Let’s Learn: Finding Strength in our Struggle with Illness
This is a digital event. You should receive information in your ticket or from the host about how to join online.
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This panel discussion features some of the most articulate and passionate voices in grief advocacy and literacy. We’ll create a space to remember children – those with whom we share loving and complicated relationships – and to honor those who survive them.
Our guest speakers include author and interfaith minister Barbara Becker, Grammy Award-winning musician and producer Brian Kennedy, and Lisa Keefauver (moderator).
Barbara Becker is the award-winning author of Heartwood: The Art Of Living With The End In Mind, which Katie Couric Media named a “Book that will Change your Life.” Barbara has dedicated more than twenty-five years to partnering with human-rights advocates around the world in pursuit of peace and interreligious understanding. She has worked with the United Nations, Human Rights First, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. She is an ordained interfaith minister who bridges the sacred and the secular, and has sat with hundreds of people at the end of their lives. As a cancer survivor herself, Barbara speaks frequently about balancing life’s 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows.
Nitika Chopra is the Founder and CEO of Chronicon and The Chronicon Foundation, dedicated to empowering individuals with chronic illnesses. With a personal journey marked by psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis diagnoses since childhood, Nitika turned her experiences into a force for change. Her entrepreneurial spirit led her to host her own TV show, 'Naturally Beautiful,' and organize over 100 transformative events. Nitika's influence extends to partnerships with major brands like Google, Microsoft, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, where she advocates for the chronic illness community.
@Nitika Chopra @ChroniconOfficial @TheChroniconFoundation
Brian Kennedy is a four-time Grammy Award-winner, musical phenomenon and founder of Hits To Healing (H2H), a transformative non-profit that fosters communication between healthcare entities and the patients they serve through the universal language of music. H2H empowers the community via patient advocacy, preventive care, communal support, lifestyle options, and trustworthy health information. Kennedy has a career that spans over twenty years. Some of his credits include chart-topping hits by Rihanna, Chris Brown, Kelly Clarkson, The Weeknd, Fantasia, and Jennifer Hudson. After struggling with kidney failure for 8 years, Brian received a new lease on life thanks to a donation from his brother Kevin.
Lisa Keefauver (moderator) is an in-demand grief activist, speaker, author, and breast cancer survivor. She began her career as a social worker and narrative therapist, then expanded her activism in a variety of roles: clinical director and supervisor, non-profit co-founder, facilitator of personal and professional growth and healing. Lisa's wisdom and insights on grief are also embodied from her personal losses. She is a mother of an adopted child, who became an only parent when she lost her husband Eric to brain cancer in 2011. Lisa's grief advocacy inspired her to found Reimagining Grief, with a mission to illuminate and dismantle the limited and misleading collective story of grief that causes so much unnecessary suffering. Best known for her interview skills as host of the top-rated podcast, Grief is a Sneaky Bitch, she has spent much of her time sharing her warmth, wisdom, humor and compassion facilitating conversations as a speaker and moderator on stages, as an organizational consultant to facilitate grief-smart companies, and leading workshops and retreats.
Grief is a Sneaky Bitch: An Uncensored Guide to Navigating Loss
About the Series
Every Body: Finding Strength in our Struggle with Illness
Our worlds and belief systems shatter when faced with chronic or serious illness. Our bodies were supposed to function a certain way, but a disease forces us to navigate transitions, to acknowledge our lack of agency, and confront mortality. How do we move forward in the world with purpose? What are strategies to live with pain or affliction, but not allow it to foreground our day-to-day? Join this three-part series in which we lean into grief associated with illness and disease, but at the same time recognize opportunities to learn, transform, or grow. Guest speakers—authors, artists, therapists, spiritual leaders, and activists—will share their stories and practical tools and support. In a time when many feel the threat of a fracturing health care system, it’s important to come together in community and strengthen our resources. What roles do creativity, spirituality and acts of service have in everyone's journey in this struggle?
Who is this for?
- We're honoring those who are directly experiencing the fear and transitions that accompany a diagnosis or the ambiguous grief of not having a diagnosis.
- We're creating space for those who want to increase their grief literacy and show up for friends and family dealing with health challenges.
About Reimagine
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together to create a more compassionate world. We support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth.
