Grief, Death and Entrepreneurship — 6 Useful Ways to Manage Loss While Growing A Business

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Grief, Death and Entrepreneurship — 6 Useful Ways to Manage Loss While Growing A Business

By Kelly Lynn Adams | Entrepreneur Magazine | December 8, 2023

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There is a lot of useful and not-so-useful information when dealing with grief.  The author shares what has been helpful for her within his grieving experience while running a business and living a full life in hopes that this will serve, be helpful and useful for you if you are going through or will be going through grief.

Acknowledge your emotions.  Thoughts and emotions will come up, and when they do, you get to acknowledge them and give yourself the space to process them. Emotions are energy in motion, and you get to experience them and allow them to pass through. Many people keep their feelings bottled up. You don’t want to suppress what is coming up because that can lead to different responses and ailments in the body and mind. When you release, it recalibrates your mind, body and nervous system.

Know that they are not suffering.  According to the author what has been the most useful for her since her grandmother’s passing is that she is at her highest, wisest and best right now. She is not suffering, and she would not want her grandchild (the author) to suffer or be sad.  According to the author whenever she gets hit with feelings of sadness, loss and grief, she feels her feelings and allow them to pass, but always remind herself her grandmother wants her to be happy and live life. She always remind herself of this, which becomes useful for her in these moments.

Create your eulogy and obituary.  Morbid maybe — life transformational, absolutely. It gets you to rethink, reassess and realign where you are today to where you want to go and what gets to be created and shifted right now. Many of us don’t think of death every day, yet in these moments, opportunities to look at how you are living and what you still want to create are windows for you to change directions if needed and wanted. Your eulogy that a friend or family member speaks at your service, what will they say about you?  This is an opportunity for you to get honest with yourself right now. Are there any unfulfilled dreams, unkept promises, unsaid things or goals you want to act on? What would you like your impact to be? Your purpose? This is the time to get clear and concise about it. You then can create an action plan around what is next for you.

Seek support and ask for help.  This can be from other family and friends if they can talk with you and support you — this can also be hiring therapists, doing different types of healing work with practitioners. Support groups also help others tremendously, see what resonates with you and take action on it. Asking for help and getting support is not a weakness; it is a strength. Everyone deserves to be supported.

Take care of yourself.  This gets to become your new non-negotiable. Grief can affect you on all levels if you allow it to — mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and physiological. It is important to get the proper amount of sleep, nutrition, movement and laughter.  A question that has been super useful for the author during these times is asking herself: How are you feeling right now? What do you need in this moment? Right now? Honoring my feelings, thoughts and emotions has been game-changing for her.

Listen and honor your intuitional nudges.  Again, grief can appear at times and is not a linear process. You may experience different days and emotions that come in different waves. You have found days where you want to be alone, other days where you want to be surrounded by and around others, some days you channel your energy into work and other days you don’t want to work at all. This season, you get to listen to you and honor the nudges and intuition that come through. Give yourself the grace and space that you need. Everyone’s process and healing is different, and you get to honor yours.

2 key takeaways from the article

1. There is a lot of useful and not-so-useful information when dealing with grief. The author shares what has been helpful for her within her grieving experience while running a business and living a full life in hopes that this will serve, be helpful and useful for you if you are going through or will be going through grief.
2. These advices are: acknowledge your emotions, know that they (the loved ones) are not suffering, create your eulogy and obituary, Seek support and ask for help, Take care of yourself, and Listen and honor your intuitional nudges.

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Topics:  Entrepreneurship, Emotional Intelligence