Lisa Virtue:

Carrie, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate your time today.

Carrie Hopkins:

Thank you, Lisa.

Lisa Virtue:

We are going to talk about such a timely topic, I think, for so many people, including myself, which I was just sharing with you before I hit record, but since the last time we spoke, I lost my grandma, and she is my last grandparent. And so that's fascinating timing. Right? So going through that personal, physical loss of someone important in your life. Plus, I am now fostering, doing foster care, and we have our first placement with us. And so supporting others in their grief and how. And also anticipating my own grief right when that child ends up leaving us to reunite with their family. And then I'm working with clients every day that very specifically we talk about, okay, they just went through a layoff, so there's a grief there. Or they moved teams.

Lisa Virtue:

Like, I know we've talked about, when someone gets promoted, it's exciting. It's, yay, this is a good change. But then not realizing that grief of loss, of maybe their teammates or their relationships, because now they're the boss, that all can change. So grief is so multifaceted. That's why I'm really thrilled to talk to you, because I know you've got so many juicy tidbits and tips for the listeners today about how to help them navigate through it and if they're a leader at work, how to help their teammates. So welcome and thank you.

Carrie Hopkins:

Thank you, Lisa. And first of all, I just want to say I'm really sorry to hear about your loss of your grandma. That's a very difficult time and a rearrangement of your family system. Like you said, losing your last grandparents can be quite a milestone. That's a painful one. My heart goes out to you.

Lisa Virtue:

Thank you. I really appreciate that. She lived a healthy, happy life. Can't complain about any of that. 93 and a half.

Carrie Hopkins:

Wow. Yeah.

Lisa Virtue:

That part, you know, this was, I think, seven weeks ago. Now we're hitting that seven week mark. So the grief has come and gone, and now a lot of it's good memories. And we had her memorial, which was fabulous, and just a lot of people coming together with great storytelling because she grew up on a dairy farm, and I, looking at even her career journey was fascinating to see the progression. Right. Of just society in general. So now I think I'm at that really nice place of it's easier to talk about. The tears don't come as quick, but, yeah, grief looks different for everyone, doesn't it?

Carrie Hopkins:

That's true. That's true. And we'll get into that a little bit. But I just wanted to acknowledge right now. Yeah, yeah.

Lisa Virtue:

Well, let's start, because listeners love to hear, how did you get into this work? Let's start talking about your career journey and what that has looked like over the past years.

Carrie Hopkins:

Sure. I think like a lot of people my age, I've lived my life in chapters. So there was the chapter where I was a professional musician in my twenties and early thirties, and then I started a new career. I decided I wanted to work in academia, and I was finishing my bachelor's degree that I had neglected to go off and join the orchestra. So I finished my bachelor's degree at USC, and I ended up taking a job there and worked as the director of admissions for the School of music, which was my school. And so I did that. And I also had this love of deciding that I wanted to go into psychology. So I was going to.

Carrie Hopkins:

I was headed into taking a doctoral program in educational psychology, and then I discovered another program in spiritual psychology, a master's degree in spiritual psychology. And at the time, I was kind of in that seeking mode of, you know, asking my big life questions of who am I? And, you know, what do I want my life to be about? And I found answers on the spiritual level. So that started me into getting trained as a marriage and family therapist with an emphasis in spiritual psychology. Come to find out that was not my career path. And so I took a different direction and went into coaching because that just felt more aligned for me. I'm a very practical person. I like to help people make positive changes in their lives. And to me, coaching seemed like a better vehicle for that.

Carrie Hopkins:

But because of my background in psychotherapy, I was very comfortable sitting with people in big emotions. And when it came up to choose my specialization, the coach training program offered a specialization in grief coaching. And I just felt like something inside of me lit up, like, this is it. This is what I'm called to do. So I got my specialization in grief coaching. I also got more certification as a grief counselor and decided to make that the focus of my coaching practice, which I started in 2012. So that's a little bit how I got into it. Now sometimes people, you know, friends of mine who are coaches, and they ask me, well, what kind of coaching do you do? And I tell them, I do help people through major life transitions like grief and loss.

Carrie Hopkins:

They kind of look at me like I have two heads. Like, why would you want to do that?

Lisa Virtue:

Yeah.

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah. The only answer I can give is just like I was called to it. It was it was alive inside of me to help people during those difficult transitions.

Lisa Virtue:

You can completely relate when you know, you know, don't you?

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah.

Lisa Virtue:

Yeah. Same for me for career and career transitions. And one reason we, you know, I felt so connected to you is that I work with my clients when they're going through grief at work and that sometimes they don't even realize it is grief. But it's any kind of major transition job search, going through the recruitment process, a promotion, or maybe they're having a challenge. Maybe they've even been put on a piP, a performance improvement plan. And so there's a lot of grief around that and, like, even their performance feeling different and new. So all those career transitions, I can absolutely relate. And I know that you have experience as well with helping organizations provide resources for people going through grief and employees.

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah, I mean, to your point, it's exactly that. Sometimes, especially the HR professionals or the leadership may not understand the grieving process that employees go through, and maybe they've gone through it themselves. Typically, if you've ever experienced being laid off or fired, I, you know, passed over for a promotion or you didn't get that job that you, like you said you interviewed for, or the company or the plant closes and, you know, we've all been through reorgs or reassignments or relocations. And, you know, I've worked with companies also where a beloved boss or a mentor or a co worker diese. And so it's like the grief is palpable in the workplace also, like a project failure, losing a big account or a big client, you know, so these are all things that we're human beings when we are at work, right? And at this point in our post COVID pandemic, you know, situation where that really just stirred up a lot of people's anxiety and missing, you know, their usual structures of work, of going into the office and things like that. You know, we're still dealing with massive uncertainty in the workplace, and we all know people who have lost their jobs and maybe some of the people who are listening right now, and it could be permanently or temporarily. And so economic insecurity has become the new normal for many of us. And then there's the personal losses that we go through as people that are going to affect us at work.

Carrie Hopkins:

Bereavement, the loss of a spouse or a partner or a parent, somebody important to you, a divorce, a breakup, a health diagnosis that really turns your life upside down. To your point, you mentioned some of the secondary losses. These are the ones that sometimes catch us by surprise, you know, that sense of security, of having an idea of what your future is going to look like at work and knowing what to expect. And we like the familiar. We like the known. And sometimes when the rug gets pulled out from under us, it leaves us feeling very insecure. And we like to feel useful and purposeful, like we all have a job that we need to do, you know, missing out on the respect from your coworkers, especially if you've been laid off or fired. You know, it's just, it's, you know, the friendships, the alliances, that sense of belonging to your team and your coworkers and our familiar routines.

Carrie Hopkins:

You know, a lot of people, we like our structure. You know, we like knowing. Well, I go to work at this time and I, you know, and of course, our self esteem can take a big hit. And so, yeah, I just wanted to say marital or family instability also that's going to affect you at work, you know.

Lisa Virtue:

So, yeah, I was going to say the word that most of my clients and people I speak with every day that are within, you know, career focus is loss of confidence, and everything you just described contributes to that. Right. So anytime I. That someone, for instance, I have a client this week who, she knows about a layoff coming for herself and her team. She can't talk about it yet. And so other teams have been, they're doing a trickle effect of this layoff. So other teams are hearing that they're getting laid off, and now there's rumor mill about her team. And so she's frustrated because she's going through this grief herself, also trying to find a new job, but she also can't talk about it with people.

Lisa Virtue:

So there's a lot of that, I think, you know, when it comes to even personal grief and loss, and then you come back to work and maybe you don't want to talk about it. You know, women at work deal with loss of babies. Maybe they have a miscarriage and they don't want to share that, but there's nothing built into the system to allow for time for that. So, yeah, we have a long way to go as society, don't we, in understanding that human condition? And then grief shows up for everyone, and people feel like they're being judged on how their grief shows up.

Carrie Hopkins:

Right. And, you know, there's some common, you know, reactions to grief. This sometimes are very, you know, they make sense and sometimes they're surprising. And when I tell people and they talk about their experience and what they're going through, I said, well, you know, to me, it does sound like you're grieving. It's like, oh, you know, so, like, you know that initial feeling of being, you know, given some news that you have to process, you feel like you got punched in the gut, you know, and then it's kind of that shock or the numbness or can't believe what's happened. So, you know, that denial kind of phase of the news, and then it's the fear and anxiety. Like I said, the fear of the unknown, the future that you thought you could count on, right?

Lisa Virtue:

Absolutely.

Carrie Hopkins:

Starts to make you feel like the ground underneath you is shifting. And then again, there's going to be anger and frustration. You know, you're pissed. There's rage. I mean, going postal is no joke.

Lisa Virtue:

It's true.

Carrie Hopkins:

Happens, you know, somebody just loses it at work and they take it out on their co workers or anybody around them. Then again, there's that overwhelming sadness and the hurt, and that makes you want to stay in bed. And this is where we feel sorry for ourselves. And shame. Shame is a big one. It's humiliating to go through, like, being walked out the door, you know?

Lisa Virtue:

Right. Even if it's no fault of your own and know that you did nothing wrong, there's still this scent that cut to your confidence, this sense of I'm out of. It's not my control. People love to have people like change. Right? We know this. People like change. But when we talk about change, that's not in your control. That's when we all have in common.

Lisa Virtue:

We don't like that because it's hard to see the benefits or the buy in. And when it comes to grief, that's what we're talking about. It's all these things that are taken from us without it being our choice.

Carrie Hopkins:

To that powerlessness you're talking about. Yeah. It's like you feel out of control. A sense of hopelessness and a lap, like a loss of agency in your life. You know, it's just like then we start to, you know, go into this spiral of feeling like a victim to life, so feel abandoned, you know, by. By everything, you know? So, like you said, that self doubt, loss of confidence. And, you know one thing I'm going to speak about that if you're going through a personal loss and you don't really want to talk about it at work, but everybody knows. Oh, yeah, she just went through a messy divorce.

Carrie Hopkins:

Oh, he, you know, who lost his wife two months ago. Grief affects us mentally. We have that confusion, that disorientation kind of it affects our ability to focus, so we can feel kind of out of it and, like, trying to focus on work and be present for that. You know, also, you go into these ruminating phases about your mind. You're going through all the things that you should have, could have, would have done. Right. So there's a lot of mental energy sort of taken up and grieving. And I think leaders and people who are working, coworkers, working with people who are going through personal loss may not understand that.

Lisa Virtue:

Absolutely. So let's start with some of your advice, Carrie. For the person going through grief, whatever it is, whether it's job loss or something happened to them personally and they're in the workplace, what are some of your tips or resources that us as individuals should rely on or look for?

Carrie Hopkins:

Well, I think there's this belief that we should grieve alone, that we should pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get on with it and move on. And I just really encourage people to let that all go, to slow themselves down and really meet themselves first and foremost with understanding, with compassion, with tenderness, with just understanding that they're not doing anything wrong. Feelings that they're having are completely understandable. And so to not judge themselves or their process. Oh, it's been a year. I should be over this, but I'm so stuck. What's wrong with me? Those kinds of things. So if you're experiencing those kinds of judgments, there's a saying, and I think it's a Buddha saying, wherever.

Carrie Hopkins:

It's the second arrow. So we have. The first arrow pierces our heart. That's the loss. Right. The second arrow, that is our judgment of ourselves while we deal with the loss. And that's unnecessary. We don't need to take that second arrow in.

Carrie Hopkins:

And also, the second thing is find support, find people who can walk with you on this journey, not to fix you or to take away your pain, but to be with you while you process and while you adapt to your loss, and you will adapt. It's a temporary. Grief is a temporary situation. It doesn't feel that way.

Lisa Virtue:

Right. And temporary can be different lengths of time. Right. Like you mentioned, a year can be different than maybe my own grief with my grandma because we knew it was coming. And so it was a little bit of a lesser blow than some other grief patterns. So that timeline might look very different with how we grieve through that period.

Carrie Hopkins:

Well, everyone grieves differently, and we'd grieve differently depending on the importance of the relationship that we lost. So I work with a lot of people who have lost a partner or spouse. Now, myself, I've gone through that also, my own husband died a little over three months ago. Three. Sorry, three years ago. Feels like three months. I told him three years ago. And, you know, so I understand both from my training point of view and from my personal experience of walking through some, walking through this process of adjusting to life without my partner and adjusting to my own new identity.

Carrie Hopkins:

We have to come into a new way of looking at ourselves and our roles in the world. And so, yeah, so I would just say being patient with your process and finding really good support are the two things, if you're going through grief, that are really going to help you.

Lisa Virtue:

I'm curious, too. I know we'll talk about organizations and leaders and how they can help, but I do have a question about helping others through grief. Yeah, there's this notion of people need to grieve alone because it is a personal journey that we go through, but also having, you know, we're social beings, so having someone hold that space even or be with us, like, walk with us, so important when it comes to us as helping others. So I'll take myself and looking at someone's going through grief, there's a lot of times I hear people, oh, we should just let them be. Don't bring it up. Let them have their space, you know? And I hear from so many people that it feels like their friends even abandoned them. Like, one of my clients lost her partner, love of her life after four months after being married. Devastating, right.

Lisa Virtue:

And she found him later in life, and so big grief moment. And she said her friends scattered because it got. And her feeling of it was it got uncomfortable for them. So I'm curious, when it comes to us helping others, what do you see as best practice?

Carrie Hopkins:

Well, your first point is so important that, yeah, this person, say a friend is going through something unspeakably hard, and I'm going to talk about what not to do because this is the area where people unintentionally can cause further pain for a person who's going through grief. And I think people usually have good intentions. Right. And if somebody you care about is dealing with loss, you just may not know how to respond. So that's what, when people just like, oh, give her her space. I don't want to, you know, intrude on that, but a lot of us don't have very comfortable relationship ourselves with strong emotions and grief. And so when someone in our community is going through that, it just triggers something inside that, it's just like, stay away, you know? And so when these feelings of anger and sadness and fear are expressed in our midst, we tend to either isolate the person or gloss over it, try to shut it down because we feel uncomfortable. And so we say things like, oh, you're young.

Carrie Hopkins:

You have a lot to offer. You'll get another job right away. Or, I know how you feel. You know, I got passed over for a promotion last year, and I know exactly how you feel. And, you know, it's been a week now since you lost that big account. It's time you got over it. You know, it's like these are all variations of, you need to move on, you know? And then these personal losses, it's kind of the same thing. It's been over a year since your wife died.

Carrie Hopkins:

You need to move on. You need to be strong for the children, you know, all of these things. Don't, don't feel bad. Everything will work out for the best. You know, time heals all wounds. You know, these platitudes that we offer to people, they don't help, and sometimes they are just annoying. People want to slap you.

Lisa Virtue:

I talk to a lot of you don't understand.

Carrie Hopkins:

All I could do to say thank you and just back away because I just wanted to, like, slap them. And, you know, it's these types of statements. You know, we often hear that and, you know, it's, let's talk about these kind of statements. So it's like you're young and you have a lot to offer. You'll get another job easily, or you're young, you can have another baby, you know, a miscarriage. Well, this is an example of rationalization. We're taking an emotional thing that happened to someone and putting it through our mental filter of, you know, you should think differently about this and then you'll feel better.

Lisa Virtue:

And basically, you should grieve differently, right? That's what people are doing, is telling them how to grieve, which we all do that differently. Yeah.

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah. And look, there's nothing wrong with rationalization. We all do it. We need to, like, think about things differently in order to cope with them. The problem is you or I can't do somebody else's rationalization for them. You know, they're just not ready. They need to come to these thoughts when they're, you know, in their own timing, when they're ready, but in the pain and especially the first, you know, crucial time of just your searing pain. Don't try to rationalize somebody's experience or tell them, oh, your husband's better off.

Carrie Hopkins:

I know. He was really ill for a long time. This is like, yeah, don't say things like that.

Lisa Virtue:

Yeah.

Carrie Hopkins:

You know, we make these erroneous assumptions and comparisons. Also, we say things, I know, I know how you feel. You know, you don't. That's the truth of it. And we, in, like, everyday conversation, we do a lot of these bridges to other people. Like, we want to make ourselves seem approachable or like, I get you. I'm like you. So if you say, I know how you feel, I.

Carrie Hopkins:

And often the other person goes, you don't know how I feel.

Lisa Virtue:

Right.

Carrie Hopkins:

And so it just, it really sets the tone for feeling misunderstood. That's not what we need. So we make this mistake thinking our experience gives us special insight to their experience. And the truth is, you don't know how anybody else feels until they tell you such a.

Lisa Virtue:

So powerful. One. Other thing I'll add to this, because I'm learning as I'm doing foster care and doing all the trainings and research and talking to people about best practices with that. One thing that we often, as a society tend to do is, oh, look how lucky those kids are. Oh, you're so lucky to have that, too. No, they're not lucky. It's quite the opposite, actually. Now, are we glad to have them in our home? Absolutely.

Lisa Virtue:

But it's very different. So finding the right language, to your point is so essential and, like, stopping ourselves before we say it out loud because it's our feeling, but then we're projecting. Right. So, yeah, what you're suggesting makes a lot of sense in the workplace. I'm curious, when someone shows back up from grief, so maybe they've been out and maybe it was a loss of a baby, loss of a loved one. Now they're back at work.

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah.

Lisa Virtue:

How do you recommend others and their colleagues navigate that?

Carrie Hopkins:

Well, again, to your point of not just like, sometimes you just see it's almost like this visual or energetic, like the waves part, and the person walks in and everybody's just like, going, what do we do? What do we do? You know, try to normalize your, you know, your experience of that person from what you knew before, you know, walk up to them. I'm so glad you're back. We know that it's been a really hard time, you know, and I'm here for you. You know, it's, it's really important that people who are gone through a loss, they need to talk. You know, they need to talk about it. And so sometimes when, you know, we need to allow them to talk when they want to talk about it and allow them to not talk when they don't want to talk about it. So it's really being very aware of and asking, you know, if you're not aware of what they're feeling, you could ask them, you know, what would support you today?

Lisa Virtue:

That's a great phrase. What would support you today?

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah, because every day might be different, you know? And, you know, the other thing that we want to avoid is minimizing someone's pain, especially, even if it's, you know, we say, oh, well, you know, it was just a work related grief, you know, got passed over for that promotion, you know, and it's like, oh, you know, you shouldn't feel that way. You know, that that was all rigged against you. Don't worry. But, you know, it's like when we minimize somebody's feelings about something, we tell them they don't have the right to feel that way. So, a. That you can do, that's really going to be helpful. When you hear somebody talking about their situation, there's two skills. The first one is acknowledging.

Carrie Hopkins:

You know, it's just like, I really hear that this has just been a tough experience for you, and then you validate it makes sense that you hurt, or it makes sense that you'd feel angry about this, or, you know, it's understandable, you know, that you'd be grieving.

Lisa Virtue:

Instead of, I know how you feel.

Carrie Hopkins:

Right. Right. We acknowledge there's a lot going on for this person. We acknowledge that, and then we validate their right to their feeling, whatever that is. So that's, yeah. One way that we can. And we can understand also, I think it's helpful for people to understand the difference between empathy and sympathy. You know, empathy, it's like the capacity that we have to be in vibrational sync with another person.

Carrie Hopkins:

You know, it involves understanding the experiences and the behaviors and the feelings of others while they're experiencing them. It's like that ability to put yourself in their shoes, but you're not that other person. You know, you're not taking it on, but you are experiencing that situation as if it were your own. And the big as if is in air quotes. This is a philosophy by Carl Rogers, who was a psychologist who worked with person centered coaching. So empathy was a huge part of the healing process for people. Wherever we can come alongside them, we can get a sense of their feelings. We could feel it as if we were going through it, but we maintain that as if it's their pain, not my pain.

Carrie Hopkins:

Sympathy is when we try to feel the feelings of the other person. You're feeling sorry for them, you feel pity for them. It's like we're up here, we're feeling sorry for them down there. Right. And, you know, your pity about what's going on for them. You wonder how to make it better for them. And this is when you get into fixing, fix this person. I want them to feel better.

Carrie Hopkins:

We want to get the crowbar out and sort of see if we can raise their energy. And that just pisses people off, too.

Lisa Virtue:

Yeah. This is why people say, I don't want your sympathy. I don't need your sympathy. Yeah.

Carrie Hopkins:

We want to be pitied or look down upon.

Lisa Virtue:

Right.

Carrie Hopkins:

Feel that.

Lisa Virtue:

Especially when it's something out of our control and we're already wrestling with the shame or the confidence, you know, down, the confidence hit. So, yeah, then that's even worse, isn't it? Already down there. We don't want to go farther down. Yeah.

Carrie Hopkins:

Not only that, it makes you vulnerable to when you feel sympathy for someone. You kind of get that sinking feeling in your gut when you hear their story. You know, it's like we, we all do this. We hear somebody. Yeah. You know, this happened. And they go, oh, you know, you've experienced that.

Lisa Virtue:

Oh, yeah, I'm sure I've done it right. Thinking of all the things I've done wrong, too.

Carrie Hopkins:

Like, we get that, and we just kind of want to get as far away from that as possible. It's. It's a body thing. Right.

Lisa Virtue:

Or when they lean in too much, there's also that other effect of like, oh, my gosh, you must be. And then they assume that's one for me. That triggers me. I'm like, again, don't assume what I'm feeling or how I'm navigating this. I don't need you to. I don't need you to be right there with me. I just need you to listen or hold.

Carrie Hopkins:

So if you think of yourself as a companion instead of a fixer or a healer, you know, I don't take that. I don't heal anyone. I don't fix them. My companion with them. And what does that mean? And you walk alongside them. You're not ahead of them, you're not behind them, you walk alongside. Just listen. You know, it could be so wonderful when somebody just gets a chance to offload something that's heavy on their heart just by talking and by having a somebody just like, I hear you.

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa Virtue:

So obviously there's friends, family that can help us, and then there's coaches like you, Carrie, which is fabulous, and then people like me, which can help through navigating that job search or whatever it is to get to that next step once we're going through that grief, back to when we're, when we're the person going through the grief, you know, finding support, like we just mentioned, those kinds of resources, people in our life that can support us. And then at the workplace, typically, it's like a three day grief period you can take, right. Three business days. I mean, it's just wild to me and depends on where you are, what organization, what state, et cetera, who that includes. So it could be your very best friend in the whole wide world just passed away, and you don't even get those three days.

Carrie Hopkins:

Right.

Lisa Virtue:

Wild.

Carrie Hopkins:

A lot of companies give mental health days, which is, I think, a great way to approach this where you don't have to give an explanation, you don't have to make up. Well, I don't feel good, you know?

Lisa Virtue:

Yeah. And PTo, too. Right. Just. Or sick day for sure you can. Even if they don't call it a mental health day, like, you can use those things for what you. For sure. Yeah.

Carrie Hopkins:

And, you know, talking to your HR professional, you know, especially if you feel like that's a safe person sometimes, unfortunately, that isn't a safe space, but if you feel that it is and say, look, I'm going through something here, you know, and, you know, talking to your direct supervisor, talking to your coworkers, you know, letting them in on the fact that you're, you're going through something and, you know, it's, it's helpful if you're the one sharing the story instead of it's being circulated about you.

Lisa Virtue:

Yeah. And you can also ask them to keep confidential. Not always going to, or it might slip or something comes up, but you can definitely say, I'd like to share something confidential with you, can you please allow me to tell my own story or allow me to reach out to others about it? And even if the HR space doesn't feel so safe or maybe you don't have that confidentiality feeling from other stories, technically, they should be the most confidential within the organization. So even if you're not vibing with those professionals, what I have seen is that hrtaine professionals typically will keep it close to their chest. You know, that that is the one thing. I hope people feel it. Of course, we all have our own stories and our own experience, but, yeah, I think that's really good advice. The other thing I would mention, too, is when you're talking to people like that within a space that deals with this weekly, daily, periodically, more so than we do.

Lisa Virtue:

Right. It's, HR tends to get all of it. We might have a few instances. So we don't have as much experience even asking. Are you familiar with any other resources I should be tapping into or anything else I can look into?

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah, absolutely.

Lisa Virtue:

Sometimes we just need to ask. They might have something. Oh, yeah, let me, you know what this so and so over here did this, or here's something I saw that worked well.

Carrie Hopkins:

And sometimes if it's an example of someone losing someone inside the company, that the HR professionals may call in grief counselors to work with team or to work with the, you know, because it's, it's saying, we acknowledge, you know, that this person who is no longer with us, we, we all had our own attachments to this person, to this role, and it's going to take some time. You know, we talk about it from a systems perspective. You know, when, when we have a major player in a system who's no longer there, a. Yes, we. It helps when HR is recognizing there's a very human component to the loss and the grief that people feel, but also there's a systematic thing that needs to be addressed as well.

Lisa Virtue:

Absolutely. And this is where we can start now, talking about leaders on teams. So, um, I've had clients where they had lost a supervisor or manager, and they had to step in. Someone had to do the work. Right. That's what you're mentioning to the system of like, okay, we don't just have a loss of that relationship and that human in our life. We have a loss of the work getting done and the wheels turning the way we're used to. So people stepping up and volunteering to help in that time while they're going through their own grief.

Lisa Virtue:

Very powerful.

Carrie Hopkins:

I had to do that in an organization. When I worked at the University of Santa Monica, we lost our registrar. He actually committed suicide very same time. Another leader in the area was let go at the same time, but something completely unrelated. And I had been the director of educational administration, uh, for many years. And, you know, when I got news of this, I was living in North Carolina at the time, the schools in Santa Monica, California. I said, okay, this is mine to do. I've got to step back in.

Carrie Hopkins:

So I packed up my car, I told my husband, I'll see you in about six months. You know, I drove out, and I, you know, showed up to work and I said, we got work to do. And it was. I knew it was mine to do. And, you know, some of the listeners here might hear that calling as well, of, there's a way that I can roll up my sleeves and actually show up shoulder to shoulder and be with the people who are hurting small organizations. So to lose two people in the education department at the same time, it just, you know, I can't say that I was the big savior, but just to have someone there who is like, I used to have a job. I know, I know what to do. And, you know, these were friends of mine, too, so we all grieve together.

Carrie Hopkins:

So.

Lisa Virtue:

And as a leader, looking at it going, okay, I need to help figure this puzzle out. This is part of my job is, okay, I need this person to step over here, but not just getting down to the work. Sometimes I see leaders fail in the humanity part because they're like, okay, put solution mode on. Let's go. But even looking at what were our KPI's, what were our goals, let's adjust those in honor of the fact that not only are people going to be picking up more slack or work, they're also grieving. And we need to acknowledge that and make sure that they understand. Like, thank you so much for helping out and how are you today? What do you need today?

Carrie Hopkins:

Right, exactly.

Lisa Virtue:

I do see questions. Yeah, exactly. And then on the flip side, there's empathetic leaders that I work with that maybe spend too much time there and so then the work doesn't get done, and that actually causes anxiety for the team members. So finding a good balance of acknowledging the grief, being there as a support, getting resources for your team, reaching out to your HR, etcetera, and getting the work done, there's a balance that's really hard to strike, but having those conversations and keeping that open dialogue on teams, I see is where people, as leaders, tend to do really well. And then other people say, thank you for your support, too, as a leader.

Carrie Hopkins:

Right. A lot of times it's invoking and the people are still here. That sense of legacy, what would this person want us to do? What would this. This person who we are missing now, who is no longer with us, what. What were they instilling inside of us that we can continue?

Lisa Virtue:

That's great.

Carrie Hopkins:

It's not just, oh, let's get back to the bottom line and make some money for the company. It's what did that person stand for? How can we, us, the people who are here, still bring that into our hearts and further that work that gives people a real sense of fire in the belly of this is why we're doing this.

Lisa Virtue:

That's wonderful. I love that advice. Beautiful. Was there anything else, as far as organizations, what you've seen works well, resources that are out there. Anything else you want to share?

Carrie Hopkins:

Well, I think just this idea that when we're grieving a major loss of a person, we are in a rebuilding phase. So much like, you know, you move into a house and you go, okay, we just had a tornado come through here, and we got one wall standing.

Lisa Virtue:

Yep.

Carrie Hopkins:

Right? We got one wall here. Let's figure out what we need to do to rebuild. And, you know, it's. That's the name of my program, rebuilding your life after loss. So I think when people understand, we don't move, we don't move on. You know, it's like people think, oh, if I think I'm moving on, I'm leaving that person behind. We move forward. We carry that person in our heart still, and that person is still a part of our lives.

Carrie Hopkins:

It's different, but we have that, their voice in our heads sometimes, you know, or what would. What would Tom do? You know? And we take that and we move forward. You know, it's like, don't feel disheartened if people tell you it's time to move on. It's like. Because that feels like, in a sense of betrayal to the person. It's like, no, I'm going to move forward. I'm not going to move on.

Lisa Virtue:

And I love. I'm getting emotional over here, too, just thinking even of my grandma, you know, when it hits us out of the nowhere. This is not out of nowhere. We're talking about it myself, Grace, in that. But thinking about, you know, you can't pick up the phone and call them, or you can't. You're not going to have them at dinner anymore, whatever. That. Or that team meeting is going to feel very lonely without your buddy sitting next to you, whatever it is.

Lisa Virtue:

And so what you're saying is so powerful because we're taking that and we're saying, okay, I can't call Grandma, but how would she react to this? What would she say? How do you think she's feeling about it? You know, we. We lost our grandma and then had her memorial and a week later welcomed a child into our home that she never met, didn't even know because of her mental state towards the end that we were going to be doing this work. And so some of her little knickknacks and pieces that were for the kids are now in the foster cares room. And so honoring that and just thinking, like, oh, she'd be tickled pink thinking that this is now part of this child's journey and her family legacy. So I love what you're saying of, yeah, we're not leaving them behind. We're taking them with us, but just in a different way on this journey.

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah. Yeah. And that feels honoring of what we've lost.

Lisa Virtue:

Yep. And then rebuilding the day and who we're going to reach out to when we need that support or spending time with others. Yeah.

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah.

Lisa Virtue:

Well, Carrie, thank you so much. This is such a powerful conversation. I hope the listeners are, you know, taking what they need from it. I'm sure they are, because you have so many good tidbits and advice. How can people get ahold of you?

Carrie Hopkins:

Well, first of all, thank you, Lisa, for having me on your show. It's, it's, it's an honor to talk with you. And, I mean, you get it. You're a kindred soul here, so it's really nice to speak with you. And, yes, people can reach me. My business is called Life's next chapter coaching, and that's where you can find me. They can also find their. There's a ton of resources, articles, videos, courses.

Carrie Hopkins:

I've created online courses. I also have an online, it's a hybrid online. And so it has materials that a person learns online and then weekly group meetings with me and other participants in the program. So not only are you, like, learning new approaches and really getting to think about things and exercises, but you're also then getting coaching from me. So it's like, I can answer questions, I can help people in a place where they may not have assimilated something to the point where they can really own it. So it's like, you know, having access and at the same time, having access to other people going through the same situation or a similar situation. And community is such a healing space, you know, where we can come in and share our story and then not feel alone because, you know, people are nodding their heads and. Yeah, I get it.

Carrie Hopkins:

You know, I feel you.

Lisa Virtue:

Yep. That's why we have her career studio, too, on the career side. And that community space. I'm right there with you. Important.

Carrie Hopkins:

Yeah. So the course is rebuilding your life after loss, and that can be found. Also, I'm going to be launching. I usually launch it at the beginning of the year.

Lisa Virtue:

So great. So around January. Keep our eye out. Beautiful, Carrie. Thank you again for being here and the work that you're doing, it's so powerful and so needed. So really appreciate your time.

Carrie Hopkins:

And to you as well. Thank you.