Monday, June 26, 2023

Healing Through Consciousness Series: Ep 14 - Death and Comfort

Welcome to the, I suspect, final episode in our Healing Through Consciousness series. It'll be the final curtain for this series. Unless I discover more pearls from past programs that are relevant, of course.

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and I've been working through old episodes of my Thinking with Somebody Else's Head podcasts and re-editing them into shorter programs based on single themes. The first foray into that forma was on our Modern Relevance of God 17-part series, which, by the way, had been turned into an actual book now. Pretty proud of that. And I'm working on a book from this series, too. More on that to come.

Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco and I considered a painful email from a listener on our last Healing Through Consciousness episode. A woman struggling with the mortality of her dear sister. And Dr. Claudia offered some wonderful words of consolation about the passage from this mortal coil to the everlasting eternal life of the soul - words that are relevant for all of us in this temporal world. 

Today, I'd like to take another extract from that longer program to deal with another vital area of the process of death. Something we all would do well to consider. And that is that many times, we're not only suffering from the physical loss of someone dear to us, but also from the consciousness their death brings to us of something related to ourselves.

So to help our listener deal with what she referred to as the state of shock, sadness, disbelief, and blind fear and terror she feels at the impending death of her dear sister, let's turn once again to Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Click here to read the PDF.

Wednesday, June 07, 2023

Healing Through Consciousness Series: Ep. 13 - Coping with Death

Welcome to our continuing Healing Through Consciousness podcast series. Just when you thought it was over. Fitting we'll be addressing death today in Episode 13. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones.

Death. Such a downer, isn't it? The final curtain. The choir invisible. Kicking the bucket. 

Except it's much more complex than that, don't you think? My sister tells a story of going into the mountains for a solo picnic shortly after our dear mother died, and a huge crow stole her bag lunch, flew off a few meters, and then landed and turned to stare at her. She was convinced it was mom sending her a signal.

A student of mine tells of being followed for blocks walking down the street by a beautiful butterfly the day after his beloved grandfather died.

These are mysteries of cold coincidence for materialistic scientists, but resonate at another level for the rest of us. 

But for many, death is an unapproachable subject. As inevitable as it is, it still freaks us out. Is there anything to say about death that can be healing and comforting?

I think, "Yes!" Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco and I received an email from a listener some years ago broaching the shock, sadness and disbelief she was experiencing with the impending death of her dear - and still young - sister. What could be said to help her? For that, we turn to Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Click here to download the PDF.