​Stress /stres/
a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances

“I am stressed out”; “It’s so stressful”; “That stresses me out!”… We all use this word in our day-to-day lives. Stress is the common climate that we collectively find ourselves in, and the pandemic has made it worse. No, we are not all in the same pandemic boat, but I write this for our profession, for you — the funeral professional. Our stress often comes from the trauma and pace of the work.

Let me ask you a few therapeutic questions in the language of making this specifically for you and about you. This is where we start, because, like the funeral vehicles we drive, if we don’t keep ourselves fuelled, we cannot function. We do have limits and cannot run on empty. We risk shutting down in an effort to conserve our limited emotional, physical and intrapsychic energy.

When we shut down we are not present for ourselves, our own families and friends and the ones we love, and certainly not for the clients we serve. We short-change everyone, in addition to actually risking our own well-being and succumbing to a chronic condition of disengagement and loss of our hopes and ideals. Sadly, when we are shut down, we can do harm to ourselves and to others. Ask your loved ones how they see your stress showing up. You may be surprised by what they see and say. They may see some blind spots that you are not aware of.

So, back to the therapeutic questions here for you:

• What story are you telling yourself about your stress, and how do you relate to it?
• Can you name your stress?
• Where do you feel it in your body?

This is called “interoception,” and it can lead us to self- awareness and self-regulation. You’ve never thought about it this way? Sometimes in our profession we spend so much time thinking about our bereaved clients that we forget that we are human and need to pause and reflect on our own needs. Please take a few moments to really think about the above questions. It’s all about you because that’s where mental health and self care start—with you—personally and quietly inside. Pause, be still, and listen.

Now that you’ve named and located your stress in your body, how do you manage it so it doesn’t manage you? The good news is that this puts you in charge. The bad news is that it puts you in charge and that we sometimes must do the opposite of how we feel in the moment.

As we’ve identified, stress can be found in our bodies, so movement is the easiest way to help ourselves there. Getting our heart rate up for 30 minutes, even while walking, can help to metabolize the stress hormone called cortisol that rushes through our arteries and veins. Author Laura van Dernoot Lipsky discusses this in her books Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others and The Age of Overwhelm: Strategies for the Long Haul. Prolonged exposure to cortisol harms our bodies.
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Can you name nine things that you can do—things you enjoy doing, deep diving into—that help you to you feel balanced, rested and vital? I have been led through this exercise by my colleagues at Being Here, Human, Rachelle Bensoussan and Michelle Williams. It’s harder than you think, and more liberating and life giving than I could imagine!
Take good good care… you are Essential!

#ActYourWage, Do Your Job, Working at Work, Morale Adjusted Productivity. These are all different expressions for the same concept – Quiet Quitting. If you haven’t heard the phrase taking over social media in the last few months, rest assured that your employees have. And that they are talking about it. But what is it? Is it a real thing? And how should you respond?

According to this NPR article, the phrase originated from a TikTok user’s seventeen-second video where he explains that quiet quitting happens when you’re “not outright quitting your job, but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond.” You still get your work done, but you’re rejecting the hustle culture mentality that your life has to be your work. He emphasizes that “your worth as a person is not defined by your labor.”

In other words, quiet quitting has nothing to do with quitting. It’s more a philosophy for doing the minimum work necessary to keep a job. Those who identify as quiet quitters reject the idea that life should revolve around work, and they resist the expectation of giving it their all or going beyond the job description. They believe in setting boundaries and completing the tasks assigned to them within the time they are paid to do them. No more working off-the-clock and checking messages every time the phone dings. They argue it is a way to safeguard their mental health, prevent burnout, and prioritize family and friends.

Critics say that it’s passive aggressive behavior, won’t accomplish what workers really want and puts more burden on their co-workers. Hamilton Nolan, writing in The Guardian, notes that workers in past generations felt this same sense of “collective malaise,” but rather than coasting at work they channeled their frustrations into creating unions. They didn’t quit and they weren’t quiet. They loudly fixed what they knew was wrong.
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According to Gallup’s 2022 Employee Engagement Survey, the proportion of workers engaged with their job remains at 32%, but the proportion of actively disengaged workers increased to 18%. These are the “loud quitters” who have most of their needs unmet and spread their displeasure and are also the most vocal in their own TikTok posts. The share of those in the middle, who are just not engaged at all, is 50%. They meet Gallup’s definition of people who do the bare minimum and are psychologically detached from their jobs. It is important to note that the increase in dissatisfaction is primarily among remote millennial and Gen Z workers. But these generations are becoming disengaged for the same reasons as anyone else, which we’ll cover shortly.

If Gallup’s data doesn’t show a significant change in how workers feel about their jobs over the last few years, then is quiet quitting even real? Many suggest that it’s just a new name for an old behavior and it is a normal feature of the American workplace. It’s actually less about an employee’s willingness to work harder and more creatively and more about the manager’s ability to communicate effectively and with empathy, build rapport, establish reasonable expectations, and provide the workflow efficiencies needed for everyone to do their jobs well.

We’re also likely talking about quiet quitting more than it’s actually happening. A recent Axios poll of younger workers found that only 15% were doing the minimum at work, despite a lot of them admitting that it sounded “appealing.”

Maybe those who coined the term and evangelize the idea of quiet quitting are realizing what those of us with more years in the workforce eventually learned – sometimes a job is just a job and doesn’t have a deeper meaning. And to get fired, you have to be bad at your job, not just coasting along. With employers constantly saying they can’t find enough workers, there is unprecedented job security for employees right now, reducing the incentive to work harder. Companies can’t afford to fire employees, and there are plenty of jobs open if someone does get fired.
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The reality is that whether we call it quiet quitting or burnout or something else, the behavior isn’t new. And low employee engagement is a symptom of poor management.

Managers need to learn to have conversations with their employees and get to know them as individuals – understand their life situations, strengths and goals. Then they need to have an honest conversation with each employee about the expectations of the job, using a job description as the guide.

No job description? Then that is the first thing that needs to be addressed. A job description is the most effective tool you have to clearly articulate  expectations to an employee. In addition to the knowledge and skills they’ll need to be successful, it should list the primary and secondary responsibilities of a person in this position, the number of hours they are expected to work each week and whether and how often that includes nights and weekends.

Second, managers need to create accountability for their entire team as well as all the individuals that make up that team. If you have an environment where some are held accountable and others get away without meeting expectations, disengagement will be common. Employees also need to see how their work contributes to the team’s goals and the organization’s larger purpose. Your culture should be one where every employee is engaged and feels they belong.

Finally, support the quiet quitters who define it as setting healthy boundaries and reclaiming their personal lives. Those employees who grind around the clock with limited time for self-care lose the ability to be their best selves, impacting the success of the organization. These are the workers who burn out and burnout can look a lot like quiet quitting. It appears as disengagement and often comes from expending too much effort for too little reward.

You support them by having a conversation and coming to agreement on whether the assigned work can be completed to the expected standards during the time they are being paid to work. If it can’t be, what resources are available to them to increase efficiency and prevent them from having to work overtime? Work-life balance is a key expectation now and it is not reasonable to rely on employees constantly going above and beyond the job description. If you want more, then explicitly convey that and expect to compensate the employee accordingly.

Your employees are your number one asset, and the funeral profession sees up to 30% of graduates leaving the profession after five years. Reasons cited for this include long hours, low pay and poor company culture. But these reasons are in a manager’s control. The answer to quiet quitting is out-loud conversations about your company’s culture, expectations, and goals. Employees will voluntarily go above and beyond when they feel valued, and that is how we retain and engage employees.

​1. MEET LIKE-MINDED PROFESSIONALS IN THE INDUSTRY

Our industry is evolving, and it’s important to meet and speak with other professionals (like yourself) who want to position themselves to best serve today’s funeral family. This event brings together business owners, decision-makers, and other key people that understand the future of the changing funeral landscape. These people understand that ignoring the evolution of our industry is short-term thinking and leaves a funeral business vulnerable in the long term.

The Green Funeral Conference brings together a tight group of individuals, and networking opportunities are built into the program. In addition to a full day and a half of educational sessions, there will be a welcome reception at the Sandia Resort, a cocktail reception at Passages International’s headquarters in Albuquerque, and more opportunities to meet and get to know your colleagues in other areas.

2. LEARN ABOUT THE LATEST IN GREEN FUNERAL ALTERNATIVES AND OPTIONS

The speakers and panels that have been assembled cover a wide array of topics, including cutting-edge new processes like Natural Organic Reduction, the basics and specifics of actually conducting a green burial, a case study of a funeral home boosting their business by offering greener cremation options, and discussions on how to market to today’s environmentally aware audience successfully.
Traditional burial has remained relatively the same for decades, but the non-traditional sector is constantly evolving. It’s important to understand the spectrum of green options available for burial, cremation, and scattering, as well as the “shades of green” in funeral options, and how to incorporate them into your presentation to families.

3. VISIT BEAUTIFUL ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

The desert Southwest is a striking place to visit. Our venue, the Sandia Resort & Casino, is a tribal venue on native reservation land nestled against the Sandia Mountains (named for their dramatic watermelon-pink color during sunset). Early mornings in Fall you can see hot air balloons accenting the sky and the Sandia Mountain foothills offer amazing views and hiking trails not far from the venue.

New Mexico’s capital, Santa Fe, is one of the oldest cities in the country (founded in 1607), and the blend of Native American, Spanish, and Mexican influences is clearly evident in New Mexican architecture, food, and culture. Attendees will have access to the venue’s world-class spa, golf course, music amphitheater, and more! Don’t forget to ask for green or red chile with your meals, you won’t be sorry.

4. ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS, PANELS, AND HANDS-ON DEMONSTRATIONS

The size of this conference caters itself perfectly to a discussion-based, hands-on experience. There will be roundtable discussions where attendees will sit with an expert or presenter to discuss different topics in a face-to-face environment. We will also have hands-on demonstrations on practical topics, like how to wrap a body with a biodegradable burial shroud.

Panels of speakers open up discussion-focused sessions, where participants can ask questions or bring up topics directly with the speaking experts. There is also value in seeing experts discuss the topics with each other, to better understand the different opinions, principles, or ideas within the industry, and how they can be applied to your business.

5. JOIN PASSAGES INTERNATIONAL FOR A COCKTAIL PARTY AND TOUR OF THEIR FACILITY

Passages International is the largest supplier of green and non-traditional funeral options, from caskets for green burial to greener cremation options, such as bamboo cremation containers and biodegradable urns for earth or water scattering. Passages will be hosting a cocktail reception at their headquarters, not far from our venue. You will have an opportunity to tour the facility, enjoy drinks and hors d'oeuvres with other attendees, and to get your hands on biodegradable funeral products.

Who, in their right mind, would make the choice to be on call 24 hours a day, sometimes for days on end? Who would agree to leave their families at any hour of the day or night – or during holiday meals, or in the middle of a baseball or soccer game – to go and assist people that they’ve never met who are often in the middle of a crisis?

Ours is definitely not a career that would top most individuals’ lists of ideal jobs. We live the life described above every day and many of us never question why.

I believe this career chooses us. We are caregivers, essentially, and that is ingrained in a person. Being a caregiver is not something that can be taught. We are all in the funeral profession, but many of us can’t articulate a “why.” There is no why. It’s simply because it’s where we know we are supposed to be. It’s in our minds, and, more importantly, it’s in our hearts. I use the word lifepath for this phenomenon. Some may use the word calling. I agree with both descriptives, and both reflect that this is not typically a career that is chosen.

Too often, the public perception of a funeral professional is as someone who “gets used to death” or isn’t bothered by it. Little do they know how far from the truth that is. I often reply to those mistaken perceptions by saying that “the moment that this doesn’t bother me is the moment that I need to turn around and walk out that door because I would not be able to serve you as I should.” If death doesn’t affect me any longer, then I am no longer a benefit to the families I aim to serve. My emotion is what allows me the compassion to serve people as I do. Do I have to hide my emotions on a regular basis? Yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m not affected.

This industry is not for the faint of heart. You need the compassion to deal with grieving families, but you also need to have self-confidence and leadership skills to be able to handle the menagerie of scenarios that are thrown your way. Over the years that I have been involved in the business, as we all know, family dynamics have changed drastically! These dynamics play a role in how we approach families, and it can be a game of tiptoe through the minefield. The arrangement conference can be a place where issues that have accrued over many years come to a head, all in front of a funeral director who doesn’t necessarily need or want to know all the family secrets. However, we are forced to play referee in the boxing ring.

On top of all that, we then address the financial side of a funeral. Money is never an easy topic to discuss. It’s even harder when a family does not have the financial means to have the funeral they want for their loved one, and we are the ones that have to tell them that.

Following the arrangement conference, a funeral director has to confirm clergy/celebrant; contact the cemetery; write obituaries, have them approved by family, submit them to the newspapers and proofread for accuracy; file the death certificate and burial permit; go to the health department to pick up the certified death certificates; order merchandise; print memorial items (i.e., register book, memorial cards, thank you cards); remove, dress, casket, and cosmetize the deceased; set up the chapel; schedule staff for viewings and/or services; clean the facility; clean the vehicles; order flowers and arrange for catering; and “other duties as assigned.” All in about 3 days! And, just for one family served! Our minds are going in all different directions trying to make sure that each family feels like they are the only family we are serving.
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So many times, I have families say, “I didn’t know you did all this” or “I didn’t know you did that.” Yes, we do. We are here to make this as easy as we can for you.

It’s essential to remember that caregivers need someone to care for and listen to them. Not only do we navigate the emotion and reality that death brings to the families that we serve, but we also deal with the day-to-day struggles of the workplace, life outside the office, family, our own personal struggles and emotions. Work-life balance takes on new meaning as we try to not let the personal interfere with the lifepath that has chosen us in the death care industry.

If someone knows that they aren’t the only one dealing with a situation, could a sense of solidarity give them the strength and vision to continue to follow their calling? It's not just you. Many of us have been there. I have been there. Knowing that our industry runs high for mental health injuries, it’s important to bring options to those who are questioning if they should stay or go. When employers focus on the mental health of their employees, it leads to increased productivity, improved job satisfaction, higher retention rates and less burnout.
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We need to place our own mental health at the forefront so that we can serve the families that request our services to the best of our ability and give them the best that each one deserves.

The only people that can truly understand what we funeral professionals do and deal with on a daily basis, are others in the industry. This is why Funeral Professionals Peer Support is such a wonderful and welcome addition to our world. It’s for peers, by peers. We are there to educate, to guide, to provide feedback and sometimes just to listen. It’s a safe place for funeral professionals to come if they need someone who understands.

The benefits of peer support have been recognized for years. Some of the benefits that have been found in many settings, such as workplace, addiction counseling and educational have been:

I am looking forward to meeting some new people at the CANA Convention and I am very excited to continue to spread the word about the benefits of Funeral Professionals Peer Support!!

My wife did not want to talk about it. I had come home and waited patiently through dinner. Our young daughters had run off to play and now I was ready to share.

I had spent my day at a local funeral home (the funeral home I now work for). I had decided early in my career that if I was going to be writing articles and presenting to funeral and cemetery professionals, then I would need to spend more time “in the trenches.” As a grief psychologist, I had a lot of knowledge about the bereaved, but I would need to experience the challenges and rewards of funeral service first-hand. The funeral home owners had allowed me to sit in on some arrangement conferences that day. After asking permission from the first family, I was ready to witness the process of planning a funeral.
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The first arrangement conference of the day was to plan the funeral for a two-month-old. I will spare you the details, but the death was tragic and accidental. As a former therapist, I’m no stranger to tough, emotional conversations – but I was not fully prepared for this. Thankfully, the funeral director I was shadowing was ready. He handled the entire meeting with empathy and professionalism. I marveled at his ability to know when to shift from allowing the parents to share their pain to offering personalized options that would allow them to begin to heal from this tragic loss.

When I arrived home, I wanted to share the experience with my wife. As a former child therapist, she has experience with difficult conversations and has dealt with painful, emotional topics. But she did not want to hear about the funeral arrangements for a baby. And yet I wanted to talk about it. That’s when it struck me. This is exactly what you, as funeral and cemetery professionals, deal with every day. You regularly see and hear things that other people never want to think about. You are the “odd one” in your community – and in some cases, even to your own families.

I could imagine the funeral director I had shadowed that day going to a barbeque with a group of friends later that night. While the accountant could complain about the stress of tax season and the teacher could share stories about unruly children and disgruntled parents, he already knew that no one wanted to hear about his day at the funeral home. Even his spouse would not want to hear the details of his day. And so, he would have to keep it inside – like the thousands of other funeral and cemetery professionals who perform the same duties each day.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had witnessed. In hindsight, the events of that day were the seed that grew to become my presentation on preventing burnout in funeral and cemetery professionals.
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As I began working in a funeral home and cemetery, I discovered the additional challenges of dealing with family arguments during the arrangement process. Few situations are more stressful things for a funeral professional than being a referee to a family who cannot agree on how to plan a service. This is why I created my Defusing Conflict in the Arrangement Room presentation.

Given the challenging two years we have all had, I want to share three tips for dealing with the challenges of funeral and cemetery service:

1) FIND YOUR PEOPLE
It may be impossible to shake the “odd one” status within your community. That makes it critical that you seek out fellow funeral professionals who really understand the pressures of your field. Whether it is within your region or in a professional organization, you must find “your people.” When you are with them, take time to share stories and support, learn new strategies and tools, and ask your colleagues how they deal with various challenges of the profession. This opportunity to connect personally and professionally is invaluable.

2) GET PHYSICAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTANCE
There is no substitute for taking time away from work. Owners and managers must have reasonable expectations and workloads for their staff members. Given the nature of funeral and cemetery service, there will always be busy days and busy weeks. But too often I hear about professionals that never have slower weeks nor do they provide adequate vacation time. Achieving “psychological distance” is difficult because cell phones can keep you tied to the business even when you are away, but look for creative solutions and schedules so you can find times when you can turn off your phone.

3) TREAT EMPLOYEES AS WELL AS YOU TREAT CUSTOMERS
While serving the needs of bereaved families is critical, I have seen too many situations where employees were treated like they were expendable. While poor service for a family may result in losing a few future calls, burned out employees will negatively affect every call. Owners and managers should also remember that employees are critical for marketing and are very expensive to replace. Support your employees by providing them with stress reduction resources, educational opportunities, and reasonable work conditions.

Funeral and cemetery professionals deal with extraordinary stressors and work conditions. Not everyone is able to survive these unique demands. But I hope that death care professionals can go beyond simply “getting by” in this challenging field. It is time to take some of the attention and concern that you show every family that walks through your front door and begin practicing better care for yourself and your colleagues.

Hello, my name is Michael Dixon. I am the president and founder of Funeral Professionals Peer Support. Before I tell you why that date is so important, let’s go back a bit. I was born 57 years ago in Transcona, Manitoba to two amazing, successful parents. I was the youngest – and only – boy in a family of girls.

Growing up I had a lot of things stacked against me: I was born with a serious heart defect and a stutter, and in childhood I was sexually abused. The heart defect was cured and with a lot of work my stutter was overcome, but the scars of abuse stay with you forever. I hid it well. I buried it away by playing football and baseball, and, sadly, with alcohol. Upon graduating from high school and college, I started working in the hotel industry. After almost 10 years of that, I discovered that hotels just were not for me.

Funeral service was always my second choice out of high school, so I decided that I would give it a try. After finishing my 40 hours observation, I felt like I belonged for the first time. I was with people who were like me: kind, compassionate, and caring. I started working for a large funeral home and I was loving it. I was a sponge: I soaked in everything I was being taught, both by new directors and seasoned directors. Some are still my role models to this day.

Four years into my new profession, I began to work for a removal service that this funeral home owned. There I saw firsthand how truly cruel humans can be to each other. In a three-year period, I attended over 38 murders—scenes where people were shot, stabbed, and tortured—and some of them were just children. Car accidents, train accidents, and suicides were too numerous to mention. Some calls you will never forget, even though they happened over 20 years ago. I can still picture the Christmas gifts all over the road that came from a car that flipped over on Christmas Eve. I can remember the song that was playing on the radio at a murder scene, or the smell of blood, gas, or anti-freeze.
I know I am preaching to the choir, but things like this never leave your memory. They make you turn the radio off when you hear “Welcome to the Jungle“ or take another route in order to avoid the site of that accident, suicide, or murder scene that is embedded in your memory. Otherwise you get triggered. Or you stand in the doorway of your kids’ rooms watching them because your memory just won’t let you fall asleep. When you do sleep, it’s not a sound sleep for the recommended eight hours, because death does not just happen from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

But with all these negative things, I never wanted to leave the profession. I tried to do my job well, hiding my feelings of failure, my low self-esteem and loneliness. I always put on a brave face, using comedy and humour to hide the depression that was slowly taking over my life. I, like most people in funeral service, felt that I had no one to go to. I didn’t want to talk to my wife about what I was feeling. The people I worked with at the time did not offer a safe place to talk about your feelings. There were no organized debrief or talk-down sessions, and the ones we did have were usually at a bar with alcohol, which is not a positive healing environment. In that time, the feeling around our profession was “You knew what you were getting into.”
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So, like everyone else, I went ahead and did my job well. I made good work friends and worked hard, but, due to my depression, I was never myself. I was always putting on an act—which often got me in trouble at work and especially at home. I always felt that I never fit in at either place. I didn’t think of myself as a good person, especially not a good father and husband. I thought many times that everyone’s life would be better if I was not around.

One thing about depression, it’s a slow killer. The year 2015 should have been a great year: I had a beautiful home on a nice piece of land, my three amazing kids were successful and taking on the world; my wife was in a good job and an active, well-respective member of our community; I was in a job that I loved, and for the first time I felt loved and respected.
But things were starting to unravel for me. I had terrible anxiety. I hated to be away from home, and when I was at home, I was usually in my room, cut off from everyone. I was not sleeping well, I was having terrible anxiety attacks where it felt like a heart attack—trouble catching my breath, chest pains, etc. I was using alcohol now as a crutch more than I had done in the past, using it to give me confidence to go out, to make speeches, and to meet people.

A month before Christmas in 2015, I decided I’d had enough. I was tired. I was tired of going on. So, I planned this suicide attempt. I scouted out locations, bought a good insurance policy, even did a practice run. January 7th was the day. That Christmas, we went overboard on gifts and had a lot of parties. January 7th came and I got up at my normal time. I was not sad or upset. I was totally at peace. I kissed my wife goodbye, drove my son to school, and off I went, pulling into the parking lot at a park. I sat there having my last cigarette and thought “Okay, let’s do this.”

I opened the car door but for some reason I could not get out of the car. I could hear this voice in my head saying “It’s okay, I got you, make that call!” and I could feel these hands on my shoulder. I started to cry because I was thinking “Who would walk my daughter down the aisle or be there for my two sons and my wife?”
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In my despair, I made a deal with myself. I was going to call my doctor and, if someone answered the phone, I would go for help. If I must leave a message, I would walk in the forest. The phone rang once and a nurse picked up, and I thought “When does that happen? When do you ever call your doctor and they pick up the phone?” After telling the nurse that I was suicidal, my doctor came on the phone and told me to come to his office right away. After an hour of talking, I went for tests and I was diagnosed with severe depression and PTSD.

From that point on, I decided to not be quiet, but to be very open about my diagnosis. When I told my colleagues what I was dealing with, many of them said “Man, I am going through the same thing. I am tired, frustrated, and burnt out and I am thinking of leaving.” So, instead of staying quiet and only worrying about me, I reached out to a few friends and we decided to come together and organize the very first funeral service peer support group in the world.

Ottawa Funeral Peer Support was born. Our profession finally had a place where people could meet and share their personal struggles and get the support and encouragement to get help. In January of the following year, we started to get press coverage from local newspapers, which other news outlets from across Canada picked up. We then started to get requests to do radio and TV interviews both locally and internationally.

Once that happened, we started to hear from funeral directors across Canada saying “We need this in our communities. We need support.” We realized quickly that our long-term goal had to be our right now goal, and Canadian Funeral Peer Support was born. Within a year, support groups have come up in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, not to mention Ottawa, Hamilton, and Winnipeg all in Ontario. There is also serious interest in Alberta, British Columbia, Toronto, and Windsor.

Then COVID hit. Our peer support groups met in person so, when everything shut down, we had to come up with a plan to stay connected with our people. It was then decided that each group would host Zoom meetings, which opened us up to funeral professionals from around the world. We started to have people connect with us from throughout the United States as well as England, Italy, Australia, and Kenya. We started to hear from people everywhere that this is something they needed and wanted to be part of.

Our management team got together and we realized we are no longer just a Canadian company. We had to go international. In February of 2021 we started an international support line for licenced and non-licenced funeral staff, along with their families. With a phone call or text, you can speak to a counselor with funeral service experience that will listen and help guide you through any issue you have—for both work or non-work-related issues. We became Funeral Professionals Peer Support (FPPS).

One thing that has made us successful is we have always responded to a need. This year, we brought Peer Support groups into the United States. We are reaching funeral professionals from across the United States and Canada with online support meetings and educational webinars.

FPPS has learned is that there is no “extra money“ from our governments for mental health care. That’s why it is now the responsibility that all businesses make positive mental health care a priority in our workplaces. It is our belief that funeral service can be the leader in the goal of a positive workplace.

Stats tell the story of where we are now:

• In a Work and Well-Being Survey less than half of working Americans reported that their organization supports the well being of its employees.
• In 2014, $186 billion was spent on Health care services to treat mental health issues in the US
• 44.7 million adults 18 or older reported mental illness and burnout in 2016
• 8.8 million adults reported visiting a mental health provider in the past 12 months

Poor mental health and stress can negatively affect employees:

1. Job performance
2. Engagement at work
3. Physical capability and daily functioning
4. Absenteeism

We can’t go on doing the same thing and expecting different results. We have lost too many amazing, talented people in our profession to suicide and burnout. That’s why, as a profession, we can be the leaders. We joined this profession because we care about people. Now it’s time to care for one another.

Peer Support is now being looked at and valued as a positive first step in mental health care around the world. In Canada, federal government departments are now instituting peer support groups for their employees. In Canada and the United States, first responders and the military are starting peer groups as well.

Peer Support helps you meet with people that speak your language, learn from people who have been where you are, and support each other. We provide tools that are applicable to the job, make no judgement, ensure confidentiality and offer the opportunity to give back. Our groups have had speakers talk about burnout, stress, compassion fatigue, yoga, healthy eating and—my favorite—personal support animals. All valuable insight into a healthy work and home life.
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If you are interested in a Peer group in your community or you have any questions please visit us at www.funeralpeersupport.com or call 343-961-2470.


Funeral Professionals Peer Support is committed to the improvement of our brothers and sisters’ mental health. My hope is that no one else in our profession is ever sitting in a park alone in their car playing roulette with their life.

Bereavement professionals such as funeral directors, embalmers, cemetery workers, crematorium operators, and their support staff may regularly engage with diverse, potentially psychologically traumatic events. These exposures can lead to a variety of mental health injuries, including post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and alcohol use disorder. Recent research has provided important information about those experiences, such as the scope of the challenges, the potential impacts on mental health, factors impacting health, and some of the opportunities to help protect mental health and provide support.
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Dr. R. Nicholas Carleton, a professor of psychology at the University of Regina and a registered clinical psychologist in Saskatchewan, introduced his discussion on challenges, strategies, and coping by emphasizing that it was really an introduction to mental health.

“There’s a long-standing notion that we are either mentally healthy or mentally unhealthy and none of the data bears that out,” Dr. Carleton explained. “It’s simply not the case. Most of us, throughout the course of a day—and certainly throughout the courses of weeks or months on end—we shift along a continuum from healthy, to having reactions, to possibly being injured, to being ill or meeting diagnostic criteria for one or more mental health disorders. And this is normal.”
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Odds are that people probably experience changes in their mental health throughout the entire day. Dr. Carleton described a scenario where someone wakes up in the morning and everything is fine and that’s terrific, only to move on and have somebody cut them off in traffic, and for a few minutes, they might be reacting—might even be “injured” for a few moments—but they recover very quickly and then they’re at work and moving on with their day.

Right now, all of us are sharing a massive significant environmental variable that’s impacting our mental health—and that’s COVID-19. The impact of the pandemic is underlying all of the other things that impact us, including our biology. If we’re sick, if we have a flu, if we have a cold, that impacts our mental health. If we’re healthy and we’re exercising regularly, we’re active, that impacts our mental health and our mental health impacts our physical health as well.
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If we’re not feeling very happy about something, if we’re worried, if we’re depressed or down, that has a reflection in our physical capacities. We also see those same kinds of challenges with respect to our social environment. If everything is going well with our friends and our family and we’re regularly engaged, that also serves a protective function so that we’re more likely to feel physically healthy and we’re also more likely to feel psychologically healthy. Our biology, our psychology, and our social environment all come together on an overlapping Venn diagram that sits on top of our environmental stressors.

Dr. Carleton informed listeners that it’s also important to remember that mental health has nothing to do with inherent weakness. “We have no evidence that says that there’s one gene or one feeling or one thought or one behavior or one experience that is solely responsible for our mental health or mental state. And certainly not for having difficulties with mental health,” he said. “When we talk about people who are having difficulties with mental health in most cases it’s a function of high stress or chronic strain or physical exhaustion and maladaptive coping all coming together to challenge an individual’s experience.”

He pointed out that anyone can develop symptoms, saying, “At the end of the day, even the most resilient of us is still human. We still experience all kinds of highs and lows in our lives.”

Moving on to talk about potentially psychologically traumatic events that might apply specifically to some of the work that deathcare professionals perform, Dr. Carleton spoke of experiencing, witnessing, or learning about something potentially injurious to a close relative or a friend that may cause mental health injury. He said that other potential events include repeated exposures to distressing details of significant threats such as exposure to war, threatened or actual physical assault or sexual violence, kidnapping, hostage-taking, torture, and mechanisms of severe physical injuries, like motor vehicle accidents and industrial accidents.

“You’re exposed to these things because if someone dies as the function of one of these events, the last responder is you and so you are exposed to these on a regular basis,” he said. “As a species humans are generally resilient and adaptable. So even these kinds of events, when we’re exposed to them, we can bounce back, we can recover. Most stressors—even repeated exposures to these kinds of events—are not typically overwhelming. But you have to remember that our experience of whether something is overwhelming is influenced by our biology, our psychology, and our social environment, as well as what’s happening behind the scenes in our broader environmental variables.”

Dr. Carleton was talking specifically about events that are potentially psychologically traumatic. He said that the most common thing we think of is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when we think about a mental health injury. PTSD can be one thing that happens following exposure to one or more potentially psychologically traumatic events where we don’t bounce back, where we aren’t able to be as resilient in that moment because of any number of things that have come together. It’s a mental health injury for which there are effective treatments that can provide symptom relief for a great many people and it’s one of the disorders that can follow exposure to the kinds of traumatic events Dr. Carleton listed. It’s also not the only mental health injury or disorder.

Major depressive disorder is actually more common, even among people exposed to these ongoing potentially psychologically traumatic events. “There are also difficulties with substance abuse and dependence disorder,” Dr. Carleton explained. “You’re taking the substance for longer than you expected. You’re taking the substance in order to avoid or manage symptoms that you’re having or to change your emotional status. The problem isn’t necessarily volume. It can be the amount that someone’s consuming. But more often than not, the challenge can be that one drink might be too many and ten might not necessarily mean there’s a problem. It depends on how you’re using and what you’re using for. And if you’re using as a function of trying to manage other symptoms, that’s a good indicator that you can probably benefit from some additional support. It’s not the only indicator, but it’s certainly one of them.”

Dr. Carleton underscored that only licensed qualified experienced persons can and should diagnose disorders or imply diagnosis. “Dr. Google gets us part of the way there in some cases, but that’s not super reliable,” he said. “If you’re looking for help with mental health or you’re concerned about your mental health, you want to talk to a registered, licensed, evidence-based mental health care provider who can provide you with information about where you’re at and possible solutions to get you to where you’d like to be.”

Dr. Carleton turned to discussing some of the urgent warning signs and symptoms. First, he pointed out that if any symptom lasts longer than a week, at that point it’s a warning sign that your symptoms may benefit from some intervention, particularly difficulties with falling or staying asleep, intrusions, numbing, changes in your behavior, or sudden increases in substance use. Those are also potentially urgent warning signs and symptoms.

Suicidality, homicidality, violence, or sudden dramatic increases in substance use should all be taken as urgent warning signs where it’s time to get in to see somebody soon. “It doesn’t mean necessarily that we need to call 911, although that is a possibility,” Dr. Carleton said. “It does mean that help is needed sooner rather than later.”

HOW CAN MANAGERS AND COLLEAGUES SPOT SIGNS OF BURNOUT AND ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO SEEK HELP?
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According to Dr. Carleton, the more open you keep communications, that peer connection, can help. But if you identify big behavior changes—someone normally jovial now lashes out, as an example—it’s a good indication that you should check in with them. The more engaged you are with your team with regular communication, the better positioned you are to support them.

“What can you do? Well, I think first and foremost it’s important to keep in mind that mental health is a journey, not a destination,” Dr. Carleton advised. “It’s not something you check off as a tick box because you did it well today, any more than physical health is.”

He encourages deathcare professionals to monitor both their physical and their mental health. “We have tools that we make publicly and freely and anonymously available on our website for our public safety personnel, and those tools might be beneficial for you as well,” he offered. “They allow you to compare your responses to the general population, and, in doing so, you get immediate anonymous feedback that you can use to see where you are sitting relative to everybody else.”
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Because changing mental health requires culture change because of stigma and misinformation, it’s extremely difficult and takes a long time to accomplish. Dr. Carleton believes it’s important that we all pay attention to the idea that mental health is something we’re trying to change at a population level, but he pointed out that for people who are regularly exposed to potentially psychologically traumatic events, they may very well be forced to engage with culture change more directly than everybody else. He encouraged listeners to engage in ongoing monitoring regularly and get help sooner rather than later.

What can we do in addition to the monitoring? The doctor advised people to look to their social support. “Talk about your experiences. Not necessarily about the details of what happened in your job and specific day, but how you’re feeling and what else you’re doing in order to manage those feelings. If you’re having difficulties with the symptoms we’ve discussed, talk to family or friends. Make sure that you keep a regular diary so that you can watch what changes for you that supports or undermines your mental health.”
“As cliche as this sounds—and it sounds cliche in part because we all keep saying it—engaging in regular healthy behaviors enhances your coping ability and helps to maintain your mental health,” he continued. “So, exercising regularly, even light exercise: simple walks, getting outdoors, 20 minutes. Any exercise at all tends to be beneficial as long as it’s regular.”

Dr. Carleton added that people should watch what they eat. Eating healthy is important because the highs and lows of sugar affect your biology, which impacts your mental health as well. Substance use and misuse is much more problematic and a much more slippery slope than most people realize. If, for example, you’re using alcohol to manage your emotions, that’s a good indication that there’s a better set of skills you can access to manage those emotions.

He also emphasized that, where possible, it was important to maintain routines, even in the face of COVID-19. “The more routines that you can build in, probably the better off you’re going to be, as long as those routines include strict work-life balance where possible,” Dr. Carleton said. “As a professor, I can tell you that the boundaries between my work and my life are permeable at times. They’re permeable most of the time, but it’s important to try and manage those separations because that’s what’s helping to protect and sustain your mental health. So making sure that you’re managing that is an important part of living an ongoing happy, healthy career.”
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Last but not least, Dr. Carleton addressed early evidence-based interventions. “Evidence-based interventions are evidence-based for a reason. It’s because they’re helpful. It’s because they’re beneficial and there’s proof, there’s research that says that they work.” He spoke of the importance of finding the right type of practitioner to offer those interventions. “Psychologists is a protected term. So is psychiatrist. But counselor, therapist, and healer are not protected, which means that anyone can take them—and there is a lot of variability among them. That doesn’t mean there’s not good counselors, therapists, and healers. It’s just that there are a lot fewer restrictions on those names and titles than there are on things like psychologist or psychiatrist. So I recommend you demand registered and licensed, experienced, evidence-based, empirically-supported mental health care (which is a mouthful!), but you can find that from colleges, registered provincial associations, and registered state associations.”

You know, there are so many things we can’t control right now, and for most of us, that makes us anxious. But I want to encourage you with this: In each moment of your life, you have the ability to change yourself and those around you in profound ways.

No matter the time.

No matter the day.

No matter the circumstance.

Even amid moments of uncertainty, like the one we find ourselves in right now.

In moments that seem out of our control, there’s always something that’s within it: our perspective. I like to say that I’m a Spiritual Pragmatist, which means that while I appreciate believing in a higher power and it’s guidance and influence in our lives, I also believe in action and doing, to bring about success and happiness. It’s about having balance, and part of having that balance means that we have to be conscious and mindful of how we’re showing up and how that influences any given situation, including the one we’re amid right now.

I spent 20 years as a funeral director and embalmer; I like to say that everything I’ve ever learned, I learned from dying. One would think that a career surrounded by death would have taught me a lot about dying, but in fact it taught me so much about life, and gifted to me the most beautiful lessons. Ones that, in moments like this, come through with crystal clarity and enable me to put into action the behaviours that can ground me, even amid all of the uncertainty.

My British, tea-totting grandmother used to say, “Good tea steeps.” My grandmother knew the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. For her, there was no such thing as an efficient way to make tea; there was only an effective way. Can you make tea by dropping a tea bag into a mug of water and putting it in the microwave for ninety seconds? You can, sure. But, according to her, that’s not going to make a delicious cup of tea.

A drive-through car wash is efficient, but you might enjoy the therapeutic process of washing your car by hand. Ordering takeout is an adequate way to put dinner on the table, but a great satisfaction comes with preparing a meal from scratch yourself. Sending a friend a text message to see how they’re doing is an economic use of time, but it’s not quite the same as picking up the phone and talking.

As a society, we are consumed by efficiency, collectively racing from one thing to the other and from one person to the next. Being able to make the rush seem effortless is perceived as honorable. Those who work the most are revered, as though the most stressed-out person will be awarded a trophy. Sometimes you have to choose the efficient way; there’s no denying that. But we could all try a little harder to choose the effective way more often, especially when it comes to our relationships. How do we do that when we are in the throes of the hustle or in the midst of chaos? We pause.

Most of life’s magic happens in moments of pause. We need to stop and re-centre in order to reach a state of conscious awareness. Pausing helps us to slow down and plan our time more effectively, so that we create more meaning in our lives. The way my grandmother did with her tea. Normally I would profess the importance of creating the space to do this, and so often, and I’m including myself, we struggle to find the time to do it.

Now, we’re at a place in time where the world has quite literally slowed down. So many of us are sequestered away in our homes, adjusting to a world where physical distancing is common place, and life outside of our homes has come to a grinding halt. Is there time in your day to create the space to reinvest in something that brings you joy? It wasn’t that long ago that many of us likely caught ourselves complaining that we didn’t have enough time in a day, or that we were missing out on things in life: missing quality time with our children, missing time for the gym, missing time to just sit and read. There are likely many more things you could add to this list.

While we adjust to this new normal we find ourselves in, try to negotiate some time for you to invest in ‘the pause’, even if that time is spent on an activity like reading a book, or moving your body, meditating or sitting in prayer. Whatever it is that fills your cup, it’s important to realize that in order to be of service to others, we have to spend time investing in ourselves.

The late, great Jim Rohn once said that we’re each a reflection of those with whom we spend the most time, so the key to being your best self is to be surrounded by those who support and inspire you. I like to call these my “finger snap people.” They’re the ones with whom you feel an instant attraction, as quickly as you can snap your fingers. More often than not, you can’t quite distinguish exactly what it is that draws you to them, but their energy is like a magnet. There’s something about their character that causes you to be perfectly content with who you are, while also inspiring you to seek ways to be a better version of yourself. And when you find these like-minded individuals, hold on to them tightly, because you are much more powerful together than alone.

We might be physically distant from one another right now, but that doesn’t stop us from taking advantage of the incredible technology that helps us stay connected. I would encourage you to reach out to one of your ‘finger snap people’. Make that phone call, send that email, heck, you can even watch a movie together over video chat. Will it be perfect? Maybe not, but you’re connecting to people that matter, at a time when connection matters. I promise that you’ll feel a little better afterwards, because people need people and we’re all in this together. We don’t have to make grand gestures. The most meaningful moments can happen in the simplest of ways.

Sometimes, allowing someone the space to be seen and heard is the one thing they need the most, as they navigate their new normal right now. If that person is you, your community, your go-to people, are the ones you can rely on, no matter what. Just ask. I suspect they’ll be there, in the snap of a finger. There’s no question that the world we find ourselves in today, isn’t the world we were in not that long ago. There’s also no question that through it all – the up’s, downs and all-arounds – if we just remember that our perspective can shift everything, we suddenly find ourselves with more control than we might have believed we ever had.

If there’s one thing I believe, it’s that everything we’ve ever been taught about legacy – either consciously or unconsciously, is that it’s something that there once we’re gone – once we’re dead. I also know that when we shift the narrative around legacy, from something we leave to something we live, every single day, we can realize the power of understanding the impact we’re making - while we’re still here. I’ve seen first hand how that shift can help us realize the depth and breadth of that impact, help define our purpose and help us live our everyday legacy. When we realize that the way we show up in the world today, is the way we’ll be remembered tomorrow, we transform not only our relationship with the world around us, but also with ourselves in that world.


For all the chaos that COVID-19 has caused in the world, it’s powerful to see humanity band together for the greater-good – living with purpose, on purpose and showing how marrying that with compassion can be so incredibly powerful.

Funeral professionals have a challenging job under normal circumstances; these are not normal circumstances. Covid-19 has simply turned the world upside down. As a psychologist who works with funeral homes and also works in one, I want to offer several suggestions for dealing with the additional stress created by the current epidemic. Many of these ideas come from my work on the Finding Resilience program sponsored by Homesteaders. You can download free materials here.
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Professionals in a wide variety of fields consider it a badge of honor to wear many hats in their business. However, I don’t know of any professionals who wear more hats than funeral directors. Within a single week, you might be expected to demonstrate knowledge of:

In the last few months, you have also had to add “remote videographer,” “social distancing expert,” “Covid-19 expert,” and “creative rituals coordinator”. Not only are all of these duties happening under significant time pressure, but also in the midst of continually changing state and local regulations. It’s no wonder that funeral directors are feeling the effects of compassion fatigue and/or burnout.
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Ideally it is best to make relatively small changes to reduce feelings of burnout before it becomes overwhelming. These changes may include hiring additional staff, delegating responsibilities to others, or finding a colleague to cover during much-needed time off. Funeral professionals experiencing profound burnout, anxiety or depression may seek professional help from their physician or a therapist. Hopefully, you may only need a few “course adjustments” to keep you on a productive, lower-stress path. Here are my suggestions for reducing stress under normal circumstances as well as during the current crisis.

​I have been talking with many funeral professionals across the country and the most consistent reactions I hear include sadness. Funeral professionals are feeling sad that they are not able to provide the full range of funeral rituals and events to bereaved families. They are sad that people are dying alone. And they are sad that families are not receiving the benefits of funeral rituals including support and healing.

I know you can’t do your job the way you would like, but please know that you continue to provide an invaluable service. You may not be able to give someone a hug, but your simple presence and compassion (even if expressed through a video chat) are still a vital service to grieving families. Thank you for the sacrifices of your own potential safety to serve others. Thank you for the innovative ways you have created to meet the needs of the bereaved. Do your best to care for yourself. The world needs you more than ever.