Help Texts: The simple, affordable way to give and receive expert grief support
Sep 28, 2023Episode 15
Sherri Lund & Melissa Lunardini of Help Texts
Join us in Episode 15 as we talk about Help Texts, a service that offers expert grief support in a way that’s easy to give and receive. It is a great BetterHelp alternative and an unintrusive gift for a friend dealing with loss.
-How Help Texts offers unintrusive and empowering support.
-The various use cases for text-based grief support.
-The process of accessing expert advice through Help Texts.
-The importance of curated advice from global grief experts.
-Insights into managing anticipatory grief.
-How Help Texts helps users navigate different types of grief.
-Where to find and follow Help Texts for ongoing support.
ABOUT MELISSA:
Melissa Lunardini is a highly experienced professional with over 17 years of expertise in program conceptualization, training, and curriculum design focused on grief, loss, and trauma. She holds a Fellow in Thanatology from the Association for Death Education and Counseling, along with an MBA and a Master's in Psychology. Melissa's clinical background covers childhood bereavement, bereaved students, young adult grief, suicide prevention/postvention, traumatic loss, and grief theory. She is a nationally recognized speaker and contributor in the childhood bereavement field and a published academic writer and peer reviewer. Currently pursuing a Ph.D., Melissa serves as the Head of Clinical at Help Texts, where she contributes her knowledge to help individuals navigate the complexities of grief and loss.
Disclosure: The information shared on The Probate Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. We strongly recommend consulting with a professional for advice specific to your situation. If you need help finding a professional, feel free to reach out to us at www.willowwoodsolutions.com/contact.
Please consider kindly rating this show so others can find it!
Join us in Episode 15 as we talk about Help Texts, a service that offers expert grief support in a way that’s easy to give and receive. It is a great BetterHelp alternative and an unintrusive gift for a friend dealing with loss.
-How Help Texts offers unintrusive and empowering support.
-The various use cases for text-based grief support.
-The process of accessing expert advice through Help Texts.
-The importance of curated advice from global grief experts.
-Insights into managing anticipatory grief.
-How Help Texts helps users navigate different types of grief.
-Where to find and follow Help Texts for ongoing support.
ABOUT MELISSA:
Melissa Lunardini is a highly experienced professional with over 17 years of expertise in program conceptualization, training, and curriculum design focused on grief, loss, and trauma. She holds a Fellow in Thanatology from the Association for Death Education and Counseling, along with an MBA and a Master's in Psychology. Melissa's clinical background covers childhood bereavement, bereaved students, young adult grief, suicide prevention/postvention, traumatic loss, and grief theory. She is a nationally recognized speaker and contributor in the childhood bereavement field and a published academic writer and peer reviewer. Currently pursuing a Ph.D., Melissa serves as the Head of Clinical at Help Texts, where she contributes her knowledge to help individuals navigate the complexities of grief and loss.
Disclosure: The information shared on The Probate Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. We strongly recommend consulting with a professional for advice specific to your situation. If you need help finding a professional, feel free to reach out to us at www.willowwoodsolutions.com/contact.
Please consider kindly rating this show so others can find it!
You know, most people don't know what to say or do to support someone after they've lost a loved one, but today you're going to hear about a simple service that has solved this problem in a brilliant way, and it's more affordable than traditional support options. I'm talking about the company Help Texts, and they have gathered information and expertise from around the world to build one of the most comprehensive and accessible support systems available. Today, we're going to take a deep dive behind the scenes of help text, and we're going to learn and hear real stories of how they have impacted people's lives. If you need support in your loss or you know someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one and you want to support them, use our help texts promo code to save money on this service. That code is probate podcast, all one word, or visit help texts com forward slash probate podcast. You can find that information in the show notes as well. Now let's get on to the episode. Hi there, this is Sherri Lund and I'm back again for another episode of the Probate Podcast. I'm so glad that you were here. You're gonna be glad too, and you're gonna wanna grab a pen and a paper because the information that we are talking about today is super important. Normally, I talk about topics that are close to Houston or the Texas area. Today we're talking about a global thing. We're talking about grief and how to help our friends and our family get through grief, through help texts. Melissa Lunardini is here with me today and we're gonna be talking about all of that and more. And so, Whether you need this information now or whether you need it in the future you're gonna want this information handy. So I'm glad we're recording it. It's gonna be out there forever. And Melissa, thank you so much for joining me today. Oh, you're welcome. I'm so thrilled to be here and share and talk a little bit about grief and how we support people after somebody has died. Yeah. so important. And I can't wait to jump in, but I'm gonna read your bio before we jump in because.. Go ahead Melissa Lunardini has more than 17 years of experience in program conceptualization training and curriculum design. She focuses on grief, loss trauma for healthcare and academia and other grief and loss related industries. Melissa holds a fellow in thanatology from the Association for Death Education and Counseling. She has an M B A and a Master's in psychology with a clinically trained background. She's adept in childhood bereavement, young adult grief, suicide prevention, and postvention, traumatic loss and theory. Melissa is a nationally recognized speaker and contributor to childhood bereavement. She's a published academic writer and peer reviewer. She's currently pursuing a PhD while supporting the Help Text mission as the head of clinical. One of my goals with this podcast, obviously with the name like The Probate Podcast, I wanna help people get familiar with the language around probate and this season of life. It's not just about the transition and the legal aspects. A lot of people just focus on the task to do a checklist kind of thing. But I'm a holistic practitioner and I'm interested in the whole person that's going through this process. So Melissa, you and I talk about weird things. A lot of people don't really talk about the things that we talk about, so in that way it's fun for me to have you here to be able to talk, heart to heart, about how we help people and what we do to help them. It's important for me. I feel most alive when I see someone is hurting and I can go over and help them be seen and known and heard. And then help to get back into the land of the living or whatever. And I know that's something that you are passionate about as well. Can you tell me a little bit about you as a person, though? What would you say to me if I ask you, who are you, Melissa, as a person? Yeah. It's such a great question. I would always start with that I am somebody who's very curious. I'm a curious person, and because of that, I like deem myself as being a lifelong learner. Always reading and trying to understand perspective, trying to understand new cultures and how they differ or are similar to my own. I would say that I'm adventurous. I love to travel. But I'm not a foodie, so that's, I'm a very bland eater, which is interesting. But I think that's a product of how I grew up. And speaking of how I grew up I came from a really challenging upbringing and really complex and challenging and some might even say dysfunctional family dynamics. And so because of that though I do believe that has equipped me to be really comfortable with sitting with people in dark spaces during dark times. It's something that I feel like when other people run away, I just naturally run toward. And then I would say that I'm motherly to a lot of people, but I'm not a biological mother. However, I am somebody's adopted or chosen mother that I take care of from time to time. And and then just some of my vices are that I love chocolate and trashy reality TV and theater and museums, and board game person and love trivia. So I'm pretty eclectic, I would say. Good on the nerdy side. Thank you.. Awesome. I'm so glad to learn those things about you. Tell me what Thanatology is. Yeah, you if you're a Marvel fan, then you might've heard the word Thanos. It is the study of death, dying and bereavement, Thanatology. And it's a fairly new field as in, within the last, 50, 60 years or so. But it is a growing and budding industry and the aim is to really understand the human experience when it comes to dying. End of life care, also bereavement and the grief that people experience not only throughout various types of loss in their life, but then also after a death of somebody significant. And so in your studies, are you focused on the person that is passing away, are you focused on the family that is supporting them? What are you looking at? It's both, and.. We really wanna, in the field we really wanna understand all the complexities that are being experienced by somebody who is dying, but then also by the people who are carrying and loving that person along the way because there is this multidimensional and interpersonal exchange that happens, right? Nobody goes through life in a silo or living alone without relationship. And anytime somebody forms an attachment or in a bond, when that person is removed, there is then loss. And that loss is felt most likely by both parties. So before we go much further, because this is the probate podcast and a lot of people might find us looking for probate answers and how to get through their checklist faster. And I just wanna say that this fits into that because if you're in probate, then you possibly have lost someone. And so maybe what we're gonna be talking about today pertains to you. But also, it's really a service and a resource that I want you guys to have for yourselves and for those around you as well. Some people experience grief on a wide spectrum, right? Because grief is so unique to every person. So some people after a person in their life has died, might be immediately impacted by their grief. So much so that they have a hard time focusing and coordinating and organizing and can really struggle during the probate process. And then that can make their ability to make good decisions problematic and concerning for them because they're worried like, I'm not in no mental state or condition to make these decisions pretty important at the time. So that's one type. There's people who are really leaning into the state of numbness and shock and can really compartmentalize and be like, I'm gonna put do grief later. I really need to focus on tying up these loose ends so that way I can make space for my grief. And then they tend to be very methodical and I would like to get things done and move it along even faster than probate can probably even facilitate. And then there's just people who are finding themselves in both places where they're able to do a little bit at a time and then they get hit with this like intense wave of grief and they have to take a little bit longer, deadlines might pass on them, unbeknownst to them and all that to say is that you never know who needs additional support during this time. Sometimes people have a really great robust support system of people that can come in and offer help and be there and really help them make sure that they're organized and they're on top of deadlines and paperwork and all of that. And then there's people who don't have a robust support system and could really use something that is a low burden for them. And yeah. Receiving support from a text for example, can be really helpful in letting people get through the week. Sometimes with grief you have a hard time just getting through the hour or the day, and texts can really be a really gentle way to get additional support that's not invasive and not intrusive, but steady and ongoing. And you can depend on it. Yeah. I love it so much. I'm so glad that our paths crossed. Tell us a little bit about, tell us as much as you want about Help Texts and what the concept is and all of that. Sure. Yeah. So the concept of help text actually came from the CEO Emma Payne. Her husband died by suicide. And when that happened, like a lot of traumatic loss, people just don't really know what to say or do. And they say and do nothing because that is the most comfortable path for them, but that probably leaves people feeling really isolated in their grief journey. And fast forward a couple years later, she was asked to do a eulogy and a lot of people came back to her I was just like, I'm so sorry. I just didn't know what to do. I was so uncomfortable. And she left that funeral thinking gosh, there's gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a way to educate people on how to support people in their grief that's really easy and bite size and attainable and practical. And then there's gotta be a way to support Grievers who experienced exactly what I did. And so she mapped out on a napkin on her flight home, the concept of delivering grief literacy and grief education to people via text message. And so the genesis of Help Text s was born at that point. And the idea is that people can sign up to receive a year worth of support. If you are the griever, you'll receive a couple of texts a week and acknowledgement on important days and holidays, and those texts help inform you about grief, so what can you expect? But it also provides validation and acknowledgement of the grief experience that you're going through. And then it provides coping skills and resources that you may wanna try while you're grieving. And then the other component to it, within that same subscription, you can add in two supporters and then those supporters receive texts from us and we're teaching them how to show up for their person who's grieving in very practical and emotional, nurturing ways. So that way we're increasing the griever's support system and we're providing this ongoing low level form of su support up until the one year anniversary of the death, or it's in some cases people use our services for many years because they find value in the texts or they just like receiving just a couple of texts a week that really speak to their experience. That is so great. I like the fact that it's non-invasive. It's non intrusive. It's not gonna interrupt anybody... Like you can check a text whenever, just glancing and seeing that you've got something to look forward to. If you need it right then that's fine, but you can also come back to it later. And who doesn't have a cell phone these days? It's so accessible to everybody. So I love that on so many levels. We've talked about how it can be archived so that even if you lose your phone or whatever, some people are worried that they've lost their whole year's worth of texts but there is a way to retrieve all of that and but how important it is for them to have those. I just love everything about it. For the supporter it sounds like you're teaching them. ideas on what to say or how to show up, or how to be present for someone. And they'll take those skills and they'll help other people with that and maybe share what they learned with other people too. So.. Yes, we have supporters that just sign up because they just want the tips. They don't even include- the person who's grieving doesn't even get told about the subscription, but because they wanna be able to support their friend, they're like, I'm just gonna sign up for myself. Oh my goodness. Okay....and get support, and then I'll just do what it's suggesting whatever they, yeah. Oh, I like that. Yeah, I like that. So what are some examples of some of the people that you serve? The grievers. People starting at the age of 13 can receive texts. So we have a text series for teens. We also serve obviously young adults all the way up until, I think one of our oldest subscribers was in their nineties at one point. But our primary age group, the average is 40 to 64 year olds. And it's as you can imagine across all different types of relationships, it can be spousal or partner loss, child loss, parent loss, close relative family member. It can be a colleague. We have basically 56 different types of relationships that you can choose from. It could be perhaps you're grieving a twin death, or something like that. Then our techs are able to speak to it. And people sign up at different times since their death. Sometimes it's really early on in the first couple of weeks or months, and sometimes it's a year or more. Different types of too, cancer, car accident, covid, suicide, homicide, pregnancy loss. So stillbirth, miscarriage, sudden infant death, you name it, pet loss. We have the opportunity for people to really, get all of their needs met through our service, depending on the relationship, the type of loss, times of loss.. It's pretty much anybody who's bereaved, who's over the age of 13. We do offer texts in 20 different languages. So if you would prefer to receive your texts in Spanish, for example, then that is an option. I love it. So explain a little bit about what the process is when someone signs up, let's say this one is a griever that wants to sign up. What would that look like? Do they go online? Yes. So we have a couple of options and how people access Help Text. So people who are grieving or who wanna support, perhaps maybe they wanna buy a gift for a grieving person of Help Text, they can go on our website and purchase one subscription or a couple of subscriptions. And to purchase a subscription is $99 for a whole year of support. For the three options of griever and two supporters. It's a really easy signup, takes five minutes roughly. We ask for your name and an email. You confirm your email. It takes you to a signup form. You can give us as much information as you'd like. We do require your name, your phone number, and the name of the person who died. But the more information you give us, the more customized your texts can be. So for example, if we know how they died when they died, your birthday, their birthday, for example, then we're able to then reach out to you on those important dates. We're also able to then understand where in your grief process you are if we know, like when the person died, for example, And so the more information we have. Signup takes 5 minutes, and then you get your text right away and the text will come to your phone twice a week, noon your time zone. And should you wanna engage with our texts so text us back. For example, we do have a team that reads and reviews all of your text messages and we reply to certain text messages that warrant responses, but we don't reply to all text messages. It's really meant to be like we're delivering you support. And then the other way that people can get support is businesses can buy packages and then offer it to their employees or the community they serve. And then that becomes free of charge for obviously the griever. So sometimes we have small companies or organizations buy a couple of packages and then they make 'em available to their clients or their own internal team. Nice. I have lost several people in my life. And you go through that and not all the listeners know that my background is in holistic health. So that's one of the reasons why the person going through this, not the person who passed away, but the people, the survivors who are left to pick up the pieces and find a way forward. That's the person that I'm most interested in and that ripple out effect of that going out... I did study grief in some of my classwork also. And some of the symptoms are you're just exhausted or you lose your appetite or you don't sleep well. It has a physical impact on us. Sometimes you just don't wanna talk to anybody and you're tired of saying the same thing over and over again and like Retraumatizes to keep telling the story. So I love the fact, I know I keep saying I love this, but I'd, I really love this service because one of the reasons is because it's just a text. And like, all you have to do is just open it up. You don't have to talk to anybody. It doesn't care what you look like that day. If it's four o'clock in the afternoon and you're st it doesn't matter. Like they get it. And the fact that you have 56 relationships and you're so consistent out, you know, noon. You're on it 20 some odd languages. And And around the world. Didn't she say you're international now too? I can tell that you guys have put a lot of intention and thought into the program that you've created. How long have y'all been around? We sold our first subscription, I think in 2019. Okay. But it was in development in 2018. Okay. So it was pre pandemic. And then of course, during the pandemic it became pretty critical. We added Covid as a cause of death that people could receive support for, which was, who would've thought that at this point you would ever add a new cause of death? But the pandemic really showed how much need, because of the excess death, we then now have a overwhelmed system that is not capable of keeping up with the demands. And unlike other types of conditions grief has what we'd call maybe like a long tailwind to it, right? It's not something that people are over and done with or have worked through three months. You carry grief with you. You learn how to integrate grief into your life. And from the pandemic, even though we're in the endemic we're post pandemic now, people are still needing lots of support and there's just not access. People are waiting six months, 15 months to just get in to see somebody, to talk to somebody. And this becomes a really nice way and it could be the only type of support that you need. And it worked really well to support you. But it can also, if you need more support than what Texts can offer, it can still be some form of steady ongoing support while you wait to get into the kind of higher level of care that you might need, given the pandemic. So it's not two-way, and you're not counselors, but talk a little bit about the people who write the texts. Yes. So we do pull, we don't believe in just providing just one source or one lens or perspective of wisdom. Because of that, and because we're a global company, we wanna pull from expertise from across the globe in both western based practices and eastern based practices and or indigenous based practices. And our experts really are the people that if you had limitless money and they were available, you would want your people and your loved ones to be in front of them. And we have sought them out and asked them to contribute their best wisdom. What have they learned in all of their years and lived experience, but then also professional experience. And let's take that wisdom and craft it so thousands of people can get your words and your wisdom and really feel seen and heard in their grief experience. And we have people who specialize in child loss or spousal loss, or perhaps they specialize in suicide or homicide or cancer related deaths. Or perhaps caregiving for a loved one with dementia who died, which is a different layered element. Our grief experts come from a wide, variety of spaces, and what we do is we just take their wisdom, put it in a text and make sure that people get access to them. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between grief and loss? Yes. Loss is anything that you have formed an attachment to that is you no longer have access to; grief is your reaction to that thing, that attachment. It's an internal response. We often say that grief is like invisible to the eye because it is all of the thoughts, the feelings, the physical manifestations of social interactions. It could be behavioral and also spiritual. And the other thing that people often use synonymously with grief is mourning. And mourning is really the outward expression of grief. It's how we let other people know that we're grieving. So it might be all of the ceremonial or social or ritualistic things that we might do that show people that we are in grief. So it might be wearing black, it might be attending a funeral, it might be crying at a cemetery.. Those are ways that we see that people are in mourning. When you mentioned dementia a while ago- and I've had some experience with that too- and there is the loss and the grief before they even pass away. And so would your texts be appropriate before? Like where would the text come into play in something like that? So we do have a service called- it's our caregiver service, and it's for caregivers who are caregiving for somebody who has advanced illness or are terminal and aren't expected to live beyond six months or so. And our texts at that point address what we call anticipatory grief, which is the grief that we experience when we know somebody is going to die or we're expecting a loss to occur. So the text will really address that and really give space for people to really reflect on some if the elements of grief that might be relevant to them. With anticipatory grief, we might grieve a series of little mini losses over time, right? We're not only grieving abilities and capabilities and personality shifts and declines. We're also grieving kind of future hopes and dreams and plans that aren't going to be able to come to fruition because of the timeframe on this person's life. And in addition to the caregiver texts, we're also educating them on how to increase their level of care for their loved one. So how can they deliver the best possible patient care available? And then we're educating them on the common end of life things that you might be experiencing, but maybe not be educated in. For example, How much should their loved one be eating or drinking in their final days and hours of life. And may really struggle with feeling that them not eating could be harmful for them. And we have texts that really speak to that using experts like Barbara Karnes who is a guru in our hospice industry. And we're able to pull wisdom from research and then also from these just really deeply knowledgeable people to help create texts that really speak to very common experiences during end of life. The hope is we'll help add some relief or help inform decision making moving forward in terms of patient care. And I'm sure when you are because you're so intentional and careful in every other area, when you're telling the caregiver how to give better care to the person who is passing, you're also being careful how you do that to not put more load on the caregiver. Right. Yeah, We love our caregivers. Yes. They're doing a big job. We're just so aware, right? Like the burnout rate is just so incredibly high with caregivers. Right. And we're really helping them not only address their own burnout, because it's a very common theme. So how do you take care of yourself so that you can continue to take care of others, right? But yeah, everything is written so gently. Texts start with "you should," or you need to or we advise this, it's really more suggestive in nature. Hey, this is what we know about this topic, and you might consider trying something like this, perhaps think about this or reflect on this. It's really more of just delivering food for thought and wisdom for people..And that is so empowering. When I had my practice I worked with people who were caregivers. One lady in particular, her husband had ALS and she came carrying his burden and trying to do all the things by herself. She wasn't open to getting much help outside of what she was doing for him. And her body was just taking a toll. And I remember talking with her about what are some things that you might enjoy? And that question was so difficult for her. She said, I don't even know what color I like anymore. Like... she was not accustomed to thinking about herself, that she'd been so focused on taking care of him. And so the thought of eating better or drinking water, she wasn't there yet. And it took a long time to work with her on "it's okay for me to take care of myself." It's okay to not give all of my focus to him. And it's a hard one. So the gentleness and suggestions that you guys have I see that really empowers the caregiver also in that. And the survivor that is grieving to help gently bring them back to where they need to be. What about... this is a heavy topic, so tell me what you love about your work. Tell me some of the things, some of the impact that you see, your texts. What are you hearing from the people that get your service? I get to see on a daily basis, just hundreds of messages filter into our system from people who they've received a text and they instantly will text us back and just say, oh my gosh, this was exactly what I was going through today. Uhhuh, thank you so much for kind of normalizing this for me. Or we might suggest a coping strategy for. I'm try this, or maybe they'll text us even later and go, I want you to know that I did try this today. It was the perfect kind of moment for me to try this and it worked and I'm just so grateful for that suggestion. Or somebody will say, you recommended a book to us and I bought it and I have been reading through it and I just can't tell you how much like that recommendation has changed my perspective on grief. Or even A text came through not too long ago and it's, it was just to me, just so compelling. A woman whose spouse died said, I want you to know that the texts that I receive make me feel connected to a greater purpose. Wow. And I'm so lonely in my grief since my husband died. And I just want you to know that your texts make me feel less lonely and so much more connected because I know that I'm not, if I'm getting this text, I know somebody else somewhere on this earth is getting them, too. And I just feel connected to... grief is just like this deeply personal experience. It feels so isolating and, there's only so much that other people can do to support you in that process. So much of the work that you do is the internal work that you'll do. Yes. So for somebody to feel connected and feel like she's less lonely is just so huge to me. What a lot of people don't understand is that there's a ton of risk that comes with being bereaved not only acutely in grief, but long-term. If you don't feel supported in your grief, so you know there's, you're at more risk for mental health conditions like depression and anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and prolonged grief disorder, you're at more risk for heart conditions and obesity. And chronic disease and illness and some segments of the population, you're even more at risk for dying sooner than what you should. And so to be able to intervene and provide coping strategies that can possibly break that level of risk down it really is powerful. Couple things, I'm jotting down notes as you talk. One is that we need to be careful not to assume somebody has a support system just because they may be popular in their community or whatever, there may be a lot of people that don't know what to say to them. And so while they may be well known or well respected or have a thriving business or whatever social life, that doesn't mean that they feel supported in this loss. And so the thing about support. It's very interesting because there's been a lot of studies around support, social support, which is the support that you'll get from your family, friends church if you're affiliated or community members, things like that, your GP or clinicians or whatever. The thing about support is that even if you think you're giving the support, only the griever gets to determine if that support is actually helpful for them. Are you giving the support at the right time and is it the right type of support? So there's like all of these factors that we don't really think about, like we think that we're just giving them the support that we would want to get. Reality is trickier. You should do it. Continue to do it all the time, like don't hardest times of days. When people are grieving the heaviest, often they don't have access to support during those times, which is early in the morning when you get up late at night before you go to bed. If you're a working adult right after work before you have to transition back into like home life yeah. Duties and stuff. And these are pivotal moments in time where, Access to support isn't always readily available and accessible. Or like holidays when people often have big plans and perhaps your plans have now dramatically shifted and changed. And so it can feel very isolating even though the support is technically there, it's not in the way the griever needs, right? And then there's the secondary losses that go along with that. The empty chair and not being invited to certain things because someone is missing. And, the other thing I wanted to say about the texts is that they communicate that they're not alone, but also they're not weird. Like you're saying things that they may not even be saying to themselves. Subconsciously, they may be feeling like nobody thinks like this. I'm the only one. And So your texts are reassuring in that way. Yeah, we have a text that recommends, or a text that really speaks to, what do you do with a loved one's stuff right after they die? Which plays into kind of probate. As well. Like what do you do with clothing and jewelry and furniture and all of those things. And so one of our techs suggests boxing up things and putting it in a closet or a garage or somebody else's garage until you feel emotionally ready to go through that stuff. But that there's no rush to people. Really get pressured to go through items right away and to handle and wrap up those loose ends right away. One of our texts suggests that there's an alternative way to do that, right? You can still remove things, but maybe box 'em up and put 'em in a different location for later. The other thing might be like for people who experience the loss of a child, for example, One of our texts might suggest keeping clothing in a Ziploc bag to be able to smell the scent later. And, the amount of grieving parents that text back on that and go oh my gosh, I do this all the time. And I thought I was crazy. And it's no you're not crazy. You're just a grieving mom who misses their child, and scent of their child. And to be able to smell them. Old factory is one of your quickest ways to memory, right? And so scent becomes just so huge. That's why if you walk by and you smell somebody who smells like your person or they're wearing your cologne, you instantly get greasy because you're just like, recognizing that scent. So when somebody reaches out to you and they wanna sign up, do they need anything in particular for that or It's just as simple as.. Just a credit card, just to be able to pay the fee. We use PayPal and it's pretty easy and quick. I mean, To me, we have a gentleman who's in Canada and he was gifted help text after his parent died. And now it's the number one sympathy gift that he gives. Basically gives help text instead of flowers, instead of offering any other type of support. It's just the first thing that he purchases and gifts to people. And the cool thing is when you're doing it as a gift, people have as much time as they wanna use it. It doesn't have to be used right away. It can be. And even if they do sign up and are like, oh, I'm too raw right now for this. They can stop and start at any time because it's--they can pause the-Yeah, they can. And we see that happen quite a bit where people will stop. Maybe they're going on vacation or maybe it's during the holiday or maybe they signed up too soon for them. Sure. And then they start again later. When do you see this service coming into play more? Does it vary with the type of death they experienced, or is it..... about 61% of our user base right now sign up within the two months of being bereaved. Which is really telling, right? Because it goes to show that at least our understanding of it is that attending traditional one-on-one or group support might be too hard to do those types of.. Sure, yeah... Within the first two months of being bereaved, but receiving a text where they don't have to do anything or go anywhere or say anything is actually a much easier form of support to embrace. Aside from the support that you'll naturally get from family members and friends. I can really see that. Yeah, if you say too much, then they'll ask questions and that just opens up a whole can of worms. So you can just read a text and it's totally receiving, isn't it? Yes. What are some of.. You mentioned miscarriage and cancer. What are some of the situations, I guess is what I wanna say that you address? I mean, we have almost every kind of cause of death you
can think of:
accidents, drug/ alcohol related deaths, cancer, Cardio related deaths covid, homicide, suicide; sudden unexpected death of an infant or a child, miscarriage, medical termination of pregnancy. We also have an other category we have all of the major buckets covered, basically. Yeah. We don't really go into like the nuance of oh, it's this type of cancer, for example. Sure. But it's a broad category in which you can then select, and then the text will speak to more of the general or more common grief related experiences for that loss. We do have kind of this section in the signup flow that allows people to say, I want more text things like complicated relationship, for example. So maybe your relationship was estranged but you're grieving and you need support, so.. or perhaps you're LGBT or a person of color or dealing with immigration or refugee asylum seeking, or multiple deaths, for example. Those are all options that you can select and then we've got expert contributors that have written about grief in those particular areas. And then those texts will then also be filtered into what you're receiving, so that way you can get a little bit more nuanced there too. We will be launching also like medical aid in dying based texts that can also be selected as an option to receive because it is becoming more accessible to people. but with that also comes a lot of complexity and grief, And we were talking before the recording started about Maui and what's happening over there. And I thought just briefly that it was interesting that you talked about how you're looking at the culture and what would be sensitive to something like that. So, You mentioned earlier that you're looking at Eastern, Western but really continuing to look at meeting the person that is grieving, where they are at, whatever would speak to them and help them. So I just wanted to point that out. When we offer a coping strategy, we're really pulling from both Western, Eastern and indigenous based practices because all of them have very strong properties that can really transverse all different cultures. And so like a good example would be we might In some collectivistic cultures, they really lean heavily on community for support. So they don't really view grief as like an individual experience, they do view it as more of a community or family based experience. And so a coping strategy might call to action something that involves that. Whereas Western Base is very individualistic, so it might call for like something like journaling. We also, if we're gonna bring in an eastern or indigenous based practice, we might say something like, consider gardening or being in nature, barefoot and filling kind of the elements or using the elements in a form of processing your grief, for example. And suggest that they consider any or all of them as options. And that's why it's nice again with the text.'cause you can go back, the texts may suggest something that's not a good fit for that day, but it might be good a week from now. So.. How can people find Help Texts? Where should they go to learn more? Well, We're always on Instagram @help.texts. We offer grief, education and literacy there. So even if you wanted to just follow along just to get grief literacy and education, that's a great way. On LinkedIn we're there help text or on Twitter or X, whatever you wanna call it. And then also on Facebook. We are always interested in community partners we're always interested and people who have deep expertise in a certain area. We're interested in people who wanna make this service available and free to large pockets of people because our end goal is to make it to where grievers don't have to pay for this out of pocket. Yeah, I can see so many uses for it. Thank you so much again for your time. The probate podcast is a part of what I do with Willow Wood Solutions, I'm in the greater Houston area. I'm familiar with Texas. I'm a native Texan, but services like Help Texts you can get these anywhere. And access them, obviously, and help people wherever they are. And so I just encourage you to do that. Thank you for joining us today on this podcast, and we just wish you well. Melissa and I both want the best for you moving forward. Go and make it a great day. Thank You!