idealawg

Good to see more attention to mediation of sibling disputes about end-of-life matters

Just published, a New York Times article on the use of mediation for disputes between siblings. Excerpt from "Strengthening Troubled Sibling Bonds to Deal With an Aging Parent":

It doesn’t matter how successful people are; when they’re around their siblings, they often revert to their 7-year-old selves. “Family members are often very successful professionally, but when they’re back with the family it can trigger old emotions, and they envision each other back in their old roles and it makes it difficult to envision who that person is now,” said Crystal Thorpe, a co-founder of Elder Decisions, in Norwood, Mass., and a co-author of “Mom Always Liked You Best.”

The sibling relationship can become even thornier when dealing with aging or infirm parents. All sorts of issues that can test even the best relationships arise, including differences of opinion on housing, caregiving, medical treatment, estate planning and end-of-life care. ...

Thinking about our mortality can have a big effect on how we spend, give, or bequeath our money

Being aware of death influences our money behavior. The research about this behavior is intriguing and instructional—and very important to understand for those of us who work with clients and their money. As a quick and partial overview of what researchers have learned, read "Grim Givers: How Thoughts of Death Open Wallets" (New York Observer). Excerpt:

Yet we humans are practical animals. When confronted with the terrifying vision of our own expiration date, we get to work. We create meaning in our lives by reinforcing our cultural values, erecting buildings, making art, teaching—and writing charitable checks.

There’s even a hypothesis for this. With the alarming name Terror Management Theory, it’s the brainchild of academics Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszczynski, who’ve been investigating it for over 25 years.

The idea—set out in their forthcoming book, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life—is that knowledge of our own death (“mortality salience,” as it’s known) is a powerful force shaping our actions, behaviors and beliefs.

Click to read the rest. The book mentioned above will be out in May but is now available for preorder.

Interested in mediation or collaborative law in trust and estates and other related family matters?

I call to your attention two no-fee teleseminars being offered this month by the Purposeful Planning Institute; one or both might be worth your time. Take a look below for all the information. If you want to join either call, get your complimentary PIN number.

The first, presented by John O'Grady on November 11, is titled "Navigate Epic Aging & Inheritance Conflicts to Build Your Practice." The session is described:

Drama, trauma, greed, and crisis at end of life present angst and opportunity.   In fact, these are the elements of a Greek tragedy in which power, control, sibling rivalry, patriarchal privilege, and other thorny issues threaten to tear families apart.  The inheritance battles escalate as the older adult loses mental capacity.  Growing a thriving collaborative trusts & estates practice in service to these conflicted families is a way to make a profound and lasting impact at a critical time.  Transforming regret, repression, and depression into full self-expression – especially when it is messy -- is cause for celebration.   During this training, Estate Planning Lawyer and Mediator of Estate Battles John O’Grady equips you to begin to navigate the epic conflicts about death, taxes, and inheritance so those you serve can address the underlying conflicts, salvage important relationships, and welcome a measure of inner peace, love, and understanding.

“In most cases, the conflict is not about who inherits the dining room table.  It’s about the issues under the table that are just now seeing the light of day.”

 More here.

The second teleseminar I call to your attention is "The Collaborative Practice Revolution in Trusts & Estates," to be given on November 25. I had the opportunity to speak with Peter Johnson, one of the presenters, in August at this year's PPI Rendezvous. Our time in conversation was stimulating and the bonus for me was learning

Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain*: Drumming for collaboration, barrier breaking, health

A colleague and close friend of mine is in San Diego this weekend attending a Remo Drums HealthRHYTHMS course, being taught by Christine Stevens (videos of Stevens). I am looking forward to hearing all about what she learned when she returns to Colorado because for many years I have been interested in the use of music for conflict resolution (see my past posts on that topic here). The use of music with and for aging seniors has also been a long-time interest.

A third reason I am interested in the effects of music: Dr. Stephen Porges talks about the physiological and psychological effects and benefits of the feeling of safety (click to read my post about his Polyvagal Theory). And he has talked about the role of music in that sensed safety. Click to read what he has written about music therapy and trauma (Lifespan Learning Institute). Excerpt:

Music is an important component of the human experience. The use of music in culture has been a documented feature of the history of civilizations. Types of music have been uniquely associated with distinct feelings, experiences, and social interactions. Cultures have incorporated music into the educational process, religious and tribal rituals, and patriotic expressions. Music conveys features of culture both with lyrics and melody. Vocal music has been used both as a contemporary vehicle and an archival mechanism to transmit important cultural, moral, spiritual, and historical events and values. Music has been used to calm, to enable feelings of safety, and to reduce the social distance between people.

Music can be a very potent and effective tool. The drum, one of the most basic instruments, provides a way any of us, no matter how musically unskilled, can use the tool of music actively, playfully, and easily.

If you want to take the course my friend is now attending, click for locations and dates of future programs. Sounds like a booming, thundering good time.

Description of the course (taken from the Remo Web site):

HealthRHYTHMS Basic Training teaches a fun, evidence-based whole person strategy which promotes socialization and ensures a healthy non-strenuous workout. On a deeper level it builds bridges while fostering nurturing, support, camaraderie, self-respect and respect for others. It is not really about drumming, but uses the drum as a tool for communication and personal expression. This system can be integrated as a therapeutic strategy in group counseling sessions, support groups, rehabilitation centers, schools, hospitals, aging facilities and more.

I can think of a few law firms that could benefit from a drum corps in the hallways.

*Chorus from Sonny and Cher's "The Beat Goes On":

The beat goes on, the beat goes on
Drums keep pounding
A rhythm to the brain
La de da de de, la de da de da

Interested in improving your memory? Then this talk is worth watching

Nelson Dellis reviews 100 numbers in his memory

Most of the presentations I attended last week at the 26th Annual APS (Association for Psychological Science) Convention were extremely valuable and I learned much about, e.g., the latest science. However one of the programs stood out as not only a good learning experience but also immediately useful—and entertaining. I might even call it memorably inspiring and simply amazing. I am happy to see that the whole presentation is available for your viewing on the APS site.

Click to watch Make It Stick: How Memory Athletes Perform and How Their Techniques Can Help You. From the program description:

Memory researcher Henry L. Roediger, III, spoke the digits at a rate of one every 2 seconds. A few feet to his left on the stage, memory athlete Nelson Dellis sat in a chair absorbing each one. Dellis was hunched over, his hands pressed over his eyes, his face a bit red with intensity. After Roediger announced the 100th digit, Dellis leaned back and asked for a moment to let it sink in. He was going to recite them back to the audience, all hundred, in order.

A packed ballroom never sat so silent in anticipation.

Roediger and Dellis had just spent the past hour revealing the secrets of mnemonic memory as part of the Bring the Family Address at the 26th APS Annual Convention. Roediger, APS Past President and a psychological scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, has pivoted some research attention to the spectacular feats of extreme memorizers. Dellis, the reigning and three-time US Memory Champion, helped him demonstrate to the crowd just how spectacular those feats are.

“Psychologists, strangely enough, even though there’s a large number of us who study memory, have not been as fascinating with mnemonic techniques as we might have been,” said Roediger. “They were sometimes seen as they are in education, as party tricks — not worthy of study. I think that’s misguided.”

I highly recommend you take the time to watch this program. Let me know what you think.

Related: "Remembering, as an Extreme Sport" (New York Times).

Note (added June 19, 2014): An article in Business Insider reviewed Dr. Roediger's new book Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Click to read "7 Memory Skills That Will Make You Way Smarter."

Have experiences related to death? Do your clients? Share thoughts in this writing competition

In my recent post about using literature to facilitate discussions and reflection, I mentioned a wonderful book called Final Chapters: Writings about the End of Life. The writings in the book were selected from entries in a competition to which people submitted their thoughts and experiences related to death.

The same organization Dying Matters has announced a new creative writing competition. From the Web page:

Life is shockingly unpredictable and too often ends before we’ve told our nearest and dearest how much we love them, registered a will to avoid chaos after we’ve gone, visited a long-neglected relative or got in touch with someone we know we treated badly. Omissions like these gnaw at us now and are likely to be bitterly regretted when we face the final curtain.  

So with that in mind, our new writing competition, While There’s Still Time, is aimed at generating shared experiences that will help more people set about putting things right, planning their future and getting the best from the rest of their life. Reading about other people’s setbacks, sadness and happiness helps us cope with our own ups and downs, and writing about experiences too painful to talk about can in itself generate a wonderful sense relief and release.

Click to read the rest.

And click to read an interview of Joe Levenson, the man behind the writing competitions. Excerpt:

By talking more openly about end of life issues and taking actions such as writing a will, recording our funeral wishes, registering as an organ donor, planning our future care and sharing what we would want with our loved ones we can help to ensure that we all get the chance to live well until we die.

You only die once, so don’t leave it too late to make your wishes known or to provide support to those who need it.

Will you be entering this writing contest?

New interview with Ellen Langer: Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity

Harvard Business Review has just published an interview with Dr. Ellen Langer, about whom I have blogged here several times in the past. From "Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity," some excellent advice which specifically reminds me of mediation:

When people say, “This is the way to do it,” that’s not true. There are always many ways, and the way you choose should depend on the current context. You can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. So when someone says, “Learn this so it’s second nature,” let a bell go off in your head, because that means mindlessness. The rules you were given were the rules that worked for the person who created them, and the more different you are from that person, the worse they’re going to work for you. When you’re mindful, rules, routines, and goals guide you; they don’t govern you.

Click to read the rest of the interview. Worth some of your time—and mindfulness!

To trigger important conversations, use short stories or other readings

As I blogged about recently, well-chosen movies and movie clips can be used to start conversations on topics that may be difficult to broach, including relationship challenges and death-and-dying-related matters. Short readings can serve the same purpose.

Excerpts from the forthcoming book Final Chapters, reminded of the valuable function of appropriate readings for facilitating necessary but sometimes anxiety-producing conversations, those talks that can be terrifying, at least uncomfortable, easily deferred. Click through and read "Enhancing Dementia Recipe" (the middle piece); perhaps, as I was, you will be moved. Just a few words and yet a strong impact.

Short, well-written, even jarring, readings can motivate you to sit down and have a talk about the future, whether it be about your marriage, divorce, child-raising, or death. Readings can provoke talks with your family or with your clients. Read anything good lately?

App to help you gather family stories

Because I believe the flow from ancestry to life to legacy is important—often extremely influential on how we live our lives and affect future generations—I sometimes post about that flow. (Click here or here, for example, and watch for an interview at idealawg on this topic soon.)

If you plan to collect some of your family stories, I wanted to let you know about StoryCatcher, a smart phone app to help you with the process. From "Tree of Life Legacies: Doing more for families than just telling stories" (Lamorinda Weekly):

[S]ince I believe it is so important for generations to share their stories, I looked for a way to make it more affordable." And [April Bell] did. With partner Urs Brauchli she developed a $2.99 iPhone app called Story Catcher that was released in 2013.

"I used the app on my phone and created this little narrative about how I met my wife," says longtime Lafayette resident Dennis Erokan, founder of BAM Magazine who met Bell at a Lafayette Chamber of Commerce meeting. "Then I shared the story with one of my daughters." He said that his daughter was so moved that she started to cry; she had never heard the whole story.

The app allows people to record a video approximately two minutes long; users can access templates, if they want, to add pictures and subtitles, and create a very nice and professional looking product that can be shared with others.

Click to read the rest.

What's the value of nostalgia? What (and how) are you remembering these days?

Some new research on nostalgia is getting a lot of media coverage. For some reason, the topic of nostalgia seems particularly fitting to me as we approach the holiday season. If you have an interest in nostalgia, here are some links for you.

First here's the Abstract from the study getting attention in the news: "Nostalgia as a Resource for Psychological Health and Well-Being"  (Social and Personality Psychology Compass):

Historically, nostalgia has been viewed as a disease of the brain or the mind. However, in recent years, nostalgia has received a conceptual rehabilitation due to a revival of scholarly interest accompanied by the use of contemporary empirical methods. Drawing upon this recent work, we propose that nostalgia is an important resource for psychological health and well-being. We begin by detailing the characteristics of the nostalgic experience and then discuss a wide range of studies demonstrating that psychological threat triggers nostalgia, nostalgia enhances psychological health and well-being, and nostalgia promotes adaptive psychological functioning among individuals at risk for poor mental health. We also highlight the need for future research on nostalgia’s relation to psychological health.

Click to read the rest.

And "Nostalgic feelings about the past linked to optimism" (Medical News Today).

Finally, here is a blog post in which Wray Herbert looks at nostalgia and at ways we cope with knowing we will eventually die: "The Grim Reaper Heuristic: Loneliness and Zealotry."