EOLPodcast

Ep. 399 Grief Rituals and Transcending the “Five Stages” with Dr. Terri Daniel

Learn how rituals can help us with grief and what the Five Stages model gets wrong about grief.

My guest this week is Dr. Terri Daniel, inter-spiritual hospice chaplain, end-of-life educator, and grief counselor. She shares some of the powerful rituals she uses for grief at funerals and workshops and we dive into the Five Stages model and why it continues to be popular in our society. Terri is also the author of four books on death, grief and the afterlife and the founder of The Conference on Death, Grief and Belief, which focuses on how religious beliefs and cultural ideologies influence one’s relationship with death and grief. Learn more at Terri’s websites:

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This episode includes:

  • Terri’s journey from caring for her son Danny at the end of his life to the work she is doing now
  • Why she started The Conference on Death, Grief and Belief and how to attend
  • Unique and powerful grief rituals Terri has created for people at the end of their lives and also for funerals and workshops
  • How rituals help us with grief and mourning
  • How the Five Stages model initially became applied to grief
  • What the Five Stages model gets wrong about acceptance
  • How the Five Stages model persists in our society
  • What ChatGPT says about why the Five Stages model is popular
  • Other models for personality and “love languages” that have attained widespread popularity in spite of having no evidence of accuracy (and why this happens)

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my latest patron Catherine Paton, and to Anne Jungerman for increasing your pledge, Amrita for buying me a coffee, Suzie Hopkins for your donation on Paypal, and Ray Burleigh for your donation and poem! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast, Grief, Tragedy

Ep. 241 Life in Italy During the Pandemic: Coping with Loss and Isolation with Claire Duiker PhD

Learn how people in Italy are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and what they would like us to know as we follow a similar path.

For the past few weeks we’ve been hearing heartbreaking reports from Italy about the devastation caused by COVID-19 and the efforts there to stop the spread of the virus. My special guest this week is my friend Claire Duiker who lives in Florence, Italy and will give us a personal view of day-to-day life under lockdown in her community. She shares her own coping process and what we can learn from Italy’s long history of suffering due to wars, plagues and invasions. Claire is a tour guide who is usually traveling this time of year in her job with Customwalks.com.

Listen here:

Life in Italy During the Pandemic

This episode includes:

  • The current status of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy
  • What life is like for Claire under lockdown
  • How she is coping with her own stages of grief and loss while being isolated
  • The magnitude of this global event and why it is a privilege to witness history-in-the-making
  • How Italy’s long history of suffering through wars, plagues and invasions has led to a legacy of resilience
  • How the family-centered people of Italy are coping with being separated from dying loved ones
  • How isolation can help us confront our own egos and gradually become better people

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination …”

Mary Oliver – Wild Geese

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu! Your contributions make all the difference!

EOLPodcast, mortal wisdom, Spirituality

Ep. 183 How to Let Go of What You Thought Should Happen

Learn how to let go of expectations and your bitterness over life’s disappointments.

PodcastSurrender

This is Part 2 of the Mortal Wisdom Series and I’ll discuss the lesson of Surrender and why we need to learn to let go in order to experience joy in life. These are the lessons we can learn from our mortality and how to thrive in life while knowing that death awaits. Listen to Part 1 first if you haven’t heard it yet!

Mortalwisdom

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This episode includes:

  • How suffering increases when we believe that things should have been different
  • How clinging to the need to control the events of life can lead to bitterness and regret
  • Life flows like a river and we cannot control or stop the flow by resisting it
  • Why staying attached to our expectations keeps us from experiencing what life is offering us in each and every moment
  • How to reframe disappointments by being curious about what life is bringing
  • Journaling practice to identify attachments and resentments so that they can be reframed
  • Bridge ritual for letting go of attachments and receiving the flow of life
  • Untying the knots as a practice for letting go (Thank you to our beloved angel Megory Anderson and her book Sacred Dying)

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on Patreon.com/eolu, especially my new patrons Alive & Mortal, Phyllis Nickel, JoAna Dwyer, and Seth Edelman.