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Losing a Child
There is something inherently wrong with losing a child. The order of life turns on its axis and the associated grief incredibly intense. Grief not only for the precious one lost but also for the hopes and dreams others carried for them. It is a grief unimaginable for those of us without children of our own.
What is real?
We build our own prisons.
We do it because we think we have to be someone, because we are competitive, because society or family expects something from us. We do it for acceptance.
Singing for End of Life
Perhaps the greatest honour for a singer, in my opinion, is to sing for someone approaching the end of their life. To sing them gently into their resting place is an incredibly sacred experience, bringing peace, comfort and reconciliation.
Left my Mum in County Cork
You know your husband loves you when he decants a portion of your mother’s ashes from her resting place inside a black cremation box, into a tiny glass vial.
Motivation
One of the key components to over-coming harmful stress and anxiety in today’s society is to find the motivation to change or modify your outlook.
Anxiety
It’s the body’s response to prepare it to meet certain dangers or situations that they are faced with. Back in time when there was so much danger around, it was either the quick or the dead.
Relaxation
As we forge into the second millennium, I wonder if we, as a society, can keep up the pace we have set ourselves over the past few decades.
COVID-19 - On a Positive Note
This season has also brought out the best in many people. With little pressure to be at a certain place at a particular time, people are demonstrating greater kindness toward each other.
How to Stay Sane in Lockdown 2020
Living through COVID has provided many people with challenges that they are not necessarily equipped to deal with. Isolation is not a safe space.
3 Breathing Exercises to Calm You
If you have experienced moments of anxiety, you will inevitably have been told to breathe. There is good reason for this and substantial evidence showing the benefits of breathing exercises to decrease our heart rate, relieve physical and emotional tension and restore us to a state of equilibrium.
5 Funeral Songs to Farewell a Friend
It is incredibly difficult to choose a song which encompasses a lifetime. It is especially hard when that person is close to you and you know well their many facets and sensibilities.
The 5 Stages of Grief
Having recently read On Grief and Grieving, Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross MD and David Kessler I thought to briefly explore these five stages and to clarify their usefulness in understanding the grieving process.
Shut Up!
When we are grieving, we are expected to cry but more dynamic expressions of grief involving vocalisation, perhaps screaming or wailing, are frowned upon. It sits outside acceptable behaviour dictated to us by societal norms. The problem here is that in order to effectively deal with those emotions, vocalising is exactly what we need to do.
“Music the fiercest grief can charm, and fates severest rage disarm.
Music can soften pain to ease and make despair and madness please.
Our joys below it can improve, and antedate the bliss above.”
Alexander Pope, 18th century English poet and satirist