What do you think?
Rate this book
Life, Death, Grief, and the Possibility of Pleasure
Oceana Sawyer shows how it is possible to elevate many of our life events – including death and grief – to a richer, more meaningful level. She reveals how accessing pleasure is the key, and how it requires just a small bit of effort. Oceana Sawyer will take you through a step-by-step exploration of what constitutes pleasure and how to access it. She goes on to give simple practical guidelines for how to apply that information to the challenging experiences of death and grief. Through stories and examples, the reader will be shown how easy it can be to uplift the human experience of dying and grieving into a more expansive space that allows for greater depth and a richer journey through life all the way to the end and beyond. Most importantly, the author describes the purpose and benefits of pursuing a path of pleasure in any phase of life. The reader’s journey will also be enhanced by supplemental sensory practices as described by a variety of noted end-of-life contributors including Melanie DeMore ( song at vigils ), Naila Francis ( poetry and movement for grief ), Roshni Kavate ( comfort from food and ritual ) and Ash Canty ( grief and the sixth sense ).
- GenresDeath
102 pages, Paperback
Published May 27, 2022
2 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 12, 2024
So many seriously important insights. I've never read anything like it.
"My experiences with death and grief have led me to a rather stunning conclusion: that body-centered death care encompassing pleasure can increase one's capacity for personal expansion. It's an idea that has redefined my work as an end-of-life doula."
"Grief can feel like a cloudy, numb existence where we feel we are fading from life. Yet grief is a visceral invitation to rediscover the sensuality of our being. We can offer our grieving self sweetness with a bowl of fruit, or a moment of ease with a cup of rich broth. A pot of stew can be an unspoken yet powerful reassurance for a dear friend. It is an act of deep care and a step towards re-humanizing ourselves."
"What do I enjoy visually? What sounds appeal to me? What are yummy tastes for me? What feels good on my skin? How do I like to be touched? What smells delight me? What thoughts ease my mind or make me laugh or smile?... Notice that all these pleasures are of the present moment. This is because pleasure is grounded in experiencing yourself in the here and now. Pleasure provides a tangible means of learning how to be present."
"To constantly be creating and carving out moments for our grief to be felt, that is the way we will feel more, feel each other. That is how we will live more deeply and vividly."
"I also asked people I trusted to tell me when I seemed happiest."
"I was able to ground my body as I was grieving, experiencing my body as a good place, safe space, as I witnessed a tremendous emotion roiling through it. And I was able to embrace the experience, as sorrowful as it was, with some amount of awe and joy. Because if you can ground yourself in your own body, and thus, in your own experience, you will discover, as I did, that even within deep sorrow and grief, joy is there, too."
"When I wasn't at my mother's bedside, I intentionally fortified myself with experiences that delighted my senses as a way to increase my capacity for compassion."
"Seeking out delight is an important aspect of a death vigil. This is because people who are gratified have more space to be generous than people who are depleted. They have more capacity for compassion and generosity, which is a useful space to be in when one enters the mysterious realm of active dying. Being in a state of gratification allows you to be present to the majesty that is available when someone exits the realm of the living. And you wouldn't want to miss that."
"Honestly, it just felt better in both my body and my soul to confront grief rather than avoid it. Releasing the stagnate emotional places felt especially good because energy and inspiration became quickly available on the other side of them."
"'Pleasure and dying' she says, 'just don't feel right going together.' Here is my response: 'Pleasure,' I say, 'is not the focus of how I do death care. Pleasure-centric death care is more about the way one can do all the parts of dying, the way you go about the process.' In other words, pleasure-centric death care includes everything you already need to do to create comfort; but it means doing all of that through a sensual lens- a lens that focuses on what feels good bodily... This lens allows for additional opportunities to elevate the experience for the person dying, the caregivers, and the grieving survivors too."
"The very first and most important step is to put your attention on the person who is dying and consider what aspects of their past and current life brought them delight."
"Grief is often defined as the sorrow associated with loss. However, anyone who has really embraced their grieving will say it is also so much more than that. Currently, many practitioners describe grief as a range of emotions, behaviors, and physiological experiences that ebb and flow, undulate and meander. In other words, grief is a journey- a journey of huge emotions. And it can become a grand adventure if we are willing to honor those emotions by feeling them fully through our bodies. When we dare to feel fully, we feel good. Righteously so. For instance, a big old howling, screaming sobfest can feel exquisite at any point in the act, if it's embraced and cherished as the soul-nourishing act that it is. "
"I tell grieving clients that dying people often express to me a desire to not be a burden on a loved one. Taking a break to refresh yourself allows you to be more accessible and a better companion to your dying loved one- and also relieves them of a sense of being burdensome."
"Though we have all encountered our share of grief and troubles, we can still hold the line of beauty, form and beat- no small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one. Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is the proof." -Alice Walker, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems
"My experiences with death and grief have led me to a rather stunning conclusion: that body-centered death care encompassing pleasure can increase one's capacity for personal expansion. It's an idea that has redefined my work as an end-of-life doula."
"Grief can feel like a cloudy, numb existence where we feel we are fading from life. Yet grief is a visceral invitation to rediscover the sensuality of our being. We can offer our grieving self sweetness with a bowl of fruit, or a moment of ease with a cup of rich broth. A pot of stew can be an unspoken yet powerful reassurance for a dear friend. It is an act of deep care and a step towards re-humanizing ourselves."
"What do I enjoy visually? What sounds appeal to me? What are yummy tastes for me? What feels good on my skin? How do I like to be touched? What smells delight me? What thoughts ease my mind or make me laugh or smile?... Notice that all these pleasures are of the present moment. This is because pleasure is grounded in experiencing yourself in the here and now. Pleasure provides a tangible means of learning how to be present."
"To constantly be creating and carving out moments for our grief to be felt, that is the way we will feel more, feel each other. That is how we will live more deeply and vividly."
"I also asked people I trusted to tell me when I seemed happiest."
"I was able to ground my body as I was grieving, experiencing my body as a good place, safe space, as I witnessed a tremendous emotion roiling through it. And I was able to embrace the experience, as sorrowful as it was, with some amount of awe and joy. Because if you can ground yourself in your own body, and thus, in your own experience, you will discover, as I did, that even within deep sorrow and grief, joy is there, too."
"When I wasn't at my mother's bedside, I intentionally fortified myself with experiences that delighted my senses as a way to increase my capacity for compassion."
"Seeking out delight is an important aspect of a death vigil. This is because people who are gratified have more space to be generous than people who are depleted. They have more capacity for compassion and generosity, which is a useful space to be in when one enters the mysterious realm of active dying. Being in a state of gratification allows you to be present to the majesty that is available when someone exits the realm of the living. And you wouldn't want to miss that."
"Honestly, it just felt better in both my body and my soul to confront grief rather than avoid it. Releasing the stagnate emotional places felt especially good because energy and inspiration became quickly available on the other side of them."
"'Pleasure and dying' she says, 'just don't feel right going together.' Here is my response: 'Pleasure,' I say, 'is not the focus of how I do death care. Pleasure-centric death care is more about the way one can do all the parts of dying, the way you go about the process.' In other words, pleasure-centric death care includes everything you already need to do to create comfort; but it means doing all of that through a sensual lens- a lens that focuses on what feels good bodily... This lens allows for additional opportunities to elevate the experience for the person dying, the caregivers, and the grieving survivors too."
"The very first and most important step is to put your attention on the person who is dying and consider what aspects of their past and current life brought them delight."
"Grief is often defined as the sorrow associated with loss. However, anyone who has really embraced their grieving will say it is also so much more than that. Currently, many practitioners describe grief as a range of emotions, behaviors, and physiological experiences that ebb and flow, undulate and meander. In other words, grief is a journey- a journey of huge emotions. And it can become a grand adventure if we are willing to honor those emotions by feeling them fully through our bodies. When we dare to feel fully, we feel good. Righteously so. For instance, a big old howling, screaming sobfest can feel exquisite at any point in the act, if it's embraced and cherished as the soul-nourishing act that it is. "
"I tell grieving clients that dying people often express to me a desire to not be a burden on a loved one. Taking a break to refresh yourself allows you to be more accessible and a better companion to your dying loved one- and also relieves them of a sense of being burdensome."
"Though we have all encountered our share of grief and troubles, we can still hold the line of beauty, form and beat- no small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one. Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is the proof." -Alice Walker, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems
Displaying 1 of 1 review