Growing when old

Facing the end is exactly when you can relish life. 

You can have a new calling at any age. I’ve been wrestling with mortality for most of my life, a contest that I won’t win. That experience is of value now, so I've been building the new foundation for delivering that value.

In truth of course there is no wrestling competition. Death is an event and a truth. Life is made richer by looking clearly at death rather than dodging it. For a long time I was desperately trying to not-die. This is not the same as living fully, though my 70 years of life have been full.

Using loss to help with loss

Many important people in my life have died over recent years, and I’ve decided to use my lifetime encounters with death to inform how I can help others reflect and act on the last phases of their life and work. Help with the terminal diagnosis. Help with the practicalities of letting go. Help with celebrating. Help with healing an entire life.

That helping has many names in different cultures around the world. Whatever my form of helping could be called, it means being a compassionate companion who helps a dying person stay in touch with joy in a time of grief. It means doing so in the way that suits that person and after their end, helping their communities celebrate their life in unique and relevant events.

My next phase is natural

I’ve been helping professionals with life and work for the last 25 years. I’ve helped people on complicated, difficult days when the future of their organisations and their families was in the balance. So my next phase is a natural continuation of the coaching work that embraces my client, their family and their professional colleagues. It’s based on people’s innate strengths, together finding ways to deepen their resilience, to express themselves while under duress and to take action. Action that enhances their life, and everyone affected. 

We each have a unique relationship to our mortality. It just needs some insightful, well-informed help to bring that relationship to a gentle end full of meaning, love and joy. I’m passionate about delivering powerful processes that help people, especially men, who face their final phase.

You’ll see a new series of posts here, interwoven with ‘normal’ stuff, and links to the services I offer as I build them out. These will include providing humanist funeral ceremonies and end-of-life guidance.

And of course if you are 'wrestling' with these issues, reach out and I'll listen.