Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Julie Shaw.
Hi Dr. Shaw, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My story is one that everyone whether we realize it or not will experience. It is a story of grief and loss. In 2020, many of us experienced immense loss and many of us experienced the death of a loved one. I was one of those people. My sister died from Lupus in February 2020 one month before the world shut down. My sister was my best friend and I refer to her as “my person”. She was my hero in every sense of the word and after fighting a long battle, I began one of the biggest battles I have had to face, grief. In addition to this loss my grief was compounded with my struggles with infertility and the loss I have experienced trying to conceive, which is also a grief that is not talked about enough. In my midst of trying to make sense of all the grief I was experiencing, I had a need to learn everything I could about it and why no one had prepared me for this. In the past, I had turned to journaling to help in challenging times, but I had writer’s block as I felt as if writing in my journal would make my sister’s death real. So I tried something different. I tried social media and did not tell anyone I had started a page on Instagram. I was able to write simple captions that talked about my grief and soon enough, I started connecting with others who understood how I felt. This connection had power and I saw quickly how it helped me and most importantly others.
With that realization, I quickly immersed myself in grief education and became a certified grief educator by the world-renowned grief expert David Kessler. Then started thinking about how could I bring more awareness to this topic of grief and how we should talk about this more in our society. So many people are hurting and the most common thing I have heard is they feel alone in their grief. I wanted to find a way to build community and started with creating a clothing and merchandise brand, Hello I’m Grieving. I figured that gone are the days where people simply wear black to signify they are grieving. We talk about wearing our hearts on our sleeves, so why can’t we wear our grief too? I wanted these t-shirts to give grievers a way to express themselves and to signal to others they are not alone. Anytime I have worn my t-shirt or carried my tote bag around people have stopped and asked me about them, which then leads them to telling me about their loss, which can be so freeing. Seeing the response to the Hello I’m Grieving page and community I leaned into the educational piece and created grief education training for corporate spaces and businesses to help leaders support grieving employees as they transition back to work. Discovering that average bereavement leave is 3-5 days was appalling to me and I wanted to help provide resources to businesses and organizations so they can create more inclusive spaces for all employees. In addition, Hello I’m Grieving has been evolving to a grief wellness space, where I have been creating safe spaces for people to say hello to their grief and to each other. I started the Hello I’m Grieving Hike where I take small groups of grievers on hikes and we explore our grief and share stories along the way, having insightful and transformational discussions. I have also held virtual sessions where we explore topics like grief during the holidays and the gifts and treasures our loved ones leave behind. I have continued to educate and speak about grief while moderating groups within the David Kessler Tender Hearts Community as we as a featured panelist for various organizations.
To continue exploring my grief and seeking out more ways to help others I have in turn found that my grief is a gift. That I have learned the biggest lesson of how we truly only have this one life. So because of my sister, I have become more inspired to help others on their journey of grief and find even more creative ways to bring community together because I believe we can still thrive and live a great life where joy and grief coexist. Vision and plans for Hello I’m Grieving and how people can participate in future events include grief retreats, wine tours, dinners, and various other meetups. I want others to say hello to grief, which to me simply means how we acknowledge our grief and find ways that we can still live on and enjoy the life we have and honor the lives that we have lost.
Furthermore, I am dedicated to my work with Hello I’m Grieving as diversity and inclusion is important to me and this is where visibility and representation is important. As I was navigating through the grief and death space, I did not see many people who looked like me or a space where generational diversity was present. So as a black and Filipino woman, I found it more important than ever to provide that representation. I have committed to doing this by taking part in the Starlight Business Development Residency PAUSE Program https://www.timetopause.org/starlight-business-development-residency. Where I am collaborating with other BIPOC leaders in the death, grief, and end of life space.
Grief is hard and you don’t have to do it alone. It’s amazing what a simple hello can do. So I want to say hello to others out there that have experienced loss of a loved one. I also want to acknowledge that grief can come from so many other losses like divorce, loss of friendship, loss of a career, or even identity. Grief is something that I know we will all experience in our lifetime and during my lifetime I want to create spaces and a community where people can integrate this grief into our lives because for most of us, it is something that we will carry with us and we can grow from our grief versus getting stuck in it.
I try my best to say hello to everyone who joins the community and I am always humbled by the people who share their stories with me and they are the ones that motivate me to keep educating and creating events for grief wellness. Grief does not always have to be tears and sadness. We can still have happiness, laughter, and yes even fun when you are with others who understand and can empathize with you. So that’s where I am today, doing what I can to bring more light to the grief space and show people there can be life after loss.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Grief in itself is the struggle and challenge. The compounding of grief for me has been the challenge as my sister was the one that I would always go to and always supported me in my efforts. I think the some of the other challenges I have experienced is that of judgement. I say judgement of myself and others. These are probably more internal feelings and questioning like, “what are you thinking creating a business around grief?” “Who would come to an event to talk about grief?” “How will people respond to me talking about having fun while grieving?” I do think that was one of the best pieces of feedback I received when a participant in the grief hike asked me, “It is weird to say I actually had fun today?” So when I hear this type of feedback, then it helps dispel fears and lets me know I ‘m on the right track. One of the biggest things is that I am a party of one. That I am building and creating all of this on my own. So I have to give myself grace and know that building something impactful takes time. However, I am always open to collaborating and starting to find a beautiful network of people in this space.
I know that bringing any vision to life is difficult, especially when you are dealing with the multitude of emotions that grief brings with it. Another side note and addition to my story is that I am a former pro basketball player and collegiate coach. I do believe the mental training and visualization that I would use as an athlete has helped me on my journey. I also believe this is why I know the importance of having a “team” or other people to help you on your grief journey. I believe this also speaks to my style of how I speak to people about grief and help motivate them just as I would my former teammates and student-athletes. One thing that I did learn from being an athlete is that I can do hard things. I can set goals and work to achieve them. I know grieving is not easy and building a community surrounding this topic is not easy, but I know that I can work hard to do it and when I set out to create Hello I’m Grieving, I knew that this was bigger than me and that I knew this vision was worth pursuing. I would often say it first started out as a whisper from the universe to create this, but now the universe is yelling at me encouraging me to keep going.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Hello I’m Grieving?
I want readers to know they have an inclusive space where they can lean into their grief and be in community with others who are open to explore their grief so they can integrate it into their lives. I want people to know that there can be other ways to navigate their grief and find resources that they need and to do it through unique experiences. This I believe is what sets me apart from others is that I acknowledge that the grief will be with us forever and I want to create spaces where we can talk openly about this. I want people to know my offering of events are for people who want to truly experience life after loss and try unique creative offerings. Grief is what connects us but does not define us. My specialty is in grief education and grief wellness events. I want people to come to events and be motivated, inspired, and moved to action, taking ownership of how they can grow from their grief. I am most proud of my grief hike where a group of strangers started at the bottom of the climb nervous, anxious, and hesitant, but then you saw them open up after intentional facilitated dialogues. At the top after deep reflection they were happily surprised by the fun they had, connections they made, and the laughter shared walking down together. I am proud that even for that brief moment they were able to be vulnerable and feel seen and validated in their grief. I think even my merchandise and clothing brand is different in the best way possible because it allows people to express themselves and start the conversations that need to be had about death and grief. The more approachable we can make this conversation and topic the more we can help others not feel so alone.
What makes you happy?
When it comes to Hello I’m Grieving, what makes me happy is the comments from the community when I see them supporting each other. Or when I get the messages from community members that tell me hearing my story has helped them on their own journey of grief. Or when they thank me and encourage me to keep doing what I am doing because it helped them get through a hard day or that it made them think differently about life after loss.
What makes me happy is that I have been able to take one of the most painful experiences of my life and find a passion and purpose in it. Not everyone has to turn pain into purpose, but for me that is what I have found. I never saw this as a path I would ever be on, but I am happy to be on it. It makes me happy when I can dance with my niece and nephew (my sister’s kids) at my niece’s wedding when there was a day I never thought I could. And it makes me even happier when a community members see the video I posted of that moment and tells me, thank you for showing me that I can be happy again and I didn’t think I would be able to dance at my own wedding without my mother there. Being able to share my voice and story brings me happiness because I have always believed that when you share your story, it allows others to share theirs. So I have been grateful to collaborate with others to do just this, just like for the upcoming documentary I will be featured in about grief, “Meet Me Where I Am”.
Helping others has always been who I am and it makes me happy that I have found a space where I know I can have an impact. This also makes me happy because I feel like this is something I can do to continue my relationship with my sister as she was someone who was always finding ways to help others as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://helloimgrieving.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helloimgrieving/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068299997445
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/helloimgrieving
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/tr/podcast/she-was-my-favorite-person-hello-im-grieving-dr-julie-shaw/id963387015?i=1000543894715
