I offer guidance to private individuals and companies on the effects of grief, whether through bereavement, divorce, diagnosis or workplace change – via online or in-person talks, podcasts and 1:1 Grief support.
I have over 24 years of experience investigating responses to shock, trauma and grief, through my films, podcasts, and the years I spent as a carer to my eldest son, Harry. Subsequently through 12 years working at Helen & Douglas House, the children’s hospice where Harry died, alongside fundraising, I worked closely with the bereavement team on peer-to-peer support and had the privilege of hearing the stories of many bereaved parents and siblings.
I help to translate and navigate the confusion around grief and signpost clients to my reading lists, self-help practices and knowledge of how to navigate loss and dramatic change. In sharing these, hopefully together we can take away the stigma of asking for support and encourage individuals to find their best way forward in living healthily with their grief.
Corporate Clients include: Ogilvy UK, Travers Smith LLP, Howard Kennedy LLP, Premier Companies UK, Soho House Group, Brighton & Hove Council, Arbuthnot Latham, BBC Children’s Programming, Sky, Weber Shandwick, Harbottle & Lewis, McGuireWoods LLP and Secret Mode. For Kamwell: Elsevier, SimplyHealth, BDO, NHS Lothian. For Work Wellbeing, J.O.Hambro, Natixis.
And in collaboration with The Good Grief Project: Jupiter AM, Legal Business Research, Savills, PWC, DAC Beachcroft LLP, Nord Anglia Education and others. I work regularly for The Soke, Mental Health and Wellbeing Clinic, London.
I also produce and present podcasts for companies (interviewing staff) and those titles have included Hybrid Work, Shifting the Needle, The Intersection, The Challenges of Lockdown, The Importance of Kindness (World Mental Health Day) and podcasts for Ogilvy UK – ‘Ogilvy on Air’.
I enjoy being a guest on other people’s podcasts:
Inside Sky Creative, Introducing Lizzie Pickering
Elsevier Clinical Insights Podcast
ILO (International Labour Organisation) The Future of Work Podcast
‘Should I Delete This?’ podcast from 12 minutes in.
Life Lines
I am delighted to be able to offer my new, in-person, 6 week course:
Life Lines – Grief Investigation with Lizzie Pickering
Every Wednesday – starting November 6th and 13th, 20th, 27th, Dec 4th, 11th.
Time: 6pm-7.30.
12 places available.
Cloud Nine Studio, The Guildhall, Market Street, Chipping Norton, OX7 5NJ
Life Lines
The title is born from the reading, writing and ‘lines’ I have loved and that resonated as I navigated my own way through grief.
This course is suitable for anyone over the age of 18 who lives with grief over a bereavement no matter how long ago your loved one died, and no matter what age they or you were when they died. You could be remembering a friend, partner, child, parent, sibling, colleague – anyone is welcome. It could be cumulative grief over a few people in your life who have died. Or grief triggered by a recent unrelated experience. There should be no hierachy or competition to grief, it is important to acknowledge each person’s grief as their most significant grief, whatever the relationship. We don’t always know the nuance and history.
During the course we will discuss the topics you would like to bring up and from experience, these often include the following themes:
- Time passing
- Language around grief – how we can translate our grief to those around us
- The Physical effects of grief
- What has helped you?
- What has not helped?
- Cumulative grief
- Anticipatory or Living Grief
- Finding purpose – going back to life and work
- The benefits of Community
- Paradoxes in grief – the surprises we didn’t know before
- Continuing bonds rather than ‘closure’- finding a way of enfolding our loved ones into our lives without them physically with us.
- Family and friends – how can they support us
- Top Trumps – judging others or being judged in grief
- Building a good toolkit for life
- Creativity and grief
- Reading – and ‘life lines’, sharing the quotes, lines and writing that have resonated for us.
I will guide the discussion with insights from my work and 24 years experience of working with grieving people.
You will have the chance to keep in touch with the group when it ends, hopefully having found community together and new friends.
Price: £210 total (£35 per session) with 2 places available at a reduced rate of £150 (£25 per session) if anyone would like to discuss. Payment in full on booking.
If a session is missed, it is not refundable, unless through extreme circumstances.
Please email me using the form below with your name and phone number to book a 30 minute exploratory call before booking.
Book
My book ‘When Grief Equals Love, Long-term Perspectives on living with Loss’, is published by Unbound and available in hardback and on Audible and Kindle. For Book Orders and Events please click here: When Grief Equals Love
Read a review of the book in the Mail Online here
Read a review in the Times Literary Supplement by Charles Foster on the book
(requires subscription to read the whole article)
Five of my top ‘go to’ Grief Books can be found here: Shepherd.com
Films
I co-produced ‘Let Me Go’ (2017) a feature film about generational trauma based on Helga Schneider’s memoir of the same, starring Juliet Stevenson, Jodhi May, Lucy Boynton and Karin Bertling and directed by Polly Steele.
I am an Executive Producer on ‘Four Letters of Love‘, adapted from the best-selling book by Niall Williams which Polly and I originally optioned in 2017. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, Gabriel Byrne and Imelda May.
Contact me
What People Say
‘I would wholly endorse Lizzie’s support for Travers Smith, with a variety of work relating to mental health and wellbeing. Lizzie’s specialism focuses on bereavement and we have drawn on Lizzie’s expertise to support employees with their losses. The feedback has been excellent. Lizzie can tailor the support she can provide and it helps us to feel confident we are investing in the right type of help for each person.’
Travers Smith LLP
‘I have benefited more from this one session than I have in the last 12 months trying to find help for this ‘unknown thing’, causing me to unravel. I am so grateful that this session took place and I decided to make the time for it. Thank you so much.’
Elsevier Talk Attendee
‘I didn’t appreciate the weight of the grief I’d been carrying for more than 20 years until I had my first session with Lizzie. My sister died suddenly and traumatically in 2002 and I worked very hard on ‘getting over it’. I explored many different types of therapy and healing and made progress but it was when I met Lizzie that I felt a big weight lift from my shoulders. I finally realised that there is no shame in grieving – even decades after we lose our loved ones – and that this grief is in itself, a measure of undying love. I had only a few sessions and they catalysed a kind of rebirth that set me on my way to finally learning how to honour my grief. ‘I am so grateful for you and your work Lizzie and I can’t wait to read your book!’
Dr Nerina Ramlakhan, Physiologist, Sleep Expert, Author & Speaker
‘I wanted to let you know that your session was the most favourably reviewed from the evaluation sheets, of any of the day’s presentations / workshops. In fact almost three times more delegates, who responded to the feedback form rated your session as the ‘most valuable’, compared to any of the other sessions.’
Dr Emily Harrop, Consultant in Paediatric Palliative Care
Paediatric Palliative Care Conference (Thames Valley & Southern networks)
‘A really beautiful moment of shared human experience. A powerful lesson of storytelling.’
‘I can’t explain how useful the talk was for me, it was exactly what I needed.’
What?If! Innovation; Audience of innovators and creatives
‘Lizzie, you taught me so much about supporting families. I often think what would Lizzie do or say! I’m so looking forward to reading your book and sharing it with colleagues as I know how valuable it will be, thank you.’
Adrian Quest, Acute Liaison Nurse at Royal Cornwall Hospitals’ Trust
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