Episodes
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
#5 Laura Marven - There is no right or wrong way to grieve.
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Today's guest is Laura Marven, Laura graduated from the University of Leeds in 2019 majoring in Criminal Justice and Criminology. Laura has an interest in travelling despite Covid-19 and is a regular listener of Bereavement Room podcast, she has joined me to share her lived experience of grief and loss. Today we remember her mum who died in 2018 whilst on holiday in Mauritius, her native country.
We also discuss dating in the age of social media and that it's ok to be vulnerable and not have it all together every minute of the day.
As always, thank you for listening.
I'm your host,
Callsuma Ali
Thursday Oct 15, 2020
#6 Priya - Breaking the Baby loss silence
Thursday Oct 15, 2020
Thursday Oct 15, 2020
Today's guest is Priya, she has joined me during Baby Loss Awareness Week to talk about her son Shayen. Priya gave birth to Shayen at full term, he was born sleeping.
Priya walks me through that harrowing moment she was told there was no heartbeat with her husband and family by her side.
Diversity in loss is the entire fabric of Bereavement Room Podcast and what we often see is that the mainstream excludes the voices of the diaspora and our experience.
Priya and I discuss cultural barriers, the need for further education around pregnancy and statistics where women from Black and South Asian communities are disproportionately effected by baby loss and maternal deaths with Black women at risk the most.
To donate to her fundraising page and help raise money for a bereavement suite please follow her on instagram.
To get in touch me you can find me on instagram and twitter.
As always thanks for listening.
I am your host,
Callsuma Ali
Sunday Nov 01, 2020
#7 Chelsea Koomson - what it's like not knowing the cause of death.
Sunday Nov 01, 2020
Sunday Nov 01, 2020
Today's guest in the Bereavement Room is Chelsea Koomson, she joins Callsuma to talk about her mum who died unexpectedly in October 2018. Sharing her personal experiences and what it's like not knowing the cause of death. Chelsea is also the owner of the instagram page Griefluencer, helping raise awareness about grief & mental health.
As always thanks for listening, to donate to Bereavement Room Podcast Community Fundraiser for a season 3 and to share it with your network please go to our gofundme page.
We are also on instagram, give us a follow for updates.
Your host,
Callsuma Ali
Friday Nov 06, 2020
#8 Sherine Kerr - Founder of Black Family Support Group
Friday Nov 06, 2020
Friday Nov 06, 2020
Today's guest is Sherine Kerr, Sherine is a qualified integrative therapist and the founder of the Black families support group based in Suffolk for local black/brown people.
She has joined Callsuma in the room to talk about her mum who died of Cancer in 2008, we explore what it means to grieve forever, family dynamics, and the power of being heard.
Sherine's mum was of Windrush generation where nearly half a million people from the Caribbean were invited to Britain because of severe labour shortages in the wake of the Second World War.
Saturday Nov 14, 2020
#9 Ben Acquaah - 1/2 Co-host of Thinking Out Loud Podcast
Saturday Nov 14, 2020
Saturday Nov 14, 2020
Today I am joined by 1/2 Co-hosts of Thinking Out Loud Podcast, Ben Acquaah.
Thinking Out Loud is a podcast that explores the unspoken truths about grief, mental health, masculinity and much more from the perspective of Black British male voices.
Representation in the bereavement and grief space is very low so when i stumbled across Ben and Jermaine I just knew I had to get them in the room.
Ben joins me to talk about his mum who died in hospital from Kidney failure in 2015, he opens up about the impact grief has had on him as a young man studying at College at the time and now as he co-exists without his mum in his 20s.
We discuss the need for increasing conversations around grief within the school environment so that there is a wider awareness of grief starting from a young age.
Ben reflects that there is nothing wrong with men talking about their emotions and mental health, being vulnerable is a good thing but it is important to choose carefully who to be vulnerable with as not everyone can hold a safe space when it comes to grief.
Today's food for thought, are our white counterparts better at talking about their emotions in comparison to black communities? This is something we have explored in series 1 that has popped up again. You might want to consider the following aspects culture, systemic racism, faith, heritage, lack of opportunities and representation, as well as poor access to therapy and mental health support.
You can listen to Thinking Out Loud Podcast on Spotify or Google.
You can also find Thinking Out Loud on instagram.
As always thank you for listening.
Your host
Callsuma Ali
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
#10 Jermaine Omoregie - 2/2 Co-host of Thinking Out Loud Podcast
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
Sunday Nov 15, 2020
Today I am joined by 2/2 Co-hosts of Thinking Out Loud Podcast, Jermaine Omoregie.
Thinking Out Loud is a podcast that explores the unspoken truths about grief, mental health, masculinity and much more from the perspective of Black British male voices.
Representation in the bereavement and grief space is very low so when i stumbled across Jermaine and Ben I just knew I had to get them in the room.
Jermaine joins Callsuma to talk about his mum who died in Nigeria whilst on holiday in 2015, he opens up about the impact grief has had on him reflecting on the flight back to the U.K after having laid his mum to rest.
We discuss faith and cultural traditions, sometimes cultural traditions can be problematic, is it time to make them redundant and what challenges might come with having this conversation carefully noting that faith and culture are not the same thing.
Jermaine reflects it is important to choose carefully who to be vulnerable with as not everyone in our environment has the capacity to hold a safe space, that sometimes there is a conditioning and ego when it comes to being open with male emotions.
Today's food for thought, are our white counterparts better at talking about their emotions in comparison to black and brown communities?
This is something we have explored in series 1 that has popped up again. You might want to consider the following aspects culture, systemic racism, faith, heritage, lack of opportunities and representation, as well as poor access to therapy and mental health support.
You can listen to Thinking Out Loud Podcast on Spotify or Google.
You can also find Thinking Out Loud on instagram.
As always thank you for listening.
Your host
Callsuma Ali
Sunday Nov 29, 2020
Sunday Nov 29, 2020
Today's guest is Humanistic Gestalt Counsellor Marvis Stewart.
She joins Callsuma in the room for a chat about Gestalt therapy, practicing self compassion, forgiveness and her own experience of bereavement when her grandmother died.
Marvis has been living in England for more than a decade and is British Venezuelan, we look at Latinx bereavement and grief noting that one size does not fit all and that there are communities within communities that may have various practices and rituals depending on their belief and faith.
She specialises in working with children and young people as well as trainee counsellors. Working in primary school settings while also holding a private practice for adults. Some of her other professional interests revolve around multicultural issues, LGBTQ+ allyship and self-compassion.
You can find Marvis on twitter @marviStewart1 or over on her website www.marviscounselling.co.uk
To help Bereavement Room meet it's goals please donate to the community fundraiser on our GoFundMe page; https://uk.gofundme.com/f/bereavement-room-podcast-community-fundraiser
As always thank you so much for listening.
Your host,
Callsuma Ali
Sunday Dec 13, 2020
Sunday Dec 13, 2020
Today's guest is Myira a BACP Accredited Counsellor, Therapeutic Coach and qualified Supervisor, working in private practice, under her organisations ‘Myira Khan Counselling’ and ‘Grow To Glow’.
Myira is also the Founder of the Muslim Counsellor and Psychotherapist Network (MCAPN). MCAPN connects Muslim counsellors, therapists and psychologists.
In this episode of Why We Do What We Do we open our discussion on how 2020 has treated us, Myira and I also discuss microaggression, unconscious bias and islamophobia, that sometimes our view of the world will be shaped by our lived experience of it.
An inspiration to many as a Muslim and East African-Asian counsellor, supervisor and coach Myira represents diversity within the profession and promotes counselling to minority and marginalised communities, to break the stigma of mental health and therapy. For her work Myira was awarded the Mental Health Hero Award in 2015.
We look at fish bowl practice in training, personally I think fish bowls are not very effective, i believe most people give biased feedback based on their relationship or view of the people in the fish bowl itself.
So therefore we have to ask ourselves is fish bowl a effective aspect of training and maybe we need to bring that into group process to discuss how we give feedback and that sometimes it will derive from our opinions, likeness and assumptions of a person and not the work in the fish bowl itself.
I am going to project if you like my "own stuff' here unashamedly, i do feel there are far too many white middle class females training and that's likely to be because they have more money in the bank than they know what to do with and to be frank I think they probably do go into the world after qualifying still naive to a degree. Perhaps that's the whole point until more diverse client experience has been gained. Clock up those BACP hours wisely now!
I ask Myira to share some wisdom that might help women, particularly Muslim women when it comes to finding your tribe.
We close the episode with Myira's reflection on the loss of her father and the legacy and guidance he left behind that has lead her to where she is today.
We covered so much ground in this episode but still ran out of time! I'll have to invite her back on a future season.
As always thank you so much for listening.
Your host,
Callsuma Ali
Sunday Dec 20, 2020
#15 Callsuma Ali - The end of an era, my dad and me.
Sunday Dec 20, 2020
Sunday Dec 20, 2020
Today's episode is the penultimate episode of Series 2. As the creator and host of Bereavement Room Podcast I want to remind everyone why we are here in the first place.
Bereavement Room was created following the multiple deaths I had in my family coupled with poor experiences of therapy as well as inadequate support from mainstream bereavement charities particularly when I came up with the idea of a death cafe for BAME communities and spoke about Muslim Funerals.
Bereavement Room is a podcast that addresses the conversation around life, death, grief and identity from the perspective of ethnic minoritised communities across the diaspora, this means we navigate the unspoken truths about grief within our communities including the many layers that sit within it, such as healthcare, racism, therapy, family dynamics, faith, culture and so much more.
Halfway through Series 1 my dad unexpectedly fell ill, having recovered and on rest in hospital he died suddenly after 2 hours of deterioration that was ignored by staff on duty in the very early hours of one morning after almost what was a 2 week stay in hospital.
It is inconceivable that yet again I was going through another bereavement and this time my beautiful and caring father. The difference this time is that unexpected and sudden deaths just hit you out of nowhere, like a rug being pulled from underneath you.
I share some memories and what it was like saying goodbye to my dad and the home i grew up in and that grief is universal but the narrative around bereavement is not.
I include here a 4 minute podcast episode from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that outlines why hospital deaths happen amongst the elderly population and that they can be prevented according to research from the BMJ. We can love the NHS and challenge it too.
I also include here a podcast I stumbled across after my fathers death called £3 pounds in my pocket, stories of pioneering migrants who were invited to Britain from the Indian subcontinent in the 1950s and 1960s.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xq6h7
A eulogy from a child of the Diaspora
My father was a former subject of the British Raj. He was invited to England in the 50's after the destruction of WW2 to rebuild this country alongside many others. Made huge sacrifices and contributions our generation could never imagine. He was a great man. My best friend.
As always, thank you so much for listening.
Your host
Callsuma Ali
Wednesday Dec 30, 2020
#16 End of season 2 reflections with Callsuma Ali
Wednesday Dec 30, 2020
Wednesday Dec 30, 2020
Today's episode is the last in Series 2. I begin with reading out some feedback and comments received over the past year followed by a reading of a heartfelt letter written by Tasneem and my own personal reflections. I close the episode with a Q&A, thank you to everyone that sent in questions. Covering off DNACPR, what makes someone comfortable in opening up in sharing a deeply personal account of their life, statutory bereavement leave and emotions.
Series 2 of BR bought us perspectives from an array of guests on why they do what they do while sharing their experiences of grief and loss.
I hope Bereavement Room Podcast bought love, light, knowledge and reflection to wherever you are in your journey.
To stay in touch please follow us on twitter and instagram and if you're listening in Apple Podcasts please leave a star rating and review so more people can find the podcast.
See you in the same room in the summer of 2021.
As always thanks for listening,
Your host,
Callsuma Ali