Download or read book Summary of Briefly Perfectly Human by Alua Arthur written by GP SUMMARY and published by XinXii. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DISCLAIMER This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book. Summary of Briefly Perfectly Human by Alua Arthur: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET: Chapter provides an astute outline of the main contents. Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis. Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book Alua Arthur, America's leading death doula, has written a memoir that reframes our understanding of death and its impact on life. The memoir, praised by Jodi Picoult and Tembi Locke, offers a unique perspective on end-of-life care, managing business matters, medical directives, and memorial planning.
Download or read book Briefly Perfectly Human written by Alua Arthur and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2024-04-16 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A deeply transformative memoir that reframes how we think about death and how it can help us lead better, more fulfilling and authentic lives, from America’s most visible death doula. "A truly unique, inspiring perspective on the time we have, what we do with it, and how we let go of this world.... There is no one I'd trust more to guide me through an understanding of death, and how it informs life." — Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Mad Honey and The Book of Two Ways "Briefly Perfectly Human is a beautiful, raw, light-bringing experience. Alua's voice is shimmering, singular, and pulses with humor, vulnerability, insight, and refreshing candor.... Be prepared for it to grab you, hold you tight, and raise the roof on the power of human connection." — Tembi Locke, author of From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home For her clients and everyone who has been inspired by her humanity, Alua Arthur is a friend at the end of the world. As our country’s leading death doula, she’s spreading a transformative message: thinking about your death—whether imminent or not—will breathe wild, new potential into your life. Warm, generous, and funny AF, Alua supports and helps manage end-of-life care on many levels. The business matters, medical directives, memorial planning; but also honoring the quiet moments, when monitors are beeping and loved ones have stepped out to get some air—or maybe not shown up at all—and her clients become deeply contemplative and want to talk. Aching, unfinished business often emerges. Alua has been present for thousands of these sacred moments—when regrets, fears, secret joys, hidden affairs, and dim realities are finally said aloud. When this happens, Alua focuses her attention at the pulsing center of her clients’ anguish and creates space for them, and sometimes their loved ones, to find peace. This has had a profound effect on Alua, who was already no stranger to death’s periphery. Her family fled a murderous coup d’état in Ghana in the 1980s. She has suffered major, debilitating depressions. And her dear friend and brother-in-law died of lymphoma. Advocating for him in his final months is what led Alua to her life’s calling. She knows firsthand the power of bearing witness and telling the truth about life’s painful complexities, because they do not disappear when you look the other way. They wait for you. Briefly Perfectly Human is a life-changing, soul-gathering debut, by a writer whose empathy, tenderness, and wisdom shimmers on the page. Alua Arthur combines intimate storytelling with a passionate appeal for loving, courageous end-of-life care—what she calls “death embrace.” Hers is a powerful testament to getting in touch with something deeper in our lives, by embracing the fact of our own mortality. “Hold that truth in your mind,” Alua says, “and wondrous things will begin to grow around it.”
Download or read book The Last Ocean written by Nicci Gerrard and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning journalist and author, a lyrical, raw and humane investigation of dementia that explores both the journeys of the people who live with the condition and those of their loved ones After a diagnosis of dementia, Nicci Gerrard’s father, John, continued to live life on his own terms, alongside the disease. But when an isolating hospital stay precipitated a dramatic turn for the worse, Gerrard, an award-winning journalist and author, recognized that it was not just the disease, but misguided protocol and harmful practices that cause such pain at the end of life. Gerrard was inspired to seek a better course for all who suffer because of the disease. The Last Ocean is Gerrard’s investigation into what dementia does to both the person who lives with the condition and to their caregivers. Dementia is now one of the leading causes of death in the West, and this necessary book will offer both comfort and a map to those walking through it. While she begins with her father’s long slip into forgetting, Gerrard expands to examine dementia writ large. Gerrard gives raw but literary shape both to the unimaginable loss of one’s own faculties, as well as to the pain of their loved ones. Her lens is unflinching, but Gerrard honors her subjects and finds the beauty and the humanity in their seemingly diminished states. In so doing, she examines the philosophy of what it means to have a self, as well as how we can offer dignity and peace to those who suffer with this terrible disease. Not only will it aid those walking with dementia patients, The Last Ocean will prompt all of us to think on the nature of a life well lived.
Download or read book This Is Assisted Dying written by Stefanie Green and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An international bestseller, this compassionate memoir by a leading pioneer in medically assisted dying who helps suffering patients explore and fulfill their end of life choices is “written with sensitivity, grace, and candor...not to be missed” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Dr. Stefanie Green has been forging new paths in the field of medical assistance in dying since 2016. In her landmark memoir, Dr. Green reveals the reasons a patient might seek an assisted death, how the process works, what the event itself can look like, the reactions of those involved, and what it feels like to oversee proceedings and administer medications that hasten death. She describes the extraordinary people she meets and the unusual circumstances she encounters as she navigates the intricacy, intensity, and utter humanity of these powerful interactions. Deeply authentic and powerfully emotional, This Is Assisted Dying contextualizes the myriad personal, professional, and practical issues surrounding assisted dying by bringing readers into the room with Dr. Green, sharing the voices of her patients, her colleagues, and her own narrative. As our population confronts issues of wellness, integrity, agency, community, and how to live a connected, meaningful life, this progressive and compassionate book by a physician at the forefront of medically assisted dying offers comfort and potential relief. “A humane, clear-eyed view of how and why one can leave the world by choice” (Kirkus Reviews), This Is Assisted Dying will change the way people think about their options, and ultimately is less about death than about how we wish to live.
Download or read book Adoption Detective written by Judith Land and published by Wheatmark, Inc.. This book was released on with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A passionate love affair between high school sweethearts creates an accidental pregnancy during a sultry night on the shore of Lake Michigan. Rebecca's unforgiving parents banish her to an unwed mother's home where she secretly gives birth to a baby girl. Her daughter Judy is placed in the loving care of foster parents before being callously given to Mario and Rosella Romano for adoption on her first birthday. Reoccurring visions and fantasies of her birthmother plague Judy's consciousness for three decades until a life-changing passage into adulthood causes her to question why she was abandoned. What begins as a simple investigation into her medical and ancestral history slowly evolves into a passionate quest to discover her roots. Through good timing, perseverance, and a few small miracles, Judy eventually solves the mystery of her origins. But will the woman she has been seeking welcome Judy back into her life? About the Authors Judith and Martin Land live in Colorado and Arizona. They told the entire story of Judith Land's adoption, from her birth through adulthood, to provide the reader with unique insights into the mind of an adoptee at various stages of her life.
Download or read book Caring for the Dying written by Henry Fersko-Weiss and published by Conari Press. This book was released on 2017-03-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caring for the Dying describes a whole new way to approach death and dying. It explores how the dying and their families can bring deep meaning and great comfort to the care given at the end of a life. Created by Henry Fersko-Weiss, the end-of-life doula model is adapted from the work of birth doulas and helps the dying to find meaning in their life, express that meaning in powerful and beautiful legacies, and plan for the final days. The approach calls for around-the-clock vigil care, so the dying person and their family have the emotional and spiritual support they need along with guidance on signs and symptoms of dying. It also covers the work of reprocessing a death with the family afterward and the early work of grieving. Emphasis is placed on the space around the dying person and encourages the use of touch, guided imagery, and ritual during the dying process. Throughout the book Fersko-Weiss tells amazing and encouraging stories of the people he has cared for, as well as stories that come from doulas he has trained and worked with over the years. What is unique about this book is the well-conceived and thorough approach it describes to working skillfully with the dying. The guidance provided can help a dying person, their family, and caregivers to transform the dying experience from one of fear and despair into one that is uplifting and even life affirming. You will see death in a new light and gain a different perspective on how to help the dying. It may even change the way you live your life right now.
Download or read book Advice for Future Corpses and Those Who Love Them written by Sallie Tisdale and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CRITICS’ TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR “In its loving, fierce specificity, this book on how to die is also a blessedly saccharine-free guide for how to live” (The New York Times). Former NEA fellow and Pushcart Prize-winning writer Sallie Tisdale offers a lyrical, thought-provoking, yet practical perspective on death and dying in Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them). Informed by her many years working as a nurse, with more than a decade in palliative care, Tisdale provides a frank, direct, and compassionate meditation on the inevitable. From the sublime (the faint sound of Mozart as you take your last breath) to the ridiculous (lessons on how to close the sagging jaw of a corpse), Tisdale leads us through the peaks and troughs of death with a calm, wise, and humorous hand. Advice for Future Corpses is more than a how-to manual or a spiritual bible: it is a graceful compilation of honest and intimate anecdotes based on the deaths Tisdale has witnessed in her work and life, as well as stories from cultures, traditions, and literature around the world. Tisdale explores all the heartbreaking, beautiful, terrifying, confusing, absurd, and even joyful experiences that accompany the work of dying, including: A Good Death: What does it mean to die “a good death”? Can there be more than one kind of good death? What can I do to make my death, or the deaths of my loved ones, good? Communication: What to say and not to say, what to ask, and when, from the dying, loved ones, doctors, and more. Last Months, Weeks, Days, and Hours: What you might expect, physically and emotionally, including the limitations, freedoms, pain, and joy of this unique time. Bodies: What happens to a body after death? What options are available to me after my death, and how do I choose—and make sure my wishes are followed? Grief: “Grief is the story that must be told over and over...Grief is the breath after the last one.” Beautifully written and compulsively readable, Advice for Future Corpses offers the resources and reassurance that we all need for planning the ends of our lives, and is essential reading for future corpses everywhere. “Sallie Tisdale’s elegantly understated new book pretends to be a user’s guide when in fact it’s a profound meditation” (David Shields, bestselling author of Reality Hunger).
Download or read book Life Is in the Transitions written by Bruce Feiler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller! A pioneering and timely study of how to navigate life's biggest transitions with meaning, purpose, and skill Bruce Feiler, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Secrets of Happy Families and Council of Dads, has long explored the stories that give our lives meaning. Galvanized by a personal crisis, he spent the last few years crisscrossing the country, collecting hundreds of life stories in all fifty states from Americans who’d been through major life changes—from losing jobs to losing loved ones; from changing careers to changing relationships; from getting sober to getting healthy to simply looking for a fresh start. He then spent a year coding these stories, identifying patterns and takeaways that can help all of us survive and thrive in times of change. What Feiler discovered was a world in which transitions are becoming more plentiful and mastering the skills to manage them is more urgent for all of us. The idea that we’ll have one job, one relationship, one source of happiness is hopelessly outdated. We all feel unnerved by this upheaval. We’re concerned that our lives are not what we expected, that we’ve veered off course, living life out of order. But we’re not alone. Life Is in the Transitions introduces the fresh, illuminating vision of the nonlinear life, in which each of us faces dozens of disruptors. One in ten of those becomes what Feiler calls a lifequake, a massive change that leads to a life transition. The average length of these transitions is five years. The upshot: We all spend half our lives in this unsettled state. You or someone you know is going through one now. The most exciting thing Feiler identified is a powerful new tool kit for navigating these pivotal times. Drawing on his extraordinary trove of insights, he lays out specific strategies each of us can use to reimagine and rebuild our lives, often stronger than before. From a master storyteller with an essential message, Life Is in the Transitions can move readers of any age to think deeply about times of change and how to transform them into periods of creativity and growth.
Download or read book Stuffocation written by James Wallman and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stuffocation is a movement manifesto for “experiential” living, a call to arms to stop accumulating stuff and start accumulating experiences, and a road map for a new way forward with the potential to transform our lives. Reject materialism. Embrace experientialism. Live more with less. Stuffocation is one of the most pressing problems of the twenty-first century. We have more stuff than we could ever need, and it isn’t making us happier. It’s bad for the planet. It’s cluttering up our homes. It’s making us stressed—and it might even be killing us. A rising number of us are already turning our backs on all-you-can-get consumption. We are choosing access over ownership, and taking our business to companies like Zipcar, Spotify, and Netflix. Fed up with materialism, we are ready for a new way forward. Trend forecaster James Wallman traces our obsession with stuff back to the original Mad Men, who first created desire through advertising. He interviews anthropologists studying the clutter crisis, economists searching for new ways of measuring progress, and psychologists who link stuffocation to declining well-being. And he introduces us to the innovators who are already living more consciously and with more meaning by choosing experience over stuff. Experientialism does not mean giving up all of our possessions. It is a solution that is less extreme but equally fundamental. It’s about transforming what we value. Stuffocation is a paradigm-shifting look at our habits and an inspiring call for living more with less. It’s the one important book you won’t be able to live without. Praise for Stuffocation “The revelations come fast and furious as he asserts that acquiring ‘stuff’ is often just an easy way to ignore the tougher questions of life, dodging ‘why am I here?’ and ‘how should I live?’ for ‘will that go with the top I bought last week?’ Tart and often funny . . . [Stuffocation] will be an eye-opener for those long ago persuaded that more is better. A scintillating read that will provoke conversation (or at least closet cleaning).”—Booklist “James Wallman deftly hits upon a major insight for our times: that acquiring ‘stuff’ and ‘things’ is not nearly as meaningful as collecting experiences. Some of the happiest days of my life were when I had nothing and lived on a houseboat. Without stuff to tie me down, I felt completely free.”—Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS and author of the New York Times bestseller Start Something That Matters “A must-read . . . We think that more stuff will make us happier, but as the book nicely shows, we’re just plain wrong. A great mix of stories and science, Stuffocation reveals the downside of more, and what we can do about it.”—Jonah Berger, author of the New York Times bestseller Contagious “Wallman offers a deeply important message by weaving contemporary social science into very engaging stories. Reading the book is such a pleasure that you hardly recognize you’re being told that you should change how you live your life.”—Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice “With a sociologist’s eye and a storyteller’s ear, Wallman takes us on a tour of today’s experience economy from the perspective not of businesses, nor even of consumers per se, but of everyday people.”—B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, authors of The Experience Economy
Download or read book Living the Good Life written by Helen Nearing and published by Schocken. This book was released on 1970 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the twenty years the authors spent homesteading in the Green Mountains of Vermont.
Download or read book The Book of Humans written by Adam Rutherford and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around 45,000 years ago, something happened. We dragged ourselves away from our origins by creating culture, with tools and art and abstract thought and our newly minted minds. The cognitive revolution gave us a sense that we are special, and specially created, distanced from nature. Writers, scientists, philosophers and religions have marvelled at our brilliance for millennia. Yet we are apes, wedded to the rest of creation by genes, anatomy, and physiology, all rooted in a shared evolution. All species are unique, but are we moreunique than other animals?This question is at the root of who we are. Things we once lorded as uniquely human are not. We are not the only species that communicates, makes tools, solves puzzles, has fashions, plans for the future, regrets past decisions, goes to war, grieves for lost lives, farms, uses manipulative mind control, and has sex for reasons other than to make new versions of ourselves. We arethe only ones who do all of these things.The Book of Humansis a guidebook to this paradox: what sets us apart from nature, but places us within it. Darwin began the process of inching us back into the natural world but in this dazzling new book, Adam Rutherford will look at how we occupy an exceptional place within the animal kingdom, demystify the complex behaviours we once thought just belonged to us and, in turn, enrich our understanding of what it means to be human.
Download or read book Running Barefoot for Human Survival written by Sidy Diallo and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2020-01-06 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The planet is literally burning, but not in danger, while we humans are in danger of extinction. We're indeed sitting on a mega time bomb fueled by frantic consumption, and the timer is ticking faster and sounding louder with each passing day, because the planet can't ensure the survival of almost eight billion people in the blind search for happiness through overconsumption, which also can result in serious financial problems for some people. Fortunately, we have a free, natural, sustainable, healthy, planet-friendly and highly efficient alternative to achieve the great human happiness billions of dollars can't buy. That's barefoot long-distance running, which also means heading back to our roots to find reason and meaning in life, for free. Since Homo sapiens is a tropical species, the cold is the only real challenge for our naked feet.If we keep hiding the head in the sand, the mega-bomb will inevitably end up exploding under our backsides. And before that fateful end, we will likely suffer from countless human tragedies, which will be more devastating and more frequent than those of recent years, such as fires in Australia and California; suffocating heat waves in many countries; islands and coastal regions swept away by storms, hurricanes or typhoons, etc. "We have to save the planet!" is the unfortunate motto shared by almost everyone, including many climate activists and the United Nations. Therefore, the UN has been organizing a yearly conference on global warming since 1995, with, expectedly, disappointing results. So there we have individuals of an endangered animal species, who are pretending to have the power to save the planet that gave us life, which is more than 4.5 billion years old, and which will survive us for a long time.We're born to hunt for food, procreate and live naturally happily, not to indulge in frantic consumption for having fun or finding meaning in life, because this inevitably fuels a permanent frustration, which leads not only to overconsumption and global warming, but also to the dreaded chronic diseases, such as stress, depression, insomnia, fatigue, overweight, obesity, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction, certain cancers, loss of mobility or cognitive ability, etc., against which doctors and drugs are proving increasingly powerless. This means that those responsible for the global warming and the chronic diseases are neither politicians, companies, producing countries nor other scapegoats, but the final consumers.Moreover, three million years of human evolution has created an impeccable and highly efficient musculoskeletal system for barefoot running. Abebe Bikila, the first barefoot runner of a marathon, won the race and broke the world. Unfortunately, he afterwards agreed to wear sneakers, and he eventually became the legendary victim of running shoes, when he suffered the serious injuries that terminated his marathon career. Like him, an increasing number of people have to stop running, because of injuries to their feet, legs or spine. Shoes are foreign objects that significantly disrupt the functioning of the musculoskeletal system. Injured or exhausted finishers are surprised to meet a barefoot runner, who completed a marathon without any injury, pain or fatigue. And most of them are convinced that my feet must have thick horny layers, as hard as iron, when the opposite is true.It's about time to think again and combine two complementary professions: a modern job to bring home the beacon, and the primary human job, i.e. barefoot running for our health, our natural happiness, and for preserving a habitable planet for humans and other species. We need very little to stop destroying, and guarantee our survival. We only need sleep, air, water, the minimum necessary food to keep our body mass within the range of our organs' capacities, a shelter, clothing and accessories adapted to our latitudes, hygiene, healthcare for non-preventable diseases, education, et
Download or read book Thriving Through Life s Storms written by Nina Vera-Vida and published by . This book was released on 2013-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever wondered if you'll have the strength to face and overcome all of your life's countless hardships? Are you tired of being tired, anxious, and worried? Does fulfillment seem like a farfetched dream? If you see more of yourself than you like in these questions, don't despair. What could be a life-changing experience awaits in Thriving through Life's Storms. Nina Vera-Vida's escape from war-torn Bosnia at seven, was just the beginning of a life filled with hardships. Nina endured dehumanizing deprivation and abuse-as well as the loss of her sight to a brain tumor. But what makes Nina a true survivor is that she never gave up. She created a path to rise above it all to inspire others. She developed coping mechanisms to minimize the pain and subsequent scars. What she has since realized is that there are two types of barriers to happiness. External hardships are often random, caused by things, people, or circumstances beyond our control. Internal hardships, on the other hand, are self-inflicted. As we wrap ourselves in the veil of denial we obscure the hardship triggers, making these internal hardships hard to detect. If you are ready to face down your enemies-both internal and external-as Nina has, a new life of fulfillment, freedom, and success can be yours. The ascent won't always be effortless, but it will be worth it. We stop living when we give up, when we let life's hardships make us feel helplessly "stuck" in the abyss of stagnation and discontent. Keep in mind Nina's motivation for writing this book: never give up.
Download or read book Perfectly Human written by Sarah C. Williams and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This extraordinary true story begins with the welcome news of a new member of the Williams family. But the happiness is short-lived, as a hospital scan reveals a lethal skeletal dysplasia. Birth will be fatal. The author and her husband decide to carry the baby to term, having to defend their child's dignity and worth against incomprehension and at times open hostility.
Download or read book I Will Die written by Jessica Featherly and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-02-03 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I Will Die is a stunningly unique creative journal filled with profound (and sometimes playful) creative writing and artistic prompts designed to help you examine the reality and mystery that surrounds death... and how it affects the way you live, love, and will some day die. Being mortal means every one of us has an expiration date. Our flesh is transient, fragile, passing. Death is inescapable and imminent - for me, for you, for those you love. For every one of us, 100% of the time. This is the situation in which we find ourselves and those we love, and we all have to come to terms with it. The question is: Will we even try? With keen insight, compassion and wit, this interactive journal allows the user to explore and express their own thoughts, anguish, fears, and expectations about mortality... and in so doing,affirms the beauty and preciousness of the gift that is life. Let the journey begin.
Download or read book Cultivating the Doula Heart written by Francesca Lynn Arnoldy and published by . This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part how-to guide, part hopeful manifesto, Cultivating the Doula Heart provides a clear framework for supporting those facing hardship, grief, and loss. Succinct and straightforward, this "work of heart" covers: Components of Doula Care, Aspects of Loss, Ways of Being/Ways of Doing, Grief Support, and Contemplative Exercises. This read is a beacon of light for difficult realms, allowing us all to practice and hone our ability to move from sympathy to empathy to compassion.
Download or read book The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary Complete Text Reproduced Micrographically P Z Supplement and bibliography written by and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 2238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Micrographic reproduction of the 13 volume Oxford English dictionary published in 1933.
