Let's Talk Death! ... a HealGrief® program

Dr. Kerr has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, experience end-of-life dreams and visions that are unlike any other. Described as “more real than real,” these end-of-life experiences resurrect past relationships, meaningful events and themes of love and forgiveness, restore life’s meaning and mark the transition from distress to comfort and acceptance.

Drawing on interviews with over 1,400 patients and more than a decade of quantified data for an evidence-based and peer-reviewed published study, Dr. Kerr reveals that pre-death dreams and visions are extraordinary occurrences that humanize the dying process. He shares how his patients’ stories point to death as not solely about the end of life, but as the final chapter of humanity’s transcendence. 

Dr. Kerr’s book also illuminates the benefits of these phenomena for the bereaved, who find solace in seeing their loved ones pass with a sense of calm closure. 

Additionally, by showing what doctors are currently doing wrong when it comes to end of life care, he explains how to add this new awareness to their practices.

Beautifully written, with astonishing real-life characters and stories, Death Is But a Dream is an important contribution to our understanding of medicine’s and humanity’s greatest mystery.

According to Dr. Kerr, “Dying includes more than the physical suffering that we observe. There is a better, less fearful aspect to end of life. One that validates the life lead, lessens the fear of death and often returns to us those things that we have loved the most.” 

Dr. Kerr’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, and the BBC, among others. His talk on TEDx has garnered over two million views on YouTube.

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In this episode the Kramer’s share how their daughter, Maddie, only 2 1/2 years old, gave them life and inspiration even in her death. They share how they speak of Maddie every day talking with her little sister who only had Maddie alive for less than a year.

On January 4th, 2018, their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Maddie, lost her battle after she vivaciously fought a rare form of spinal cancer. On that day, the Kramers made a promise to remember Maddie’s life as an inspiration. They founded a non-profit, Dancing While Cancering, to honor her joyful life and bright spirit, to help spread joy to other children with cancer, and remind families there can still be joy and inspiration after diagnosis.

Through Dancing While Cancering, Scott and Pammy supply partner hospitals with ‘Smile Packs,’ which are filled with musical instruments, a wireless speaker, room decorations and other items to make a hospital room feel more like a home, just like they did for Maddie. In 14 months since launching, the Kramer’s have 14 partner hospitals in nine states that give a ‘Smile Pack’ to each newly diagnosed pediatric cancer patient.

To mark two years since Maddie’s death, the Kramers published their second book in her honor, ‘The Miracles That Follow.’

Their first book, ‘Maddie’s Miracles,’ encompasses the time between Maddie’s diagnosis and the day she died, while their second book, ‘The Miracles That Follow" shares their journey from the day Maddie died to when you found a new purpose.

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In this episode Jim talks about his son’s challenging life, the impact Luke’s death had on his family dynamics and how new bonds needed to be found with family members. He shares about his personal journaling, now a book called “Lyrics of a Broken Heart: A Father’s Journey Toward Wholeness,” and how it transformed his grief into hope and healing.

James Mueller, a father of three children, grew up on a dairy farm in the beautiful countryside of Upstate New York, in the heart of the Mohawk Valley. After graduating from Cornell University, he attended seminary, obtaining a master’s degree with high honors with an emphasis in pastoral care. With his son’s condition challenged by the harsh winters in Chicago, the family moved to Delray Beach, Florida. Following a career in higher education (Cornell, Northwestern, Lake Forest GSM) and healthcare administration (Advocate Healthcare in Chicago), Jim established his consulting practice to provide governance, organizational development, and philanthropy counsel to organizations throughout the United States and the Caribbean.

For the front flap of the book I have prepared this introduction:  In Lyrics of a Broken Heart, Mueller writes “The loss of Luke was dissociating and unhinging. I was groping in the darkness, in sadness, with no sense of how to move forward in a life without my son. The writing was the key to my sanity. As I continued to write, I discovered I was creating a pathway through grief toward emotional wholeness.”

Turning his private journaling into a book, Mueller shares with the reader the deepest emotions a father can experience from the loss of his child. Through lyric prose, he plumbs the depth of his journey, from devastating loss to emotional recovery. The experience of loss can be so potent that some may seal off our their emotions—as the author alludes in “The Cavern of My Lament.” Speaking in a voice that is honest, raw, soft, and vulnerable, he lays bare his world, inviting us to feel, to embrace, to trust our own process without judgment. In doing so, he gives us permission, if we choose, to discover our own pathway, our own authentic journey.

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In this episode Dr. Prentice talks about how her faith was shattered after her daughter’s death and the anger she lived with until her husband’s death. She speaks of her “shared death experience” during her husband’s death eight years later and how that restored her faith and ability to love and be happy again.

Dr. Sharon Prentice is a psychotherapist and spiritual counselor whose work focuses on helping patients process the grief of losing a loved one.

Becoming Starlight is her memoir of healing from the devastating loss of her daughter and husband. She experienced a unique spiritual experience, known as a Shared Death Experience (SDE) which gave her a peek into foreverness and a sense of peace that was otherworldly.

For more information, please visit https://sharonprentice.com

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In this episode Alexa shares her story on what would have been her daughter’s 8th birthday. She speaks on the struggles of grieving a twins death while celebrating the others birth and the choice she made, turning her anger into healing.

Alexa Bigwarfe is a wife, mother, proud veteran, a USA Today Best-Selling author, author coach, publisher, and podcaster. Her writing career began after her infant daughter passed away at 2 days old and she turned to writing for healing, which led to self-publishing. Now she guides other authors through the publishing and marketing process in her company Write|Publish|Sell and publishing houses Kat Biggie Press, Purple Butterfly Press, and Chrysalis Press. She is also the founder and host of the Women in Publishing Summit.

She founded a nonprofit, Sunshine After the Storm, after the loss of her infant daughter, to support grieving mothers. A spirited activist, Alexa enjoys bringing light to topics surrounding marginalized voices, particularly as they pertain to women and children. She lives in Columbia, SC with her husband, three living children destined to be activists too, and her dog.

Subscribe to Alexa’s Daily Author Minute Skills Briefing on Amazon Alexa

Author, Sunshine After the Storm: A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother

Author, Ditch the Fear and Just Write It! The No-Excuses Power Plan to Start Your First Book

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In this episode Anita speaks about her near death experience, what it taught her, and how it made a profound difference on how she chooses to live her life today.

Anita Moorjani, New York Times best-selling author of Dying to Be Me and her latest book, What If This is Heaven?, is a woman with a remarkable story! After a 4-year battle with cancer, Anita fell into a coma and was given days to live. As her doctors gathered to revive her, she journeyed into a near death experience (NDE) where she was given the choice to return to her physical form or to continue into this new realm. She chose the former, and when she regained consciousness, her cancer began to heal. To the amazement of her doctors, she was free of countless tumors and cancer indicators within weeks.

Her book Dying To Be Me has sold over a million copies worldwide, in over 45 languages. It has been named a Contemporary Classic and a Foreign Language Phenomena by her publishers (Hay House Inc.) It has now also been optioned by Hollywood producers to be made into a full-length feature film.

Anita was a protégé of the late, great Dr. Wayne Dyer, who brought her on to the world’s stage in 2011. She is a great speaker and has gone on to capture the hearts and attention of millions across the globe and has been a featured guest on The Dr. Oz Show, Fox News, The Today Show, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, the National Geographic Channel, The Pearl Report in Hong Kong, Headstart with Karen Davila in the Philippines, and many others. The United Kingdom’s prestigious publication, The Watkins Journal lists Anita among the top 100 of “The World’s Most Spiritually Influential Living People” for the 5th consecutive year.

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In this episode Colet shares her personal story with grief and how it changed her life and changed her too. She speaks about how others were waiting for her to be back to herself. They didn’t understand that her grief journey and it’s impact on her life had forever changed her.

After publishing her first article in a national magazine when she was fifteen, Colet Abedi knew she wanted to tell stories. She’s now an American novelist, screenwriter and television and film producer based in Los Angeles.

Abedi was head writer and show-runner for the FOX-owned MyNetworkTV serials, American Heiress and Fashion House where she wrote and oversaw over 100 episodes of the telenovelas. She was the creator and executive producer of Unsealed: Alien Filesand Unsealed: Conspiracy Files, which originally ran in syndication for four seasons with over 100 episodes, and is now on Netflix.

Colet is the co-author of the bestselling young adult fiction trilogy, The FAE Series. Abedi’s first solo contemporary romance novel was released in March 2014 and is titled, Mad Love and was a bestseller.

Since then she has written seven contemporary romances with her eighth, Trouble, to be released in 2019. Abedi’s solo debut young adult dystopian science fiction novel, Breed, will be released in 2019 and Birthday, set to be released in 2020. 

Abedi has recently co-produced the feature documentary, The Medicine, which follows one of the youngest spiritual leaders in Colombia, Taita Juanito Chindoy Chindoy and has sold two projects about the West Point Military Academy to A&E Studios. As well as her book and television career, Colet has a series in development with Blumhouse Productions and Lionsgate

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In this episode Alicia Coppola introduces her book, Gracefully Gone, and gets real about how her grief journey has changed her life and encourages all of us to “be loud” when it comes to grief.

Plan on seeing a lot of Alicia Coppola in 2019! Alicia is starring on the recently premiered CBS ALL ACCESS Why Women Kill, created by Marc Cherry. Alicia plays Sheila Masconi, a 1963 Brooklyn Girl, with a heart of gold and a mouth from the gutter, opposite Ginnifer Goodwin. Well known to TV audiences for the cult CBS show “Jericho,” she also recently reunited with one of the writers/producers from “Jericho” where she starred as Dr. Ana Castillo on the action/adventure blockbuster series Blood And Treasure which premiered in June. Coppola has also joined the cast of Fox’s “Empire” for season’s five and six in the recurring role of Meghan Conway.

Coppola was most recently seen in a recurring role on the 6th and 7th seasons of Showtime’s “Shameless” as the gutter mouthed Sue.  She has starred in television series TNT’s “Bull,” NBC’s “Cold Feet” and “Trinity” to name a few. She has recurred on CBS’s, “NCIS” and “NCIS LA,”  ABC FAMILY’s “Nine Lives Of Chloe King” and USA’s “Common Law” among many other shows. Coppola began her career with the role of Lorna Devon on NBC’s long running soap opera “Another World” and is highly recognizable for her guest-star roles on FX’s “Sons Of Anarchy,” CBS’s “Criminal Minds,” the iconic role of Talia Hale on MTV’s “Teen Wolf,” CBS’s “CSI”and “Two And a Half Men,” NBC’s “Law And Order; Criminal Intent,” “Crossing Jordan,” USA’s “Suits.” On the big screen some of her credits include National Treasure 2: Book Of  Secrets and We Are Your Friends.

You might also know Alicia’s voice as she has an extensive voice over career, as the tag voice of Acura, voice of Kikkoman, Publix, the trailer of Pedro Almodovar’s Volver, and “She Hulk” in the Iron Man games to name just a few.

Coppola is also a published author. Her book Gracefully Gone was published in 2013. Itis a decade long dialogue between her father Matt, and Alicia as he lay dying from brain cancer while she struggled to grow up within that murky shadow.  It is a fusion of two journals; her father’s writings from his 1980 diagnosis until his 1983 remission and her journal from 1989-1991 as she cared for him until his passing.  In 2018, Coppola wrote, directed and starred in Between Us, a short film based on her book. It has won Best Comedy/Dramedy at The 2018 London Independent Film Festival and Best Short Narrative at The 2019 My Hero International Festival.

Coppola is from Long Island, NY and holds a Bachelors Degree from NYU in Political Anthropology and Philosophy.  She currently lives in California with her husband and their three daughters. Coppola is A Global Ambassador for The Elisabeth Kübler Ross Foundation, is an advocate for Actively Moving Forward (AMF), a HealGrief program, and holds a position on the Board of Directors for HealGrief.

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In this episode Kate gives us a glimpse into what it’s like to be a photographer helping to capture the powerful memories of family during the end of life. Memories are not just about capturing the happy moments, but taking time to capture a moment in time and a way of life.

Kate Longly is the Owner of Eloise & Peas Photography, based in Madison, WI. She specializes in family photography ranging from maternity to senior sessions.

As a natural light photographer, she utilizes the outdoors and her home studio in her backyard. The goal is for all clients to have a stress-free session. That starts with having a client wardrobe at their disposal and the help from Kate to coordinate their clothes. 

When working with clients, fun is standard. That means bringing a fart gun for kids, making my signature duck noise, rolling around with the kids, and just playing with them. From there, the focus is on connections and emotions.

The work of Eloise & Peas is to highlight the connections between family members, the little smirk a child always has, or the random thing they do to find comfort. There is no perfect pose. Eloise & Peas strives to not only capture your family images but serve you in creating those memories where you can look back and say, “Remember when you always used to do _______-?”

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In this episode Emma discusses her own experience with grief and how the silence of others led her on a journey to create Grief Coach, a text messaging service empowering others to support those they love after a death loss.

Emma is a seasoned technology entrepreneur and award-winning change-agent, whose 25 year career leading online and mobile projects has included building tools to register young people to vote, creating online networks of support for families facing health challenges, and launching North America’s first online crisis intervention line. She also founded a scrappy, action-oriented, national non-profit focused on women & technology, that broke boundaries and developed leaders for 17 years.

Grief Coach combines Emma’s passion for mobile technology and engagement, with her deep commitment to giving people the confidence and tools they need to support each other through grief. She knows that, while nothing makes grief go away, supporting someone through loss is powerful and transformative for the supporter, and alters the trajectory for the grieving person too.

An MIT graduate and best-selling author, Emma started building online communities before Netscape was born. She’s developed online strategies and products for dozens of fledgling start-ups as well as large corporations such as Nike, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Virgin Mobile.

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