This week we draw this months reflections on change to a close and the invitation is to explore our relationship with the key life stages we go through on our journey. The resistance of our minds to changes in our bodies and resistance to the concept of changes in those we love, whether it is children growing up, our parents growing old, or even our own personal passage through time.
I read a wonderful and moving book last week, “Being Mortal”, by American geriatrician, Atul Gawande, in which he shares stories from his work as a cancer specialist and his own personal experience with his own family. He brings to our attention the challenge of having difficult conversations (on all sides) relating to serious health issues and end of life and that from this inability to hold space for the conversations that really matter, we fail to focus on quality of experience, both in respect of the person with declining health and the people closest to them. I have also witnessed this evidenced personally and professionally in my work with older populations.
Meditating on our mortality is, contrary to most initial responses, far from morbid or miserable, but is in fact a way of capturing the present experience more vividly and magically than we otherwise might, and it also shines a light on what is truly most important to us in our lives and how we might do more to savour those aspects in the moments that we find them.
I hope to see you soon 😊
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