Six Surprising Reasons Why COVID19 Is Worse Than We Imagined.

The COVID19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown have led to us face losses on an unimaginable scale, and it’s not just our loved ones we are grieving for.

Grief is defined as ‘a feeling of intense sorrow due to the loss of someone or something’. Obviously, the intensity of that feeling depends on the closeness of who or what was lost and the impact it will have on your life as you move forward.

The current pandemic has led us to a situation where we are having to contemplate a multiplicity of losses in every area of our lives.

Types of loss

Loss of a family member or loved one

Death is by far the most common cause of grief but the pandemic has added an extra layer of problems to the grieving process. It may be that the loved one died in isolation, either chosen or enforced and not surrounded by family. The death may have been traumatic as a result of COVID19 or unexpected for the same reason.

Once the death has occurred, then the surviving family is left to deal with the arrangement, often remotely, without the physical support or contact that is essential for comfort at such stressful times. The funeral service itself adds another layer of stress as families are forced to grieve socially distanced or in isolation, without being able to comfort one another.

Loss of job or income

Despite Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s hastily put together support package through the furlough scheme that has saved people in the short term, it was never intended to be a long-term solution and now companies are starting to feel the impact as we have seen some surprisingly robust high street names seek help or go out of business completely; Cath Kidston, Victoria’s Secret, Monsoon, Oasis, Carluccio’s, Laura Ashley and Prezzo to name just a few.

Employees are now sensing a real fear of redundancy or unemployment as companies come to terms with life after lockdown.

In addition to this, there is also the physical sense of loss that one might feel at not actually going in to a place of work, meeting colleagues and losing that daily ritual.

Loss of relationships

Being forced together day after day for months, will have put immense strain on some relationships, where a couple are not used to being together for such long periods. In addition, there have been documented, and understandable concerns over people who find themselves living 24/7 with an abusive partner.

There is also the opposite, where a relationship may have just begun prior to lockdown and hasn’t had the chance to progress in a normal way and may never recover.

One of the biggest sources of strain however, must surely be for families of NHS and other front line workers who chose to self-isolate away from their own families to take care of COVID19 patients. This type of loss can be likened to that felt by families of soldiers departing for war. When a loved one says goodbye, there is a very real chance that this may be the last time you’ll see them.

Loss of events

While we have endured lockdown as well as we possibly can, time has still marched on and birthdays have come and gone, holiday dates, weddings may have been cancelled. All of these may well have involved a lot of planning and spending money on deposits. The stress of loss has been subsequently exacerbated by holiday companies being vague about if and when repayments will be made.

Loss of small pleasures

How many times during the lockdown have you almost suggested popping to the pub on a Friday, or going to a favourite restaurant for a meal?

Plenty, I’m sure.

But the lockdown has effectively stripped us of that freedom to choose what we do and taken away the small pleasures that we took for granted.

Loss of personal space

Before lockdown our lives were demarcated into separate compartments. We left the house to go to work or to the gym, now the boundaries between these areas has become blurred. Your spare room or bedroom may have become your office, your lounge may double up as a gym space. All of this adds to the stress of coping with the day to day impact of the virus.

There is no doubt that the multiplicity of losses we have had to endure has been unprecedented. And whilst we seem to be reaching the end of lockdown in many countries, we should prepare ourselves for the backlash, not of a second wave, but of serious mental health issues for large portions of the population as they try and come to terms with the sheer scale of what has been lost.

A Step By Step Guide Of What To Do When Someone Dies.

It is one of the few certainties in life that, at some point, we will all experience the death of someone close. How many of us know what steps to take?

What are those first steps when someone you know dies and the death occurred at home and was expected?

The first thing to do is obtain a medical certificate recording the ‘Cause of Death’. These certificates can be obtained from a doctor or a hospital and will be issued immediately if the cause of death is clear. If it isn’t clear then the deceased may need to go to the coroner to have the cause of death established.

The next step is to register the death. This should be done at a registry office within 5 days if the death occurred in England or 8 days if the death occurred in Scotland.

You should also try to take as many of the following documents as possible. They are not essential but give more information needed for registering the death. However, don’t delay the registration process because you don’t have some of the documents.

  • NHS card (also called the medical card)
  • Birth certificate
  • Driving licence
  • Council tax bill
  • Marriage or civil partnership certificate (if applicable)
  • National Insurance number of the deceased and that of a surviving spouse or civil partner.
  • Passport
  • Proof of address (e.g. utility bill)

The registrar will require the following information about the deceased:

  • Date and place of the death
  • The address of the person
  • Their full names (including the maiden name of a married woman). Any former married names or other names by which the deceased was known can also be recorded.
  • Where and when they were born (the town or county is sufficient if the exact address is not known). Only the country of origin is required for people born outside the United Kingdom. The country is recorded according to its current name if this is different from how it was known at the date of birth.
  • Their occupation
  • Details of their wife or husband or civil partner
  • Whether they had any government pension or other benefits

You should also take along any documents that show your name and address (e.g. a utility bill) but it isn’t essential as you can still register a death without them.

The registrar will give you a Death Certificate to prove the death has been registered. You will need to purchase this and it is advisable to purchase multiple copies because photocopies are generally not accepted. The certificates are needed if the deceased’s estate needs to go through probate and even if it doesn’t then you will need one for each of the asset holders; banks, building societies, pensions and insurances.

You will receive what is known as ‘the green form’, the Certificate for Burial or Cremation. Without this form, you will be unable to arrange a funeral as it needs to be passed to the crematorium or funeral director.

Once these steps have been taken then you should notify a funeral director who will make arrangements to collect the deceased and you can begin to give some thought to the funeral service. And this is something I’ll look at in a future post.

How Coronavirus Has Impacted Funerals At Every Level.

From Zoom meetings to Social Distancing, COVID-19 has had a huge impact on funerals but have there been other, more subtle changes?

Pre-service

One of the first things to be impacted when the coronavirus pandemic hit and we went into lockdown was the immediate absence of face to face meetings in a family home. It was where you could see a family in an environment they felt comfortable in and see photographs of their loved ones and get a feel for what they were like and how the service would be pitched.

I enquired online to a group I am part of, whether any celebrants had noticed more subtle, less obvious changes. A number of celebrants reported that they have noticed themselves ‘going the extra mile ‘ for families to make sure that everything is exactly right. Making numerous phone calls and being in more frequent contact up to the day of the service ‘so families feel like they know me already’ said Jane a celebrant based in the North West.

‘So families feel like they know me’

Jane, a celebrant in the North West

Face to face meetings were quickly replaced by telephone meetings and then the rise of Zoom meetings, and now we must wonder sometimes how we managed before. Of course, without Zoom or Skype, we celebrants are left with that awkward approach to a stranger on the day of the service saying ‘ You’re not xxx by any chance? ‘ and then instantly resisting the urge to shake hands or hug as we would naturally do.

One very welcome change that has come about, is that members of the public have been showing their respect by bowing to a passing hearse or removing headwear. This was, of course, quite the tradition many years ago but has seen a mini revival in current times.

During the service

And the social distancing that has been forced on us has impacted in other ways. It was heartbreaking at a recent service to see a mother sitting 6 feet away from her daughter, grieving the loss of her husband and neither could do anything to comfort the other.

At the crematorium, I for one, have noticed that fewer families have been opting to have a printed Order of Service sheet. This may be because Order of Service sheets, if they are ordered from a professional printer usually come with a minimum order of 20 and increase in batches of 20. No use if there are only 6-10 people allowed to attend.

What has happened more is that families have taken the decision to self-print, sometimes printing the entire eulogy in booklet form so they can follow along and send a copy off to those unable to attend.

In terms of the eulogy itself, I have noticed a number of families opting to write a shortened version of the eulogy themselves to be read out. Their argument ?

‘There’s no point going into detail about their life. Everyone there knew about it anyway.’

This isn’t meant in an uncaring or brutal way. The family are acutely aware that the service they are having is not what they would have wanted. They are doing the best they can in extreme circumstances and the eulogy is, quite often to the point and matter-of-fact.

In the pre-Covid services when the crematorium is full of mourners, ready to celebrate the life of a much-loved relative, you can sense an energy and feed off it, like a performer on stage. Lately, it has felt increasingly difficult to engage with only up to 10 mourners in attendance.

Post-service

There is a feeling that, if a family is doubly unfortunate to lose a loved one anyway and to lose them during lockdown, they are resigned to the fact that the funeral is more of a symbolic gesture. It is something that society expects of them. And whilst previously the service could be an occasion to celebrate and maybe even enjoy a laugh together, the family is resigned to the fact that they should plan a memorial service for ‘When all this is over ‘ and they can say a proper farewell.

There is no doubt that the Covid 19 pandemic will have left its’ mark throughout our society at many levels by the time it is over. Funeral services are just a small part of that, but we, as funeral service professionals have had to adapt and families too have had to do the same.

One thing is for certain, when all this is finally over, things will look very different indeed.

Does Death Cafe Offer A Way Of Coping With COVID-19?

The Covid19 pandemic has brought us face to face with our mortality and that of our friends and relations in a way that few of us have ever experienced before. Is this going to be a major step towards society’s acceptance of death as something to be discussed openly?

The Death Cafe movement was the brainchild of Swiss sociologist and anthropologist Bernard Crettaz and the first ‘Cafe Mortel’ was held in Neuchatel in 2004 and since then has gained a foothold in more than 70 countries worldwide. In the UK, the baton for the Death Cafe movement was taken up by Jon Underwood and the first meeting was held at his London home in 2011.

The aim of the cafe movement back then, and to this day, is to break the ‘tyrannical secrecy’ surrounding the topic of death, by offering anyone interested a safe place to discuss all things death-related in a non-judgmental environment.

The outbreak of Covid19 has led to a surge of interest in Death Cafes reported from all areas and whilst facilitators cannot hold face to face meetings, they are still arranging meetings online via Zoom or other facetime apps.

What happens at a Death cafe?

First of all, the meetings are not always held in cafes. But they do always supply tea, coffee, and cake. A facilitator will lead the discussions and questions like ‘How would you like to die? In your sleep? In a hospital? ‘ ‘Would you like a funeral or cremation?’ ‘What music would you like to have played?’ There is no right or wrong answer and no obligation to give an answer.

Importantly, the cafes are non-profit and rely on contributions from attendees and there is no agenda either in the sense of what to talk about or in the sense of leading people to a decision. They are most definitely not a platform for sales or promoting businesses.

And while a lot of attendees find themselves going to a Death Cafe because they have experienced a loss first-hand, the cafes don’t offer bereavement support or counselling. There are no guest-speakers, set questions or topics to discuss. The cafes are not morbid in any way and their aim is to make people make the most of their lives by embracing the inevitable and discussing it openly.

Why now?

If we were to turn the clock back just over 100 years or so, we would have found ourselves in very different times. Times where our acceptance of death was far more heightened than it is today. Families were much larger because the high rate of infant mortality meant that families expected to lose some children in infancy.

Husbands, fathers and brothers went off to fight in one of the bloodiest wars the world has seen and families weren’t ever sure they would see them again. Medicine, hygiene and hospital care was nothing like as advanced as it is now and death was all around. Since those times, as a society we have sleep-walked into believing that for some reason death won’t happen and we shouldn’t talk about it.

Jon Underwood pointed out that Western society has effectively outsourced its’ discussions on death to third parties, doctors, priests and funeral directors. And as a result, this outsourcing that has led to us being ill-equipped to deal with death when it is an inevitable part of life.

The last taboo

If we are to take anything positive away from this pandemic then it must surely be that it has opened a door to people wanting to discuss topics related to death; living wills, funeral plans, or advanced care discussions.

Our death may not be exactly what we expected and whilst we can’t plan for exactly when it will happen, what we can do is go some way towards opening the discussions about the inevitable and taking on the last taboo.

In my role as a celebrant, I am in no way endorsing Death Cafe, but should you wish to look into this further and find where your nearest or next meeting might be, then go to https://deathcafe.com/

A Fascinating Find in a Dorset Graveyard

How a day out in a Dorset village led us to finding out about the renowned 18th-century farmer and pioneer of inoculation, Benjamin Jesty.

as our lockdown woes began to ease recently, we decided to go out for a day trip to the Dorset countryside.

We’d been recommended to go to Worth Matravers, a few miles outside of Corfe on the way to Swanage. It was a glorious day and because some restrictions were still in place we were able to park in the charming village without any bother.

The village itself looks probably much the same as it did back in the 17th & 18th centuries, with the small cottages built from local stone. In fact, any new dwellings still have to be built from the same stone.

As we took in the village, I saw St Nicholas Church and made my way in to take a few photos. To the far side of the church and not visible from the road were two very well-tended gravestones. Thinking they must be the graves of recently deceased local dignitaries, I looked closer and found they were the graves of Benjamin Jesty and his wife Elizabeth, both of whom had died in the early 19th century.

Who was Benjamin Jesty?

Benjamin Jesty was a farmer from Yetminster in Dorset, born in 1736. He married Elizabeth and together they had four sons.

What made Jesty remarkable was that at the time he was alive, smallpox was rife throughout Europe and frequently resulted in epidemics ( over 400,000 deaths annually). It became apparent that milkmaids and others who worked with cows and had contracted cowpox were able to nurse those suffering from smallpox without the danger of contracting the killer disease.

Jesty and two of his servants had already had cowpox and so were immune and when a smallpox outbreak occurred in Yetminster in 1774, Jesty had the bright idea of inoculating his wife and his two eldest sons.

Bearing in mind that Jesty was by no means a medical man, but had the idea that if he could introduce the disease into his family deliberately, they would be immune. And so, using a darning needle he transferred cowpox into his wife and children by scratching their arms. Thankfully, although his wife suffered quite a severe reaction, they all survived.

Was Jesty hailed as a hero?

You would think that after such a significant medical breakthough, Jesty would be lauded wherever he went. But this was the 18th century and instead he was reviled because people thought that introducing animal diseases into man would lead to some sort of metamorphosis into that animal.

Edward Jenner takes the credit

In 1802, some 20 years after Jesty’s pioneering work, physician Edward Jenner received a reward from the House of Commons of £10,000 ( equivalent to £1 million today) for his work on vaccines and a further £20,000 five years later. Physician George Pearson was familiar with Jesty’s earlier work and tried to get parliament to give him recognition but although Jesty’s case was well-documented he failed to petition in person and so the case was disregarded.

However, all was not lost because another physician and reverend, Dr Andrew Bell of Swanage, prepared a paper proposing Jesty as the first vaccinator and Jesty was invited along with his son to London to give their version of events before a panel of medical officers at the ‘Original Pock Institute’.

After cross-examination and inoculating his son again with smallpox, Jesty was awarded with a pair of gold mounted lancets and the results of the examination were published in the ‘Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal’.

Jesty was a country farmer who had realised there may be a link between immunity to one disease and the contraction of another. I don’t think he ever sought fame or riches and as if to illustrate this, when he was invited to London and his family tried to persuade him to dress in a more up-to-date fashion, he said he didn’t see why he should dress better in London than in the country.

It seems a shame that Jesty didn’t get the recognition, ( or the £10,000) that he so thoroughly deserved for most of his life, but at least now there is a permanent memorial in a Dorest graveyard to his intuition and bravery.

Why You Might Get The Response ‘Mum Was Mum’

When you first hear that phrase, it takes you aback. What do they mean? Why aren’t they prepared with dozens of stories? In this post, I’m going to look at some of the possible reasons why someone might say those words.

A few years ago, I asked a bereaved son to tell me about his mother, who he clearly loved dearly.

He thought for a moment and replied, ”Mum was mum.”. I have to say that I at the time, I was somewhat taken aback. How could anyone possibly be so dismissive about their mother? After all,this was someone who looked after you your whole life, cooked for you, cared for you, loved you unconditionally for over 50 years and all you can say is ‘Mum was mum.’

I found over time, the answer was repeated and so, I took some time to have a look at the facts behind this alarmingly offhand comment. And there were two areas to take into account.

The Background

I realised that, on the whole, the mums in question were usually in their 80s or 90s and so they’d been bringing up their children in the late 50s and early 60s and they were very different times.

At the risk of generalising from the specific, these mums had several things in common;

  1. They hadn’t gone on to further education.
  2. They didn’t have a career.
  3. They had married at a young age.
  4. Any job they had done had been given up to care for their children.
  5. They had been stay at home housewives while the husband worked.
  6. They hadn’t travelled widely.
  7. They didn’t have exciting hobbies to speak of.
  8. They didn’t have much time for hobbies or pastimes.
  9. They had largely been ‘in the background’ being mums.
  10. They didn’t have an extensive social life.

And so, despite my surprise at the phrase, that was exactly how they’d been seen. And it wasn’t meant in an insulting or denigrating manner. I just think that for many of these people losing a mum in their 80’s and 90’s, that was exactly how so many of them were seen. Despite the hugely important role they played, they had no chance to shine as individuals because the work they were expected to do was all-consuming, and that was symptomatic of the era they found themselves in.

The second thing to take into account is;

The Brain

In spite of the fact that our brains are without question more powerful than any computer ever built, if you ask a simple open-ended question like ‘Tell me about X’ it will freeze.

Why?

Firstly, there is just too much information to process in one hit and our brains go into panic mode. We experience what is called an ‘amygdala hijack’ ( https://www.healthline.com/health/stress/amygdala-hijack#overview ) where our amygdala ( the part of the brain that developed to control fight or flight responses to threats) takes control because of the stress of the situation and disables our ability to make logical and rational decisions. Thankfully, our frontal lobes have developed and override this, realising that the threat is not life-threatening and rational decisions can be made.

Secondly, we may be experiencing ‘attention saturation’ ( https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/metacognition-and-the-mind/201503/why-we-cant-remember-the-things-we-most-often-see ) a common occurrence where, if the same thing is seen on a routine basis it becomes less and less memorable. Consider growing up with a stay-at-home mum who cooked and baked every day, washed the clothes, cleaning the house, ironed, dusted and everything else and suddenly you’re being asked ‘tell me about mum’. What DO you say?

Thirdly, we may be experiencing ‘grief fog‘. Our brains are programmed to protect us and when something happens that we haven’t experienced before, especially something traumatic, like the death of a loved one, we have to begin to process the new experience. So, our brain attempts to focus and protect us simultaneously as it attempts to understand and make sense of what has happened.

Generally, with a little prompting and a little time, fond memories will come flooding back and I’m happy to say that on every occasion that I’ve heard the phrase ‘Mum was mum’, together we have always managed to produce a tribute that illustrates the wonderful qualities she possessed.

Surprising and Simple Ways To Ease Stress While You Sit At Your Desk

Dealing with families when they are at an emotional low point is likely to take its’ toll on anyone and funeral directors, arrangers, celebrants, and other funeral professionals are expected to do this on a daily basis.

When you invest so much of your own emotional well-being into giving bereaved families what they want, it is impossible to prevent your own emotional well-being from taking a bit of a battering. Little surprise then that funeral professionals are likely to suffer from ‘compassion fatigue’. ‘ a secondary traumatic stress disorder. Essentially, it’s about caring so much it begins to hurt.‘ https://www.frazerconsultants.com.

Sound familiar? What can we do?

In recent posts, https://celebrantglynbawden.com/5-reasons-why-its-hard-for-us-to-say-no/ and https://celebrantglynbawden.com/5-reasons-why-you-should-say-no-more-often/ I covered some of the reasons why its’ hard for funeral service professionals to say ‘No’ but why saying ‘No’ is actually important. In today’s post, I want to look at some simple and perhaps, surprising ways you can combat stress.

They aren’t expensive and they are things that anyone can do easily in just a few spare minutes.

Breathe

Breathe? Did I read that right? Yes, you did. Breathing is the one thing we all do but hardly any of us does it to benefit our health efficiently. One of the single best ways to reduce stress and to give you an energy boost is deep breathing and this can be done LITERALLY anywhere. Hard day? Try it while you’re sitting in a traffic jam on the way home.

Inhale through the nose for 3 seconds and exhale through the mouth for 3 seconds and repeat this 10 times. It is remarkable just how simple and effective this is. For more information on Perfect Breathing check out this site http://phttp://perfectbreathing.com/

Drink Orange Juice

It sounds unlikely to say the least but studies have repeatedly shown that food and drink high in Vitamin C, such as Orange Juice, reduce stress by lowering the levels of stress hormones such as cortisol. Two glasses a day should work fine.

Smile or Laugh

‘Smile, it might never happen!’ How many of us have heard those wonderful words of wisdom in the past? Having a laugh or even a smile does things that reduce stress in the long term. It can reduce cortisol levels, and release those endorphins that we hear so much about.

We all have phones, find a video of a cat on a skateboard and enjoy it for 5 minutes.

Pet a dog

It’s no surprise that many funeral homes have now started to have a resident ‘bereavement dog’ to hand. Stroking a dog can reduce blood pressure and ease anxiety and dogs are especially good at de-stressing us because over thousands of years they’ve been bred to be good companions and are particularly adept at feeling and responding to human emotions .

So, it’s not a mistake when people say that they are ‘man’s best friend’

Massage Your Ear

Or ‘auriculotherapy’ to give it its’ proper name. Our ears are home to multiple nerve endings and pressure points that benefit from being massaged. A gentle massage of the ear lobe can have effects like releasing endorphins ( again), boosting the immune system and stimulating relaxation.

Try rubbing the ear lobe between your thumb and forefinger, or gently tugging it away from you, stroking where the ear joins the head or massaging the cartilage which forms the main part of the ear for just a few minutes.

Act As If..

This is a strategy used by salespeople or for someone going to an interview to trick the mind into believing something else.

Our mind is such an astonishingly powerful tool, a simple trick like this can work wonders.

Because our mind is unable to differentiate between reality and what we tell it is reality, we can make it believe virtually anything. So why not tell your mind that you’re not stressed and in fact, you’re coping brilliantly with everything that’s thrown at you. Make sure that your physiological signs display the same as what you’re thinking, so slow your breathing and act calmly.

So, next time things start to get a little too much, why not try one or more of the above? Who knows, it might just help and if it doesn’t then you only wasted 5 minutes.

How a Change of Holiday Destination Led This Celebrant to Witness Something Extraordinary.

‘Let’s go somewhere we’re never likely to go back to.’

Like all the best ideas, that was how it started. Just an off-the-cuff conversation about changing our pretty routine holiday choice.

We’d been going to the same sort of places for years, pretty typical European tourist spots in Portugal, Spain and France, so we thought it would be a good idea to go somewhere completely different.

And that was what led us to Nepal. We looked online and saw an organised tour of Nepal for 12 days on TripAdvisor. We checked out the itinerary and after deciding to upgrade our hotel ( thank goodness, no offence to Nepal but three stars in Kathmandu is not anything like three stars here).

In February we were off. After being picked up from the airport we were heading to our ( 5 star) hotel and as we were stuck in traffic, not uncommon for anyone who has ever been to Kathmandu, it’s a wonder anything ever gets done, ours eyes were caught by an impressive group of temples. We enquired what they were and were told by our guide it was the Pashupatinath Temple ( https://www.welcomenepal.com/places-to-see/pashupatinath.html ) the largest temple complex in Nepal. It straddles the sacred Bagmati River and it is here, on raised platforms, at this UNESCO Cultural Heritage site that open air cremations take place every day.

My curiosity was well and truly piqued and we decided that when we had a free day we would make our way to the temple to witness the ceremony.

After 10 days of touring and seeing some astonishing sights we returned to Kathmandu and had a free day, so we decided to walk from our hotel to the temple. We had been reliably informed by our guide that it was a walk of about 35 minutes.

One hour and 20 minutes later, after touring various Kathamandu back streets we arrived, dusty and thirsty and entered the temple complex.

Frankly, nothing had prepared us for what we were to witness. On a raised pyre, one of several, by the river’s edge, a man in a white apron steadily built up a funeral pyre underneath a platform, stuffing it with twigs and logs as if a Sunday afternoon barbeque was being prepared.

When the pyre was prepared, family members emerged carrying the deceased, wrapped in orange cloth, at shoulder height on a wooden stretcher. The deceased was then placed carefully onto the platform and any clothing was removed with a cloth held up to maintain dignity.

A family member, presumably the next-of-kin or senior family member circled the platform several times, strips of orange cloth were removed and tied to the poles supporting the roof of the shelter that the pyre lay under.Then the family retreated and the fire was lit.

As the flames burnt the dead body, we were struck by how quiet the mourners were. The whole ceremony took place with in an alarmingly ( to us) matter-of-fact manner. There was no sadness, no tears and seemingly no grief-stricken relatives that we are so familiar with in the West.

Of course, as a predominantly Hindu nation, the Nepalese attitude to death is as far removed from the western view as possible. To Hindus, life and death are both part of what they call ‘maya’, a grand illusion; Hindus believe that when a soul dies, it gets born into a new body. The cycle of death and rebirth — ‘samsara’ — ends only when a soul realizes its true nature — indistinguishable from the absolute godhead, which Hindus call Brahman.

And so, this devout belief system in a life after death softens the blow of losing a loved one.They may never be replaced but there is a confidence that their soul will live on elsewhere. There is much to be applauded in such a strong religious belief system that salves the pain of the death of a loved one and can go some way towards giving a meaning to life.

From the point of view of a celebrant, I felt hugely privileged to have witnessed the rituals of cremation from another culture and religion. It was, like the whole of the trip, utterly spell-binding and eye-opening. An experience that will live with me forever.

5 Reasons Why You Should Say ‘No’ More Often.

I did a post last week on reasons why it’s hard for us, as celebrants, to say ‘No’ to requests (.https://celebrantglynbawden.com/5-reasons-why-its-hard-for-us-to-say-no/) . The conclusion was probably that, even though we feel obliged to say ‘yes’ for all those reasons, we really should try and say ‘no’ more.

Let’s take a look at why saying ‘no’ is not just a good thing, it’s an essential thing for our long-term well-being.

Emotionally draining

As funeral celebrants we deal with people when they are often at their most emotional and vulnerable. They have just lost a loved one and are putting their faith into you to deliver a meaningful and heartfelt eulogy after only a handful of meetings at best.

It’s not possible, unless you’re made of stone, to avoid investing some of your own emotional energy into each service.

Our emotions are not a bottomless pit. Just as you’ll become physically exhausted if you exercise too much, you will become emotionally exhausted if you expend too much emotion. And it will come to a head eventually.

Quality will suffer

We get one chance to do what we do. One chance to stand in front of a grieving family and give a well-structured, well-written eulogy in memory of a loved one.

If we take on too much, we run a very real risk of the quality of our work being diluted or rushed as we try to prioritise. It’s like juggling. Throwing and catching one ball is easy. Even two, not a problem. Some of us may even be able to do three, but start getting to four and five then you’ll soon see how hard it is to keep up.

Keep your workload manageable and the quality will be maintained.

You neglect other parts of your life

Our lives are complex and complicated things. They are made up of many different areas. And for them to be successful, we need each of the areas to be running in harmony.

Of course, work is important. That’s what puts the food on the table and pays the bills but for a well-balanced approach, you need to pay equal attention to the other parts of your life.

Your family and their happiness is vital to maintain your own well-being. Take your partner and your children to the cinema or out for a meal. You need time for hobbies, even if your hobby is just catching up with the latest on Netflix, set aside some time to do it.

Self esteem

Saying ‘no’ is good for you. Yes, you read that right. How many times have you said ‘yes’ to something only to go away and curse yourself for giving in again and asking ‘Why did I say yes?’

Say ‘no’ once in a while. Take back some control of your life and you’ll feel better about yourself. That simple act will tell everyone, including yourself that YOU are in control and YOU are the one making the decisions.

Reduce Stress

Once you’re back in control of what’s going on in your life then a whole host of other good things start to happen. You’ll be less stressed for one and that’s got to be a good thing.

You can concentrate on doing the work that you have to the best of your ability, investing the time and emotional input that is needed without neglecting other areas.

You may find that you’ll be sleeping better, your appetite will be better and you’ll be healthier all round.

There’s is no doubt that saying no more often will benefit you in the short term and the long term. You’ll have more time to do what matters to you, so give it a go, say ‘NO’.

5 Reasons Why It’s Hard For Us To Say ‘NO’

It’s a mere two letters long and it can make life so much easier at times, so why is it that we have such problems saying it? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why we may find it hard.

GUILT

We live in a ‘yes’ culture, where we are socially-conditioned from an early age to say ‘yes’ to things because what we don’t want to do is upset someone but rejecting them or their proposal. If we say ‘no’ to someone then we feel like we’re rejecting them and no-one wants to do that, but we are quite happy to put more onto our own plate.


FEAR OF NOT BEING USED AGAIN

We spend months contacting our Funeral Directors and Arrangers and building up those relationships and when we say ‘no’ there’s always the question at the back of your mind, ‘Well, if I don’t do it, who will they ask? And will they do a better job than me? If they do, then maybe I’ll never hear from them again.’

We work in a very competitive field and more and more celebrants are coming along all the time. Face it, we can’t do every single service. There will be some we can’t do for other reasons and don’t kid yourself that you get chosen for every service the Arranger or FD has. If they’re good at their job then they’ll put the right celebrant with the right family.


SELF-EMPLOYMENT

We’re self-employed and we get it that it may be feast or famine. If we don’t accept every single job that is offered then who knows when the next one may come along?

Well, guess what. People have been self-employed for years and that’s the nature of self-employment. Sometimes the phone will ring off the hook non-stop. Sometimes you won’t hear anything for weeks, but in the end, it all has a tendency to work out and saying ‘no’ to one or two jobs isn’t going to make a big difference one way or the other.


EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT

Our role, by its’ very nature, means that we come into contact with people when they are at a very low state emotionally. They may be still coming to terms with their grief and will need to have their hand-held throughout the process. And who better to do it? Us of course!

And it doesn’t matter that we already have a number of services that day or week because obviously there’s no-one else that could shoulder that emotional load better than us, is there.

Once again, let’s not kid ourselves that no-one else is capable of dealing with these grieving families. All the celebrants should have been on a training course and will probably have a good few services under their belts, some will have plenty more than you, so stop thinking no-one else can do it.

IT’S VERY FINAL

Even though it’s only two letters long, it sounds so…well, final. I’m pretty sure that none of us would be so abrupt as to simply say ‘No’ and hang up the phone but there are ways of tempering the blow and making sure that you leave the door open for future business.

You could always suggest another celebrant that you know and have a reciprocal arrangement with them, so even if you did lose a service there’s always the chance that you’ll pick another up at a later date.

If you don’t know another celebrant well enough, just say ‘I really hope you find someone’ and arrange to call back after the service to see how things went.


There are always going to be times when we have to say those two little letters and I get it, it’s hard but hopefully, we can understand why and accept that saying ‘no’ is an important part of life and we can grow from that.