By Paula Stephens — 2020
Four and a half years after the death of my oldest son, I finally went to a grief support group for parents who have lost children.
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CLEAR ALL
Sadness is a central part of our lives, yet it’s typically ignored at work, hurting employees and managers alike.
If we can process our regrets with tenderness and compassion, we can use these hard memories as a part of our wisdom bank.
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Understanding the difference between a spiritual crisis and a mental illness is important to get to the root of the problem.
Spiritual “emergencies” require understanding from mental health professionals.
In most modern cultures, it’s common for people to feel uneasy about death. We express this discomfort by avoiding conversations on the topic and lowering our voices when speaking of the dead and dying.
With each diagnosis, knowing her life hung in the balance, she was “stunned, then anguished” and astonished by “how much energy it takes to get from the bad news to actually starting on the return path to health.”
Studies of dying patients who seek a hastened death have shown that their reasons often go beyond physical ones like intractable pain or emotional ones like feeling hopeless.
My Feb. 5 column, “A Heartfelt Appeal for a Graceful Exit,” prompted a deluge of information and requests for information on how people too sick to reap meaningful pleasure from life might be able to control their death.
Though I wince at the redundancy, funeral “pre-planning” is a phenomenon receiving increased attention, and a growing number of Web-based guides tell how to go about it. As www.funerals.org puts it: “Funeral planning starts at home.
Expectations surrounding Black masculinity, such as the requirement to be strong and stoic, have often prevented Black men from seeking mental health care. But it's possible to overcome this reluctance and make mental wellness a priority.
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