Help Others...And Yourself By Volunteering
Volunteer and Make a Difference Even if You Are Widowed and Grieving
Maggie Moore, The Widow Coach™
Being widowed is an unbalanced situation on so many levels. One of the things that it does that is chip away at your confidence and sense of competency. This isn’t just grief, it is the nature of the trauma of widowhood and how that can affect your brain. In addition, widowhood can be very isolating, especially if your partner or spouse was your primary personal relationship.
In addition to those factors, it can feel like you are endlessly on the receiving line of help from others. If you are used to managing your life and being organized and having everything under control, the reversal of roles to accepting help can be very uncomfortable.
But there is a reason that it can make great sense to volunteer with organizations and give your time and talents back. Having worked with many widowed people, there are several common trends I see with us and why we volunteer:
1. To counterbalance the help we have received
Often, widowed individuals are in a situation where we are accepting help from many sources post-widowhood, sometimes for the first time in our lives. Volunteering time and talent helps us to “balance the scales” and assist the communities and organizations that helped us, or to pay it forward to others.
2. As a way to live our partner or spouse’s legacy and to support organizations
This can be an important driver in not only volunteering, but in the organizations to support. My husband and I volunteered at the Food Bank and on county and local food drives through our son’s Boy Scout Troop and his employer. When he was killed, I directed some contributions to the food bank in his name.
3. As a fun, protected way to socialize and combat feelings of isolation
Often, the death of a spouse or partner is extremely isolating. There may be a disconnect from social circles and typically grieving partners isolate to a degree in coping with the complex aftermath of a partner’s passing. Volunteering is a way to get out in a structured environment and socialize-without socializing being the primary purpose of the event. It’s a way to get out and feel good.
4. For the empowering feeling of helping others
Volunteering can not only counter-balance the help received, but it is empowering in its own right. Widows and widowers find the process of settling estates and dealing with processes, procedures, and arrangements to be challenging at best and often full of processes and procedures that can be disempowering. Volunteering, in a situation that is set up for success, can be a critical way to empower.
5. To gain experience
Because of the nature of partnerships, long-term partners often divide up the work of managing domestic affairs, like household management duties. When a spouse or partner passes, the challenge is that the surviving widowed partner is faced with skill acquisition-precisely when faculties are compromised by grief.
Structured volunteer assignments can provide this opportunity to acquire new skills in a low-risk environment. One widowed individual I coached expressed a desire to learn fundraising skills, which she learned by volunteering with a local non-profit under the guidance of the staff there.
6. To network
One of the consequences of a spouse or partner’s passing is a shift in social and sometimes business relationships. Volunteering often provides a good opportunity to build new networks post-loss.
With this in mind, there are some specific things that you can do with the organization you support (usually with the volunteer coordinator) to ensure these experiences are mutually successful.
Things You Can Do To Have a Great Volunteer Experience:
1. Minimize trigger situations:
Talk to your volunteer coordinator about creating a positive, safe experience by working together to minimize potential grief triggers while volunteering. You don't need to worry about the fact that your needs are “forcing” them modify processes extensively-most organizations do this anyway when they assess a potential volunteer's interests and "fit" for certain assignments.
Here’s an example: one of my clients lost a spouse in an auto accident. When the opportunity came up to volunteer at a local hospital, we worked together with the volunteer management team to ensure that he was not assigned to volunteer work that put him a place where triggers might be present, such as the information desk closest to the hospital emergency room.
2. If your Volunteer Coordinator doesn’t ceck in early, and often, during the training and transition period, check in with them:
When you are training for a volunteer role, check in with your trainer and your volunteer coordinator to make sure that you are preforming your assignment well and that you are learning what you can. With any volunteer position, check-ins are a best practice, and important to ensure a comfort level is maintained with the organization and with the position. This best practice also cements a strong foundation for the relationship between the organization and you as the volunteer.
3. With Your Volunteer Coordinator, Create an Agreed-upon “Take a Break” Strategy
Despite your best efforts, sometimes an inadvertent trigger to the loss may hit you while you are volunteering. One of the strategies I work with volunteer organizations with is to ensure that there is an “exit plan” to give the widowed volunteer a chance to compose him or herself and ensure a break or relief is available. Sometimes this is a standing opportunity to check in with the volunteer office if a break is needed to utilize grounding techniques to deal with grief temporarily. Other times it might be job sharing. I worked with a volunteer organization to pair two widowed volunteers as “backups” for each other. If one was having a difficult day, the other took the shift, ensuring a consistent supply of help for the organization-but needed flexibility for the widowed volunteers.
If you don’t have this set in your volunteer situation, have a quiet conversation with the volunteer coordinator about how you and the organization can handle things if a trigger hits BEFORE you are in the situation.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask for retraining resources and job duty references and make sure they are accessible as needed
Due to the cognitive challenges with memory (“widow brain”) and executive functioning that come with grief, it can be helpful to have job aids available for you as a widowed volunteer. Make sure you have them available to refer to if needed. If a refresh of requirements is needed, it should be delivered without censure or repercussion by your organization as a best practice. You should feel free ask for refreshers if necessary.
5. Ensure you know who your mentor is. If you don’t have one, you can ask for one.
For some widowed, volunteering may represent the first time they are out in a social situation post-loss, typically after a period of isolation. Having an on-call mentor that checks in with them in a consistent way can ensure a successful time. Most organizations manage this by ensuring their orientation "trainer" fulfills the role.
If you don’t know who this individual is, ask your organization’s coordinator for the information, or ask them if you can have a mentor or guide to check in with for the assignment.
6. Confirm with the organization what boundaries you are comfortable with sharing about your loss and widowed status.
If this is an organization you were part of pre-loss, then information about your loss will likely already have circulated. If not, it is okay to set boundaries with the organization about the kind of information you are comfortable sharing about your widowed status. Some of us would like the extra support and are comfortable with that information being shared; for others, the volunteer opportunity is a place to “lose” ourselves by doing good for others, and to take a break from their personal situation. In those cases, the you as the volunteer might not want the information about their widowed status shared.
7. Set the stage for a long-term relationship
Bring some flexibility to your assignment and approach it with an open mind. Think long-term about the relationship and invest in it
Finding A Volunteer Situation:
Not sure of where you can help out? Most states have a website or location that lists areas you can help. You can also check in with your chamber of commerce or at the library which can point you to local non-profit organizations.
In Illinois, you can check volunteer opportunities at the link https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/serve/Pages/default.aspx
Chances are that your state county or town has a way to help.
Hugs, The Widow Coach
About the author: Maggie Moore, The Widow Coach™ is a Certified Grief Recovery Method Specialist™, Widow, and Coach. She specializes in taking clients from “desolation to transformation” via her Widowed Navigator™ system, teaches a full suite of grief recovery classes, is a sought-after speaker for groups and professional certification, and consults with businesses affected by loss. You can reach her at maggie@thewidowcoach.com
#thewidowcoach #widow #widower #grief #loss #bereavement #volunteer #helpingout#Widowed #widowcoach #Grieving #Widowhood #LossAndHealing #WidowSupport #HealingJourney #LifeAfterLoss #GriefRecovery #WidowsVoice #WidowsStrength #Volunteer #VolunteerWork #MakeADifference #CommunityService #GivingBack #SupportingOthers #Empowerment #SocialConnection #PersonalGrowth #CopingWithGrief #BuildingResilience #HonoringMemory #SkillsAcquisition #Networking #Mentorship
I’d love to hear your experiences in working with volunteer organizations. Comment below if you would like or send me a message at info@thewidowcoach.com