How to help a grieving friend, as well as what is NOT helpful
Learn things you can apply immediately. In today’s episode, Kathy Helgeson, a certified funeral celebrant at O’Connell Family Funeral Homes, joins us to discuss how to help a grieving friend. What’s helpful. What’s not. How shifting your view could help you, as well as someone grieving the loss of a loved one. Links mentioned in […]
How Positive Affirmations Can Help The Grieving Process
Losing a loved one is one of the most significant and stressful life events that all humans must experience. Navigating grief will be different for each person but it can be really helpful to validate the sadness before trying to move through it. Affirmations are a helpful tool for dealing with intense feelings of grief […]
Remembering Mom on Mother’s Day
Remembering your mom on Mother’s Day can be a moment of great joy and much appreciation. But it can also be a moment of intense sadness if you can’t share this day with your mom. May is a time of warmer weather, plants emerging from their hiding place, the smell of lilacs, as well as […]
New podcast! Funeral etiquette – What to wear, what to say…
Listen to our latest Good Grief podcast, where we talk about the unspoken (but essential!) rules we should follow when we attend a visitation or funeral service. Please share this with a friend that you think would benefit from it.
Grief & the holidays meditation series
Thank you to everyone who joined us at O’Connell Family Funeral Homes for this guided meditation series, lead by Chantal Doriott of Mindful Way Coaching. We’d like to provide you with access to these resources throughout the month so you could do these meditations each day if you wish. Sadness during the holidays Easing Grief […]
Our grief just got way more complicated
Grief is deep and poignant distress caused by bereavement, something that we have lost or deprived of. Grief is consistent, relentless, unwavering, and unbiased. It knows no boundaries. It is not afraid to get its grips on you whether you are male or female or young or old. It pays zero attention to race, economic […]
Helpful advice for grieving during the Holiday season
Holidays are filled with traditions, but when someone you used to share those moments with has died, managing grief during the holiday season can be particularly challenging. Mental and physical preparation are your best tools for managing the feelings that may accompany holidays. While family members, particularly children, may want things to be as they’ve […]
How did they die?
Imagine you’ve just gotten an important phone call from a friend that one of your favorite coworkers just died. You’re in disbelief. You just talked to them! What happened?? No one seems to know. It is a heartbreaking situation, and you don’t want to sound insensitive, but you want to know what happened. You check […]
Paths to Peace Grief Support Group
“Grieving is as natural as crying when you are hurt, sleeping when you are tired, or eating when you are hungry… It is nature’s way of healing a broken heart.” ~Doug Manning The death of someone we love changes our lives forever. And the movement from the “before” to the “after” is almost always a long, painful […]
Sleep and grief don’t always get along!
The death of someone we love breaks our hearts, and grief sets in. Grief’s synonyms are sorrow, misery, sadness, pain, distress, agony, torment, heartache, desolation, dejection, and angst…. Ok, I think you get it! Grief is overwhelming and knows no boundaries. But besides emotional feelings, it causes a myriad of physical issues too. When we […]
When the holiday’s aren’t merry and bright
Loss is a common everyday fact of life. Even more so, are the emotions and reactions that follow them. But with the holidays approaching, it seems our grief gets amplified and worse. TV commercials make it appear everyone is happy and cheery during the Holidays. Festive dinners, cocktail parties, shopping sprees, and holiday decorations focus […]
It’s time to rethink the stages of grief.
Five stages of grief?? I think not! The Kubler Ross stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), also known as the 5 stages of grief, were first outlined in 1969, when Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s book “On Death and Dying” was published. Her work was a reflection of the grief process of patients who had been diagnosed with terminal illness. Her work would become the […]
