Essential Conversations in Mid-Life and Beyond Amy D’Aprix, MSW, PhD, CPCA October 11, 2017

Goals for Mid-Life and Beyond Maintain choice, control, and freedom for your entire life Stay healthy – mentally and physically Sustain meaning in your life Maximize Quality of life Have enough resources

To Reach Goals There are things you need to: Think about Plan for (explore) Talk about with people you love

Essential Conversations Start with contemplation Defined: Talking to the most important people about the most important things in our lives

Top 5 Essential Conversations Vision for the future: how to spend your time and with whom Health or mobility changes and how they could impact: Driving Where you live If you ever need care, what is important to you and what constitutes quality of life for you Who you want as your “thought partners” as you age Estate planning conversations – beyond the money

Contemplation “If there were a shift in my health or mobility or the health or mobility of someone I love, what might I do differently?”

Essential Conversations Whom do you need to talk with? Thought Partners Spouse Kids Siblings Friends Professionals Those who will be impacted People who will be involved in helping or care Those who will be disrupters

Process for Essential Conversations Clearly identify the topic of the conversation Start with processing, not problem-solving Then generate solutions (or share information) Make decisions Take action if needed and plan follow-up discussion NB: Start with PROCESSING rather than PROBLEM-SOLVING. What are everyone’s perspectives about the situation? What are everyone’s feelings about the situation? What are everyone’s ideas about how to resolve the situation?

Where Do You Go From Here? To maintain choice, control, and freedom…. Think about what you want Explore and plan Have essential conversations with the people you love and who love you Talk about Elder care Mediators, Geriatric Care Managers, coaches, social workers….many, many people can help with these…

Thank you! And the third thought is a quote from Margaret Meade that I believe sums up the work that we do: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Meade

Why Hard to Really Listen? We think we are right We may be in a hurry We have lots of other issues going on The decision has serious consequences- and we may be scared We are angry about past We need to slow down the pace and breathe Discuss each of these reasons- ….talk about pitching a baseball and slowing it down…how much easier would it be to catch? Dad and driving issue

LISTEN EMPATHIZE REFRAME ACT LERA . Go through each of the 4 steps emphasizing that “reframe” is often “normalize” Part of the “magic” of this process is in the order that you do it. Listen - When you listen you are listening for “interests”. One of the greatest human needs is to feel heard and understood- not agreed with, but understood. Empathize - then empathizing helps the person feel that you truly get it. Reframing or normalizing can help them feel less alone or “weird” or like no one else has ever dealt with this. Plan - Once you have dealt with those emotional issues, you can move to discussing a plan (act). If you go to the plan without the emotional issues being dealt with, the plan has much less likelihood of working. People sabotage plans – either consciously or unconsciously- when they don’t feel that their concerns have been heard and acknowledged. ACT

Interest vs Position Creativity happens at the interest level! Our position is the thing we want Our interest is the reason or reasons we want this Creativity happens at the interest level!

Story We hear We need to listen for Positions Interests

The Key to Success Remembering that the greatest human need is to feel heard and understood…not agreed with, but understood. Often hardest to do with the people we love… This is what gets families into trouble!