Grief
The Ego’s Desire for Deathlessness
I just watched a movie on Netflix called HOPE FROZEN, about a family in Thailand whose two year-old daughter died of brain cancer, and they have her cryogenically preserved. It makes a powerful statement about science vs. spirituality, family dynamics and complicated grief. I had a very strong emotional (and socio-political) reaction to it..At…
Read MoreThere Are No “Stages” of Grief
Can We Please Stop Talking About “The Stages of Grief?” In my professional capacity as a pastoral counselor specializing in loss and grief, I hear from bereaved people almost daily about their struggles to find healing and peace after a profound loss. For me, and for my most of my colleagues, it is endlessly frustrating…
Read MoreNear-Death Experiences are Culturally-Subjective
Image source: http://encounters-with-jesus.org/category/buddha/ One of our Facebook group members recently wanted to share an article on our page about a woman who had a near-death experience in which she went through pearly gates and met God, who told her to go back to earth to proselytize about Christianity. The admins didn’t approve it as a…
Read MoreWhat Flowers Teach Us About Death
Nasturtiums have been my favorite flower since I planted my first garden in 1975. They are colorful, beautiful, prolific and easy to grow, and they can make any landscape look like a fairy tale kingdom. But they are also fragile, and if the sun hits them too hard for too long, the flowers will wilt,…
Read MoreWhat is an End-of-Life Educator?
Originally published on Business Insider, Jan. 24, 2020 I’m a Death and Grief Educator.Here’s What I Teach, and Here’s What I’ve Learned It’s not the kind of career you dream about as a kid. It’s not glamorous like an astronaut or a rock star, and it’s not easy to explain when someone asks what you…
Read MoreBad Bereavement Advice: When Trying to Help Doesn’t Help
As I travel around the country teaching workshops on loss and resilience, I meet hundreds of people — mostly bereaved parents — who have been suffering deeply for years and even decades, and are not moving forward in the healing process. For my doctoral research on complicated grief, I accumulated a lot of data on…
Read MoreBeing Present with Grief
I’d like to share this short video excerpt from our recent online mini-workshop. It offers a very useful and practical tool being present with grief and monitoring your mourning process: https://youtu.be/hZjlRG7Se5k
Read MoreA Magical Encounter in Utah
I spent several days in Salt Lake City this month giving presentations and making friends with some extraordinary people. Everywhere you look there are mountains, and it is gorgeous! The only thing I didn’t like about Utah was how difficult it was to buy a bottle of wine. I felt like a criminal going…
Read MoreGrieving in Community
When a community is devastated by a traumatic event, such as a mass shooting or natural disaster, in addition to individuals grieving their personal losses (death of loved ones, loss of a home), there is a communal loss experienced by all who have been touched by the event, directly or indirectly. Grieving in community is an…
Read MoreAbraham-Hicks on Grief
This a brilliant explanation of death, loss, grief and inter-dimensional communication:
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