Clark Hoelscher, PhD (they/ them) is a life-long partner to those on learning journeys who believes all learning begins with authentic and purposeful relationships. Most of their work has been under the title "educator" in and around schools, colleges, and the institutions around them. They engage communities around justice, healing, and transformation. Their favorite event each year is Q-Quest, which brings almost 1,000 young LGBTQIA2+ people and their adult advocates together from middle and high schools across Minnesota for learning, fun, and leadership!
Dr. Hoelscher's work with grief is rooted to times of identity transformation. For instance, in roles like "student" to "teacher" or within families such as "mother of a daughter" to "mother of a son." They have found acknowledging loss during these transformations openly has been imperative to desired growth and sustained relationships.
You can reach Dr. Hoelscher at: clark.hoelscher@gmail.com
#griefcoach #howtohelpsomeonewithgrief
Shownotes:
Hi, everybody. I am just so excited. It's a Friday, almost afternoon here in beautiful sunny Minnesota. I'm just really excited for my guest today. Let me tell you a little bit about Clark. Clark Hoelscher, she has a Ph.D. So she's a doctor, is a lifelong partner to those on learning journeys who believe all learning begins with authentic and purposeful relationships. That's beautiful. Most of their work has been under the title Educator, in and around schools, colleges, and the institutions around them. They engage communities around justice, healing, and transformation. Their favorite event each year is QQEST, which brings almost a thousand young LGBTQIA2 plus people and their adult advocates together from middle and high schools. This is so dear to me. Across Minnesota for learning, fun, and leadership. Dr. Hoelscher's work with grief is rooted to times of identity transformation. For instance, in roles like student to teacher, or within families such as mother of a daughter to mother of a son. They have found acknowledging loss during these transformations openly has been imperative to desired growth and sustained relationships. Dr. Clark Hoelscher. I'm just so excited actually just to be totally forthright with everybody here. We've known each other for a really, really, really long time in a family relationship, but we have never sat down in a professional conversation like this.
She knows I'm very curious all the time. She shared a beautiful private post with me when I had put something out about the grieving aspect. So, Clark, welcome.
Yeah, it's so good to be so good to be here with you, Pat. Thank you so much. My pronoun is they, and I just want to acknowledge that there's even these little ways. As we make change that even something as little as adjusting to someone's pronoun change is a transformation. And even when it's something that doesn't feel like it's really that big of a deal, it can even have some elements of grief to it and a little bit of confusion and disorientation and some anger. And there's a little bit of resistance and negotiation. It has all of those same components.
Thank you for that because it's all learning for me, too, right? It is. And we're all.
Always learning. I really believe that learning is in partnerships and that I always want to meet folks exactly where they're at and then just establish care and relationship and then move to the next step and the next step. And so I'll tell folks, I don't have any judgment about where you're starting from because the universe made you whole and wonderful and you are just who you are meant to be. And though the universe has brought you to me, and so what we're going to do is we're going to have a path and we're moving forward. And as long as you're going to be with me on this path and this journey together, then I'm going to be beside you moving that way. I just really like to put that aside. So we are family. And I've always felt, though, this connection on the educator healer side. But when there's lots of people around and so many like little's with. Their needs and desires, it's just sometimes hard to have those deeper conversations. So excited to be here today.
I know. This is so cool. It's so cool. So as people who know me know that I work in the grief coaching space, and we were just talking about before we came on to the video about how vast that is, that right now I'm actually helping the healers, helping the teachers, helping the coaches to get more confident to hold the space in grieving families. And the grief is not necessarily the physical death of a loved one. It can be all these things. And so I put something out on Facebook, and then you had private messaged me, and you started talking about some different components of grief that you have seen in your work and in your life. And so do you want to just jump in and share a little bit and let's talk about them?
Yeah. A lot of the work that I do is towards creating learning environments where instructors and students are invited to bring their whole selves fully into the space. And I deeply believe that there's not going to be a lot of good learning that's possible unless folks have a good relationship and have trust with each other and can be truthful and honest with each other and have a good container where that relationship can be held because learning often involves a couple falls and some can involve a couple of little... There can be some missteps. Even learning to bike, you anticipate that you hope no one's going to get hurt too bad, but it's good to have a first aid kit ready and to set up as many proactive safety measures as possible. So part of that work that I do, I realized very early as a coach working with new teachers that there was often a lot of fear. And as they were making changes, moving from their identity from a student into their identity as a teacher.
So there were all these fears, and there was sometimes anger and sadness and just a lot of these complex emotions. And as I was just inquiring, what's going on with this? I realized that it was grief. And so these identity transformations, anytime that someone is moving from one big concept of themselves to another big concept of themselves, either because they're choosing it, or sometimes because life has thrust it upon them. Grief is a big part of it. And so as my own career and work changed, I started really working on identity transformations where folks were being invited to see themselves in a very different way. So to construct a teacher identity that was really centering students of color and that was big enough to contain the frameworks for justice. And that might sometimes be at least... And folks would struggle. And there would be some of that negotiation and that anger and that sadness because they might perceive that there was some conflict about their old sense of self and the new sense of self that they were being invited towards. And so I just started really working with folks to name that. And one thing I observed pretty early was for a lot of white folks, and I was a lot of the time working with white women, even talking about emotions and identifying emotions was really challenging.
And so every time I find, well, here's the thing that's hard for the people that I'm working with. So what tools are available? And so I'm always learning. And so I use tools like feelings wheels. And it's like part of that practice is like, okay, what are you feeling right now? How are you feeling today? How are you doing today? And just constantly checking in the coaching and my work with them around where their feelings are and just making space for that whole grief process and just really naming what you're experiencing is part of this change.
And there's some grief going on here. And so can you tell me about what comes up for you when I name it that way.
And that's beautiful. And the naming, I just did a post on Facebook because I am doing a coaching group for new grief coaches to help them get more confident. And I had them do some practice coaching with each other on Wednesday night. And someone named something and it was, your grief is in action or something, or action is your grief, how you deal with it. And I'm like, Wow, that is so cool that you named that. Because all of a sudden I actually looked at it for myself because my mother had, you know, grandma Ruth died in January and all of a sudden I'm like, Wow, that's the way I handle grief as I'm in action. But it was so cool because this naming concept is so important to put it out there and lay it out on this table so that you can really feel it. And everybody has a right to their own feelings, right? But when we name it, then we can start having awareness about, Okay, where is that coming from?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's very powerful names themselves are very powerful things. And so that's another transformation that I work with folks around is around gender transitions. And this is a transformation that folks aren't often expecting. So I work with a lot of parents, and the way that this is revealed is... O ften times parents have a little bit of a sense of... Parents know their child on such a deep way that sometimes it's hard to even put words to. So often they have a child and they're born into the world. And often in our culture and the way our medical systems work now, the gender is assigned of their child, I think, six weeks. So just like one body part glimpsed and gender is assigned and colors in rooms are assigned. And so they're just like, immediately all of these identities start developing and all these contexts begin to develop.
And this whole trajectory and imagined future begins to be there. And every parent, I'm sure, totally understands this. And we're in the culture that we're in. And so there's no getting around it. I've definitely known parents who don't want to know the gender of their child and even tried to keep the body part of their child out of public knowledge. And it's just really hard. I can't even go walk my dog without someone asking me, Oh, is it a boy or a girl? So there's all those messages around us all the time. And so we have this identity and this culture of gender. And so sometimes when parents find out that their child is a different gender than they've known them as, there's an enormous journey then, and it's so complex. And I 100 % completely believe every parent loves their child, and they want what's best for their child. But no one's prepared for, well, how do you do what's best for your child if you find out their gender is different than you thought it was? That was not included in any Dr. Sears book I read. It was not talked about in any prenatal visit I had. Any child birthing? No, absolutely not. So there's no reason why any parent would have any preparation or readiness for this. And so, of course, there's a lot of just complex feelings that come in. But it's also, I find that the experience and the path and what a parent needs to do to really show up for their child is actually really similar to if they find out something else about their child. Like, if you find out your child has a vision need or a muscular skeletal need. And so probably the trajectory and that vision you had for your child's life didn't include that either. Or maybe because of some family predisposition, you had like, well, maybe that could be there, but it probably wasn't really in that imagined space. And so I looked to a lot of the tools and frameworks. And as an educator, I was very aware of some of the tools we use, like parent education, which does actually happen in Dr. Sears book about like, and what if your child has special needs? So I modeled a lot of the work that I do because there was no handbook of how to do this.
So I modeled a lot of what I did and built into my practices from the same supports that we provide families around learning to love and parents and just be really present and a really good advocate for their child if their child had some a medical need or a disability. Some of that does touch on the grief aspect. And so medical providers are given a little bit of coaching and structure around that to anticipate that there can be some grief. And folks make some space for families to have some complicated grief around that. And it never means that the parents don't love their child. That's never the issue. Sometimes parents just don't quite know how to love their child. They're confused. Exactly. And there's so many confusing messages out there. And there's been messages out there that really just end up being really harmful. And we do, sadly, we do sometimes family rejection happens. But even that is... I've worked with parents who that's been what's happened, and they still believe that what they're doing is what's best for their child. And I try to bring in research and stories and narratives to give evidence to here are other ways that this could be done that have been shown to be effective.
And so here's what other parents have tried. So is there anything in this that could work for you or your family? And what I know is that if I can bring a family just one little bit closer to those research based ways of parenting that are associated with the really highest outcomes, even though it's not perfect. I think perfection is a myth anyway. But even though it's on this range and this spectrum, moving them even just a little bit actually has a significant difference in the outcomes that at least, statistically, would be likely for the child and altogether for the family. So being really present with the parent where they're at in their grief process and they're unlearning and then relearning. And so that's been really helpful. And I have seen so many families make incredible, amazing journeys. I could tell it's very emotional. And for me, I think, like I mentioned to you, you didn't know this about me, but back in.
The 80s, I was a nurse at a hospital here. And it happened to be the hospital where, and this is when AIDS was becoming the epidemic. We didn't know a lot about it, but I worked the night shift. And I've always been drawn to just be present with people. It's just something naturally the universe bestowed upon us. I would hold the hands of these young men, 18 years old, 19 years old, who are dying, literally dying. And I would sit at night and hold their hands and just talk and have them share with me and be open. And it was so, I don't know, it changed my life. It totally changed my life because it was... I'm getting emotional now, but that they just so many, they just so many... They knew their whole lives. And that was when my was like a young 20. I'm like, I get this. This is not about people choosing to be... This is who they've been their whole life and then to not have families who can wrap their arms around it. And it was just incredible and really put me on a passionate place with the gay community at the time and really having very little tolerance for any negative talk about that.
But then I had worked with a woman and she was working with me in the corporate and her son came out. And she said to me, you know, Pat? She said, I cried. And so when you're talking about the grief, she said, I cried, but I didn't cry because he was gay. I cried because I knew how hard it was going to be for him in the world.
I hear that all the time from parents. And it gets so confusing because I understand that. It gets so confusing for the children. And so especially our little kids, because they'll see their parent in grief, and that might show up day to day as sadness or anger as negotiation or any of these other parts. And it's not linear, so it's always a mess. And the children personalize it, and they think that they're causing it. Our babies are so special in that way. And they really want their parents to be happy. And so it's just one of the hard things. It's like part of what I do also is working with the children around making space for their parents and their family members and their friends. Because just that broadening that scope that this is a change that you are experiencing and it is absolutely never okay for anyone to hurt you. And so let's talk about some boundaries because if any of these things happen, we need to address that because that's not okay. You should never experience any violence, like verbal or emotional, social or physical. I always put up some pretty clear guardrails around that.
And I want you to understand that everybody else is on a journey here, too. And it's not because they don't love you. And so I just give the kids this constant message, your parents really love you. And so they're trying to figure out how to love you as they're coming to know this really special new thing about you that you've actually known about a little longer. And so you've had some time to do some exploration, and you've known it a little bit more about yourself, and they're a little bit further behind in this journey. And so how to have patience with each other as this transformation occurs. And so I really believe gender transitions happen in families and in communities. And so a lot of the work I do is... So a child is... They're realizing that their gender is different than other folks have recognized it, and they're putting words to it. And so some of the little I work with, they're like, They're four or five. And so they're super little. And so part of that, their struggle is they're trying to even put words to how they are and how the world is telling them to be when they don't know that...
When they know that it doesn't fit right, but they can't even figure out, what do I need to tell the adults so that they'll get this right? So then it's in the whole classroom space, or it's in a whole school community space, and just really making sure that everybody connected, maintaining, of course, privacy and confidentiality. I'm really good around those pieces, but making the whole community context. So I'm always thinking about the siblings, the friends, the soccer team, and all these other important spaces. The Church is so important for most people. And then sometimes making space for some new communities and some new connections because the LGBTQIA2 community, it's actually a whole culture. And we've got flags and holidays and icons and history, hard times and good times. And so the whole family then joins this new culture, which is also similar to what I've learned. I've learned so many things from our disability advocates because there's this language that I was introduced to at one point by this amazing disability advocate around disability as being part of a joinable community. And so I think of the LGBTQIA2 plus, it's a joinable community. And one of the things about it that's unique is there's LGBTQIA2 plus folks in every single family.
And so everybody has that possibility of getting to join this fabulous, colorful, glittery culture. And it is just so fun when families... I love all of our families, but it is really amazing seeing families join in part of this culture with their children.
And I think because of the work that you do and so many like you, it's growing. One of the coaches that is at my coaching group that I'm working with said, it's like that little pebble and just allowing those little ripples to go out and little ripples become big ripples. And so all the work that all of you are doing very passionately, which, gosh, because I work with grief and I have a lot of parents come to me where their children have stepped off this planet because it's been so difficult to live in their own skin, so to speak. And it breaks. You can't even describe when you're sitting across from someone who... And we have to fix this. I'm sorry. This is something that we as a community, as a universe, all of us have to really, in my mind, start opening up and just loving, unconditionally, because we're all human beings. And so to stop this, I don't even know. I get very passionate just because this has been around my whole life. And I've seen the injustices and heard the remarks. And sometimes I didn't speak up because you're in a place and it's like you sit there and then it just sits in your gut.
That is so wrong and so inappropriate that you're judging another person because of what? Their sexuality? What does this have to do with you, number one? Seriously. And I've had so many people in my life that I've seen struggle in their families, in their communities. Like I said, holding the hands of these young guys that were on their deathbeds.
So sad because I wish their families could have been there for them.
Absolutely. And so it's so critical that we continue to raise awareness in any underserved population. But to be doing this work with our kiddos, our little children, like you said, these babies.
They are. They're just babies. And I really believe they come into the universe, into our lives, and they are perfect and whole. So then how do we make those spaces around them where they get to unfold into their just full brilliance? And the more we're able to do that, I believe the more love and joy then comes into our lives. And there really is a lot of love and joy on the other side of that grief. Even families that I have seen who have experienced some of the hardest times because of the cruelties in our world. They've had losses. They've lost family members. They've lost churches. They've lost sometimes entire school communities over their child, like loving their child and making the space for their child to be who they are. But they have moved through all of those losses and that grief and found new community and new ways of being and loving that are so much more expansive that have changed them in ways they never would have imagined possible.
Something that came to me. I have to write it down. Grief propels us forward.
It does. I do believe that. I think that's absolutely wise and right. And one of the things I really want to push back against, especially in our white culture, I was just at a doctor's appointment, and I'm going through my own grief and identity transformation of accepting a disability that's probably been present my whole life. But it's painful. There's physical pain, but there's also... I was at the doctor's office and I'm still grieving this last little loss of like, Well, maybe it's really not this thing. But it's just really becoming more clear it's this thing. And so I just teared up a little bit. And I kept the tears in because I have not found that it is ever helpful to cry at a doctor's office. And it's certainly not just in my own experience with like a male doctor. Already, folks who are marginalized just get dismissed and just don't necessarily get the medical care that they ought to get. But I have found the more I can be stoic and really rational. I don't know. If I play the good patient, I get a little bit better medical care, but it doesn't nourish my whole self.
But I just found I have to go get that other stuff elsewhere and just not to expect it from the medical provider. But as I was driving home, I was reflecting about that. And I couldn't get the tears to come out when I got to the car. And I was in a space where I could have done that. And I was remembering the words of one of my teachers, Ramona Stately, and she's an Indigenous leader. And she had offered me this wisdom that our tears... In her culture, her people understand that tears are healing, crying is healing. And the poison becomes just when you hold them in. And holding in that grief or that pain poisons the self. And so I really just hope that our culture more broadly, can make more space for our emotions, our sadness, and our anger. And even though those things aren't very pretty, they're so necessary and important to the transformation and to the change. I sometimes make comparisons to being a runner. I'm not a great runner, but I do love running, and it's really good for me. And I just have to know that I'm going to have sore muscles and there's just going to be some soreness.
There's going to be some bad days. There's going to be some good days. Not everyone's going to feel great, but just I have to keep it up. I have to keep engaging. I have to keep committed to it because there's a bigger picture that I know is healthy and good.
Yeah. And it's interesting because when you're talking about the tears and with the Indigenous culture, number one is my husband comes from the indigenous culture. And so when our nephew Coleman died, they did the tribal wake and that type of thing. And at the end, we had Wiping of the Tears Ceremony. So it was like, okay, the wiping of the tears was to not stop crying, but to allow the tears to dry up a little bit, to allow the spirit of your loved one to not be tethered and held. So it was really beautiful because they do a four-day wake and it's 24 7. So it's crying. And it doesn't mean that you stop crying. But these tears are so necessary. So they actually named that ceremony, the wipes of the tears, and had a very big ceremony about that because it is so necessary for the cleansing and the healing. Grief is a part of a healing process. It is a component. I tell people I'm a nurse by background, right? If you have been Mangled in a horrible accident, at first there's this shock. And I'm sure this goes for family members and parents when all of a sudden their children are going, I'm not the identity that you think that I have been, or maybe at a mingling, but I'm sharing this with you now, or someone's sharing it with them.
And there's the shock. And if you're in a bad accident, a lot of times you might end up going to the hospital and they're going to put you in a induced coma just to allow your body to regenerate and do what it needs to do. And then you start coming out of that coma, they start bringing you out, and all of a sudden the pain really sets in. It's like, Oh, my God, our nerves are firing. That's when the tears really do need to flow. So I really encourage my clients, it's like, you need to cry. And I said, think of it like a mountain that has all these craggy crevices and the rocks are jutting out. But then a waterfall, year after year, that waterfall and what happens? It just starts smoothing the face of that mountain. It becomes smooth. The colors start showing up. It's more vibrant and it's so peaceful. And that's what I think tears are. We need to allow them out so that it can start softening the ravages and craggy edges of this grief that we all hold at one point or another in our life.
That's a beautiful image. And it doesn't mean that those jagged parts weren't there. Or maybe even there was a beautiful thing that was once there. The new face of it does not in any way deny or negate what had been there before, even as we make space for what is now and what will be in the future.
So we're about nearing the end here. But this is what I like to ask all of my guests when I interview them. If there's anything that you would like to impart upon the listeners here, what is that? What is the one thing that you would like people to leave with?
Absolutely. So I recently was invited. I've read John Lewis's last letter to community a couple of times. And I was recently, it came to me again. And I really do believe the universe has lessons for us. And if you don't get it, the universe is just going to keep putting it in front of you. So I think it was like the fifth time, maybe, I was reading John Lewis's last letter. And he used this word beloved community. And for some reason that day, I was like, beloved community. And I'd read it before and beloved community sounded all nice and all. But for some reason that day, I was like. What's packed into that? Is there something I'm missing here? And so I just opened up another window and search for beloved community. And it brought me to Martin Luther King's writings and his vision of beloved community. And part of that writing, and he struggled with being part of changes and just hardships and grief was this deep, deep faith that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. And so to just keep loving, to keep being peaceful, and to just hold on to that faith that where you are today is where you're meant to be. And what is coming ahead that you're going to be ready for. And that bigger arc is leading to justice and to what our whole beloved community needs.
That is so beautiful. Loved community.
Yeah. I mean, especially right now, there are just some days I feel like there's just so many hard things happening. It's just overwhelming. And I feel like I'm just afraid that I'm going to become numb, but I also don't feel like I have enough resources to feel everything for all the hard things that are happening. And so I just keep reminding myself of that faith. I feel like we are in a moment like a crucible or like a Phoenix. And I just have faith that on the other side of this, there's going to be better things.
Me, too. Me, too. I mean, it's just like, this was the awakening. This is the awakening. We are in the midst of it. Yeah, like that Phoenix rising coming out of the fire. We're not there yet.
No, we're not out of this.
Fire yet. There's a lot of things that all our nerves are firing. We just came out of that coma and we're in that burn unit and getting debrided day by day. But it's necessary. Those things are necessary to open up, give it air, give it air. Give it acknowledgement. And the more one by one that we are able to love each other through it.
Exactly.
That's what it is.
So much grace, so much love as we hang in together through this.
Wow, this is beautiful. Thank you so much. So how might people, if they ever wanted to reach out to you, how could they reach out to you?
Yeah, absolutely. I do consulting and I work with a very wide range of folks. I am really a cultural transformation specialist. And so I work with organizations and people, sometimes family, but towards getting to big changes. So I was just working with an amazing camp recently, and I have lots of fun. But yeah, just like my first name.my last name@gmail. Com. And I'm on LinkedIn and stuff, too. I always just love getting questions from people, and I love people.
All right. I will put that in the show notes, too, so that it's there, so that people can easily access because you're a definite resource that we need in our world.
Thank you, Pat. Thanks for doing what you do.
Contact us:
Cami Thelander: www.bearfootyogi.com
The Confident Grief Coach School: www.healingfamilygrief.com