We facilitate individual and group experiences that:
- Teach, guide, and support the essential life skills of giving care
- Facilitate the exchange of ideas, information, and experiences
- Foster hope, curiosity, exploration, and engagement with life
Awakening to Grace is a nonprofit organization that helps people expand their awareness, grow in gratitude and generosity, and make conscious choices in alignment with Life.
Visionary
|
Visionaries |
Pollinator
|
Pollinators |
Protector
|
Protectors |
Healer
|
Healers |
If you know someone who’s recently been told there’s nothing more his or her physician can do, the truth is there’s still a valuable life to be lived!
Here are 12 things you can do for someone in that situation. If you do even a few of these, you’ll help bring more comfort, peace and joy to your friend or family member’s life.
Note: Not everyone can or ‘should’ accept that they’re dying when a doctor gives them this news. Each person walks his or her unique life path and comes to the end of his or her life in a unique way. The best thing you can do as a genuine friend is to accompany the person on their path, without judgment, and be as physically, emotionally and spiritually present on the journey as you can.
May these suggestions encourage and guide you in supporting peaceful dying and joyful living. PS: The last two things on the list are for you.
1. Encourage the person who’s nearing the end of their life to release what no longer serves them, and to keep living to their fullest ability. Each of us is unique, but we often hold onto rules, beliefs and expectations from others that cause us stress and suffering. Those rules include how to live and how to die.
2. Be open to the experience of living and dying. Fear stimulates our fight, flight, or freeze response. This instinctual stress response is built on the assumption that there’s something dangerous to be avoided if possible. Instead, we can recognize that death is a great teacher of how to embrace and honor life more deeply.
3. Encourage the person to release their need for control, and of needing to figure everything out. More than ever before in their adult life, the person who’s been told there’s nothing more the doctors can do for him has an opportunity to release their need to control things around them, especially other people, and just allow life to be. This includes dropping old habits of labeling people and things and opening their mind to seeing things differently.
4. Be courageous and authentic with your friend or family member. Emotions can be messy. They challenge our illusion that we control life. But when we don't express our emotions, we numb, repress and/or medicate them instead. We really don't need to protect each other from the depth of our emotions. We need to give each other permission to share the truth of our experience. Chances are, the person will be grateful for your refreshing authenticity. And others might share themselves, following your lead.
5. Encourage the person to be open and loving. Invite the person to communicate how much they value their loved ones. Let them know that there’s nothing their loved ones would rather receive than their love.
6. Be entertaining in considerate ways. Read a book to the person that they’ve wanted to read, play music the person loves to hear, and tell humorous or heart-warming stories from the person’s life or from your life if they’re things the person is interested in. If it would be appreciated by the person, bring supplies for activities they can do either alone or with others, such as art or craft supplies, CDs or an mp3 player they can enjoy, comic books or videos.
7. Help the person put their affairs in order. Help the person make an up-to-date will or trust. Help them make sure they’ve clearly spelled out their preferences for their end-of-life care through documents that specify who can make health care and financial decisions for them when they’re not able to, and what choices they want made. Help them plan their funeral or end-of-life celebration if they’re interested in that. Help them organize their files and other personal affairs, including saying thoughtful goodbyes.
8. Help the person review his/her life. Most people who are dying will naturally and spontaneously start reviewing their life. The point of this is to help the person digest their life’s experiences so they can surrender the past. This one’s hard. Especially when the past looks better than the present, and the future looks frightening.
9. Give attention to the person’s physical needs. Supply foods or drinks the person is interested in; give a short foot massage or back rub; hold the person’s hand; gently wash their face, brush their hair or apply their make-up if that’s what they enjoy. The person’s physical needs will change as they get weaker, so observe closely and adjust accordingly. Adjust the light, sound and temperature to meet the person’s needs at the moment. Declutter their physical environment. Treat it as a sacred space.
10. If the person is often angry, encourage him or her to release their need to be right, and to stop blaming. Most of us want to be right, sometimes even at the risk of ending relationships or causing pain. Most times it’s a futile energy drain that’s not worth it. It’s much better to simply accept responsibility for our own life instead.
11. See death as normal. Rather than seeing death as something awful to be avoided at all costs, encourage the person to open their heart and mind to realize that while death is inescapable, our attitudes and beliefs about death are actually quite negotiable.
12. Know that pain can be well-managed. For many persons, the prospect of pain can be as terrifying as dying itself. So help the person set up a realistic pain management plan.
Here are 12 things you can do for someone in that situation. If you do even a few of these, you’ll help bring more comfort, peace and joy to your friend or family member’s life.
Note: Not everyone can or ‘should’ accept that they’re dying when a doctor gives them this news. Each person walks his or her unique life path and comes to the end of his or her life in a unique way. The best thing you can do as a genuine friend is to accompany the person on their path, without judgment, and be as physically, emotionally and spiritually present on the journey as you can.
May these suggestions encourage and guide you in supporting peaceful dying and joyful living. PS: The last two things on the list are for you.
1. Encourage the person who’s nearing the end of their life to release what no longer serves them, and to keep living to their fullest ability. Each of us is unique, but we often hold onto rules, beliefs and expectations from others that cause us stress and suffering. Those rules include how to live and how to die.
- Starting today, encourage the person whose doctor has told them this news to release all pressures to conform, and any other excuses, and choose what they most authentically long for instead.
- It’s not too late for them to answer their true calling and express their own heart and soul. The moment the person stops trying so hard to be something they’re not, they’ll experience more true joy.
- "It’s better to tread your own path, however humbly, than that of another, however successfully." ~ from the Bhagavad Gita
2. Be open to the experience of living and dying. Fear stimulates our fight, flight, or freeze response. This instinctual stress response is built on the assumption that there’s something dangerous to be avoided if possible. Instead, we can recognize that death is a great teacher of how to embrace and honor life more deeply.
- This can be a time when the person who’s dying experiences a richer, sweeter and more profound love than ever before.
- Let yourself, the person who’s dying, and the other friends and family members relax and fully experience this precious time... or rail against death if that’s their choice. There will be many moments of soul-wrenching grief, sadness, and tears, and there will be many moments of lightness and laughter.
- As much as possible, let ‘doing’ take a back seat now... Let ‘doing’ serve and support the best qualities of ‘being’.
- “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
3. Encourage the person to release their need for control, and of needing to figure everything out. More than ever before in their adult life, the person who’s been told there’s nothing more the doctors can do for him has an opportunity to release their need to control things around them, especially other people, and just allow life to be. This includes dropping old habits of labeling people and things and opening their mind to seeing things differently.
- Many ancient cultures see the end of life as a time when a person gets to release their need for control, practice trusting the unknown, and offer him or herself as a vehicle for the intrinsic benevolence of the cosmos. In these cultures, the only tragic deaths are the quick ones when a person doesn’t get this opportunity to grow in soul-deep strength and wisdom. Contrast that to the predominant view in North America, where a quick death is called “merciful.”
4. Be courageous and authentic with your friend or family member. Emotions can be messy. They challenge our illusion that we control life. But when we don't express our emotions, we numb, repress and/or medicate them instead. We really don't need to protect each other from the depth of our emotions. We need to give each other permission to share the truth of our experience. Chances are, the person will be grateful for your refreshing authenticity. And others might share themselves, following your lead.
- Give yourself and others the gift of personal space to fully experience the range of feelings that are normal parts of dying, death and bereavement.
- Have the courage to let your loving and caring show, no matter how difficult or awkward it might feel at first. With practice it will feel less awkward.
- Shielding ourselves from heartbreak only prevents the transformation that’s available to us.
- "Your pain is the medicine by which the physician within heals thyself." ~ Kahlil Gibran
5. Encourage the person to be open and loving. Invite the person to communicate how much they value their loved ones. Let them know that there’s nothing their loved ones would rather receive than their love.
- Encourage the person’s friends and family members in the same way if possible. If you had received this message from your doctor, what would you rather have than someone bringing you love? What could possibly be more precious to you?
- The next time you don't know what to say, or you find yourself avoiding the person, just go and look into their eyes, take their hand and say, ‘I love you and I’m going to miss you so much when you leave.’
- "Love is not a concept, idea or belief. It’s the positive life force and integrating power that creates and holds all reality together." ~ John Shelby Spong
6. Be entertaining in considerate ways. Read a book to the person that they’ve wanted to read, play music the person loves to hear, and tell humorous or heart-warming stories from the person’s life or from your life if they’re things the person is interested in. If it would be appreciated by the person, bring supplies for activities they can do either alone or with others, such as art or craft supplies, CDs or an mp3 player they can enjoy, comic books or videos.
7. Help the person put their affairs in order. Help the person make an up-to-date will or trust. Help them make sure they’ve clearly spelled out their preferences for their end-of-life care through documents that specify who can make health care and financial decisions for them when they’re not able to, and what choices they want made. Help them plan their funeral or end-of-life celebration if they’re interested in that. Help them organize their files and other personal affairs, including saying thoughtful goodbyes.
8. Help the person review his/her life. Most people who are dying will naturally and spontaneously start reviewing their life. The point of this is to help the person digest their life’s experiences so they can surrender the past. This one’s hard. Especially when the past looks better than the present, and the future looks frightening.
- Ask the person about their experiences and how they feel about them, or just be a silent loving witness to the story of their journey through life.
- Most people will have some regrets. It’s important to encourage the person to make peace with him or herself and with the persons involved, and forgive herself and others.
- “Life is a journey, not a destination.”
9. Give attention to the person’s physical needs. Supply foods or drinks the person is interested in; give a short foot massage or back rub; hold the person’s hand; gently wash their face, brush their hair or apply their make-up if that’s what they enjoy. The person’s physical needs will change as they get weaker, so observe closely and adjust accordingly. Adjust the light, sound and temperature to meet the person’s needs at the moment. Declutter their physical environment. Treat it as a sacred space.
10. If the person is often angry, encourage him or her to release their need to be right, and to stop blaming. Most of us want to be right, sometimes even at the risk of ending relationships or causing pain. Most times it’s a futile energy drain that’s not worth it. It’s much better to simply accept responsibility for our own life instead.
- Whenever the person feels an “urgent” need to jump into a fight over who’s to wrong or to blame, you can encourage physical outlets for to release his or her anger in a way that honors their needs to feel what they’re feeling without bringing harm to anyone else. Examples are: tearing paper, throwing soft pillows or writing their angry feelings and burning them.
- Anger is often a cover for the deeper feelings of fear or grief, which are actually emotions that will give them great treasures to the extent they can be faced. To help the person allow their deeper feelings to surface, you can gently say “This must be a really scary time for you” and follow with: “Would you like to tell me what’s troubling you?” or “I’m wondering what’s most important to you today.”
- By encouraging the person to focus on their priorities, it will naturally bring them closer to who they are beyond their anger.
- "Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.” ~ Pema Chodron
11. See death as normal. Rather than seeing death as something awful to be avoided at all costs, encourage the person to open their heart and mind to realize that while death is inescapable, our attitudes and beliefs about death are actually quite negotiable.
- Encourage the person to consciously choose if they want to die at home or in a hospital. The difference in the experience can be vast. Hospice is set up to caringly and competently help people accept their dying process, make the best of it, and live at home until their last breath. Hospitals are set up to keep people alive as long as possible, often at great physical, emotional, spiritual and financial cost.
- Encourage the person who’s dying, or their representative, to ask the physician to write an order for hospice immediately after seeing there’s nothing more that can medically reverse the person’s condition. If the person finds out they don’t like hospice, or if they decide they want to resume medical treatments, they can quit hospice at any time. This rarely happens.
12. Know that pain can be well-managed. For many persons, the prospect of pain can be as terrifying as dying itself. So help the person set up a realistic pain management plan.
- For example: If the person has increased pain during specific activities, invite them to plan on taking an analgesic such as aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofen or naproxen about 30 minutes before the pain-producing activities.
- Include non-drug pain management in the plan (e.g. heat, ice, massage, music, aromatherapy, homeopathy, acupressure, humor, etc.).
- Help the person set up an aggressive plan to keep their bowels moving if they’re taking opioid drugs, which are the most commonly prescribed pain medications.
- If pain is constant, ask the prescriber for a long-acting medication and/or a patient-controlled delivery system. If the prescriber is unwilling to give enough medication to well-manage the pain, ask for a referral to a palliative care specialist.
I’ve facilitated peaceful dying and joyful living with hundreds of people as a holistic community health nurse specialist, wellness mentor, author, interfaith minister and energy medicine practitioner. I'm deeply grateful to my mentors Alberto Villoldo, Linda Fitch, Lynn Berryhill, Jose Luis Herrera, Sobonfu Some and Luisah Teish. My shamanic practices are primarily rooted in the lineage of the Q’ero shamans of Peru.
My joy is to connect with the peace and magic of our Source and help people find their way through personal and collective change. I offer empowering home study programs online and personal consultations by phone.
My joy is to connect with the peace and magic of our Source and help people find their way through personal and collective change. I offer empowering home study programs online and personal consultations by phone.
|
For too long we've alternately ignored or dramatized the miracle of conscious living and dying, instead of calmly inquiring into its purpose and grace.
|
|
I’m committed to being Love and Peace in each moment . . . even when I do that imperfectly.
I’m committed to being conscious and present on my soul's journey, and to serving the Infinite Source of All That Is by practicing Authenticity, Transparency, Joy, Love, Integrity and Gratitude in all I do.
I’m also committed to doing my best to honor all people, plants and animals... particularly the indigenous medicine men and women, who are an endangered species at this time, and for whom I feel deep respect and gratitude.
As often as possible, I take the following actions and I encourage others to do so as well:
I look forward to hearing from you whenever you'd like to share what you're experiencing, what you value and what you seek in life. I’ll do my best to honor you and your soul's journey whenever we interact.
I also welcome your questions, reflections, feedback and suggestions, especially when they’re aimed at telling me how I affect you; how I might better serve you, or how we can joyfully connect as tribe. Please use my email address link in the upper right corner of this page.
Namaste.
~ Sharanagati
I’m committed to being conscious and present on my soul's journey, and to serving the Infinite Source of All That Is by practicing Authenticity, Transparency, Joy, Love, Integrity and Gratitude in all I do.
I’m also committed to doing my best to honor all people, plants and animals... particularly the indigenous medicine men and women, who are an endangered species at this time, and for whom I feel deep respect and gratitude.
As often as possible, I take the following actions and I encourage others to do so as well:
- Apology for the ways in which our communities, institutions and government have in the past and are continuing to suppress and violate indigenous people's lives and ways of being
- Responsibility to make narratives and educational materials that express truth about historical and current treatment of indigenous peoples
- Reconciliation so that healing can occur between indigenous people and people who have immigrated into their ecosystem
- Collaboration related to developing sustainable health, environment, economy and education for all, as essential dimensions of the first 3 points
I look forward to hearing from you whenever you'd like to share what you're experiencing, what you value and what you seek in life. I’ll do my best to honor you and your soul's journey whenever we interact.
I also welcome your questions, reflections, feedback and suggestions, especially when they’re aimed at telling me how I affect you; how I might better serve you, or how we can joyfully connect as tribe. Please use my email address link in the upper right corner of this page.
Namaste.
~ Sharanagati
|
My name is pronounced "Shar-an-aug-AW-tee." In Sanskrit it means "to fly like an arrow to God’s shelter, remembering that no duties can be performed without powers borrowed from God, for God is the Creator and Sustainer of life." I do my best to fulfill the meaning of this name.
I was raised in the USA by a Midwestern family of simple farmers, teachers and crafts-people. Since childhood I’ve felt a sacred kinship with Nature and with the Divine, and I’ve explored many spiritual paths. Like many people, I’ve experienced deep challenges, profound inspiration and beauty. |
Sharanagati (Sharon Burch RN, MSN)
|
Awakening to Grace is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to helping people
- expand their awareness
- grow in gratitude, compassion and generosity
- make conscious choices in right relationship with life
Are You Awake to the Beauty, Power and Grace in Your Life?
Awakening to Grace helps people awaken to the rich sources of power, love and wisdom within and around us so we can THRIVE during challenging times.
Why?
So People of All Ages Can
How?
We Collaborate with Innovators Worldwide to Provide Dynamic Interactive Practical Experiences that
Why?
So People of All Ages Can
- Remember that all life is sacred and
- Co-create ways of living that are socially just, environmentally honoring and soul-satisfying
How?
We Collaborate with Innovators Worldwide to Provide Dynamic Interactive Practical Experiences that
- Inspire hope, curiosity, exploration, connection and fun!
- Spread vital life-skills through virtual and hands-on activities
- Facilitate exchange of ideas, information and win-win experiences
Click Below to See Our Current Projects
Learn How to Access Sacred Space and
Experience Greater Peace, Joy and Wonder in Your Daily Life
Image by Tomasz Alen Kopera
Discover How to Connect with the Heart of the Divine through Ancient and Contemporary Shamanic Practices
We Honor These Values
- Integrity: Speaking honestly and walking our talk
- Peace: Compassionate presence with ourselves and all who cross our path
- Joy: Enjoying what's precious to us with trust in the Creator and a light heart
- Generosity: Giving from our heart, practicing reciprocity and right relationship
- Honoring All Life as Sacred: Remembering humans are only part of the family
Are You Awake to the Beauty, Power and Grace in Your Daily Life?
One of the greatest needs in our world is for people living in commercialized cultures to fully honor our intimate relationship with All Life.
To do that, we must shed our past wounds and limiting beliefs, keep the vital lessons from them, and step forward with clarity, confidence and an open heart.
To contribute to this collective need, I've practiced holistic community health nursing, authored books and taught classes (live and through home study) for close to 40 years. During that time I've assisted thousands of people to live and die in greater health and peace.
To do that, we must shed our past wounds and limiting beliefs, keep the vital lessons from them, and step forward with clarity, confidence and an open heart.
To contribute to this collective need, I've practiced holistic community health nursing, authored books and taught classes (live and through home study) for close to 40 years. During that time I've assisted thousands of people to live and die in greater health and peace.
Discover and engage Right Relationship in life based on the contemporary Peace Planet Medicine Wheel so we can
- Step fully into Self-Respect and Inner Security
- Enjoy Life, Love and Business that honors Plenty for All
- Contribute to more Harmonious and Sustainable Cultures