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Can watching a movie improve your relationship? Motivate you to write a will? Resolve your conflict?

A colleague of mine, a very imaginative consultant named Gail Rubin,  quite effectively uses movies to facilitate planning for death (click for a program example), including the writing of wills. Reading the below press release about couples watching movies to improve or preserve their relationships got me thinking of many other areas in which movies might be useful. Could movies be helpful in resolving conflict, developing leadership, raising self-awareness, promoting mindfulness, enhancing cognitive development?

Of course, as the researchers write in the study article, more research needs to be done on this kind of movie therapy. The value of using movies in other arenas such as the above-listed needs research, too, but at least it could be entertaining.

Here's the news release from University of Rochester. (Click to see the list of movies and discussion questions used in the study, and to read the study itself.)

Divorce Rate Cut in Half for Couples Who Discussed Relationship Movies

January 31, 2014
Contact: Susan Hagen [email protected]
585.276.4061

A new study finds that watching and discussing movies about relationships is as effective in lowering divorce rates as other, more intensive early marriage counseling programs.

Discussing five movies about relationships over a month could cut the three-year divorce rate for newlyweds in half, researchers report. The study, involving 174 couples, is the first long-term

New edition of NATIONAL POST has a multitude of death-related articles

Interested in planning your funeral? Leaving a legacy? Learning about longevity? Those topics and many more are covered in a special issue of the National Post titled "How We Die Now."

Just a reminder: On Wednesday, October 30, you may listen to an interview of me about planning your own funeral. Details here.

Beyond ethical wills and life reviews: Re-membering the dead

The book Re-membering Lives  bears that title partly because it refers to the metaphor of membership in a club of significant others in a person's life. We each are born into our own club, adding and subtracting members as we move through life. The book looks at how to keep or reinstall a person as a member of your club, even if he or she is dead.

The novel approach of the book's authors intrigued me. In case you might find it of interest, too, I have posted below some book excerpts.

It is often assumed, within the modernist discourse of death, that death itself cancels membership. When people are expected to accept the finality and reality of death, this is often what is meant. People are asked to withdraw their investment in relationship with the deceased and to reinvest in other relationships. The metaphor invokes an economy of relationship that invites us to treat people like stocks that we invest in (presumably for own profit). When our relational investments are no longer yielding high returns, we are encouraged to cut our losses and move on. From our perspective, the idea that a relationship ends and that the bereaved need to cease to recognize a loved one as a member of the club of life is a mistake.

...

Remembering conversations are deliberate acts of membership construction. They keep a person's membered status close and current and constantly renew our loved one's presence in our club of life. To remember is to include them in our daily lives, in our conversations, in our celebrations, in our decision-making, and in our resources for living. To remember is to refuse to allow our loved one's memory to go by unnoticed. Remembering may involve keeping a person's voice alive through repeating their words in relation to new developments in life. It may involve consulting the deceased's opinion as a resource for dealing with a new challenge. It may involve keeping in place in family gatherings or rituals for someone who is no longer alive. It may involve telling young children stories about a dead grandparent's life. It may involve committing oneself to living for some value our purpose that a dead love held dear.

...

What is the opposite of remembering? The usual inclination would be to suggest forgetting. However, within the definition of membership that we are speaking about, that is this is too weak

Want to hear my interview on legacy, values, estate planning, and funerals? Here's how

I will be on my colleague Gail Rubin's radio show A Good Goodbye October 30, at 4 Mountain, 6 Eastern. Listen in here. If you cannot listen in at that time, a recording will be available afterwards at the same link.

October 30 is the 14th annual Create a Great Funeral Day; the interview is in honor of that holiday. I registered the day well over a decade ago to remind people to consider the benefits of creating your own funeral or memorial service, regardless of age of state of health.

Why would you want to make those plans? Just a few reasons:

• You relieve those you leave behind of many decisions during their time of grief.
• You give the bereaved the emotional satisfaction of knowing they are carrying out your wishes.
• You may open up new areas of discussion with your family.
• You are able to create an event that truly reflects your life.
• Reviewing your life for the purpose of creating the service allows you to evaluate how you want to use your future.
• And this gentle reminder of your mortality has an effect on your decisions about today.

For some previous blog posts about creating your own funeral, click here. For more about my book on the topic, go here.

Nora Ephron left wishes for her survivors: "a funeral and not a memorial service"

The very talented Nora Ephron is gravely ill (TMZ). Also from ABC News. Her survivors will know what she wants for her after-death event; they won't need to worry about that decision in addition to grieving. From a piece by Liz Smith (wowowow.com):

I have a letter now in my hands [from Nora]: “Came home (from Claudia Cohen’s funeral where you, Liz, say you want nothing like it). Told Nick to make sure when I died there was a funeral and not a memorial service. Please remind him. This is the real effect of all these funerals. They give us ideas for our own. I want a big deal, and I want everyone to be basket cases.”

I am sure there will be many basket cases.

Please click to read posts I have written about the many benefits of designing your own funeral, regardless of your age or health.

And click to read an interview of Ephron (Newsweek) in which she talks about aging and things she will miss when she is dead.

We're probably all dying this century: How to start the important conversation about death

Click to listen to intensive care specialist Dr. Peter Saul give his presentation titled "Let's talk about dying" given at one of the ubiquitous TEDxTalks.

Not exactly an upbeat talk, as Saul acknowledges, but worth listening to. He highlights two questions to ask others:

• In the event that you can no longer speak for yourself, whom do you want to speak for you?
• Have you talked with this person?

Other subjects covered:

• He jokingly suggested Occupy Death: Sit-ins in the mortuary?
• How we die lives on in those who remain behind us.
• He hates euthanasia and discusses why.
• "You matter because you are. You matter to the last moment of your life."--Dame Cicely Saunders, M.D. Founder of hospice

Program in Denver: Using film clips to educate, plus a very unique topic to think about

We are going to have an exciting program at our usual meeting of Denver Talks and are therefore opening the meeting up to others. The seating is very limited (20 people) so please let me know right away if you wish to attend. The location is south Denver with plenty of parking and the fee will be between $2 and $3. The talk is 60 minutes and will be on March 2 in the morning. The exact time, fee, and location will be sent soon after you sign up.

People will be attending for one or two reasons (or both):

• First, for the actual content of the talk (see below);
• Second, to see how to use clips from movies to educate.

Because of both the content and the style of delivery, the discussion promises to very lively.

Our speaker is Gail Rubin from Albuquerque. Here's a description of her talk:

Funny films can help start difficult conversations about death and funeral planning, as well as prompt meaningful conversations to improve families’ quality of life before there’s a death. Gail Rubin, author of A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, uses films to help get the conversation started. Her "Funny Films for Serious Funeral Planning Conversations" includes scenes from Waking Ned Devine, Get Low, Undertaking Betty, The Big Lebowski, and Death at a Funeral.

Let me know very soon by e-mail if you want to be on the list to attend.

A leader is more than an action hero, more than a pretty face: Let's move away from facelift leadership

In his classic book Psycho-Cybernetics, plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz wrote that many of his patients were not helped by his surgery because what was getting in their way of happiness was "more than skin deep."

It was as if personality itself had a "face." . . . If it remained scarred, distorted, "ugly," or inferior, the person himself acted out this role in his behavior regardless of the changes in physcial appearance. If this "face of personality" could be reconstructed, if old emotional scars could be removed; then the person himself changed, even without facial plastic surgery. Once I began to explore this area, I found more and more phenomena which confirmed the fact that ‘self-image’, the individual’s mental and spiritual picture of himself, is the real key to personality and behavior. ...

Dr. Maltz explained why he changed his professional direction.

These observations led me into a new career. ...I became convinced that the people who consult a plastic surgeon need more than surgery and that some of them do not need

Have your clients played The Newly-Dead Game yet? Not as silly as it sounds

The interest in designing your own funeral is growing; click to take a look at my past posts on creating your end-of-life event and the many benefits of that kind of advance planning. For those of you who work with families (e.g., estate planners), reminding clients of this process can be a very valuable effort in full and caring client service.

My friend Gail Rubin has created a fun way to let your partner know your wishes for after you are done living. She calls it The Newly-Dead Game. She blogs at A Good Goodbye:

The Newly-Dead Game™ was conceived as a way to help start funeral planning conversations in a fun, non-threatening way. ...

“Couples who have played this game often come away with a fresh appreciation of how much they still need to know about each other when it comes to funeral planning,” said Rubin. “Just as talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead – and your family really does benefit from the conversation.”

The game is based on elements of The Newlywed Game, but the questions in The Newly-Dead Game revolve around how well the couple knows each other regarding their last wishes.

You may order the game here. Gail will be playing the game live in 2012 at the next Frozen Dead Guy Days (FDGD) in Nederland, Colorado. Last year at this event there was a waiting list to participate in the game; the interest this coming year will likely grow. Put FDGD on your calender for March 2-4. Who wants to go with me?

Nederland is certainly an eclectic and unusual town with both FDGD and the Carousel of Happiness!

Click to order my book Creating Your Own Funeral or Memorial Service; it makes a memorable Christmas gift.

Today's the 12th annual Create a Great Funeral Day

It is hard to believe that so much time has passed since I first registered this holiday. Interest has grown and it seems that more and more people are designing their end-of-life events, regardless of their age or state of health.

Good! That was my goal in creating the holiday and in writing my book Creating Your Own Funeral or Memorial Service.

Why would someone create his or her event? Some of the benefits I have posted about in the past:

• You relieve those you leave behind of many decisions during their time of grief
• You give the bereaved the emotional satisfaction of knowing they are carrying out your wishes
• You may open up new areas of discussion with your family
• You are able to create an event that truly reflects your life
• Reviewing your life for the purpose of creating the service allows you to evaluate how you want to use your future
• And this gentle reminder of your mortality has an effect on your decisions about today.

Click to read my previous posts on creating your own funeral.

In honor of this holiday, Gail Rubin did something very unusual both last year and in 2011: She attended 30 funerals in 30 days! Click to read about this year's 30 funerals. You will see that she mentions "facelift funerals." Click to watch me explain the meaning of that phrase and why you would want to make sure yours is not a facelift funeral; at that link, you will also see Gail's extraordinary funeral-related garb.

And here's one of several recent articles about the holiday (this one from mysendoff.com).

Note: My book is available in hard copy, on iTunes for Apple products such as iPad, and on Nook.

Have you created your great funeral yet?

Note (added October 30, 2013): Click to hear an interview about Create a Great Funeral Day.

Image credit: Michelle Sutherland.