AMY GLENN on a Life in Thresholds /341
Watercolor of a dandelion arrangement depicting the bloom and seed cycle by Clarence Bicknell.
In this week’s episode, guest Amy Glenn invites listeners on a journey to consider the value in caregiving and companioning. Rooting the conversation in her experience as both a birth and death doula, Amy details the deep work of holding space for all of life’s moments.
Amy points out the thresholds of everyday life, and the value in sitting with uncertainty. Companioning, storytelling, and ritual making are all vital as we come to contemplate what it means to hold space for death. Offering breathing techniques and a meditation on the breath that holds us between birth and death, Amy calls to mind the importance of making space for contemplation. In this life, we need many therapeutic moments. How can we make space for self-care and self-regulation as we cope with the journeys of life and death?
Grief is an upheaval which brings along all sorts of change. Though we may never be able to return to “normal,” Amy emphasizes the importance of softness and understanding as we come to embrace that which grief stirs in us.
“It’s a threshold. It’s unknown. It’s mysterious. It’s hard. It’s a place where the normal rules don’t apply. You’re in a liminal space beyond the general rules we use to navigate. It’s a place without a map.”
Photo of Amy Glenn by Connie Granja
Amy Wright Glenn earned her MA in Religion and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She earned her BA from Reed College in the study of Religion. Amy taught for eleven years in the Religion and Philosophy Department at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey earning the Dunbar Abston Jr. Chair for Teaching Excellence. She is a birth and death doula, hospital chaplain, Kripalu Yoga teacher, and founder of the Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath, and Death. From 2015 to 2020, Amy served as an active contributor to PhillyVoice writing on topics relating to birth, death, parenting, and spirituality. Amy is the author of Birth, Breath, and Death: Meditations on Motherhood, Chaplaincy, and Life as a Doula and Holding Space: On Loving, Dying, and Letting Go. Amy has trained thousands of professionals in the work of holding space for life’s transitions ~ and focuses specifically on grief and bereavement care. To learn more, visit: www.birthbreathanddeath.com
♫ The music featured in this episode is “Calla Lily Highway” by Charlie Warren, “Divine Surrendering” by Doe Paoro and “If I fall asleep” by Amber Rubarth.
Episode References
The Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath and Death
“Holding space for pregnancy loss: 3 components for doulas to consider” by Amy Wright Glenn
“Birth is Not Porn” by Amy Wright Glenn
Thich Nhat Hanh | Plum Village
Marsha Linehan | Behavioral Research & Therapy Clinics
Bearing the Unbearable - The Wisdom Experience
AMY RecommendS THAT LISTENERS…
Journal
Participate in Yoga for Grief
Read more about grief
Take a course through The Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath and Death
Read Holding Space – Parallax Press
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