End-of-Life Planning. An Intentional Path to Our Final Destination with Christal Smith

When is the right time to start having end-of-life conversations? 


In today's episode, I'm joined by the Mental Health Professional, Journalist, Senior Podcast Producer, and Shift Supervisor at the Suicide Hotline, Christal Smith. Throughout her extensive career as a mental health advocate, Christal worked to bring medical aid and end-of-life choices to terminally ill people, used her crisis counseling training working with LAPD as a volunteer crisis responder, and also worked on a suicide hotline, picking up calls from people in distress. 


Throughout this episode, you'll learn more about Christal's passion for the intersection between communication and social impact and her work incentivizing and bringing awareness to the relevance of end-of-life discussions, such as medical care decisions and legal arrangements. Christal also shares tips on approaching and dealing with people who have shared suicidal thoughts, how to get end-of-life conversations going, and more. 


Tune in and listen to episode 214 of Grief and Happiness, and start the conversations that'll make your future easier today.  


In This Episode, You Will Learn:

  • About Christal's background and first experiences as a mental health advocate (2:40)
  • What is the best response to someone expressing suicidal thoughts (9:00)
  • Christal shares her thoughts on "the wishes of the dying" (15:40)
  • The importance of communicating end-of-life medical care choices (19:00)
  • Christal talks about her experience assisting at her own funeral (29:40)


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