Category: Anxiety

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3 biggest regrets people have at the end of life

Hospice chaplain shares common regrets she hears from people who have less than six months to live.

By A. Pawlowski

Sitting at the bedside of dying patients, Tenzin Kiyosaki sees every day how regrets can haunt people at the end of life.

The former Buddhist nun works as an interfaith hospice chaplain for Torrance Memorial Medical Center in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, tending to the spiritual and emotional needs of people who have less than six months to live, and listening to their concerns.

When her brother, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki, asked her what the dying talk about, she mentioned some of the common concerns she heard over and over. Kiyosaki shares them in her new book, “The Three Regrets: Inspirational Stories and Practical Advice for Love and Forgiveness at Life’s End.”

It’s also a nudge for younger, healthier people to take action to resolve or prevent regrets now.

Kiyosaki wants people to remember that death doesn’t only come to the old.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. — Steve Jobs

No one knows when their time is up, whether because of an accident or illness.

Life is impermanent not only for you, but your family, friends and loved ones. Kiyosaki’s own mother passed away suddenly at 49, leaving the family in shock.

“Understanding that death can come at any time can help you see how precious life is and how to really get on with our ambitions and our dreams, and to be kind to each other,” Kiyosaki, 72, told TODAY.

“We should clear the regrets now and go for our dreams rather than just hanging on to regrets that take up a lot of mental and emotional space.”

I did not live my life of dreams.

One patient always wanted to travel the world, but never did. “She felt like, ‘I never got out of here, I never got to do what I really wanted to do,’” Kiyosaki said.

For others, the “what if” regrets might center around never taking a chance on starting a business, applying for a dream job abroad or moving to a new city.

Kiyosaki urged people to examine whether they’re neglecting or putting off their dreams and if so, to turn it around and go for them now — it’s not too late. One terminally-ill woman she knew flew to Europe by herself despite all the obstacles in her way.

I did not share my love.

Many end-of-life patients are frustrated that they haven’t been able to share what’s really in their heart and say what they needed to say to their loved ones. For some, that might be “I love you.” For others, just being able to acknowledge, “I was absent, I was cruel, I was unavailable,” can transform a family and allow it to heal.

“I just feel like it’s important for people to see that they don’t have to live their whole life this way,” Kiyosaki said.

“Don’t fade away from life without saying what you need to say,” she writes in her book. “Find ways to say ‘I love you’ and express your love every day.”

I did not forgive.

This is perhaps the biggest regret many people have at the end. Old wounds and unfinished business rise to the surface, but holding on to past grievances hurts us, Kiyosaki writes, citing a quote from Buddha: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else — you are the one who gets burned.”

The power of forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself.

Kiyosaki recommends an exercise: Imagine you have one year left to live. Who would you call? What would you do and say to be at peace? Do it now.

“If you just clear the regrets, you have so much more open heart and receptivity to the world,” Kiyosaki said. “Let’s turn it around and enjoy our lives because they are impermanent — we’re all going to face end of life.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Breathing new life into dying

— our moral imperative to reckon with the concept of death

A 16th-century drawing by Hand Baldung Grien depicts a German mercenary speaking with Death. As pandemics swept Europe, stories of hungry and vengeful undead grew in German-speaking lands and may be reflected in burial practices.

By Madeline Hsu

Death is ever-present these days; now, one in three Americans personally knows someone who has died of COVID-19. Before the pandemic, we heard about incidences of mass deaths due to illness in the context of far corners of the globe, safely out of reach. We were insulated from death and could afford to ignore it, sweeping it into a corner of our uneasy minds. Now, death is close to home, and the time is right for dealing with the cultural discomfort it engenders. 

There are multiple problems with the way we view death as a culture, and the pandemic poses an opportunity to evolve in how we think about death and practice death-related rituals. This unique moment is also an apt time to examine our history and try to understand how exactly we came to be this way.

One pressing concern about our death practices is the deleterious effect on the environment that they have.

“You might be surprised at how much environmental damage a person can do after they’re dead,” Erin Blakemore writes for the Smithsonian Magazine.

The prevalent use of embalming chemicals is of chief concern, as pumping these toxic and carcinogenic chemicals into the environment runs the risk of polluting groundwater and harming the living. While certain groups within the U.S. do not embalm, such as those from Orthodox Jewish communities, a disturbing majority of American burials do.

Many of us are relieved about the promise of a reversal in climate policy after watching with horror for four years as the Trump Administration systematically unraveled hard-won environmental protections and regulations. The administration of President Biden has made a commitment to taking ambitious measures to mitigate climate change. With our new commitment to sustainability as a nation, the time is right to consider the environmental impact of the dead and find new, greener solutions.

There are several ways to do this. Of the sustainable burial practices that have emerged in recent years, several stand out as particularly good alternatives to the status quo. One example is the burial pod developed by Capsula Mundi, which uses a corpse’s process of decay to feed a growing tree. This example presents the comforting and poetic idea of creating natural growth, a concept which could perhaps offset the shock of the transition from the casket-and-embalm procedure.

Composting bodies is a concept that has gained momentum recently.

“Within months, your loved one can become soil for your garden,” Molly Glick writes for the Sierra Club. Once placed in a special cylinder that periodically rotates, a corpse is combined with “a blend of fungi, protozoa, and bacteria to accelerate the breakdown of remains.”

The environmental concern brought up by death goes hand-in-hand with a more ideological and existential concern. We go to great lengths and do harm to the environment to embalm and beautify corpses, giving them luxurious boxes that are sealed and prevent degradation of the body. In this way, we deny death. We refuse death and fight it, but what better time is there than in the midst of COVID-19 to reassess our relationship with death? Perhaps this is an opportunity to deal with its environmental repercussions as well as challenge our deep-seated discomfort and rejection of the fact of death in our lives. 

Perhaps a cross-cultural comparison would yield some insights. Many of the inhabitants of our neighbor, Mexico, have historically observed Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which involves a celebratory rather than funereal attitude and embraces acceptance of death as an undeniable part of the life cycle. Pre-COVID-19, I was fortunate enough to attend a Day of the Dead celebration hosted by the San Francisco Symphony. Marveling at the revelry, I was struck by the positive emotional effect of combining music with costume, color and a sense of joyful spirituality to tackle this taboo topic. Whereas Mexican culture welcomes “spirits” who reunite once a year with the living, our culture fears and abhors the idea of the dead.

The only time we seem to set aside to deal with death as a culture is mainly in jest, at Halloween. We trivialize death and have no meaningful or unifying cultural practice to deal with this most basic and profound of human events, a universal event that touches all lives.

It isn’t completely our fault that we’re so ill equipped to deal with death. We have inherited a discomfort with the topic. It might be worth noting that certain religious views surrounding death help to explain why we’re so steeped in denial. The “life after death” concept crosses cultural and religious boundaries. Like the Egyptian pharaohs, we endeavor to take our worldly possessions with us, including clothing and makeup-enhanced features, as we voyage into the proverbial afterlife in comfy, cushy coffins. This attempt to simulate life-like conditions reflects our pervasive discomfort with the idea of death.

The bottom line is, we have a moral imperative to deal more responsibly with death. It is long overdue and COVID-19 has highlighted this reality. By gaining some comfort with the fact of death and confronting our resistance to dealing with it, perhaps we can gain some confidence about being able to handle the entirety of the life cycle and have some measure of acceptance where before there was only denial.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Facing Terminal Cancer

Support helps families come to terms with looming loss

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Last April, Rogers Park resident Aisha Luster got the biggest shock of her life when she learned that her father was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer. “He didn’t tell me or my older sister,” says Luster, 37. “We were crushed. We felt left in the dark. It was devastating.”

Within two months of sharing the gut-wrenching news, Luster’s father died. “He spent the last week of his life in a hospital alone due to Covid,” Luster recalls. “That was one of the worst days of my life. I never knew I would lose him. I have definitely been affected mentally, physically, and emotionally. It still feels like a bad dream I can’t get out of.”

Luster’s father was one of an estimated 606,520 Americans who died of cancer in 2020. Grief, depression, panic, and anxiety — for both the individual and their family — are common when dealing with terminal cancer.

Facing imminent loss is not easy. Yet, end-of-life support from palliative care services, such as hospice care, can help patients and their loved ones cope with these emotions and prepare them for what to expect.

End-of-life discussions

Talking to family members about their wishes can help make choices easier for caregivers.

“Families are under an enormous amount of stress, especially if the medical problem came suddenly and they didn’t have any opportunity to talk to the patient or to anticipate the problems,” says sociologist Susan P. Shapiro, a research professor at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago and author of Speaking for the Dying: Life-and-Death Decisions in Intensive Care.

To watch their body breaking down before your very eyes definitely had a huge impact on me.”

End-of-life discussions establish transparency and prevent misinterpretations of the individual’s final wishes, she says. “When patients never spoke to family members in advance about what they wanted, family members were very, very torn about what they should do.”

For those living with terminal cancer, coming face-to-face with their looming mortality can be painful.

Between 15% and 50% of cancer patients experience depressive symptoms, according to a review article in the journal Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. Depression in cancer patients contributes to physical and psychological problems, it says. And depression may be associated with higher death rates.

Christine Schwartz-Peterson, MD, is a hospice medical director at JourneyCare, a hospice and palliative care agency that’s headquartered in Glenview and serves 13 counties in Illinois. Part of her role involves caring for terminally ill patients who experience depression or anxiety.

“Our patients and their loved ones are going through tremendous loss while on service with us,” Schwartz-Peterson says. “Our skilled hospice teams, which include social workers and chaplains, are trained to recognize this pain and help support them throughout this difficult time.”

Social workers provide resources such as emotional support, counseling for patients and caregivers, and funeral planning that reflects the patient’s final wishes. Chaplains, tasked with easing spiritual healing through physical and emotional pain, aid patients and families with some comfort in spite of illness.

Relying on such services helped Lombard resident Melissa Schmitz.

In 2016, when she was 44, her father was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

“There’s really no way to prepare for that. To watch the person you love, who has always taken care of you your whole life, to watch their body breaking down before your very eyes definitely had a huge impact on me,” Schmitz says. “But there was nothing I could do to actually fix it or help it, and that was devastating for me.”

Ultimately, palliative care, which supports patients and their families, enabled her to reach peace with the end-of-life process. As her father’s cancer progressed in the last weeks of his life, the Schmitz family decided to move him to hospice care. 

With the help of hospice physicians and social workers, Schmitz was able to provide her father with individualized end-of-life care. “I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t want him to be in a hospital room, and he didn’t want to be in a hospital room,” she says. They all achieved a measure of peace. “JourneyCare allowed me to basically move in for the last couple of weeks. I never had to miss a minute with him. And that was wonderful.”

Supporting the overlooked

It’s important to support the mental health of family caregivers as well as patients, says Dana Delach, MD, a JourneyCare physician specializing in hospice and palliative medicine. Caregivers, who are often physically and mentally exhausted, can be overlooked when someone is dying.

Friends and family can step in to listen, care, and offer support. “If you know someone who is a caregiver, it is important to ask how you can help,” Delach says. “Sometimes the best gift you can give a caregiver is the gift of being present. Truly present. Sit with them while they provide care. Be a person to listen as they express their myriad emotions.”

Like Luster and Schmitz, Lincoln Park resident Simone Malcolm understands the signifi-cance of addressing family mental health during this difficult time.

In 2010, Malcolm’s mother revealed to her that she had breast cancer. At the time Malcolm was 20 years old. “When my mother first told me of her diagnosis, I was devastated because I thought I was going to lose my mom. I was scared, and because of that, I wasn’t there for her as I should have been,” Malcolm says. “I put a lot of my focus on school, my friendships, and hanging out. I acted as if everything was normal and I didn’t have a sick parent.”

Complicating matters for Malcolm’s mother was that she was initially misdiagnosed. By the time she was properly diagnosed, the cancer had reached stage 3. “My mother was hopeful that she would beat the disease,” Malcolm recalls. “Because of this, we did not speak about what would happen if she was to become incapacitated.” Her mother passed away later that year.

Drawing from her experience, Malcolm offers recommendations for those facing the same situation she did a decade ago. It’s important to be present for loved ones and involved in their care, she says.

“The advice I would give is to make sure the family stays on top of doctor’s visits and make sure they ask a bunch of questions so they are informed,” she says. “Also, be there for your loved one. They need all the support and love.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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From a prolonged pandemic, a rethink of life’s milestones?

By LEANNE ITALIE

Wedding anniversaries for Elizabeth O’Connor Cole and her husband, Michael, usually involve a dinner reservation for two at a fancy restaurant. Not this time around.

As the pandemic raged last May, the Chicago mom of four unearthed her boxed wedding gown from 19 years ago, got it zipped with help from one of her daughters and surprised her spouse.

Cole recreated their reception menu — a shrimp appetizer and beef tenderloin — and pulled out her wedding china and silver after enlisting another of her kids to DJ their first-dance song, “At Last,” for a romantic turn around the living room. And the priest who married them offered a special blessing on Zoom with friends and family joining in.

“Spontaneous and a bit chaotic,” O’Connor Cole pronounced the celebration. “Still, it was probably the most meaningful and fun anniversary we’ve had.”

As the pandemic enters its second year, there’s a pent-up longing for the recent past, especially when it comes to life’s milestones. When the crisis finally resolves, will our new ways of marking births and deaths, weddings and anniversaries have any lasting impact? Or will freshly felt sentiments born of pandemic invention be fleeting?

Some predict their pandemic celebrations have set a new course. Others still mourn the way their traditions used to be

Milestones, rituals and traditions help set the rhythm of our lives, from the annuals like birthdays and anniversaries to the one-timers like births and deaths, extending beyond those boundaries to more casual events like opening day (choose your sport), drinks out after work with colleagues and that first swim of summer.

Jennifer Talarico, a psychology professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania who studies memory and personal experience, says certain events shape lives differently — and have been reshaped just as differently during the pandemic. Perhaps most devastatingly impacted, she says, are death and dying, sitting at bedsides to comfort and attending funerals to mourn as the coronavirus has killed more than 2.3 million people around the world.

“That’s being felt the hardest because it’s the hardest to replace,” Talarico says. “That’s probably going to have the most lasting impact.”

Renee Fry knows the feeling well. Her grandmother, Regina Connelly, died Dec. 6 of COVID-19 at her nursing home in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. She had just turned 98. There was no dropping everything to be at her bedside. There was no large church celebration of her life followed by dinner for all.

“We had to rely on video conferencing,” Fry says.

But they also did something else. She and her sister, Julie Fry, put together a “memory book” shared with far-flung family and friends. They included Regina’s favorite prayer, the Hail Mary, and asked loved ones to recite it on her behalf. They filled pages with photos through the years, from a portrait of young Regina in a fine red dress (lipstick to match, gold pendant around her neck) to more casual shots with grandchildren.

The sisters — Renee in Quincy, Massachusetts, and Julie in Port Matilda, Pennsylvania — wrote the story of how Regina met her husband on a blind date, then lost him when he died in 2010 after 64 years of marriage. They wrote of how she spent most of her teen years caring for her two brothers after their mother died suddenly when she was 13. They included rosaries with each of the 32 booklets they mailed.

Judging from the response — a second cousin called to say thank you, and a caregiver for Regina wrote a two-page letter offering thanks as well — it made an impact. “It was incredibly meaningful,” Renee says.

Such a booklet will be created when the family faces death once again. The pandemic, Fry says, has proven that distance no longer denies lasting meaning.

Daryl Van Tongeren, an associate professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan, studies meaning in life, religion and virtues. Rituals, symbols and milestones help provide structure to our worlds, he says, demarcating the passage of time or a significant accomplishment but more importantly lending meaning to life itself.

“One of the things that these milestones and these rituals do is they connect us with other people and things that are larger than ourselves,” he says

Sometimes left behind in a swirl of celebration is the core significance of something just as important — the events themselves. Students who missed out on the walk across the stage at their graduations remain graduates. Couples forced to elope or give up their dreams of weddings for 200 for smaller affairs still have their marriages to experience

While some predict a Roaring ’20s renaissance once the crisis has ended, “there are going to be a number of people who are changed,” Van Tongeren says. “They’re going to say, `I’m going to emerge from this pandemic with a new set of values and I’m going to live my life according to new priorities.'”

Last year, Shivaune Field celebrated her 40th birthday on Jan. 11 with a group of friends at a downtown restaurant in Los Angeles, where she lives. It was just weeks before the coronavirus made its way to the U.S. This year, when she turned 41, the adjunct professor in business at Pepperdine University simply took to the beach with her pals.

“It felt much more authentic, a nicer way to connect without all the bells and whistles,” she says. “I think it’s really nice to get back to that. It reminds me of childhood.”

Fields grew up in Melbourne, Australia, where she says her parents kept birthdays rooted in family outings to the beach or bike rides followed by a treat of ice cream.

“Weekend get-togethers are now in sneakers with dogs sitting on grass and picnic rugs rather than on stools in fancy restaurants,” she says. And Field is just fine with that.

Marking time has changed during the pandemic. There’s the ticking off of months based on trips to the hair salon and the length of pandemic beards. There’s Zoom creativity and socially distanced trips outdoors. Recreating celebrations of the past for major, time-marking events has been difficult as time blurred and safety restrictions took over.

“We have all of this cultural baggage, in a good way, around those events,” Talarico says. “It’s a reinforcing cycle of events that we expect to be memorable.”

Memorable has been hard to achieve. But the rethink has been important for many, and its effects may ripple long after the virus has ebbed.

“For those wanting to reminisce years later about important events that happened during the pandemic, there will likely be nostalgia mixed with more than a tinge of trauma,” says Wilfred van Gorp, a past president of the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology.

“It may remind us of the loneliness and isolation brought about by the pandemic, our fear of catching the virus, fear of dying, fear of losing loved ones and loss of any we knew who may have died from COVID-19,” he says. “And,” he adds, “recollections of what we didn’t have, what we missed, and the experiences we couldn’t share together.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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This empathic website helps you think and talk about death

Death is all around us this year. We need tools to help.

By Mark Wilson

It’s been a year of loss. But even seeing the devastation of COVID-19 hasn’t made it any easier to talk about death—and specifically, the possibility of our own deaths and deaths of those we love. Of course, ignoring death doesn’t make its inevitability any less real, during this year or any other.

Life Support is a new website from the London creative studio The Liminal Space, funded by the U.K. government. It’s a resource that proclaims, “Talking about dying won’t make it happen.” And with that premise as a baseline, it lets you explore topics about death and dying from the perspectives of experts, like palliative care doctors and social workers.

The design appears nebulous at first glance, with words floating in hand-drawn bubbles, which pulsate like the rhythm of your own breathing. But looks can be deceiving. What’s really lurking inside this casual space is a sharp curriculum built to answer your lingering questions about death.

As you scroll through the interface, the site offers several potential paths of thought that are probably familiar to most of us, like, “I’m scared to have a painful death” and “I don’t know if I should talk to my child about death.” When you find a question to explore, you swipe for more. That’s when experts come in. Some of their answers appear in blocks of text. Others are actually recorded, with audio you can play back. You might think the audio is a gimmick or unnecessary panache. In fact, I found it quite affecting to hear a doctor offering her own thoughts and advice about death aloud; it creates a level of intimacy that printed words can’t quite capture.

Ten or 20 years ago, a resource like this might have been a pamphlet (and indeed, anyone who frequents hospitals knows that pamphlets are still a mainstay to educate patients on topics of all types). But Life Support makes a convincing argument for how giving someone a bit of agency—like choosing our own questions to be answered, or hearing from doctors with our own ears when we’d like to—makes the information easier to digest.

I doubt there’s any quick resource out there that will ever get people completely comfortable talking or thinking about their own mortality. Religion and the arts have already attempted to tackle this topic for millennia. But Life Support is a solid attempt to ease us into the conversation.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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11 Salves for Holiday Grief in the Time of COVID.

By Karuna Duval, LICSW

Grief during the holidays is tough enough.

Now, let’s pile on a pandemic for the past year, and you have an even more difficult holiday season.

Being isolated and disconnected from our usual support systems has been a great hardship for many—most certainly for those who have lost a loved one. As the holidays approach, those who are grieving find themselves further burdened by even more unknowns.

Here are some suggestions and perspectives to consider for this holiday season if you are grieving or if you know someone who is grieving.

A Holiday in a box

If you can’t get together with loved ones because you are not traveling or they are not traveling, put together a “Thanksgiving in a box” or “Christmas in a box” or “Chanukah in a box” or “Kwanza in a box” or “(insert your holiday) in a box.” Let this serve as a sort of care package with more than just gifts. Include things like games, puzzles, poems, books, sweets, and other things that you may have shared if you were together.

Easy meals

If you choose to be alone this holiday (which is perfectly fine), opt for a TV dinner or preprepared meal. Many are tasty and include the traditional holiday foods. This also reduces stress in prep and cleanup. Or have your meal delivered. So many stores and restaurants are increasing their deliveries and offering yummy options for the holidays.

Forgo the “have-tos”

Often, the holidays are propelled by the traditions we have, which in and of themselves are not bad. However, if you don’t feel like putting up a tree or lights, or making certain foods, even though you have done that for years with your deceased family member, there is no obligation to do so. Sometimes other family members may be challenged by this; kids may want the traditions to be the same (even if they aren’t going to be around this year). The only obligation you have is to yourself. Do what you want to do this year.

Listen to your wants

If you want a smaller scale (or larger scale) decorated home this year, that’s fine. One woman I know vowed not to have any decorations this year. She and her deceased husband normally put out lots of decorations, but she didn’t have the energy for that now. However, when she found herself at a local big-box store, she was inspired to buy lights. She heard within herself, “Bring light in this year.” At another store, she was drawn to a small living tree, which she plans to plant in her garden after the holiday. She listened to herself. Even though she had thought she wasn’t going to decorate at all, that inner voice offered something different and something meaningful for her this year.

Conserve your energy

What can you make happen with the energy, time, and resources you have? And what is just not possible? The holidays often compel us to extend ourselves beyond our means, both financially and energetically. This could fit into the “have-tos” section as well. Gifts, especially, are not the purpose of the holidays—connection is. If you don’t have the energy and time, ask yourself what matters to you now and how can you do what matters with what you have? This is a question many who are grieving ask daily: What matters to me now?

Focus on the long-term

This year, connecting and being together means something different. If we are not with the people we want to be with now because we don’t live together, it is advised to remain separated. Especially for those who are older or already compromised in some way, don’t risk the unknown and long-term effects of this illness for short-term experience. The most serious long-term effects are hospitalization and death. Conserve your energy and time by connecting virtually. If you live in a warmer climate, you may be able to gather outside. Again, take the proper precautions. Remember that in the long-term, we will be able to be together again. Someone said, “A large gathering this holiday is not worth a small funeral later.”

Allow yourself to change your mind

Even if you want to do something with others, it’s okay to change your mind, even at the last minute. It is helpful to prepare others for this too. Tell them, “I need to warn you that I may need to change my mind, depending on how I feel.” People who know you and know your situation will understand. This also applies to events you may sign up for online. When you register for an event, check the refund policies.

Sit this one out

Some who are grieving don’t want to be a part of anything related to the holidays this year. This is just fine. While some people (even some close to you) may feel this is not a good thing, you have to decide what is right for you. Sitting out this holiday doesn’t mean you will never celebrate again. It just means for right now, you need to be with you, figure out what you want, watch or listen to what you want, eat the food you want, cry when you need, sleep when you need, and talk to who you want to (or not). Remember, you are the boss of you.

Celebrate when you can

For some, celebrating on the actual holiday is not possible or even desired. Some folks gather (even virtually) before the holiday or after it. One person said they celebrate the holidays in the summer when everyone can make it. It’s too late for that this year, but maybe you’ll choose that next year, after we, hopefully, can gather again. Getting together in the summer will allow for an even sweeter celebration.

Pulling inward

As we go into the darkest time of the year, our natural inclination is to hibernate. For those who are grieving, this can be a greater pull. With the holidays being so different than they ever have been, it seems like we have an even better reason to pull inward. We can shift our focus from outside ourselves to within ourselves, from doing to being—being with ourselves, being with others (mostly virtually), and being with what is, right now.

Be in the present

This year, we have experienced how things can change day-to-day. Being present for the experiences right now will support you in your grief. Being present to how you feel can help you to make choices about what you want and how you want your life to be. Worrying about what is out of your control expends energy that could otherwise be used for what you can control. Being present allows you to ask, “What is in my control now?” When we discover what is in our control, we find we have more choices. When we focus on what is out of our control, we find fewer choices and feel more helpless.

If you need additional assistance as you are grieving in this time, there are many folks who can help and support you. Local hospice organizations often have resources, especially during the holidays. There are many websites that offer written, video, and even live/Zoom events with information and support. If you find yourself struggling and need immediate assistance, call 911 or your local emergency mental health services for support.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Is fear of dying taking over your life?

7 ways to manage death anxiety

A ‘healthy’ fear of death is normal – but what happens when it tips into full-blown anxiety? Lisa Salmon seeks some expert advice

WHILE it’s natural for all of us to be afraid of death, particularly right now with the backdrop of a global pandemic, for some, death anxiety – or thanatophobia – can become a real problem.

“Most people will experience death anxiety at some time in their lives,” says clinical psychologist Dr Anna Janssen (drannajanssen.co.uk), who specialises in the care of people with cancer and terminal illness. “Some have a way of dealing with it which causes them less anxiety, perhaps through their culture or religion or their own ideas about death.

“There’s nothing unusual about being apprehensive about death, and worrying about it a bit, but those worries become more clinically concerning if the anxiety starts to have an impact on day-to-day functioning. When it starts to dictate much of how you live, and is to the detriment of other meaningful things or your wellbeing, it’s more concerning.”

Grief counsellor and funeral director Lianna Champ (champfunerals.com), author of How To Grieve Like A Champ (RedDoor Publishing, £9.99), adds: “The current pandemic has made us think of death – having deaths reported daily in the news can make our anxiety external, giving us a sense of panic.

“Having a fear of death is quite normal and stems from our natural instinct for survival. But what happens when an irrational fear of death begins to seep into our thoughts and takes over our rational thinking? Death anxiety is a very real concern for some, affecting their day-to-day functioning, and while we can’t change what is, we can change how we feel about it.”

Here, Janssen and Champ suggest seven ways to manage death anxiety…

1. Acknowledge your feelings

Don’t try to ignore your feelings about death – talk, think and reflect on them in a safe space, maybe even in therapy, suggests Janssen. “You can look at what your thoughts and feelings really are and get some coherence, so you feel less overwhelmed by how you feel,” she says. “Understanding what you’re thinking and feeling is sometimes a direct route to coping.”

Champ says: “Acknowledge the effect the anxiety has on your life physically and emotionally. Once we acknowledge that we may be engaging in habits or thoughts that aren’t good for us, we can begin to take steps to change them.”

She suggests writing down honestly what you’re feeling, and thinking about events in your past that may be linked to the anxiety. By doing this, you might be able to identify what was emotionally unfinished about the linked event, which might help.

2. Identify the trigger

Champ suggests asking yourself about all the things that make you anxious about death. Is it missing out on being with your loved ones – even though they’ll eventually all die too? Being in a black nothingness (which you probably won’t be aware of)? Or just the not knowing what happens? “If we understand why we’re feeling the way we do, we can take back control,” she says.

3. Limit your news consumption

Champ advises people who have death anxiety not to read or listen to the news too much. “Keep in mind that the media can hold a tragic event in the news for ages,” she says. “Yes, we see disasters, but we can also see many good and great things happening. Everything needs balance.”

Janssen adds: “The fear of death fluctuates in different people’s lives and may be triggered by an experience of a difficult death, or things people may see or hear about death that add uncertainty, or make the potential of death less deniable.”

4. Share your thoughts

Giving a voice to your feelings can help put worries into perspective, says Champ, who suggests: “Find someone who won’t try to ‘fix’ you or change how you feel, but can give you the tools to work it out yourself. If you can’t think of someone you can trust, reach out to a professional.”

Janssen adds: “It can just be about being heard and feeling less stigmatised. Very often, we don’t talk about death or how worried we are about it, so sometimes just having a relationship where someone can bear witness to your feelings about death can be enough. Sometimes knowing you’re not the only one who feels like this can be helpful.”

5. Remember some anxiety about death can be good

“Our survival instinct is driven by the fear of what might end our lives, so we’ll all have an undercurrent of fear of death, and that’s no bad thing because it’s how we survive,” Janssen stresses.

Champ adds: “A ‘healthy’ fear of death can make us change our beliefs and behaviours for the better. An awareness that we aren’t immortal can make us better people too, as it can make us think about how we’d like to be remembered.”

6. Learn to accept it

Through her work, Janssen says she sees people facing death, or who’ve lost someone to illness, and they readily talk about it. “I also see people who speak about their acceptance of death,” she says. “Some people are very much able to accept their life is ending and they feel ready for that ending, and that’s often linked to what they think death is and what they think will happen next.

“Some are very clear this is not the end of everything, so the meaning attached to death isn’t one of threat. They’re comfortable with it, and think they’re going to a safe place and to meet people that have already passed away. It’s really about the meaning we attach to death.”

Champ adds: “By really grasping that dying is an inescapable truth, we can live a better life. We really can live each day as if it’s our last.”

7. Seek help if necessary

If, after trying to tackle your anxiety, you’re still feeling overwhelmed and thinking excessively about death, seek professional help, advises Champ.

Janssen suggests: “If you have trauma that reminds you of how unsafe we are in this world, you can come through it with specialist therapy.”

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