My Writing

I am so moved by the generosity of my friend. She was very involved with the care of her brother who died a year ago after a prolonged illness. She had hired a wonderful caregiver who she trusted wholeheartedly. The caregiver was a tremendous comfort and giver of care to her brother. The caregiver, despite her wonderful work, did not enjoy financial stability. My friend decided to make the caregiver co-owner of her brother's small house in Sonoma. She now has a place to stay

" People do not pass away. They die. And then they stay dead." A wise poet said these words. It's true. The finality of death hits us over and over again. That is why the grief of profound loss moves through us, and we move through the grief. It is a ceaseless dance. Grief is non-linear. Profound loss changes us, rearranging the structure of our very being. We are not the same. We integrate the story of our loss into our core self. And we continue. Some moments of joy and som

“You are perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement." This famous teaching from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, a Sōtō Zen monk and author of Zen Mind, Beginners Mind has been making me think of late about my mom. She always loved me unconditionally and whenever she felt like there was an opening, she would tell me how I could improve. I did a lot of eye rolling at those times and complaining but now, in my 60's, I would love to hear her suggestions on how I could

Did you know that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, whose 100th birthday was this month, never envisioned her Five Stages of Grief as a linear process? We can have any or all of these feelings in a day or an hour or a minute as we face the loss of our loved ones: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance She understood this. We need to understand this as well. Every Death Cafe I hold I always sense Elisabeth smiling. She helped ignite the match and we carry the torch onward. Tha

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. -The Tao I love this quote as it rings so true inside me. When I am not so attached to my beliefs, my emotions, my perceptions, I free myself up and can enter into just being. My heart is open and the lens of criticism, righteousness, and distance fade. I feel like a vessel. And clear and strong. And sometimes strength means knowing how to let go. Letting go sometimes is closer to a state of filtering. The filtering is a c

Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh famously opined, "No mud, no lotus." We have to do a bit of trudging. We have to face our discomfort. We have to work through the difficulty. We have to get curious about the suffering. But he also said that it is okay to suffer. We shouldn't avoid it or be afraid of it. It is normal and natural to suffer. We just have to watch out for denying it or fearing it. That's the mud. Later, the lotus. Later we can experience freedom from sufferi

My eyes are getting softer. I can feel it. I know you know what I mean. In the third act of our lives, in the years of our retirement, or at least our semi-retirement, after the kids are launched, and the career winds down, we have the chance to consciously develop soft eyes. *We can develop a very deep relationship with ourselves. *We can hold those few special someones close. *We can see people through a lens of compassion and acceptance and detachment. *We can hone in on o

If you want to practice what I call kindfulness mindfulness and your mind is very noisy and unfocused, here are three more ideas I heard Matthew Bretsilver, meditation teacher extraordinaire, suggest. I’ve added my own twists. 1. Make sure you are at peak wakefulness when you are ready to sit on the cushion. Some squats or lunges or planks or wall push-ups or toe raises really help. 2. Go to the forest or park or your backyard, lay down on the ground and look up at the trees.

I love clean slates, tablas rasas, to begin again. Every morning is such a chance. I wake up and for a moment everything is new and fresh. I begin again. Rosh Hashanah is technically the birthday of the world. It begins the evening of Sept. 11th and ushers in 10 days of reflection, repair and renewal. The whole idea is to clear our personal slates, to ask forgiveness, to forgive, to reestablish our goals for the new year, and to find at-one-ment within. I love celebrating thi

September always seems like a good starting place for a tabla rasa of sorts. Maybe its because school starts up again; the harvest time gives us amazing jewels from the earth; the year is rounding its corner towards January; and the Jewish high holy holidays around this time promise a clean slate. So I am holding on to the kindfulness in my mindfulness practice. And holding on to a few helpful techniques for quieting my mind. 1. One helpful hint while sitting or even during p

Someone said to me the other day that the three ages of humans are 'youth, maturity and you-look-great'! I chuckled, nodding. They followed with a joke about an elephant standing in the middle of a room with people all around them saying, 'And I am right there and still no one acknowledges me!' That poor elephant! I never thought of its perspective before. But that is not the point. I used to have an elephant collection because they were my favorite animal. Stuffed animal ele

I finally have something to put on my bucket list! Here it is: Making friends with Time. Having time. Taking time. Enjoying the time I have. I have always had a strained relationship with time. I had to make every second count. I had to do three things at once. There was never enough time so I had to be super fast and uber efficient and super productive. Now I just want to have a friendly relationship with time. I don't want to be too busy. I don't want to multi-task. I don't

How are things with your spirit? Someone asked me this the other day and I was touched. What a thoughtful question. And so wonderfully open to interpretation. My spirit has been soaring of late. After 15 months of engagement and planning, my daughter married two weeks ago and everything went so beautifully! It was perfect! I was so proud of my daughters and so grateful for dear friends and family to share it with, and for the lessons that linger. I am at peace with time and s

When it comes to what they want to happen to their bodies after their death, most people prefer cremation. Despite what you might expect, the idea of being buried in a big expensive casket and put deep into the ground, does not appeal to everyone. Nowadays, it’s hard for many folks to get to visit graveside. Keeping your loved one's cremains in an urn feels sacred. It is also very convenient and flexible whether you want to keep or spread those ashes on a mountain top at suns

Is there a lump in your oatmeal or your throat? Here is a litmus test someone in my Death Cafe described as a way to discern the most appropriate response to a situation. I have found this so helpful. I invite you to try it. Ask yourself these three questions about your situation: Is there a lump in my oatmeal? Is there a lump in my throat? Is there a lump in my breast? Today when a little situation regarding plans for my daughter's wedding next week (!) seemed like a lump in

I came out as sick! Last week I presented my journey to finding wellness for myself as a presenter at the Institute for Behavioral Health and Wellness Training's conference. I named my little workshop 'Becoming a Wise Self Healer'. They operative word is 'becoming'. I have had a lot of health challenges or what I label chronic, complex conditions. I started with hypoglycemic reactions to the standard American diet (SAD) that plagued me in my earliest memories and was compoun

What is the antidote to shame? It is self compassion. Makes sense, right? As an end of life doula, I sometimes work with people who are dealing with a lot of regret, which is all tied up with deep shame. According to Kristin Neff, guru of all things compassion, "We can see why when we consider the three core components of self-compassion and their opposites, which are mindfulness vs. over-identification, common humanity vs. isolation, and kindness vs. judgment." Shame takes u

Did hospice really kill your brother? I hear things like this often. That hospice overmedicated a loved one who died from too much of a painkiller like morphine. Or that hospice didn't seek to revive their parent when they coded. Or that hospice wasn't available when they were needed the most. I want to say hospice is an incredible service, available for free for all residents of the USA. It has the honor of being one of the rare bills signed into law on its first try. (Most

I love hearing what people regret as they turn towards the end of their lives. I know that is where the lessons are. The holding on, the shame, the guilt, and ultimately the letting go. The regret reveals what we truly care about, what values we hold dear, and who we love. Regrets are not to be feared but to be explored and embraced as our teachers.

Happy Anniversary to the Elisabeth Kubler Ross Foundation and Mission Hospice for 6 years of virtual death cafes! It has been my honor to be the facilitator of these sweet and supportive conversations about death and dying, grief and loss, for all this time, along with powerhouse Susan Barber. We used to do it every week after the pandemic began and we kept that up for about two years. Then Susan moved on and I became the host with her subbing for me at times. Slowly we went