We caught up with Dipti Solanki – a qualified homeopath, grief coach and life coach – as we know many of our PEGS parents are feeling the impact of these losses. Here’s what she had to say:

“I’m a grief and emotional recovery coach, so I help people to look at the type of loss they are suffering from, begin understanding the impact, and start taking very practical steps to help them heal. We tend to think of loss as bereavement but the term covers all sorts of loss.

“Often, we don’t have the information we need to deal with a loss, which can reduce our ability to heal. When healing doesn’t happen, it can lead to so many physical and emotional symptoms including anxiety and depression.

“We are often told to ‘be strong’ and essentially act as if something hasn’t happened. But loss has such a big impact, and it’s important to talk about what’s happened. I have a very structured, well-defined process to go through with the adults and children I work with, so it’s not overwhelming for them and they know the next steps within the process.”

“Talking to children is very important, and so too is showing them the emotions that you’re feeling. Most children will say they’ve got a tummy ache if they feel anxious, because they don’t know how to articulate their feelings. As adults, we need to help them understand what an emotion is and let them know it’s okay to be sad and be in touch with their emotions. If we don’t talk about it, that’s the point at which things can escalate.”

“We have all experienced collective losses: our freedom of movement, being able to see each other socially, loss of income, divorces and separations, and loss of communication. For some of us, there’s been a loss of hope. And of course, there has been so much bereavement; not being able to be with loved ones, not having the chance to say goodbye, and having a very different grieving process has been extremely hard. We have had to grieve in very artificial ways and in isolation from each other.”

“The biggest lie we are told is that time heals. Grief is a very physical thing, and grief and shock can sit in the system for decades.

“We also feel we have to keep things ‘normal’ in the home when a loss or something like a separation has taken place. We just keep going and often don’t acknowledge our true feelings – but that emotional honesty with everyone in the household including children is so powerful, as is discussing how everyone feels.”

“Everyone has different pressures and different feelings – which can end up in a pressure cooker situation where people are feeling unsafe. In all of this, we need to manage our emotions and juggle expressing our feelings and keeping ourselves safe.

“We all need compassion and understanding because everyone feels differently about the restrictions being lifted.”

Thank you to Dipti for her valuable insight into loss. If you’d like to find out more about her work, simply visit https://diptisolanki.com/.