Talk Stigma

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the cadres Sphere. Welcome to talk stigma. My name is Seth Perry and welcome. Today I'm going to let people hop on and talk to you all about how I'm doing. I'm having a good Sunday. It's been a really fulfilling day. The weather is not as hot and I'm happy about that. It has been hot on Sunday mornings, which has been tough for me. And I'll talk a little bit about my job and what I do. If you don't know what I do. I'm a pastor. I'm in recovery from addiction and I live well with bipolar disorder.

I've been diagnosed since I was 17 for quite a while. So that's almost 27 years I've been living well with bipolar disorder. So I talk a little bit about stigma of the mental health condition and addiction that I live with regularly here on the Cadre sphere. And I also talk about spirituality. And welcome, Jules. Welcome to the live stream today. And if you're just joining us, we're going to be talking about end of life care and memorial services. I have a question right here, and it is what are some things that you would bring to a celebration of life?

So Jules, if you could start maybe brainstorming a few questions, what are some things that you would bring to a celebration of life? I've been doing, like I said, a lot of end of life care and I've been planning a lot of stuff. Neela, welcome. I'm asking a question to everybody who's joining today, and that is what are some things that you would bring to a celebration of life? And it's going to tie into the point of my livestream today. So what do you bring to a celebration of life? I've noticed that as I work with people in end of life care and as I work with families who are grieving, I got to remind them, hey, the service is going to be this day.

And remember, you got to bring this, this, this and this. These are the supplies that you need to remember your loved one. And so what are some things that you would bring to a celebration of life? I've been doing a few funerals lately and working with folks and I have an interesting story. So the first thing that Anila says is, and by the way, anila, love your channel and definitely check out, check out her lives that are coming up soon. And so slideshows and visuals. You're on Wednesday, correct?

Anila, is that right? So slide shows and visual visuals. I'm writing that down as something that you would bring to a. Excellent. So that you'd bring to a. And visuals can be like a vision board or whatever. So slideshows and visuals to a celebration of life. Excellent. I've got that down. Excellent. And so I. And, yes, every Wednesday, check out Anila. Put that in your calendar so you can watch that. So anyone else who has any ideas about things you can bring to a celebration of life right now we have slideshows and visuals.

That's one thing. And another thing, I see this a lot. And food. That's another thing. Food is going to be down there as something. Uh, here's a little bit of a curveball. And I've been to some indigenous, um, folks that are indigenous to North America. They bring medicine. Um, so that's something I wanted to add that is a little bit different. So, medicine. What do I mean by medicine? So sage is burnt. Um, other types of medicine, um, are used in ceremonial, um, uh, celebrations of life for our indigenous brothers and sisters.

So that's one thing that I've noticed is different than my. Yeah. Oh, here we go. Music. I was just about to say music. So, Anila, thank you very much. Music played at your dad's funeral. I'm sorry that you lost your dad, but music was played at your dad's funeral. Okay, excellent. We're getting some more suggestion, Jules. My family photo of the person that I'm celebrating exactly at the one I did yesterday. There was a big photo up at the front. Uh, what else would be up at the front? If we're thinking of traditional, um, uh, celebrations of life?

Hmm. What, something we're missing? Something. I'll leave you guys to guess what that is. And, uh, uh, what is that? Uh, you're gonna want to make sure that you probably bring a card. Yeah, sure. Good. We could have a card, but there'd probably be a lot of these things ordered from a specific thing and delivered to the place where the celebration of life is. Is taking place. So I'll let people in the chat. Guess what that is. It's a very common thing. Very, very common thing to do. You might want to bring something nice to wear to a lot of people wear something nice.

So maybe a suit or a dress. Something you're comfortable in. Yep. Absolutely. Does anyone know what I'm getting at? I'm saying there's. There's one. There we go. Jewels. Flowers. Excellent. Flowers. Okay. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna put my final thing. You can keep guessing while I tell my story. So I'll go through my list again. Okay. We want to have a slideshow or visuals. We want to have food for afterwards. We want to have medicine. We want to have music. We want to have a photo of that person that we love.

And we want to make sure there's cards. Wear a suit or dress if that's what the occasion calls for. And then flowers. Not just. I put one flower, maybe bring more than one flower. Flowers. Exactly. Okay, now, here's. Here's one thing I noticed that's always important. Kleenex or tissues? Kleenex or tissues. Yes. So I was cleaning up after a celebration of life that I helped with yesterday. I was leading that. It was a beautiful ceremony, and there was about 275 people there. It was standing room only.

And as the family came in to set up the space that we were in, someone was like, oh, my, do we have Kleenex? Do we have enough Kleenex? And then everyone is like, oh, my gosh, do we have. We forgot something. Do we have enough Kleenex? Will we have enough Kleenex? And wouldn't you believe we went and got enough Kleenex. We actually got more than enough Kleenex. Okay. So someone showed up and was like, I brought Kleenex. And suddenly we had 20 boxes of Kleenex there. But in the meantime, I had run back up to where I work at the church I'm the pastor of.

I went and just went and got our coal Kleenex supply box, brought it down there. We had more than enough Kleenex. And so what? Do we have Kleenex there? It's in preparation for people expressing their emotions. In preparation for people. People crying. And I think that that's a beautiful thing that we know we're entering into a space where we will be crying. We don't always exist in life where we know that we're entering intentional space where it's okay to cry. And that's what I really liked about that.

So people were crying yesterday. That's. That's true. They were crying. And at the end of the service, we gathered together all the Kleenex, and I was putting it away in the closet where we keep the Kleenex, and there the Kleenex had multiplied. Where I work right now at my church, we now have enough Kleenex for the next year, maybe the next year and a half, because someone said, let's cry. Let's be prepared. Let's be prepared to express our emotions openly. Let's be prepared to grief, grieve emotionally in front of people publicly, and let's just put it all out there.

And we certainly did. And it was good for all those people. But here's the twisted, okay, here's the twist in today's lesson that I wanted to throw your way. One other thing that I see that happens in many celebrations of life, of life in life. And also when I am visiting people in end of life care in the hospital, one thing that I see that we are not prepared for is laughter. Isn't that interesting that many people laughed yesterday, even though many people cried, many people laughed. And there were big, healing laughs.

There were big, healing laughs from the beginning to the end of the service. You know, everyone seemed to get a laugh once or twice during the service. Whoever spoke, sharing about the loved one who had passed, they were able to do that. So, yes, we bring Kleenex. We bring this whole list of things prepared for the service. But one thing that we're surprised about that maybe we don't prepare for is laughter at a funeral service. m. jC will be hosting family ties and I will be tuning in. It's on my calendar and I'm going to be there.

Anila, I'm going to re watch. Oh, and Jules, thank you. That's another thing we can't really put on a list. Lots of hugs, and there were a lot of hugs yesterday. Thank you for that, Jules. So, Anila, what time are you live streaming is it? 230 on. That's 230, right? Anila will be live streaming 230 on. Let me check. Leading with love is at 230 central time. Anila, looking forward to that. I'm going to watch a replay of that. Anila, thank you for turning tuning in. And I've also checked a little bit of Anila out on YouTube.

Good stuff there as well. Great story, and I really enjoy that. m. central time to family ties. I'm tuning in for that. I'll be all over the Cadre sphere. Stick around today and check out some more stuff. Thank you for the reactions, the chat, the heart emojis. I really appreciate it and I've enjoyed this today. I hope that if you have watched a replay of this that you also enjoyed it. And just remember, every Sunday, 01:00 we are talking stigma here on the Cadre sphere, right?