“It
is so much extra work to keep things a surprise. I need a nap just thinking
about it! But it’s so worth it when you can actually pull it off!”
Taylor
Swift
Merry Christmas!!! I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed all the Blogmas content this month – well, judging from the statistics, you have! To finish A Secret Blogmas 2025 off in real style, in a very special way, and in keeping with the theme of the entire month, I thought I’d finally disclose my largest, best kept secret of 2025: the creation of Gracie’s Way! This Project, its website, and Instagram will be officially launched on January 9th, 2026 (what would have been Gracie’s third Birthday), but I have so much content planned for that, and I wanted to make today and the final Blogmas secret, really important…
Where It Started…
It was way back almost two months ago now – on
November 18th, 2025 – when I was at a mental health event in Leeds
that the idea for Gracie’s Way was inspired… The event was for the
organisation; Waythrough (who provide the Recovery Workers that I see twice per
week) and it was exclusive to select members of the Life Experience Council
(which I’ve been on since October 2024) and the organisation’s Board of
Trustees. The entire purpose of it, was to teach us all more about one of their
newer Services that helps and supports those with experience of addiction.
Whilst I have no experience of addiction in the
sense that this Service focuses, I was interested to attend the event to learn
about the organisation’s other Services and to meet more of their Service Users
and hear about their different experiences. In the event, the staff of the
Service were giving various presentations and talks about the different work
they do, and one of them was telling us all about how a lot of Service Users
asked to do some work around bereavement support. As part of what they did for
this theme, they planted a Memorial Tree in the grounds of the Service, where
Service Users tied notes to the branches with the name of people that had died
as a result of addiction. So, I raised my hand and asked if it was worth
considering doing this for their mental health Services/buildings and having
the notes pertain to those lost due to mental illness e.g. through suicide etc.
Then, with it being just over two weeks after
Gracie died (she passed on November 1st) she was on my mind a lot
and so it was almost naturally that my thoughts turned to pet bereavement too
and even though the event had only been on for a few hours and it was the first
time I’d met a lot of the people in this room, I voiced that it felt like a
good group to feel comfortable talking about this in front of… I told everyone
that I’d recently lost my youngest rabbit and said pet bereavement might be a
good project to do some co-produced work regarding. Thankfully and fortunately,
the idea was met with support, empathy, and compassion by literally everyone in
the room! There were a lot of comments like “yes, because pets can mean a lot
to people” and “definitely; so many people say that their pets are helpful to
their mental health!” I was so thrilled and relieved at the feeling that I
didn’t have to spend the next few minutes trying to persuade people of these
facts and lecture them on why pets can matter so much.
A Huge Change of Plan…
So, initially, the thought was that the staff
member who’d really led the addictions bereavement work would speak with the
Service Users who’d worked on that and see if anyone would like to be involved
in pet bereavement work and then we would have a meeting to discuss next steps
etc.
That night after the event, I found myself on Chat
GPT putting various prompts in to help me think up titles for the Project
because I had said to the staff that I really wanted to get my bunny – Gracie’s
– name in it somehow. Eventually, on the lists of names it thought up, I
spotted ‘Gracie’s Way’ and absolutely loved it immediately. I liked that not
only did it have her name fully in it – some of the other suggestions had
shortened it in way or mixed the letters up – but the ‘Way’ bit, also made sense
in terms of my thoughts on what the Project would do… From the beginning, I
envisioned it having space for both bereaved owners and the professionals who
may communicate, interact, help, and support those who are experiencing the
loss. And I thought that by including ‘Way’ in the title, it was kind of like a
nod to the fact that the Project was endeavouring to guide both professionals
and bereaved owners and show them the right ‘way’ to coping, managing,
communicating, helping, supporting, and so much more!
In deciding on the title, I also went ahead and
created a logo for the Project and the only difference of what it looks like
now to the original, was actually just that the tail of the rabbit had
originally been the circular version of Waythrough’s logo. I also created a bit
of a poster or graphic with the subtitles: ‘what is Gracie’s Way’ and ‘what do
we want to do?’ which I envisioned could be some sort of introduction and sent
to any staff or Service Users who might want to be part of the creation and development
of Gracie’s Way. I then sent the poster and the logo in an email to the staff
member who is both a member of the Life Experience Council and who led the
Leeds event. Unfortunately, he was really busy at the time and said that he
wanted to give the idea his full attention, so he didn’t reply for a little
while. When I eventually received his response, he talked about the fact that
this felt like a really big piece of work and that it would take a lot to get
it off the ground.
Based on that email and the fact it had taken so
much time for him to respond, I began to have thoughts that perhaps it would be
best for me to ‘run with’ the idea myself as a more personal Project. I felt
that it would not only be quicker, but that it would also grant me a lot more
control, responsibility, and authority. Then, as I was typing an email to ask
the staff whether this was a better idea, I thought of the added benefit that I
had that type of ownership over Gracie’s Way and it wasn’t a Waythrough
Project, it meant I could pitch using and endorsing it, to other organisations
too! The staff agreed with this new route for the Project, and I removed the
Waythrough logo from the logo and then changed the colours into those used in
my blog’s logo (thanks to Canva, I have my colour scheme saved in their ‘Brand
Kit’ function so you can use the same exact shades again and again for
different documents and graphics etc).
“Hey, AI! What do I do first?!”
I’m not ashamed to say, I’ve used AI – specifically
Chat GPT
– a heck of a lot in this Project because it’s been a lot of work and a lot of
text content creation which, quite honestly, would have been far too much of a
heavy workload for me to do it all alone. However, before I started creating
the content, I first used AI to find out where I should start with the Project
– something which I felt especially confused and intimidated by now that the
decision had been made to do it alone.
I also obviously recognised that I have no prior
experience of creating a Project like this… Now, when I first started blogging
and created, I’m NOT Disordered way back in 2013, I did absolutely no research
into it. I put in no thought or consideration for the consequences of blogging
and paid no attention to any sort of pros and cons assessment before deciding
to blog. I’m a huge believer that this failure to do any sort of preparation
for blogging, was the largest reason I’ve felt that I’ve had to learn pretty
much everything in this career and industry, the hard way. So many things have
come up that, if I had done some research first, might have either never
happened or might have had a completely different impact on both me and my
career/blog/content.
Learning from this experience has meant that I
wanted to do a lot of research in the creation and development of Gracie’s Way
– and I mean A LOT! Like, the Research Document on Word was over 20 pages in
the end! And one brilliant feature that Chat GPT has which is going to be
useful here, is that if you create an account, it saves all your previous
prompts/chats and so I’m now able to look back and tell you some of the
questions I asked it in those very early days of research:
·
‘Create 20 possible project titles for
a project on pet bereavement and which have the name ‘Gracie’ in it.’
·
‘What do we need to create or put
together in so far as documents and strategies etc for a project for a project that
is about pet bereavement?’
·
‘Should we create some SMART goals and
objectives?’
·
‘Do we do a SWOT analysis?’
·
‘Is a Project Purpose different to a
Project Scope?’
·
‘Are there any statistics relevant to
pet bereavement and its impact on mood, emotional wellbeing, mental health,
suicide, and self-harm?’
·
‘What roles are needed to create and
progress Gracie’s Way?’
·
‘Where do I begin in creating staff
training around pet bereavement?’
·
‘What pages should be on the Gracie’s
Way website?’
A Sneak Peek Inside the First Document:
The Project Document
The first document I created – in response to AI’s
answer to that second question was simply titled the Project Document and after
its cover and Contents pages, the following eighteen pages (so twenty pages in
total) contain:
1. A
Note from myself: I saw this page as an opportunity to
explain the personal side to the Project in detailing that the inspiration came
from that Leeds event and obviously the loss of Gracie. I hoped that featuring
a page like that might make the entire Document more personable and would
increase the chances of gathering supporting in terms of endorsements etc.
2. Project
Purpose: AI massively helped me to write this page, which
basically details my intentions, key deliverables, the intended impact e.g.
helping bereaved owners to feel validated and equipping professionals with
knowledge to better the support they offer to owners, why now and why me, and
then it finishes with a conclusion which states that Gracie’s Way is more than
‘just’ a tribute – it’s a mission.
3. Project
Scope: This page was also mostly created by AI –
obviously I’ve read every word and ensured it was appropriate and applicable to
what I wanted. This page features a short list of ‘in-scope activities’ which are
supportive resources for bereaved pet owners, professional resource
development, awareness and advocacy activities, and branding and identity
development.
4. SMART
Objectives: There are actually four objectives which each
have the SMART framework applied – if you aren’t sure what this is; it’s where
you apply particular elements to a goal. So, the ‘S’ stands for ‘specific’ and
this means that each goal is exact and precise. Then the ‘M’ is measurable
which means ensuring that it’s possible to ascertain whether you’ve achieved it
or not. The ‘A’ is ‘achievable’ or ‘attainable’ and is about establishing that
the goal or objective is actually possible and realistic. The ‘R’ represents
‘relevant’ and is the opportunity to ensure that your goal is really in keeping
with what you ultimately want to do or achieve with something. Finally, ‘T’
stands for ‘time bound’ and is where you set some sort of time frame to your
goal e.g. ‘I want to have done this within the next three months.’ So, what are
the four goals for Gracie’s Way? The first is to develop a comprehensive
digital support guide and a set of grief-navigation worksheets for individuals
experiencing pet loss. The second, is to create a concise toolkit to help
mental health a veterinary professionals to support grieving pet owners. The
third is to launch a series of posts, short videos, and infographics addressing
the emotional impact of pet bereavement. Finally, the fourth goal is to
establish an online space on Instagram where bereaved pet owners can connect
and share their experiences.
5. Evidence
of Relevance and Necessity via Surveys & Research:
For this page, I mostly referred to supportive statistics I had come across in
my research of Chat GPT where it turned up a Pet Grief Survey that the RSPCA
had done for over 2,000 owners. There were actually a number of different
statistics which were all important, but I chose the eleven that I thought were
the most influential and relevant ones for Gracie’s Way, the three which have
stood out for me and which I’d therefore like to mention here are that 57% of
respondents said that they couldn’t find the help they needed in their
bereavement, 57% said that they had to hide their grief, and 35% were told
“it’s just a pet.” After the eleven statistics there was a paragraph under the
subtitle ‘Implications for Gracie’s Way’ where I wrote about how the statistics
illustrated all the same areas of importance that the Project is going to
tackle.
6. Timeline
& Milestones: This page has the largest steps in
the creation of the Project, and they are listed in the order of when they need
to occur/be achieved e.g. the first is to finalise the Project Document and
SMART objectives and the second last (because the last one is the launch) is to
create one month of daily Instagram content. This felt like a good page to
include because it illustrates that there’s a plan in place and some sort of an
order or level or organisation to everything.
7. Supportive
Materials for Bereaved Owners: The next page is
basically a list of all the materials Gracie’s Way will provide for bereaved
pet owners, you’ll be able to see the list yourself on the Project’s website
soon. Three of my favourites though, are
the Signposting Cards, Creative Writing Workbook, and the Pet Bereavement
Action Plan (PBAP) – which you will also be able to read more about on the
website too.
8. Professional
Resources including the Training Package: This page is almost identical
to the previous one but is obviously a list of the professional resources instead,
and my favourite three of those are the Trauma Informed Care Guidance, Grief
Communication Guide, and the Training Package.
9. Communications
and Marketing Items: This is a short and simple page with
just five items to list: a poster, business cards, a tri-fold leaflet, the Introduction
to Gracie’s Way Instagram Carousel, and ‘We Support…’ Social Media Graphics. These
items were really focused on raising awareness of the Project in serving as marketing
and advertisement materials.
10. SWOT
Analysis: This part of the Project Document actually took
up a number of pages – four, to be exact! One page for each of the elements to
a SWOT Analysis. For those who don’t know, this is similar to the SMART
objectives in that each letter represents a different quality to the process.
Firstly, the ‘S’ in this case, stands for ‘strengths’ and is the stage where
you consider all the benefits to something, for the Project, for example, it is
listed that Gracie’s Way uses lived experience and that this strengthens its authenticity
and relevance. The ‘W’ is for ‘weaknesses’ and for this, one element on the
list for the Project’s weaknesses was that the topic is very sensitive and it
could be met by already-developed, negative attitudes that are unwilling to
learn any alternative perspectives. The ‘O’ is for ‘opportunities’ and is the
chance to consider external positive factors. For the Project, amongst the list
of eight elements, there was the fact that there’s the chance for external
partnerships with organisations such as Blue Cross (whose own pet bereavement
support service is mentioned in the Help Directory. Finally, the ‘T’ is for
‘threats’ which is the opportunity to list external risks and for the Project,
one threat listed is that bereaved owners could become more distressed in
engaging in activities or conversations about their bereavement.
11. Risk
Register with Mitigation: This final part of the Project
Document was actually thought of and mostly created by Chat GPT as it was
something I had neither heard of nor done before. This section was across two
pages and featured seven risks then below each risk, were bullet points of ways
and methods to mitigate it. Ways to either cope with the risk should it occur
or to minimise the chance of it even happening. The risks were considered to be
low staff engagement in training, staff minimising or misunderstanding pet
bereavement, bereaved owners becoming distressed from discussions, the project
losing momentum after its launch, delays in project output, difficulty engaging
staff, and finally, the emotional toll on staff. I felt this was an important
section to include in this Document because it shows a real balance and
illustrates that I’ve paid mind to all the considerations in creating the
Project and that I’ve put thought and care into overcoming possible challenges.
Why I Chose to Start with the
Supportive Materials
I decided that out of all the materials and
resources I was going to create and having Gracie’s Way provide, that I would
start with the supportive materials that were intended for bereaved owners. Now,
this wasn’t really about prioritising in terms of deeming the help for owners
to be more important than the ways the Project was going to benefit
professionals. Instead, it was actually purely about organisational and
methodical approach in that I had a dedicated notebook for the Project and in
it, I had listed all the documents to create, and I decided to just work
through that literally just in the order in which they were written! I figured
it was the easiest way of deciding because it meant not deeming one piece of
work nor one audience to be more important than the other. So, the first
supportive material for bereaved owners to be created was the Understanding
Your Grief document.
A Ton of Canva Tasks & Finally Disclosing
My Favourite Function
Back in 2017, I completed a Digital Marketing
Internship and was taught of the existence of Canva. For those who
don’t know, Canva is basically an online design tool that is really popular and
useful for the communications and marketing industry. At that point, I had only
really been blogging for around four years and whilst I was definitely taking
it seriously, I had really only recently just decided or realised that it was
becoming – and that I wanted it to become – a career. Which is actually why I applied
for the Internship – to start gaining more formal and professional experience
in the industry that I could both apply to my blogging and to a more official,
paid role.
Whilst I learnt so much in that Internship, I’ve
discovered – and still feel this way all these years later – that literally
every single time (and I fully appreciate that sounds dramatic!) I use Canva, I
learn something new about it. I learn a different function. Or I learn that
something I’ve known about for the entire time does something else too! I don’t
want to make assumptions but, if I know my audience as well as I think I do
after all these years(!), I can imagine there’s some people out there wondering
what tip I would give or what my favourite function is – believe it or not,
that’s something I’ve never disclosed at all! So, it would be the transparency
function! It’s not something I used often in the creation of Gracie’s Way’s
resources; I think I used it a fair bit with the promotional and marketing
materials, but I mostly use it in my social media content and things for I’m
NOT Disordered. It’s pretty easy to find so I won’t describe the location side
of it, but I think that the best time to use it is in placing text over an
image. You can create a text box that is filled white and then toggle the
transparency button to lighten it so that it provides this sort of… Faded
background to the text. So that it’s more a faded part of the image underneath
than it is the white text box. It ends up really helping the text stand out and
looks quite effective, I think.
Anyway, the huge variety of functions available on
Canva mean that it isn’t just about creating visual things and imagery as you
may assume initially in looking at the site or hearing about it. It has
numerous tools that are perfect for documents too! Yes, documents that have
visual aspects, but also even where they’re text heavy – which, a lot of the
resources on Gracie’s Way are! So, that’s why I made the decision to use Canva
to create literally everything for Gracie’s Way – the resources for bereaved
owners, the things for professionals, the marketing materials like posters,
tri-fold leaflets, and business cards, the actual logo, the content for its
Instagram… And I think that this list, is actually a really good illustration
or example of just how versatile and varied the site and all its functions are.
On December 12th I used Canva to finish
the last resource (the Professional’s Guide to PBAP) and the last of the
marketing materials (the tri-fold leaflet) and I ticked them both off on my
list of all the documents I needed to create. I sent the completely ticked list
to one of my best-friends; Martin (whose blog www.gumonmyshoe.com
will host a launch day piece for Gracie’s Way on January 9th 2026!)
and realised it was dated December 3rd. It had taken me nine days to do thirteen
documents, two posters, business cards, one tri-fold leaflet, a PowerPoint
presentation, and five sets of social media content with each set having
multiple graphics/versions within it!
The Chat GPT Headache!
I think that the most stressful moment in the
creation of Gracie’s Way, was towards the end – around the last two days of
creating the resources. I was creating the resource for professionals that’s
titled ‘Trauma Informed Care Guidance’ and I honestly still don’t know how or
why I managed to do this, but I ended up putting prompts in Chat GPT that were
more relevant to another resource, the Grief Communication Guide! I have
seriously never made myself – because it was literally, completely my own
doing! – so confused in my entire life! Because I really didn’t even realise
what I’d done until I went to create the Communication Guide! I started typing
prompts into AI and was like ‘these sound familiar…’ and then I looked back at
the last resource and realised.
I think that if I desperately try to make sense of
it – because I hate not having an understanding of things! – perhaps it
happened because in an AI prompt for the Trauma Informed resource, where I had
asked for further thoughts on what should be included in a document with that
title, it mentioned communication. And I think I just sort of ran with that and
pursued it into a depth that wasn’t really appropriate or ‘right’ for the
Trauma Informed one, it was more on a level that was better content for the Grief
Communication Guide. I mean, if I’d kept it in the Trauma Informed Guidance
one, I’d have just been copying the pages – which I did do with some resources
e.g. the pages such as ‘What is Pet Bereavement?’ and the ‘Key Statistics’
pages where they were relevant for numerous resources – into the Communication
one!
Even when I figured it out though, I kept losing
track of things and pasting things into the wrong document. I eventually
realised it’d be a lot harder to do that if I kept only the one document open –
prior to that, I’d had multiple open at once because I’ve had to copy and paste
some content as well as copying across the general page layouts to create and
maintain brand continuity. So trying to have just the bare minimum tabs open,
was something I eventually learnt to do and once I had, it felt the content
creation went a lot faster and felt more natural and organised rather than
being stressful and confusing.
How I Maintained Motivation &
Momentum Through My Own Grief
After talking about how many documents I created
with Canva and the headache, this part felt like an almost natural next discussion
point because, hearing that I made that many things in those nine days would
likely lead anyone to ask how on earth I’d managed to do that.
I’ve actually found Gracie’s Way to have a similar therapeutic
value as I’m NOT Disordered does and that’s for three reasons (which are all
quite similar to those behind my blog):
1. The
Opportunity to Be Creative
I’ve always enjoyed being creative – especially in
my writing! When I was younger, I used to write short stories (typically about
horses going on adventures because I used to do horse-riding) for my Mum and my
Nana. My Nana was such a huge fan of them that when she would have daily calls
with Mum, she was always asking when the next story was coming! I also remember
seeing her laugh and smile when she was reading them and this stuck with me
into my blogging career because it means I’ve always been aware that my words
can affect others. That my writing can influence thoughts and feelings for its readers,
and I think that helps the fact that I always try to be careful and considerate
in creating my content.
My blogging career has also impacted my creativity
– prior to feeling that I’d finally found my purpose in life via my blog, I had
wanted to be a Lawyer (I actually had an offer to study a Law degree, but my
mental health got in the way. Thinking on it though, I’d say that I’m kind of
glad it did all get bad because I wouldn’t have been able to utilise my
creativity as well if I’d been a Lawyer. As a result of deeming blogging to be
my purpose, I ended up doing several voluntary roles and a few paid roles in
communications and marketing. I also did a Digital Marketing Internship where I
learnt all about Canva
and that was likely career-changing for me because it’s become something I use
a heck of a lot in my content creation. And yes, sometimes Canva can be a bit
intense and difficult, but because of my passions for creativity, I didn’t
really mind all the work it’s taken to figure out different functions on it.
2. Being
Able to Process & Accept My Own Grief Journey
It was actually a week or two after starting to
work on Gracie’s Way in November, that I realised I’d almost forgotten about my
own loss – and that’s not that Gracie was unforgettable or unloved in any way,
nor does it meant that finding her wasn’t as traumatic as it was. But I think
it’s been due to the fact that in doing everything for Gracie’s Way, I’ve been
distracted and gained a lot of positive feelings around being productive. Part
of that probably links with the creativity point too and that the project has
allowed me the chance to utilise those skills and passions.
In fairness, I have been surprised with my concentration
levels because Gracie is in my thoughts so often, that I honestly thought I
would really struggle to focus on what I was doing. I also thought I would
struggle emotionally in creating the content which – I predicted – would regularly
remind me of my bereavement. But I think that Gracie was already on my mind so
often that there was literally no possibility in increasing that with anything that
could even possibly or remotely defined or thought of as being a reminder.
One thought in particular which creating Gracie’s
Way has helped me with has been feeling useless and inadequate in every sense
of both words – I felt I had been that way of Gracie too; that I had felt I
couldn’t have helped her any more than I did. And I still failed.
3. The
Knowledge That It Might Help Someone
I think focusing on helping others and considering ways
to make sure that the content of Gracie’s Way could cater to the variety of thoughts,
feelings, and situations that bereaved owners can experience massively contributed
to my feelings around being useful and productive.
In thinking about helping others, I actually also came
to recognise how varied the death of a pet can be, through some of my prompts and
chats with AI. I learned to consider that there are so many different types of
pet death e.g. euthanasia, trauma, chronic illnesses etc never mind the fact
that you could bring together two bereaved owners who had to have their pet
euthanised, but their experiences, thoughts, and feelings of that might be
completely different.
But this is something else I’ve learnt from my
blogging career – you can’t please everyone. You can’t create content that will
be relevant to everyone at the same time. And the way I really cope with that
sad reality is with the thought process ‘helping one person is enough.’ And it’s
like in my blogging career; after I published a blog post about how to cope
when reporting trauma to the Police and a reader got in touch to say because of
that post, she’d found the strength to report her own experiences. That was
2017 and I’ve still held onto all these years later and it’s still just as
powerfully motivating as it was the day she told me.
What’s Next?
I have a few things still on my to-do list before
the launch of Gracie’s Way:
1. One
Month of Instagram Content: I want to be able to launch the Gracie’s Way
Instagram (@gracieswayuk)
with at least one month worth of daily content – even though I’m unsure whether
I’ll necessarily be posting once per day, I’d like to have that amount readily
available.
2. Secure
Endorsements: this has meant asking AI to help me to create Excel spreadsheets
of contact information for different groups of professionals and then emailing
pitches to them with various, relevant attachment e.g. the Project Document and
the Posters etc.
3. Obtain
Reviews: I’ve begun this by asking on my Facebook page for anyone who has
experience of pet bereavement to get in touch. I’m then providing the list of
resources for bereaved owners for each person to choose from, sending them a
free copy, and asking them to write a really short review for me. At the time
of writing this, I still need to post that request/ask on Instagram and Twitter
(X) too. If, after reading this post, you would be interested in providing a
review too; please email the project: gracieswayuk@outlook.com
4. Press
Release: I’ve put together a press release already – with some AI assistance,
but I decided it makes more sense to circulate it after the launch so that I can
include all the links and people will see actual content when they visit them!
Look
out for more content on Gracie’s Way on January 9th, or you can
already follow the project on Instagram: @gracieswayuk with content
beginning 09.01.26