Patou's Return Home to Spirit

In Episode 3 of Our Stories, Dianna Edwards shares the difficult decision of realizing it was time for her to let her beloved dog, Patou, die.

He trusted her with his life and he knew he could trust her with his death. Being a loving, conscious and courageous presence at the death of our pets is a profound gift to ourselves and an invaluable way to help grow future generation’s respect around the power and importance of being with dying.

Watch the short video below, a companion piece to Episode 3 of Our Stories: What Our Pets Teach Us About Death.

Kara's Story

I am on a train headed North to see my family for our annual summer “camp.”  My brother and sister and their children will be gathered around my father’s home on the lake where we laugh, challenge each other to every sport imaginable and we reconnect as a family.

This event is a complete reflection of everything my father believed in when we were growing up and that he still believes in today. He shines in his “role” of healthy, vibrant Dad.   It is the week our family is truly at its best.

Less than 36 hours ago I was in Europe on a personal journey of healing and growth. It was intense, brilliant and overwhelming.  I was still integrating the experience in the morning as I took the subway to the train station.  And I know I will still be integrating it for months to come.  But no time for that now, I had to get to camp. 

My return flight was delayed.  Exhausted, I needed a day to rest and recharge: I knew that was the right thing to do.   But I did not know that would now leave me with just one dinner and a breakfast with my entire family as their plans had changed as well.  My siblings and their children now had to leave the morning after I arrived.   I was upset.  I had such expectations for this gathering.  This might be the last time we would all be together.  And I had plans to make it perfect. 

My expectations for the week had been so high and now they felt so small.  As I sat on the Amtrak train, which was moving North at a brisk pace, I let the memories of previous “summer family camps” move through me.  Next and following close behind were all the emotions: disappointment, sadness, loss, abandonment.   I looked each one in the eye, named it and let it travel through.  I used my breath to propel each emotion on, grateful that I had learned how to do this and grateful for the long train ride that gave me the stillness and the time.  And most of all I was grateful for the window seat that gave me the view of nature that passed by and reassured my soul.  Intuition told me the wise choice was to let this happen. 

Two hours later, with no judgment interrupting this process, I knew I was done.  I felt free.   

Photo by Mihai Surdu

I sat in the stillness, shut my eyes and asked my breath to pick up a flashlight and look around deep inside me.  I instructed my breath to make sure, at least for now, it was all gone. 

Intuition is the chariot of wisdom.  It has always guided me to the best answers. My job was to be clear and allow the voice of intuition to be heard.  In the last hour of the train ride, I heard the answer. 

“Your father needs to talk with you to share with you.  If the others were there, he could not.  You are the one he knows he can talk to about his death.”

I got off the train and joyfully embraced the changes of the trip.

My need to have it a certain, “perfect” way now happily morphed into this new perfect way.  Had I stayed in the feelings of “upset or disappointment” I might have missed this opportunity.

Dinner that night was familiar territory. Lots of conversation about what everyone had been doing on the lake all week: new records set on water skis, badminton, and archery. The children competed loudly to fill me in on every adventure with a firefly or a fish.  As they did, I glanced down the table and saw my father’s face.   It touched me so deeply I gasped.  Luckily the gasp was lost in the cacophony of joyful little voices.

In years passed, this very same conversation would have evoked a look of pride in my father and his words would have been full of opinions and advice on how we could do it better next time.   But this face was softer and far away.  It was as if he wasn’t sitting at the table with us but instead he was watching through a pane of smoky glass.  I could feel he was imagining the table, this conversation in the future without him there.  

It wasn’t that he was sad but he seemed resigned, accepting of where his life had led him in these final days, or months, of pulling back of goodbyes.  

The next day before my cup of coffee was near the end, cars were packed up, hugs and promises to visit again soon were given and then they were all gone. My stepmother followed the cars to the end of the dirt road, waving and blowing kisses. 

Dad and I were left just standing there.  Two adults both questioning their lives and what we wanted to do with the time we each had left.  Funny how we don’t realize the preciousness of life until someone we love comes up against their death.

For the rest of the day the conversation flowed from God to death, to fear, to letting go, to service while here on earth, and always back to love.  

As the daylight was ending, I asked my Dad if he would like to walk down to the lake and watch the sunset.  He did.  

We sat in the old Adirondack chairs that waited for us at the lake’s edge.  The chairs threatening to fall apart any day now as the dried out wood had pulled away from the nails that once held them together.   I wanted to reach over and take my father’s hand but I didn’t.   I felt his fragility of spirit, which he courageously let rise to the surface with me, might be interrupted if I did. 

We watched the diminishing glow of the sun reflecting itself in the lake.  I suspected my Dad had been watching the contrast of his life’s diminishing glow reflected back at him in the vibrant faces of his children and grandchildren at dinner last night. 

Staring straight ahead into the sunset, I said, “Dad, every time I see a sunset I will think of you.”

Silence.

Then more silence.

Then in a whisper he said, “Can you also think of me when you see a sunrise?”

I took the chance, and reached for his hand.  

“Yes, I will. “

Emotional Intelligence: Parent & Child

Photo by Humphrey Muleba

One of the most important things I do in my work and in my personal daily life is teach emotional intelligence.

Whether I am teaching mindful awareness, coaching a client, helping someone with their grief or issues around dying, or chatting with a friend — I am teaching emotional intelligence.  It is the core force behind my passion for living. It is in every breath I take, for I know without it, lasting, loving change cannot happen.  

Emotional intelligence is a skill that is repeatedly overlooked in our family structures, schools and businesses, yet EQ, as it is called, is a far greater indicator of success than IQ.  

Then why are we so in neglect?

I think in part it is because it is easier and faster and somehow feels safer for people, in our current state of conscious awareness, to teach a child to quickly memorize something that might one day be useful instead of teaching them emotional intelligence that will always be useful. Emotional intelligence takes clarity, empathy and practice. To teach it well, you must embody it. You can’t memorize it, you have to live it. 

Emotional intelligence in its simplest definition is the ability to identify your own emotions and manage them in a healthy way and to then use this ability to identify emotions in your relationships with others, and manage those relationships in a healthy way. 

In strong emotionally intelligent families, there is an appreciation and respect for understanding where each family member is in regards to their emotions and behaviors. In these families, parents are aware of and manage their own triggers and emotional hot spots and can breathe space into disruptive feelings before reacting. Expectations of behaviors are realistic and loving. Conscious communication in the family honors and incorporates the developmental stages a child is in and moving towards. It is not about making excuses for bad behavior but understanding why the child may have thought that behavior was acceptable and offering a positive approach to growth and change in a way appropriate for their developmental level.   

Knowing what your child is capable of comprehending and integrating, and being able to speak with them at that level, reduces the drama and damage of emotions that are just unconscious reactions for both the parent and the child. 

But guess what? 

I don’t know a single parent who studied any of this, unless they went on to become a child psychologist.

I often see frustrated parents angry that their 15 or 19-year-old did something, “where they should have known better!” 

They assume that because the child or teenager is capable of driving a car, or traveling alone in an airplane to visit the other parent half way across the country, that the child would then know how a certain set of their actions was hurtful, in this case, to the parent. Often these actions judged as “hurtful and stupid” are simply actions not able to be fully comprehended in the child’s brain in the same way as they are in the parents.

I am talking about a set of cognitive processes in the brain called executive functioning. Executive functioning can process consequences of actions taken and not taken, different points of view are understood, long term goals are set more easily and there is clarity in planning for them.

It also plays a key role in a person’s ability to be flexible in one’s thinking and to have self control/impulse control. Depending on whose data you study, this part of the brain is not fully developed until a person is approximately 25 years old. So while the parents anger and frustration may seem justified, placing it on the shoulders of the child is not the answer and actually becomes more of the problem.

It is important to note that I am not talking about a child at 15 not knowing that the consequence of touching a hot stove will be a burnt hand. These are more complex and subtle forms of consequence, which require a more sophisticated understanding of emotional intelligence and which take age appropriate practice.  

Let me use an example which is an amalgamation of a few stories I have heard. As you read this, role play the part of the parent if you feel comfortable…

You are a parent that is feeling hurt or rejected because after a wonderful graduation party you threw for your child, which took months of preparation and at great expense, the child joyfully headed off on their graduation trip with friends, without giving you more than a quick thanks and hug goodbye. You shrug that off as their blind enthusiasm but as the week goes by, they don’t text you even once on their trip. Given that teenagers can almost text in their sleep you know they could have reached out to you if they cared.  

 As the parent, a whole cascade of emotions start to flood in. Maybe you feel under appreciated, rejected and truthfully you are a little lonely and scared. It seems your child is only too happy to move on with their life and not be remotely beholden to all you have done for them. This sadness you are carrying doesn’t feel good. It is disempowering. It may unconsciously trigger body memories of the lack of power you had as a child.

You think, “I would never have able to get away with treating my parents this way when I was his age.” 

As you continue to focus on your discomfort, it grows stronger. You let anger move in to replace the sadness because anger feels better. The ego loves anger. Anger comes with self righteousness, with energy, and that feels a lot better than being a deflated balloon of depression.   

As the week goes on, you fall back on familiar patterns of processing your depression, disappointment and anger. You call a few friends and off load your emotions on to them. But instead of feeling a sense of relief, you are actually intensifying your indignation. The next thing you know, the week is over and your jubilant teenager arrives home beaming from ear to ear.

Within minutes of their return, you manage to convey to them that you are not happy and the message is clear that your lack of happiness pertains directly to something they did. Maybe you convey it with a cold stare, or a half-hearted welcome home or complete disinterest in their trip. Or maybe you announce they are grounded the minute they walk in the door, send them to their room and tell them to think about what they have done. For a moment you feel pretty good because you showed them what it is like to be hurt and you hurt them back. You projected your hurt right off of yourself and on to them.   

Then this fictional parent let’s the child stew in their room for a while dazed, diminished and confused, before heading in with the, “I raised you better speech” ready to go. But there is a high price to be paid when a parent gets defensive and chooses to literally and/or verbally hit their child up the side of the head and say, “you should have known better!”  That price is passing on one of the deepest wounds in our society. A wound so deep it shuts down curiosity, creativity and joy. And it is a wound you pass on because you unconsciously carry it. That wound is shame.

Thank you for playing along with this story. The facts of this story could easily apply to romantic partners or work relationships but the story of a parent and child is one we all can relate to in some way. Either we are parents, would like to be a parent one day or we have been parented.

Focusing on emotional intelligence in parenting is a powerful starting point. Not only can the parent heal wounds, unconsciously passed on to them from their parents and their parents’ parents, the child and family dynamic benefits immediately.

Parenting is one of the best ways a person can experience and identify what unconditional love is, and as I said in the introduction, unconditional love is the foundation of conscious living and dying. So strengthening the conditions that allow for more unconditional love in our lives is a must.  

For more information on “conscious parenting”, I recommend Dr. Shefali Tsabary’s work.

Emotional intelligence work must come from a place of empathy and compassion, for ourselves first. We need to acknowledge that we have been doing the best we can with what we know and what has been role modeled for us. And we need to have compassion for the limitations of those that raised us. The goal of teaching emotional intelligence is not to get you to a point where you never make mistakes. There is no growth in that. It is to give you a set of tools that let’s you prepare and live your life fully and helps you prepare and live your death more fully.    

Don’t let fear or shame stop you from asking for better ways to grow yourself as a parent or a person. There is no shame in apologizing and trying to do life differently.  I see it as one of the bravest and most admirable things a person can do.

This won’t be the first time I write on emotional intelligence. I believe it is pivotal to raising our consciousness, opening our hearts and understanding that we are all one.  

Emotional intelligence must start in the home and with our families. How else can you be prepared to have emotionally intelligent adult relationships and business relationships?

And when you are in your dying process, do you want someone by your bedside who cannot manage the emotions they are feeling while they are watching you die? Because if they can’t manage themselves (and I am not speaking of control and stiff upper lip stuff), then who is there to help you navigate the ever changing emotions coming in and out of your room as you want to peacefully and lovingly live your last days?  

Emotional intelligence is a critical skill to conscious living and dying. Don’t be afraid to embrace it and learn from it. The greatest way we learn is not through books, movies or lectures. It is through what we see role modeled for us.

Let learning and growing your emotional intelligence be the conversation that brings you together first as a whole person, within yourself, and then with others. By role modeling emotional intelligence, you pass it on and you are an active part of the loving change that is needed now.       

For recommendations on books to read on Emotional Intelligence and Shame please see below:

First Conversation on Consciousness

I have spent the last 20 years of my life volunteering with hospice, grieving children and their families, coaching people who are dying and coaching people helping a loved one die.  I have written award winning children’s books on dealing with loss and death and have taught mindfulness as awareness to many. As much as I love working in all of these areas they are all quite challenging and so I try and rotate how and where I work to prevent burnout and to keep my contributions fresh and present.  

Inherent in all of my work is the question of consciousness. 

Very often I am asked, “What is a conscious life?” and “What is a conscious death?”

What we know for sure is that we are conscious beings and that we are aware. The question is to what degree and how interested are we as individuals or as a society to become more aware? 

For the sake of clarity and ease, I use the term “awareness” interchangeably with the word “consciousness.”  When I start working with an individual or group, I work with where they are in their own belief system.

The tag line I use with the high school students, is “Are You Aware?”

It is the modern day version of “Know Thyself”.  We cannot change something if we are not aware of it.

According to British neuropsychiatrist, Peter Fenwick, “the fundamental question of our time is: what is consciousness?” 

And then, that begs the question, where is consciousness located?  

Fenwick goes on to explain that at the turn of the century, William James (an American philosopher, psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States) said, “Consciousness was outside of the body and the brain filtered it. This was a rather radical idea and his thoughts were largely ignored by science in favor of consciousness being all a function of the brain.” Today the idea of William James seems more sound.

So where is consciousness? 

When I imagine it, I see it as a type of iCloud of consciousness or as a field of consciousness. Others speak of it as a transcendent, cosmic reality in which our personal manifested reality emerges. In these scenarios, consciousness is outside of us and our brains are the mechanism that filter what we want from that field of consciousness or transcendent reality. I would like to add that I believe, like many others, that not only do we take from that field what we want or need but our individual experience of consciousness also contributes to its collective growth. 

And it is that dynamic that makes us part of the “Oneness of All.”

To share a contrasting view point, there is a more mechanistic view of consciousness where according to Mr. Fenwick, “Consciousness is secreted by the brain, and therefore is a product of the brain.”

Do I have any definitive answers on the location of consciousness?  No, they are more opinions or intuitive feelings and observations. Then why do I bring all of this up?

Well, it is not to try and sound smart as I can get overwhelmed easily in these philosophical discourses and risk melting the very brain cells I need to filter this discussion. It is because I feel the topic plays a key role in understanding what is a conscious life as well as what is a conscious death.

And thus, I have made this the first blog.  

So I want to leave you with this question: 

Have you ever thought where the data files of your life are stored?

Are they just in your brain and then if so, when you die they die with you?

Or are they in fact part of a greater field of consciousness outside of your body?

And maybe the only thing actually in your brain are the working files?

Play with the idea. Have fun with it.

How you answer this question will in part impact how you view living a conscious life and a conscious death. As we explore the topic on this site, I want you to know I am still a student as much as I am a teacher. And I love being a student. 

What Is Conscious Dying?

I am often asked, “What is conscious dying?” 

And while I certainly can speak to this topic, I have realized that with the exception of several logistical aspects to dying, that living and dying are in fact the same thing and the foundation of both is unconditional love. This is not a new idea: many writers and spiritual teachers have expressed this concept well.

As the American spiritual teacher, clinical psychologist and author, Ram Dass says:

“If I am going to die, the best way to prepare is to quiet my mind and open my heart.  If I am going to live, the best way to prepare is to quiet my mind and open my heart.”

How beautifully simple and clear. Of course, the irony being, it is so simple, it is actually hard.  

Our ego enthusiastically jumps at the chance to embrace life. It has lots of opinions on how and presents us with a vast array of mind bending and distracting ways to do just that. But you ask the ego about embracing death and dying and a dark cloud of fear settles in.

We seem to fear death as if it is a dark plague that lurks in the crevices around our lives, waiting to spring out and stick to us when we least expect it. Much like the villain in Harry Potter, it is this thing that should not be named. And based on how we “manage” death in our society, it is not to be seen, observed, thought about, glanced at, nor mentioned, unless absolutely necessary.

As we divert our eyes away from death — hoping that if we ignore it, then it won’t find us —  we are in fact diverting ourselves from the beauty of life. 

While the narrative in this section will lean more heavily toward conscious dying, I hope to make the bridge that connects the two more clear. So how can we shift our collective fear around an experience so universal that we all one day will do it?

I feel we have to normalize talking about it. And make the process as easy and uplifting as possible.   

The first time I became aware of death was when I was five years old and living in Bombay, India.

It was the 1960’s and Bombay (now called Mumbai) was a city of over four million people.  Today that number exceeds 26 million.  As a small child, I remember there was a truck that would come around each morning collecting the people “who did not wake up.”  

No one explained to me why they did not wake up. Equally impactful were the memories I had of the children who, with limbs covered in the sores of leprosy, would stare into the window of our car as we drove to school. We were inches apart, separated only by a piece of glass. For a brief moment, we looked into each others’ eyes and somehow it all felt very familiar and it also felt terribly sad. The memory of these children and the memory of those “who did not wake up” never left me. 

As best I can remember, this was the first seed planted in my psyche around death. It felt terrifying and so very confusing. And as the next two decades passed, a single thought played over and over in my mind:

“Why were people out there on the streets at night, dying alone?”

So the years passed and I was now in my 20’s in the early 1980’s, and as living will have it, I was exposed to more death in my life: numerous pets, a grand mother, a friend dying in a freak accident on a highway in broad daylight, another friend dying in a bizarre airplane incident, and an older man sharing his experiences of deceased loved ones appearing in his room as he neared his own death. My heart was full of questions and yet there was no one I could talk to.  

This section of the website holds the goal to create a space where we open the conversation wider than where it is today. 

Given how unique each person’s death experience is or will be, I am aware of the gentle, healing power of telling stories.

For now, the conversations will mostly be achieved through narrative. These are conversations I have had with friends, family, clients and myself. I am curious and open to see how the conversations will evolve. I encourage you to use these stories as seeds to your own conversations on these topics.  

I invite you to step in to this space and see if it speaks to the conversations you want to have.