KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — As communities mourn the loss of Tyre Nichols, a grief and loss expert from Tennessee held a workshop for people who are looking for ways to cope.
Joy Gaertner, an advanced loss and grief recovery specialist and founder of Walking With Joy, held the workshop at the Powell Methodist Church on Emory Road on Sunday.
This is an 8-week session. During the first workshop, Gaertner said she keeps the groups small, about 15 people, so they can build trust and intimacy.
She became a certified expert on dealing with grief and loss after she overcame her own challenges.
She said it took her about four to five years to recover.
"My grief recovery journey started in 2005," Gaertner said. "When my husband left and I went through a divorce that I did not want. Lost my job my home, really my friends they didn't know what to do."
She said she saw her life falling apart bit by bit. While she had to let go of her identity as a minister's wife, she also had a couple more battles on the way.
"I was diagnosed with cancer which was stress-related," Gaertner said. "My mother died in that time."
Gaertner was looking for a way to deal with pain. She said at first she was mad at God because she was forced to change her whole life.
But she decided to not give up.
"And then somebody handed me this grief recovery book," Gaertner said. "And I started reading it and I thought, 'Oh, my goodness, in this book is everything that it took me years to find.'"
She decided to give back what she had received and help others save time learning what she had to learn the hard way.
She got certified as a grief and loss specialist and that's when started hosting workshops. She said some people think that grief is when someone dies, but Gaertner explained that pain is pain.
She said one of her friends has an expression that she often uses:
"It doesn't matter if you've been picked by a duck or hit by a truck. Pain is pain," Gaertner said.
The expert said there's a misconception about what grief looks like and people often don't recognize it as grief - but it may be. The problem is that not realizing it could delay the healing process.
"We think [grief] it's just sadness or crying," Gaertner said. "But grief can look like anger, depression, anxiety, overwhelm, clumsiness, grudges."
The program is based on the method from The Grief Recovery Method Guide for Loss book, by John W. James and Russell.
Her workshops are available both online and in person. The first two sessions are free and then there's a fee.
"Have hope that the pain can be transformed, but give yourself grace to have the bad days and the good days," Gaertner said. "Our hearts are broken for the same things and we can walk beside each other."