News & Press
In Praise of Slow Funerals
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Have you ever noticed that we are speed-obsessed these days, even though faster is often not better? A century ago, the Industrial Revolution brought about mass production and with it an emphasis on speed, efficiency, and productivity. Then...Watch your words: The importance of semantics in funeral service
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Editor’s note: This article is excerpted from Dr. Wolfelt’s book, “Funeral Home Customer Service A-Z.” Have you ever noticed the power of words? Well-chosen words give structure to an entire chain of experiences....The Paradoxes of Mourning: Part 1 of 3
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Creating Hello Opportunities Paradox 1: Families must say hello before they can say goodbye. A paradox is a seemingly self-contradictory statement or situation that is in fact often true. The paradox of mourning we will consider together in...The Paradoxes of Mourning: Part 2 of 3
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. The Dark Night of the Soul Paradox 2: Mourners must make friends with the darkness before they can enter the light. A paradox is a seemingly self-contradictory statement or situation that is in fact often true. The paradox of mourning we...Helping Yourself Heal When Someone You Care About Dies of a Drug Overdose
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. A friend or family member has died of a drug overdose. Death and grief are always hard, but when someone dies from drug use, understanding your feelings and knowing what to think and say about the death can be especially difficult. This...Grieving the Death of a Celebrity
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. When someone we have admired from afar dies, it’s normal and natural to experience grief. This article will help you understand your thoughts and feelings over the death of a celebrity and find healing ways to mourn. What is grief? Let’s...Why Is the Funeral Ritual Important?
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “When words are inadequate, have a ritual.” — Author Unknown Rituals are symbolic activities that help us, together with our families and friends, express our deepest thoughts and feelings about life’s most important events. Baptism...Helping Your Family Heal After Stillbirth
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Stillbirth is a profound loss Few events in life bring about such warm and wonderful feelings of anticipation as the announcement of a pregnancy. As soon as you and your family learned you were expecting, you naturally began to have hopes...Reaching Out for Help When You Are Grieving
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “Action is the antidote to despair.” – Joan Baez When someone you love dies, you must mourn if you are to renew your capacity for love. In other words, mourning brings healing. But healing also requires the support and...Living in the Shadow of the Ghosts of Grief: An Introduction
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” — Kahlil Gibran A central truth is that all of us as human beings are connected in our experiences of loss and grief. If you have picked up this newsletter and are...Helping Yourself Heal During the Holiday Season
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Holidays are often difficult for anyone who has experienced the death of someone loved. Rather than being times of family togetherness, sharing and thanksgiving, holidays can bring feelings of sadness, loss and emptiness. Love does not...Helping Yourself Heal When a Pet Dies
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. A pet is a family member, too A pet is often a member of the family. In fact, surveys show some interesting facts about pet owners: 84 percent consider their animals family members; 99 percent talk to their pets, and 54 percent celebrate...Helping Your Family Personalize a Funeral
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. If you are in the midst of planning a funeral, you may be feeling overwhelmed right now. Many details must be attended to. Many people must be contacted. Many decisions must be made. Your natural and necessary feelings of grief make these...Helping Teenagers Cope with Grief
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Each year thousands of teenagers experience the death of someone they love. When a parent, sibling, friend or relative dies, teens feel the overwhelming loss of someone who helped shape their fragile self-identities. And these feelings...Healing Your Traumatized Heart: Seeking Safety, Understanding, and Peace
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Someone you love has died a sudden, traumatic death. If you are in the early days of your grief journey, you are likely still feeling numbed by shock and disbelief. This is a normal and necessary step, for it is nature’s way of protecting...Helping a Friend in Grief
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “While the above guidelines will be helpful, it is important to recognize that helping a grieving friend will not be an easy task. You may have to give more concern, time and love that you ever knew you had. But this effort will be...Exploring the Uniqueness of Your Suicide Grief
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering.” —Ben Okri The wilderness of your grief is your wilderness. The death of someone from suicide...Helping Your Family Heal After Miscarriage
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Miscarriage is a significant loss It is normal and natural to hurt deeply after miscarriage. While others may imply or outright tell you that miscarriage happens too early on for you to be attached to the baby, or that miscarriage is so...Helping a Grandparent Who Is Grieving
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “When a grandchild dies, grandparents grieve twice. They mourn the loss of the child and they feel the pain of their own child’s suffering. Sometimes we forget about the grandparents when a child dies. You can help by not...Helping a Grieving Friend in the Workplace
By Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “Grief is a long, painful journey. As the friend of a grieving coworker, you can choose to help make the journey more tolerable. Tell your coworker how sorry you are and listen if she wants to talk. Be available to her in the difficult...Helping Yourself Heal When an Adult Sibling Dies
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and...Helping Yourself Heal When a Parent Dies
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Your mother or father has died. Whether you had a good, bad or indifferent relationship with the parent who died, your feelings for him or her were probably quite strong. At bottom, most of us love our parents deeply. And they love us...Helping Children Understand Cremation
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. The adult as role model and helper A child you care about is grieving the loss of someone loved. If you, too, loved the person who died, you are now faced with the difficult but critical task of helping both yourself and the child heal....Helping Children with Funerals
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. The adult as role model and helper A child you care about is grieving. If you, too, loved the person who died, you are now faced with the difficult but critical task of helping both yourself and the child heal. Throughout the coming months...Helping Yourself Heal When Your Child Dies
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “The experience of grief is powerful. So, too, is your ability to help yourself heal. In doing the work of grieving, you are moving toward a renewed sense of meaning and purpose in your life.” ~ ~ ~ Allow yourself to mourn Your...Helping Children Cope With Grief
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Adults grieve. So do children. As an adult or child, experiencing grief means to “feel,” not just to “understand.” Anyone old enough to love is old enough to grieve. Even before children are able to talk, they grieve when someone loved...Helping Yourself Heal When Your Spouse Dies
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “The experience of grief is powerful. So, too, is your ability to help yourself heal. In doing the work of grieving, you are moving toward a renewed sense of meaning and purpose in your life.” ~ ~ ~ Acknowledge your loss Few...The Spiritual Path to Healing: An Introduction
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. After the death of someone loved, you are “torn apart” and have some very unique needs. Among these needs is to nurture yourself in five important areas: physically, emotionally, cognitively, socially, and spiritually. In the coming months,...Healing Your Grieving Body: Physical Practices for Mourners
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief.” – C.S. Lewis This article is in your hands because you are in mourning. You have been “torn apart” and have some very special needs right now. Among these special needs is to nurture...On the Journey to Healing: Seek Reconciliation, Not Resolution
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “Mourning never really ends. Only as time goes on, it erupts less frequently.” How do you ever find your way out of the wilderness of your grief? A number of psychological models describing grief refer to “resolution,” “recovery,”...The Importance of Hope
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “Today… I open my heart’s hand to allow… the touch of hope.” — Julia Cameron Someone you love has died. In your heart you have come to know your deepest pain. Your grief has brought challenges that seem beyond your own capacity to survive....Helping Dispel 5 Common Misconceptions About Grief
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Our society continues to perpetuate a number of misconceptions about grief and mourning. They may seem harmless, but I have found that they can quickly become hurdles to healing. This article describes five of the most common...You’re Not Going Crazy — You’re Grieving!
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. In his beautiful book A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis described his experience after the death of his wife. He wrote, “An odd by-product of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet… Perhaps the bereaved ought to...Nurturing Yourself When You’re Grieving
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “There is nothing in nature that can’t be taken as a sign of both mortality and invigoration.” — Gretel Ehrlich The word “bereaved,” which to our modern-day ears can sound like an old-fashioned term that only a funeral director might use,...The Journey Through Grief: The Six Needs of Mourning
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. The death of someone loved changes our lives forever. And the movement from the “before” to the “after” is almost always a long, painful journey. From my own experiences with loss as well as those of the thousands of grieving people I...Open to the Presence of Your Loss
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “In every heart there is an inner room, where we can hold our greatest treasures and our deepest pain.” – Marianne Williamson When someone you love dies, you come to know your deepest pain. From my own experiences with loss as well...Mustering the Courage to Mourn
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “Whatever you do, you need courage.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Loss brings uninvited pain into our lives. In opening to the presence of the pain of your loss, in acknowledging the inevitability of the pain, in being willing to gently...Helping Yourself Heal When Someone Dies
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Someone you love has died You are now faced with the difficult, but important, need to mourn. Mourning is the open expression of your thoughts and feelings regarding the death and the person who has died. It is an essential part of...The Mourner’s Bill of Rights
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Though you should reach out to others as you do the work of mourning, you should not feel obligated to accept the unhelpful responses you may receive from some people. You are the one who is grieving, and as such, you have certain “rights”...Finding the Right Words: Guidelines on How to Talk to Grieving Children About Death
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Through the years I have learned a great deal from many grieving children and their families. They have taught me which words work best when talking to children about death. Here are some general concepts I suggest companions use when...Exploring Your Feelings of Loss
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “There is no right response to death. You make it up as you go along.” – Joan Connor On your journey through the wilderness of your grief, a critical trail marker to be on the watch for is Touchstone Four, which guides you in...Helping a Suicide Survivor Heal
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. Historian Arnold Toynbee once wrote, “There are always two parties to a death: the person who dies and the survivors who are bereaved.” Unfortunately, many survivors of suicide suffer alone and in silence. The silence that surrounds them...Touchstone Two (Part Two) – Dispel the Misconceptions About Grief
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. In the last issue we explored some of the most common misconceptions about grief—and how those misconceptions can pull you off the path to healing. Following are five more misconceptions to be on the watch for. Misconception 6: When someone...Touchstone Two (Part One) – Dispel the Misconceptions About Grief
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost As you journey through the wilderness of your grief, if you mourn openly and authentically, you will come to find a...Embracing the Sadness of Grief
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. “In every heart there is an inner room, where we can hold our greatest treasures and our deepest pain.” — Marianne Williamson Sadness is a hallmark symptom of grief, which in turn is the consequence of losing something we care about. In...
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