Book picks similar to
Words at the Threshold: What We Say as We're Nearing Death by Lisa Smartt
non-fiction
death
nonfiction
spirituality
The Art of Dying
Peter Fenwick - 2008
Peter Fenwick is an eminent neuropsychiatrist, academic and expert on disorders of the brain. His most compelling and provocative research has been into the end of life phenomena, including near-death experiences and deathbed visions of the dying person, as well as the experiences of hospice and palliative care workers and relatives of dying people. Dr. Fenwick believes that consciousness may be independent of the brain and so able to survive the death of the brain, a theory which has divided the scientific community. The "problem with death" is deeply rooted in our culture and the social organization of death rituals. Fenwick believes that with serious engagement and through further investigation of these phenomena, he can help change attitudes so that we in the West can face up to death, and embrace it as a significant and sacred part of life. We have become used to believing that we have to shield each other from the idea of death. Fear of death means we view it as something to be fought every step of the way.Aimed at a broad popular readership, The Art of Dying looks at how other cultures have dealt with death and the dying process (The Tibetan "death system", Swedenborg, etc.) and compares this with phenomena reported through recent scientific research. It describes too the experiences of health care workers who are involved with end of life issues who feel that they need a better understanding of the dying process, and more training in how to help their patients die well by overcoming the common barriers to a good death, such as unfinished business and unresolved emotions of guilt or hate.From descriptions of the phenomena encountered by the dying and those around them, to mapping out ways in which we can die a "good death", this book is an excellent basis for helping people come to terms with death.
After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond
Bruce Greyson - 2021
The medical world has generally ignored these “near-death experiences,” dismissing them as “tricks of the brain” or wishful thinking. But after his patients started describing events that he could not just sweep under the rug, Dr. Bruce Greyson began to investigate.As a physician without a religious belief system, he approached near-death experiences from a scientific perspective. In After, he shares the transformative lessons he has learned over four decades of research. Our culture has tended to view dying as the end of our consciousness, the end of our existence—a dreaded prospect that for many people evokes fear and anxiety.But Dr. Greyson shows how scientific revelations about the dying process can support an alternative theory. Dying could be the threshold between one form of consciousness and another, not an ending but a transition. This new perspective on the nature of death can transform the fear of dying that pervades our culture into a healthy view of it as one more milestone in the course of our lives. After challenges us to open our minds to these experiences and to what they can teach us, and in so doing, expand our understanding of consciousness and of what it means to be human.
The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America
Ann Neumann - 2016
From church basements to hospital wards to prison cells, Neumann charts the social, political, religious, and medical landscape to explore how we die today. The Good Death weaves personal accounts with a historical exploration of the movements and developments that have changed the ways we experience death. With the diligence of a journalist and the compassion of a caregiver, Neumann provides a portrait of death in the United States that is humane, beautifully written, and essential to our greater understanding of the future of end-of-life care.
Glynis Has Your Number: Discover What Life Has in Store for You Through the Power of Numerology!
Glynis McCants - 2005
Now she's set to help readers lead the life they want with her simple numerology system. Using an ancient but surprisingly easy system of numbers, Glynis will show readers how to recognize their strengths, break harmful patterns, and change their lives for the better.What is your soul number? What does your birthday say about you? How can you heal through numbers? How can you find your soulmate through numbers? In Glynis Has Your Number, Glynis shows us how to find the unique set of numbers that "vibrate" within each of us, and how these numbers affect every aspect of our lives. Glynis gives readers all the tools they need to test their compatibility with loved ones, better navigate the waters at work, and find success by choosing pursuits that are in sync with their numbers.
Death, Society, and Human Experience
Robert J. Kastenbaum - 1977
Fifteen chapters discuss subjects including the death system, causes of death, transition fro
The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People with Alzheimer Disease, Other Dementias, and Memory Loss in Later Life
Nancy L. Mace - 1981
In addition to the practical and compassionate guidance that have made The 36-Hour Day invaluable to caregivers, the fourth edition is the only edition currently available that includes new information on medical research and the delivery of care.The new edition includes:-new information on diagnostic evaluation-resources for families and adult children who care for people with dementia-updated legal and financial information-the latest information on nursing homes and other communal living arrangements-new information on research, medications, and the biological causes and effects of dementiaAlso available in a large print editionPraise for The 36-Hour Day:
Dying: A Memoir
Cory Taylor - 2016
Her illness is no longer treatable. As she tells us in her remarkable last book, Dying: A Memoir, she now weighs less than her neighbour’s retriever.Written in the space of a few weeks, in a tremendous creative surge, this powerful and beautifully written book is a clear-eyed account of what dying has taught Cory: she describes the tangle of her feelings, she reflects on her life, and she remembers the lives and deaths of her parents. She tells us why she would like to be able to choose the circumstances of her own death.Dying: A Memoir is a breathtaking book about vulnerability and strength, courage and humility, anger and acceptance. It is a deeply affecting meditation on dying, but it is also a funny and wise tribute to life.
The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief
Francis Weller - 2015
Describing how Western patterns of amnesia and anesthesia affect our capacity to cope with personal and collective sorrows, Weller reveals the new vitality we may encounter when we welcome, rather than fear, the pain of loss. Through moving personal stories, poetry, and insightful reflections he leads us into the central energy of sorrow, and to the profound healing and heightened communion with each other and our planet that reside alongside it.The Wild Edge of Sorrow explains that grief has always been communal and illustrates how we need the healing touch of others, an atmosphere of compassion, and the comfort of ritual in order to fully metabolize our grief. Weller describes how we often hide our pain from the world, wrapping it in a secret mantle of shame. This causes sorrow to linger unexpressed in our bodies, weighing us down and pulling us into the territory of depression and death. We have come to fear grief and feel too alone to face an encounter with the powerful energies of sorrow. Those who work with people in grief, who have experienced the loss of a loved one, who mourn the ongoing destruction of our planet, or who suffer the accumulated traumas of a lifetime will appreciate the discussion of obstacles to successful grief work such as privatized pain, lack of communal rituals, a pervasive feeling of fear, and a culturally restrictive range of emotion. Weller highlights the intimate bond between grief and gratitude, sorrow and intimacy. In addition to showing us that the greatest gifts are often hidden in the things we avoid, he offers powerful tools and rituals and a list of resources to help us transform grief into a force that allows us to live and love more fully.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Eyes Of An Angel: Soul Travel, Spirit Guides, Soul Mates, & The Reality Of Love
Paul Elder - 2005
The book explores reunions with departed souls, the discovery of soul mates, as well as our purpose in the universe.
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death
Joan Halifax - 1997
Inspired by traditional Buddhist teachings, her work is a source of wisdom for all those who are charged with a dying person's care, who are facing their own death, or who are wishing to explore and contemplate the transformative power of the dying process. Halifax offers lessons from dying people and caregivers, as well as guided meditations to help readers contemplate death without fear, develop a commitment to helping others, and transform suffering and resistance into courage. She says, "Why wait until we are actually dying to explore what it may mean to die with awareness?" A world-renowned pioneer in care of the dying, Joan Halifax founded the Project on Being with Dying, which helps dying people to face death with courage and trains professional and family caregivers in compassionate and ethical end-of-life care.
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Jonathan Haidt - 2012
His starting point is moral intuition—the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right. He blends his own research findings with those of anthropologists, historians, and other psychologists to draw a map of the moral domain. He then examines the origins of morality, overturning the view that evolution made us fundamentally selfish creatures. But rather than arguing that we are innately altruistic, he makes a more subtle claim—that we are fundamentally groupish. It is our groupishness, he explains, that leads to our greatest joys, our religious divisions, and our political affiliations. In a stunning final chapter on ideology and civility, Haidt shows what each side is right about, and why we need the insights of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians to flourish as a nation.
Midwife For Souls
Kathy Kalina - 2007
Caregivers, friends, and family members are provided with valuable insights into the power of the Catholic faith and prayer in ministering to a dying person. Poetic, practical, and credible, this book is an invaluable guide for anyone who accompanies others during their final pilgrimage here on earth--and helps in their birthing to eternal life.
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Sogyal Rinpoche - 1992
In its power to touch the heart, to awaken consciousness, [The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying] is an inestimable gift.”—San Francisco Chronicle A newly revised and updated edition of the internationally bestselling spiritual classic, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the ultimate introduction to Tibetan Buddhist wisdom. An enlightening, inspiring, and comforting manual for life and death that the New York Times calls, “The Tibetan equivalent of [Dante’s] The Divine Comedy,” this is the essential work that moved Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions, to proclaim, “I have encountered no book on the interplay of life and death that is more comprehensive, practical, and wise.”
Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery
Don Richard Riso - 1987
No matter from which point of view we approach it, we discover fresh conjunctions of new and old ideas." So writes Don Riso in this expanded edition of his classic interpretation of the Enneagram, the ancient psychological system used to understand the human personality. In addition to updating the descriptions of the nine personality types, Personality Types, Revised greatly expands the accompanying guidelines and, for the first time, uncovers the Core Dynamics, or Levels of Development, within each type. This skeletal system provides far more information about the inner tension and movements of the nine personalities than has previously been published. This increased specificity will allow therapists, social workers, personnel managers, students of the Enneagram, and general readers alike to use it with much greater precision as they unlock the secrets of self-understanding, and thus self-transformation.
Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health
Caroline Leaf - 2007
Caroline's revelation will change the way you think.
This book is the owner's manual for how our brains work."--Matthew and Laurie Crouch, Trinity Broadcasting Network"Caroline Leaf has given us a real jewel, translating modern brain science into language accessible to everyone."--David I. Levy, MD, neurosurgeon, author of Gray Matter"[Caroline] explains how our choices work scientifically, but in a practical way that makes something that is really hard to do much easier and more tangible."--Christine Caine, founder of the A21 Campaign; director of Equip and Empower Ministries; author of Undaunted"We encourage you to act on the wisdom found in Switch On Your Brain and begin the incredible journey of thinking God's way."--Robert and Debbie Morris, pastors of Gateway Church; authors of The Blessed Life, The Blessed Marriage, and The Blessed Woman"Dr. Leaf's teaching is not only life changing but life saving as it makes the renewing of the mind so real. I am so very grateful for the wisdom contained within these pages."--Darlene Zschech, singer-songwriter; author of The Art of Mentoring"Each of us is full of untapped potential when it comes to our ability to think and process our way through life. I pray that Caroline's years of research and passion in this realm of unfolding science will be a blessing to you."--Bobbie Houston, senior pastor, Hillsong Church