I use Awareness Days all the time for engagement, linking up and creating great stories and connections.
Naturally, some hit me very personally too. Today is one of those days, and it’s been tough #worldpizzaday.
Pizza Lover
Issac loved pizza, which was a miracle after a long illness and fear of food for many years. We gave the gorgeous brooches in the featured image to the twelve precious people at his ‘thing that wasn’t a funeral’. They were made by Hannah Doodle, a wonderful artisan seller I would encourage you to check out.
She also made us a matching Christmas tree decoration, because when you work with small, indie and lovely people, you get love back.
Memories
Often I know about the Awareness Day in advance, as we use the Foodie Days calendar to help us with grief. I also use them for work almost every day. When we are prepared, such days can be a nice focus to talk about some happy memories.
When they take you by surprise, or a memory hits you unexpectedly, that is harder to manage. It’s important to have a range of things available to help. These might be physical actions, like a walk or a breathing exercise that helps to calm you. Or, they might be more emotional, like having a hug or putting on some comfy clothes.
As one thing won’t work in every situation – you need a range of ideas.
Use Your Five Senses
One trick is to have a bag somewhere (it can be very tiny) with items inside that match your main senses and you find ‘nice’. For example:
- Touch. Have a small pebble oro other item that fes nice to touch. Squishy stress toys are good, or we like Happy Bug Co.
- Smell. A vial of your favourite perfume, cologne, essential oil, shampoo – whatever works.
- Sight. A beautiful pressed flower, photograph, art postcard, magazine cutting, Pokemon card…
- Sound. This is tricky. You could have a tiny finger cymbal… you’ll need to get creative!
- Taste. A sweet, biscuit, gum etc.
For more ideas keep checking in, and feel free to poke about on the site. There is a search function to help find what you need.