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Turning Grief Into Art: A Powerful Way to Understand Death and Healing image

Turning Grief Into Art: A Powerful Way to Understand Death and Healing

The Glam Reaper Podcast
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44 Plays7 days ago

In this episode, Jennifer Muldowney sits down with Jill Greenbaum to explore a different approach to one of life’s hardest conversations, death, loss, and everything we struggle to put into words. Jill introduces the idea that drawing, even in its simplest form, can help people communicate what they feel when language falls short.

Because here’s the truth most people overlook. Words disappear. Conversations get forgotten. But when something is placed visually in front of you, it stays. It becomes something you can return to, reflect on, and understand more clearly. 

You don’t need to be an artist. You don’t need to get it right. You just need a way to express what matters. And in a world where people are overwhelmed, burnt out, and often disconnected from their own emotions, something as simple as drawing might be the most honest form of communication we have.


Key Topics:

-Using visual storytelling to make death, grief, and loss easier to talk about
-Turning simple drawings into a powerful tool for communication
-Creating visual obituaries to reflect on life, legacy, and meaning
-Processing grief through creativity, ritual, and personal expression
-Making end-of-life conversations more accessible and easier to understand


Quotes from the episode:

“There is music and there is art in everyone.”

— Jennifer Muldowney

“What I'm teaching people to do is not about making art, which is wonderful, but it is about communication.”

— Jill Greenbaum


Timestamps:

[01:39] From Education to Visual Storytelling: Jill shares how her background in teaching, curriculum development, and creativity led her into visual practice.

[02:11] Drawing Your Thoughts, Questions, and Plans: Jill explains how simple marks can help people express what they are thinking, even when they believe they “can’t draw.”

[03:16] Visualizing End of Life Issues: Jill shares how a group of women came together to use visual storytelling as a more accessible way to talk about dying, death, grief, and loss.

[04:10] Creating a Visual Story of Your End of Life: Jill explains the Lifting the Lid workshop, where people used prompts to imagine where they want to be, who they want with them, and what their final wishes may look like.

[07:41] It’s Not About Making Art, It’s About Communication: Jill makes a powerful point that drawing does not have to be beautiful, it just has to help people express what matters.

[14:52] When Pet Loss Opens a New Path: Jill shares how losing her dog led her toward pet loss and bereavement chaplaincy work.

[19:56] We Are the Artists of Our Lives: Jill reflects on how creativity is not limited to traditional art, but also shows up in the choices, rituals, and practices that help us heal.

[24:42] Self-Care for People Working Around Death and Grief: Jill discusses burnout in care-based fields and why self-care cannot only fall on individuals, systems also need to become more responsive.

Connect with Jill Greenbaum at:
Website: www.jillgreenbaum.com
Email: jill@jillgreenbaum.com
Social media accounts: https://www.instagram.com/jillig/
https://www.facebook.com/jill.greenbaum
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillrgreenbaum/

Connect with Jennifer/The Glam Reaper on socials at:
Instagram -   / jennifermuldowney
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YouTube -    / @theglamreapermuldowney
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Facebook Page -   / muldowneymemorials
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Transcript

Introduction to Visualizing End-of-Life Issues

00:00:00
Speaker
We've created a group called Visualizing End-of-Life Issues. That's what we do. And so we advocate for people understanding through visual storytelling because it feels more accessible sometimes than, you know, finding your way into a conversation about dying, death, grief, and loss.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Muldowney, aka the Glam Reaper. And on today's episode, we have Jill Greenbaum and she is here to tell us all things creative. I fell in love with Jill and after watching her presentation on Lifting the Lid Festival, which is a UK-based festival. It's entirely online. It's over a whole weekend. It's a lot. It's a lot. and But it's really great. I mean, i don't know if I actually would. I must reach out to them and find out. Does anybody stay awake for the entire thing? Because it's um all over the world. And so it's it's yeah, there is no breaks. It's 24-7 for the whole weekend. Anyway, without further ado, Jill, welcome.
00:01:13
Speaker
Thank you so much. Happy to be here. So tell us, ah Jill, a little bit about. So obviously I know about you from your workshop and it was so fascinating. I'm so glad this is a visual call. Not that I'm asking you to do any of your your your good create stuff. oh If you can give the people who are listening to the podcast and then obviously on YouTube, if you can give us a taste of who you are, where you're coming from and what it is that bring to the table, because i think it's great.
00:01:38
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, it's been a long and varied path.

Jill's Background and Transition to Visual Storytelling

00:01:41
Speaker
Super fun all the time. um i used to be, a million years ago, a teacher of children with special needs in New York City. So teacher, principal, administrator. um And that was back in the day where you had to be super creative in terms of having materials. And so my background is in education. I have a doctorate in curriculum development. So I love to create things. Like I learned And then I create things.
00:02:04
Speaker
And so I'm also a visual practitioner, which is what you were seeing during lifting the lid. And that is that I teach people to take their thoughts, their questions and their plans and to draw them through simple. We make marks all the time. Most most adults would say, I don't know how to draw. And yet we do because we write all the time.
00:02:25
Speaker
Or maybe a little less now because of computers, but still we have the capacity. And so I've been a visual practitioner for, gosh, over a dozen years. And that means that I do my own visual storytelling and I teach other people to do the same. And um quick story about that is there's, of course, people around the world that do this kind of work. There was a conference. There was a woman there from Thailand that taught volunteers in a hospital do listened to patients because the patients felt they weren't being listened to by their doctors or nurses. And in listening to the patients, these people, these volunteers drew their story. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can bring my skills to doing this kind of work.
00:03:09
Speaker
And there were a half dozen women in North America that were on the same call. And we decided to come together. So we created a group called Visualizing End of Life Issues. And so that's what we do. And so we advocate for people understanding through visual storytelling because it feels more accessible sometimes than, you know, finding your way into a conversation about dying, death, grief, and loss.
00:03:33
Speaker
yeah And so that's pretty much how I came

Roles as a Zen Buddhist Chaplain and Death Doula

00:03:37
Speaker
to all of this. I am also a chaplain in the Zen Buddhist tradition. That's a little more recent and a death doula and volunteering in a local hospital.
00:03:46
Speaker
I do everything, though, through visuals. And so that's how we met each other on Lifting the Lid. And tell everyone a little bit about just obviously a small synopsis of the workshop that you did in Lifting the Lid, because it was great.
00:03:58
Speaker
Absolutely. And it's funny you should say that because I'm thinking back to had done one last year and the year before last. But last year, it was really about creating a zine or a visual, one-page visual, visual story of how you envision the end of your life. And so I offered up some prompts to people. Where do you want to be? Who do you want to be with? What your wishes, hopes, and dreams? Imagine your burial. And so people either created like an eight-panel zine,
00:04:28
Speaker
And that had a panel to tell their story or one visual. But what preceded that and I think was helpful and you were talking about it is that I taught people to draw simply, right, to really deconstruct things that we look at and go, gosh, I could never do that and go, yeah, sure you can. And we did a bit of that in the hour

Workshops on Visual Storytelling for End-of-Life Planning

00:04:47
Speaker
that we had. So it was like, it was so fast.
00:04:51
Speaker
And it's so true, honestly. i mean, I often say that I was definitely more on the artistic side than I was on the musical side growing up. um And art was sort of always my outlet. and But there's music and there's art in everyone. It's just it's deep down for some people. It's not.
00:05:09
Speaker
good maybe for some people but there is you you have the ability to draw you have the ability to make music it might not be good music might not be a good drawing in standards you know that are out there or whatever but there is there is that ability i mean i i think i maybe mentioned this to you when we chatted afterwards but um years and years ago and um if if any of these people are out there they'll understand but if they're listening to this, but many years ago, I was part of a networking group and it was a business networking group. And I was known as dead girl because I was the only one where they are representing sort of anything.
00:05:44
Speaker
End of life. um That quickly changed, thankfully, to the Glam Reaper once my book came out and I got, thank that you know, the newspaper just had peace on me. But dead girl it was for a while.
00:05:55
Speaker
And so we were up doing this brainstorming and session in in this networking group. And the leader asked everyone, he said, OK, I want you to draw a circle and I want to put you at the center of it. Right. So you're in the middle of this circle. And now out of that, we're going to do, you know, one of these like spider drives. And when he came around to look at everyone's at everyone's piece, he just started roaring, laughing when he looked at mine, because I had literally draw a stick figure, Jen, with like pigtails and a little skirt and her arms in the air. And it was just a basic stick figure.
00:06:29
Speaker
But he was just like, Jen, that just epitomizes you and who you are. Everyone else wrote their name and stuff. And it was just something just so basic, but it just gave me such joy. And it also, when I looked at my page in comparison to somebody else's, it did represent me because that is like that little stick figure, you know, with her hands in the air, enthusiastic as everything. but That absolutely represented me and who I was and what I wanted this circle around me to sort of be around was this person.
00:06:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So I think it's very interesting what you're talking about. And I think it's fascinating to ask people to draw what they envision of their life.
00:07:11
Speaker
Do you do when you've done workshop? I mean, how how, I guess, does this come into reality? You know, do you go to hospices? How? Yeah. How does this work to the like? there's There's people who listen to this podcast and they're in the funeral space and they're in the end of life space. And then there's people who, you know, up until 20 years ago was me, which just has nothing to do with end of life, but just curious about this space. So if you can relate, Jill, as to what you do and how that works in reality, I guess. Right.
00:07:39
Speaker
Absolutely. It works in a variety of ways. and And I want to pick up on something you said also, which is that what I'm teaching people to do is not about making art, which is wonderful. Right. but it is about communication.
00:07:51
Speaker
It is about getting your ideas across. So when you created you with the stick figure and the pigtails, that was truly you communicating about yourself. And so if my drawings are super simple. I mean, there are certainly people in the field that do much more artistic work than me, but what I care about is the message and they get across, I get it across, but in different ways. And so I do it in a variety of ways. I teach workshops.
00:08:15
Speaker
like lifting the lid, to teach people to do their own work, which sometimes inspires them to say, I'd rather tell Jill what I'm thinking and have her draw it for me.
00:08:25
Speaker
All right. And so that's an opportunity that I do with clients. I also volunteer for a variety of organizations, one of them being End of Life Choices New York. which is about medical aid and dying. And they were doing Giving Tuesday, which we have here in the U.S. I'm not sure if it's around the world or not, but when you give to charities.
00:08:45
Speaker
um And so I offered up my drawing skills to people that gave donations to the organization. So I do that also. as As a death doula, I also am with other volunteers. And so talk with them about the work that I'm doing and offer workshops or the same kinds of opportunities. And so I have to say, I've always been more on the fringes after leaving education, being a consultant for over two dozen years. So I tend to do them more regularly. person to person types of interactions in finding people. So I find groups and I can always, I mean, we're all going to die, right? Not that we talk about that, but you and I know that. But when I tell, you know, when I'm at an event and I'm drawing what the speaker's saying, so it can be any kind of event because that's how I take my notes. Everything is a visual from me.
00:09:33
Speaker
And they say, oh, my gosh, that's amazing. I said, yes, and it's used for this. And it carries into all these other kinds of areas. So very much to your point, it is applicable for in in just so many different ways, in so many different professions, right? If you're sitting with a client as a funeral director and you want to be thinking about Well, what do they want? Well, it can be a conversation and somebody can take notes or it can be a visual. And that's something that the person leaves with, the funeral director has, or the death duel or whoever it happens to be. And it's something that can be referred to.
00:10:08
Speaker
Right. When we're talking, our words disappear into the air. And so there may be misunderstandings. There may be things that are forgotten. And the reality is if there's a drawing we can refer to that says, this is where I want to be. This is who I want with me. This is what I want the funeral to look like. This is the, you know, just all of the things that you and I know about that people need to be thinking about and imagining. If it's all on paper, it can be seen and discussed.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah. And it it is interesting, like in the courses that I teach, whether it's a celebrant or we have a pet loss one or we've an Irish tradition, one you know, different things like that. I ah actually usually I'm very cognizant of when I'm doing the course, people do learn in different ways. There are visual learners, there are audible learners and there are people who need it written down. There are people who need to put it into practice before they learn. and I'm definitely a visual person. And so, yeah, for me, like I listening to an audio book doesn't really work for me.
00:11:08
Speaker
um I'll take i do i do listen to business ones when I'm out on my walk. ah But I know that only chunks will go in every now and then because my brain just goes off into it. It does a little dance and goes off and it'll come back and take another chunk and then it'll go off again. ah I don't know where it goes, but whereas, you know, and in school, so I wasn't kind of great in school or even like a dance class or things like that. I would have to visually, you couldn't necessarily teach me things. It was, I had to watch people do it or see something in action and then i would do it. And even is in and what we do now, like with Muldowny Memorials and when we're more creating the memorials, we like to do floor plans and we like to do, you know,
00:11:52
Speaker
sort of renderings in some ways if we can and if it's in the budget and stuff like that to to just visually show people what what's ahead of them. and Just because that can help clarify really, right?
00:12:03
Speaker
Keep people on the same page. And i I first met you at Greenwood Cemetery because I came to the event that Gabrielle put together. And I also do sessions for for volunteers and also for members and guests. And so i have a workshop in which I teach people to create their visual obituaries, which is really drawing the highlights of their lives or the important points or some of their challenges, whatever's important to them.
00:12:30
Speaker
So I have a variety of prompts that I give them in terms of creating their visual obituaries. And I've done this in person and online. Because sometimes online, particularly, people will make collage. Sometimes you have one session.
00:12:44
Speaker
It's two because people want to consult with their families. They want to gather photos. They want to gather documents, birth certificates, graduations, death certificates, whatever it happens to be, military records. And so people create in

Art and its Role in Processing Grief

00:12:58
Speaker
a variety of ways. And people in my field, where i test just about everything, being a visual practitioner, is the folks that I started with, they drew their own visual obituaries from the very beginning.
00:13:08
Speaker
you know So that it depends on where your comfort level is, but those are possibilities. There's also, as we speak of creativity, something that people can do for themselves, but that I offer in a variety of settings, which is creating impermanent earth art. And so I've studied with De Shilkrit.
00:13:25
Speaker
who's on Instagram. He's created a program called Morning Altars. And it's literally, I'm looking out the window at my backyard. It's literally going into nature and foraging and using a seven-step process to develop altars where you have a question, you know, that's laying on your heart or a thought in your mind. And it may be related to death, dying, grief, or loss. It may be a transition that you're facing or just something that you're pondering.
00:13:50
Speaker
But it's taking time to sit with yourself and to be in nature, to gather up things and to create something beautiful that then just like life will disappear.
00:14:01
Speaker
Right. Because we are ephemeral as is the artwork that we create outside. Yeah. Wow. And tell me in your years of doing this, have you, have you seen anybody draw anything that you were kind of not expecting or that was kind of a little, and little wild or... I have to say, I haven't seen that. I have, there are times where people have put some challenges that they've had and finding their way through it, you know, where that's represented on their visual obituary, because challenges can be growth opportunities. They can also be things that stand in the way of growth. But when people are thinking over their lives, right? Right. When they're thinking of what's happened to them, what's been important or transformational or formational in some way. Sometimes it is those things that are that are very challenging. I mean, honestly, over a year ago, our our last dog died.
00:14:56
Speaker
And it's still something that sits heavily on my heart. And it has turned me towards pet loss and bereavement chaplaincy work. And so I have done other artistic things. I haven't drawn him. And yet I have created little booklets. I have done various art projects and collages related to him and and my feelings for him.
00:15:18
Speaker
And that's much more recent. I've had dogs since I was four years old. But yet in this particular case, because I didn't have these skills now, i use them in different ways. yeah That's been a source of of comfort. not Not always easy, but a source of comfort.
00:15:34
Speaker
It's so it's so interesting that you bring that up because I'm going through, i guess, very similar to that. We um our dog passed away nearly two years ago and it's still i so I still cry. You know, if I think of her at night or i came across videos two nights ago and, you know, of her jumping around and just being her lovely little self and the joy she brought and her little paws and oh, my God, I don't want to get. crying again but what's interesting is um i have also we we had her cremated i live in the us she she lived in ireland um at the at the time and so um whenever i go home there's we still have her ashes but we we put a little bit of her and there's a fairy of a fairy trail near where my parents were living and um i i got a little fairy door i put her name on it
00:16:27
Speaker
And I just I just wanted a little a mark, a little spot of where children could sort of come along. They don't know who she is or was, but that she would still be bringing a little bit of joy and and what not to them.
00:16:38
Speaker
And then i I actually got some passages, glitter, biodegradable glitter that you can actually mix with ash and and sprinkle it. So it just kind of tied into the whole fairy trail thing. But again, like even creating that little door, creating that little space and putting her there, mixing her ashes with the glitter could sound absolutely insane to anybody else. But for me, because I ah have that kind of creative part of me and artistic part of me, this was just how I was was dealing with it, you know, and it's not for everyone. And I'm always saying that everything we talk about on this podcast and I've ever talked about, we are not the same people. We are all different people and we grieve differently.
00:17:20
Speaker
The Oscars just happened, you know, recently and and an amazing Jessie Buckley, the Irish actress, won Best Actress. but But what that movie Hamlet showed is how people can be so similar but still and and love each other so much, but still grieve the same thing so differently. And that was, you know, her and and Shakespeare and, you know, and how they grieved so differently. i don't know if you've seen the movie or not, but it's such an incredible movie about grief. And obviously it's like child loss, but but any form of loss. And it's just I talked about this on on another, i think, episode. But, you know, again, bringing the art in when I moved to Florida, I wanted a piece of Poppy, my dog. I wanted a piece of her here. I wanted some sort of something here.
00:18:05
Speaker
And immediately I thought, oh, my God, a beautiful art piece. And I could get her and my other dog see and have the two of them together and I could get them together and put them, you know, and this was all just kind of brainstorming things. And then i had the incredible idea. I will clap myself in the back and we're now going to start to start selling it because it's such a great idea. i'm so therapeutic for me is I got a photo of the two of them. So one dog was 16 years. and We both had them both for 16 years each. We're very blessed. and But one was 16 years and then another was 16 years. So over the span of like 32 years, my whole life, basically.
00:18:41
Speaker
And so one is a very old photo. One is a new photo. But I put them to get meshed them together, put the background I wanted in it because I wanted a pink because glam reaper. Hello, you know, all things pink.
00:18:53
Speaker
And i got it ah made into a paint by numbers because I wanted to. So originally i wanted a piece, a painting of my dogs in my apartment. The prices were, I think, 300 plus for and any sort of a sized one.
00:19:10
Speaker
And i have the artistic talent, but I just knew I wouldn't be able to do them justice. That was my feeling, you know, and I didn't want something that didn't look like them. I was really adamant about that. But I wanted to do it myself. So I got it done into a paint by numbers situation, which was honestly, Jill, the most beautiful therapeutic thing. Every weekend I would do a couple of different numbers. And yes, is a basic it basic? Was I using any creativity? Not really, I guess. But like it was meditative. it was therapeutic. And honestly, heavy the the thing that the thing that I'm left with is be beautiful. It's exactly what I wanted to exactly the colors. It didn't cost me, you know, a month's mortgage. And it was just such a therapeutic process to be able to do it.
00:19:55
Speaker
So to be able to fill all the boxes. Yeah. So, I mean, I think also that the idea being an artist or artistic is too confined, right? I think there are many ways to show up. And actually, I almost wore a t-shirt today that said artist on it, which was not meant to be about me. it was meant to be that my philosophy is that we are the artist of our lives, that we have choices to make.
00:20:18
Speaker
Love that. And so i love to run with that. And I think that anything that brings us that kind of joy, I mean, you're making conscious choices. You're putting time and energy into it. It is bringing you joy.
00:20:29
Speaker
And I mean, for me, sometimes when I'm doing art, also some frustration, but that is also part of life, right? Yes. And it's a beautiful journey in the process. I i also offer to teach people Zentangle, which is a meditative art form and not so much around grief and loss, but it is a practice, right? There are so many practices, whether it's painting by numbers, whether it's going out into nature and creating altars, Whether it is doing mindful drawing, because Zentangle isn't doodling, which is mindless and fun. But Zentangle is, you know, there are some guidelines for doing it. And yet it is extremely popular because it brings people calm and peace.
00:21:09
Speaker
And I think it's just important for us to find our way for what we need when we're greeting in the many ways that you talked about. I was just at the ADEC conference, so the Association for Death Education and Counseling Conference, and presented on the morning altars work that I do.
00:21:24
Speaker
And yet the thing, I mean, there were so many workshops that I wanted to go to. I was like, quantum physics, please. Can I be in you know six places at once? wait But there was drumming going on and there was drawing going on and there was curating grief going on. you know Charlene Lamb's work. I mean, there were just so many different things that were fabulous in addition to you know hardcore academic stuff, like what do we need to be paying attention to? And it was amazing and wonderful.
00:21:50
Speaker
And it was just, there are so many ways for us to show up and support ourselves. And I think that's one of my challenges, which is something that I thought about when you were talking also, is that you and I know so much from being in the field.

Educational Needs and Challenges in End-of-Life Care

00:22:04
Speaker
And in general, the public does not know the resources that are available to them. Yeah. And just as you said, we grieve in different ways and there should, in my opinion, not be judgment about how people are reeling. And so the reality is that we need to help people know what the information is so they can make informed decisions.
00:22:23
Speaker
Right. I'm an advocate of medical aid in dying. And doesn't matter to me what you choose as long as you know what your options are. Right. In the state of New York, we just we've had terramation or human composting for quite some time.
00:22:39
Speaker
And yet it has never entered the state until just a couple of weeks ago when Greenwood Cemetery um has said that they will be doing that. So they're the first folks on the East Coast. It's been happening on the West Coast for quite a while. But I'm very interested in that. And so I love telling people about what the possibilities are because they just don't know.
00:22:58
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, yes. and And that's something, you know, we're always talking about on this podcast and how education really is key when it comes to end of life and funeral directors. And I know there is a massive bone of contention between funeral directors and death doulas and things like that. But I think one of the big differences that I think funeral directors are going to have to, ah i don't know, step up their game a little bit on is that death doulas are very hungry and eager for educating themselves. And the funeral professionals are not because they are overworked, underpaid, overwhelmed, you know, and and it's a lot. So, you know, when I say step up their game, that's in no disrespect to the incredible amount of work that they're already doing. But it's how do we make that education available, accessible, easy to digest, stuff like that. Like it really, really is.
00:23:52
Speaker
It's a tough, it's a tough space to be in. It really is. Whether you're an innovator coming into it, whether you're generational and you've grown up in it, um it really is a tough space to be in. I was just in Ireland and obviously I'm living here in the US between New York and Florida and then I'm in DC now as well.
00:24:08
Speaker
And it's just in every state and in every country that I've been to thus far all I see are people in this space who are burnt out who are trying to help who really you know are giving of themselves in in many different forms whether it's financially mentally spiritually soulfully whatever to people and so there's some disconnect happening and I don't necessarily know i don't have the band-aid or the plaster big enough to to just to help but I feel like there's something conversations can help you know
00:24:42
Speaker
Completely.

Importance of Self-Care for Helping Professionals

00:24:43
Speaker
And it's interesting that you should raise that because i just wrote an article for Connects, which is the newsletter for the Association for Death Education and Counseling, and it was about self-care. And it was about using impermanent earth art and creating it, which can take anywhere from 15 minutes because you create an altar in your palm to something that you spend an hour or more out in nature, gathering things, deciding how the pieces will fit together, journaling about it, taking photos, whatever it happens to be. But it is the self-care piece. I mean, I come out of the rape crisis and domestic violence movement. So way back in the day, i started in college volunteering. i was the director of two different programs in New Jersey. And so what I saw was exactly what you're talking about, was staff members in these programs
00:25:30
Speaker
burning out. And so I started speaking about it in the late 80s at our conferences for sexual assault and domestic violence workers. Like we need to, of course, put the oxygen and mask on first, but that's easy to say and it's hard to do. So when I was doing a clinical menstrual education internship during COVID in a local hospital, I said to my preceptor, my supervisor, I said, what's being done for the staff here, you know, who are just living this? You know, even when they go home, it still feels like 24-7. And, you know, he responded me. he said, we offered a workshop for two hours during the workday and nobody came. and i And I said, honestly, I'm not surprised. How do you start your workday, go to a workshop for two hours where you're supposed to literally, you know, almost un-sick yourself in terms of your emotions, get get into it, and then have to put it all back together and go back to work?
00:26:24
Speaker
And the answer is not asking people to come in early or stay later or take a vacation day to do it. So how do we make more responsive systems? And this was actually a session that Greg Adams led at ADEC.
00:26:37
Speaker
And it was interesting because he started out talking about the systems we work in, but it became an individual piece. Like we have to do this for ourselves. And I'm like, we don't exist as only individuals. We exist in systems.
00:26:49
Speaker
So how do we help make those systems more responsive to what's needed for everybody that interacts with that system? And that's a huge question and it's not an easy thing to do, but I don't think we can look to each one of us as individuals. Yeah, yeah. There needs to be more cohesiveness and collective thought behind it all and and communication, really.

Conclusion and Resources

00:27:09
Speaker
So maybe we all need to take out our our pencils and start drawing.
00:27:13
Speaker
We just need to start driving. We need a Jill. We need a workshop. We need to get everyone together globally. we need to make this happen. Jill, this has been such an interesting conversation. oh my gosh. I feel like I could talk for ages. and Thank you so much. i We're going to leave all the links and below. Okay. Whether it's on the video or on the podcast. and Check out Jill. You do have a couple of free resources on your website as well that people can check out. Yeah.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, she's really, really helpful. She's a great woman for a workshop. um And it's just, you know, i would just urge anybody who's planning a conference or, you know, even gathering a few people together, whether it's your team, your funeral home or whatever it might be, or even in your workplace. Jill is a great asset because it's just how how often do we get to draw something like we've all been to the conventions, we've all been to workshops and things. And and there's just there's not enough doing of things. It's listening. Somebody's talking at you. So I love what you do is a collective group exercise and physically, you know, using what is the left side of your brain. Right. Yeah.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah. little bit. Yeah. The right and the left together. It's the best combination. Exactly. Exactly right. Jill, thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure. Likewise. Thanks so much.