Business and bereavement - a journey

Being a business owner gives you so many things to do but when you add a bereavement into that it can feel like that delicate balance that you did have, has totally collapsed. This was going to be a short post but as I started writing it, it got longer and I just didn't want to cut anything out of it. After all, this is what real life business looks like sometimes - it's not all shiny videos and curated posts. It's tough and it can often be very messy.?

You might have noticed (you might not have even realised to be fair) that I haven't been around as much on my social pages, I've tried to continue to support others in my communities but I haven't put out any content of my own for a little while.?

The reason is that a few weeks ago my foster Dad was diagnosed with cancer - within 2 weeks he had passed away and I found myself helping to plan a funeral and trying to figure out how to pay for it. Things that obviously weren't in my plans for Q4! When I looked at my life and all the things that I already had on my plate I honestly didn't even know where to begin.?

As a solo business owner, on a normal day I find myself busy juggling these responsibilities:

- my family?

- my daughters additional needs?

-?the business?

- my part time job?

- looking after myself??

All of those things are tricky at the best of times but what happens when it isn't the best of times. What do we do when life throws you a big bag of spanners? Now this isn't an article telling you how to manage your grief - there are plenty of experts out there that can help with that and personally I think that grieving is very much an individual thing.

Depending on where you are in your business journey you might feel more or less secure about taking time off. Not everyone has multiple strands of passive income to count on so you may not feel able to just down tools and if that's that case please don't feel bad. You've suffered a loss but your responsibilities don't unfortunately get paused when that happens.?

I wanted to share with you some of the things that I’ve found challenging and I wanted to do that for a few reasons:

A) To open up the conversation around business and bereavement, there’s no manual for how to handle it all. Dying is a part of life but it’s still a shock when it happens.

B) To share some of the things that helped me so that if you're in the unfortunate situation of needing some ideas then you have them.

C) (Selfishly) to get out onto paper some of the things that I’ve been struggling with because I find writing things out helps me to process them.

Making funeral arrangements and the actual process of dealing with all the paperwork etc takes time. It felt that things really dragged on but in some ways it was helpful because it gave me time to get over the initial shock of things. Because I knew that I'd need time to manage these things I:

- Rescheduled my planned posts, by not posting I didn't feel obligated to reply/engage especially on days that my mood and energy were really.?

- I acknowledged and accepted that I would feel frazzled rather than trying to 'be okay'. Even as I started to firm things up on the funeral there were lots of moving parts to that so I tried hard not to feel bad that things didn't feel fully under control.?

Losing someone that I loved was hard and I felt that I had some difficult choices to make on when/where I was able to support clients. I took the decision to:?

- Let my clients know what was going on, it will likely felt terrible to feel that I'd let people down but I had to let them know where things were and what they could actually expect from me. Communication was absolutely critical here! I had to remind myself that we've all had bereavements and that people would understand and honestly if they didn't then they might not be the clients for me long term.?

- Cancel all of my meetings, my brain wasn't on top form and turning up half-hearted wouldn't have been great for me or my clients.?

- Make my discovery call calendar unavailable for a few weeks, so that I didn't need to try to sell to or onboard new clients when I knew that I wasn't at my best.?

- Acknowledge that my sleep would be erratic, that meant that new ideas and inspiration was almost non-existent for a little while. It isn't a feeling that I've ever had before and it was a surprise to me when it happened. ?

- Set some boundaries for myself around the amount of work that I was prepared to do, that basically involved getting my most pressing client work completed but not starting anything new. Then I had a few weeks fully out of the business.

The day to day of my business looked totally different for a while and I had to get clear on:

- What needed to go on my 'not to do' list, it let me just focus on the basics and using the list gave me one less thing to think about.

- What work was essential but being mindful not to bury myself in work as a way of avoiding facing reality......initially I did that, I would not recommend it!?

- What I needed to do to take time to look after and nourish myself -?movement, good food and activities that I enjoy have all been a good way of doing that.?

- That the big things and goals that I had for the quarter were going to need to be delayed or paused whilst I got things and then myself sorted. As a 'deliverer' this has certainly been difficult for me, I had so many plans for this quarter that I know I won't get to now so I'm definitely working hard on letting go of the feeling that I'm falling behind and that I’ve failed.

Over the past few weeks I've felt like I've had so many things floating around my head and I'm not ashamed to say that it felt incredibly full and I've felt massively overwhelmed and unmotivated! Do I feel back to 'normal' now? No. Do I expect to be anytime soon? Also probably no.?But I'm back working in and on the business and showing up on socials which feels like progress to me. I'm going to keep taking my time and doing what I can to get back onto my new track.

For anyone going through the same thing right now, I'm sending you all the love and a massive hug. Be good to yourself and look after yourself, that's really important at a time like this.?

Lizzy