Dead Serious #030 (MP3-14.1 MB- 41.04min)
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This is a huge topic and in order to give you some valuable information it will be explored in two parts.

DON”T TUNE OUT…………….yes, this may be a bit confronting for some of you, but putting your head in the sand won’t prepare you for the inevitibility of experiencing the death of someone you love!

This episode looks at how we incorporate ritual into care of people in the hours after their death. How do we prepare the deceased person for the realtives and friends to see? How does this preparation vary among different cultures and spiritual backgrounds? I share with you my personal experiences of preparing both the person who has died and the family and friends for a “viewing”.

We explore the whole concept of ceremony. Why do we have funerals? Where does this tradition originate? How soon after the person has died do they need to be buried or cremated? What influence does culture and religion have on this?

Even what seems like a simple task…………….chosing a coffin, can be an enormous task for a grieving family…………….what are your choices? We look at how caskets and coffins have become expressions of the essence of the person they contain.

We also look at how funerals can vary in their form and content, from the extremely structured, traditional ceremony to the informal, relaxed approach, such as the “surfer’s circle”. The important issue being that the funeral reflects the life of the person and enables the grieving people who attend to have a meaningful experience of saying “goodbye” and the ritual that is chosen will influence this.

What are the religious and legislative rules that govern funerals and burial? How can you have CHOICE about the form of the funeral you have? Can you prearrange your own funeral??? I HAVE and I encourage you to think about this.

You may think that you don’t need to know all of this stuff right now……………..but, where would you start if someone you loved died tomorrow?

As I have said before………..the best way to prepare yourself for the inevitibility of death is to inform yourself………..you can’t predict when you will be in the position of having to arrange a funeral for someone you love, but if you know how to go about it………….that’s a start!

Music generously provided by Mike Schulze.

Don’t forget to tune in next week for Part 2 ………….WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE FUNERAL SERVICE?

Don’t worry folks……………I havn’t dropped off the end of the earth, but have been consumed with relocating kids, commencing back teaching at University and have been away from home working, hense my inability to get to my computer to postproduce the show.

Don’t stress though, this next episode of Dead Serious will be up and ready to go early next week.

Not telling you what it’s about, but if you have an interest in what happens after “the final curtain call” do tune in…………I’ll have lots of info for you.

Talk to you then.

Dead Serious #28 (MP3-11.01 MB- 32.24min)
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Today’s show is both confronting and challenging.

My special guest, Liz Mulliner AM talks openly of her personal experiences of abuse as a child and how these repressed memories began to impact on her physical health as an adult.

Liz talks about her twenty-five year career as a Casting Consultant and what it was like working with such huge names as Cate Blanchet, Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis as they developed their skills and later headed overseas to become the house hold names they are today.

Liz recounts the impact of her personal experience of childhood abuse on her health, her career and how the memories of this abuse nearly ended in her death. She graciously shares her experience of psychotherapy and her eventual survival.

Liz has established a haven for people to begin healing from the impact of their childhood abuse, with the assistance of other survivors. Mayumarri is a community made up of volunteers, professional counsellors and supporters and runs a range of programs for people at different stages of their healing journey.

Winner of the 2004 PRIME MINISTER’S AWARD for excellence, Mayumarri is a healing haven and provides both assistance and validation to sufferers of childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

Mayumarri can be contacted by phone on toll free number 1300 760 580

Music is provided by The Downstroke and the interview was recorded on Skylook.

Those of you who live in New Orleans, in Pakistan, in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Timor, India, Aceh………all of the countries that have suffered from devastating natural disasters in the past few years will understand.

Those from New York, Washington, London, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Oklahoma, Madrid, Tokyo and all of those other countries where death and destruction have been caused by terrorist attacks will understand.

Closer to home for me, the victims of the Port Arthur massacre, the Hoddle Street killings and the tragedy at Mount Hotham will understand.

What is she going on about????? I hear you say???

This week in a close rural community in my home state of Victoria we are burying six young people, all from the same school, who died when they were hit by a car waiting to go to a party. Between the ages of 15 and 17, these kids had their lives ahead of them…………………and their community is in a state of shock and disbelief.

In rural communities, even relatively large ones, like Mildura, everyone knows everyone. So not only do the parents of the kids who died grieve, but so do the parents of the other kids who were with them, but survived……………..and these parents live with the guilt associated with the relief that their kids are ok…………so called “survivor guilt”.

The local police, who knew the kids and had to attend the accident scene. The local paramedics who also knew them and had to attend the accident, the guys from the State Emergency Service, the school teachers, the local doctors and nurses, the local shop keepers, the ministers and priests who are conducting one funeral after another, the neighbors, friends and school mates, the kids who played basketball, footy and netball with them ………………..and the list goes on……….are all shocked, angry, sad…….all trying to come to terms with the death of six kids who won’t reach their 21st birthdays.

How does a rural community, where all relationships are interconnected, move on from here? What happens when the funerals are all over? When life for the survivors goes back to ‘normal’ and the grieving parents, siblings and relatives are left to make sense of what has happened to the children they love?

Those of you who have experienced a natural, accidental or intentional incident that has caused multiple deaths will understand. Multiple deaths leave a mark on a community that is never erased. Multiple deaths of a group of young people with so much potential is a crippling experience for any community, particularly when that community is a close knit, rural community where people have long memories.

Those of you from countries who have experienced these types of mulitple deaths will understand. You know that life will never return to ‘normal’. That sometimes it’s extremely hard to make ‘meaning’ out of the pain of grief you live with day after day. You know what it’s like when people ‘go on’ with their lives and yours will NEVER be the same. You know how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning……………to walk outside and feel the sun on your face when your heart feels ‘black’, to do the shopping, to go to work, to care for your other children or your partner…………..all the things you have to do eventually.

Any death is devastating for the people who love the person who died. No death is worse than another. Death is death and grief is the cost we pay for loving someone……………as communities we need to acknowledge this. To treat each grieving member of our community individually and understand that each of them will experience their grief in their own way and it may be different to how you do it.

I’m reminded of something that Bob Geldolf once said about grief, (and this is how I remember it, it’s not an accurate quote) “Every day I had to remind myself to breathe in and breathe out and then one day I realised that I had been breathing without consciously having to remind myself to do it……….I knew something had altered”

I hope that one day, the people of Mildura will realise that they have been breathing without consciously having to remind themselves to do it.

I keep reading all of this terrible stuff in the paper about corruption in the highest levels of governments world wide and it makes me wonder why we are all so apathetic about the power we have to change things!

People I talk to just seem to be drifting along, unable to be shocked by increasingly awful things that are happening around them. Torture of prisioners at Abu Ghraib, people held at Guantanimo Bay without trial and closer to home for me……..our government supporting the Australian Wheat Board in paying secret commissions to Suddam Hussein’s regime (alledgedly), therefore bypassing the UN Oil for Food agreements.

Lies, lies, lies are told to us over and over and we KNOW they’re lying most of the time, but we do NOTHING about it.

WHY???????

Try something today…………….talk to someone about what’s going on in the world………………make people think and then in time maybe they will act!

We have a vote…………..people sacrificed everything in the past to ensure that we ALL have the right to vote governments in and out of power and often we take our right to vote for granted. Make your vote count the next time you have an opportunity.

Vote with your hands. Vote with your feet and vote with your voice and lets get things back on track! Lets make this world a better place for EVERYONE. For the poor, the homeless, the suffering, the sick, the marginalised and for “Joe Average” who works his bottom off to feed his family and is exploited by the system.

I’m not promoting revolution or anarchy…………….I’m asking you to THINK about the sort of world you want your grandkids to inheret and start doing something about making it a reality. Plant some trees, write some letters and let politicians know how you feel about whats happening around you, visit a refugee centre and offer to help, join a group who feed the homeless, volunteer to visit old people in nursing homes, become a mentor to a young person, adopt a pet from a shelter, clean up rubbish in your local park, talk to a lonely person……………….the list is endless.

It’s up to you what you do with the power you have to change things…………BUT DO SOMETHING……………….don’t just let the world descend into the myre…………………make your feelings known by doing something positive to improve our world!

Dead Serious #027 (MP3-16.49MB- 48.03min)
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How do you cope with it when you’re “sailing along” quite nicely and someone throws you a “curve ball”?

It may be someone you know well or someone you’ve never met, but they say or do something that makes you feel really bad about yourself. They make you feel hurt, angry or sad………………how should you respond?

This happened to me twice this week and I decided it was worth detailed exploration on the show. I was feeling great, balanced, happy and ‘normal’ when out of the blue, someone I don’t know personally (but had always admired) sent me an email that shattered my happiness and made me feel angry and hurt. I’d just processed my responses to this when ‘low and behold’, a colleague sent me an email that made me feel worse………… as this person expressed that she felt hurt about something I had done……… unintentionally.

How do we deal with this? Why do we need everyone to like us? How do we respond when out of the blue, someone lets us know that they don’t like something we’ve done or worse still, they don’t like US?

These are the issues I explore on today’s show. I look at why we respond in the ways we do and how we can retreat in the face of attack, ‘lick our wounds’, recover and reemerge stronger and more resilient. How we can release the fear, anger and hurt and reconnect with the inate goodness that resides in all of us.

The show finishes with simple meditation exercise anyone can use when stressed, angry or hurt, to acknowledge the feelings, release them and heal.

An amazing track is included in the show from the Dynamo’s Rhythm Aces………………bet you can’t guess what it is!!!!!

The show is recorded on Skylook

Ok you guys…………….you’ve listened to Dead Serious and hopefully lots of the other inspiring, interesting and downright exhausting, sporty TPN shows and now we need your help.

We’re keen to ‘ramp up’ the exposure of TPN and get more hosts and more listeners…………….we want to ‘throw down the gauntlet’ to mainstream media and challenge them to acknowledge that they just dont provide the content that the evolving generations want to hear and see……………………this is what TPN aims to do!

So…………..I’m asking you to print off the flyer by going to the link and getting that flyer “out there”……………in your workplaces, homes, communities and let people know about the wonderful content on TPN.

Take a photo of the craziest place you’ve put the flyer…………..it may be stuck to a goalpost at the footy, in the surgery of a cosmetic surgeon, embedded in your next powerpoint presentation to the Board of Directors………….use your imagination, take a photo and send it to me. Each month the most bizare photo will win a prize for the person who submitted it.

G’Day world are also offering a prize for the best photo, so you could end up with a TPN teeshirt (from them) or a ‘mystery prize’ from me………………….it’s up to you.

So go forth comrades and as Cab Calloway says on “The Blues Brothers”………………….”take the word to the streets”………….”we’re on a mission from…………..”, well suffice to say, we’re on a mission!

http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_a5_doubled-up.pdf

Dead Serious #026 (MP3-13.6 MB- 39.45min)
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Epilspsy…………what is it? How does it impact on the life of people who live with Epilepsy? What is a tonic/clonic seizure? How does this differ from an absence seizure?

If you don’t know much about Epilepsy, I guarentee you will learn a lot from this very personal program that explores the impact of a diagnosis of Epilepsy on a young man and his family. I say personal, because I interview my son, Lachie who had his first seizure when he was eight. We talk about how it was for him, how he has come to terms with his epilepsy, how he manages his medication and how he now lives a ‘normal’ life despite his illness. I also talk about how it was for the rest of us.

I sincerely thank Lachie for agreeing to this interview as it IS very personal and he was happy to share his story in the hope that it may help other people understand Epilepsy a bit better.

Epilepsy can be scary for the sufferer and for the person who witnesses a seizure, but it doesn’t mean that the person is “possessed by the devil” as was the thinking in the middle ages………………..it just means you have some ‘rebel’ brainwaves who just don’t want to behave like the rest of the brainwaves!

This episode of Dead Serious is dedicated to Emma Kelly, who unfortunately didn’t have Epilepsy, but a brain tumor that caused her seizures…………she died on July 28th 1999 aged fourteen and she is sadly missed by all who knew her!

Music for this program is provided by The Downstroke (more of their music can be heard on www.unsignedukmusic.com) and the program recorded on Skylook.

If you need more information on Epilepsy, contact your local Epilepsy Foundation or Epilepsy support group.

A call to all of you out there (sadly only the Aussies) who know someone in their community who is an inspirational leader.

The Altruism Foundation has just launched their inaugural Turtle Awards to acknowledge people who “stick their necks out for the common good”. Recipients (individuals and organisations) who come from all walks of life - quiet achievers, known by only a few, to public figures known by millions……..and who display “vision, altruism, compassion, integrity, courage and act with inspiring initiative”

I’m sure you know people like this………….so get to and nominate them! Let’s recognise people who make the world a better place.

Nominations close in March, so get your act into gear and nominate a local inspirational leader!!!!

Just go to the Australian Altruism website and download the nomination forms. http://www.altruism.org.au/turtle.htm

It’s been ’stinking hot’ in Victoria these past weeks and of course, those of you who live in hot, dry climates will know…………this means bushfire season!

Now I’m not complaining about the heat…..I love it!!! BUT as I watch the news on tele each night I can’t help but think, where would we be without all of the volunteer firefighters who keep us safe while our country burns?

Where I live in Victoria, Australia there have been three HUGE fires burning over the past two weeks and sadly two volunteer firefighters died in one of the blazes as did three people trying to escape the flames. People have lost their homes, their memories, their livelihoods………………but it would have been MUCH worse without the intervention of these volunteers who work 18 hour days, day after day during these fires. They are out there in 40 degree C + heat hour after hour trying to save peoples lives and their livlihoods. They are themselves supported by an army of other volunteers……….people who cook meals, provide transport, provide havens for those who have had to evacuate, donate goods and money and work as volunteer counsellors and support people. That’s a lot of people and a lot of service for no cost to the rest of us.

I then started to think about why people volunteer…………..why work long hours as a carer, a volunteer with the poor, a volunteer for refugee organisations, a church volunteer, a volunteer visitor to the elderly or the sick, a community or landcare volunteer, a volunteer life saver or beach patrol person, a volunteer fundraiser, a volunteer visitor to people in gaol, a volunteer youth leader or guide or scout leader, a disaster volunteer, a volunteer paramedic……………..the list goes on.

WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS FOR NO MONEY????? What do they get out of volunteering?

Ask a volunteer this question and the answer will always be the same…………it’s about service, about giving something back to your community, about belonging and celebrating what it means to be part of a town, a city, a country, a civilisation…….and there’s no better feeling than the one you get from helping someone who is in trouble, sad, sick, lonely or not as well off as yourself.

If you think of what it would cost in infastructure, labor costs, insurance etc. to provide all of these services, currently provided by volunteers………………the cost would be preculsive……………………and our communities would be far more insular, in fact they would not be communities (in the true sense of the word) at all!

So, if you have a hectic life where you seem to be consumed by making a living, you don’t quite know what your purpose is or you feel isolated or maybe if things are great in your life and you don’t quite know what your next challenge is going to be……….why not donate a few hours a week to a worthy cause. Think about volunteering and becoming a part of something greater than the mundane 9-5 wage slave who comes home and ‘plonks’ on the couch in front of the telly.

You don’t need to be an expert………..all you need is enthusiasm, compassion and a willingness to help out someone less fortunate than yourself………………and when you ‘get out there’ and look around, you’ll realise how very lucky you are.

When I was a kid and complaining about school or being hassled by the ‘cool kids’ or not having the latest fashion craze item yada yada yada……………my Dad used to say ” I used to complain because I had no shoes, until I saw the man who had no feet”………..it’s something I’ve never forgotten, and I tell you what……………when you get out in the world and look around, there’s a hell of a lot of people out there who “have no feet”!

So endith the lesson…………….oh and by the way, there’s no show this week, because I’ve been busy volunteering!