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GRIEF SUPPORT
A page with advice on grief and loss and how to navigate it. This guide also offers links to other useful information in the “resources” section.
A non-profit that offers a wealth of resources and services to support children, teens, families, and adults in the grieving process.
Last/ing Letters began as a service provided through hospice, healing circles, chaplains and palliative care doctors and has grown to include anyone who has a lasting letter they wish to write to a loved one.
BOOKS & MEDIA
Table of Content
Reports
In April and October 2021, Zen Caregiving Project ran a research study in partnership with Dr Janice Bell and Dr Philippe Goldin from University of California, Davis. The study explored the impacts of our Mindful Family Caregiving Online Course on those caring for friends and family.
This report pulls from multiple sources to profile who family caregivers are and the challenges they face and includes several first-person accounts of the experience. It takes a detailed look at recent developments and promising federal and state policies that support family caregivers, as well as promising practices in the public and private sectors, including the positive representation of caregivers in popular media. It concludes with specific recommendations.
On September 22, 2021, the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, and Engage (RAISE) Act Family Caregiving Advisory Council delivered its initial report to Congress. It includes a comprehensive review of the current state of family caregiving and 26 recommendations for how the federal government, states, tribes, territories, and communities—in partnership with the private sector—can better Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, and Engage family caregivers.
Download the RAISE Family Caregivers Act Initial Report to Congress.
To learn more about how the council developed this report, check out the Implementing the RAISE Family Caregivers Act factsheet.
Living Fully
A Beginners Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death
Written by BJ Miller (a previous Zen Hospice Project Executive Director) and Shoshana Berger, Director at IDEO, this book is a practical guide to approaching the end of life. It includes instructions on everything from navigating the health care system, to talking to your children about your will, to writing a great eulogy.
Written by Jon Kabat-Zinn, this book offers a step-by-step introduction to the practice of mindfulness and how to cultivate mindfulness in the face of stress, pain, and illness. You can find videos of Kabat-Zinn’s meditation teachings on his website.
Caregiving for Caregivers
Caring for a Loved One with Dementia
If you’re caring for a loved one with dementia, you know firsthand the challenge of providing care while maintaining your own well-being. Caring for a Loved One with Dementia written by Marguerite Manteau-Rao, LCSW offers a compassionate and effective mindfulness-based dementia care (MBDC) guide to help you reduce stress, stay balanced, and bring ease into your interactions with the person with dementia.
Dementia Beyond Drugs, 1st Edition
His eye-opening book challenges all care providers working with individuals with dementia to undertake a true operational change within residential care settings while reducing the administration of psychotropic drugs in the symptomatic treatment of dementia.
Floating in the Deep End: How Caregivers Can See Beyond Alzheimer’s
Patti Davis draws on a welter of experiences to provide a singular account of battling Alzheimer’s. Eloquently woven with personal anecdotes and helpful advice tailored specifically for the overlooked caregiver, this essential guide covers every potential stage of the disease from the initial diagnosis through the ultimate passing and beyond.
When Your Aging Parents Needs Help
In this practical, step-by-step guide, geriatrician Leslie Kernisan, MD and Paula Spencer Scott, walks you through what to do and what to say in order to offer respectful assistance and intervention to a declining elderly parent.
Death & Dying
Breathing Wind is a podcast about grief, parent loss, change, and healing. Founded by Sarah Davis, this podcast began as a collection of stories highlighting the shared experience of losing parents at a young(er) age. Season Two’s focus is on healing.
The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living
A book by Frank Ostaseski, the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project and Metta Institute, who has sat on the precipice of death with more than a thousand people. He has trained countless clinicians and caregivers in the art of mindful and compassionate care. In The Five Invitations, he distills the lessons gleaned over decades of selfless service offering an evocative and stirring guide that points to a radical path to transformation.
In this book, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead.
A website created by David Kessler, one of the world’s foremost expert on grief and loss. Using comforting and touching stories in his book Needs Of the Dying, Kessler provides information to help us meet the needs of a loved one at this important time in our lives.
In this book, the psychologist and Buddhist Sameet M. Kumar offers an alternative approach to grief: accepting and feeling it, and then using it as opportunity for growth and finding meaning.
How to Say Goodbye: The Wisdom of Hospice Caregivers
By the New York Times bestselling artist, Wendy MacNaughton’s book combines drawings she drew from life while serving as the artist-in-residence at Zen Hospice Project’s The Guest House with words of hospice caregivers she interviewed.
A short documentary following the stories of three visionary medical providers, one of which is Zen Hospice Project, caring for and supporting those approaching the end of their lives.
In this book The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, psychotherapist Francis Weller provides an essential guide for navigating the deep waters of sorrow and loss in a lyrical yet practical handbook.
A book by long-time hospice volunteer, Jennie Dear, who uses the latest medical findings and sensitive human insights to offer answers to questions that affect us all like Does dying hurt? and Is there a better way to cope with dying?
Open Death Conversation (Online, Live)
Instructor: Alistair Shanks
Virtual Town Hall Gathering
Webinar on Mindfulness as a Parent
In this session, Mary Doane and a group of panelists turn towards parenting – a specific type of care relationship that brings unique challenges and joys. Our panelists will share their experiences of where they find integration and where doubt creeps in, along with considering whether mindfulness helps people be a better parent and how being a parent affects mindfulness practices.
The session was held on April 25th.
What is Mindfulness
Instructor: Alistair Shanks
Using Mindfulness to Manage Grief
Instructor: Alistair Shanks
Open Death Conversation: Online Forum
Instructor: Roy Remer
An Interview with Aisha Adkins: The Use of Mindfulness as a Younger Caregiver
This interview between Mary Doane and Aisha Adkins from Caring Across Generation discusses what it’s like to be at the intersection of caregiving and young adulthood and managing your own future while caring for your loved one in the present. This interview was recorded on November 3, 2022.