The Art of Living with the End in Mind with Barbara Becker

AmazonEP. 298: BARBARA BECKER - THE ART OF LIVING WITH THE END IN MIND

“Welcome death and allow it to live parallel to life.” — Dr. Amy Robbins

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EPISODE SUMMARY:

How do we die before we die in order to truly live?

Today I talk with Barbara Becker, an ordained interfaith minister who bridges the sacred and the secular, and has sat with hundreds of people at the end of their lives. Barbara speaks on deepening our sense of meaning & spirituality and mid-career pivots. Her book, Heartwood: The Art of Living with the End in Mind recounts stories where life and death intersect in unexpected ways.

Listen in to hear about the lessons she’s learned from the dying.

Topics We Discuss:

• [03:48] Heartwood, Barbara’s new book, is a series of stories about our mortality and people she has loved and lost in her life. It’s centered around the metaphor of heartwood; she learned that inside every tree is a pillar called “heartwood” that’s more durable than the rest of the tree. It’s the dead part of the tree, but the tree and its rings wouldn’t be able to grow if it wasn’t for that durable core. We too grow around the people we’ve loved and lost and the lessons they’ve imparted.

• [12:36] On the day that Heartwood was released into the world, Barbara was having surgery for breast cancer. She was forced to go back and look at some of her own writing and the lessons some of the people in the book had to teach her about loss.

• [20:10] One thing that Barbara has been privileged to learn from people who are dying is every person has their own nugget of truth. One day, she had a young woman from New Zealand as a patient who was dying alone that said, “Barbara you think I'm alone, but I’m not. In my Maori tradition, we believe our ancestors gather around our bedside when we’re dying to help us pass over. I know they’re here.”

• [25:31] We need to learn how to dance between the positives and the negatives; because the negatives might not be so negative, and the positives might not be so positive.

• [28:51] We need to talk to kids about death. In Barbara’s family, her father, a physician, would often talk about death to educate his children. When she was in third grade, Barbara found a picture of another woman in her dad’s wallet—his first wife. She found out that shortly after their honeymoon, she had died.

• [37:01] When you know someone really wants to live and it’s their time to go, it’s not easy. One of the things that helped Barbara when her mother was dying is that she gave her kids a choice to be with their grandmother or not. They decided to see her, and everyone gathered around her bedside and sang Christmas songs — her favorite — before she told them her life stories.

• [39:43] Barbara has been privy to many amazing stories from people on their deathbeds, but there’s nothing like the stories from people you know. When her childhood friend was dying, Barbara remembers the vivid childhood memories she shared. She believes being at the end of someone’s life is a very sacred moment to witness.

FOLLOW BARBARA BECKER:

Find Barbara on her website or on Instagram. Her book Heartwood: The Art of Living with the End in Mind is available on Amazon. (affiliate link)

Life, Death and the Space Between is brought to you by:

Dr. Amy Robbins | Host, Executive Producer

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