10 Tips on Dying with Dignity ? Intent Blog

By Laurel Lewis

These tips come from my experience of being with hundreds of people as they have died and with the thousands of family members who have witnessed this event. Consider using these tips for dying well? and for living well!

10. Talk about what you do and don?t want.

Tell your family, friends and doctors how you want to be treated and what kind of treatments you want or don?t want! Consider a living will or other advance directives so that your wishes will be known prior to end of life choices. Consider your needs: physical, emotional and spiritual because they all impact your final days.

9. Have a life review. Recall significant and meaningful events .

Share your stories either verbally or written with your loved ones, in a journal or on tape. As you do this forgive yourself and others for everything! Let go of judgments. Judging people and events take up precious energy that could be spent loving instead. Release the judgments and allow yourself to be fully present to what is in your life right now.

8. Express gratitude daily ? for something, anything!

This will help move you from the context of small self who is dying to connect with the bigger part of Life that is surrounding us always. Expressing gratitude creates a positive shift in our mental state, which in turn has positive physical benefits.

7. Connect with something more than yourself.

Connect with your family, your friends, nature, art, pets, your God, Spirit, your ideals. Allow yourself to belong to something more than yourself so that when you die, you will be connected to those things in which you invested your time and energy.

6. Be authentic and transparent.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Express yourself courageously holding nothing back. Your vulnerability will be rewarded with intimacy. Allow yourself to feel your feelings ? all of them. You are allowed to be just as you are. Give yourself permission to explore this concept and to explore really being YOU! This is the time to do it.

5. Be optimistic and realistic about what is happening.

Expect the best while being prepared for the worst. This can be challenging but from my experience, extremely rewarding. Put your affairs in order. Write your will, choose a mortuary, talk about your funeral, talk about what?s happening in order to bring understanding to your experience and alleviate confusion for your loved ones.

4. Accept what is as it is happening.

No one can really know what you are going through. This is your private journey. All we can do is support and love you. It is true that we are all going to die, but not all of us have the experience of the deathbed. As you find yourself contemplating death and accepting this inevitability look for the places inside that fight against this reality. There is a quote I like that captures this theme, ?When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.? ~ Byron Katie

As you gracefully yield to your body?s end, you may indeed find peace, joy, and pleasures in the days you have left surrounded by love and loved ones.

3. Say please and thank you.

These words express kindness, respect, and appreciation and will elicit positive responses from everyone who is close to you. The energy behind these words is powerful and respectful. Even if someone has to wipe your butt in your final days you can still maintain a dignified experience simply by the energy of your presence.

2. Look people in the eye.

People generally don?t know how to behave around someone who is nearing the end of life. This is an opportunity to ?get real?, to allow yourself to be seen, really seen. Gazing into someone?s eyes without words allows our hearts to connect at a very deep level and can be very satisfying and rewarding.

1. Breath.

While you have Life moving through you, allow it to move through you. When you feel tight or anxious: breathe. When you feel sad or tired: breathe. When you feel angry or hurt: breathe. Consciously breathe and open yourself up to the present moment. Allow Life to reveal its preciousness to you for as long as you can and with all of the awareness you have. Live until you die.

If you are interested to know more please contact me through LaurelLLewis.com.

I am happy to share more from my years of hospice work and research and my personal transformation of dealing with the sudden loss of my husband at the age of 27.

Thank you and bless you.

~

Laurel Lewis, a registered nurse and hospice provider who features on The Chopra Well show, 30 DAYS OF INTENT, shares her tips for dying with dignity. The end of life can be an extremely difficult time, as Laurel has witnessed in her many years as a hospice nurse. Her tips address the healthiest ways to confront death and meet a happy, satisfying end.

Subscribe to The Chopra Well for more inspiring content, every day!

Source: http://intentblog.com/10-tips-on-dying-with-dignity/

sloth birth control pill recall ground hog day florida primary results black history groundhogs day paula abdul