Tag: rituals for grief

EOLPodcast

Ep. 563 Death Wings Project: Art and Storytelling for Loss and Grief with Bess Welden and Laura Cleminson

kwyattmd

Learn how a creative art project can help foster conversations about loss and grief and how a playwright and an end-of-life doula collaborated to develop it.

About the guests:

My guests this week are Bess Welden a playwright who wrote the play Death Wings and Laura Cleminson an end-of-life doula and the founder of Pre-Dead Social Club. Together they have developed the Death Wings Project and Toolkit to invite people to come together in community and foster open conversations about loss and grief. They share how art-making and storytelling are used in their workshops to help people navigate loss together through creativity. Learn more at the following websites:

deathwingsproject.org

predeadsocialclub.com

Watch on YouTube

Listen here:

besswelden.com/death-wings

In this episode:

  • How Laura was inspired to become an end-of-life doula
  • What inspired Bess to create the play Death Wings and to make her first pair of Death Wings
  • How Laura and Bess were inspired to work together on this project
  • What Death Wings are and how they are constructed
  • How the creation of Death Wings help people create meaning and memories of their loved ones
  • Why “putting our hands into grief” allows us to open to it
  • How Death Wings might be used in schools to help children with grief
  • The value of rituals for grief
  • You don’t have to be an artist or crafter to participate in this project
  • Creativity as an opportunity to open conversation about the end of life
  • Using Death Wings as a gift for someone experiencing grief
  • How to host a Death Wings workshop in your own community

Links for this episode:

Resources

Related episodes

Other links

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 thanks to Colin Quigg for buying me a coffee and to Trish Rux for making a donation on Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference and ensure this podcast stays ad-free.

Transcript

Laura Cleminson and Bess Welden InterviewDownload
EOLPodcast

Ep. 537 Grief and the Widowed Mom with Krista St-Germain

kwyattmd

Learn about grief support for widows who are also raising children as they navigate loss and bereavement.

My guest Krista St-Germain is a life coach, post-traumatic growth and grief expert, widowed mom, and host of The Widowed Mom Podcast. She coaches and teaches other widows to love life again and shares with us in this conversation what she has learned. She and her work have been featured in Psychology Today, Medium, Thrive Global, Bustle, Psych Central, and Parents Magazine. Learn more at her website:

coachingwithkrista.com

Watch on YouTube

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • The challenges of grieving while raising children
  • How our limited knowledge of grief makes it more difficult to navigate
  • Coping with unexpected effects of grief
  • Myths about what is “normal” in grief
  • What Krista wishes she had known about grief
  • The dual-process model of grief
  • The importance of community in navigating grief
  • How just hearing someone else talk about their grief is helpful
  • Post-traumatic growth and grief
  • Understanding secondary losses and grief

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. And thanks to everyone who has bought me a coffee or made a donation on Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference and ensure this podcast stays ad-free.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 492 Rituals and Ceremonies for Life, Death and Grief with Megan Sheldon

kwyattmd

Learn about the benefits of creating intentional rituals for the big and small moments of life and death.

My guest Megan Sheldon is a cultural mythologist, humanist celebrant, and end-of-life doula in North Vancouver, BC. She is the co-founder of Be Ceremonial, the world’s first guided ritual and ceremony app. Megan will discuss her work creating ceremonies for people around the world, focusing on what she calls the ‘seemingly invisible moments of change’ in life and in death. She offers online workshops, virtual courses, and seasonal retreats and you can learn more at her website:

beceremonial.com

Watch on YouTube

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • Why rituals are important as we navigate life and loss
  • How rituals are a forgotten part of our lives that come naturally to us
  • Ceremonies and rituals ultimately involve storytelling
  • What inspired Megan and her husband to create the Be Ceremonial app
  • How the app works and who might benefit from using it
  • Daily rituals can help us build our own creativity
  • The components of a meaningful ceremony, including a ritual for being present
  • Examples of simple rituals
  • Rituals for care providers for supporting self and others
  • How rituals help us embody the emotions we feel during challenging times

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, and to everyone who has bought me a coffee or donated on Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference and ensure this podcast stays ad-free.

EOLPodcast

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

kwyattmd

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:

www.danieldirect.net

www.deathgriefandbelief.com

Watch on YouTube

Listen here:

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

Special Episode: Vigil for Kindness in the Midst of Overwhelming Grief

kwyattmd

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 kindness even while we are brokenhearted by overwhelming grief. May it bring you peace and comfort.

Vigil for Kindness in the Midst of Overwhelming Grief
VIGIL-Script-March-2021Download
Blessing for the Brokenhearted
BY JAN RICHARDSON

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
– Henry David Thoreau

Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.

Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound,
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.

Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this—

as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it,

as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still,

as if it trusts
that its own
persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.
 
EOLPodcast

Special Episode: Vigil for Exploring Our Grief

kwyattmd

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 the we have been carrying for the past year and help us explore it for the hidden blessings it contains. May it bring you peace and comfort.

Vigil for Exploring Our Grief
VIGIL-Script-February-2021Download
Miracles Abide There by Bruce Sterling 
(from Not Enough: Musings on Grief)
 
We each have loss none escape it. 
Grief,
the healing process that reintegrates feelings and thoughts, desires and regrets, the past and
no future. 
Through life, through living we choose the palate but never
the timing, 
the circumstances or the outcome. 
So there it is,
shock
then sadness,
later
reality,
an unreal reality
the likes of which you've never experienced. 
Like taffy
you're pulled
into shapes
that leave you
in a state
from which you can never return. 
 
Like flying in the clouds you can't tell which end is up even when firmly planted in your seat. 
Like walking the streets on Christmas morning when gifts are exchanged and no one’s outside. 
Like you've walked into the emotional post-apocalypse. 
Like love has filled your heart but the drain plug
is three times the size
it should be,
and the vacuum left collapses everything 
that made sense, everything
that gave you substance, everything. 
Grief,
the humanizing, humbling shape-shifter
that tears
the fabric of you and explodes your heart into newer dimensions you didn't realize you signed up for. 
I don't wish the pain on anybody
I just know the value of the outcome. Miracles abide there,
if you can just see. 
EOLPodcast

Special Episode: Vigil for Healing the Brokenness of the World

kwyattmd

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 our own broken hearts, broken communities, and broken world. May it bring you peace and comfort.

VIGIL-Script-June-2020Download
EOLPodcast, Grief, Spirituality

Ep. 229 How to Create a Mini-Pilgrimage as a Ritual for Grief

kwyattmd

Learn how to incorporate the ritual of pilgrimage into your daily life, especially as a tool for grief.

In this solo episode I discuss the benefits of pilgrimage for spiritual growth and for helping with grief. I’ll share with you how I’ve created “mini”-pilgrimages in my own community that have helped me on my own grief journey to shift my energy, honor my loved ones, and deepen my own transformation. You’ll learn how and why you might want to try this ritual for yourself.

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • Why pilgrimages are beneficial
  • Characteristics of sacred spaces that inspire pilgrimages
  • How a pilgrimage can help with grief
  • How to choose a time and place for a mini-pilgrimage
  • Planning for the journey
  • Tips for getting the most from a mini-pilgrimage
  • Rituals during the journey
  • The Sacred Sites Meditation Technique from Martin Gray
  • Returning from a pilgrimage

The sacred sites, the pilgrimage places … are where people most passionately give praise and prayer to God. Go there, be present in that divinity, be in love with that love.

– Martin Gray

Links mentioned in this episode:

  • Special offer on Patreon: Autographed copy of What Really Matters! (Offer lasts through 1/27/2020)
  • Sign up for the Teaching Guidelines for a Death & Dying Class
  • Martin Gray’s website – Sacred Sites
  • Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and 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 Patron, Richard Schneider; your contributions make all the difference!

EOLPodcast

Ep. 219 Rituals for Letting Go with Gia George

kwyattmd

Learn why and how to create rituals to deal with the normal losses of life.

PodcastGeorge

My very special guest for this episode is my beautiful daughter Gia George, who is a singer-songwriter, yoga and meditation teacher, sound and energy healer, and spiritual teacher. As part of her work in the world she creates ceremonies for people going through life’s transitions, including channeling music for those experiencing loss. We discuss our own losses, the need for rituals, and how to a craft a ceremony capable of holding our grief. Learn more at her website:

www.DivinelyGia.com

Listen here:

 

This episode includes:

  • How rituals can help us let go and “cross the bridge” into a new life
  • “Grief-cleaning” and how it can help us open to our pain
  • A spontaneous ritual for leaving and letting go of the past using gratitude and mandala-making
  • Why we can’t rush into letting-go rituals
  • Why rituals can be valuable even many years after a loss and how to create one
  • The balance between holding on and letting go
  • The things that weigh us down can prevent our creativity
  • A ritual can be an accessible container for our grief process
  • The power of music in rituals

Mantra for letting go: There will come a time to leave, but I will never stop loving you.

-Gia George

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, your contributions mean everything to me!

End of Life, EOLPodcast, Grief

Ep. 24 The Many Paths of Grief with Karen Wyatt MD

kwyattmd

In this podcast I will discuss eight tips for coping with grief I have learned through the many interviews I’ve conducted in the past for End-of-Life University. One of the common threads I’ve found in the stories of my guests for EOLU is that most of us have experienced the death of a loved one in the past and that our current interest in the end-of-life arena has been inspired in one way or another by that death and our subsequent grief process.

You will learn tips for coping with grief, practical suggestions for applying those tips to your own life situation and how to navigate the journey of grief that can be dark and lonely at times.