What does it mean to train to be a death doula for your community? This is a question a group of Indigenous youth in Canada grappled with as part of the Death Doula Mentorship Program, created by Blackbird Medicines and the Indigenous death doula collective. Chrystal Wàban Toop, founder of Blackbird Medicines, joined us to talk about how early experiences with grief grounded her in the the work she does as a life spectrum doula and her commitment to helping people reconnect with traditional knowledge and cultural practices to guide individual, family, and community transitions throughout the life span.  Learn more about Blackbird Medicines and follow them on Instagram & Facebook. Read more about the  Indigenous Death Doula Mentorship Program. 

The Indigenous Death Doula Mentorship Program - Chrystal Wàban Toop

Remember the last time you tried to talk about grief and suddenly everyone left the room? Grief Out Loud is opening up this often avoided conversation because grief is hard enough without having to go through it alone. We bring you a mix of personal stories, tips for supporting children, teens, and yourself, and interviews with bereavement professionals.  Platitude and cliché-free, we promise! Grief Out Loud is hosted by Jana DeCristofaro and produced by The Dougy Center for Grieving Children & Families in Portland, Oregon.

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 Have you ever heard someone’s voice in your head and suddenly you're transported to a time and place when you were with them? This phenomenon is what Lissa Soep explores in Other People’s Words: Friendship, Loss, and the Conversations That Never End, her book about the intimacy of friendship and how words and language keep people with us, even after they die. After the deaths of her friends, Jonnie and Christine, Lissa found comfort in this idea of them living on through their words.   We discuss:  Lissa's friendships with Jonnie & Christine Grieving a sudden death vs one from a long-term illness The unique nature of friendships formed in our 20's How Jonnie & Christine's come back to Lissa through their words The Russian critic Mikhail Bahktain's concept of double voicing What Lissa's learned about how to support others who are grieving  Lissa Soep is a senior editor for audio at Vox Media and special projects producer and senior scholar-in-residence at YR Media. She has a PhD from Stanford, where she first started writing about Bakhtin.

The Intimacy Of Friendship - Lissa Soep & Other People's Words

Cristina Chipriano, LCSW, Dougy Center's Director of Equity & Community Outreach and Melinda Avila, MSW, CEO of OYEN Emotional Wellness Center, are committed to changing the landscape of grief support for Latino families. They bring personal and professional grief experiences to the work of ensuring that every Latino family has access to dual language grief support that honors their cultural values.    We discuss:  Cristina & Melinda's personal connection to this work Why it's important now, in 2024, to have this conversation What is unique about grief & grief support in the Latino community The concept of family in the Latino community  How grief challenges our sense of self and identity The ways people have been taught to suffer in silence How culture informs grief and grief informs culture Why it's critical for services to be truly bilingual The barriers to accessing services The first thing service providers should be thinking about when meeting with a Latino family Cristina & Melinda's hopes for the future of grief support for Latino families  This episode is the first in our 2024 three-part series highlighting the voices of communities who have historically been underrepresented in the grief world. The series is part of an ongoing collaboration between Dougy Center and The New York Life Foundation. We are deeply grateful for New York Life Foundation's tireless support and advocacy for children and teens who are grieving. 

Changing The Landscape Of Grief Support For Latino Families

 We cannot separate grief from the context in which it occurs. This is true for Nicole Chung whose adopted parents died just two years apart in 2018 and 2020. The world of 2018 was very different than that of 2020. In 2018, Nicole and her mother could grieve for her father, together and in person. In 2020, Nicole was on the other side of the country, grieving for her mother in isolation during the early days of the pandemic. The other context that played a role in her parents' lives and their deaths is the structural inequality that exists in the U.S. economy and end of life care. Nicole chronicles all of this in her new memoir, A Living Remedy.  We discuss:  How hard it is to describe people and what they mean to us What it was like to be cut off from more traditional grief rituals during the pandemic Grieving an unexpected vs (more) expected death Learning to distinguish between guilt and regret How grounding her parents' deaths in a larger context helped alleviate some of her guilt The pressures Nicole felt to care for her parents as an only child in a working class family What it costs to die and grieve in the U.S. The unacknowledged grief of being a transracial adoptee Approaching the 4-year anniversary of her mother's death   Nicole Chung’s A Living Remedy was named a Notable Book of 2023 by The New York Times and a Best Book of the Year by over a dozen outlets, including Time, USA Today, Harper's Bazaar, Esquire, Electric Literature, and TODAY. Her 2018 debut, the national bestseller All You Can Ever Know, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a semifinalist for the PEN Open Book Award, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and an Indies Choice Honor Book. Chung’s writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Time, The Guardian, GQ, Slate, Vulture, and many other publications. Previously, she was digital editorial director at the independent publisher Catapult, where she helped lead its magazine to two National Magazine Awards; before that, she was the managing editor of The Toast and an editor at Hyphen magazine. In 2021, she was named to the Good Morning America AAPI Inspiration List honoring those “making Asian American history right now.” Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in the Washington, DC area.  

A Living Remedy - Nicole Chung

Maybe you're familiar with the phrase, "You can't go around grief, you have to go through it." Or, "You have to feel your feelings." If you're like a lot of people, you might cringe and also wonder, "What does that actually mean?" Grief isn't linear, and it's not something to get through - and yet, a lot of people appreciate having some sense of what to expect and what to do with it all. That's where Claire Bidwell Smith's new book, Conscious Grieving, comes in. Offered as a framework, not a formula, Claire suggests four ways to orient towards grief: entering, engaging, surrendering, and transforming. Claire comes to this work with her lived experience of losing both of her parents to cancer by the time she was twenty-five. She's a licensed therapist, international speaker, and the author of five books.  We discuss:  What Claire's parents would think of her work How she stays connected to them The rise of anxiety in grief The pressure to "move on" from grief How those who are grieving carry the burden of educating others What Claire does to manage health anxiety The four orientations of Conscious Grieving How important community can be when it comes to grief Where Claire currently is with her grief Both sides of the compassion coin  Listen to our previous conversation with Claire, Ep. 109 - Grief & Anxiety. 

Conscious Grieving - Claire Bidwell Smith, LCPC

In 2015, Diane Kalu was living in Nigeria with her husband and their three young children. One day, about eight weeks after the birth of their third child, Diane’s husband went to work and never returned. A few days later she got the news that  he dad died. She was suddenly a widow, responsible for raising three children under the age of five, in a country with several widowhood customs and traditions that are harmful to women. Thankfully, Diane had her mother to help her survive those early days of widowhood. Then, about five years after her husband's death, Diane's mother also died. Through both of these losses, Diane discovered a lot about herself, including a passion for helping others. That led her to start the WiCare Lekota Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting widows in Nigeria through social, emotional, financial, and educational support programs.  We discuss:  Grieving for her mother Telling her children their grandmother died How her mother supported her after her husband died Grief brain fog and how Diane recovered her memory with singing & sticky notes Widowhood customs & traditions that are harmful for women The ways Diane broke with community expectations for widows Pity vs. compassion The mindset that helped Diane survive What Diane's husband would think of who she is now Starting the WiCare Lekota Foundation to support other widows  WiCare on Facebook

The Indigenous Death Doula Mentorship Program - Chrystal Wàban Toop

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