T         E         A         R         S
it seems like the one thing that the World and all of its inhabitants actually universally share, no mater who we are or how tough or weak we think we are
e    s    p    e    c    i    a    l    l    y
when someone we love dies.          .          .

This past week I was doing a funeral for an elderly man who had no immediate family, but he had cousin-in-laws and their families who came to celebrate his life.

I’ve long believed that the thing about weddings and now funerals, is that the the only thing that’s traditional about either of them, is that there is nothing traditional about either of them anymore.  No two day visitations and the third day a funeral.  A lot of the funerals that I conduct (usually 26 a month) sometimes are months down the road, (like the two I already have scheduled the day after Thanksgiving)

This particular funeral had the person having died three weeks ago, but it was the only time everyone could actually come together because of out of town circumstances.  There were less than 15 people attending, including the 6 children of various ages.

I was tempted to just have us literally circle the chairs and just talk about “George.”  There was no a somber tone to the service especially with the little ones literally running around and just as I finished the short welcome and opening prayer, 2 and 1/2 yr old Xavier comes running over to me, full sprint with arms open wide and jumps up into my arms.  Mind you, I’ve never met this family or this little guy.  There was a gasp from the family and then laughter as he shouted out, “I LOVE YOU!”

My service towards to him as I told him how happy I was that he was there and that I got to meet him.  As he wiggled out of my arms he reached into his pocket and pulled out a mangled band-aid and put it on my shoe
And he before I could thank him, he told me if was for my Boo Boo and then hugged my leg and said, “ALL BETTER”

The reaction was mixed horrified but mostly laughter.  How could you not “Ahhhhh” that?

Before we finished the celebration of “George” Xavier was back in my arms waving at everybody which ended with a loud  B E L C H.          .          .
G       R       I       E       F
comes to us in so many different ways,
NOT  ALWAYS  SAD
In his own way,
Xavier taught us a valuable lesson
that the famous poet, Robert Frost
once tried to share with us long ago
when he said that all he knows about life can be summed up in 3 words:
“IT GOES ON”

When Xavier’s parents and grandparents came up to me following the service, red-faced and apologetic, I thanked them for BRINGING Xavier instead of having him at home or back at the hotel with a babysitter, to prove again, LIFE GOES ON as it does.  He showed us all that we walk around with Boo Boo’s that may not be in need of band-aids so much as hugs that make us feel, “ALL BETTER”

.             .            .on the way home, band-aid still on my shoe, I thought, when’s the last time I BROUGHT that and grateful then and now, that Xavier, my small
Caring Catalyst friend,
D          I          D

I am not the only one who
THINKS
or most certainly
F          E          E          L          S
I    T.          .          .

But I keep looking for the rest of Summer
as soon as the last sparkler loses its sparkle
on the 4th of July
which got me to thinking about things
a little beyond Summer
and this one Summer of 2023
being the last one any of us will
ever live.        .       .
h      e      n      c      e:

100 Summers                                               

100 Summers from now
I’ll be gone
and so will everyone
I know and love
(and you too, dear reader)
My name won’t be
remembered or spoken
The Okay-ness
of this is that after
100 Summers gone
is there’ll be as many
Falls, Winters and Springs
taking their places as
100 Seasons before
without much explanation
(recently written for a 15 poems in 10 day challenge for local gems)

Uhhhhhhhhh
days gone by
are never really days
g  o  n  e.        .        .        .

]]> http://thecaringcatalyst.com/5984-2/feed/ 0 5984 http://thecaringcatalyst.com/the-joy-of-joy/ http://thecaringcatalyst.com/the-joy-of-joy/#respond Wed, 26 Jul 2023 11:00:23 +0000 http://thecaringcatalyst.com/?p=5982

Illustrations by Brown Bird Design for TIME

It may not have a price tag on it or could be purchased/delivered by Amazon Prime, but JOY is one of those unnamed items that’s on everyone’s wish list because, well because it literally is PRICLELESS.     .     but how do YOU define it and where do YOU find it?  Angela Haupt,  writer for Time Magazine did a deep dive into the Ocean of Joy and how we might possibly dip our toes into its frothy waves.     .      .

Sometimes the smallest moments of joy are the only ones that feel possible. That’s what Nora McInerny learned in 2014, when she lost her 35-year-old husband and her father to cancer and her second baby to miscarriage—all within the span of eight weeks.

Her husband, Aaron, was a “naturally buoyant person,” says McInerny, who’s the host of the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking and author of the upcoming book Bad Vibes Only. “He just had this otherworldly ability to find the fun and the joy in anything,” she says. “I learned from him the importance of staying as present as possible in the moment, even when the moment sucks. Even as he was literally dying, he could make me laugh.” (Among Aaron’s final words to his wife: “I will always be with you … so you need to stop picking your nose.”)

It was a moment she remembers with levity, plucked out of an unbearable time. During these past few years—plagued by political strife, social unrest, and, well, an actual plague—many of us have struggled to even briefly escape morose moods. But experts say that incorporating just a little bit of joy into our lives can disproportionately enhance our well-being by reducing the risk of chronic illness, strengthening the immune system, and combating stress.

“I think joy feels sometimes like a really big emotion—like crazy happiness,” McInerny says. “But it can be a small point of light in the darkness. It doesn’t have to be throwing the light on in the dark.”

Remind me—what’s joy again.     .     ?

Joy is the state of feeling freedom, safety, and ease. Unlike some other positive emotions, like compassion and contentment, experiencing joy often depends on preparing for it, rather than spontaneously feeling it, says Philip C. Watkins, a professor of psychology at Eastern Washington University who’s authored many of the leading research papers on joy.

One of the best ways to usher in joy is to strengthen bonds with friends and family. “The most intense joy experiences are probably experienced in relationships,” he says. Filling your life with meaningful goals and purpose is also essential, Watkins notes, as is cultivating an open mindset—and not just to the good stuff. “If you’re open to joy, you have to be open to disappointment,” he says. “Paradoxically, in terms of experiencing joy, there has to be a willingness to experience loss and sadness.”

If you’re not sure how to go about sparking joy, start with some self-reflection, advises Brie Scolaro, a licensed social worker and co-director of the New York City-based and LGBTQ-focused Aspire Psychotherapy. First, take an inventory of what joy means to you, and when you last experienced it. Ask yourself: What’s standing in your way of feeling joyful?

Then, think back on your favorite, happiest moments. Doing so will trigger some of that same joyful energy (just as reflecting on sad memories will make you feel upset). It will also give you a hint of how to achieve more joy in the future.

Next, “make a plan to bridge the gap between what you know brings you joy and what you’re currently feeling,” Scolaro says. What actionable steps can you take today to increase your odds of experiencing joy?

Finally, make sure you’re present enough to soak in joy when it washes over you. “Are you listening to your friends speak? Are you tasting the beer that you’re drinking? You have to be able to register joy,” Scolaro says. “Joy is in the moment. Building the capacity to move back to the present moment—like through meditation—is the best way I can think of to be present to joy.”

Here are a few ways to achieve small moments of joy in dark times

Make a joy bucket list

Robin Shear, a life coach, speaker, and author based in Detroit, has an emergency plan for those inevitable times when everything feels awful. Instead of spiraling—and it would be so easy to hop on the merry-go-round of doom—she turns to her “joy bucket list,” a tally of all the things that make her joyful: test-driving fast cars, being spontaneous, sharing new experiences with her family. She suggests others do the same, storing it in their phone or some other easily accessible place.

Having a physical reminder is helpful, “because there will be times in your life when you don’t feel joy. When life really hurts—and when you’re needing to rise out of that—it can be difficult to think about what will bring you joy again,” says Shear. “If you already did the work and made your list on a scrap of paper, you’ll find it’s much less challenging.”

 

Illustration by Brown Bird Design for TIME

Incorporate daily habits you look forward to

Every morning, Deborah J. Cohan has a cup of coffee in a colorful ceramic mug. She begins looking forward to it the evening before. Another favorite part of her day: Going for a nighttime swim under the stars. “I think there’s something about joy that’s multisensory,” says Cohan, a professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina, Beaufort. “You smell it, you taste it, you see it—it’s a heightened sensory experience.” Think about ways to schedule pleasurable habits into your day. Then savor the anticipation of them, because that’s part of the magic.

Find a palatable way to express gratitude

There’s strong research indicating that gratitude fuels well-being. But sometimes it feels like too much of a stretch—or, as McInerny puts it, like “a blunt-force object to force people into a better attitude.” If keeping a gratitude journal or otherwise expressing thanks isn’t a path to joy for you, think about more creative ways to reflect on and appreciate the good parts of your life.

When McInerny’s son broke his arm right before the summer, he was sentenced to a giant cast that rendered him unable to swim or participate in other fun activities. “The day he got it off, he was like, ‘Say goodbye to my cast, Gerald,’” she says—revealing that even in a bummer situation, her son had created a cute, funny nickname for his orthopedic device. It reminded her to find something lighthearted and fun in every crummy situation. Now, she looks for a “daily Gerald,” or one small thing that’s good about even a bad day.

Illustration by Brown Bird Design for TIME

Have a short “recess” every day

You’re never too old for a recess break—a sentiment backed by ample research. Even short amounts of physical activity, in particular, can elevate your moodand cut the risk of depression. Shear likes to schedule a 5- or 10-minute play session once or twice a day. “It’s an appointment with yourself. And whenever that time comes, you stop what you’re doing and get to spend a few minutes doing whatever makes you feel good,” she says. Shear has spent recess breaks hula-hooping, for example, and likes to set a fun ringtone on her phone as a notification that it’s go time—the adult version of a recess bell.

Look for connection

When McInerny gets lost in a black hole of gloominess, she calls someone she loves. The conversation might last just a few minutes, but that’s enough to lift her up.

When she’s particularly overwhelmed, she looks for other small, tangible ways to connect: If she goes for a walk, she’ll try to catch someone’s eye. Or she might mail a friend a card. “Whatever I can do to feel connected to other people is really helpful,” she says.

Dance it out

Music is a reliable way to spark a few minutes of joy, says Melanie Harth, a psychologist based in Santa Fe, N.M. She suggests making a happiness playlist full of upbeat, inspiring songs that make you want to bust a move, and then turning it on whenever your spirits start to falter. “I dare anybody to go on YouTube and watch Pharrell Williams’ Happy or Sara Bareilles’ Brave and not feel a little better”—or give up on your gloom and start dancing, she says.

Illustration by Brown Bird Design for TIME

Help someone, or something

Robust research indicates that helping other people, or getting involved with a cause that’s important to you, is correlated with well-being. Look for an opportunity to give back, in even a small way: by planting a tree, donating blood, or contributing to a friend’s online fundraiser. “It can help us get out of our scary little minds and into something that’s more important,” Harth says. “And it can also help catalyze an unexpected moment of joy. You never know when that’s going to happen.”
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.         .        .

J                       O                      Y
maybe you find it most
when you create it in others.          .          .

Tracey Schmidt’s poetic reading of a Blessing for Our Death reminds us of the complexities of life – how we can be gatekeepers and entrance points, light filled and vulnerable, lonely and loved, all at the same time. She praises life and exhorts us to do the same, to “sing as if tomorrow will not come because one day it will not.” This singing of life’s praises enables us to live fully, “as if home were everywhere and you are no longer a guest but a loved and welcome member.”

L   I   V   E
L         I          V          E
W   E   L   L

Much to ponder in this song performed by the award-winning Becky Buller.
Let your mind paint the picture your Heart needs to see that'll give you more Heart and less attack.   .   .  

MORE HEART, LESS ATTACK

Be the light in the crack
Be the one that's been there on a camel's back
Slow to anger, quick to laugh
Be more heart and less attack

Be the wheels not the track
Be the wanderer that's coming back
Leave the past right where it's at
Be more heart and less attack

The more you take the less you have
'Cause it's you in the mirror staring back
Quick to let go slow to react
Be more heart and less attack

Ever growing steadfast
And if need be the one that's in the gap
Be the never turning back
Twice the heart any man could have

Be the wheels not the track
Be the wanderer that's coming back
Leave the past right where it's at
Be more heart and less attack
Be more heart and less attack
Be more heart and less attack

I stuck my hat out, I caught the rain drops
I drank the water, I felt my veins block
I'm nearly sanctified, I'm nearly broken
I'm down the river, I'm near the open

I stuck my hat out, I caught the rain drops
I drank the water, I felt my veins block
I'm near the sanctified, I'm near broken
I'm down the river, I'm near the open

I'm down the river to where I'm going


(My thanks to Becky Buller and friends.)

Viktor Frankl, one of the great psychiatrists of the twentieth century, survived the death camps of Nazi Germany. His little book, Man’s Search for Meaning, is one of those life-changing books that everyone should read, SEVERAL TIMES

Frankl once told the story of a woman who called him in the middle of the night to calmly inform him she was about to commit suicide. Frankl kept her on the phone and talked her through her depression, giving her reason after reason to carry on living. Finally she promised she would not take her life, and she kept her word.

When they later met, Frankl asked which reason had persuaded her to live?

“None of them”, she told him.

What then influenced her to go on living, he pressed?

Her answer was simple, it was Frankl’s willingness to listen to her in the middle of the night. A world in which there was someone ready to listen to another’s pain seemed to her a world in which it was worthwhile to live.

Often, it is not the brilliant argument that makes the difference. Sometimes the small act of listening is the greatest gift we can give.

WHEN YOU HOLD SOMEONE’S SPACE; when you unconditionally accept, listen, hear, validate, affirm, you just don’t hold their space, you hold something even more sacred: THEIR SOUL.           .            .
THEY have trusted you with their whole, wounded, vulnerable Soul for the price of your offering to A LISTENING they never before had but desperately needed.        .        .

I threw this out to a group that I was presenting to recently:
“HEY, HAVE ANY OF YOU WORRIED ABOUT WORRYING?
Everyone kind of laughed and began hushing to a few mufflecd chuckles as hands went up in the air.          .           .
WELL,
ARE YOU GUILTY?
I mean, it’s kind of hard to
BE THERE
for someone if you’re worrying about worrying
even you’re worrying about them.          .          .

If You’re Feeling Anxious,
Try This 2,000-Year-Old, Neuroscience-Backed Hack.  .  .

Julia Hotz from Time Magazine took a deep dive into our worrying.  She reported that some 2,000 years ago, in the throes of a targeted chase to his death, a Roman philosopher named Seneca had a thought: “what’s the worst that can happen?”

Today, a growing body of research finds that a Seneca-inspired exercise—inviting the worried brain to literally envision its worst fears realized—is one of the most evidence-based treatments for anxiety. In scientific terms, that exercise is called imaginal exposure, or “facing the thing you’re most afraid of” by summoning it in your mind, says Dr. Regine Galanti, the founder of Long Island Behavioral Psychology, and a licensed clinical psychologist who regularly integrates imaginal exposure into her therapy.

As a subset of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), imaginal exposure relies on simple logic. Just as anxiety is created in your head, it can also be squashed in your head. And even though the most effective anxiety treatment is administered by a mental health professional over a long period of time, a growing brigade of psychologists are finding ways to help people do imaginal exposure in their own homes, on their own Two thousand years before imaginal exposure would be proven one of science’s strongest anxiety treatments, dozens of Greek and Roman philosophers had the same intuition about the theoretical value of putting worry in perspective.

In a letter to his friend Lucilius, around 64 A.D., Seneca wrote: “There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us. We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes, since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you.”

Dr. Marc Antoine Crocq, a psychiatrist at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in eastern France, says that worldview had to do with their religious beliefs.

“They believed in a god (Zeus or Jupiter) who was rather distant and not interested in the daily life of humans,” says Crocq, who has researched the topic. “So they tried to understand the world and human functioning with a more materialist scientific approach.”

The philosophers’ conclusion, Crocq says, was that “pathological anxiety is a mental representation”—and therefore, something that humans can address themselves.

Dr. Stefan Hofmann, a professor of psychology and director of the Psychotherapy & Emotion Research Laboratory at Boston University, has proven this empirically and, like Crocq, has studied the theory’s deep historical roots. He references the ancient Greek philosopher, Epictetus, who wrote: “Men are not moved by things, but the view they take of them.”

As Hofmann explains, “The idea [behind that quote] is that we are always engaging with our environment to make sense of it, and so it really matters how we perceive things. Anxiety itself is a healthy, adaptive response to an environmental threat, but sometimes, those perceptions are maladaptive, if they’re not actually putting you in danger.” He points to the way people commonly fear spiders or snakes, or even social situations. “Sometimes we respond with emotional distress in situations where it doesn’t make sense to feel emotional distress.”

Correcting those maladaptive perceptions, Hofmann says, is at the heart of CBT, a practice he describes as “toning down the intensity of the emotional states” that follow anxiety, in order to feel better. When Dr. Aaron Beck, who died last week, coined the approach in the 1960s, he was interested in helping people recognize how their thoughts were often separate from reality.

And though each therapist may differ in precisely how they administer CBT, the elements of imaginal exposure—confronting the source of anxiety-provoking thoughts, and developing healthier thought patterns around them—is a common entry point.

In the decades since, CBT has consistently been considered one of the most effective practices to manage anxiety in the long term. Hofmann conducted one of the most widely cited literature reviews on its efficacy. And imaginal exposure, the small Seneca-inspired slice of CBT, is associated with a wide spectrum of mental health gains, including reduced worry and negative emotion, improved symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorderand increased ability to engage in the once-feared activity

Still, not all people have access to professionally-administered cognitive therapy. One study of 2,300 psychotherapists in the U.S. found that only 69% use CBT when treating anxiety and depression. And then there’s the problem of access: one Census Bureau survey indicates that more than one-third of Americans live in areas lacking mental health professionals. The problem has worsened over the past year. Just as the pandemic triggered unprecedented rates of anxiety, it also led to a shortage of therapists available to treat it. But even without professional supervision, psychologist Dr. Regine Galanti says there are simple CBT-informed techniques anyone can integrate on their own.

Before encouraging people to actively confront their worry, Galanti starts with a simple question: why is it there in the first place?

“People don’t often stop and think about what it is that they’re afraid of, or even that they’re afraid at all,” she says, describing a patient who’s scared of dogs and, as a result, avoids them.

After identifying the cause of someone’s fear, Galanti focuses on validating the emotion—not diminishing it or reassuring the patient. “We think naturally when someone’s anxious to say, ‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay,’ but anxiety is not logical,” she says. “Often when we feel anxiety coming on, we do everything we can to get away from it, but we’re rarely successful, since we don’t follow it through to its logical conclusion. So these little worries just pile up, and you never actually give it the time and space to see what happens when it is there.”

Take, for example, the patient afraid of dogs. Galanti did something that perhaps seemed counterintuitive: inviting the woman to spend time with a dog, so she could face the fear head on. That worked well, Galanti says, but what about when people’s fears—like the death of a loved one—aren’t as plainly testable? “It’s about learning to handle uncertainty that we don’t know what’s going to happen,” she says. “But how can we orient ourselves to the present to say it’s not happening now?”

That advice was particularly apt during the early days of the pandemic, when uncertainty skyrocketed. At the time, Galanti advised people to set aside 15 minutes of worry time for themselves.

“Anxious thoughts tend to take over your thinking, and it ends up being a game of whack-a-mole—when you knock one down, another pops up,” she says. “So this strategy focuses on not postponing your worries, [instead] setting up a time where you can worry all you want.”

Through this strategy, Galanti encourages people to jot down whatever is causing them anxiety, and then to pick a dedicated time—ideally not before bed—to revisit those concerns. “The reason why this works is that it sets boundaries, so when a worry comes up at 9 a.m., you can say, ‘Hey, not now, your time is coming.’”

She says people rarely use the full 15-minutes of allotted worry time, but it helps put anxiety into perspective. ”Sometimes when you hit your worry list, you might find that the thing that bugged you at 9 a.m. that you thought would be the end of the world is actually not bugging you anymore at all.”
SO.          .          .
are you worried about worrying.     .     .     ?
WHAT’S THE WORST THAT CAN HAPPEN
Psssssssssssssssssssssssst:
SAYING IT WON’T HAPPEN
doesn’t make it so
.      .      .THINK ON IT
for a solid planned 15 minutes
not an out-of-control-anxiety-filled
24 hours
and then
RINSE & REPEAT

We did a lot of traveling last week, to Niagara Falls to Dayton with nary a time for a quick car wash and my car literally got BUGGED.  The car wash couldn’t remove all of the mix mash of bug guts; it needed some more than unusual elbow grease and with sweating dripping down my face and slow diving off of the tip of my nose, I stood and wiped my face and THERE, there it was; a thought and then a flood of words that found its way into a poem, not just about bugs on a bumper and crusted across my windshield but about the randomness of our living and our dying; the vast unpredictability of
IT ALL.          .          . HENCE: SPLAT

Is it all willie nillie
some hocus-pocus predestinated Chance
A random bullet
Out of control car
Avalanche
Shark bite
A fallen tree limb
An elevator cable snap
Plane crash
All
wrong places at the wrongest of times
ALL so unmathematically
equating into a
SPLAT
No one ever sees coming
WE
like the Severely unsuspecting unnamed Bug
SPLATTED
It was never my intention to
harm, maime, Kill
Yet, just the same,
SPLAT
It ended up a glorious Yellow
but so very indistinguishable on my bumper
across my windshield
And Now
just like that
as I turned on the Shower
I spied a spider
frantically trying to get out
of the fast sucking swirlingly
towards the Drain—too late
for a rescue attempt
The Splat became a deadly Splash
Proving it’s always more than One Way
but always, still, A Way
S P L A T
What Pow, What Splash, What Kerplunk
SPLAT
Awaits us
If a bug, a flailing spider
not exempted
what of us
I don’t know
But make no mistake about
Knowing it does

I was doing some DOSTADNING lately and I found an article I had tucked away from some 5 years ago from Time Magazine and I thought it was more than appropriate to share with you during a Wednesday Blog Post which I always try to feature some educational piece on how to be better Caring Catalysts in all phases and forms of our lives

DOSTADNING, is a Swedish hybrid of the words for death and cleaning. And as morbid as it sounds, that’s exactly what death cleaning is: the process of cleaning house before you die, rather then leaving it up to your loved ones to do after you’re gone.

A book called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning makes the case that the task isn’t morbid at all. Author Margareta Magnusson—a Swedish artist who describes herself as somewhere between age 80 and 100—says it’s “more like a relief,” and that it has benefits you can enjoy while you’re still very much alive.

“Generally people have too many things in their homes,” says Magnusson in a YouTube video posted by the book’s publisher. “I think it’s a good thing to get rid of things you don’t need.” Magnusson says she’s always death cleaned, “because I want to have it nice around me, keep some order.”

Magnusson says people should start thinking about death cleaning as soon as they’re old enough to start thinking about their own mortality. “Don’t collect things you don’t want,” she says. “One day when you’re not around anymore, your family would have to take care of all that stuff, and I don’t think that’s fair.”

The Death Cleaning method bears similarities to that of the tidying-up guru Marie Kondo: Keep what you love and get rid of what you don’t. But while Kondo tells people to trash, recycle or donate what they discard, Magnusson recommends giving things you no longer want to family and friends “whenever they come over for dinner, or whenever you catch up with them,” reports the Australian website Whimn.

However, Magnusson does advocate for keeping sentimental objects like old letters and photographs. She keeps a “throw-away box,” which she describes as things that are “just for me.” When she dies, her children know they can simply throw that box away, without even looking through its contents.

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning is out for U.S. publication If the trend catches on stateside, it could be a good way for families to discuss sensitive issues that might otherwise be hard to bring up, says Kate Goldhaber, a family therapist and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Loyola Medicine. I am already working this into one of my presentations, THE SPIRITUALITY OF DEATH AND DYING

“It seems like a nice, proactive approach to facilitating cooperation and communication among families early on in the aging process, when you’re not too entrenched in the difficult parts later on,” says Goldhaber. “There can also be something very empowering and healthy about taking care of your own space and making it more organized while you’re still around.”

Death cleaning may have benefits for the cleaners themselves, and not just for their loved ones, says Goldhaber. Some research suggests that clutter in the home can raise stress levels and reduce productivity. As adults get older, having a house full of stuff may also raise their risk for falls and create other health and safety hazards.

Goldhaber points out that many people may engage in a type of death cleaning without calling it that—when they downsize from a large house to a small apartment as they get older, for instance. “It’s a new way of thinking about the grunt work that comes along with those transitions, which can be really stressful,” she says.

If bringing up the concept of death with aging loved ones still feels wrong, Goldhaber suggests rephrasing the idea. “If you present it as, ‘Let’s organize the house so it’s a more enjoyable place for you to live and for us to have holidays,’ it might be better received than ‘Let’s throw away your stuff now so we don’t have to sort through it later,’” she says. “It can be fun, even late in life, to redecorate and declutter, and it can be a great thing for families to do together.”

Magnusson says that death cleaning is an ongoing process that’s never truly finished. “You don’t know when you are going to die, so it goes on and on,” she says in the video.

Her daughter chimes in, stating the obvious: Death cleaning ends with death. Magnusson laughs and nods. “Then it stops,” she says, “of course, finally.”

Maybe we all need to be doing some serious DOSTNADING before we die
but as we live
know that before we put anything in a box
OURSELVES INCLUDED
K         N        O       W
t  h  a  t
DEATH IS NOT THE LAST THING THAT HAPPENS TO US
Our lives
as we know them
will not continue as we know them
b            u            t
SHELVED AND BOXED
we will not be.          .          .