If you’re new to this substack, welcome! We are glad you’re here and hope that we can offer meaningful content that will help you as you navigate grief. This post will contain some information about what we’ve been up to, resources for you, exclusive journal prompts, and we are spending some time talking about grief in the media and why that matters.

What’s New with Moving Forward with Mia and Julia

We have been busy since launching our LLC. You can now buy a signed copy of our book, Supporting Others Through Loss: Stories of Grief, Leadership, and Trauma, directly from our website! We heard you when many of you said that you don’t shop at Amazon and we respect your desire to shop small, so we made that a priority. We’ve also officially started offering grief coaching sessions via Zoom. Learn more about that and schedule a session here. If you are in Northern Indiana, we are hosting a launch event at Generous Coffee this Saturday, April 19th, in Warsaw, IN from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

This Friday, April 18th, make sure to listen as Mina Starsiak joins us on the podcast!

Give Back Initiatives

For the month of April $2 from every book we sell will go to Sarah Annese’s Walk MS fundraiser to support the National MS Society. She will be a guest on the podcast on April 25th, so tune in to learn how being diagnosed with a chronic illness, how she has grieved, and above all, her resilience.

For the month of May, convince your friends to get a subscription to our substack that month if they haven’t already! 50% of all substack subscriptions for May will be donated to the Elizabeth Schilling Adjust your Sails Foundation in honor of Brain Tumor Awareness Month. Elizabeth’s mom, Heather, will join us on the podcast on May 2nd and will share her story.

Resources for You

Rebecca Soffer joined us on the podcast last month and we can not stop talking about The Modern Loss Handbook. The online Modern Loss community is also something that we have found to be helpful and we know that you will too.

Navigating grief and supporting those who are grieving in the workplace is hard, but as we’ve learned, it’s necessary. Check out this article from Good Grief, which gives some amazing tips for leaders and their employees.

Opting Out of Events

Book of the Month Club did the MOST amazing thing and offered its subscribers the opportunity to opt out of Mother’s Day emails. This is such a difficult day for not only those who have lost their mothers, but those who are struggling with IVF or getting pregnant, or are on an adoption journey. We would love for more companies to take this same approach for Mother’s and Father’s day, but we also love this idea of “opting out” of things that won’t serve us well. If there is a celebration or event coming up this Spring that you know will cause you to mourn, feel free to skip it. A simple note to friends and family saying you’d love to come, but you need to protect your peace should suffice and if it doesn’t? That’s on them.

Grief in the Media

Grief has taken center stage in the media recently. If you aren’t watching The Pitt, what have you even been doing on Thursday nights? This show highlights grief in so many stages and layers from people losing their loved ones to how doctors and nurses cope when they lose patients. The acting is excellent, but might be hard for some to watch.

The Life List is a Netflix movie based on the book (be prepared, they’re vastly different, but both still wonderful). In the film, Alex loses her mother, who has uncovered her daughter’s life list she created when she was thirteen and in order for Alex to earn her inheritance, she has to complete that list. Though the premise originally did seem cheesy, this is a great story about finding yourself and living life after you’ve lost someone so important to you.

Though we haven’t seen it, we’ve heard good things about the new Netflix film, Nonna’s about a man who starts an Italian restaurant following his mother’s death in her honor. It stars one of our favorites, Vince Vaughn.

We also had Cara Bastone on the podcast who shared her story behind writing her new bestselling book, Promise Me Sunshine. This book follows Lenny, who has fallen apart following the death of her best friend. It’s a beautiful romance with a lovely nod to New York City.

April’s Journal Prompt

If you haven’t worked on March’s Journal Prompt, you can find that here. This week, we encourage you to take a step back to look at your day. We sometimes think that things are going worse than they are because we aren’t reflecting.

Keep a log of every time you feel that grief is overwhelming or that you think about something or someone that you have lost. Do you think about your mother at 8:45 a.m. because a song she loved came on the radio during your morning commute? Note that. Did a former colleague like a post on LinkedIn that reminded you that you are no longer working in a position that you felt was a big part of your identity? Write that down.

Look back at your day when you have a moment. How often were you actively grieving? Was there anything that you learned from those moments? Did you handle them well or do you think you need more help? When were you happy that day? What were you doing that made you feel better?

If you’d like to share your thoughts, we encourage you to start a thread on the stubstack chat.

We want to hear from you!

We are considering offering a monthly online grief group. This would have a different topic each session for you to have time to think about prior to the session. If we do this, what time would be helpful for you?

Is there a topic you’d like to learn more about on substack, instagram, or on our podcast? Let us know! Email us at movingforwardwithmiaandjulia@gmail.com.