I was part of a panel discussion a few weeks ago after a viewing of Consider the Conversation, a much – needed film about participating fully in the process of completing one’s life – dying.  I encourage everyone to watch this film with your family and friends.  Talk about it over dinner.  Write about it in your journals. Contemplate it in your quiet moments.  Don’t keep it under your hat.  The time is now.  Let’s talk.

As part of this conversation, it is my desire to talk about the underlying beliefs that have gotten in the way of having this discussion in an open and honest way.

It seems that as a society we have made an unconscious agreement that:

• life at all cost is better than death
• I am playing God when I decide to stop medical treatment
• when someone is dying, something has gone wrong
• dying is failure
• I can’t handle the physical pain of dying
• I can’t handle the emotional pain of dying
• no one should die unless they are old
• if I talk about death (mine or someone else’s) it will happen
• suicide is a sin against God
• dying is an option
• dying is something that happens to me not something I participate in

I offer these simply as something to contemplate.  I invite you to consider any other beliefs you have about life, death and saying goodbye that are getting in the way of your planning how you want to live and ultimately die.

Completing one’s life is a very powerful time, a time in which we can experience deep intimacy and connection, but it doesn’t happen by accident.

In my next blog I will take time to explore each of the bulleted points above as well as any others you may include as you consider the conversation.

For more information on Consider the Conversation go to www.considertheconversation.org.

For a copy of and more information on advance directives go to www.fivewishes.com.

Just a word of explanation before I begin:  It is my intention to talk about life – what it’s like to be alive, to be human, to find meaning, to experience God, to be of service, to become less self-centered and to live in recovery.  I want to talk about God in the most open and generic way I can.  Therefore, as I write, sometimes I will refer to that which is greater than me as Higher Power, Great Mystery, Spirit, God, Universe, Life, The Divine, He, She, It and who know what else.  The truth be told, I don’t have a definition of the Divine other than It is wonderfully powerful and loving, at times confusing, always present and most certainly bigger than me. 

With that explanation, I offer this:  I celebrated my 55^th birthday this week and received what feels like a wonderful gift from my Higher Power.  On Wednesday morning in the midst of being very frightened about something with my health, I stood at my kitchen sink cleaning up my breakfast dishes when I heard a clear statement in my mind:  “Julie, everything, absolutely everything, that happens in your life is an opportunity to get closer to me.”  It is something heard as clearly in my heart as in my mind. 

It occurred to me in the minutes following that it doesn’t matter what is happening in my life, everything is an opportunity to get closer to God and to rely on It in a way that removes fear and allows me to live in trust.  What this means to me is I can change my perspective on any circumstance in my life.  Rather than becoming attached to the outcome of anything happening to me, I can simply use every experience, every joyful moment and every sorrowful or challenging moment to get closer to my Higher Power. 

It reminds me of what one of my earliest mentors used to say:  All any of us wants is more of God.  Even when we want a Mercedes Benz or the perfect home, what we are really craving is more of God – all the qualities that the Divine represents to us.  So if that is the case, then using everything in my life to get closer to God is the best gift I can imagine as I celebrate my birthday.

What if life, beneath the surface, were composed of a series of painful transitions with the potential to break open our hearts? And what if our broken-open hearts could ease our approach to living and eventually to the transition we call dying?

Building on her decades of work in hospice care, in this illuminating book Julie Interrante weaves together insights from the ailing and dying with her own discoveries to reveal the importance of embracing pain. Whether sparked by the loss of a friend or loved one, a pet or long-held belief, a job or a marriage, a home and community, or a physical capacity, pain breaks open the heart, catalyzing great courage, trust, and creativity for living life joyfully. It also heightens our attunement to nature’s cycle of seasons, as well as our own, which moves us full tilt into our living and our dying.

The Power of a Broken-Open Heart is not an instruction manual. Nor is it a set of religious guidelines. Rather, it is a down-to-earth exploration of vulnerability and change. Ultimately it offers a new lens on the gift of life transitions.