Episode Transcript
Think meditation is hard? Do me a favor, take a slow deep breath in and now breathe out. Congratulations, you just meditated. Hi, I’m Krystal Jakosky, and this is Breathe In, Breathe Out: a Weekly Mindfulness and Meditation podcast for anyone ready to own their own shit and find a little peace while doing it.
Welcome back to Breathe In, Breathe Out. I'm Krystal Jakosky and I'm glad that you're here. Today I'm asking you to be intentionally selfish and considerate. Yes, it's possible. And before you ask me how that's remotely possible, I'm more than happy to explain. But before I explain, I want to say this. I have a disclaimer for you. I do not care how old you are, whether you are single or married or in a committed relationship or not. I really don't care. What I have to say is poignant for every human being, no matter what stage of life you are at, this is important. It is important for yourself and it is important for the people around you. Here's my question for you. Do you know what the people around you want? Do you know what you want? Do you know what you like? Do you know how you want to be remembered?
Have you ever had any of these kinds of conversations with people? I'm not talking about right here right now. I'm not talking about while you are living and enjoying this fabulous life I am talking about when you leave it, do the people around you know what you want? Do they know what you would like? Do they know how you want to be remembered? No. This is not a morbid conversation. This is not something that we should shy away from. This is actually something that we should all be walking into eyes wide open and very grateful to have these conversations because if you take one moment and you check in and you look at that person that is closest to you or that person that you are going to be dealing with all of their stuff when they pass, God forbid that be, I hope that that's years and years and years down the road.
The thing is that eventually none of us get out of this earthly life alive. We are all going to pass on and we are all going to leave someone behind us to deal with everything we leave behind. And before you stop listening, as I said before, this is just as important for a young 20-year-old as it is for a 90-year-old. My life experiences have brought me to an understanding of the importance of having a plan. I watched as my grandparents planned everything, including their memorial services. I learned about how one grandfather planned for my grandmother and her ability to continue financially and physically if he passed first, which he absolutely did. She lived for another two years and she was okay because he planned everything out for her and he made sure that she would be taken care of. She still didn't know how to pay the bills.
She didn't know where some of the passwords were kept. There were a multitude of things that she was not prepared to take on as a 70-year-old woman having lost her spouse. However, because they had a plan, she knew where he wanted to be buried, how he wanted to be buried, and what he wanted honored. She had the power of attorney, she had everything she needed to be able to move forward because they had made that plan. A similar thing happened with an uncle of mine who passed. He knew he was going to pass. It wasn't sudden. He had cancer and he had spreadsheets. But this guy was a computer guy and he had spreadsheets to help you find the spreadsheets so that you could find the passwords, the accounts, and the legal documents. He was ridiculously considerate in making sure that in his passing, his family would be okay.
They would be able to mourn him without the added weight of trying to figure everything out. How do we pay the bills? How do we deal with insurance and the mortgage and all of this other stuff that we really don't think about? I've also seen people pass without any plan whatsoever. My young 30-something cousin was gone in a heartbeat, a 50-year-old juggernaut of a man who you never ever thought would be gone because he was so full of life and magically one night he has no more. The family members were left behind. You have to divine what to do, how to manage, and what did they want? How do we honor them at this moment? And that's really hard. Imagine yourself being in this position where all of a sudden you have lost somebody near and dear to you and you are completely unaware of the next steps to take.
That is where I want you to be selfish. That is where I want you to selfishly ask what you want and how do I make that happen? What documentation do I need so that I can honor your wishes? And that's where you're considerate. You're doing it for yourself and yet you are making it so that you can be considerate and honor them and the life that they have lived and the way that they choose to leave this life. You get it by being selfish. When you are the person left behind, there's enough heartache without adding this other challenge. Knowing your next steps makes the initial shock a little smoother just because you know what to do. And not only that, when you are leaving this life, if people know what you want, you have now been unbelievably considerate to them. Hey, please honor me this way. Know that I love you and because I love you, I'm giving you all this knowledge, I'm giving you this power and I'm empowering you to carry on. My young cousin was not married, she lived alone. She had pets. Where did the pets go? If there is not any plan and somebody else finds them, those pets could end up at the Humane Society, apply that to kids. You're a young family, you have young children.
If you have not set forth, you want this family member to take care of your children, if you were to pass, they go into the system, and you have to put things forward. So in the interest of bringing this into a less obscure and less morbid state, I really want to give you some thoughts and ideas, tips to start you talking. These are questions you can just randomly ask anybody that's close to you to get the conversation going. Because like I said, this should not be an obscure morbid thing. This should be something where we are all saying, Hey, I love you and I love myself. So how do we broach this subject and make it a lot easier?
So burial, if you want to be buried, where do you want to be buried? Do you have any ideas? Is there a certain space? Is there a state that you want to be in? What do you want? And cremation, what do you want to be done with the ashes? If you want them to be spread? Okay, are there rules? Do you need to get a certain permit? Do you want to be okay with doing that? Like what afterward? What do you want to be done with the body? Donating the body to science. There is always paperwork that needs to be done. And not only that, please, please check in deeper because most of the time they inject that body with chemicals, which that body can no longer be cremated, which means it has to be buried, which means you have an extra step. So please dive deeper into what you want to be done.
A green burial or turned into compost, where is that allowed and what do you want to do afterward? Because if they're turned into compost, you now have a bunch of compost. Where do you want that compost to go? It can be donated to the city and they can use it in parks and rec. But you need to know what they want to be done. There are so many options and without guidance, it can add to the pain, stress, and grief of the living experience as they work it out, what do we do with their remains when they're not here? So every choice is added, heightened in uncertainty and stress, and pain. One that I tell everybody to do is a medical power of attorney along with your medical choices and wants. If you are unresponsive and in the hospital, if you are unable to advocate for yourself, who is there to make the tough decisions?
Who are you assigning as your agent to make those decisions? Who are you telling exactly what you want? Do you want to be kept alive by any means possible? And for how long? Because any means possible could mean that you're on a respirator and being fed through feeding tubes. So how long do you want that to go on before they let you go? There's more to it than just, yes, keeping me alive. At what point? Dive deeper, and ask more questions. Designating an agent means that somebody knows exactly what you want and nobody has to guess. And not only that, it doesn't become a challenge between the loved ones and the doctors. If they know that this person is a DNR, do not resuscitate, and you have the paperwork to show that, then that loved one is not brought back and you don't have to deal with the fallout there.
You get to know that that person wanted the plug pulled or that you are honoring whatever medical wishes they have requested. A medical power of attorney, Do you have a will? And does somebody know where that is? Generally speaking, your executor needs to know where that will is so that they can take the next steps. If you want to make sure that specific people receive certain things, a will is the best way to get those details known. And there's not generally an attorney needed. There are lots of free and inexpensive ways for you to write one up, get a notary, and make it official. Follow the rules of your state. The state that you live in can go a long way in helping people know what you want to have done. Another suggestion that I tell people they don't really think about is having a document in safekeeping with a list of accounts, passwords, how bills are received and paid, etcetera.
Because once you pass anything on, auto pay keeps charging the method of payment is due until that bank or that company is notified and the account is closed, which means that somebody can pass. And months later, magically they are still paying for that automatic subscription because nobody knew that it was there and the account may not have been closed yet. Who does this responsibility fall to? Who is responsible for taking care of closing those accounts and dealing with that? And that also becomes the same person. That is your financial power of attorney, completely different from your medical power of attorney. The financial power of attorney is the one who can deal with your finances paying the bills, especially if you are being kept alive on life support. Somebody's still got to take care of your finances while you are in the hospital recovering. Who is that?
Do they have the information that they need so that they can follow through they can take care of you and honor you? Be selfish. Make sure people know because that could be your funds that they're dealing with. And be considerate because you want to be respectfully dealing with somebody else when they ask you to do that. Financial power of attorney. There are some accounts that you can pay on death, for example, your bank accounts. You can pay on death, which helps alleviate some of that stuff. You can't do it with everything, so I encourage you to check it out and understand your own finances, your own investments, and whatnot to make sure that you cover all of those bases and enable whoever is taking care of you or whoever you are taking care of to operate on your behalf. Another question that I recently went over with a friend was, who do you want to be notified?
I personally don't know all of your friends. I personally don't necessarily have the phone numbers for your parents or your siblings. So who would you like notified and how? Because they will need the phone numbers, they will need email addresses. A list of family and friends with contact information means that those you love most can find out that you've passed from a voice instead of a general announcement, which can be missed if they're not reading in the right place at the right time. And in that vein, who do you want to notify Your agent? Whoever is operating this stuff for you will also need to know your social media account information. How do they access the different platforms that you are on to ensure that things are taken care of on your behalf? It's a big topic. There's a lot to talk about there. There are lots of resources online that you can dive into and they will help walk you through them.
And sometimes you can even go to the local senior center and they will have classes that will help walk you through all of these different things and all of these different topics. I say again, be selfish and consider it at the same time. Be selfish for yourself, knowing that you can take care of that person who has left. Be selfish for yourself, knowing that they can take care of you and be considerate, knowing that you are honoring that person appropriately and that they are honoring you. It's a beautiful thing back and forth. It's less scary when you know what needs to be done. I have done this with multiple people surrounding me and it brings me a ton of peace knowing that I can honor their last wishes I am so much more relaxed knowing that somebody knows what I want and what I need. Please dive in. And I sincerely hope that you have been inspired to be selfishly considerate. I also hope that you'll become an advocate with me because the more that we talk about this, the easier it is because grief is never easy. Losing someone is never ever easy and yet knowing what they want, knowing what you want means that I can focus my grief on that person and my loss instead of the stress of dealing with everything in their aftermath.
I pray that you're having a wonderful year. I pray that you're inspired to dive into this conversation with those people closest to you and I look forward to having you back here next week on Breathing. Breathe Out.
I hope this moment of self-care and healing brought you some hope and peace. I’m @krystaljakosky on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube and I hope you check us out and follow along for more content coming soon. I look forward to being with you again here on Breathe In, Breathe Out. Until next time, take care.
