Coaching practices for What to Do When a Family Member Dies Checklist
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For What to Do When a Family Member Dies Checklist, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- They handled the money, or the cooking, or were just the person I leaned on
- I know in my head that they’re gone, but it still hasn’t landed
- There’s so much I never got to say to them, and so much happening now I wish I could tell them
- There’s no obituary, no photos passed around, no trace anywhere that this mattered
- Nobody in my life gets this kind of loss, and I’m starting to ache for even one person who’s been through the exact same thing and wouldn’t need me to explain why it matters.
Practices that may help
- Task 3: Adjust to a world without the person
Actively develop new skills, roles, and identity elements to navigate the changed life.
Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical - Task 1: Accept the full reality of the loss
Move from intellectual acknowledgement to full emotional acceptance that the person is gone.
Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical - Speak or write to the person directly
Address the deceased in letters, journal entries, or internal dialogue as a form of active continuing connection.
Continuing Bonds in Grief, Made Practical - Journal specifically about the relationship and what it meant
Write in detail about who or what was lost and why it mattered — creating the record that no one else will maintain.
Disenfranchised Grief, Made Practical - Find a community that recognises your specific loss
Seek out people who have experienced the same type of loss — online or in person.
Disenfranchised Grief, Made Practical - Create private rituals for losses that have no public ceremony
Design your own mourning practice for a loss that comes with no cultural script.
Disenfranchised Grief, Made Practical - Use symbolic objects as tangible continuing bonds
Keep meaningful objects that represent the person and use them consciously, not compulsively.
Continuing Bonds in Grief, Made Practical - Task 4: Find an enduring connection with the deceased
Relocate the relationship from physical presence to an internal, meaningful connection.
Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical - Construct a coherent narrative of the loss
Tell the full story of the loss — who the person was, what happened, and what life is now.
Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical - Carry forward the person’s legacy in your own life
Identify values, projects, or commitments the person cared about and carry them forward yourself.
Continuing Bonds in Grief, Made Practical
Related concerns
- What To Do When A Loved One Dies Checklist
Actively develop new skills, roles, and identity elements to navigate the changed life.
Task 3: Adjust to a world without the person
- How To Lose A Parent
Actively develop new skills, roles, and identity elements to navigate the changed life.
- What To Do Immediately After A Loved One Dies
Actively develop new skills, roles, and identity elements to navigate the changed life.
- What To Do When A Loved One Dies
Actively develop new skills, roles, and identity elements to navigate the changed life.
- What To Do When A Loved One Dies Aarp
Actively develop new skills, roles, and identity elements to navigate the changed life.
- What To Do When A Loved One Dies At Home
Bronnie Ware, an Australian palliative care nurse, documented the most common regrets of dying patients in her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. The themes — especially living others’ expectations, working too hard, suppressing feelings, and neglecting friendships — are consistent with broader research on regret and well-being. The evidence is qualitative and self-reported; treat it as wisdom data, not clinical data.
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