GriefHaven Blog | Insights and Stories of Healing

September 13, 2023

Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Pain by Separating it From the Self

For centuries, people have been using mindfulness meditation to try to relieve their pain, but neuroscientists have only recently been able to test if and how this actually works. In the latest of these efforts, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine measured the effects of mindfulness on pain perception and brain activity.

March 31, 2021

How to Cope with Major Life Changes During the Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has changed life as we know it. While it’s no secret that the pandemic has had a negative impact on people and businesses around the world, you may still be able to see a silver lining in all of this. The changes brought on by the pandemic have forced many of us to adopt new routines, healthy habits, and stress coping mechanisms that will stick around long after the pandemic is over. Here’s how to make the best of any tough life changes you may be facing right now.

October 19, 2020

Bereaved Parent

The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart,
The secret anniversaries of the heart.

October 20, 2020

Wounded Holidays

Young, they left our homes
in a moment, long or quick,
they were gone.
Dewdrops turned into teardrops,
the shining sea too small
to hold our grief.

September 4, 2020

Covid Depression

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have identified a set of modifiable factors from a field of over 100 that could represent valuable targets for preventing depression in adults. In a study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, the team named social connection as the strongest protective factor for depression, and suggested that reducing sedentary activities such as TV watching and daytime napping could also help lower the risk of depression. "Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, but until now researchers have focused on only a handful of risk and protective factors, often in just one or two domains," says Karmel Choi, PhD, investigator in the Department of Psychiatry and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and lead author of the paper.

May 26, 2020

Narcissism Can Lower Stress Level

People who have grandiose narcissistic traits are more likely to be 'mentally tough', feel less stressed and are less vulnerable to depression, research led by Queen's University Belfast has found. While narcissism may be viewed by many in society as a negative personality trait, Dr Kostas Papageorgiou, who is Director of the InteRRaCt Lab in the School of Psychology at Queen's, has revealed that it could also have benefits. He has published two papers on narcissism and psychopathology in Personality and Individual Differences and European Psychiatry.

October 12, 2022

Living Through Grief Healthily

Grieving takes a toll on you mentally and physically when you're too overcome with sadness to take care of yourself properly. However, for your health and well-being, you need to care for yourself in the best way possible.

July 26, 2012

Starting Over Television Show – NBC

Starting Over was a daytime reality show from the creators of “The Real World” which followed six women who came from all walks of life to overcome issues that had held them back from leading a fulfilling life. The producers of Starting Over contacted Susan Whitmore, asking her to visit with Bethany who was one of the Starting Over house guests. Bethany had just lost her only child, Shelby, in a tragic car accident a few months earlier (see Shelby’s photo on our memory page). The holidays were coming, Bethany was far away from her home, living in the Starting Over house in Southern California, and feeling the painful separation from family and friends. The hardest part for Bethany was that she was missing Shelby terribly. Bethany was trying to decide whether or not she would continue living in the Starting Over house while feeling such intense pain […]

January 25, 2014

CURE Childhood Cancer Org.

griefHaven’s Founder & President – Keynote Speaker 2014 – CURE Childhood Cancer Org. – Atlanta, Georgia – Keynote Presentation On January 25, I stepped up to the podium as the keynote speaker for the amazing CURE Childhood Cancer Organization www.curechildhoodcancer.org. CURE provides funds for childhood cancer research and is there for the families while their children are going through cancer treatment and when a child does not survive. The morning of January 25 marked the beginning of some life-changing experiences for me as well, since it was the first time I had ever spoken in front of a room of parents, grandparents, and siblings whose children had all died from cancer, the same thing that took Erika from us. There were about 125 people there, and I gave a PowerPoint presentation that included education about grief, as well as the latest on the grieving brain. On Saturday afternoon, I facilitated […]

October 19, 2020

Loss

I am here among friends, smiling at their humor
And making plans for tomorrow.
But there is another person, lying curled in the corner,
Crying out in unbelievable pain.

September 21, 2022

A Love Letter to Grief

In our culture, when a woman dies young, we dress her as a bride before cremating her. I remember walking into the backroom of the chapel, my mom’s friends huddled and whispering their concerns that I’d have to see her corpse again. I felt no less fine than I had since her diagnosis four months prior.

August 17, 2020

Social Connection Strong Tool For Depression

The study demonstrates an important new approach for evaluating a wide range of modifiable factors and using this evidence to prioritize targets for preventive interventions for depression. "Depression takes an enormous toll on individuals, families, and society, yet we still know very little about how to prevent it," says Smoller. "We've shown that it's now possible to address these questions of broad public health significance through a large-scale, data-based approach that wasn't available even a few years ago. We hope this work will motivate further efforts to develop actionable strategies for preventing depression." The study's two-stage approach could also be used to inform the prevention of other health conditions.