Professional celebrants are responsible for planning, designing, and delivering a variety of memorial and celebratory ceremonies. Often referred to as ‘rites of passage,’ professional celebrants work with families and couples at some of the most important - and often stressful - moments in their lives.
For celebrants who work with grieving families, helping them create a suitable tribute to their loved-one, can often become quite fraught, as families lean on us for help and guidance. Funeral celebrants come under considerable pressure, working alongside other professionals to design and deliver bespoke funerals or memorials - all within strict time constraints.
While working as a wedding or family celebrant can be joyful and fulfilling, even these supposed happy occasions can become quite overwhelming in the build-up to the big day! Fortunately, the majority of families and couples are delightful and fun to work with. But, for some, any large occasion in which they are playing a leading role can become worrying and stressful. Again, couples often look to their celebrant to provide a calm and stable point of contact in the whirlwind of wedding plans - or in the thick of baby-naming ceremony preparations.
When planning life’s big moments, nerves can become frayed!
Celebrants play a crucial role in ensuring that these milestone events are memorable, meaningful, and deeply personal. However, the nature of the research, writing, and on-the-day ceremony delivery, has all the potential to become emotionally taxing. Life can become pretty demanding, for the person charged with designing and officiating the special occasion. The work is often tiring (both emotionally and physically) therefore self-care for professional celebrants is an absolute essential.
Here at the Celebrant Circle, we ensure all of our students and members are aware that the need for self-care is a vital part of their celebrant ‘toolkit’.
To paraphrase the well-known saying, ‘who cares for the carer.’ Here in the Celebrant Circle, our ethos is that WE care for the Celebrant, offering a variety of ways to support our colleagues in the vital role that they play in society. In order to perform their duties effectively and successfully, Professional Celebrants need to be both emotionally and physically healthy. And - possibly most important of all - they must be well enough to enjoy what they do!
In order to write and deliver a funeral ceremony, Celebrants must be present and engaged at all times. This can be mentally taxing as they often need to recognise and manage difficult emotions in the families they are working with. These days, we all recognise the meaning of the word ‘triggering.’ It’s a popular term for when we find ourselves in a situation that brings up uncomfortable feelings, or memories, for us. During our Celebrant Circle training course, we discuss and
explore with students how they can recognise and manage situations where they may become triggered during the planning or delivery of a funeral.
Celebrants must be able to manage their own emotions in order to facilitate a safe place for families to honour and grieve for their loved-ones. A Celebrant who breaks down during a funeral service is of no help to anyone and it’s imperative to have strategies in place that will help us manage this situation. We are all human, and at times would have to be superhuman not to be upset by a tragic situation we are involved in, or story that we need to tell. However we must be able to deal with this effectively and not overshadow the moment for the family and mourners. During celebrant training, we consider a variety of ways this can be achieved.
Membership of the Circle comes with access to weekly ‘Celebrant Surgeries.’ This drop-in session is open to all members and students and is a fantastic opportunity to meet, and chat with, Celebrant colleagues and friends. It’s a great place to offload a work worry, share a success, or troubleshoot a problem. Our Celebrant community is incredibly supportive of one another and as well as offering virtual hugs, we also laugh a lot!
Self-care practices such as mindfulness, meditation, and exercise can help Celebrants decompress and manage challenging situations and we offer several free sessions in these helpful skills each year.
Another reason why self-care is important for celebrants is that the job can be, at times, physically demanding. It might be necessary to stand for extended periods of time, carry heavy equipment, and occasionally work long hours. Therefore, it’s vitally important to keep in mind physical health, ensuring we can perform our job without experiencing any physical discomfort or pain.
Finally, self-care is essential for Celebrants because - in extreme situations – they may experience an emotional crisis known as ‘vicarious trauma’ or ‘burnout’. In working with clients who may be experiencing severely traumatising events or the loss of a loved-one in a particularly violent way, it can be very hard to maintain a ‘professional distance.’ Again, we are compassionate people and - by nature - empathic.
Here in the Celebrant Circle, members have access to mental health counselling with our own, in-house therapist. We pride ourselves in being the only organisation in the UK to offer this invaluable assistance to our members, should they need it.
For information on our Celebrant Training School or to apply for membership of the Celebrant Circle, please click this below.
Comments