The Caring Death Doula
In a world that rushes past death and ignores grief, The Caring Death Doula stops to listen with tenderness, truth, and time. Whether you are grieving right now or here to learn how to help those grieving, join your host, Frances, a certified grief educator on the journey of finding connection, conversations, and comfort. Let's make grief and death a natural part of our conversations.
The Caring Death Doula
The Silent Companion: Grief's Presence in Every Season of Life
Grief is part of life, yet we often shy away from discussing or acknowledging it in its many forms. Understanding the different kinds of grief we experience helps us face it, handle it, and support each other through life's inevitable changes.
• Grief doesn't just come from sad changes or death but can emerge from happy transitions too
• Changes like children moving away for college or getting married can bring mixed emotions of joy and sadness
• Looking back at different decades of your life reveals how many changes you've already successfully navigated
• Connection is crucial yet often overlooked when processing grief and life transitions
• We can experience seemingly contradictory emotions simultaneously - being happy and sad at once is normal
• There is no "right way" to grieve - no rules, judgment, comparison or criticism should be applied
• Supporting others through grief means being present, holding space, and checking in regularly
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Hello and welcome to the newest episode. I want to thank you for joining me Over the next few weeks. I would like to discuss the different kinds of grief that we have in our life grief making it easier for us to talk about it, to face it, to handle it, to support each other, to support ourselves as we go through it. So I think it's important to understand that grief is part of life and I think we all know that, but we still shy away from it. We still don't know how to handle it. We don't know how to support somebody. We still don't know how to handle it. We don't know how to support somebody. So today I would just like to talk about some of the changes.
Speaker 1:Our life is full of changes. You know, we were toddlers at one point. Then we learned to read and to ride our bikes and to do high-level math, to study, to learn a career. Life is just changes. Death can cause change. In your family, in your life.
Speaker 1:There are so many changes and grief doesn't just come from the sad changes or death changes. Grief can come from happy changes. Grief can come from relationships that we want so much more from and we grieve that it's not there, it's not as beautiful and connected as we want it to be. Grief can be a relationship that you miss out on because someone has already died or has left your life, or you've moved away or they've moved away. Or you've moved away or they've moved away. Grief can hit us just in crazy ways. You can have grief. You can grieve over somebody else's life, knowing that maybe they weren't an understood person, that maybe they had so much potential that they didn't see in themselves and nobody was there for them. Nobody was there to help them. No one was aware that they didn't see their own value, their own gifts, they didn't see how much they were loved and needed. There are so many things that we can grieve. We can grieve people that we've never met. We can grieve people that we've never met. We can grieve situations that just didn't form. We can grieve the loss of a job, the loss of an opportunity. We can grieve when things are not as fully the way we want them to. It is just amazing and crazy how much grief surrounds us and yet we don't see it. We don't understand that change. Grief, loss, life, death is all tied together in one beautiful package. We don't have compassion for ourselves and often not even for each other, or you extend compassion to others but not to yourself, and we think we're all alone, we think nobody understands and often, yes, everyone is busy with their own lives. They're rushing around, they're filling their responsibilities, their fun and, yes, it seems like they go on without us. We're not connected like we need to be. To be able to endure and live a life full of change and grief, death loss, we need to be connected. Connection is so important and so overlooked.
Speaker 1:I want to encourage you to really look at your life this week and just notice all the changes. If you are one that likes to journal, take a few minutes and look back over your life, your current life, your past life and write down all the changes. What all happened before you turned 20? What's all the beautiful growth and changes? And then in your 20s, oh, so much happens. In our 20s and our 30s and 40s holds its own changes. So, from however many ever decades you have been alive, look back on each decade and record, even if it's just in your mind, just to go through it. Or, like I said, if you like to journal, write it out, look back, take the time and really observe how much change has been in your life no-transcript and acknowledge was it a good change? Was it a bad change? Was there grief in both of them?
Speaker 1:You know parents that let their child go not let, but have their child go to another state, go to school, go to a job, move out, you know, start their own life. That's change, but it's a happy change Because your child is moving on. Your child has gotten the career of their dream or is going to the school that they've been wanting to go to. It's all good. But yet it's a change and for some people it can be really hard. It can be really hard and they're grieving, perhaps, the loss of that person in their day to day. You know it's a big change to see your children every day after work or after school and then all of a sudden they're not there and maybe they have time to talk to you once a week or once a month, once a day, but it's not the same. You know there's changes in their lives, there's happenings in their lives and there's happenings in your life. But throughout all these changes, if we can try to stay connected, if we can value connection, then maybe the change isn't as difficult as it could be. Maybe it's not as final as sometimes it ends up being, as sometimes it ends up being.
Speaker 1:You know, you graduate from high school and you've been with these classmates for four years, six years, twelve years and then all of a sudden you're all going into different areas, different colleges. Some of you are going to college, some of you are going just into work right away. Some of you are moving, some of you are staying in your hometown. But it all changes and some friends you stay in touch with, others you don't. But everyone is having their own life, their own different involvements and connections and changes.
Speaker 1:And it can cause grief, it can make you sad, you can feel all alone. But if we understand, if we can look back and see all the beautiful changes that have happened in our lives the good and the bad and see how much we've grown from it and maybe we've learned to connect in a different way, we've learned to value connection, family or friends or time we all know that we have a limited time on this earth. We all know that. We all know there's life and death. It's there every single season, every year we have our seasons and it shows us beautifully that the changes in life and we all talk about how fast our children grow up, how fast children do grow up, whether they're your nieces or nephews, or whether they're your children or your grandchildren.
Speaker 1:Change is inevitable. Change can be beautiful. We don't need to fight it and it is okay to grieve it. You know some people, when their children turn 18 and move out for the variety of reasons that there are, some people handle it just fine and they go on with their life and they're just fine and they stay connected with the call once a week and they have no compassion on this other person that maybe cries a lot and really misses his or her child and maybe, for whatever reason, there isn't that weekly call, maybe it's only a monthly call or a quarterly call.
Speaker 1:I'm asking us to look at our lives to understand that change is part of life and change brings grief. Grief can bring change. Death loss can bring change, does bring change and it can bring grief. And I'm asking that we just understand and start talking about it, start valuing that life is all encompassed. It's all including of grief, change, loss, death, life, joy, sadness. You can have all of it when you're grieving. You can have sadness and happiness at the same time, and that's okay. You can be excited that your child got married and is starting a beautiful life with someone that they love, and you can also be sad, and that is okay.
Speaker 1:I want us to get so comfortable with this, so aware of this, that we understand and let's connect with each other. Let's not shame each other. Let's not judge each other. Let us help each other to adapt to the changes in our lives in the way that fits us best. Let's help each other grieve in the way that fits us best. Let's help each other grieve in the way that fits us best. Let's allow no rules, no judgment, no comparison, no criticism, no right way, no wrong way.
Speaker 1:Can we just hold each other, be connected in this life of grief, change, loss, death, beauty? Can we just stay connected? Can we support each other? Can we be there for each other? So I want you to think about today what can you do to support somebody? Go ahead and think through your decades of how many decades that you do have in your life and look at those changes and look at if you can think back on the beauty of it, maybe the sadness or grief of it, but see how far you've come.
Speaker 1:Think about a way that you can maybe support somebody whose child has gone away to college this fall and just check in with them and see how they're doing. Someone has lost a loved one or a pet or a home. Check in with them and see how they're doing and if they can use help in any way. Be a presence, love on them, hold the space, hold the silence for them. If this has helped you in any way, let me know. If this has helped you in any way, let me know. Share this episode. This is the Caring Death, doula, and I am here for you.