Final Holidays
When it comes to helping your clients through the holidays, as with any other challenge, what they might want or need won’t necessarily be what you might expect. But as always with grief, as long as you make space and listen, your clients will let you know the best way to help them through.
Assess Your Acomplishments
No matter what you have gone through over the past year, there is good news: you’re still here, and you’re almost a year farther along in your journey than you were when 2023 began.
The Little Things
The reason we remind ourselves and each other to be grateful is because genuine gratitude increases our happiness. It feels good to consider all of the comforts and blessings we possess, but it’s easy to stop looking at the blessings we see every day, the gifts that nearly everybody has.
Giving Gratitude
When we thank someone, we are not only expressing appreciation. We are reminding them that they still have something to offer and that what they have to offer—their wisdom, their smile, or just their trust—is valued. And that reminds them that they are valued.
End-of-Life Transition
When a death doula becomes involved in the transition process, their job is to step back and look at the whole picture. The medical workers will do their work and the funeral workers will do theirs—the doula’s job is to see what isn’t being handled, and to figure out the best way to fill in the gaps.
Remembrance Holidays
A lot of people would describe Halloween as the most “fun” holiday of the year. Dressing up in wild costumes, free candy exchange, general mischief—whether you like a tame and friendly experience or an intense fright fest, Halloween has a little something for everybody.
Rituals For Your Family
When death touches a family, it is always going to cause sadness and stress. Knowing what to do—that is, having a plan—can lessen that stress, sometimes by a great deal. And the “plan” used to follow those well-known, traditional rituals. People knew what to do because it was the same thing they had always done before. But nowadays, either through choice or forgetfulness, people are not turning to those rituals the way they used to.
