That's a horrible stereotype, isn't it? I try to be as politically correct as the next person - not toxically, though - but sometimes stereotypes persist for a reason. As we age, our beliefs get more firmly ingrained. The mind is an incredible tool; we tend to see things that support our beliefs while those that do not slide by unnoticed. As Anaïs Nin said, "We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are." So, yes, as we get older, our beliefs grow more rigid and our patience wanes. Add to that the dawning knowledge that his time on this planet is running out, and ask yourself if grumpy Grampy is such a surprise.

See how easy it is to shift perspective? Understanding and compassion easily follow.

In all of my years working with a senior clientele, I have only encountered one whose grumpy nature I couldn't penetrate. He was a massage client, and things started out really well for us. His lower back pain had reduced significantly within three treatments. He was even known to flirt with me, much to my delight, because I had heard the rumour that he didn't like anyone. We got down to a maintenance schedule of every four weeks, so that his condition wouldn't slide back to where it had been previously, and something changed. He stopped seeing me, which was obviously his prerogative, but he also started badmouthing me to other Residents in the retirement community. He told them that he had been overbilled and that my treatment was inappropriate. Eventually, word came to me from upper management of what was transpiring. I was furious, as you can imagine. I had been a practicing massage therapist for fifteen years at this point. I was charging my seniors a minimal rate, because it was more important to me that they be treated and taken care of. I didn't put my prices up for over ten years! How dare he! Right?!

*deep breath*

The thing is that I knew his backstory. “John” was raised in war-torn Poland. As a child he was beaten within an inch of his life for climbing his neighbour's fence and taking some apples. John grew up with very little other than a huge mistrust of others. What he saw working with me was that his back was feeling better and yet I still wanted to see him. While I knew that that was for his own good, and that he could have cancelled at any time, the little voices in his head told him a different story. He saw me as a person in authority asking, more likely telling, him to come back in a month. The little voices told him that I was fleecing him. He believed them which further reinforced his belief that people are inherently out for themselves and will take advantage of you, if you let your guard down. So, for the greater good, I took a couple of treatments off of his bill, possibly further reinforcing that belief for him. I don't know. For my part, I felt nothing but understanding and compassion for the child he had been, the hurt child that existed in him still.

The more I worked with people at end-of-life, the more I noticed negative emotions coming to the surface for some. Mistrust, fear, and anger are the three biggies. Since the beginning of my career as a legacy (formerly end-of-life) coach, I've come to understand that those strong emotions show us where we're bumping up against boundaries. And that is where the healing of past emotional traumas can begin.

We are taught to be mistrustful.
We are taught how to be angry.
We are taught to live in fear.
We are taught to build walls.

And we can be retrained.

The deeper I've delved into legacy coaching, the more I stand in awe of the growth and transformation I've seen in people and from people. Anger gives way to forgiveness, fear is erased by a sense of self-worth, and mistrust dissolves into connection. It is incredible to be a part of.

All of that also forced me to ask myself how much better off their lives would have/could have been if they'd made peace with their emotional traumas when they were middle-aged. Or while raising their families. How much of their trauma did they pass on to their kids?

That was the moment when end-of-life coaching became legacy coaching.
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We use hypnotherapy and goal-setting, uncover limiting beliefs and core values, and incorporate every tool in our coaching toolbox to help you identify and heal your emotional traumas so they don't continue down your family line. 
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Did you know that breaking a promise is the surest way to destroy a relationship? Seems so obvious, right? As I mentioned two weeks ago, until you ask for what you want/need, your expectations from another person exist only in your head. But once that contract is made, your expectations are legitimate.
 
There are some things you can do when someone has a habit of not living up to your expectations; first, you must reassert your needs, then, if nothing changes, you have to decide whether lower your expectations or you walk away. Because ain’t nobody gonna treat you as less than.
 
But what if that person is you?
 
I went looking for fables and parables to illustrate my point –The Boy Who Cried, “Wolf,” maybe – but I decided to share something of me instead, mostly because this topic is especially poignant for me, and that’s exactly the reason I should speak my own truth.
 
This is my third blog since I promised myself I would write one weekly. If my history with opening up about myself is sketchy, my history with internet posting is worse. *deep breath* About six years ago I authored some fanfiction. Oof. It felt good to get that out. The first story almost wrote itself. I got up at four o’clock some mornings to write and research. My stories were set in London, England, so, for accuracy, I got to know the London transit system, highways, and neighbourhoods. I had my characters eating in existing pubs and restaurants whose menus I had not only perused but found reviews of. I even had pages and pages of British vernacular printed out. I don’t throw myself into anything halfway.
 
The second story was better than the first, because, where in the original I was working with the template of the actual show, the sequel saw me flying without a net. The third story is not finished. I told myself that if I began posting chapters, I would have to finish it. Right? It’s about three-quarters done and just sitting there. The worst part is that I know how it ends. I just got stymied at a certain point. True or not, that’s an excuse. I broke that promise to myself. And, like, four other fans of my work.
 
As a result, here’s how beginning to write this blog in earnest (after a two-year absence) sounded in my head:

• “You never finish what you start.”
• “No one wants to read anything you write.”
• “Nothing you have to say is of value.”
• “Why can’t you be normal?”

 
The spiral was on! Those voices gave rise to some even louder ones:

• “I’m an idiot/weirdo/fool.”
• “I’m not worthy.”
• “I can’t be trusted.”
• “I’m a fraud.”
• “I should just disappear.”
• (Oh, this sharing thing is fun.)

 
The point is, every time I break a promise I’ve made to myself, these thoughts bounce around in my brain like Tigger after a double espresso. While none of them is inherently true, my subconscious mind doesn’t know that. It takes them as gospel, reinforcing them with each broken promise, and tearing down my worth.
 
Or they would have done, but I’ve battled through and come to realise that my thoughts aren’t me. My thoughts aren’t me. They are just a part of me, like my knee or that weird recurrent twitch under my eye. Sometimes they hurt for a bit and other times, they almost drive me crazy, but, ultimately, I’m in charge of how bothered I am by them. I am grateful to my own coaches for showing me the tools.
 
When all is said and done, they’re just words, and words can be rewritten.
         

​Sometimes I don’t know where my own writings will end up – it’s fun living in my head; you should try it!  I’m fairly certain that I’ve illustrated how breaking promises you make to yourself is counter-productive, even destructive, but I believe that I’ve also indicated that the mind is strong enough to overcome the negative self-talk. That second bit requires some training. Hypnotherapy can be used to help you figure out whose voice it is and to mend your relationship with that person. Imagine the freedom of not having to carry your limiting beliefs with you forever.

In an ironic twist, I am pushing back my article about how breaking expectations to ourselves can be crippling. No, that’s not what’s happening here. Something more time-sensitive has come to my attention, so I expect that you’ll cut me some slack when I push it back a week. But if you don’t…? That’s on me. :D
 
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     This story was written in honour or Death Awareness Week, May 13-19, 2019.

 
Last summer we celebrated Gran’s one hundredth birthday by having a family reunion at her house in St. Bruno, Quebec. Four generations turned up, the teens even brought dates.

It was chaos.

See, my cousin Charlotte put herself in charge of the whole thing. She sent out invitations and… that was it. “Family Potluck in Bruno July 7 @ noon.” Sweet!

On the day I got the family packed up, threw towels, a lasagne, and the spinach artichoke dip in the back of the hatch, and headed out. After a quick stop for wine, we were headed for the Victoria bridge. The day was stunning, hardly a cloud in the sky. With temperatures forecast to reach the high 20s, I was looking forward to cooling off in the lake.

We got to our family property just after twelve, and there were already forty or more people running around. There were nine spinach and artichoke dips on the picnic table on the back deck. And seven lasagnes. I was beginning to detect a problem.

“Where’s Gran?” I asked Charlotte.

“I dunno. I figured someone would bring her out,” she replied, looking around.

I sent a blast text out to the family to see if my cousin was right. Nope, no one had thought to stop by the retirement home to collect the guest of honour. Fortunately, my brother Jim hadn’t left the city yet. It was going to be cramped in his car, but they’d manage. “Sure," I thought, “that’s exactly how she would have envisioned her last road trip, surrounded by misbehaving kids, the smell of decades-old tobacco smoke leeching from the upholstery into her polyester-wrapped butt.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead, more family members had begun arriving. And more lasagnes. A dozen Caesar salads and seven Crock Pots of meatballs had been added to the, what, mix? Is mix even appropriate in the context of four identical foodstuffs? Did I mention the spinach and artichoke dip? We had enough to spackle-texture every ceiling in the 3500 square foot house. Including the basement!

Crying. Now I hear crying. And not just the fake, Bobby pushed me into a puddle crying of a four year-old. This was wailing. I ran toward the source of the sound and found my third? fourth? maybe second even? cousin Amy, age eight, with blood gushing out of a gash in her forehead. It turned out that the kids, having found nothing better with which to amuse themselves, made a game of Who Can Throw the Rock the Highest? The good news is, Amy’s got a great little arm…
Inside we go to get her cleaned up. Gran was a nurse as is my sister Olivia. I enlisted the younger’s help and she corralled a still-screaming Amy deeper into the house in search of the first aid kit. I turned on my heel to see what other fires needed putting out and immediately stepped into a huge pile of dog s#!t. Perfect! “Who’s watching these animals?!” I screamed internally.

As I was disinfecting my sandal (and foot) in the garage sink, Jim was helping Gran out of his low-slung car. Twenty minutes and a lot of swearing later – I totally get my potty mouth from her! – my sweat-soaked Gran had landed. I went over to her for a hug, stronger than you would ever believe, and asked if her walker was in the back of the car. Jim’s eyes went wide. He left it on the curb outside Gran’s building.

“Chicklet,” my grandmother whispered, addressing me by the pet name she gave me the day I was born, “I’d really like to change out of these smoky clothes. I have a dress in the house.” A day and a half later, I’d gotten her up the seven steps and across the threshold into the living room. “I’ll just have a rest here. Can you look for the dress?” I left her in the chintz-covered chair I’d always known to be hers. I don’t remember anyone else ever sitting in it.

Dress in hand, I returned to the living room. The look on my grandmother’s face was one of disgust. “What the hell is that smell, and what is it doing in my house?” she asked. I sniffed, recognising it instantly. Patchouli. My face likely mirrored Gran’s. In that moment the twentysomething wife of one of my cousins breezed into the room, reeking of the stuff yet rummaging for her bag for another spritz. She pulled out the little brown bottle and, before Gran or I could stop her, had reapplied. She didn’t even pay her respects to the birthday girl before escaping back into the garden.

Dabbing her eyes, Gran said, “I want so badly to leave this room, but I need to sit a bit longer. Be a dear, Chiclet; open the door.” After a second, she added, “And get me a drink.” The only daytime cocktail I’d ever seen Gran drink was a Pimm’s and ginger beer. I went over to the liquor cabinet but couldn’t find any, so I ventured outside. I discovered the cache of wine that had accumulated, but no one thought to bring Pimm’s. Head hung low, I returned to Gran’s side, hoping that a white wine spritzer would do. “My birthday and no Pimm’s?” Her disgust was palpable. She put down the glass. “Maybe I’ll just close my eyes,” she said dismissively and with more than a hint of the passive aggressive.

Outside, things had scarcely gotten more relaxed. There were over twenty kids on the floating dock, diving off of both boards, and nary an adult in sight. Yep. I said nary. This was serious. I looked around for someone who could watch the kids… Julie patchouli! She was in her bathing suit and seemed to be quite sober. And if the essential oils were to wash off in the lake, so much the better. She reluctantly agreed. Me? I had bigger fish to fry…

When I had emerged from the house, I noticed that no one had started eating. I looked around the table on the deck and could find neither plate nor fork, neither knife nor napkin. I jumped into my car and sped off, narrowly missing a yapping spaniel. I made a quick stop at Provigo for disposable dinnerware and another at the SAQ for a bottle of Pimm’s No. 1.

I raced back to the house eager to speak to Charlotte, find out what other gaps there were in the party-planning. It was another three trips into town for me, the last to pick up the birthday cake we ordered two hours before. I sent it in with one of the cousins via the front door so Gran wouldn’t see it and handed the candles to another. “Gather everyone!” I yelled to the group as a whole, before making my way to the living room.

“Three hours.”

What’s that, Gran?”

“I’ve been sat here three hours, staring out this window, watching them all have a great day at the lake, and not one person came in to sit with me, to talk to me, to bring me food, or to wish me a happy birthday.” That rant was more words than Gran had said in a row since she’d been ninety, and it set off a spate of coughing. “Fv@king ingrates.”

“I thought you were going to close your eyes?” I reminded her.

She rolled her eyes so hard, I’m sure she saw brain. “I tried, but as soon as I closed my eyes, there was the most God-awful racket!” It seemed the only person who had any music with them was my fifteen year-old nephew with the nose ring.
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“Happy birthday to you!” rang out from the masses. At least they’d gotten everyone together. The cake was pushed through to the living room on a rolling kitchen cart. Gran blew out the candles reading ‘100’ and the family cheered.

Getting a whiff of the chocolatey cake, she turned to me and asked, “You know I’m allergic to hazelnuts, right?”

OK, that story never happened but it is the story that many of us live through when our loved ones don’t plan ahead. There’s a lot of confusion, a lot of running around, a lot of people on the sidelines not helping at all because they don’t know what to do. Kids and animals will run amok unless entertained in some way. And, invariably, most of the work gets dumped into the lap of a single person. Sadly, the last person anyone is thinking about is the Guest of Honour. It was Gran’s last farewell, and she deserved better.
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Please plan ahead, people.
 

          Planning for a peaceful rest of your life starts now. ​

​I have been really delinquent in getting started with this whole blogging thing. That could be because I am a woman of a certain age who doesn’t understand its value, but I think it’s more likely fear that’s been guiding my hand. Or, uh, not guiding it, as it were. I mean, what if I wrote my heart out, poured my soul onto the page, and no one read it? Talk about a kick in the old ego! So, I’ve decided to write for me, no expectations.
 
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
 
You can go to my Who? page http://www.violetlight.ca/who.html and learn about how I came to be an end-of-life coach, but I want to use this space to tell you who I am as a human being and how I’ve come to be her.
 
As many of us do, I wrestled with my inner demons for decades before deciding that I was stronger than them. I did the unthinkable and *gasp* went into counselling. One of the things my counsellor, Michelle, talked about was building a toolbox. Now, me, I tend to throw myself fully into every undertaking (inadvertent end-of-life pun!). Around that time I had begun to discover that real wisdom could be found on Facebook, y’know, between all of the cat videos and backbiting. I started to collect quotes and memes and, weekly, I would print the most poignant among them off on nice, thick paper, something that was gonna last and make a big impression on my subconscious. I made an actual toolbox. OK, I took the cellophane off a Ferrero Rocher eight-pack (the reason I don't have a six-pack!), replaced it with some of my favourite pics and quotes, and started filling up the box with wisdom from the interwebs. I’ll be honest, it felt great! Liberating and empowering (trite, I know, but it’s the only word that fits), it was the beginning of a six year – so far – journey.
 
I also read ebooks and foldy books, and I often use my commute time to listen to audiobooks. This week it was Robin Sharma’s Extraordinary Leadership which is free through Audible. Just because something is free doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value! Robin speaks of his father’s mandate that he read for at least thirty minutes a day every day, because, “One idea in one book (or blog!) may just change your life forever.”
 
I have an epiphanic (huh, I didn’t know that was legitimately a word 😊) moment pretty much weekly, and the trajectory of my thinking changes. It’s exciting and challenging and provides an incredible opportunity for growth.
 
This week my epiphany was this: In the absence of an expressed (social, professional…) contract, the only person responsible when someone doesn’t meet expectations is the person holding those expectations.

The only person responsible when someone doesn’t meet expectations is the person holding those expectations. 
 
As the crux of this week's blog, I figured it was worth repeating. 

A million years ago I was working out of a busy chiropractic clinic. I was under contract which is fancy talk for, “You don’t have a client, you don’t get paid.” But I also knew that the more smoothly the clinic ran, the more likely patients would be to have a good experience and, subsequently, send more patients our way. During the day, when I wasn’t with a client, I would do laundry, pull files, whatever it took to ease the burden. If you think I’m looking for praise, I’m not. The opposite is true, really; I Was Pissed. How was it that I was the only one pitching in?  But my anger toward the others was misguided, and, if I’m honest, didn’t do anything but hurt me. In hindsight I can see that the others had been doing the chicken with their heads cut off thing for the better part of three and a half/four hours. They needed to take that time to sit and chill, grab a glass of water, go for a pee.
 
Another example, one from even deeper in my past, illustrates one final point. My mum, God love her, had a favourite question which was, “Do you like to watch me struggle?!” The response had to be immediate action on my and my brothers’ part, often taking paper grocery bags from her arms. Her frustration stemmed from her unmet expectation of what we would do. How much simpler would it have been for all involved if she had just engaged us in a contract? “Could you guys give me a hand?” would have spared everyone.

 
Takeaways:

1. Ask for what you want/need.
2. Unexpressed expectations exist only in your head.
3. Don’t hold other people to account when your unexpressed expectations aren’t met.
4. Look at things from the other’s perspective.

 

Something to mull over: If someone consistently falls short of your expectations:

1. Lower your expectations.
2. Walk away, if lowering your expectations means settling for less than you deserve.

 

And, finally, you do the greatest harm to yourself when you don’t meet your own expectations. Come by next week and we’ll dig deeper into that.
 

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All coaching is relationship coaching, even when we are talking about end-of-life. Or maybe especially. Did you know that it’s possible to rewrite your past and repair relationships, past and present, by re-examining your unmet expectations and looking at things from others’ perspectives? My goal as an end-of-life coach is to help people live out the rest of their days with as much peace as they can. It’s never too early to start. Imagine how much peace it would bring to release the weight of others’ expectations and to get a handle on how to best manage your own.  403-616-6108 will get you a free phone consultation.
 
Yours on the journey,
Christie

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