- Hello folks, my name is Allira Potter. My pronouns are she and they, and I'm a proud Yorta Yorta woman. I'm here to talk to you about grief, and I wanna share my experience about dealing with grief, how I've supported friends through the grieving process, what grief may feel like when you are experiencing it, and just a couple of tips if you are going through a grieving process. I will also say that grief doesn't necessarily sit with the passing of a loved one. It can be the grief of a relationship breakdown, the grief of a friendship. It could be a whole list of things. 

- So when I was 17, I sadly lost my mum to cancer, and this was the first time in my life that I had truly felt and experienced what grief felt like, looked like, and I won't sit here and sugarcoat it. It was definitely, probably one of the hardest experiences that I have ever gone through. I just remember, I guess feeling all these feelings of grief, that sadness, anger, a feeling of, you know, feeling numb, and also experiencing what I like to call was brain fog, where I couldn't really feel present in life and I just was in this like fog constantly. It did come to a point where I had to really look after myself and I had to do certain things in order to help me move forward, but also understand that the grief and the grieving process may be with me for a really long time. 

- I found that getting out in nature brought mindfulness and made me feel a lot more present. It would like, make me check in with my senses, the smells, and just be fully immersed in what's happening. I also found that nourishing my body with any type of food, anything that I could put into my body, I would make sure that I was nourishing it. With the mindfulness, I found that making things and creating things was also another little hack that sort of almost distracted me from a couple of things too. 

- I wanted to also share a couple of things if you are supporting a friend who is going through the grieving process. I remember my friends didn't know exactly what to do, but they would do things like maybe drop food at my door or they would send me an Uber Eats sort of meal. They would also just do really simple things, like sending me a text message to say, Hey, I know I'm not gonna be able to fix what's happening, but I'm here if you need me. And I think that's the most important thing. 

- The final thing that I want to leave with you is give yourself time and space to heal during the grieving process. Everything is going to be okay, and I like to think of whatever I am feeling right here and right now is just this temporary feeling. Just know that you are fully supported and that there is support around you to help you if you are feeling really overwhelmed.