Takeaways & Reflections | Be Your Own Hero

Victoria Volk  0:00  
Hey, hey, hey, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you're listening from, thank you for tuning in. And whatever time it is. Thank you for being here. If this is your first time listening, thank you and welcome. And if you've been around a while since this podcast is a little over two years old, thank you for hanging out with me each and every week. This episode is 126, and I'm calling it be your own hero. 

And I thought that was a fitting title because of the last three episodes. Episode 123, with Jen Kidwell, was all about planning your death and planning for good death. And her episode is called Death legacy in the law because she is a lawyer. And she's also a minister. Episode 124 with Betsy Smith, I titled the Bulldog advocate and caregiver. And her episode was all about being the advocate not only for yourself but for your loved ones. And she shares her story of caring for her dying husband, and what she all learned from that experience. And now she's shares that experience with others in a book and in consultations and things like that. Episode 125, with Tim Heale was titled glass half full approach to life. It just is his personal story of things that he's kind of that he's gone through. As a child, he always wanted to be a farmer. And that was a dream that wasn't going to happen for him and found himself in the military. But again, that wasn't a clear-cut path for himself. He had some rejection in there first. And losing his wife and best friend within a year was really the catalyst for a lot of change in his life, he found himself drinking more, and reached his own rock bottom, and found a way out. And it was, I believe love was a big part of it, because he and his best friend's wife or widow ended up falling in love. And so I think that was a beautiful story of how two widows found each other, who were friends first. And he found his way into a glass half full approach to life, instead of a glass-half-full of booze. 

And so what a lot what every one of these stories, and Jen Kidwell as well, because she talked about losing her grandmother and different losses that she experienced, too. But what I want to highlight in this week's episode is how do we be our own hero? How do we do that? And I think there's a few things I'm going to tie these things back to the previous episodes. 

But how can we be our own hero? Well, we can plan to die. And that may sound strange to hear. And I feel a little strange saying it, but we all will die. That's not a shocker. We all know this. We just don't know when or how. So if we can be our own hero and the hero of our loved ones, we can plan for that. We can get our affairs in order, we can make those really difficult decisions that are often left to our family and loved ones and take that burden off of their shoulders. There's so many stories out there of family that believe they're doing the right thing, but often maybe have regret after because they're not sure. Because they didn't know what their loved one would have wanted. Or especially in the instance of medical care, is it doing harm? Or there's a lot of difficult choices that come at the end of life. And the people who are put in charge are often the ones left making those those choices and those decisions for somebody else. And that is a really heavy burden to carry. And especially if you question it, yourself. 

I know for me personally, when I die I'm putting this out there in audio so everybody knows I want my organs donated. Now I know that there's someone very near and dear to me, who does not agree with that. And it is not my husband. So I could see there being some sort of fight, right? Like, if there comes a point where I want my organs donated, my husband knows this, but I'll just say it, my mother does not. I can see her that would be a really contentious aspect of conversation, and maybe even caused some conflict in their relationship. And I don't want that. Even though I've said it, many times, my mother knows she just believes that we should just be intact. And that's her choice. And that's her belief, but I don't need my heart, I don't need my lungs, I don't need my liver, I don't need my kidneys. I don't need that stuff. It's good to die with me. But what a beautiful gift to give someone else. But the gift of life. I mean, if you can't do that, in your living life, and, or that opportunity doesn't arise, it's one last thing that you can do for society. It's one less thing that you can leave your light and your mark on the world, and give the ultimate gift to someone else. And I think that's a beautiful thing. 

So anyway, circling back to planning to die. It's very important that we make those decisions for ourselves, and that we communicate those, most importantly, to our loved ones. And that's actually one of the biggest mistakes that Jen had mentioned in our episode is that we don't communicate those things to our loved ones. And so I think it's very important that we not only have those things documented, but then communicate what our expectations are to those we love. And if we take that one step further, let's just say that you end up in a position of being incapacitated. Do you want to be incapacitated, in a hospital bed, or in a nursing home. And is that the kind of life that you want to lead? Not really living, that's not living for many people. That's the point of view of many people. That's my point of view. I don't want to be a vegetable, and alive just for the sake of being alive. I almost believe that keeps people in our lives from moving on themselves, it keeps people hanging on and not able to let go. If we allow ourselves to be put in that position, I think it is a disservice to our loved ones. Me personally, that is my personal feeling on that. I would never want my family or loved ones to feel any sort of obligation to me, to keep me alive and to keep me in that state. That is not what I would want. 

So I'm also making that very clear on this podcast, anyone listening to this Sunday? So yeah, I really do think that part of being your own heroes is planning to die. And what do you want that to look like? I'm an also an end of life doula. A death doula also is what we're called. But I've learned a lot through that program and how it is possible to plan for a beautiful death. I didn't think that that was possible. Before I took that program before I came trained in that work. I was doing that work even in high school, working in a nursing home, I was there for several of my the residents in the nursing home who who passed away. And oftentimes they die alone. And so I just really want to highlight how important it is that we consider these things. When we're alive. And we have the cognitive ability to make these decisions for ourselves. And what would you want your funeral to look like? Who would you want to be there? Or as you're dying, let's just say you have a terminal illness, which is really when this plan planning to die is even are so important. Because if you are on hospice care, that can be for several months. What do you want that experience to look like? What do you want to? What do you want your last memories to be with your loved ones? What do you want to create with your loved ones? What are the conversations that you need to have? So many things come into play in that stage of our lives. 

And I wish I would have known what I know now. When my uncle was passing away of terminal brain cancer, I did visit with him and we had a beautiful reconnection after over 30 years of not seeing each other and had this training before. I think I would have approached it even a little differently. I even remember, I even just had this thought the other day that oh, my gosh, I never even took my kids to see him. It didn't even occur to me at the time, we had, again, we had six months. And in that time, I could have taken my kids to see him and I didn't. And that actually just came up for me in the last few days. And I felt really brokenhearted about it because they've never met their grandfather, my dad, and they never will. And he would have been the closest thing to meeting their grandfather. Because they looked so much alike. And we're very close growing up. So anyway, I just really want to highlight the importance of we make all sorts of kinds of plans as we're living, but we really don't think about or plan to die. And that is the inevitable. So a part of that, too, is being an advocate for yourself. You're advocating for yourself as you're thinking about these things that you want to happen when you die or before you die. And that's a big part of Betsy Smith's story in the Bulldog advocate episode. Because she had to make a lot of these decisions. And I guess I didn't ask her if her husband had made a lot of the decisions prior to I imagine they had these conversations. But you don't want to wait until that moment to have these conversations. You want to have meaningful conversations. And that's the thing too, like what I've learned in the end-of-life doula training is that the conversations you want to be having when someone is dying, are not the logistics, you don't want to be talking about your bank accounts, and the bills and all these things that need to be taken care of and need to be done and need to be addressed. 

But these are things that you don't want to have to have these conversations at that point in time. You want to have meaningful conversations you want to have, you want to laugh and you want to share stories and things like that. And so another aspect of planning to die is making sure that you have everything in order that your family have a binder like Jen talked about, have a binder with everything in it your bank accounts, your passwords, like everything. And keep the binder in the bank at safety deposit box or have a digital copy of it something too, just in case a fire, flood, you never know. In with Betsy story, I just, I called her it sound I said to her, it sounded like you were a bulldog. And she's like, you know, that's exactly it. And so that's why I titled that episode, the Bulldog advocate and caregiver because she really had to be a bulldog. And it really brought me back to the time when my son had his accident. 

Or even when we have a loved one that has something traumatic happen to them. We are the best advocate for our loved one. We are the advocate oftentimes, because maybe our loved one can't talk or maybe they're a child, or maybe they're elderly, and more frail. There's so many different circumstances where it is up to you, as a loved one to be the advocate. And, but also, again, if you're planning ahead, you could have been your own advocate, you could have had these medical directives and all these things put in place for you or outlined for your family already. Again, so those decisions aren't left to them was heartbreaking decisions that can be heartbreaking. When it comes to Tim Heale's episode, the glass half full approach to life, an aspect of being your own hero on his story for me, is about taking chances. He took a chance on love again, he took a chance on trying to get into the military. He took a chance on being a farmer, like he took these chances. He bettered on himself. And I think like in nowadays and reality TV, I hear a lot, take your shot. He took his shot. 

And so often we don't, we're afraid of risk, or afraid of taking chances in our lives, in our own lives. And I think that's an aspect of being your own hero, too, is taking chances. And being fearful, because often you will be, but doing it anyway. And accepting the consequences of the choices you make. And that is the juice of life. That is the juice of life. We learn either way. There's no failure, it's just all learning. 

What this episode really boils down to, is, are we afraid of dying? Or are we more afraid of living? Living a life we didn't really want? Living a subpar life experience? Or living alone? And I think these are some questions for all of us to ponder is, Am I afraid of dying? Or Am I more afraid of living? Because life is hard. Life includes grief. Life includes tragedy. And heartbreak. Life is heartbreaking. So that is my question. Are you more afraid of dying? Because we don't talk about dying. We don't talk about death and grief and all these feelings that come up as a result of someone close to einstein. We're taught how to acquire things or people not what to do and we lose them. And so are we afraid of dying? Or are we afraid of actually living? Because either way, there are so many choices we need to make. We make choices every day of our lives. Some big and some small. And I think so many of us walk around being afraid to make the wrong choice. And even in dying, there's choices to be made. And we're afraid to make the wrong choice as someone left behind. And so just think about your life, and how you're living? And do you really feel like you're living? Are you being your own hero? Are you taking chances? Are you taking your shot? Being afraid but doing it anyway? Are you communicating what you desire and what you want in your life to your loved ones? Whether that means while you're living or as you plan for your own death. These are the conversations that are meaningful to have within our own hearts. And with those we love.

I hope you found this episode thought provoking. And maybe it even, I don't know brought something up within you that felt a little uncomfortable. And let that be okay. If something feels uncomfortable when you hear it, investigate that a little bit more. I know I am not completely planned for my own death, like I have a lot to do myself. So I am not perfect in this area either. And I have the documents to put into place. It just takes time. We need to make that a priority for ourselves so that it's not a priority for our kids, or our loved ones or parents or however old you are. Whomever would be in charge of you in those decisions. So do yourself a favor. Do your loved ones a favor. Ponder some of these things. Listen to Jen Kidwell's episode, and Betsy Smith's episode and feel inspired by Tim's episode.

That's all for today. And if you are ready to be your own hero and address the pain of your grief, I am starting an online group program on November 30th 2022. So if you're listening to this later, I'm sorry but head to my website and I should should be putting a waitlist up on the website as soon as November 30th comes around if you are interested in participating in another group that comes open, because I don't know when the next one will be open. So check out that program. It's online group support for grief. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.