New Years Resolution For Funeral Directors… Listen!

Funeral Planning
Stating The Options is Not Listening

Most funeral directors know that one of the most important traits that someone in the funeral industry can possess is being a good listener. The problem is that most of us are so busy talking that we forget to really engage in listening. However, superior listening skills are essential to being a good, effective and compassionate funeral director. At a time when grief hampers the communication skills of most clients, being able to determine what a person is truly saying and truly wants is crucial. There is a lot of information being shared when funeral arrangements are being made. We need to not only be good listeners but also be able to create a trusting environment that stimulates the important conversations that need to take place. Fortunately, good listening skills can be learned.

The basics of good listening skills

ListeningBeing an effective listener is a skill, just like reading or writing good letters. Some of the tenets of being a good listener include…

1. Assume everyone has something interesting to say. Everyone who is truly speaking from their heart has interesting and thought-provoking things to share, maintains Nancy Kline in her book, “Time to Think.” Throw aside any assumptions or pre-conceived opinions based on a person’s dress, age or address.

2. Create conditions that are right for listening…and sharing. The best conditions for sharing information (and for listening) are situations where there is little tension. Such spaces are quiet, gentle and unhurried. For funeral directors and their staff, this means creating a peaceful oasis where you can meet clients as well as leaving your phone and other electronic devices behind in your office. You might also want to have soothing music playing and a calm décor, even a scented candle burning can help. Allow more time than you think you might need. You don’t want to be fidgeting or looking at your watch while you are trying to listen. These actions all hinder good listening and good sharing. The family you are serving should feel like they only family you are serving when handling funeral arrangments.

Pay Attention3. Pay attention. This may sound obvious, but too many times we are busy thinking about what we have to do next or what we are going to say in return that we miss a large part of what a person is saying to us. On average, only 20 percent of what we hear makes it into our short term memory! No wonder effective communication is so tricky.

Another interesting thing happens when we pay attention, according to Kline–the person speaking enunciates more clearly and organizes his or her thoughts more succinctly. In short, the better we listen, the better they speak and the better we communicate. The logic is simple; when our thoughts wander and we pay poor attention, the speaker starts to feel like they aren’t valued and what they are saying isn’t important. They become self-conscious, hampering their communication skills. In the funeral industry, where many of the people we speak with are already stressed by grief, paying attention is especially important.

Paying attention also means no interrupting and not finishing the other person’s sentences. As a funeral director, it also means waiting until the person has finished what they intended to say before offering advice. Be prepared to ask pointed questions and converse about everyday things that will open doors that might not otherwise open. Many people are usually private about their family and loved one’s. Building trust and getting people to understand that to make a funeral as special and unique as the life lived, we need and have this one chance to make a funeral personal. Too often, we are tempted to pigeon-hole a client into a funeral plan we’ve used many times before…whether or not that’s what the client wants. Today more then ever the easy way is not the way when it comes to meaningful funerals. Using the services of a certified funeral Celebrant will also help create a more personalized and meaningful funeral or memorial, because Celebrants are more trained to draw out and capture the kind of information that can be used in a more personal ceremony. Clergy does not usually use such an extensive interview process and some do not meet with the family at all. It just kills me when the clergy will read the obituary as part of the ceremony (Huge Fail).

4. Don’t think for the speaker. Helping people doesn’t always mean thinking for them. You might assume that since you are the funeral expert and they are coming to you for help that it’s up to you to decide what’s best for them. A better plan of action is to hear them out. Often customers will tell you what the best solution to their perceived problems are if you wait for them to finish talking and not jump right in with your perfect “solution.” In general, advises Kline, people are more apt to be happy with the outcome if they arrive at the solution themselves than when you tell them what they should do.

Are women better listeners?

Women Funeral DirectorsPop culture has maintained for years that women are better listeners than men. How many jokes have you heard where the wife exclaims, “You just don’t listen to me” to her husband? There is actually some valid science behind this claim. It seems that men and women process language and communication differently. Men listen with half of their brain, while women engage their entire brain while listening. The jury is out whether that finding makes women better at listening. However, if you have a female on your staff, you might want to include adding interviews with prospective clients to her job description. According to at least one study, women ARE more empathetic than men.

Listening to the generations

The listening skills that have worked well for you over the years in your business may not be the ones that will serve you well in the future. Increasingly, we are dealing with members of the large baby boomer generation as their elderly parents begin to pass away. Soon, it will be their children (and grandchildren) with whom will be talking about end-of-life arrangements. These younger clients are more direct and less patient, in general, and will require us to have additional listening skills to be the best funeral service providers we can be.

  • Listening to Baby Boomers. The Baby Boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) are currently in the midst of making end-of-life arrangements for their parents as well as pre-planning their own funerals. This is an independent generation who are used to doing things their own way. They want funerals to be more personalized, to be more life celebrations and less somber affairs. This generation is more apt to break the traditional funeral “norms” and opt for things like contemporary music, a celebrant instead of a priest and a beach setting instead of a church. This group is also embracing more enthusiastically the concept of pre-planning their own funerals. With more than 76 million Baby Boomers in the United States (one quarter of the US population), this could become a very lucrative market for those in the funeral industry. Given this generation’s need for customization, good listening skills will be more important than ever.
  • Listening to Millennials. Millennials are those born in the 1980s through the early 21st century. In many cases, these are the children of Baby Boomers. Unlike their parents, these consumers are much more technology-oriented. For funeral directors, that may mean being able to communicate with them via Skype or Facetime rather than in person. This group is also more likely to prefer texts to phone calls. However, changing the technology doesn’t mean that you can stop listening. You just have to adjust your approach to make them feel the most comfortable. One additional caveat about this group: ignore them at your peril. While taking the wrong approach or not listening to a Baby Boomer may lose you a client, ignoring a Millennial will also lose you their friends and their social contacts. This generation is much more social and much more willing to share their positive (and negative) experiences than their parents.

The bottom line

As we approach the end of the year and the beginning of 2016, now is a great time to evaluate your listening skills and see where there might be room for improvement. As our clientele shifts to include younger generations, the future of our businesses may just depend on it.

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Holiday Grief … Some Helpful Tips

These Can Be Hard Times For Some
These Can Be Hard Times For Some

Grief is inevitable in life, and unfortunately, it doesn’t take a break just because the holidays are coming. In fact happy cheery holiday time can be even harder to keep grief in check. Despite grief not taking a holiday, there are ways to cope with it. And fortunately for some, the busyness of the holidays takes their mind off of other issues going in life. If not these tips might be helpful in having a slightly better holiday.

Reevaluate Holiday Tasks

If grandpa recently passed and he was the one who carved the turkey, you’ll need to figure out who should continue the tradition. In some instances, you may want just to discontinue a tradition if it isn’t something completely necessary. Having to carry on a tradition that reminds you of a deceased loved one may make the holidays even harder. Therefore, you should ask yourself if a tradition is necessary and if you want to carry it on for future generations. Always keep in mind that children aren’t as emotionally involved when a person passes due to their lack of understanding and time invested in a relationship cut short, but they may care about the traditions that surrounded the holidays.

Stay Busy

While you may feel like you’d rather curl up in a ball and hibernate the holidays away, this will only make matters worse. If grief just happened, you need to find ways to occupy your time. This may include shopping, working or cleaning your home. Many people find cleaning, as an excellent stress relief, and your house will reap the benefit. Another option to occupy your time during the holidays is to work. Many people need to take time off in order to complete the tasks they need done or to spend with family. Therefore, there are many opportunities for you to offer to take their shift and pick up some overtime. Plus, in the retail and hospitality fields, everything gets busier during the holidays, so there are more opportunities for overtime anyways. Don’t hesitate to look for opportunities outside of your regular job such as dressing up like Santa or other seasonal positions. Another option is to volunteer. Not only will you occupy your time, but you’ll also be helping others, which will make you feel better and heal yourself.

Invite Someone New For the Holidays

Other people are lonely on the holidays and would love to have someone to spend the day with. If you have a friend who doesn’t have anywhere to go, invite them to your holiday event. You’ll feel better knowing you helped someone else feel less alone.

It’s Okay to Grieve

You May Want to Avoid the Cheer. Alcohol is a Depressant!
You May Want to Avoid the Cheer. Alcohol is a Depressant!

Don’t feel like you have to put on a smile for the holidays even if you don’t want to. If you’re absolutely not up to going to a holiday gathering, it’s okay to say no. Take time for yourself to grieve and to accept what happened. People will understand if you have to say no to hosting the bake sale you do every holiday season. On the other hand, you could ask other people to help you, so you don’t have a full workload on top of the pain you’re feeling. Always remember that you need to do what’s best for you to cope with grief. You don’t need to hide your emotions and take on something you’re truly not comfortable with. However, you may not want to cancel the holidays totally if other people count on you for being around during this time. On the other hand, if you’re completely not up for it, those who love you will be understanding.

Allow Yourself Time to Be Happy

You don’t have to spend the next month crying or being depressed. It’s okay to enjoy the holidays even if there’s grief going on around you. You can take time to grieve because it’s necessary, but make sure you open yourself up to allow for fun and joy during the holidays. Hard times don’t have to mean perpetual misery.

Any Emotion is Okay

Everybody handles grief differently; so don’t beat yourself up for the way you feel. Go ahead and get angry. Feel free to spend time crying and letting out your sadness. And if you’re one of those people who cope by placing your feelings on the back burner and continuing with life, don’t feel like it’s wrong.

Talk to Family and Friends

People are out there who care about you including your friends anHoliday Traditionsd family. Even if you don’t need to talk to them to cope with the grief, give them a call just to talk and feel close to someone. Schedule an outing with them. It may be comforting to have someone around during the holidays, especially if you’re feeling lonely and empty due to a recent loss.

Holidays Are for Children

Santa Claus is meant to bring joy to children. Just because you might not fully be into the holidays, remember that your kids, nieces, nephews and other

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tots in your life look forward to the season for the joy it brings. Focus on the children and the happiness you can bring to them. You might not feel up for having a cup of cheer yourself, but making sure the kids have a good holiday will bring a bit of happiness your way. And it can take your mind off of the pain you’re feeling.

Schedule Time for Yourself

Even if you’re dreading the holiday season, it will make it more tolerable by planning time for yourself. Have a spa day after you’re done shopping or go out for a drink with a friend after a long day at work. Maybe you’d prefer just taking a long, hot bath and enjoying a good book.

Create a New Tradition

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You don’t have to keep every tradition the same. It might be comforting to do something entirely different or to do something in your loved one’s memory.

Although you can’t change what you feel, you may be able to make it more manageable with these tips. Never feel like you’re alone in the grief you feel during the holidays. Surround yourself with those you care about or contact a support line to talk.

Holding Space For The Dying

Holding SpaceA person dying is in need of a special kind of care. Providing care to the dying can be a trying yet rewarding experience. Knowing what to do for a dying loved one can make all the difference. When faced with being “the one” responsible for over seeing and providing special care, it is important and healthy for all to understand the coming challenges and put your ego aside. If you know anyone who is experiencing such a thing, one way you can help such a person is by holding space. This concept, however, is not well understood. So what does holding space mean?

It means that you are willing and ready to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they are on without judging them, trying to fix them, making them feel inadequate or attempting to impact the outcome whatever they might be going through. When you hold space for other people, you open your heart, offer unconditional support, and let go of any judgment and control. It means that you will be by their side.

You are simply with it entirely so that it can work itself out. You have to take caution here. That does not mean becoming a victim of it, quite on the contrary. You are very powerful in this space, and it does not mean being hurt physically by another person. When you are deep in an area like this, you are way more immune to any “emotional” harm than you might be aware of. Taking in so much of emotional hurt just ends up bruising the ego; it involves taking what someone else is saying about you or someone close to you personally. But the odd thing about all that is, what most people say about us is a mere reflection of themselves. It is not personal. And while we do not turn a blind eye to everything other people might be saying, we start to comprehend just how much of an illusion everyone else is trapped in. In the end you will feel honored that you were trusted to share in the in this reflective end stage of life.

Walking The Line
Walking The Line

Holding space can be a lot of hard work. You are bound to experience a cocktail of emotions from the person you are holding the space for. For instance, for the first time that you are holding space, you might be non-reactive to a lover’s outburst or a co-dependent friend’s tears, and they may then think that you do not care, which is obviously far from it. In hindsight, you are caring more about them than ever before since you are not feeding their emotional issues and making them worse. If anything, they now have to check their emotional mess and own up to it because you are holding space as is opposed to rolling around in this emotional debris with them. To begin with, that can be intensely uncomfortable for the other person. On the other side, it can also be trans-formative as well. It is always up to the other person in that equation to decide on what results from it. You can only own your pieces of the puzzle and what you do with them. You may want to explain to the other person what and why you’re handling thing the way you do. It might be appreciated by the other person that you not to butt in his or her life and try to run it.

No Directions at The Cross Roads of Life
No Directions at The Cross Roads of Life

It goes in many different directions, but it is always an enlightening experience in more ways than one though it can be a little bit uncomfortable to begin with. It may mean the end of some relationships that do not want to evolve. You have to have in mind that some people are just happy living in the filth of their misery. But at the same time, they still desire to go back home and complain about what the universe is doing to them, to their ideas, and even to their spiritual practices. If you do not join in with that negativity, they can get upset and leave you. And you may have to be just as comfortable with that result, the same way you would have to be with the positive outcome that brings relationships and friendships closer.

Providing Direction....
Providing Direction….

Holding space is, however, not flawless, especially if you are doing it for the first time. You may struggle with some aspects if the entire thing. Do not worry, it is allowed. We are always learning from our mistakes, right? To get started, I would suggest that you practice. There is a reason that people say “practice makes perfect.” It is because that has been proven to work. First, identify a person with whom you can practice with. You can take turns where one talks while the other listens. That is a practice about how you can be open-hearted and without judgment when the worst is said about you as well as when the best is said about you.

For the most of that process, you will just be listening to people talk about their pain. Then you see how you can be with it. You should check what comes up inside of you, and then discuss it with your listening partner. If you do not feel comfortable talking about it, you can journal it. That is a powerful practice that you can use to develop awareness, so that you can be with more people, understand what people share. You can help them find their inner peace and trust that the situation is going to happen, as it should.

Be real and be sure to discuss the importance of planning beyond the end of life. Helping or just checking to see if funeral plans are discussed and planned in a way that reflect on one’s true legacy while giving the gift to survivors of a well planned funeral.

  • Guide them without offering them the answers. A real space holder knows when the right time to provide guidance is and when to withhold it. It is not about you trying to fix their situation as far as post life decisions are concerned. Be sure they understand their options and provide the advice of experts like financial planners and funeral directors as well as spiritual guidance. It is better if they found the solutions by themselves after you have guided them to the advise of experts when necessary.
  • Provide a safe container for them to make mistakes. As they try to fix their issues by themselves, you have to understand that they are bound to make mistakes. Yours is to provide the space for errors.
  • Let them draw their own conclusions. Allow them to feel whatever they feel, without judgment. Remain neutral no matter what end of life decisions they make like estate planning or funeral arrangements.

Thank You Heather Plett for your words of wisdom in contributing to this important topic.

  • End of Life Planning