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Practical Strategies for Holiday Survival

Posted on December 11, 2024 - by Gloria Horsley

The holiday season can be particularly challenging for those who have lost loved ones. In a heartfelt discussion on the Open to Hope Conversations podcast, Dr. Gloria Horsley and her daughters, Dr. Heidi Horsley and Rebecca Barra, shared their personal experiences and professional insights about managing grief during the holidays. Understanding Holiday Grief The first holiday season after losing a family member often proves to be the most difficult. Rebecca Barra, who lost her father four years ago, initially resisted setting up holiday decorations or participating in festivities. Despite having four children, she struggled with acknowledging the holidays without her […]

For Widows Navigating Finances

Posted on December 9, 2024 - by Gloria Horsley

The journey through widowhood presents unique financial challenges that many individuals find themselves unprepared to face. During a recent Open to Hope Conversations podcast, financial expert Kathleen Real shared valuable insights about helping widows navigate their financial futures after losing their partners. Understanding the Three Stages of Widowhood Real, author of “Moving Forward on Your Own: A Financial Guidebook for Widows,” outlines three distinct stages that most widows experience: Grief Stage: Characterized by shock and emotional turmoil, making it difficult to make clear financial decisions Growth Stage: A period of normalization when widows begin to take control of their financial […]

Faith is Like Insurance When a Loved One Dies

Posted on December 5, 2024 - by Nan Zastrow

Faith is Like Insurance The summer of 2011 will be remembered as a season of violent storms and will be marked by many lives that were turned upside down by the havoc of mother nature. Tornados ravaged Alabama. Hurricane Irene washed the east coast and 11 states with flooding and chaos. Winds and driving rain ravaged the country creating destruction; and flood waters broke records from half-century ago. People were trapped in their homes. Rescue crews worked to dig through the rubble for survivors or bodies of those not so fortunate. The devastation was so widespread that it took days […]

Finding Hope Through Breathwork

Posted on December 2, 2024 - by Stephen Stott

Finding Hope Through Breathwork Grief is a universal experience, yet it is deeply personal. It touches every corner of our lives, reshaping our identities, relationships, and even our understanding of the world. For some, it comes like a tidal wave, sudden and overpowering. For others, it settles in slowly, like a fog that doesn’t lift. No matter how grief manifests, it often brings questions we don’t know how to answer: How do I move forward? Can I ever feel whole again? As someone who has walked this path, I’ve learned that grief doesn’t just affect the heart or mind—it takes […]

Valuable Lessons about Holiday Grief

Posted on December 1, 2024 - by Nan Zastrow

Valuable Lessons about Holiday Grief “The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” (Russell M. Nelson) Holidays were always a Big Deal in our family until the death of my son. They began with family and friends gathering for Halloween costume parties and ended only when the calendar flipped to a new year. The only thing that could make them better was if the next year could be better than the last! When my son died in 1993, we made a lot of changes […]

Thanksgiving Darkness

Posted on November 28, 2024 - by Mark Liebenow

Thanksgiving Darkness Coming home after work in late November, I hear the sounds of children laughing and look down from the BART station at the playground of St. Leander’s School. Children are running around, playing kickball, and delighting in life. My wife Evelyn tutored at the school after hours for several years as her health slowly improved after a year spent in bed exhausted by Candida, then she was hired to work full-time. But it proved to be too much too soon in her recovery, and she ran out of energy after a few weeks. Searching for what she could […]

Synchronicity in Grief

Posted on November 26, 2024 - by Mary Jane Hurley Brant

What is Synchronicity in Grief? Have you ever had an experience where you said, “Wow, what a coincidence.” Maybe it was more. Maybe it was actually a “synchronicity.” Let me explain through a Jungian perspective. Carl Jung, the prominent Swiss psychiatrist, believed synchronicity meant “more than a coincidence.” Jung, the thinker and founder of analytical psychology, connected synchronicities to the bigger world: the collective unconscious. These were not just assumptions on his part. Jung believed the collective unconscious was universal (meaning common to all people) because he listened and researched for decades the overlapping stories and myths that people shared […]

The Emotions of Spouse Loss

Posted on November 25, 2024 - by Beverly Chantalle McManus

The Emotions of Spouse Loss My entry into widowhood began in 2002 when our family was enjoying a long-awaited summer vacation in Hawaii and my husband Steve noticed he was having trouble swallowing. It wasn’t just that it was hard to swallow, but it actually hurt. He promised to get it checked out when we returned home. But neither of us expected the first two words that came out of the doctor’s mouth when he returned for his lab results: “It’s cancer.” What? How could this be? Just a few weeks earlier Steve had been surfing, snorkeling, hiking all over […]

Managing Holiday Grief

Posted on November 24, 2024 - by Sarah Kravits

Managing Holiday Grief It was Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, the first Thanksgiving without my brother, just months after a drunk driver had ended his life. I needed to get some shopping done and I found myself at a mall. The instant I stepped inside, I was enveloped in holiday atmosphere. Everything shone and glittered, music rang out, scents of pine and cinnamon candles mingled with the smell of perfumes being sprayed on shoppers in the department stores. Delight hung in the air. But I was feeling holiday grief. It felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I couldn’t […]

Yes, I’m Still Grieving

Posted on November 22, 2024 - by Sarah Kravits

Yes, I’m Still Grieving If you or someone you care about has ever suffered a painful loss, you’ve likely heard, communicated, or thought something like the following: That earnest wish that a person could “move on” or “get over” the intensity of grief. The well-meaning concern that someone is “dwelling on,” “wallowing in,” or “stuck in” grief. That kind directive to “focus on the positive” or work to get one’s “life back.” We often feel it, deeply, when friends or family members are grieving. Perhaps we experience their hurt empathically, or maybe we sense its weight because we wish for […]