Learn how YG2D brings diverse communities in to the conversation of death and dying using creativity.
My guest Ned Buskirk is the Founder, Podcast Host, Facilitator and Executive Director for You’re Going to Die (YG2D), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Ned discusses the YG2D movement and how the arts are essential to helping us make meaning out of our mortality. We also talk about the importance of self-care as we try to make changes in how we think and talk about death in our society. Learn more at the website:
This episode includes:
- The need that inspired the creation of the first YG2D open mic
- How YG2D has responded to the needs of community
- The paradox between the urgent need for the message to get out and the reality that we also need to let go and relax in the moment
- How creative arts can be a gentle way to introduce the reality of death and dying
- The arts are “medicine” for our mortality
- Writing helps us access unconscious parts of ourselves that have been buried
- We need places we can go where we are safe enough to be vulnerable
- How listening to stories is as important as telling our own
- Grief can be a “rite of passage” in our culture, especially if we can talk about it
- It’s important to find the right community that can hold you in the way you need to be held
- Why we need self-care and balance when we are working in the death and dying field
- The prison work that Ned is engaging in through YG2D
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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, and to Barbara Butler for your donation and to Laura for buying me 5 coffees! Your contributions make all the difference.
In this episode I share an interview with Molly Stuart who is a lawyer, artist, chaplain and hospice volunteer. She teaches a wonderful workshop on end-of-life planning that includes art to help people uncover their deepest values and concerns.
The month of April features National Healthcare Decisions Day and in honor of that event I am sharing the 10-day S.M.A.R.T. Decisions Challenge – a free challenge that will help you get your end-of-life planning done with guidance along the way by email.
