Charlene Lam is a certified grief coach and curator of The Grief Gallery. After her mother died suddenly in 2013, Charlene leaned into her creativity and instincts as a curator to guide herself through grief. Since then, she’s presented multiple international exhibitions featuring the belongings of loved ones lost.
As a grief coach, Charlene helps busy individuals to unpack and process their grief after a significant loss, using the lens of curating. She believes we are ALL curators after a loved one dies. She developed her Curating Grief coaching framework to help people process grief in a creative, accessible way. Originally from NYC, she's based in Lisbon, Portugal. She is a fan of hammocks, and dumplings and post-its are her love language.
Main quote:
I define curating as choosing with intention. You don't need to be an artist, you don't need to be creative, you don't need to have a gallery space, but you are choosing with intention what goes into your spaces. You are choosing with intention what you carry with you, what you pack in a bag when you go on a trip. You are choosing every day what takes up space. So to me, that's curating.
Additional Quotes:
I talk a lot about the need for grit because we have hard things to do after loss and grace, grace for ourselves and grace for other people.
We misunderstand what our role is. We think that we're there to fix it or that we can fix it or that we can save them from pain. And that's not what our role actually is as someone who's trying to support someone with loss. And equally, I think when we are the person who has experienced a job loss or a work transition, we think we can save ourselves from pain. And sometimes we can by doing some research or planning or different strategies, but we can't really save ourselves from, let's say, the essential pain of loss.
We need better ways of figuring out what's ours, what someone else's, what do we want to carry, what are we already carrying, what can we let go of? And I think curating is a beautiful way to do it.
Book
The Grieving Brain by Mary Frances O'Connor
The Way of Transition by William Bridges
To connect with Charlene:
Free Monthly Gathering for The Grief Gallery
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To take the Workplace Transition Archetype Quiz
To learn more about Leaving Well
This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley
