Advanced Care Planning
What is Advanced Care Planning?
Advanced Care Planning is conscious consideration of the practical and logistic decisions that would need to be made and arranged for about one’s death.
Making conscious choice in any consideration is empowering and brings ease and intention to one’s life at any stage. When we Live with the End in Mind, we accept that death is part of life and we then can choose with wisdom and understanding of how our choices affect our own (self) care, and the care that could possibly be needed from others.
The most practical approach to Advanced Care Planning is to take some planned time to research the necessary documentation that is needed for one’s death.
Why this? Essentially we get our thoughts about our choices out of our head and into written word that can be acted upon by those that will care for us wether they are professional care providers or loved ones. When we do this as a conscious act, we choose accountability for ourselves rather than leaving these sometimes difficult decisions to loved ones. Being accountable to and for ourselves with such decisions can be considered an act of compassion for your loved ones. Having all of the practical and logistical aspects of your death decided on and planned for is essentially “holding space” for them to grieve for your loss with an open heart and without the burden of decision, documentation and action. Talking openly with your tribe about death and specifically your own death brings a greater ease to thoughts of passing. I’ve witnessed how open dialogue about death eases fear. So when we consciously choose and engage in our own Advanced Care Planning it becomes a conscious act of easing the fear we hold about this profound period of our life and then being able to hold space for the same for our loved ones who will move through this time with us. We give grace to this time and create potential to find joy in a beautiful life lived.
Although there are multiple approaches to starting the process of planning, I direct clients to the five wishes website. This organization provides wonderful free knowledge about the choices and necessary planning one needs related to the practical legal aspects of dying in America and specifically about the Advance Directives available to address institutional Healthcare and the Advance Directives are legal documents that literally give direction to how you would like your care and death managed.
Here are the types of Advance Directives you will need to consider:
Living Will, DPOA- Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare/Medical POA, POLST-Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, DNR-Do not resuscitate orders, Organ and tissue donation.
These 5 documents will give solid direction (and legal protection) to your conscious choices about the quality and often the length of time of your active dying time.
In the next blog we will cover each of them in depth. I encourage you to visit the five wishes website as linked above and start considering a plan for a conscious death.
Feel free to reach out to me with questions, you can schedule a first free consultation here: