Ep. 445 Grief and Bereavement on the Hospice Journey with Barbara Karnes RN

End-of-Life University

Learn about grief from the perspective of two hospice providers on their personal experiences of loss.

This week I’m happy to be speaking once again to my recurring guest Barbara Karnes RN, hospice nurse, author, thought leader and expert on end-of-life care and the dynamics of dying. Barbara is the author of “the little blue book” used by hospices around the world to teach families what to expect as their loved one dies. She is also the author of My Friend, I Care, a book about grief that she designed to be used as a sympathy card. She discusses the bereavement support that is a required benefit of hospice care and we delve deeply into our own grief experiences and what we learned from them. Learn more about Barbara’s work at her website:

bkbooks.com

Get the book here

YouTube Channel

Listen here:

This episode includes:

• What hospices are required to provide for bereavement care
• Why grievers may not attend bereavement groups offered by hospices
• How hospice volunteers can be helpful with bereavement
• Why some grievers may prefer more solitude and less interaction with others in the early days after a death
• Learning how to live without a loved one who has died is the ongoing work of grief
• The grief we learned about in textbooks is not the same as the real experience of deep grief
• Why support groups may be more helpful later in the grief process
• Anticipatory grief that occurs from the moment of diagnosis
• Journaling as a tool for grieving
• How our grief experiences can be sacred to us

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Sign up for Help Texts to get grief support as an individual or an organization
• Toby Keith video
• Previous interview with Mary Francis O’Connor on The Grieving Brain
• NEW Gift Guides for Caregivers, People Receiving Care, and People Who are Grieving
• Get my two new books!! Stories from the Dark Night and The Tao of Death
• Get EOLU Podcast Merch here
• Conversations on Death with ChatGPT – Audiobook here; Print Book here
• Leave me a message by email: [e-mail], Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
• Support your local bookstore by buying my books on Bookshop and Indiebound: 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying and The Journey from Ego to Soul
• Subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Stitcher Radio
• Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
• Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and receive free gifts like the “Mind if we talk about death?” mini-poster or Love Your Life sticker or coffee mug. PLUS get our regular bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, monthly What to Watch recommendations, Behind the Scenes Bonus content, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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• Donate on Paypal

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