Credit: Elle Moulin for Next Avenue

Katie Couric has regrets. Even to this day.

When the former TV news anchor spoke at Georgetown University at an event titled “The Healing Power of Communication” in August, 2019, she said she wished she had talked more to her late husband, Jay Monahan, about his impending death before he succumbed to colon cancer at 42 in 1998.

“It was just terrible,” Couric said. “After nine months of trying desperately to figure out some way to manage it, he lost his battle — and it was devastating.”

She explained that she’s writing her memoir and recently had drinks with Monahan’s two doctors to “revisit” those days.

“I told them how guilty I felt about so many things about Jay’s illness and that we never really discussed, you know, even entertained the idea that he might die. I was so afraid to give up hope, and make him give up hope, that we never discussed the alternative, which I really regret,” Couric said.

For example, she said, “He never wrote a letter to our girls” — daughters Ellie, 28, and Carrie, 23.

“I honestly believe that we, as a species, will do better if we come to terms with our mortality earlier in life.”

The fine line between maintaining hope and offering a reality check is tricky territory, said Dr. John Marshall, oncologist and director of Georgetown’s Ruesch Center for the Cure of Gastrointestinal Cancers, who was interviewing Couric at the event.

“As soon as we enter that world, we see the light go out,” Marshall said. “We don’t like doing that. So the balance of being on point and brutal, if you will, and factual, versus that maintaining of hope…”

“It must be a dilemma,” Couric responded. “For me, I erred on the other side — trying to protect Jay from information he had a right to hear.”

So, which is more important: knowing the reality of your situation or maintaining hope?

Most of us don’t want to hear bad news, especially this kind of bad news. And most of us don’t want to talk about it, or plan for it. And yet, in recent years, the thinking about this is beginning to change as our aging population starts changing its views of death. More hope, less grim reaper?

Is Dying About Control?

HBO’s documentary Alternate Endings: Six New Ways to Die in America, released Aug. 14, 2019, explores some of the ways Americans are finding meaning as life ends. And all of the ways show that the key is taking control of as much, or as best possible, of the end of life.

The documentary includes new types of urns, personalized obituaries, eco-friendly caskets, drive-thru funeral viewing, living wakes (which force people to say things to each other while still alive), space burials, green burials (in which the body is wrapped in biodegradable material in a shallow grave), memorials in an underwater “reef vault” and a seriously ill man who opts to take advantage of physician-assisted death to end his life peacefully and surrounded by family.

It’s all part of a $16 billion U.S. funeral industry that is being disrupted.

“The baby boomer generation has had a greater degree of control over their lives than any other generation before them,” Alternate Endings filmmaker Matthew O’Neill told Axios in an Aug. 10, 2019, article. “It’s because every topic that’s taboo — be it sex, be it drugs — it’s all on television and it’s all being talked about. And death is the last taboo.”

Is Dying About Hope?

The film was released around the same time as the book A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death by Dr. BJ Miller and Shoshana Berger was on The Washington Post’s Top 10 bestsellers list. The book includes practical advice (take your favorite quilt to the hospital) and wisdom (“love” is what matters most in the end).

Miller, too, addresses the idea of hope.

“I honestly believe that we, as a species, will do better if we come to terms with our mortality earlier in life,” he said in an interview on the Today show Aug. 5, 2019. “Get used to exercising hope within the framework of life being short and precious.”

Boomers do seem to be getting better about not only facing death, but also embracing it. The Conversation Project, Death over Dinner project, Death Cafes — all have been propelling us towards a more open view of death for nearly a decade. Remember how Swedish Death Cleaningbecame “a thing” two years ago?

Maybe It’s About Hope and Control

De-stigmatizing death. Having a “good death.” Those are the goals.

The United Kingdom’s Academy of Medical Sciences installed “The Departure Lounge” in a London mall in May. It was designed to look like a departure lounge at an airport, complete with all that baggage we have, with the idea of getting people to talk about death. “Why can’t we say the ‘D’ word?” the website asks.

Packaged versions of the pop-up installation are now being offered to community groups across the UK to start a national conversation about death and dying.

As a student in Georgetown University’s new Aging & Health master’s program, I was treated to a guest lecture in our first semester by Becky Hsu, an assistant professor at Georgetown, who spoke to us about the Chinese concept of a “good death.”

Hsu explained that she had spent time in China with a woman who had already bought the outfit she wants to wear for her death: pants, shirt, shoes, earrings and purse.

The woman has an embroidered pillow picked out for her head to rest on. She had a portrait taken that will be displayed at her funeral. All of these things are neatly wrapped in a cardboard box that she proudly shows off to friends and family.

Explained Hsu, “It’s a happy thing.”

 By Ann OldenburgAnn Oldenburg, who started her career at The Washington Post and was a longtime culture writer at USA Today, is assistant director of the journalism program at Georgetown University. An advocate of lifelong learning, she is a member of the first cohort of Georgetown’s new Aging & Health master’s program.@annoldenburg

https://indd.adobe.com/embed/1c6855ee-766b-4fec-8e84-ba8a3d985a2c?startpage=1&allowFullscreen=true

Shadow Work by Richard Rohr

Making Holy
Tuesday, September 10, 2019

The shadow in and of itself is not the problem. The source of our disease and violence is separation from parts of ourselves, from each other, and from God. Mature religion is meant to re-ligio or re-ligament what our egos and survival instincts have put asunder, namely a fundamental wholeness at the heart of everything.

Robert A. Johnson (1921–2018) was an American Jungian analyst, author, and lecturer who studied at the C. G. Jung Institute. Many of Johnson’s insights have shaped my own work. In his book Owning Your Own Shadow, he explains how the shadow begins and how we grow:

We are all born whole and, let us hope, will die whole. But somewhere early on our way, we eat one of the wonderful fruits of the tree of knowledge, things separate into good and evil, and we begin the shadow-making process: we divide our lives. In the cultural process we sort out our God-given characteristics into those that are acceptable to society and those that have to be put away. This is wonderful and necessary, and there would be no civilized behavior without this sorting out of good and evil. But the refused and unacceptable characteristics do not go away; they only collect in the dark corners of our personality. When they have been hidden long enough, they take on a life of their own—the shadow life.

The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness. It is the despised quarter of our being. It often has an energy potential nearly as great as that of our ego. If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage or some indiscretion or an accident that seems to have its own purpose. . . .

It is also astonishing to find that some very good characteristics turn up in the shadow. Generally, the ordinary, mundane characteristics are the norm. Anything less than this goes into the shadow. But anything better also goes into the shadow! Some of the pure gold of our personality is relegated to the shadow because it can find no place in that great leveling process that is culture.

Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously. . . . The gold is related to our higher calling, and this can be hard to accept at certain stages of life. . . .

Wherever we start and whatever culture we spring from, [most of us] will arrive at adulthood with a clearly defined ego and shadow, a system of right and wrong, a teeter-totter with two sides. The religious process consists of restoring the wholeness of the personality. . . .

Generally, the first half of life is devoted to the cultural process—gaining one’s skills, raising a family, disciplining one’s self in a hundred different ways; the second half of life is devoted to restoring the wholeness (making holy) of life. One might complain that this is a senseless round trip except that the wholeness at the end is conscious while it was unconscious and childlike at the beginning.

Reference:
Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche (HarperSanFrancisco: 1991), 4-5, 7-9, 10.

The desire to record details of our lives is as old as handwriting itself. Early diaries were mostly kept as public records. The modern diary has its origins in fifteenth-century Italy where diaries were used for accounting. Gradually, the focus of diaries shifted from that of recording public life to reflecting on the private one. Leonardo da Vinci filled 5,000 pages of journals with ideas for inventions and clever observations.

Diary as autobiography, the truly modern diary, began with Samuel Pepys in England in 1660. He recorded details of his life in London, including grand scenes from historic events like the Great Fire of 1666 and more intimate scenes such as quarrels with his wife.

The travel journal has been around since the early Christian pilgrims began traveling to the Holy Land in the first century after Christ. By the late eighteenth century, explorers were traversing the earth and recording their discoveries – explorers such as Captain Cook, Lewis and Clark, and Darwin. In 1845 Henry David Thoreau began recording what would become the classic, Walden, the account of his two-year experiment of “living deliberately” at Walden Pond.

Since the late eighteenth century, writers, artists, and other creatives have used the diary as an integral part of the creative process – writers such as Tolstoy, Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Anais Nin, and Sylvia Plath. Many of these journals were published and are widely read, even to this day. Interestingly, many of these best-sellers were by women writers, for example, poet May Sarton’s Journal of Solitude (1973), a beautiful book about the life of a solitary writer.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have also seen the rise of the war journal, including what is perhaps the most famous diary of all, that of Anne Frank. She and her contemporary, Etty Hillesum, chronicled their lives during WWII. Poet soldiers Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen wrote about their experiences of WWI. Mary Chestnut wrote about the American Civil War.

The therapeutic potential of reflective writing didn’t come into public awareness until the 1960s, when Dr. Ira Progoff, a psychologist in New York City, began offering workshops and classes in the use of what he called the Intensive Journal method. Dr. Progoff had been using a “psychological notebook” with his therapy clients for several years. His Intensive Journal is a three-ring notebook with many color-coded sections for different aspects of the writer’s life exploration and psychological healing. The Progoff method of journal keeping quickly became popular, and today the method has been taught to more than 250,000 people through a network of “journal consultants” trained by Dr. Progoff and his staff.

In 1978, journal writing for personal growth and emotional wellness was introduced to a wider audience through the publication of three books. Dr. Progoff’s At a Journal Workshop detailed his Intensive Journal process and gave instructions on how to set up an Intensive Journal for those who could not attend a journal workshop in person. In 1977 a young writer and teacher from Minneapolis named Christina Baldwin published her first book, One to One: Self-Understanding Through Journal Writing, based on the adult education journal classes she had been teaching. And in Los Angeles, Tristine Rainer published The New Diary (1978), a comprehensive guidebook that for many years was the most complete and accessible source of information on how to use a journal for self-discovery and self-exploration.

In the 1980s many public school systems began formally using journals in English classes and across the curricula as well. These journals, often called “dialogue” or “response” journals, offered a way for students to develop independent thinking skills and gave teachers a method for responding directly to students with individual feedback. Although the intention for classroom journals was educational rather than therapeutic, teachers noticed that a simple assignment to reflect on an academic question or problem often revealed important information about the student’s emotional life. Students often reported feeling a relief of pressure and tension when they could write down troubling events or confusing thoughts or feelings.

After the publication of the Pennebaker studies, the medical and therapeutic communities began taking a closer look at journal writing as a holistic nonmedicinal method for wellness. In 1985, Kathleen Adams, a psychotherapist in Colorado and the founder/director of The Center for Journal Therapy, began teaching journal workshops designed to give the general public tools that could be used for self-discovery, creative expression and life enhancement. Her “journal toolbox” of writing techniques offered a way to match a specific life issue with a specific writing device to address it. Her first book, Journal to the Self: 22 Paths to Personal Growth was published in 1990. Through a network of Certified Instructors, the Journal to the Self workshop is available throughout the United States, Canada and several foreign countries.

And now we have the digital diarist: the blogger, the Facebook user, the Twitter user. We have software programs for keeping a diary in cyberspace. In the twenty-first century, the desire to record the intimate details of our lives has become a public affair. There’s an urge to reveal, rather than conceal in a hidden journal. And yet journal keeping has always had this dichotomy: the desire to express and make visible, the urge to keep secret and hidden.

Source: http://journaltherapy.com/get-training/short-program-journal-to-the-self/journal-to-the-self/journal-writing-history/ and http://journalingforyourlife.com/2015/02/

One of the key tools of a conscious aging process is the life review. It’s not something you do in one sitting!  I have found it most useful to do at least a partial life review when my life is in transition.

You will find that when you do a life review, two major things show up. First, you get to see where your incompletes are in life. You may have some forgiveness work to do or releasing and letting go of past hurts. Secondly, you may find hidden potentials – things in your past that still have a germ of possibility for the future.

For many people, the thought of a life review conjures up a soul going through a near death experience, where someone has their life ‘flash before their eyes’ in an instant. And, yes, that is something they many who have had ‘near death’ experiences tell us happens.

The fascinating thing about all the stories of life-reviews is that, in almost all cases when people see that they have made wrong choices, they never feel judged during this experience. That’s worth pondering.

When to Do a Life Review

Take on an attitude of a non-judgmental observer as you prepare to begin your own life review.  I recommend not waiting until you are ‘dying’ but rather to do frequent life reviews from midlife on. Perhaps every year on your birthday, a the end of a year, or in times of transition when you are looking at the possibilities that may be available to you.

A life review is an awesome opportunity to discover more fully who you truly are. I have found that working with clients in midlife and beyond, that it can also be a proven pathway to more conscious aging.

May Sarton, a poet, novelist and memoirist, wrote in one of her journals:  “I suppose real old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward, but I look forward with joy to the years ahead and especially to the surprises that any day may bring.”

In the words of one of my favorite mentor/teachers, Dr. Ira Progoff, creator of the Intensive Journal method, it’s a way of looking at what our life still wishes to become.

Doing a life review can be a way not only of remembering past events, but an opportunity to reframe these events as well. One goal is to come to attribute new, different and more empowering meanings to those past events. The focus is not to dwell on the past, but to revisit and integrate it in order to live more fully in the present and prepare for the future.

The Research

A significant body of research has demonstrated that life review can help individuals to integrate losses, resolve “unfinished business” accumulated over the course of a lifetime, and significantly contribute to adjustment to aging. That’s reason enough to give it a chance!

One of the normal developmental tasks of later adulthood is the process of reminiscence.  Reminiscence is often unfortunately viewed as the mere rambling of someone who isn’t quite coping with the present.  But, studies have shown that reminiscence is the way the personality reorganizes itself as we age.

When Eric Erikson, the sociologist, talked about the stages of adult development, he described the final stage as one of integrity vs. despair.  At this stage it becomes important for one to look back on one’s life with satisfaction before facing death.

Eric Erikson proposes that the critical factor in accepting death is one’s acceptance of his or her personal life-career fulfillment. In other words, those who feel that their life’s work has been accomplished find it easier to face death than those who feel like they have unfinished business.

Conscious aging is all about finding meaning – both in what has been and in what is yet to be. A life review gives us the opportunity to both define and re-define ourselves in the areas where we feel the need for greater growth and change.

Successful aging causes us to move gracefully from the doing part of our lives to greater BEINGNESS. Aging can be the opportunity to redefine one’s being in the world by attributing meanings to the joys, accomplishments, as well as the sorrows and losses of our lives.

Hoe to Do a Life Review

So, how does one do a life review? . Well, there are several ways.  The actress and political activist, Jane Fonda, discussed one way recently in a book and on TV.  I saw Jane do an interview on Oprah and I read her new book, “Prime Time” where she talks more about doing a life review when she was 59. You can watch the interview Jane did with Oprah by going to:

Jane Fonda on Oprah on the Life Review process

And while you are on the blog – www,midlifemessages.com, you can also find lots of other good articles about Jane’s experience and about the life review in general.

Writing an Autobiography

Some people do a life review by writing their autobiography and taking notice of what comes up as significant and important.  

Using Audio, Video or Photos

Many people use audio or video to record their experiences rather than write them out.  I once did a project where I took each year of my life and created a scrapbook – one page for every year.  I talked with my parents and other members of my family when my memory failed me about a particular year. But, for the most part, I found pictures – either some I had or magazine pictures that represented the FEELING at that time and each year was memorialized in its own page. 

I then went back to think about the people who were important that year; the events that stood out; the works I was doing that seemed significant and the beliefs that I took on at the time.  It took me almost a year to complete the project – but, it’s something I’ll treasure and it was a springboard to a lot of discovery about myself and about what was and what still is important to me.

During the last thirty or so years of my own life, I have studied various journaling techniques that have helped me to do the two things I believe are important for a life review:

1. Complete the past – through closure and reconciliation.  

2. Find the gems of possibility waiting to be explored for the future.

In the meantime, any method you feel drawn to will work for you. Just do it.

I’ll be leading a workshop on this in September here in Sarasota.  Look for details to follow shortly.