Episode 370 – Grief and Clutter with Emma Gray

Ingrid: grief and clutter are deeply connected, but one of the most overlooked types of clutter is end of life paperwork. In today's episode, we are joined by the lovely Emma Gray. Emma is a qualified therapeutic counselor, wills and probate solicitor and founder of Rainbow Hunting.

After being widowed at just 39, Emma has dedicated her work to helping people move through the emotional barriers around end of life admin. Just a warning that in this podcast we are talked about grief and the lost of a loved one.

Ingrid: Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid.

Lesley: And I am Lesley. Now, if you are here for the very first time today, or you've been listening in for ages, we want to say a huge thank you we have a little favour to ask.

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hello and welcome Emma. Thank you for being here. It's so nice to have you on the show.

Finally.

Emma: I know. I'm very excited. I'm very excited and I still, I will say it a million times, but I still am very, I feel very honored that you, two lovely ladies came and found me at the Clean and Tidy show 'cause I genuinely felt like I had celebs come and visit me. I was like, oh, this is so exciting.

Ingrid: you've been on our radar for a while because of what the topic that you have and we see you on Instagram and we know you from now also the Association of Professional Declutters and organizers. But indeed, the last year at the Clean and Tiny Home, she was like the perfect opportunity to really meet up and go, let's.

Come on the show and through loads of different circumstances, we haven't made it until now, but I'm delighted you're here because I think your message and what you wanna have to share is so important for people to hear because especially Wills and end of life paperwork is not a topic that people, talk about, on a coffee, on a coffee morning, you have to dive into it and, understand the story.

Can you share with us your story? How did you end up doing what you're doing now with rainbow hunting?

Emma: Oh, bless you. Yes, it's a bit of an about turn, but in a funny kind of way, it feels like my soul's purpose. So when we had a healthy family. And my lovely late husband was in the Royal Marines, and I was effectively solo parenting. I was a wills and Probate lawyer. And that meant I helped people draft wills and administer estates.

So deal with all the paperwork after people died. And I'd done it for many years. And then sadly, Simon got poorly. and he got diagnosed in 2013 when the kids were just three and five years old. we knew from day one that it was terminal, but he didn't want. Other people to know. I, he was a very proud and quite a private person.

I think he'd be horrified with how much my life I share on social media now, but there we go. and so I managed to keep my job going through six houses and six years through his illness. And I had quite a big amount of, compassionately, but after he died. But then I went back to the old world and I realized that the old world without him in it didn't really work.

But also I was getting quite burnt out. So I felt like solo parenting when he was at the end of the phone was very, different to solo parenting entirely on my own. we have a really neurodivergent family as well, so when you've got kids that adds its own challenges and work, I was working part-time, but still.

Expected to Bill Pro Rota. So the pressure was on and they like to rule me out to do marketing events and things like that. long story short, I suddenly decided that one of the things that we had done, whether it be my job, whether it be his job, whether it be the fact that we just were a little bit more organized than many people in their thirties, but we had put quite a lot in place.

so when he died. I had the financial freedom to take a break and a career break, and so I went into work and said, I, need to sort out my house because we'd moved house to be close to school and I had put everything I didn't wanna live with in the garage. And I'd done that absolute typical declutter nightmare of wake up and realized I had a double garage full of stuff.

and, and also I wanted to be a better mummy. and so I worked, taught my files down. Work were amazing. They let me go on sabbatical, but I handed over with a gut feel that I would never go back. Two weeks after walking out the door, lo and behold we went into lockdown and I was like, oh boy. I love my kids to pieces.

But all of a sudden I had a bit of a crisis. I would, didn't like the label of widow. I wasn't a wife. I was no longer a lawyer. Ironically, the moment I stopped being a lawyer, I was really proud of it. Whereas I used to say it like an excuse, like I'm a solicitor. Sorry. And, and I was just like, I have no idea what I wanna do with my world.

I dunno what I wanna do with my life. So that's when I started to share my story and I initially decided I'd be a counselor. and then I decided actually holding people's stuff was a lot. So in fact, actually maybe I'd be a coach and help with paperwork side and the grief. but. My heart has always been in the mental health, mental wellness, the psychology.

So I finally, this year, finished my counseling qualification. So I am in fact a qualified counselor as well as brief and life coach, which is amazing because I think it adds steps and breadth. I can look forward. I think a lot of people are more ready to come to a coach than they are necessarily to come to a counselor.

But I work quite therapeutically, so I can do all that looking backwards stuff as well. So I think that roughly gets me from A to B, but it feels like my soul's purpose.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. So were you guys, so you mentioned in between that you guys were quite organized because end of life paperwork is a lot more than just a will, right?

Emma: Yeah. Yeah. So I always say if you dunno where to start, with the will because the will is the only legal document in the uk, but I think it's probably pretty worldwide. But obviously I work, in the uk. but Your will is the only document saying who gets what when you die. But there is so much more around it.

I often say that's the backbone and there's so much more that makes up the full picture. so, yes, we were organized. We partly because of my job, I think, but. We were more organized than most people in their thirties, but we still didn't get super organized until his diagnosis. It was his diagnosis that keeps me into action.

But one of the things I'm passionate about is none of us know when we're gonna die. So actually we should all have this in place now because. We don't want wills to be a crisis purchase. What we want at crisis is to be able to emotionally be with someone, to be able to support them, to think about their pain relief, to think about memories and telling stories and the emotional side of processing it.

We don't want to be rushing around finding a lawyer, worrying about capacity and undue influence and all these other things. We really want the paperwork to already be in place. yeah, I'm, I've also seen how it's gone wrong both in my old world as a lawyer, where I totally know how expensive it is when it goes wrong, and it is frighteningly one.

It was really fascinating. One of the jobs I had in Exeter, we shared a. Floor with the family team, the contentious probate team, and us as wills and Probate. And in the time I was there, the contentious probate team in only a couple of years tripled in size, which is crazy. And it just shows how if you don't get it right, if you haven't done it at all, if you do it, but you don't get the right advice, pay now for the advice and it's easier.

The other side don't do it, and the cost and the complication and the stress, the other side is just massive.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. just, of course, a reminder to the listeners, Emma is here in the uk. she, all the terminology that she uses is of course, UK terminology. So if you're listening to this elsewhere around the world, make sure that What is called in your country, but here you've got, so you've got your will, you've got your power of attorney, you've got your letter of wishes.

What else do we need to think about in kind of the end of life paperwork, list?

Emma: Yeah, I love that. And, I think, I often rewind people and I actually say, if you are doing. A massive review of your end of life paperwork you are adding into. We all have already very busy, very full lives. So actually I rewind people and start off with, are you sleeping okay?

Are you, have you got the space in your life? How can you create the space in your life to do this without burning you out? Then I take them into the legals because I think. They are, like I said, the will is the only legal document saying who gets what when you die. So that's the first thing. And as you'll know with decluttering, taking it step by step, breaking it down into small steps is, literally the best way to do it.

And getting some support so that you've got people who are around you who can help you. And then the powers of attorney. So the difference, the will is the who gets what When you die. In the UK the document is the lasting power of attorney. There's two types. One for finances, one for welfare. And they say, who can help you?

To make your, who can make decisions for you if you are unable to do so either because of physical or mental, disabilities. so that's more in your lifetime. then there is a legal health document in the UK called an Advanced Decision. you can't say what treatment you want, but you can say what treatment you want to refuse.

So for example, my husband refused to be resuscitated, because he had a patch cancer by his heart. So if his heart had faulted, it would probably have been linked to the cancer and who he would've been post CPR would've been very different to who he was the other side. So that's the next kind of important thing.

So do the legals. Then I take people onto practical stuff, and this is more about the utilities, the bank accounts, the insurances, the pensions, not just have you got them in place. Do people know where to find them? Do they know how to discover them without having to break into a phone or what have you?

and then I take people through the digital stuff. And again, I think so much of our lives is online these days, so having an inventory, my kids know how to get into my mobile phone. I think that is the access to my world. Yes, it means that. They can see whatever they want in my phone. But you've gotta have a trust thing there, don't you?

And actually, as teenagers, I feel incredibly privileged, but they've done the same to me, and I've got the passcode for their phones so that, God forbid if something happens, we can access each other's photos. it's, stuff like that people just don't think about. And social media, there's so much to the digital.

It's not just your bank account, it's our lives are so much online now. And then as with all declutters, I leave the emotional stuff to the end, because I think that's where people go down memory lane. So that's more when we start to think about your funeral. letters of wishes. So letters of wishes.

Sometimes relate to the will. Sometimes they relate to children, to pets. but they're an explanation as to why you've done what you've done. But they also are to help people understand how to better do their job. you are asking someone to be, if they're meant to administer your estate, they're your executor.

If you've left a trust, they're your trustee. If you've got children, it's your guardian. But they're massive jobs. And if you just say, Hey, do this for me, but with no rule book, that's a massive ask. You are asking them, and sometimes it's too emotional to have the conversation. So write it down, tell people where it is, and then they can discover it when they need it.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. And did you have all of this sorted, like way at the beginning, like when the children were born or has this been kind of something that over time developed but got into a more of a kind of. Fast forwarded because of course your, late husband became ill. were you the super organized person with a will at 30 or is it something that kind of grew over time?

Emma: So the perfect answer is about the will 'cause. Yes, I've always had a will. I think my dad encouraged me to have a will in my late teens, early twenties, which is very young. But as soon as you're 18, you own assets. in the uk, if you have no will, then there is something called the laws of intestacy that governs who gets what, and it may not be what you want.

so I had a will from a very young age, but I redid it. So I redid it when we got married. I redid it when we had kids. I've redone it since my husband's died. I've redone it since I've had my own business. I've kept on top of that. But I'm not Instagram. Perfect. So no, I often live in pace paperwork hell.

And one of the reasons I'm so passionate about what I do is I have a quirky neurodivergent, ADHD brain. And I know how difficult all of this is. And so that's why I think people love me 'cause I'm actually honest about how hard it all is. yeah, no, I don't have everything. And so our catalyst was his illness and it really.

It panicked me that we didn't have stuff organized, and that was our impetus to get stuff sorted.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah, because what, I see a lot with clients who come to us, whether it's, in my one-to-one business or within the Declutter Hub. It's not the paperwork alone. It's normally lots of other things that are cluttered and there's too much, and it's in, in, my opinion, it's very important to first start clearing the clutter in the kitchen and the bathroom and, the clothes in the bedroom.

And because you have to work your way. Up towards, being able to tackle paperwork clutter, because whether it's five years of p clutter or 25 years of paper clutter, you need space to be able to spread it all out and make different piles and put it in date order, because it's, I think, really important to have all of that basic paperwork sorted and to get that clarity in your head as well.

To then be able to move into digital and move into end of life paperwork like wills and things like that, because often. You. You can't start at the end. You have to start at the beginning. But sometimes, of course, when somebody, especially when they suddenly pass away, you have to start at the end and work your way back.

And that is super hard, isn't it? Because you're trying to unravel something. So that's why I'm always so grateful when people come into our world and go, okay. I've realized that I need to, have less, own less, have more space, have more clarity, because I know that I am getting older and my physical health is going to, slowly but surely go down.

And I'm not even talking about, suddenly somebody passing away, but just the reality of life. And I want to sort my house out. And then when once that happens, there's more space, mental space to go, right? Actually now I need to think about digital and now I need to think about a will and but a will is just not something that people wanna talk about, right?

Emma: And that's why I do my challenge because I try to almost gamify the concept of doing a will because I think so often, yes. I think death is the only thing that we're gonna a hundred percent succeed in all of us at some point someday, but especially here in Britain, we often don't talk about it and.

And I think I totally understand why we don't talk about it because it's bound up with so much emotion. And I think sometimes our nervous system, we either go into fight or flight, so someone mentions the will and we get grumpy and we get anxious and we get worried. Or we go into like dorsal, like I call it like a door mouse, and we just shut down and we just bury our heads in the sand and we don't wanna do it.

But even just that. Even just understanding what we are doing and why we're doing it, you can start to understand, okay, so a bit more compassion. This is really big. This is really scary. and often there is a reason why it's really. Painful for people. So either they've had a bereavement, they don't like thinking about their own death.

I think there's a lot of anticipatory grief, bound up in it all. So I think that people worry about their own death and what will happen. And especially I find a lot of people come to me who've got, children with additional needs. and so the concept of actually the adult going before the child is, It's quite scary as to then what happens to that child. which is a really big one as well. And often I find is the people who don't do the wills are the people who need the wills, which is fascinating.

Ingrid: it was interesting and I think I've mentioned it on another podcast before, but at some point my, father was very poorly and my mother was very poorly as well. she actually, my father's passed away now, but my mother is still alive and she. Wanted to sort her will. So she contacted like a will company in the Netherlands and the lady was like on the phone, okay, and is this, is it like an urgent appointment?

And my mom said, I wasn't planning on dying anytime soon, but I think I wanna get this organized. And the lady came to my mom's house and my mom is she's one of the most organized people I know. I don't have it from a, it, it's run through the family. But she had like her, leather arch file ready with all of her things and her policies and, the lady was like, blown away going, wow.

You are. And she's my mother was like, yeah, because I want to get this sorted. So I grew up in in a world where we would talk about that and I didn't have a will when I was 20. I have a will now, but. It was not something that was never talked about or discussed. And I think it's also very culturally different, how people talk about, dying and death and wills and, things like that.

But it's, inevitable and I don't think lots of people realize. How many things you need to know when, when somebody passes away and how many decisions? And like my dad passed away a couple years ago, and although we had lots of stuff in place, there were still things that we didn't know and

Emma: Yeah, and I thought my husband and I had done that. I thought we'd organized so much and the rest of it, and he had not given me one hymn. Or one reading or prayer. And I was like, oh my good grief. He could have at least told me what the royal marine hymn was like, come on. and I know it sounds really strange, but actually that really surprised me that you, can't do it all.

you can't. Perfect. Doesn't exist, does it? But doing as much as you can makes a massive difference. And also. Leaning on people who know. So leaning on people who've been through it, you've been through it with your dad. and I've been through it with my husband and, it is amazing, the lived experience, what you learn from the lived experience.

Ingrid: Yeah, for sure. Because I think what we can definitely conclude is when somebody passes away, the grief is, so big, isn't it? It can be so big and then you have so many decisions to make, but we have the stuff and we got the paperwork and we got the funeral or the cremation. We've, got like 10,000 things suddenly to do and it has.

Having your end of life paperwork sorted can be a massive help in that situation, right?

Emma: Oh, massively. And what people who've in my world will have heard me say time and time again is, what my husband gave me by dying well is he gave me an emotional handrail. My life was turned upside down. I felt like I was living in a kind of. Bombed outside of chaos. But having the stuff that he, he literally left me a letter and in the letter he said, it will seem absolutely massive, but as with all massive things, you just need to take it step by step.

And I remember one day as clear as anything, and I put the kids to bed and they were so tiny. Six and eight when he died. And I'd gone back downstairs and it was middle of term time and I was still gone back into the old world of a lawyer and I felt exhausted and the kitchen was chaos. kids had just got up and left the table, school bags everywhere.

And I looked at it and it just felt overwhelming and I was like, he said one thing at a time and I just thought. Priority for tomorrow is the school bags. I will just do the school bags and then I will take a breather. And then I was like, So next thing they're gonna need breakfast, clear the table.

And I literally went round the kitchen one thing at a time, literally only focusing on one thing. And before I knew it, the kitchen was straight again. And it sounds so crazy, like how can just a messy kitchen. Be so overwhelming, but I think grief, you can't underestimate how much mental capacity the grief takes up and then Organising the other stuff on top of that, and then every single item of theirs suddenly has a history and a story.

And I'm sure that you've come across it. But I remember not wanting to get rid of his toothbrush. Now his toothbrush was ringing. It wasn't even relatively clean or new, but I didn't wanna get rid of it because it was his toothbrush. and, six months down the line, I was like, why on earth did I struggle with that?

And I threw it in the bin. But at the time I just, there's a thing called continuing bonds, and when someone dies, we have to have a new relationship with them and we have to work out what our links are with them in this new world while where they aren't. And suddenly. Items can take on. And actually it was a fellow apto person who turned around to me because, and I'm the first person to say I will get experts in to help me.

So IE employed lovely Jasmine from down here in the southwest and she came in, she helped me out and she said, if you keep everything, nothing is special. And I was just like, wow. Yeah, that totally makes sense.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. so, true. You have to, Lesley and I say something different. We call it the quality over the quantity. If you keep everything, nothing is important. So you have to, you can't keep. 500 things because then how do you, have to move, you have to look at where you are now and move forward.

Because if you hang on to everything, you'll stay stuck in the past and you need to make space for your current situation and where you want to go. So you have to find that quality. And that doesn't mean that, A week after a person passes away, you have to get a skip and throw everything out.

Absolutely not, but it does, you need to over time, revisit the things and go, okay, wait, hold on a minute. What's important to me? What? And you know it deep down inside, right? You get, oh my gosh, I forgot. Oh, and that's the moment, oh, this is important. But all the other things are not, yes, definitely.

I wanna talk about mind monkeys, but let's go for a break and then we're gonna talk some more.

hello listeners. Welcome back to this wonderful conversation that I'm having with Emma Gray from Rainbow Hunting about all things wills and life of pa, end of life paperwork. And it sounds a bit heavy, but I've already learned so much and I hope you are learning a so much too now. Emma, you have identified mind monkeys that block doing live admin that create procrastination.

So tell me more about this. I would love to know more.

Emma: So I love this. This is something that often comes up in my will challenge, is I say to people and I try and make it.

Partly because I love part the positive difference that makes in people's worlds, but the mind monkeys, so they are the things that, the old internal stories that we have, that we tell ourselves, and at some point they will have served a purpose. So I'm too young to need a will, or it's too complicated, or I don't want to think about death.

and sometimes even there, they can be fascinating, but they're the old stories, that at one point in our life might have and they might still be keeping us safe, but the problem is that they're not serving us anymore because they're stopping us from doing something that we desperately need to do.

And it's absolutely fascinating. So often in my will challenge. Absolute classics, which come up year after year. People dunno who to have as the Guardian, but if you don't know who to have as the guardian, sure as hell, if something happens to both the parents, everyone else is gonna be a bit stumped too.

and it's the, kind of aim is to do the best you can for now with an eye for the future, and it may not be perfect. But as long as you've got capacity, you can redo it. When the kid, oldest kid turns 18, you can make the oldest kid a guardian in the UK of the younger kids. So you know, it's. It's really important to keep it under review.

But with these old stories, the first thing is to try and work out where they came from and what's linked into them in the tapestry of your life and how they worked and why they no longer work, and to be kind about them, not to be critical. I'm a really big one that there's no judgment. It should all be compassionate and it all should be kind.

And other ones that people have a block with. A really fascinating one is sometimes people don't do a will. 'cause they don't know how to find a solicitor they can trust, which is bonkers. 'cause when you think about it, all solicitors should be trustworthy. But I think you've gotta like everything, like therapists, like coaches, like declutters, you've gotta find someone who gets you.

And if the first person doesn't quite work and they don't quite understand you, you can say with the greatest respect in the world. I'm sorry, but I don't. Think that you're giving me the answer that I want and go and get a second opinion from someone else and try somewhere else, but it's the, it's, yeah, it's these mind monkeys that I love working with.

You must come across them though in the decluttering as well. The stories that people tell themselves that mean that they can't get away, get, rid of their stuff.

Ingrid: Oh, for sure. It's but I don't drive, so I can't, get my stuff out of the house. And I'm like, we've got lots of other options. We can ask a neighbor, ask a friend, ask a family member. Lots of charities collect from people's houses. You can go on a free giveaway app and put it outside of your house and people can pick it up it, but it's it's no, don't try and go over a hurdle.

Go around a hurdle because you can't have all these things stopping you. You have to.

Emma: And also the question I would be fascinated with is if someone comes up with a, and especially as a declutter, if you are providing lots of options and you're still finding the mind monkeys are there is, instead of thinking about the solution to go back to the problem. But what is it about this stuff leaving the house that really bothers you?

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because there's, always something going on, right? There's something going on. That's why we talk so much about the emotions that sit behind the clutter. It's not about, yeah, it's not about the clutter. everybody can grab a bin bag and put something in the bin or in the recycling or in donation or whatever.

But it's the things that sit behind it that stop people, and that's the same with this end of life paperwork, right? They might think maybe one of the things that you see, but my paperwork is a complete mess. So how can I sort, how can I get a will if I don't even have my paperwork sorted? one doesn't mutually exclude the other.

It's handy to have your paperwork more organized, but you can still make a will because. People will be able to find the utility bills and the mortgage paperwork and the bank statements and all of those things. At some point it's more challenging, but it's possible, and I think it's so important that.

We talk about this and we are open about it and go, you don't have to be in your seventies to start thinking about a will. You can start thinking about a will much, much sooner. Just like when you are sorting out a mortgage for your house or maybe when you're getting married or living together.

Or having children. Those can be like moments when you go, actually, I'm here with the solicitors anyway. Maybe I need to hook a will or the other paperwork onto it. Or maybe that feels too much. You go, okay, hold on a minute. I've got this sorted. Now my next step is to do all of this because I don't wanna leave it until it's.

The, how do you call it, like the 19th hour or how do you say that again?

Emma: yeah. Just say the last hour,

Ingrid: Yeah. The last hour or try to tackle it when somebody indeed has passed away and then you already have so many decisions to make.

Emma: And that's what I say about, I don't like it all being a crisis purchase, and I slightly feel the same with mental health as well in that, for some reason it seems to be okay to go to a coach, a counselor, a therapist, if you are having a problem with your mental health. But people don't advocate for going for that support when you are

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Emma: I think that it should be a wellness thing that we all have support because there is so often stuff that bubbles away and then when people come as a crisis purchase, what I find fascinating, 'cause most of my one-to-one work is not paperwork, it's grief.

And what's fascinating is there's always a presenting brief why they've come, which is the death of a spouse or a parent or a sibling or whoever it might be, and then linked in with it. So intertwined like a beautiful intricate tapestry is so much stuff. And I think that link leads you, us back onto the paperwork, like you were just saying about being authentic.

I think that one of the things that people quite like about me is, I'm honest and one of the things that I really struggle with is the paperwork. I have a crazy ADHD brain, but within paperwork there can be so much shame. I dunno if you come about it, but, people worry about, are they gonna discover that they should have, Done something that would've meant that they had some money or they didn't do something, so they lost the money. And there's so much guilt and shame wrapped up in it, which I think is so important to acknowledge because at the end of the day, none of us are perfect and we've all got horror stories hidden away amongst this, that and the other.

And I know you come from a phenomenally organized family, but not everybody is that organized,

Ingrid: yeah, definitely. And, I think it's, it can be so helpful to go, I'm gonna. I am going to take this on and I, wanna do it, and I wanna figure it out. It's a very brave thing to do, whether you're doing it by yourself or with the help of a professional organizer in the help within our membership.

I think just go, you know what? We can't all be good at everything. We all have our stuff that we're good at, and for me, it happens. To be that. I've got a very organized brain and, it all makes sense in my head, but do I still have to sort out photos on my computer? And, yes, of course we can't all have everything nailed all the time.

It doesn't work that way, but I think it's important that you're able to find something. It's the same with having the will. You can't do a will. Perfectly, but at least you've got something in place, which is a starting point. And like you say, you can tweak it and look at it, look back at it, and all of those things because I think it's really important that, I think it can give people a lot of calmness when they've got these things sorted,

Emma: Yeah, and I, really think that grief and death and our emotions and even just sometimes thinking about our paperwork, it's. it fills our brain with so much stuff, and actually what we need is structure and order and that what I call that emotional handrail that we can lean on as life is hard. And, my husband died well.

Left loads of information, left loads of stuff, and left letters and like still to this day. I will read the letter that I opened the night he died. I nearly forgot about it. And then I like putted downstairs at two in the morning 'cause I couldn't sleep and opened up a cabinet and got it out and burst into floods of tears and collapsed down onto the dog bed with the two dogs that we had and read it through a tear stained face.

But actually. That letter has really helped me and has kept me going. and he said in it, I thought this would be a really hard letter to write, but actually it's really easy. and, and it was amazing. And it's given me confidence. It's given me help and support when I needed it. And I think it goes back into that continuing bonds when someone dies, I often say that you need three new relationships.

You have a new relationship with the person who's died. 'cause obviously you still love them, so you still want to have their memory and think about them and maybe some rituals and this, that and the other. But they're no longer physically with you, so you don't need their toothbrush. You don't need the certain bits and bobs that they had, but you do wanna remember them somehow.

So how does that look in your life? There's a new relationship with yourself. 'cause I believe that the death of a loved one fundamentally can change us. Doesn't change everyone, but a lot of us. So what does that look like? Who are we, what, are we doing financially? People can be in a very different place as well.

And then there's a new relationship with society and, that's one. And I find it fascinating 'cause when I say that to clients, they often find one aspect of that harder than others. And it's fab. Okay? So that's where we need to do some work and that's where we need to think about.

Ingrid: Yeah. And you mean with a new place in society, is that, you mean like you're no longer like a couple, but you're now like a widow or, a, is that

Emma: Yeah, it's just, it's how the external world see you, because some people, might look exactly the same. They've got the same haircut, they look the same. They might look a bit sad, but. To all intents and persons, they look the same, but inside they may or they may not feel fundamentally different, but society can't tell that.

So how do you integrate that into life and vice versa? Sometimes people cut their hair, they change their clothes, they have a massive clear out, there's a suddenly, and society sometimes doesn't know how to cope with that either. They're like, because we don't talk about it enough. There is no right way to do grief.

There's no set stages, there's no script. I always say that grief is as unique as the relationship we had with the person who died. So it's like a fingerprint. So you can't write a rule book for it. So the way you do it is right for you. and, Yeah. And it's just working out how that sometimes people realize.

I realized when I had my little lockdown crisis, I realized I'd forgotten who I was. I'd been so sucked into caring for my husband, being a wife, being a mom, I'd forgotten. Someone turned around to me and said, what does Emma enjoy doing? And I was like. I genuinely can't think of an answer. I cannot tell you what I want to do.

For me, I can tell you what I'll do with the kids. I can tell you what I used to do with my husband, but as far as what? What makes my heart sing? What do I want to do? For me, I was just stumped.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. And that's why probably rainbow hunting really took off. You found your. Purpose and you're sharing your knowledge so far and wide. Emma, thank you so much for this conversation. I've really, enjoyed it. I know our listeners might want to know more. You mentioned the will challenge.

What can people do is may, is there may be a quiz or a course, or where can people find out more about you? What do people do?

Emma: I love you guys so much. so the website is very, easy. It's literally www rainbow hunting co uk. I do an annual wheel challenge. The idea with the wheel challenge, I don't. I'm no longer a qualified lawyer, so I don't draft the wills, but I take people from head in the sand. You were saying about your mum being super organized when your dad died, so I give them a form that has everything that I wish clients had given me when they walked in the door to instruct.

Me as a lawyer, because I think so often otherwise the lawyers are almost having to therapize and help people work out what they want. Whereas actually, if they get told, this is what I want now, can you translate it into legal or tell me what trusts are irrelevant, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So they do the legal advice, but you know what you're asking them for.

so that's the real challenge. It happens once a year, usually middle of the year, so I've just run one. I have a sad admin course, which takes people through those set stages, I said of making sure their foundations are in place. The legals, the practical. The digital, the emotional, and then how to keep it up to date.

that's online. It's there anytime. I've got a few exciting ideas in the pipeline and then I do, one-to-one grief coaching as well. But I also have a newsletter, so if people go on the website, oh, and you mention about the quiz. So the quiz is quite cool. the quiz is to help people work out how sorted their life, admins, admin, end of life paperwork, whatever you wanna call it is.

so yeah, that's the quiz.

Ingrid: Perfect. So what we'll do listeners, we'll put Emma's website in the show notes. As well, rainbow hunting.co uk. but we'll, you'll find it in the show notes because I think it could be really helpful for our listeners. And of course, I would love to know from you, listeners if this conversation has been helpful for you.

Have you listened in and gone? oh, I don't have a will. I don't have a letter of wishes. I have, don't have a power of attorney. My paperwork has got a bid in a state. Actually, ooh, I'm a bit all over the place here and maybe this, don't panic, stay calm. That's really important, but maybe this is your little nudge to go.

Okay. What do I need to do here? What's the one piece of live admin that I've been putting off? Because maybe you already have that form on your desk to contact somebody, or maybe you've, or maybe you've already been in contact with a solicitor and they've sent you paperwork back and you still haven't filled it in.

What's the thing that you can do to Take that next step and to get things moving along a little bit, because your future self will thank you for it so much and maybe, maybe you realize actually I need to have a conversation with my partner, my husband, my kids, my family who, whoever it is, and go, how would you guys feel about this?

And let's not be oh, no, we can't talk about it. There will come a point that unfortunately. We are all, not going to be here any longer. So hopefully you've been inspired by Emma's. amazing story, her fantastic advice. So Emma, thank you so much again for being here. It's been honestly such a pleasure.

Emma: Oh, I can't thank you enough, Ingrid. I have loved it and it feels like such privilege and an honor. I, love your podcast. I love your advice and I definitely love what you've just said. What's the one little next step people can do to just move a step forward and then celebrate what they've done?

Ingrid: Exactly. Exactly. thank you listeners for tuning in and we can't wait to see you next week.