 by Jenny Leigh Hodgins We die how we live. Yeh, I know my topic is How Can We Access A More Mindful State Of Living? But living fully and dying well go together like PB & J, a ball and glove, or fish and water. Here’s the silver lining to that seemingly dark cloud; there are huge benefits from accepting and addressing our mortality. ‘We die how we live’ means that we can access a much more mindful state of living in the present with a sense of relief and peace of mind—once we grapple with the issue of death. None of us will escape the experience of loss. The fundamental commonality we have is that we will all leave this world at some point. Reality check: we have no control over when we go. This is what I’ve learned through personal tragedies and helping many others as an unofficial celebrant through their losses. Through that role I helped others sort out how to handle the remains, prepare a Goodbye Ritual, emcee, facilitate, perform, or speak at the services. I also helped sort out the agenda and create programs, prepare recordings and other personalized tributes as part of the event. I was in that situation because people did not have end of life plans in order and frankly, were unable to function due to grief and heavy emotions. So they could not get anything properly done. No Plan Adds Burden I saw this heavy suffering firsthand many times when there was no plan in place. This is what motivates me as a Creative Memorial Planning Coach; I do not want to see YOU suffer or your loved ones needlessly suffer in that way. I’ve heard some folks say that a plan, and in particular, a Goodbye Ritual is unnecessary. I beg to differ. I have seen both sides to this. When there’s a plan, despite the natural grief process, the burden is lighter, and the legacy provided with a detailed plan becomes a source of comfort, and proof of a loving gesture for surviving loved ones. No plan in place simply adds burden to those already in the vulnerable position of deep emotion. I cannot understand why anyone would dump that onto their loved ones. Mapping out your end of life plan is important as a way of relieving burden, extra expense, suffering, and providing a loving legacy. An end of life plan is a way of leaving our compassionate mark on others and the planet (when opting for alternative, earth-friendly choices). It saddens me when someone doesn’t care enough to get a plan in place. They don’t see how that impacts surviving loved ones. I have seen it. I don’t want people to go through that. Impact Your State of Life But, back to the original topic--having an end of life plan also impacts your state of life. You can relax knowing you’ve done your best, made that compassionate cause, and left your legacy through your compassionate actions. As a Creative Memorial Planning Coach, and host of Creative Memorial Planning Facebook Group, I’m different from other end of life pre-planners because I strongly support ALTERNATIVES to the traditional corporate funeral customs. I share about these alternative options in my private group and through my hybrid self-study/coaching program Explore, Choose, and Plan Your Creative Memorial. I’d like to invite you to join my group. I’m hosting an exciting SUNSET SUMMIT October 26-30! You'll learn about alternatives to traditional funerals and end of life plans that are more gentle, comforting, cost-reducing, and planet-friendly. SUNSET SUMMIT will feature a variety of experts offering ways for preparing and transforming your Golden Chapter of life with gentler, personalized, cost-reducing, earth-friendly, and meaningful midlife and end of life services and support. We'll have LIVE presentations from experts throughout the 5-day event. You'll hear from death educators, transition doulas, grief therapists, hypnotherapists, counselors, social workers, wellness and mindset coaches. You'll gain empowering information on living fully, dying well, caregiver support, dealing with anxiety, midlife wellness, and alternatives to traditional end of life plans. SUNSET SUMMIT will ONLY be available to Creative Memorial Planning Facebook Group members. So, I invite you to join the group . Please help me spread the word; invite anyone you feel would benefit from learning more about alternatives to traditional corporate funerals, end of life planning, and how to leave a loving legacy with less or zero corporate or religious involvement.
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Why ALTERNATIVES to traditional funerals are better PLUS the ONE thing that will make the biggest impact for your loved ones!
by Jenny Leigh Hodgins
As Mom’s caregiver, I do what I can to assure she enjoys a quality life. I make sure she has plants on the patio to enjoy during breakfasts. I take her for drives in the countryside in beautiful Kentucky during this period of pandemic isolation. When possible, I take her for walks in the neighborhood or nearby park areas where there are few people about. We eat home-cooked, whole, mostly organic foods. We Zoom and text with other family members to keep her spirits up and stay connected. I stay on top of her meds and doctor communications. Another thing I do is engage Mom in stories about her history. We recently talked about how my Dad worked regularly to update his end of life plans so none of us had anything to figure out when he died of cancer in 2014. Mom and I also talked about making the end of life a quality experience for Mom and those of us who will remain after she’s gone. The ONE thing that will make the biggest impact toward a quality end of life experience is preparing in advance. Preparing for Mom’s end of life is a huge step. Why? It brings the benefits of:
We’ve been updating Mom’s Will and end of life plans (mine, too!) with attention to as much detail as possible. DETAILS are where you can have the biggest impact for a quality death experience! Mom and I have covered: 1. exploring alternatives to traditional funeral plans for how to handle the remains, 2. payment info of these services, 3. preparing a life story announcement, 4. how to get the announcement communicated, 5. final legacy messages, 6. photos, 7. and more personally tailored details for a Goodbye Ritual to comfort surviving loved ones and serve as a loving, lasting legacy. Our late relatives only knew one way to handle end of life planning: corporate customs that were costly, damaging to the planet, and impersonal and abruptly handled. Over the years and through experiencing the loss of loved ones, Mom has changed her mind from having traditional funeral plans to alternative options. Why? BENEFITS OF CREATIVE MEMORIAL PLANNING ALTERNATIVES to traditional funeral plans with less or zero corporate and/or religious involvement have great benefits! Alternatives to traditional funeral plans are: 1. less abrupt and more personally meaningful to both the dying and surviving loved ones, 2. dramatically less expensive, and 3. far less destructive to the earth Planning these details now for alternatives to corporate funeral customs: 1. makes things easier for all of us, 2. cuts cost dramatically, 3. assures Mom’s preferences to protect the planet, and 4. allows for a personalized plan that will become her loving legacy. Was this helpful to you? As a Creative Memorial Planning Coach, I invite you to learn more about how I can help you explore earth-friendly, cost-reducing ALTERNATIVES to traditional funeral plans with less or zero corporate and/or religious involvement. My Explore, Choose, and Plan Your Creative Memorial Program is a 2-month hybrid self-study and 1:1 weekly one-hour coaching program with me. During my two-month program, I walk with you step-by-step to:
Within my two-month program, I help you map out your creative memorial plans—based on your personal values. Get help with exploring earth-friendly?, cost-reducing? ALTERNATIVES to traditional funeral plans with less or zero corporate funeral &/or religious involvement. Relieve the burden from your loved ones by getting your Creative Memorial Plan mapped out! ❣️ I help 50+ adults, caregivers, and families explore earth-friendly, cost-reducing ALTERNATIVES to traditional funeral plans with less or even ZERO corporate and/or religious involvement. I help you map out your personalized, meaningful, creative memorial plan. I invite you to join my Creative Memorial Planning Group to access my FREE Video series with Reflections For You downloadable ebook as a supportive guide!
Join Creative Memorial Planning Facebook Group to attend my upcoming SUNSET SUMMIT, from October 26 -30, 2020.
You'll learn about alternatives to traditional funerals and end of life plans that are more gentle, comforting, cost-reducing, and planet-friendly. SUNSET SUMMIT will feature a variety of experts offering ways for transforming your Golden Chapter of life with earth-friendly, personalized, cost-reducing, and meaningful end of life services and support. We'll have LIVE presentations from experts throughout the 5-day event. You'll hear from death educators, transition doulas, and grief therapists. You'll gain educational information on support for caregivers, a natural cemetery within a 41-acre conservation sanctuary (Natural Burial Site), and more earth-friendly, gentler alternatives to traditional end of life planning. SUNSET SUMMIT will ONLY be available to Creative Memorial Planning Facebook Group members.  Pastel Sunset, Lexington, KY. Photo by Jenny Leigh Hodgins by Jenny Leigh Hodgins
How can the dark, depressing topic of memorial planning fit in with YourCreativeChord's purpose of nurturing creativity and inspiration, you ask? How can planning a memorial possibly be inspiring and beautiful? Fostering the energy for creative inspiration relies on the balance between practicing self-care and care for others. Nurturing inspiration is rooted in compassion for both self and others. When you muster your bravery to even think about the difficult topics of loss, death and grief, much less take the caring stance to make a clear plan for it, you ultimately make things easier for you and your loved ones. What could be more caring? What could be a more inspiring legacy to leave behind? Embrace The Opportunity To Celebrate & Joyfully Inspire Others When we think of things that inspire, we often use words like calm, peace of mind, zest for life, beautiful, passion, and comfort. Just as planning ahead for anything brings peace of mind, having your ducks in a row about end-of-life issues is a way to bring comfort, peace and calm to yourself and others. Preparing in advance can also lead to an incredibly beautiful celebration of life and an event that honors your memory. How inspirational! The alternative is not thinking about it. When we deny things or hide from reality, we end up suffering far worse. You and I will experience the inevitable end that happens to everyone at some point. When you make the effort to plan, out of your love for others, you bring beauty and celebration to your life’s ending. For both yourself and surviving loved ones. Clearly, death is a difficult subject. In our culture, the topic is mostly avoided, denied, or considered far removed from positive things like creativity and inspiration. Loss and grief are the most intense kind of suffering. But we all must face these. How do we nurture ourselves through difficult moments if we avoid dealing with them? Wouldn't it be more valuable to embrace our unavoidable, end-of-life issues as an opportunity to celebrate, honor, and joyfully inspire others to live even more fully? The reason I'm creating more content offering alternatives to traditional memorials and tips for preparing memorial agendas, obituaries, and programs is because I know what it’s like without the planning there in advance. People are enormously consoled when you have something planned ahead of time and when they can follow a structure based on your wishes. A thoughtful memorial plan and structure brings serenity, comfort, a sense of closure, and even healing to those dealing with loss. Meaningful Creativity Can Be Born From Both Suffering And Joy Many people think of strategies for inspiration as always being something positive. But from my personal experience, creativity can be born from both deep suffering and great joy. Many of my most valuable and meaningful creative expressions have come from dealing head-on with loss or through my experience of grieving a loved one. This is something that anyone can do. Addressing human pain is in sync with the heartening theme for nurturing your inspiration because we all experience it and we have the potential to create value from our suffering. Dealing directly with death, whether our own or others, can be the catalyst for tremendous inspiration. It can also lead to reviving a greater spirit for living in the present moment. Facing loss can fuel our efforts to cook, volunteer, garden, work with animals, dance, write poetry or stories, journal, compose music, paint or draw. Planning ahead for your memorial offers potential for the transformation of an intensely difficult experience into one of tremendously positive value, especially if you base your plans on your compassion for those who will be left behind. The peace of mind you gain from having a plan in place to deal with memorial issues is an inspiration to those around you. In this way, you demonstrate unequivocal care for yourself and others by making things easier for everyone through your sincere effort to plan ahead. That kind of sincere effort for others is a huge spark for inspired living. I’d love to hear from you. It means a lot to me that my content is helpful and empowers you. Please take a moment to join the conversation below to let me know if this blog is helpful or if you have questions or suggestions! Recommended Reading: 5 Ways to Master Caregiver Learning Curve How To Use Self-Care To Feel Happy Your Troubles Are Your Progress Barometer & Catalyst For Your Full Potential 5 Ways To Use Music & Nature For Self-Care Defeat Fear & Doubt with Your Courage & Capability How To Use Nature To Reinvigorate Your Spirit Find YourCreativeChord on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedinand Facebook!  Deceased members from Nicholasville High School Class of 1958. By Jenny Leigh Hodgins This story was published in Jessamine Journal August 2, 2018. Listen to this as an audio podcast by clicking here. My newly acquired caregiver role includes being chauffeur for Mom’s health appointments and evening social functions. Last night, I drove Mom to her 60th Nicholasville High School reunion (Jessamine County, Kentucky). Despite torrential thunderstorms, a tornado watch, flash flood warnings, power outages around the city, and having an odd, eye-oriented headache for the two days prior, Mom would not be deterred from attending. I drove us past dead traffic lights, waited through bumper-to-bumper, stilled traffic, and passed half a dozen felled trees and debris along the way. My cranky, neurotic complaints about the weather’s potential for disaster were ignored. Her optimism sprang eternal, as she proclaimed the weather ‘is moving away from us.’ We arrived at the community clubhouse event to see that fifty-four of the last class from the original Nicholasville High School had been distilled to the attendance of thirteen. Thirteen highly determined seniors at the ripe age of 78, some with oxygen tanks, wheelchairs, and one with an arm in a sling from a recent fall. I took iPhone photos of Mom happily greeting, hugging and laughing with her classmates from 1958 (and a commemorative group photo at the end of the evening). Listening to stories of who they had lost, husbands, wives, brothers, each gone ahead to the after-life, knocked me over the head with the reason Mom would not miss this event even for a tornado. Mortality loomed over the heart of everyone in the room, including mine. The current chapter of aging, sickness and death was written on the faces of every senior there, as their stories of health issues and loss were shared over dinner. Yet, there was a palpable strength and humorous tone in the atmosphere, too. Jokes were made about the phase of life “when getting up to go to work has changed to getting up to go to the doctor.” Boisterous laughter abounded from tables of grey or balding folks recounting days of their high school adventures. I put on my cheerful, brave face to absorb the scene, though internally my heart was struck by the grim truth of death’s inevitability. I ached to see the physical pain of some of the attendees, those in wheelchairs, struggling to chew food, those who had to sit down to save energy to speak. The sorrow was visible of those who, like my mother, had lost their beloved spouse after 50 years together. What these aging citizens were facing, some completely alone, others merely waiting to be the next to lose their loved one, was the elephant in the room that stomped on my heart. As a new caregiver, my emotions sometimes get overwhelmed with things I hadn’t anticipated; seeing the plight of the aging so closely, handling Mom’s unexpected, urgent health issues, viewing the reality of dwindling comrades from her youthful days. I’m torn between my relief that I’m here for my mother, and the fact that my own destiny as a single woman without children may lead to my being alone in that golden, final chapter of life. I’ve begun to think about things that never entered my mind before I hit fifty. My youth was filled with so much to do that I never considered how life slows down for those past retirement. Though I’m not retired—in fact, I’m plunging head-first into launching a second career I always wanted—the tempo of my life has begun to move in a dramatic rubato in sync with my mother’s life issues. This awakens me to appreciate things on a deeper level; the fortune of having a family member to live with, friends to talk to, health that is reasonably managed or at least attended to when not, the few remaining relatives around to share life stories and short luncheons. These are small, yet profound moments of joy for my mother and her peers. I get it; the tenacity and inner strength of my mother’s generation comes from surviving everything. As one of Mom’s 1958 classmates said, quoting a poem, “Love like you’ve never loved before.” They all know firsthand that the opportunity is fleeting. I got Mom in the car and pulled away just before the horrendous rainstorm pelted violently against my car. I fought to see the road ahead and drive carefully until we made our way safely back home. Sometimes fighting through the storm is worth it. *** Feel free to SHARE this with others who may benefit from this info! Thank you! I’d love to hear from you. It means a lot to me that my content is helpful and empowers you. Please take a moment to join the conversation below to let me know if this blog is helpful or if you have questions or suggestions! Recommended Articles: 5 Ways to Master Caregiver Learning Curve HOW TO USE SELF-CARE TO FEEL HAPPY HOW TO PREPARE YOUR END-OF-LIFE STORY How To Ease Burden By Your Loving Preparation Your Troubles Are Your Progress Barometer & Catalyst For Your Full Potential 5 Ways To Use Music & Nature For Self-Care Defeat Fear & Doubt with Your Courage & Capability How To Deflect Negativity To Become Happier Believing In The Positive My Top Tips For Winning Over Insomnia Connect with YOURCREATIVECHORD on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook!       CENTER BOTTOM PHOTO:
Back left to right: Ann Thompson Nicholson, Martin Lowery, Charles Burton, John V. Carpenter, Hugh Logan Scott III, Ashley Moss, Front left to right: Linda Cobb Downing, Brenda Carter, Phyllis Miller Preston, Joann Cobb Giles, Judy Royse Cooper, Minva Gayle Morgan Hodgins, Marion Williams Not pictured: Ursula Land Lamb  Photo by Jenny Leigh Hodgins by Jenny Leigh Hodgins
I took my mother with me yesterday to a wonderful concert by Lexington Chamber Orchestra. Their concerts are always a delight. I recommend attending and supporting these fine artists. I know the value of listening to excellent quality music. You may find my article about music's positive effects on health and cognitive function in LivingWell 60+ magazine. I noticed an older couple sitting in front of us. The man was in a motorized wheelchair in the aisle, with his wife sitting at the end of the aisle. After the concert I offered to help get him up the steep aisle. My mother sat patiently waiting in the lobby. This caregiver stranger and I steered the spastic vehicle up the aisle, through the lobby, out the door, across the road and into her van. If I hadn’t been monitoring the wheelchair, it could have tipped over as we led her husband up the bumpy, steep sidewalk. Though he was strapped in, both the woman and myself wrestled to keep her six-foot-plus husband from falling out of the wheelchair. When she lowered the van ramp, it accidentally landed on the man’s feet. I lifted it while his wife pulled him backwards. Getting the chair into the vehicle was a swerving struggle. We barely managed to keep the man’s arm from getting smashed on the van door as the wheelchair lodged its left wheel into the doorway. After more struggle, we got him into the van. I helped her get the four floor-installed seatbelts hooked onto the wheelchair to keep him from rolling while she drove. I share this story as it moved my heart that this caregiver regularly does this without my help. Her devotion and love for her husband was undeniable. It was an agonizing ordeal with both of us. Yet this woman daily takes care of her husband alone, without any help from strangers like me. I said it was wonderful that she brought her husband to experience culture's therapeutic and healing power. She shared they had listened to the concert's music during their courtship and it brought back wonderful memories. We quoted lyrics from the songs to each other and laughed. I shared that her husband‘s face energetically lit up at a particular point in the concert, when the first violins attacked a new melodic theme with dynamic gusto. I said she must love her husband to go through such physical difficulty to bring him to a concert. She said when most people lose mobility, they stop going out. She was determined to bring her husband and herself to activities as long as possible. It was a short moment looking through the window of this caregiver’s experience. I’m also a new caregiver for my mother, so I’m aware of a multitude of issues that come with being an adult caregiver. But this woman’s effort for her husband, and his response to the music concert was a beautiful drama. It was a poignant statement of humanity, love, music's healing power, and the bittersweet plight of caregivers. But mostly it was inspiring and humbling. I want to be as generous, compassionate, determined, and loving as this woman is to her husband. I want to be able to do that kind of good for my mother when it’s necessary while I’m in the caregiving role. I want to take the lesson of self-care from this experience. This woman enjoyed the therapy of live music for her own wellness as well as for her partner. I want to appreciate the sincerity of care this woman is giving her husband. She is a testament to the universal nobility of caregivers. Help me show appreciation for caregivers. Like, comment and share this blog with others. I’d love to hear from you. It means a lot to me that my content is helpful and empowers you. Please take a moment to join the conversation below to let me know if this blog is helpful or if you have questions or suggestions! Recommended Articles: 5 Ways to Master Caregiver Learning Curve HOW TO USE SELF-CARE TO FEEL HAPPY HOW TO PREPARE YOUR END-OF-LIFE STORY How To Ease Burden By Your Loving Preparation Your Troubles Are Your Progress Barometer & Catalyst For Your Full Potential 5 Ways To Use Music & Nature For Self-Care Defeat Fear & Doubt with Your Courage & Capability How To Deflect Negativity To Become Happier Believing In The Positive My Top Tips For Winning Over Insomnia Connect with YOURCREATIVECHORD on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook! |
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