If you had to plan a funeral for a loved one tomorrow, would you know what to do and what not to do? Most of us are woefully unprepared when faced with this task and must do so while grieving the loss of someone for whom we care deeply. So, consider investing a mere half hour of your time NOW so when the time comes, you can rise to the occasion with your wits about you.
If you are lucky, when called upon to actually plan a funeral or memorial, the deceased will have already pre-planned the funeral and all you will have to do is contact the funeral home and they will take it from there. Unfortunately, only about 25% of funerals are pre-planned according to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA). http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/05/29/funeral-pre-planning/2370935/ So, in the vast majority of cases, you are on your own to figure out how to honor the deceased.
No matter what kind of ritual or ceremony you deem appropriate, in most states you will be required to retain the services of a funeral director at the very least to transport the body from the place of death to whatever comes next. Laws differ from state to state, so it’s important to know the laws involved. Matters can be further complicated if the deceased needs to be moved from one state to another.
In the old model of funeral planning, we would appear on the doorstep of the funeral home in our grief and rely on the funeral director to guide us through our decision-making. That’s a pretty vulnerable situation to be in making such tender-hearted and financially significant decisions. Under such circumstances, it is not uncommon to overspend in an effort to prove the depth of our love for the deceased. Not knowing what decisions need to be made, we are likely to think we ought not forego anything that “most people do” whether it suits our needs and pocketbook or not.
Planning can get very complicated, very stressful, and very expensive, very fast. Funerals are an expensive proposition. The NFDA estimates the average cost of a funeral in the US, including a burial vault, to be $8,343. http://nfda.org/about-funeral-service-/trends-and-statistics.html So, it pays to be a well-informed consumer before you start contacting funeral directors.
Here are a few free online resources that are well worth a visit before actually making plans with a funeral director.
http://www.imsorrytohear.com offers complimentary funeral planning tools and advice to help us be more savvy consumers of funeral-related products. Here are some of the highlights of what they offer:
-They are in the process of rolling out a directory of all the funeral homes in the US and Canada. To date, information is online for 17 states and is projected to include all US states by year-end. Simply enter your zip code, city/state, or add personal preferences such as religion or services offered and the site will tell you what funeral homes meet your needs and display reviews left from prior customers. Not all listings are comprehensive yet, but those that are include license status, ownership (corporate vs. Independent), religious/cultural offerings, a list of services offered, the funeral director’s name, and professional associations. Eventually, this site will also include Canadian funeral providers, pricing, and other funeral vendors that can assist with other aspects of end-of-life planning. This is an invaluable resource for comparing the offerings of potential funeral homes side by side.
-A comprehensive and downloadable funeral planning checklist guides you through the information and decisions you will need to address before, during, and after the funeral. This includes a copy of the Funeral Rule enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, which details our rights as consumers of funeral products and services.
-A casket guide that details the various options and price ranges of caskets.
-A description of key consumer advocacy groups.
-Contact information for state funeral planning boards that regulate the licensure and practice of funeral directors and embalmers.
-Funeral planning tips and educational articles.
www.Efuneral.com While the name does not imply it, this site offers comprehensive resources for end-of-life planning such as legalities (including wills, trusts, and advance healthcare directives); caregiving, hospice and palliative care services; facing dementia and terminal illnesses; and grieving as well as funeral planning resources. In terms of funeral planning, the site offers:
-A detailed funeral arrangements guide
-A funeral planning tool that allows you to comparison shop different funeral homes, browse reviews, and manage your planning budget.
-An archive of articles and videos on the various topics covered by the site.
-Advise and tips on such topics as estate planning, saving money on funeral expenses, helping a loved one through sickness, or broaching the subject of end-of-life care with elderly parents.
www.funeralwise.com/Funeral–Planning claims to offer you everything you need to know about funerals and planning, including:
-A step-by-step online funeral planning guide detailing who to call when the death occurs; arranging for transporting the deceased; planning the funeral and cremation or burial; and post-funeral matters.
-An explanation of funeral customs by ethnicity, culture, and religion.
-A description of funeral etiquette for various circumstances and situations.
-Guidance for dealing with grief.
-A search tool to find funeral homes and cemeteries by geographic location to comparison shop
-A guide to pet loss
-A store that offers sympathy bouquets, memorial items, books, and music.
When researching online resources for funeral planning pay close attention to the vested interest of the site. For example, while the above are fundamentally educational sites, others are sponsored by online retailers or individual funeral homes. So, always consider the source.
I encourage you to take the time NOW to research these and other websites so you are prepared someday when you least expect to need them. This brief education will go a long way to prepare you to step up when called upon to actually plan a funeral or memorial to honor one of your loved ones.
How to Create a Spiritual But Not Religious Wedding Ceremony
More and more couples today say they want a spiritual but not religious wedding ceremony. This mirrors the trend of Americans who self-identify with this label. The spiritual but not religious now account for approximately 37 percent of Americans and that number has doubled in the last decade.
What does it mean to be spiritual but not religious? When interviewing couples who use this term to describe themselves, I ask what this term means to them. Typically, they say things like “we consider ourselves to be good people, but we don’t follow any particular religion” or “we believe in some kind of creator or God but not the way God is defined in the major world religions” or “I’m not really sure — we believe there is something more to life than the physical, but don’t know what that is or how to talk about it.”
In the U.S., when you step outside the auspices of a religious doctrine, you are either one who self-identifies as an atheist (i.e. does not believe in “God”); an agnostic (i.e. has not found satisfactory proof of God’s existence); someone who isn’t particularly concerned about such matters; or you don’t have a specific label and are looking to find what is true for you. Generally, the spiritual but not religious fall into the last of these groups.
Unlike those who follow the doctrine of a particular religious tradition, when the spiritual but not religious are creating a wedding ceremony, they do not have a template to follow. In fact, as long as their ceremony complies with the laws of the state in which the marriage takes place, they can do whatever they want.
In 2005, when I published the first edition of my book, The Wedding Ceremony Planner: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Part of Your Wedding Day, I sought to provide a basic structure for the ritual of a self-designed wedding ceremony for the spiritual but not religious. It was also my intention to educate them about the hundreds of logistical considerations that might never occur to them otherwise. Just published in a second edition, this has become the bestselling book on the topic of wedding ceremony design.
Even with this book as a reference point, couples need to figure out what would or would not be appropriate for them as a unique couple. The key is what I call resonance — the intensified sense of truth an individual or couple experiences when considering a passage or ritual component — its “rightness” or “wrongness” for them, if you will. They might read one passage and respond “oh, yuck!” while another generates a response such as “oh, honey, that’s us!”
The freedom afforded a couple facing a blank sheet of paper as their starting point can be quite daunting. However, it can be wonderfully affirming as well if both partners participate in letting their resonance be their guide. Some realize that they have never had the occasion to share or articulate their deepest beliefs and values. Doing so is simultaneously a declaration and an intimate sharing of who they are. When a marriage ceremony is created from this place, it will ring true to the family and other guests as well — even when others do not share the couple’s point of view.
In addition to creating a ceremony that reflects their deepest values and beliefs, couples should also consider the impact their ceremony is likely to have on their guests. Being too in your face or not particularly tasteful can cause problems with family and friends. A good rule of thumb is to consider what you might think of your choices ten or twenty years later with a bit more maturity and perspective. Celebrate who you are as individuals, as a couple, and as members of the assembled community, but be sure to temper that by honoring and being respectful of essential differences as well.
If you have specific questions about how to design your wedding ceremony or as an officiant serving a specific couple, feel free to ask them under the comments section below or to email me your questions at judithjohnson@hvc.rr.com. Your comments and questions are always welcome.
Can You Trust Yourself?
Trust is an interesting concept — and far more exciting as an action. Trusting yourself involves the willingness and confidence to rely on your own integrity, abilities, and character to meet the challenges of a particular experience, or all of life for that matter. For me, trust is not only a psychological factor, but has a spiritual component as well because God is very much a part of my worldview.
I believe that the ultimate gamble with the greatest potential gain in life is to trust yourself and that in so doing, you gain a level of freedom, authenticity, and peace that is unreachable any other way. Trust requires living in your own skin, recognizing your own authority as the very best arbiter of what is for you and what is not. We may have learned as children to trust and rely upon the authority of others to tell us what to do and when to do it. But there is a profound and authentic inner voice that lies dormant within us all until we start to listen to it and recognize its ability to express our deepest truth and to guide us with the most precise discernment of what will serve our highest good — whether we like it or not. Some call this their “inner” or “true” self, and some suggest this is the spark of the divine that resides in each of us. Either way, just as with physical exercise we are trained to strengthen our core muscles, we must strengthen this core self as well by exercising its voice. That’s how we learn to trust ourselves. Otherwise, we remain at the effect of external sources of authority and simply react to them, usually with the intention of getting their approval or affecting their perception of us in some way.
In my second doctoral dissertation, I focused on the topic of trust because I had become profoundly aware of the fact that whenever I felt out of balance, the bottom line was that I wasn’t trusting myself. As I explored the internal wiring of my consciousness, I discovered something remarkable — my lack of self-trust was so fundamental to my way of being that I was living my life built upon the intention of avoiding pain and suffering. I knew that it was fairly normal to minimize our distress, but my behavior was an all-encompassing way of being whereby I sought to anticipate and avoid perceived sources of suffering.
There was an ironic and fundamental flaw in my approach. In my effort to achieve greater happiness by avoiding pain and suffering, I was actually attracting them to me by focusing upon them rather than on the happiness I sought. I was equating happiness with an absence of pain. In fact, our minds act like great magnets attracting to us what we focus upon, which in turn makes our intentions and focal points self-fulfilling prophecies.
Inherent in my approach was the fact that I neither trusted myself nor God, and so I played God by attempting to write the script of my life. I recognized this as the most pivotal shift I needed to make in my consciousness to improve my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being, and I wanted the joy, ease, grace, and abundance that it would bring forth in my life.
So, what about you?
Do you trust yourself?
Do you tend to live at the effect of people and events outside yourself?
Or, alternatively, do you experience yourself as capable of living your life with all its unanticipated twists and turns?
Here are three keys that really helped me make this wonderful transformation of my inner experience. First, I practiced keeping my consciousness focused in the present moment until that became a good habit. This replaced my previous habit of worrying so much about the future. It empowered me to take appropriate action in the only time frame that affords us that opportunity — the present.
Secondly, I observed myself and developed a list of my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual experiences and expressions during the presence or absence of trust in my consciousness. Creating this list helped me to recognize what it looks like and feels like to be trusting — to put flesh on the bones of the concept of trust. For example, I noticed that when I was experiencing trust, I was physically relaxed, comfortable, open, with fluid and graceful movements. In contrast, when lacking trust, I became rigid, tense, stressed, and pushed others away. Mentally, I was not feeling attached to my point of view, worrying, judging others, or avoiding anything. Instead, I was paying attention to what was present and cooperating with it. Emotionally, trust allowed me to go with the flow, confident that I could meet whatever came my way. This was an enormous contrast to my previous experience of anger, fear, agitation, resistance to whatever I did not like, and doubting my ability to be happy in life. Spiritually, trust brought an attunement to the highest good of all concerned and the desire to surrender to “God’s way” rather than demanding “my way.” Rather than playing God, I learned to recognize God’s wisdom and presence in my life.
Finally, I practiced, practiced, and practiced doing more of the things that brought greater trust, and breaking the habit of doing those that did not. I came to believe that there is nothing “wrong” that I have to try to fix. I discovered that trusting is about letting go of “should”s, “have to”s, demands, expectations, fears, illusions, and delusions. The more I surrendered into trust, the more it became my automatic response. Rather than closing down and retreating in response to pain and suffering, I built skills in experiencing them and learning from them. This built my openness and trust that God’s infinite wisdom is present at all times — not just in the experiences that I like.
Giving Yourself a Basic Education About Funeral Planning NOW
If you had to plan a funeral for a loved one tomorrow, would you know what to do and what not to do? Most of us are woefully unprepared when faced with this task and must do so while grieving the loss of someone for whom we care deeply. So, consider investing a mere half hour of your time NOW so when the time comes, you can rise to the occasion with your wits about you.
If you are lucky, when called upon to actually plan a funeral or memorial, the deceased will have already pre-planned the funeral and all you will have to do is contact the funeral home and they will take it from there. Unfortunately, only about 25% of funerals are pre-planned according to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA). http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/05/29/funeral-pre-planning/2370935/ So, in the vast majority of cases, you are on your own to figure out how to honor the deceased.
No matter what kind of ritual or ceremony you deem appropriate, in most states you will be required to retain the services of a funeral director at the very least to transport the body from the place of death to whatever comes next. Laws differ from state to state, so it’s important to know the laws involved. Matters can be further complicated if the deceased needs to be moved from one state to another.
In the old model of funeral planning, we would appear on the doorstep of the funeral home in our grief and rely on the funeral director to guide us through our decision-making. That’s a pretty vulnerable situation to be in making such tender-hearted and financially significant decisions. Under such circumstances, it is not uncommon to overspend in an effort to prove the depth of our love for the deceased. Not knowing what decisions need to be made, we are likely to think we ought not forego anything that “most people do” whether it suits our needs and pocketbook or not.
Planning can get very complicated, very stressful, and very expensive, very fast. Funerals are an expensive proposition. The NFDA estimates the average cost of a funeral in the US, including a burial vault, to be $8,343. http://nfda.org/about-funeral-service-/trends-and-statistics.html So, it pays to be a well-informed consumer before you start contacting funeral directors.
Here are a few free online resources that are well worth a visit before actually making plans with a funeral director.
http://www.imsorrytohear.com offers complimentary funeral planning tools and advice to help us be more savvy consumers of funeral-related products. Here are some of the highlights of what they offer:
-They are in the process of rolling out a directory of all the funeral homes in the US and Canada. To date, information is online for 17 states and is projected to include all US states by year-end. Simply enter your zip code, city/state, or add personal preferences such as religion or services offered and the site will tell you what funeral homes meet your needs and display reviews left from prior customers. Not all listings are comprehensive yet, but those that are include license status, ownership (corporate vs. Independent), religious/cultural offerings, a list of services offered, the funeral director’s name, and professional associations. Eventually, this site will also include Canadian funeral providers, pricing, and other funeral vendors that can assist with other aspects of end-of-life planning. This is an invaluable resource for comparing the offerings of potential funeral homes side by side.
-A comprehensive and downloadable funeral planning checklist guides you through the information and decisions you will need to address before, during, and after the funeral. This includes a copy of the Funeral Rule enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, which details our rights as consumers of funeral products and services.
-A casket guide that details the various options and price ranges of caskets.
-A description of key consumer advocacy groups.
-Contact information for state funeral planning boards that regulate the licensure and practice of funeral directors and embalmers.
-Funeral planning tips and educational articles.
www.Efuneral.com While the name does not imply it, this site offers comprehensive resources for end-of-life planning such as legalities (including wills, trusts, and advance healthcare directives); caregiving, hospice and palliative care services; facing dementia and terminal illnesses; and grieving as well as funeral planning resources. In terms of funeral planning, the site offers:
-A detailed funeral arrangements guide
-A funeral planning tool that allows you to comparison shop different funeral homes, browse reviews, and manage your planning budget.
-An archive of articles and videos on the various topics covered by the site.
-Advise and tips on such topics as estate planning, saving money on funeral expenses, helping a loved one through sickness, or broaching the subject of end-of-life care with elderly parents.
www.funeralwise.com/Funeral–Planning claims to offer you everything you need to know about funerals and planning, including:
-A step-by-step online funeral planning guide detailing who to call when the death occurs; arranging for transporting the deceased; planning the funeral and cremation or burial; and post-funeral matters.
-An explanation of funeral customs by ethnicity, culture, and religion.
-A description of funeral etiquette for various circumstances and situations.
-Guidance for dealing with grief.
-A search tool to find funeral homes and cemeteries by geographic location to comparison shop
-A guide to pet loss
-A store that offers sympathy bouquets, memorial items, books, and music.
When researching online resources for funeral planning pay close attention to the vested interest of the site. For example, while the above are fundamentally educational sites, others are sponsored by online retailers or individual funeral homes. So, always consider the source.
I encourage you to take the time NOW to research these and other websites so you are prepared someday when you least expect to need them. This brief education will go a long way to prepare you to step up when called upon to actually plan a funeral or memorial to honor one of your loved ones.
The Grace Project: Transforming Our Ideal of Female Beauty
There is not a woman in this country who has been immune to the experience of finding herself falling short of the commercial, albeit airbrushed, ideal of female beauty that bombards us every day. Comparing ourselves to this unreal standard of beauty gives us a sense of being unworthy, a failure, unable to measure up. Many women live with an insidious undercurrent of self-loathing as a result. Many dread seeing a picture of themselves or trying on a bathing suit or undressing before a new lover. Women are encouraged to live with a belief that we are not, and will never be, beautiful unless we “fix” our “imperfections” through diet, exercise, surgery, or Spanx.
Isis Charise, a photographer in Kingston, NY and the founder of The Grace Project, is doing her part to change all that. She has a way of photographing women of all shapes, sizes, ages, and ethnicities that provides a doorway for them to access a connection within themselves through which they are able to recognize themselves as beautiful women. Isis facilitates their process of taking ownership of and embodying a deeper, perennial, and more authentic kind of beauty.
In the Grace Project, Isis is bringing her transformational photography to women who have had mastectomies — giving them permission to see themselves as beautiful and whole. She offers her subjects two very powerful metaphors that allow them to see themselves through new eyes. Referencing the Venice de Milo, Isis reminds the women she photographs that this sculpture became even more beautiful after losing its arms to the trauma of history. The other metaphor she shares is the Japanese art of kintsugi, meaning “golden joinery” whereby the cracks of a broken bowl are filled with gold dust and adhesive. Symbolically, the point is not to try to restore something to “as good as new” but rather to incorporate the brokenness into enhanced beauty that is “better than new.” Isis’ subjects are liberated from society’s standard of beauty and are able to see the brokenness of their bodies in a way that has given them a greater power, peacefulness, and beauty.
A recent exhibit of the Grace Project images at the Greene County Council for the Arts demonstrated that these images are also transformational for the viewer. One of the gallery employees shared the story of a burly man who walked into the gallery and was brought to tears by these images. His mother had recently had a double mastectomy and he had never seen what it had done to her body. Several weeks later, his mother ended up in hospital and he was called upon to care for her and dress her. He came back into the gallery to thank them because had he not seen Isis’ images he would never have been prepared to help his mother in such an intimate and nurturing way.
Another man viewing these images said that at first he didn’t even notice that these women’s breasts were scarred or missing. He was captivated by the power of each woman’s presence and initially just saw beautiful pictures of beautiful women.
One of Isis’ subjects is a 58-year old woman currently living with Stage 4 metastatic Breast Cancer. She spoke of her experience facing a bilateral mastectomy. “I had no idea what my body would look like after surgery or what would happen to my body. Someone told me about Isis’s work and I looked at these images of women who looked at peace with their bodies whether they had reconstructed or not. It opened up for me the option of not having reconstructive surgery. I could choose to save my life doing this. I could picture that I would be a whole person afterwards.” On one level, she now views her cancer as a gift saying “somehow through this journey I have reconnected to the part of myself that is the most melike when I was ten or eleven or in my 20s. I have arrived in a powerful place through this journey and the choice to forego reconstruction.”
Another woman wrote to Isis referencing the fact that during her photo shoot she had been referring to her Frankenboob. Seeing her photographs, she had come to realize that her breast sacrificed itself so she could have however many years she has left, and vowed to never use that derogatory term again.
Barbara Sarah is a 21-year Breast Cancer survivor who acknowledged we have come a long way from back in the day when “a breast was only something on a chicken or turkey or robin. It was not a word that we used. Now “breast” has become part of the vocabulary and visually what Isis is doing is dealing with the taboo about looking and witnessing.” Barbara, like many Breast Cancer survivors, has devoted herself to serve others. Nineteen years ago, she founded what is now known as the Oncology Support Program of HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley in New York. The philosophical underpinnings of this group are rooted in Japanese Buddhist psychology focused on being grounded in living in the now, paying attention, being grateful, and living fully in the moment. “I thought that would be a great philosophy for working with cancer patients,” Barbara said. “It’s not just talking about cancer, it’s about how do you live a life with meaning and purpose?”
I am not a woman dealing with Breast Cancer. However, my relationship with my body has been profoundly uplifted by seeing these images. I hope they will give you a better appreciation for how important it is that a woman’s sense of wholeness and beauty come from within her and not be diminished by false external standards.
The images of the Grace Project have the potential to be the new and healthy faces we put on Breast Cancer. Please visit and “like” the Grace website and Facebook.
The Grace Project: Breast Cancer Portraits
View Slideshow Gallery
The project is a not-for-profit 501c3 under the “Artspire” program of the New York Foundation for the Arts.
I invite your generosity.
Current Grace Project initiatives that need your support include:
Please feel free to contact Isis directly at isisimages@yahoo.com if:
Please spread the word and help these images and the Grace Project go viral. What a wonderful gift to us all this holiday season — especially these brave women who have shared their images.
Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
If you would like to know more about me, please visit my website at http://www.judithjohnson.com
If you would like to suggest a topic for a future blog or ask me to address a particular situation or issue, please email me at judithjohnson@hvc.rr.com
To view my Huffington Post archive click here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-johnson
Note: All images in the slide show and video have been provided by Isis Charise who has received a signed model release from all of the women appearing in the photographs.
Do You Have a Healthy Attitude About Death?
Steve Jobs’ last words, spoken with great delight, were, “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!” What was he seeing? Perhaps what those returning from near-death experiences consistently report — a sense of moving through a dark tunnel beckoned by a compelling bright light, feelings of peace and well-being, the knowledge of being outside of the body, what some call an intense feeling of unconditional love, and encounters with beings of light. This piercing of the veil of “the other side” unwaveringly suggests that “passing over” is a beautiful experience.
In stark contrast to these images, we live with a cultural consciousness about death that personifies it as “the Grim Reaper” or “the Angel of Death.” Not knowing when or how our time will come, many live in fear of the unknown and uncontrollable aspects of death with a sense of a foreboding encounter with darkness and evil. Nowhere is this more vividly demonstrated than in an Internet image search of the word “death” that yields haunting black-and-white images of skulls, crossbones, and the Grim Reaper. I encourage you to take a moment and do an image search now. These portrayals demonstrate the power of the death taboo on both our conscious and unconscious awareness.
Among the top 10 images, several date back to artwork from the 1300s during the Black Plague when half the European population was wiped out. The plague was considered a form of punishment by God. Symbolically representing death — with depictions of skeletons, skulls, and crossbones — was a common way of mocking it in order to reduce feelings of helplessness and anxiety. People wore these death symbols on their clothing as a way to fool Death into thinking that they had already been touched and should therefore be left alone. If these images are indeed a valid reflection of the collective consciousness about death today, it is no wonder that so many live in fear of death and treat it like the unspeakable elephant in the room.
As children, we could run to the comfort of our parents with our fears. It is a sad commentary on our society that as adults so many of us silence and suppress our own fears about death’s unknowns, concern about unmanageable pain, the loss of control over one’s own life, and the possibility of being isolated from loved ones at life’s end. Rather than sharing our beliefs, thoughts, fears, and concerns about dying and death, we suffer in silence having no idea how to wrap our brains around the reality of death or to even broach the subject with our loved ones or doctors. Far too many of us, including terminally ill patients, put a smile on our face and silently suffer in emotional isolation. The death taboo interferes with our ability to have a healthy relationship with death.
The good news is that since the 1960s, momentum has been building to transform our culture of death. Among the most apparent changes and influences:
Buoyed by the confluence of these forces, this is an exciting historical moment where matters of our beliefs and values regarding life and death are concerned. Both culturally and individually, we have a great opportunity to rethink our most fundamental definitions of “birth” and “death.” Our physical and spiritual understanding of these terms must be reconciled in the process. Here are some questions to ponder:
Never has there been a time when we had a greater opportunity to reevaluate our beliefs and values regarding life and death and to hold ourselves accountable for the quality of our relationship to both. Let’s talk about this. Please share your thoughts below.
There Are Many Ways to Say “I Love You”
Each February, we are bombarded by commercial proddings to prove our love to our sweetheart with the obligatory greeting card, roses, and candy. For some, the ante is far more expensive and raises year after year. I think the really lucky sweethearts are those who don’t buy into this external pressure, but rather find little ways to express the love they feel inside for their sweetheart and other loved ones as a way of life.
I’m the kind of person who loves spontaneous gestures of affection – a phone call from a friend who is missing me, or a beautiful bouquet of flowers on a random day from my partner just because he knows I will be delighted. Don’t give me an obligatory diamond bracelet. I’d much rather you make it a priority to share quality time together on a regular basis. Stoke the flame of our love and friendship – invest in our relationship by being a caring and thoughtful partner and communicating your love and needs. No amount of money spent can do a better job of warming the cockles of my heart.
It is so easy to be consumed by to do lists, work, and other activities and not have much left for those you claim to love the most. It takes intentional effort in such a complex and busy world to make the expression of your love a priority.
Rather than trying to follow the commercial prescription of how to be a good Valentine, try something new this year. Make a list of the people you love and treasure most in your life and take the time to think about what gift of love would be most meaningful to each of them. Do you have an aging parent or dying friend who might treasure some time with you? Perhaps you have a boss who has been a wonderful mentor and you would like to say “thank you.” Who has given you your most treasured gifts of friendship and love? Do they know how much they mean to you? Don’t make this a one time project, but rather set the intention to improve the quality of your relationships by injecting more of your love into them on an ongoing basis.
There are many ways to say I love you. The best ones rise out of simply paying attention and allowing creative expressions to emerge from your heart. The very best ones touch the other person’s heart – the gift is authentically received. Here’s one of my favorite expressions of “I love you” that I ever experienced.
Hide The Lizard
I don’t recall how the game began. But, I do remember finding the lizard. For several of my mother’s final years, we indulged in a few weeks of beachfront July living on the Jersey shore where we had both vacationed as children. One late afternoon, walking up the beach to the cottage, my feet kicked up a tiny rainbow colored plastic lizard in the sand. With no visible potential child owner in sight, the inner child in me delighted in my newfound treasure and I accelerated my pace up to the house to show my mother.
After returning to our year round home in a renovated barn in the Hudson Valley of New York, the lizard found its first home with us on a small wooden ledge on the first floor. At the time, my mother’s mobility was in a period of marked decline and I took on more and more simple daily activities to compensate as seamlessly as possible. I didn’t want her to do without anything that mattered to her that she could no longer do for herself. But, she was a proud woman, and as with many of us facing physical decline, it was important to her not to be any more of a burden than necessary. While, in my snarkiest of moods, I did feel burdened and impatient, mostly, it was a privilege to care for her. Reluctance to let me know her needs and desires actually made things a bit more challenging for me – not only did I have the new activities to do but, I had to first figure out what they were through careful observation.
There are many ways to show someone your love. Helping my mom with her daily activities was one, but far more important, was tending to her emotions and sense of self-worth and dignity. Little things matter a lot for someone who is facing a loss of autonomy. Hide the Lizard was a spontaneous response to being aware of this with my mom. It was a game that came into existence and survived simply to say, “I love you very, very much.”
And so, Hide the Lizard was born. One of us would hide it somewhere in plain sight on the first floor of our home and notify the other that it was her turn to find it. Sometimes it would be uncanny how something inside you would guide you right to the lizard. Other times, it might take days at feeling increasingly inept at this invented game while being ever more determined to find the damn lizard, knowing it was right out in plain sight. Finding it always brought triumphant delight, shortly followed by the challenge of finding a cleaver new home for the lizard. We giggled, we felt smug when we stumped each other, and thus we comingled our hearts.
There are many ways to say I love you.
I wish you the joy of abundantly expressing your love this Valentine’s Day and every day.
Are You Letting Your Heart Sing?
As a mentor, I often find myself working on the same bottom line with clients — are you letting your heart sing? This is a powerfully loaded question that deserves some unpacking here.
First, let’s look at what it means to let your heart sing. Think of a time or times when you have been in your glory. It could have been a particular meeting, job, relationship, a song you sang, a book you wrote, or just a humble yet essential moment in your daily life. These moments typically engage a person in the flow of creatively expressing something they are deeply passionate about. It’s as though your body, heart, mind, and soul are in a personal harmonic convergence and you can feel your heart smiling. There is a fulfillment — a sating of a piercing hunger that has been building in your soul.
I’ve come to recognize that my heart sings best when I am experiencing a loving oneness with another — whether someone close to me, a client, or a total stranger. For example, I can be walking down the street and have my eyes meet deeply with the eyes of a stranger for the briefest of moments and zoom past all the things that normally prevent such an essential connection from occurring. My heart also sings when I am effectively being of service and when I am able to communicate well. What about you? What makes your heart sing?
Once you have identified one or several strong examples of you at your best, ask yourself some of the following questions:
Notice the question isn’t is your heart singing? It’s are you letting your heart sing? In this crazy world we live in, very few hearts simply sing anymore. It’s not that it is not important, but rather that we are too busy giving our attention to other matters. We need to make our lives conducive to allowing our song to emerge — even within the simple moments of our everyday lives. So, if your heart rarely or never sings, here are some things you might want to do:
There is only one you. So, please give voice to your most beautiful inner song and share it with the rest of us.
A Celebration of Value & Symbolic Wedding Rituals | Judith Johnson Wedding Officiant on Chronogram
I recently spoke with Chronogram on exploring unique ways couples can incorporate their deeper values into their wedding celebrations. Read the full article here.
The #1 Key to Living and Dying Well
Some of the greatest life wisdom is articulated by the dying. In her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Bronnie Ware shares what she has learned about the dying by serving as a caregiver to many. She notes, “of all of the regrets and lessons shared with me as I sat beside their beds, the regret of not having lived a life true to themselves was the most common one of all. It was also the one that caused the most frustration, as the client’s realization came too late.”
So, what does it mean to be true to yourself? A lot of people throw around the term ‘authenticity’ to describe it. On some level this term suggests that there is a truth that resides within each of us that is unique to our specific being. It also implies that there is an opportunity to somehow maximize the experience of living our life and meeting our death that involves being attuned to that truth and living a life that is a reflection of that truth. But, how do we do this? How is that different from simply living and doing the best we can? What does it look like? What does it feel like?
In the process of living, we come to know things about ourselves – experiences we love and those that leave us unengaged. We discover certain talents, abilities, and inclinations within us. My favorite food group will always be chocolate, for example, that’s simply not negotiable. Each of us will have different preferences from the same menu in a restaurant – or the de jour offerings of a given day. As time goes by, if we pay attention – if we listen to that pure, inner voice that simply says an enthusiastic ‘yes!’ or an emphatic ‘no!’ – we come to learn that that voice seems to have our best interest in mind. It is not the voice of our ego preferences or greed. It comes from a far deeper place than that – I sense mine in the area of my solar plexis.
The real challenge is that there are other voices that we hear too and our inner voice of truth often gets lost in the shuffle. Our insecurities and fears speak to us. Our wants and desires demand our attention. Outer influences, norms, and authorities seek our allegiance as well. What do you do when your parents or teachers – the gods of your youth – are steering you in a direction that doesn’t match your fragile and emerging sense of self? When outer authorities or social norms insist you do or be something that is in conflict with your sense of who you are, what do you do? Do you trust the outer authorities, perhaps out of fear of the consequences of not doing so, or do you somehow hold to your inner truth, in spite of the judgment, rejection, and ridicule that might bring upon you? I know a man who paid a heavy price for following his passion to become a concert pianist when his father insisted he stay in Idaho to tend the family potato farm. What must it be like for a child who knows he or she is gay to survive and find a path through a family or world that will judge and reject them? What do you do when you know that how and what you are is likely to never be favored or acceptable to your family or the society you live in – even though you are a good person?
It’s ironic that it’s just not that easy to simply be yourself. But, maybe therein lies the secret to living and dying well. The real prize in life is to come to know your very own truth and to learn to be obedient to that truth in a way that does not harm others. They may not like it, but if we are lucky, we teach them how to love us in spite of our differences. We teach them to respect our ways of being and to let us be. You have to be willing to claim the privilege of being yourself in a social context. It’s not an easy path and typically takes dedication, devotion, endurance, and sometimes the willingness to proceed without the support and understanding of those we love. It requires listening to inner truth and figuring out how to honor it. It takes time to develop this inner attunement. But the prize is a peacefulness, an experience of being who you are rather than resenting yourself and others for what you didn’t get to do or be or have that was essential to you. To know that you are living your life with obedience to what you know to be your truth may be as good as life gets – especially when you find a community of support of others who are walking to the beat of their own drums as well.
Take a look at your life and ask yourself these questions:
As long as we live, it is never too late to be ourselves and to make peace with our choices and the people in our life (past or present). So, if you want to live and die really well, befriend, honor, and love yourself madly and deeply.
Picking Up Your Life
I recently came upon the expression “pick up your life” in a talk given by John Morton, the spiritual director of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. This simple phrase captures the idea that we always have the choice to move our life to a higher level of expression. Whether you dream of being an Olympic star or simply see areas of your life that you would like to improve, it is your choice whether or not you take it upon yourself to lift yourself higher. Is it time for you to pick up your life? What might be possible for you?
It is so easy to pass endless days and years of our lives in a kind of stupor on autopilot spending and losing ourselves in the routines of daily life and to-do lists that get us nowhere. Sometimes life simply exhausts us and we lose sight of our dreams, our potential, and passions. But there is a heavy price we pay for stagnation and complacency. We become stalled out and stale and sometimes bitter. We lose sight of the power we have to choose to live our lives differently.
We are meant to evolve through learning and growing. These processes take place within us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We all have areas of our lives where we feel stuck or unfulfilled at times. That’s not a problem — it’s perfectly normal, and often the irritation required for us to choose to pick up our life.
So, how do you break out of a repetitively unfulfilling life or an irritation? The answer starts with believing that it is possible. Until you believe in the possibility of change, it simply cannot occur. Belief opens the door to taking action. It is the accelerator out of stagnation — beyond all the excuses and rationalizations that have kept you doing what you have always done, getting what you have always gotten. This is as true about small personal changes as it is about global issues. Momentum comes when you choose to do what it takes to manifest what you have come to believe is possible. You take ownership of your life and do something radically different. Radical need not be earth shattering. It is sometimes best to start with a baby step like making your bed each morning because you have come to believe as my friend, Lisa says, “making your bed each morning is the cornerstone of civilization.” Now, I appreciate that you may not hold bed making in such high regard, but sometimes the smallest change can make a world of difference.
While belief is the door opener and initial accelerant of change, momentum and eventual success come by taking consistent, appropriate actions in a clearly defined direction. Action is taken in the context of a vision of success and a plan of action. For example, over the past year I have been overcoming a lifelong challenge with excess body weight. Every single thing I have put in my mouth or chosen not to eat has been a conscious choice. In time, temptations receded, new habits formed and I began to have a love affair with vegetables. Who knew that was possible? Every step of the way I kept my eye on my goal and reinforced my belief that long-term success was possible and in the process of happening. I also chose to celebrate my mini-successes along the way to the momentum of gratitude. Someone once told me about an interview with Jack LaLanne, dubbed “the godfather of fitness.” The interviewer said “Jack, you must really love exercise” to which Jack abruptly and passionately responded “I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I do it for the results.” When we believe in something, whether it is sustaining a healthy body or laying down our lives for a cause we passionately embrace, success comes in the followthrough.
So, here are some questions for you. Do you have any secret dreams for yourself that you have let slip by the wayside? Are you settling for less than you know you have in you? Have you given up on yourself or told yourself it is too hard or too late to change? I encourage you to come out from behind your excuses and disillusionment and pick up your life. Imagine what is possible if each of us believed in ourselves enough to manifest our greatest self-expression. Imagine if we believed that we all have that responsibility and accelerated our best selves into manifestation.