What about Grief?

Dominic Thomas
Nov 2025 • 3 min read

What about Grief?

The taboos of my childhood era were sex, death and religion. These, I was told (not by my parents), were topics that would divide and were not really up for discussion. The way the world seems to have evolved; the only remaining taboo seems to me to be death.

Like many of you and all of us eventually, I have had an ample dose of bereavement in my lifetime. The loss of very close friends, family members and clients. I can (obviously) only speak to my own experience and how facing each has been different, depending on the circumstances and relationship. There is a common process for grief or loss, but each has its own nuance.

An attempt to reflect on the misery, devastation and despair of losing a spouse is brought to life on screen from the book by Max Porter. I’ve not read the book and now intend to do so; the film attempts to make the unfilmable a film. Visually violently and bleak, it’s not one for those traumatised by Hitchcock’s The Birds and suffering ornithophobia.

As I watched I couldn’t help but think of one of my closest friends and wonder if I had even come close to helping him enough as he wrestled with the challenge of raising two boys alone. I realise that many people do this as single parents (mainly women) but that isn’t quite the same as also processing the permanent loss of the other parent forever. No conversations or arguments about the exhausting parenting experience with one another.

I’m curious and a little apprehensive to learn what he would make of it. The film shows ineffective conversation and platitudes of help. I hope that my approach of simply doing stuff was more useful. As a taboo, perhaps most of us aren’t really confident in our ability to talk about death with one another. I hope that I’m not misguided in thinking that I don’t find the topic threatening, I’m comfortable sitting with the uneasy … my psychotherapist spouse may want to add some thought to that though.

I found the film difficult to watch, not because of its content but because I was bottling up a list of seven things that could have been done to make the process better.

A properly connected therapist
A cleaner
Someone skilled to help with childcare
Someone to alleviate or handle a lot of the practical administration of death
A lot of life assurance
Relationships with friends who properly engage and get in the mire with you
A community

The sense that we have to do everything on our own is one of those ridiculously badly communicated notions set at school about our independence.

You do not have to do everything on your own. That’s certainly harder when you are single or your circle of friends is relatively small or you don’t have any obvious community. However in my experience, those can be discovered, built and encouraged. Even as your financial planner, we will more than readily get involved to help you with any elements within out remit.

You don’t have to be a genius or expert in all of life’s topics. We are here to help you master money management, we don’t expect you to simply figure it all out yourself and should grief arrive at your door, we will be on hand. In the meantime, we will encourage you to be ready by being prepared and making the most of now.

References:

Book: Grief the thing with feathers
Make your Will

BACK TO ALL BLOGS

What about Grief?Jemima Thomas2025-11-07T16:28:45+00:00

Do you know what you really want?

Dominic Thomas
July 2025 • 2 min read

Do you know what you really want?

There are lots of difficult big questions in life, one of them seems relatively simple, but most of us find it hard to put into words precisely what we feel. What is it that you desire? What is it that you really want?

It’s tempting to list a number of things or experiences, perhaps a sense of wellbeing or contentment. Whatever you wish for, it is likely that it will alter over time. When you don’t have something you tend to want it, when you possess it, there’s something else. It’s almost as if we are programmed to remain restlessly preoccupied with something other than what we have. Some of us are better at coming to terms with this than others; some simply deny it happens.

Think back to when you were finishing school, as many are at the moment. You were probably looking forward to finally leaving the confines of your classroom, hoping for a good long summer holiday and the right grades to get you to your next step. If you went to University, graduating and finding a good job and somewhere to live, then saving for your first home, then wanting a mortgage and then not wanting a mortgage, worrying about your career steps, your loved ones and your retirement, then if you will maintain your health and will you need help.

There is a sense of never really arriving.

We may experience certain critical moments in life when our values are brought more into focus, stress tends to be the catalyst for this. Love, death, sickness, betrayal, loss or simply change. These are moments where our values become tested and often the noise of life falls away and exposes what is actually important to us.

At Solomon’s, our planning attempts to evoke responses from you about the life you want to live. There are no judgements, no wrong answers, but of course it isn’t always easy to verbalise what you want when asked. Most of us don’t have a bolt of lightning moment when we know, it tends to evolve over time, sometimes many years. I think that for some people, a sense of purpose is really important, or connection to their community, however that is defined. Whatever it is I imagine and hope that it produces a sense of joy and deep calmness, a sense of your unique character being in a state of nirvana.

When life feels precarious or endangered, a sense of anxiety naturally rises, so whilst a financial plan cannot control the external, we can at least provide a roadmap for your route to contentment. One of the most common notions behind financial planning is that it brings about a sense of ‘peace of mind’. It’s a phrase that I’ve heard regularly over the years, but it’s never really sat well on my tongue. Any and every good financial plan has an acknowledgement of uncertainty – we don’t know what the future holds. We can align our finances and actions with our values and prepare for the future, getting organised, disciplined, making better choices and decisions.

For me, the thing I want, other than deep human connections, is a sense of limited freedom – I will always have limitations, but within those it is the freedom to choose and the sense of empowerment that it brings.

How about you?

BACK TO ALL BLOGS

Do you know what you really want?Jemima Thomas2025-07-18T10:47:11+01:00

Relationships and Money

Solomons-financial-advisor-wimbledon-blogger

Relationships and Money

Money is a constant source of artistic material largely because of the power that it has over us. History has been formed on the basis of taking, defending but rarely creating. Empires, Kings and Queens, Dictators all thrive and feed off the power that money provides. Our society is built upon the need for money and progress within it is invariably reliant upon it.

It is fairly difficult to escape the value system that money provides. Our legal system is founded upon protecting property, not necessarily people. Ownership and its legal entitlement are the basis for building wealth. A walk around London, or most British cities, at this time of year exposes an alarming number of homeless, rough sleepers. Yet we live in one of the world’s richest societies

SOLOMONS-financial-advice-what-we-do-2012-3

Awareness of Lack

We all struggle to find our own sense of balance and place in society. Some are better at achieving this than most, becoming gurus to finding peace of mind or a state of contentment. No easy feat in a world in which we are bombarded by messages designed to make us feel anxious. We anaesthetize ourselves with a new purchase, providing temporary relief to make us feel better. We walk the tightrope of an awareness of lack and soothing this with a pursuit of more, however small or insignificant. There are few better examples of this internal war than within my own field of financial services.

Acts of Loving

Any relationship with another person, particularly one which involves the formation of a marital partnership, will experience the pressure and exposure of differing views about money and how it is handled, or indeed what it represents. For some, money represents love. So it follows that spending and extravagance are merely demonstrations of that love. For others, it represents security and provision, so acquiring more (spending less) demonstrates love. No religion is immune from money, some selecting an approach of more is a blessing and less is a punishment. Others that less (or none) and reliance upon deity for the next meal and a place to rest a weary head each night is true spirituality. In short there is a very varied spectrum of values that in turn form the basis of our beliefs and actions when it comes to how money is handled and thought about.

Peace of Mind

So it is little wonder that most of us struggle with our relationship money. We are aware that there are enormous differences, culturally, socially, economically, politically, financially and spiritually. Our personal values are shaped by our upbringing and the context of our place in history. So when I talk in (what can seem bland) terms about “peace of mind” I am of course meaning a sense of balance. A balance between what you have disclosed to be your values and how this inter-relates with ongoing actions that you take within a financial context. Actions that you have taken to demonstrate love and care, for yourself, others and wider society. Dare I suggest that a financial plan might be an act of love itself?

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

Email me to get in touch

Relationships and MoneyDominic2025-01-28T13:29:10+00:00