Wisdom of the Deathbed

     “In his recent book, The Five Invitations, (Frank Ostaseski) offers the living what he’s learned at the bedside of thousands of people as they died. He distils the wisdom of the deathbed into five invitations to be fully present in life:

• Don’t wait.
• Welcome everything; push away nothing.
• Bring your whole self to the experience.
• Find the place of rest in the middle of things.
• Cultivate 'don’t know/ mind.

      Ostaseski has learned that the activities of caregiving are quite ordinary. He writes, ‘You make soup, give a back rub, change soiled sheets, help with medications, listen to a lifetime of stories lived and now ending, show up as a calm and loving presence. Nothing special. Just simple human kindness, really.’ ”

https://www.lionsroar.com/how-will-you-die/?utm_source=Lion%27s+Roar+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1777846eb5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_11_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1988ee44b2-1777846eb5-21110717&mc_cid=1777846eb5&mc_eid=9d27166e2a

Shawn O'Hagan "The Moon Suggests" www.fogforestgallery.ca

Elephant in the Room

      “I like to behave in an extremely normal, wholesome manner for the most part in my daily life. Even if mentally I’m consumed with sick visions of violence, terror, sex and death.” Courtney Love

      "Death is an inescapable fact of life that, nonetheless, most people avoid contemplating too directly. When mortality is salient, it can arouse experiences varying from distress and anxiety to a sense of urgency and a search for meaning. Although there are various ways to cope with this existential concern, ranging from hopelessness, to denial, to seeking symbolic immortality, it seems clear that the consideration of death affects people intensely, whether or not such contemplation is made consciously. Indeed, work within terror management theory suggests that mortality salience is a potent motivator of human behavior, even when thoughts of death exist outside of focal attention."
       Niemiec CP, et al. "Being Present in the Face of Existential Threat: The Role of Trait Mindfulness in Reducing Defensive Responses to Mortality Salience." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2010; 99 (2): 344–365.

     “We all have lessons to learn during this time called life; this is especially apparent when working with the dying. The dying learn a great deal at the end of life, usually when it is too late to apply.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross      
       Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, David Kessler. “Life Lessons. Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living.” Scribner, 2000.

 

     “Buddhist psychology offers models of the process and structures of the mind. It shows how flight from the existential inevitability of loss, pain, and death leads to delusion, which is a subtle and pervasive refusal to face reality. Instead, we attempt to find and hold on to something that is concrete and substantial. This common mentality is one of grasping, which leads to attachment and creates an accumulation of habit-energies, preferences, and behavior patterns that support the illusion of an enduring self that can escape impermanence. Buddhist psychology sees this self as a defensive structure that lacks foundation yet dominates the ordinary mind.”
       Caroline Brazier. “Buddhism on the Couch. From Analysis to Awakening Using Buddhist Psychology.” Ulysses Press, 2003.

     “There is no one ‘treatment of choice’ for trauma [or IMHO, existential terror], and any therapist [or IMHO, religious / spiritual guide] who believes that his or her particular method is the only answer to your problems is suspect of being an ideologue rather than somebody who is interested in making sure that you get well.”
       Bessel Van Der Kolk. “The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.” Penguin Books, 2015.

     ideologue: an adherent of an ideology, especially one who is uncompromising and dogmatic; an impractical idealist; an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology.
     religious exclusivism: the doctrine or belief that only one particular religion or belief system is true.

 

Unfinished Business

     I suspect most of us spend most of our time & energy avoiding the most important issues in our lives. We live in a strange time where distractions are central, and "priorities" have become optional extras.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

     Like Robert Frost, we keep putting meaning & depth off, rationalizing that we're too busy and pretending we have time before having to deal with all that "heavy stuff." But guess what, life is a bubble, a dream, gone in a flash ...

     “We all have lessons to learn during this time called life; this is especially apparent when working with the dying. The dying learn a great deal at the end of life, usually when it is too late to apply.

     … the lessons of life … the final lessons … are the ultimate truths about our lives; they are the secrets of life itself.
 
     When we talk about learning our lessons, we’re talking about getting rid of unfinished business. Unfinished business isn’t about death. It’s about life. It addresses our most important issues, such as ‘Yes, I made a nice living but did I ever take time our to really live?’ Many people have existed, yet never really lived. And they expended tremendous amounts of energy keeping a lid on their unfinished business.
     Since unfinished business is the biggest problem in life, it’s also the primary issue we address as we face death. Most of us pass on with a great deal of unfinished business; many of us have at least some. There are so many lessons to learn in life, it’s impossible to master them all in one lifetime. But the more lessons we learn the more business we finish, and the more fully we live, really live life. And no matter when we die, we can say, ‘God, I have lived!’ ” 


       Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, David Kessler. “Life Lessons. Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living.” Scribner, NY, 2000.

Bessie savoring life

What Are We Doing With Vital Energy?

     “He was an old man, wore old man’s clothes, a flannel shirt and old man’s trousers, slippers and a hat, and had an old man’s gait, yet there was nothing old man-ish about him, such as there was with my grandfather or my father’s uncle, Alf; on the contrary, when he suddenly opened up to us and wanted to show us things, it was in a kind of artless childlike way, infinitely friendly, but also infinitely vulnerable, the way a boy without friends might behave when someone showed some interest in him, one might imagine, unthinkable in the case of my grandfather or Alf, it must have been at least sixty years since they had opened up to anyone like that, if indeed they ever had. But no, Haugue hadn’t really opened himself to us, it was more as if it had been his natural self which his rejection had been protecting when we arrived. I saw something I didn’t want to see because the person showing us was unaware of how it looked. He was more than eighty years old, but nothing in him had died or calcified, which actually makes life far too painful to live, that’s what I think now. At the time it just made me feel uneasy.”
       Karl Ove Knausgaard. “A Death in the Family. My Struggle: Book 1.” Vintage Books, London, 2014.


     We bury so much difficult-to-understand, liminal energy in our bodies, causing us to harden, stiffen, & die well before we're buried. This feared & banished energy is the very stuff of life, growth, learning, evolution. What wasted opportunity!

 

Public Gardens, Halifax, NS, Canada

Embracing Illness - instead of "Fighting" & "Waging Wars"

     “As an educator I had learned the difference between opening to possibilities through questions, and closing creativity with answers. Then, as ALS*** became part of my experience, the question I started to be able to ask to turn that was, ‘How shall we grow into the demands of what is beyond us?’ – which is a different question from ‘How shall we fight this?’
 
     Human beings have the capacity to grow … as humans, we can become better. We can become more compassionate. We can become more understanding. No matter what it is that afflicts us, that affliction can become a part of us that makes us better people.

     I realize on one level this sounds incredibly idealistic. But the fact is, that as humans, we’re given ideals. We’re able to project that, and it makes us better. So I feel that in the end, by focusing in on what does it mean to be a teacher?, what does it mean to be an educator?, and what does it mean to have faith? - those things - suddenly, you’re not angry with ALS any more. You may be angry at the circumstances. I will admit to you, there are days when I melt down, I’ve had it, I don’t like having everything done for me.

     But the fact is that most of the time, I perceive great beauty, and great joy. And a lot of that comes from having ALS. I don’t think I could go back. I’ve said this to friends and they look at me like I’m nuts. What I’ve learned in the last four years – I just don’t think I could give that up. It’s too profound. It’s brought me much closer to my own spiritual center. It’s brought me much closer to my children, much closer to my spouse, my friends. We use the word ‘love’ a lot. We say ‘I love you’ a lot, because of ALS.”

Bruce Kramer's EXCEPTIONAL interview by Krista Tippett      http://onbeing.org/program/feature/in-the-room-with-bruce-kramer/7424  

     *** http://www.alsa.org/about-als/what-is-als.html

One Way of Facing Death

     "When Master Tozan was dying a monk said to him, 'Master, your four elements are out of harmony, but is there anyone who is never ill?'
     'There is,' said Tozan.
     'Does this one look at you?' asked the monk.
     'It is my function to look at him,' answered Tozan.
     'How about when you yourself look at him?' asked the monk.
     'At that moment I see no illness,' replied Tozan."

       Sushila Blackman ed. "Graceful Exits. How Great Beings Die. Death Stories of Tibetan, Hindu & Zen Masters." Weatherhill, NY, 1997.

       Awareness Shines: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2015/02/632-awareness-shines.html

Mark Littlejohn   www.dpreview.com

Peer Support Groups for Physicians & Other Clinicians

     "Peer support groups designed to integrate clinical supervision and personal psychodynamic insight can offer medical communities an effective approach to prevent disillusionment and dysfunction through stress reduction. Such a model is used to train & support pastoral counselors and the clergy. We believe it is appropriate to adopt this model for physicians because practicing medicine has distinct parallels to ministering, and the stress of both professions comes from similar sources - the connexional, existential, spiritual, & psychodynamic. ...
     Over the years, the focus of (our support) group has evolved from discussions of patient care to explorations of personal values & feelings, approaching the practice of medicine through its human components: dying, fear, anger, intimacy, competition, mistakes, competence, & separation-individuation. We see our stress as deriving from the difficulty of facing these issues, particularly in the context of doing healing work. In the process, we have experienced the validity of (one of our) member's comment: 'The concept that there is a professional ego suitable for training and a personal ego to be left alone ... (wears thin); there is really only one ego.'
     ... all persons in the profession have unresolved personal issues and conflicts that need to be addressed for them to function optimally as therapists." 
 
       Eubank DF, Zeckhausen W, Sobelson GA. Converting the stress of medical practice to personal and professional growth: 5 years of experience with a psychodynamic support and supervision group. J Am Board Fam Pract 1991; 4(3): 151-8.

Galatia N   www.dpreview.com