think big questions come with grief, right? And then when I was 12, I was diagnosed with a genetic disorder that threw me into a premature ovarian failure. So at 12, essentially, I found out I was not going to be able to have my own children, which, at 12, is not necessarily something that you can even wrap your head around, right? You're more concerned with, you know, does the guy in algebra class like me, or, you know, that's just not even something that you can really conceptualize. So that's been kind of an ongoing grief process as I've come into adulthood, and those different nuances and layers to infertility, grief. And then as an adult, I have other chronic illnesses. I have a primary immune deficiency. You know, my own counselor once said to me that it's okay to grieve, non-death losses. And even as somebody in this field, I didn't necessarily even register that or feel like that was something that I was allowed to experience. I thought, well, I haven't lost anything. But certainly, an expected future I feel like I have grieved and am grieving. So, I think giving space for those non death losses is really, really important.
Jana 04:09
I really appreciate what you shared about finding out when you're 12 about a condition that can create a sense of loss, but something you couldn't quite understand until you got older, and how important it is to recognize that an event can happen, a death loss or a non-death loss, at a certain age, and then we continue to wind our way through the grief of that reality at each different stage in our life with different understandings in different places. So thank you for giving voice to the fact that the non-death losses come along for the ride, just as the death losses do.
Dr. Bradley 04:41
Yeah, yes, they do.
Jana 04:51
I've heard you joke about being the Grief Lady, and I laughed because my friends have been calling me the Death Lady for over 20 years. So I feel like you've already sort of laid the groundwork for this question, but what drew you to really want to specialize in grief in your work?
Dr. Bradley 05:10
So I got my master's in clinical mental health counseling in 2015 and some of my friends in the program had a very clear sense of what they wanted to specialize in, and what type of counseling they were going to do. I was not one of those. I knew that in some capacity, I wanted to work with children or teens, but I didn't really know what that was going to look like. So, when I graduated in 2015, I actually landed at a juvenile detention center for 12 to 18 year olds. These were teenagers who had severe addiction, severe behavioral issues, and I'm putting this in air quotes, “behavioral issues”, because what I quickly learned was these were teenagers who had just mountains of unprocessed loss and trauma, and that's really what they wanted to talk about. And I was very ill equipped, and I also kept thinking a lot about if they had just had the space to process these losses, I don't know that they would have been in the juvenile detention center. I often will say in my teaching and in my presentations, I think grief work is preventative mental health care. And I think so many quote, unquote, misbehaviors or even addictions are really unprocessed grief and loss. And you know, not always. And I don't want to make that sound too simplistic. But I just was struck so much with how desperately these teenagers really wanted to talk about their loss. And so I had a wonderful counseling supervisor at the time, and I sat down with her and I said, you know, grief just keeps coming up in my clinical work. I don't feel prepared. It may be shocking for some people to know, or not, that in most Master of Counseling programs, there's really little training on grief. You get a little smattering here and there about human growth and development, but by and large, it's such a gap area. So anyway, she kind of graciously said, well, Kailey, I think that you should maybe volunteer at a local hospice, just to kind of get your feet wet in that world. And so I volunteered at a children's grief camp. And, I like to joke, the rest was kind of - I just fell in love, right? I was like, Oh, this is what I want to do. And then couple months later, a job opened up at that same hospice. And so I was a hospice bereavement coordinator for about five years, from about 2016 to 2021. And then in 2021 when Covid happened, another grief and loss, my position kind of dissolved at that particular hospice agency. And so that is actually when my partner and I started our own counseling practice. But very long winded answer to just saying, gosh, do I believe that grief care is preventative mental health care. I believe that down to my core.
Jana 08:17
Well, I want to talk more about that, but first I want to ask what stood out to you with that experience, first time being in the children's grief camp,
Dr. Bradley 08:27
I think I expected it to just be this overwhelmingly sad and tearful experience. And yes, there were tears, but I was really just struck with how these kids just needed a space to be kids, and they needed a place where, yes, they could process their loss, but in a place where that felt normal and validated and that they could also play that grief out or express it in different ways. I think it was so telling for me that very few of the kids, maybe necessarily, would say, you know, Miss Kailey, I'm feeling really sad today about my grief, you know. But if you gave them an opportunity to process it in a creative way or in a play-based way, I just think the insights that emerged were really, really significant. And again, I just kept thinking how vital this support is, and how it was going to really, really shape and form these kids and teens lifelong. And they would even say like, oh, I felt alone before I attended a grief camp, right? I felt like I was the only one, and now I know I'm not. So there was just so many things that stood out to me in that experience.
Jana 09:40
With the idea of grief care being preventative care: Are there ways that you've witnessed that in your own experience with grieving for the non-death losses in your life?
Dr. Bradley 09:53
Yeah, I think, again, being in a counseling office as a college student, which was really the first time that I had really processed the infertility piece of things, it was kind of around the time that my older brother and his wife, they were having kiddos. And I think it was the first time I realized, like, oh, this is not going to be the reality for me, right? And I think having just that space to be met with non-judgment, I think, is really why I do what I do now. It just shaped my whole approach to counseling, right? It shaped my sense that, like, oh yeah, I am allowed to feel all of these things. I don't have to label a particular feeling as good or bad - It just is. And my experience was really honored and validated in a way that I think I wouldn't be where I'm at today, if not for that experience.
Jana 10:46
This seems like maybe a strange question, but one of the things that you know, there's a lot of terms that are in the field that we work in that we hear over and over again, and kind of just nod our heads, and I'm like, yeah, but wait a minute, what does that actually mean? I wanted to ask around this idea of processing loss and like, what does that actually mean to you?
Dr. Bradley 11:11
Yeah. Oh, that is a good question, not a strange question. It's a good one, yeah. What did processing loss look like for me? I think I finally stopped apologizing for my emotions. I think I was always somebody who was deeply feeling. Didn't always feel like that was appropriate or allowed, and when I finally had a place for those emotions to just get out of my system, it was really healing. So as cheesy as that might sound, I think processing grief for me was just allowing myself to feel those emotions again and not label them as good or bad, or, you know, I shouldn't feel this, or I should feel that. It all belongs and it all fits and it's all valid.
Jana 12:03
Was there one emotion in particular that was perhaps surprising to you, to be part of the...in the wheel of grief?
Dr. Bradley 12:11
I think anger. You know, in many ways, I'm very grateful for the part of me that is spiritual. But sometimes, in the religious environment I grew up in, anger wasn't very welcome, or that wasn't seen as appropriate. And so I didn't know what to do with that, right? I didn't know always what to do with those, maybe this is anger? But also I didn't always know what to do with those big questions that I had. I was always that person who was raising their hand, you know, and said they school, and being like, wait a minute, I don't quite understand. Like, why? Like, what? Huh? I was always that person really just hungry to be able to ask those questions. So not only the anger, but I think the questioning, and again, when I finally was able to get some of those questions out and it be met with compassion instead of judgment, again, that just has shaped my whole approach to the work that I do,
Jana 13:08
Just to have that space to wrestle with, I just feel like a lot of those questions don't have one answer, right? And if we ask the question, people around us feel like they need to provide an answer, and maybe particular systems or organizations are even more inclined to do that. And so to be able to wrestle with the question without having to come up with an answer, sometimes is so powerful.
Dr. Bradley 13:28
I often say we're so quick to give an answer, especially to like a child and a teenager before they've even gotten the question out of their mouth, right? We're so quick to be like, oh, well, this is, you know, this gives me discomfort as an adult, right? And so I need to quickly give that answer. And yeah, I wasn't really looking for an answer. I really was just looking for space to ask the question.
Jana DeCristofaro 13:52
One thing I've noticed from following you on social media is every day you're giving another training on a brand-new topic. I don't know how-it's an amazing schedule, and I'm like, how do you have so much to say about so many different things? What is your favorite topic?
Dr. Bradley 14:10
Very kind. Oh, I do think that that is the counselor educator in me. I do love to teach and, you know, provide resources and information. Yeah, you know, I think I recently did a presentation on how I think grief is not just an individual experience, but it is a communal thing. And when we create what I call grief informed societies and communities, I think we build really resilient communities. So that has been kind of a newer interest of mine, broadening, you know, how do we create space for communities to be grief informed there aren't necessarily a ton of grief resources in my small rural community, and I am trying to change that. You know, creating those grief informed societies has become a topic I'm really passionate about.
Jana 15:14
What would you say are like the top tenants of a grief informed community?
Dr. Bradley 15:21
Yeah, I think responsive, right? And so instead of, well, responsive in the sense of not being reactive, but being preventative, right? So training teachers, clergy, community leaders, before a crisis happens, right? I often feel like in communities, sometimes something tragic happens and we respond, but I often am like, oh, I think it needs to be preventive, right? Let's have these conversations and normalize these conversations. I think access is a huge part of a grief informed society. So making sure that our resources are available. If they're not there, making sure our resources are accessible and equitable and intersectional. Those are really important components of that. So yeah, some of the work I'm doing right now is hopefully going to be training faith leaders in our rural community. I often hear from faith leaders that, you know they may be, especially in my community, the first people that when somebody experiences a loss that they go to and yet they're saying, but you know, Kailey, I don't feel necessarily like I have the resources or like I'm well equipped to do so. So one of my visions is to train faith leaders so that they're able to best serve their constituents.
Jana 16:48
I don’t know if this has been your experience, but for me, with the training that I've done, I feel like so much of what I'm training people to do is to do less. You know, I was like, I feel like I need to know, come train me. I need to know what to do. And I'm like, well, it's kind of more about, like, stop doing so much. I don't know if that's been your experience.
Dr. Bradley 17:07
Yeah, I think we want so bad, the perfect phrase, right? When somebody's in pain, we want the magic formula, the magic, you know, intervention. But yeah, I think so much of it is about your presence being there. I tell my supervisees and my students all the time: don't underestimate the power of your presence. And sometimes I think they probably roll their eyes at me because I say it so frequently, right? And I don't mean that to sound easy, right? Because, gosh, it would be so nice if we had this magic point A to point B through the grief process, but we know it doesn't work like that, right? And there is no fixing grief either, right? I think sometimes that that desire comes from a space too, of like, well, I just want this person to get over their grief. And maybe we don't even say that, right? I don't think most people would even think that they're communicating that. But I do think sometimes we forget that grief is not something to fix. It's just an experience that we can sit with somebody in.
Jana 18:11
You mentioned, I don't know if you said it was a newer focus, but a current focus, around collective community grief. And I wonder if you could say a little bit more about that, because I keep thinking about the pandemic and how we're like, almost everybody went through I mean, we all went through it. We went through it in very different ways, but we all went through this thing. And I keep thinking about, like, there's just not that much being talked about that experience.
Dr. Bradley 18:42
No! And the numbers of like you said, I mean, again, death and non death, loss. I don't know one person that wasn't impacted. Like I shared. I think for me, my whole career trajectory shifted pretty quickly. I mean, I really thought that I was going to be working at that particular hospice my entire career. I really did. And so when I you know when that experience happened, when the position kind of changed, and it was around that time as well that I was diagnosed with my primary immune deficiency, and my immunologist was kind of advising me, like, don't really know if this is going to be the best option for you long term, like I'm worried about you. So yeah, I mean, so much grief and so much grief overload, and you're so right. I'm just beginning to process and think through how little we actually talked about it. I mean, we're six years out, and it's almost as if we're kind of navigating like, oh, that didn't happen. I don't have solutions for that. You know, other than I'm doing a lot of reflecting on, are there rituals, are there collective experiences that can speak and name the fact that, no no no, this did happen. It impacted us all. And again, I think we're more resilient when we actually name an experience.
Jana 20:04
Well, I'm wondering now too about you navigating the pandemic with a recent immune deficiency diagnosis, and how that may have contributed to your experience.
Dr. Bradley 20:16
Oh, so yeah, I mean, I could speak hours and hours on, I would even use the term microaggressions that happened. I think you heard a lot of, well, it's not a big deal - if you don't have a compromised immune system, you're fine. You're going to be fine. And I just remember thinking, Okay, but what if? What does that mean for me? Like, wait a minute. And even navigating systems - like it took a very long time for insurance to approve the infusions that I'm on. And so there was five, six months right smack in the middle of the pandemic that I had this diagnosis and was really fighting to get these treatments. So much uncertainty. I think that's the word, and I know that's such a common thing for so many folks during covid, but I just remember feeling just so much uncertainty. And circling back to that anger component. I mean, a lot of anger too, right? A lot of anger in terms of a lot of people assuming that I was just being difficult or political when I would have to make some requests or things about my safety, people being frustrated that, you know, I would be like, I really need you to wear a mask around me. And that would not always be received well. So yeah, I mean so many different emotions and experiences. But it also, I think, opened my eyes a lot to the experience of the disabled community, the neurodivergent community, which I'm very passionate about. And I actually received an autism spectrum diagnosis at 30, which is a whole other thing. But yeah, I think it really opened my eyes to just the lived reality of people whose minds and bodies don't work as everybody else's, and how we have such a strict, narrow definition of normal in our culture. That really was very clear to me during covid.
Jana 22:23
And then if you fall outside that strict definition, having to advocate for yourself, asking for accommodations from other people. It reminds me of people who have had a loss in how they are in a very different place and needing different things, and having to ask/advocate for things and how people may respond accommodatingly. Or not accommodatingly.
Dr. Bradley 22:43
Uh huh. There's such a parallel there. And in fact, I've been thinking also a lot lately about in disability literature there's a concept called the Social Model of Disability, which basically speaks to, is it the disability itself that's disabling, or is it the fact that we're navigating a society that isn't accessible? So for example, is it the fact that you're in a wheelchair that's disabling, or is it facing an inaccessible building where you can't get into that's disabling? Right? And I kept thinking about how I think that aligns with grief, right? It's like grief itself isn't the problem, right? It's a society that has made grief seem like a disease, and we don't talk about it, we put it out, you know, over here. That's the problem, right? So I've even thought about, like, a social model of grief, right, and how, again, we can link that to grief-informed societies, I think, are better at being accessible to the lived reality of a grieving individual.
Jana 23:48
I wanted to go back to what you mentioned about receiving a diagnosis of autism in your third decade of life, and wondering how has that diagnosis changed how you perceive your own grief and supporting others in their grief.
Dr. Bradley 24:05
Yeah, it's been liberating to be honest, and I know that a lot of late diagnosed individuals share similar sentiments, that it's a mixed bag, right? Because there is a sense of grief in terms of, would my life have been easier if I had had this knowledge earlier on? But for me, it's just opened up a wellspring of self-compassion. I think for so long, I mentioned there were just certain things that I struggled with or that I didn't feel...I often used to joke that I'm like, I feel like there's this manual on how to be a human, and I didn't get that. And so again, just having context for who I am as a person, it just has been amazing how much self-compassion it's given me, and I think it's helped me be a more compassionate counselor as well, because I think we often miss-assume that grief is only expressed in one way. And one thing I've learned from the neurodivergent community is like emotions are expressed in a lot of different ways, and it may be really tricky for a neurodivergent individual to identify an emotion. For example, for me, I often feel like I'm very good at reading emotions, but I don't always know how to label those appropriately. It's like I know there's an energy in the room, but it's very hard for me sometimes to accurately identify that. And so again, having that language of ASD has really, again, just given me a lot of compassion for myself
Jana 25:35
With that challenge of like, you can feel the emotion in the room, but you're not sure, like what it is, is that yours or others, or both?
Dr. Bradley 25:45
I think, yeah, probably both. I think one of the things that really cued me into my own neurodivergence was being very out of sync with not just my emotions, but my own, like felt sense of what was going on. The big, fancy counselor term for that is interoception - being able to read your body's cues. I was terrible at that, and I've always been really terrible at that. Again, having that knowledge has helped me be like, okay, I literally set an alarm on my phone at different points during the day just to do a check in and a body scan. Like, how am I doing? Like, what is my body trying to communicate to me right now? And that's been really helpful, because, again, many people on the spectrum will share that, yeah, there's, there's kind of a miscommunication, or just not a communication, between the mind and the body always
Jana 26:41
With that idea, are there suggestions that you have for parents, caregivers, other folks in the field who are supporting kids or teens with autism who have had someone in their life die in terms of maybe communicating the news or helping them process their emotions?
Dr. Bradley 26:59
Yeah, I think again, emotions and being able to identify those are going to be maybe a little more challenging. And so just because somebody isn't tearful doesn't mean that they're not struggling, right? And I think that's true across the board, not even just specific to neurodivergent folks like again, we always equate grief and sadness. And yes, but it's so much more than that too. There's so much that goes into the grief experience. So I think broadening what grief expression can look like, you know, maybe being mindful, like, if you're if your kiddo is neurodivergent, they may be expressing their grief somatically, right? And they may be saying things like, my belly hurts or my head hurts. Cueing into that and being curious about, okay, I wonder what's going on there, right? I always say to that, you know, behaviors are communication, and I think for neurodivergent kids, sometimes things come out as behavior versus I'm sad, right? And so being just again, compassionately curious about that experience. I really, really love the resource from the Hospice Foundation of America called Autism and Grief. It's a treasure trove. I just wanted to shout that out of just some really practical solutions, or not solutions, but just some guidelines on how to talk about loss with autistic kids, teens and families. I really, really love that resource a lot. I use it quite frequently.
Jana 28:33
One of the things that we turn to a lot at Dougy center is this idea of choice and autonomy for kids, teens and adults, especially in grief. And I know that's a big passion sort of subject for you, too. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit more about that?
Dr. Bradley 28:50
Yeah, oh man. In fact, you know, when I attended the Summer Institute at Dougy last year, it really struck me, just the emphasis on choice, and I think about how little choice kids often have. Kids are told they do this, they do that, you know. And man, is it, I think, counter cultural to give kids opportunity to decide for themselves, right, what might feel helpful to them, instead of an adult just telling them. I think it just builds autonomy and autonomy is such an important psychological tenant. And it just creates resiliency and psychological flexibility. I mean, there's so many benefits to giving kids choice. So I'm, yeah, I'm so passionate about it. I know sometimes I talk about it, probably again to redundancy, maybe, but I don't think we can say it enough, because, again, I just think kids have often have so little, little opportunities for choice. I really do.
Jana 30:04
Is there an example or two from your work with kids or with parents who are supporting kids, or you've been like, oh, look, that was magic to give that kiddo a choice in that moment.
Dr. Bradley 30:13
Yeah, in my grief groups. And I know this aligns with you know what you guys do at Dougy. My kids are never forced to share. They can always pass. And I had a kid recently actually come up to me after a group and say, Miss Kailey, thanks for not making me share anything. I wasn't really feeling real great today, and it was nice to just sit back and listen. And that just warmed my heart so much, because I mean, and again, from a neurodivergent perspective, I hate when, when I'm in a group and everybody goes one person at a time, I am just I'm instantly on edge. I'm instantly rehearsing in my head what I need to say or what I should say. And so again, when I kind of dispel that in my groups from the outset that like you do not have to and I'm not going to go person by person by person, like it just creates, I think, a more hospitable space.
Jana 31:09
I always think, Gosh, can you imagine when we were in school, it was like, you can just say I pass on a question. How nice.
Dr. Bradley 31:16
Oh, my gosh, yes, yes, yes, I know. Again so few opportunities. I think that's changing, but it's just such an important part of my work.
Jana 31:31
So in addition to loving doing trainings, I know you also love to come up with cool, new activities. Thinking specifically an activity in a grief group that you run. So is there an activity or two recently that you've been, like, really into?
Dr. Bradley 31:48
Yeah, my last grief group, actually, we were talking about different people who support us in our grief, and we need a support chain. Which it was super simple. I am not an art therapist. I like to say that, and I like to joke that I'm also not artistic myself, but I love expressive, art-based techniques and modalities. And so this one was real simple. We just used construction paper, made a little circle, taped it, and made a support chain, and then we hung it around the room. And then I asked my group, what does it feel like to see all of these, you know, names around us, of people who support us in our loss? So it's a really nice visual of that that we again, we're not alone in our grief. It's what I love about groups in just in general, is just the power of being in the same space as other grieving individuals. I just think it's, yeah, it's immeasurable of the power of that. So my support chain was something really, really, really fun that we did recently. And I'm actually concluding a group here in a couple of weeks, and one intervention we're doing is having them identify one thing they're taking with them from the group and putting it in an envelope, and they're taking that envelope with them. So I like things that they can kind of take with them to something tangible. But again, I try to make my interventions not too extravagant, simply because I am not an artist. So I like things that are easy but that are also nice visuals.
Jana 33:17
One of the ways I love to do that support chain activity is to have kids write on one side of their paper like something that they go to or something that's helpful for them, and then on the other side write the person or the pet or the place that can provide that for them, so that we can branch it out. Because sometimes I think it's like, have to go to one person for everything and to recognize like, oh, this friend is really good at finding hilarious videos to send me, but they're not the friend I'm going to go to when I'm crying, but I have this other friend who can sit with me in my tears and to just broaden that out for kids, I think can be really helpful.
Dr. Bradley 33:57
We need all sorts of different support in our grief, right? Like, yeah, I love that.
Jana 34:03
Well, speaking of support in grief, I don't know about you, but once people are done calling me the Death Lady, they always say, like, how do you do that work? It must be so hard. And I'm like, yeah, it is. But I'm wondering, how do you balance doing the work that you do tending to your own grief? What's your formula?
Dr. Bradley 34:22
I have my own counselor, which I highly recommend. Yeah, I mean, I think it's important that as helpers, we also have our own spaces to get it out. So having your own counselor or people friends, I have a wonderful group of friends here in my community that just, yeah, they're amazing. My animals, my pets. I have two dogs. They're rotten. And in fact, I'm surprised they haven't popped their head up or made a nuisance, a noise. But just getting outside and you know, taking them for walks. Fresh air, is really important to me. I also think being a part of communities that also do this work has been really vital. So organizations like ADEC: the Association for Death Educators and Counselors, NACG, the National Alliance for Children's Grief. Sometimes it can feel like we're doing this work in silos, and so when I'm in those kinds of professional organizations, reminding myself that I'm not alone. I mentioned that in, you know, grief groups, but sometimes we need that reminder as well. You know, being a part of those organizations is very, very helpful for me as well. My partner, my husband, is also a counselor, and so it's kind of nice. Like, I don't always have to explain to him, like, maybe there's a day where I'm like, I just, I'm really tired. I need a moment. I'm not, like, upset at you or anything. I just need a moment to check out for a little bit. He gets that, and he understands that in a way that I'm really thankful for.
Jana 36:05
How do you respond when people say to you, oh, that work must be so sad. Kailey, how do you do it?
Dr. Bradley 36:12
Oh, yeah. And I do get that question a lot, especially when I say, I do work primarily with, you know, grieving kids and teens. And I kind of respond like, like you did: Yes, AND. Like, yes, it's sad and it's really, really enriching, and gives me a lot of meaning and purpose. I've been surprised, like I mentioned the first time, I was at a grief camp again, I thought, Oh, I'm it's going to be tears all the time. There's equal amounts of laughter too, right? There's equal amounts of just normal, you know, kid absurdity, right? And just, in fact, I have to share this really funny story, so I'm doing groups right now in a school, and I have kindergarteners all the way up to high schoolers. And my kindergarten group comes in before my high school group, and it's over their lunch hour. My high schoolers came in after my kindergarteners, and they were freaking out because they were like, what is all of this sticky stuff on the table? Like? They were like, oh, tiny humans are so gross. And we just laughed. And that's then become kind of a joke in our group. Like, Yep, the tiny humans are messy. It's okay, you know? So I think I share with people that, yeah, it's sad the work we do. But again, it's meaningful. And again, when we give space for kids and teens to talk about grief, again, it just is preventative for so many other mental health concerns down the road. And so I think that gives me such energy reminding myself of like the work I'm doing does matter. The work I do is meaningful.
Jana 37:55
What projects do you have on the future horizons?
Dr. Bradley 38:00
Yeah, yeah. So, like I mentioned, I am working on a grant right now, doing some work surrounding the grief informed societies that I was kind of talking about, and we're hoping to do some workshops, trainings, and maybe even some retreats for local faith and spiritual leaders, again, to better equip and prepare you know, those individuals who are also carrying their own grief, right? And then often, I had one particular pastor share with me that over like, a three month period, he facilitated 17 funerals, and he was like, I didn't know where to go with my grief, right? Like, where do I go with my stuff and so really trying to work on the collective nature of grief, right? And the notion, again, when we're responding to grief as a community, we're much more resilient community.
Jana 38:58
Well, I'm excited for that, and for listeners who are also excited. Where can they connect with the work that you're doing?
Dr. Bradley 39:05
Yeah, so they can follow, actually, my podcast called, and this name always makes people chuckle, but my podcast is called the Death and Sex podcast, and it is co-hosted by my husband, Steven Thomas, who is specializes in sex therapy. So we like to joke that we have these double barreled taboos that we we chat about right? Definitely check out the Death and Sex podcast, and you can follow refuge counseling on Instagram and Facebook. That is the name of my counseling practice, and I often do a lot of book reviews on there. I'm a big book person, so I'm always looking for book resources and recommending those types of things. And then my grief nonprofit is the Ohio Bereavement Collaborative. Again, we're a baby nonprofit-just started six months ago, but because of that, we've been able to already offer grief support groups in our local schools, which we're super excited about.
Jana 40:08
Kailey, I don't know when you sleep, because between all the books that you read and the trainings that you do and all the other activities, it's pretty astounding.
Dr. Bradley 40:16
Well, thank you. I do sleep. I should have mentioned in your self care question. I am a huge nap person. I love to take a good nap in the afternoons. So, you know, that's, that's an important part of how I manage everything, too. My dogs usually join me. That's usually our afternoon routine. In fact, my husband calls it the puppy pile, because usually he finds all three of us like curled up somewhere.
Jana 40:46
Well, Kailey, thank you for taking time out of such a busy work and life world to talk with me today.
Dr. Bradley 40:54
I really appreciate being here. Thank you
Jana 40:56
And listeners out there, I'll link to all of the resources that Kailey mentioned, and thank you for tuning in, for being part of our community, for helping the show mean something. We always appreciate it when you share episodes with people who might also be interested in what we're talking about here. You can email me directly at griefoutloud@dougy.org. That's D, O, U, G, Y dot O R G. That's our main website, and there you'll find all of our information about our local programming, our free downloadable resources like tip sheets and activity sheets, and of course, every episode of Grief Out Loud. The other exciting thing we have are some ongoing online courses that you can take. So if you're wanting to learn more about becoming grief informed support, supporting students, supporting kids, teens and young adults who are grieving, you can head to our website to learn more about that there. Always excited to share that the podcast is sponsored in part by The Chester Stephan endowment fund. Thanks again for listening. We hope you'll join us again next time.