One of the most challenging years of our lives is drawing to a close and it’s time to honor all of the grief we have experienced.
In this final episode of 2020 I share some poems and verses that have helped me give words to the grief I’ve experienced this year. It’s important to grieve what has been lost before we move on to setting goals and making plans for next year so this final week of 2020 is the perfect time to “be” with our grief. Wishing you a blessed ending to this year and a hopeful and meaningful beginning of the new one!
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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!
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for love and compassion for all of humankind and for the planet itself. May it bring you peace and comfort.
Learn how to build resiliency to better cope with the overwhelming changes taking place in the world right now.
In this solo episode I talk about the necessity of change in life and what happens when the amount of change we are forced to deal with exceeds our capacity to manage it. I share some thoughts about the consequences of “change fatigue” and how to increase our resiliencyto better deal with and grow from the experience of unexpected and unwantedchange.
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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!
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 …”
Leave a message for me at SpeakPipe.com/eolu and I’ll include it in a future episode!
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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!
Join this conversation about coping with separation from our loved ones at the end of life and practices to help us through these times of isolation.
For this episode I invited my friend Kirsten DeLeo to join me in a conversation about how we can all cope with the isolation and separation we are experiencing from our loved ones during this unprecedented time of global pandemic and quarantine. We address the pain of being unable to be at the bedside of a dying loved one or to care for the body after death due to our necessary isolation. Kirsten is the lead faculty of “Authentic Presence,” a training in contemplative care of the dying and the author of the book Present Through the End: A Caring Companion’s Guide for Accompanying the Dying. Learn more at her website:
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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 newest Patrons: Jo Anna Dvorak and Emily Eliot Miller. Your contributions make all the difference!
Learn about “post-traumatic growth” and how it is possible to thrive after experiencing loss and grief.
My guest Sherry Cormier is a licensed psychologist and certified bereavement trauma specialist. She will share with us her personal encounters with loss and grief and how over the years she has managed to grow through her pain. We will also learn about her latest book Sweet Sorrow: Finding Enduring Wholeness After Loss and Grief. Learn more about her work at her website:
Join the team at Patreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it)
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 Patron: Diane Roberts.
Learn how to use grief and loss to build bridges with others.
In this solo episode I talk about one of the key Mortal Wisdom lessons I’ve learned; everyone is grieving over something and grief can be a factor that unites us. This message is essential today as we face polarization and divisiveness that threaten to tear apart our society. I’ll discuss how to use our own grief to build a bridge toward others who are different from us.
Notice signs of mourning and grief wherever you go
Remember that everyone you meet has suffered loss and pain
Before judging another acknowledge that person’s suffering
Have conversations about grief and loss with those you conflict with
Find harmony with others
Share love rather than hatred
Beware of “dark forces” that are trying to use our differences to fragment society; find commonality in our grief to heal the wounds of the planet and our communities
Forget the nonsense of there and here, race, nation, religion, starting point and destination. You are Soul and you are love. … Love is the bridge between you and everything.
Join the team at Patreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it)
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 Patron: Diane Button!
Learn how love can transform and heal our lives even during our last days.
In Part 6 of the Mortal Wisdom Series I’ll discuss how our broken hearts allow us to expand our capacity to carry and transmit pure Love. Throughout life we are broken open by love in many different ways and must learn to remain open to love rather than hardened and resistant to it so that we can find peace at the end of life.These are the lessons we can learn from our mortality and how to thrive in life while knowing that death awaits. Listen to Parts 1- 5 first if you haven’t heard them yet!
Join the team at Patreon.com/eoluand get access to the new EOLU mug (only Patrons can purchase it)!
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, Meina Dubetz and Deborah Luscomb!
Learn how grief over the death of loved one is compounded by other losses that occur simultaneously.
In this episode I share a conversation with Rev. Terri Daniel about the “other grief” that occurs throughout life with or without the death of a loved one. We’ll talk about this hidden grief and why it is important to acknowledge it as an important part of life.
It’s not too late to sign up for A Year of Reading Dangerously and join us in reading books about death, dying and the afterlife throughout 2018! Learn more and sign up here.
Thank you to all of the donors who are contributing to my page at Patreon.com/eolu each month! It makes a huge difference and I’m very grateful! Thank you to Suzanne O’Brien RN and Doulagivers.com for being a “legacy supporter” for the past 18 months!
FEATURE PRESENTATION:
In this interview Rev. Terri Daniel and I talk about the big picture of grief throughout life’s transitions and how it often goes unnoticed as we focus primarily on grief after a death occurs. We talk about:
Continuing Bonds Theory
“Other” types of loss
Material loss
Relationship loss
Intrapsychic loss
Functional loss
Role loss
System loss
Four additional types of grief
Relinquishment grief
Tribal/National grief
Vicarious grief
Collective grief
The need for ritual and ceremony to process grief
Are there avoidable vs. unavoidable losses?
Rev. Terri Daniel is a clinical chaplain and end-of-life educator certified in death, dying and bereavement by the Association of Death Education and Counseling. Her work focuses on assisting dying and grieving individuals to discover a more spiritually-spacious understanding of loss and trauma.
Remember to tune in every Monday for a new episode and please leave a review on iTunes if you enjoy this content!
Learn how travel can provide a “safe container” for healing grief and loss.
In this episode I’ll share my own insights into how the experience of travel can help with the process of grief. This is also the subject of the new book I’m writing (I did research for it on my recent trip to Italy) … I’ll share a brief overview here!
You can check out all of my Italy photos onInstagram!
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Each month I host a “Virtual Death Cafe” with fascinating conversations about death, grief and the end of life. Anyone can join by telephone or online. You can learn more about it at www.eoluniversity.com/death-cafe.
This podcast is supported through the generous donations of my patrons on Patreon.com/eolu. I’m sending a HUGE THANK YOU to all of my current supporters – your support makes a big difference! Join the fun for just $1 or $2 per month and you’ll receive the “Patrons Only” Q&A recording each month (Hospice Happy Hour!) Go to Patreon.com/eolu to learn more and sign up!
FEATURE PRESENTATION:
During several of my travel experiences in the past I have been dealing with grief and have found the process of travel to be helpful. On one trip to Italy, my husband and I learned of the death of our brother-in-law on the day we arrived in Venice. Unable to cancel the rest of our trip and return home immediately, which we wanted to do, we stumbled through the remainder of the vacation and managed to make peace with our pain.
Here are some of my “takeaways” about how travel can help with grief:
Permission to wander aimlessly. On our Venice trip we canceled all of our sightseeing plans and activities. We started each day with a totally clean slate and just wandered the streets and canals of the city all day long. By following our intuition and our broken hearts we were able to enter into our grief without distraction or attachment. Had we been at home with family we would have felt obligated to “do something” and “be somewhere” but because we were traveling we were free of all expectations.
Seeing the big picture. Because we were freed up from the details of our daily life at home, we found more space to explore grief from a “trans-personal” perspective, as something bigger than just our own individual lives. Experiencing grief in another country allowed us to:
Recognize that all people, everywhere, experience the death of loved ones. Our mortality and the grief it causes us is the interconnecting thread that binds us to all of humanity.
Go deep into history. By visiting ancient ruins we can see that all of humankind, throughout history has dealt with the pain of loss and struggled to make peace with death. Our experience of grief is just one part of a vast “whole” picture of human loss.
Surrendering to grief to find joy within. As travelers “stuck” in another country even though we wanted to be home, we had no choice but to surrender to the pain that engulfed us. When we allowed grief to find a home within (and even “became” a living embodiment of grief) we also discovered a startling capacity for simple joy over the beauty of being alive. I’ve written this before: suffering hollows us out so that we can contain an even greater measure of joy … and also love.
Understanding impermanence. Strolling through cemeteries, relics and ruined structures of the past illustrated to me perfectly that everything that exists in the physical realm is impermanent and will one day dissolve away. Only love and the energy of life persist eternally. And it is the depth of the love we experience for others that causes the magnitude of pain we feel upon their deaths. Grief is one of the visible manifestations of love in the physical realm.
Learning how to navigate in unfamiliar territory. On our “grief trip” in Venice we simply wandered every day until we were hopelessly lost. We took in everything around us along the way–noticing all the colors and sounds and fragrances of life. And when we felt ready to return “home” we studied our maps to figure out where we were and to slowly find our way back to more familiar territory. This skill of navigating in the unknown will prove to be very helpful to us throughout life and especially during our own dying process as we struggle to get back to a home we can’t remember.
I hope you will take the opportunity to travel some day, even when you are experiencing grief, to experience the profound benefits it can offer!
Tune in every Monday for a new episode of the podcast! If you enjoy this content, please share it with others and leave a review on iTunes! Until next week remember:
The story of my long journey of healing after my father’s suicide death – told in a series of 8 episodes.
Part 8: The Fire Ceremony
If you are currently experiencing a crisis or feeling hopeless please know that you are not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for free and confidential support available 24/7 for people in distress:
1-800-273-8255
or Text HELLO to 741-741.
This episode consists of:
What I’ve learned about my Dad through my investigations
The “Tapestry Dream” that changed how I saw everything in my life
The hard lessons I learned through hospice work
How I recognized that Dad had been my silent partner through all of my grief journey including writing the book What Really Matters
The Fire Ceremony: A ritual for healing my Dad’s trauma and my own
The story of my long journey of healing after my father’s suicide death – told in a series of 8 episodes.
Part 7: Omaha Beach
If you are currently experiencing a crisis or feeling hopeless please know that you are not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for free and confidential support available 24/7 for people in distress:
1-800-273-8255
or Text HELLO to 741-741.
This episode consists of:
Exploring Dad’s memorabilia from World War II
How indigenous cultures hear the stories of their warriors in order to share in their pain
My travels to Iceland and Normandy to retrace Dad’s steps in World War II
What I learned about the pain of war on my journey
A healing dream about my Dad
A message of hope for those grieving a suicide and for anyone who might be considering suicide at this time:
Please don’t give up. There is light in the darkness, there is love for you, there is grace. I have survived and I am here to spread hope.
Please call 1-800-273-8255 for help if you are thinking about suicide.
The story of my long journey of healing after my father’s suicide death – told in a series of 8 episodes.
Part 6: The Purple Heart
If you are currently experiencing a crisis or feeling hopeless please know that you are not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for free and confidential support available 24/7 for people in distress:
1-800-273-8255
or Text HELLO to 741-741.
This episode consists of:
How hospice work help me get “unstuck” on my grief journey
How I uncovered my anger at my Dad and my need to forgive him for taking his life
The “secret” my Aunt Lena told me about Dad and World War II
What I learned from psychiatrist Dr. Jeff Black who treats war veterans for trauma and “soul loss”
The RAIN formula from Jack Kornfeld for healing trauma:
Recognize the effect the trauma has had on your life
Acknowledge and accept the pain you are experiencing
Investigate the patterns
Non-attachment to the “story” of the trauma
Poem: “Griefwork”
A message of hope for those grieving a suicide and for anyone who might be considering suicide at this time:
Please don’t give up. There is light in the darkness, there is love for you, there is grace. I have survived and I am here to spread hope.
Please call 1-800-273-8255 for help if you are thinking about suicide.
The story of my long journey of healing after my father’s suicide death – told in a series of 8 episodes.
Part 5: Guns
If you are currently experiencing a crisis or feeling hopeless please know that you are not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for free and confidential support available 24/7 for people in distress:
1-800-273-8255
or Text HELLO to 741-741.
This episode consists of:
-Dad’s passion for guns and hunting
-A Time Magazine Article from July 1989 about Death by Gun
The story of my long journey of healing after my father’s suicide death – told in a series of 8 episodes.
Part 4: The Bicycle
If you are currently experiencing a crisis or feeling hopeless please know that you are not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for free and confidential support available 24/7 for people in distress:
The story of my long journey of healing after my father’s suicide death – told in a series of 8 episodes.
Part 3: Tough Times
If you are currently experiencing a crisis or feeling hopeless please know that you are not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for free and confidential support available 24/7 for people in distress:
The story of my long journey of healing after my father’s suicide death – told in a series of 8 episodes.
Part 2: The Funeral
If you are currently experiencing a crisis or feeling hopeless please know that you are not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for free and confidential support available 24/7 for people in distress:
1-800-273-8255
or Text HELLO to 741-741.
This episode consists of:
My father’s funeral
The surprising number of visitors who attended the funeral
Stories of my father that were shared after his death
The story of my long journey of healing after my father’s suicide death – told in a series of 8 episodes.
Part 1: The Phone Call
If you are currently experiencing a crisis or feeling hopeless please know that you are not alone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for free and confidential support available 24/7 for people in distress:
1-800-273-8255
or Text HELLO to 741-741.
This episode consists of:
Introduction to the podcast
The day I learned of my father’s death
The shock and grief experienced by the survivors of a suicide death