Willow Workshops
Explore your end-of-life options, make informed choices that reflect your values, and even find joy in the process.
HOW TO STOP PROCRASTINATING WITH END OF LIFE PLANNING
The inevitability of death is the one thing in life we’re certain about, yet most people would do anything to avoid talking or even thinking about it. It’s certain your future will include death, after-death care (including how you’ll be laid to rest), and the settling of your estate, regardless of its size. It’s possible that your future will include disability, serious illness, sudden death, a funeral or ceremony of some kind and the gifting or distribution of your financial assets and precious possessions.
What is holding you back from being more prepared? Devoting time and energy to consider and plan ahead for your future —including your inevitable death—will change how you die and how you live, right here, right now, and for the rest of your life.
In this workshop you will:
Get introduced to Willow’s Reality of Our Mortality Planning Checklist and gain insight into how this holistic checklist moves beyond conventional planning tasks.
Begin to identify your end-of-life planning priorities.
Name what’s stopping you from being in action or completing your EOL planning.
Gain some clarity about how to move forward and feel inspired to get into action.
VALUES, WISHES AND WHO AND WHAT MATTER MOST
Many of us know the benefits of preparing for our one-day, some-day death. But sometimes it’s hard to get started. All this planning-ahead business feels overwhelming and fragmented. Or perhaps some basic planning pieces are in place but it feels like your planning documents don’t reflect your true essence.
Based on three tools from Willow’s holistic and pragmatic workbook, 7 Tools for Making Sense of Life & Death, Values, Wishes and Who and What Matter Most will guide you to explore the reality of your mortality in a fun and interactive workshop. Making sense of life and death before making practical arrangements will ensure that your end-of-life planning reflects your values and priorities. Whether you have days or decades left to live, thinking about and preparing for your death will inspire you to live your best life now.
In this workshop you will:
Articulate your core values and how they impact your living and dying.
Get present to your hopes and fears around your inevitable death.
Gain some clarity about who and what matter most.
Become inspired to get into action around how to live and die well.
Either consciously or unconsciously, our past informs our present. Your previous experiences with illness, dying, death, grief, and how someone was cared for after they died—including any planning that was or wasn’t in place—have undoubtedly shaped your personal desires and informed your sense of what’s possible and what’s not.
We all have hopes and fears about what might happen (to us and/or the people we leave behind) in the time leading up to our death, at the moment of our death, and after we die. Based on three tools from Willow’s holistic and pragmatic workbook, 7 Tools for Making Sense of Life & Death, Conscious Health, Personal Care and Final Wishes will ensure that your choices around end-of-life planning reflect your values and priorities. Whether you have days or decades to live, thinking about and preparing for your death will change how you die and inspire you to live your best life now.
In this workshop you will:
Learn how past experiences with death and dying can shape your own end-of-life plans.
Discover what is most important to you regarding your health and personal care wishes.
Become inspired to get into action around articulating your final wishes.
CONSCIOUS HEALTH, PERSONAL CARE, AND FINAL WISHES
HOW TO CREATE & LIVE YOUR LEGACY
No matter what kind of life you live, how much money you have, or what you think of your accomplishments, consider that you have a legacy. Inside a thoughtful and dynamic group process you will reflect on what you want your legacy to be and what actions you can take now to create and live that legacy.
In this workshop you will:
Explore the concept of legacy and what it means to you.
Reflect on your hopes and fears about your legacy.
Identify what you believe and hope people will remember you for.
Discover how the way you are living now aligns with your desired legacy
REMEMBERING AND BEING REMEMBERED
In Remembering and Being Remembered we’ll look at the who, what, how and why of remembering. Why do you remember people who have died? How do you remember them and how are you impacted by either remembering or not remembering? This workshop will also remind us that we each have an impact on the lives of others.
In this workshop you will:
Dig into the heart of why you remember those who have died.
Explore what it is about being remembered that matters to you.
Consider the impact your deceased have had on you and that you may have on others when you die.
Be called to action to honour the memory of your deceased in ways that work for you.
9 THINGS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR DEPARTURE DIRECTIONS
Departure Directions™ is Willow’s term for your written guidelines—determined by your values, beliefs and priorities—for how you wish to be cared for and remembered after you die.
Completing your Departure Directions™ will give you peace of mind knowing your final wishes will reflect who you are and what matters most to you while alleviating stress, chaos and worry for the people you leave behind. Articulating and writing your Departure Directions™ will benefit you in the here and now. Understanding all that matters in the end, is a pathway to living and loving fully, now.
Consider that every act of how you are cared for after you die is an opportunity for meaningful rituals that can build, nourish and heal individuals and communities.
In this workshop, you will:
Get introduced to Willow’s end-of-life planning tool, 9 Things to Include in Your Departure Directions™.
Explore the factors that shape your Departure Directions™.
Gain some clarity about who and what matter most to guide you in making your choices.
Many of us do our best to live mindfully and walk lightly on our planet. Yet, we tend to give little consideration to the environmental impact of what happens to us after we die. Partly, this is because we live in a culture fraught with death denial. Typically, when someone dies, a funeral provider is called to remove the person and arrange for either burial or cremation. Most people don’t take the time to understand the array of options within these two choices, or what alternatives are available in addition to these two choices. The good news is, many steps can be taken to green your death no matter where you live, and new options for greening your death are growing.
In this workshop, you will:
Consider and articulate what about greening your death matters to you.
Discover the environmental impacts of various choices for after-death care.
Learn about green options that may be available in your region.
Consider the best way to align your values with your choices.
GREENING YOUR DEATH AND ALIGNING YOUR VALUES
5 STEPS FOR SUCCESSFUL END-OF-LIFE PLANNING CONVERSATIONS
Have you ever started to talk about some aspect of end-of-life planning with someone and got shut down? Or maybe you’ve been wanting to talk about end-of-life planning but you’re lost about how to even broach the topic. You have ideas in your mind about how your people are going to react, and it’s just too uncomfortable to go there.
Many of us understand the importance of preparing for your someday, one-day, inevitable death while you’re still healthy enough to do that. But talking about death in a death-phobic and death-denying culture can be a challenge. Whether you’re thinking about your own end-of-life planning or you want to facilitate plans for someone else, it really helps to talk about it first!
In this workshop, you will:
Increase your readiness to undertake end-of-life planning, and other challenging conversations.
Gain insight into the intentions, concerns, context, and importance of end-of-life planning conversations in your life.
Be guided through key steps for having successful and meaningful end-of-life planning conversations.
Gain clarity about who and what matter most.
Writing a Legacy Love Letter® can positively transform your relationship to the intended recipient even if it’s never read by anyone but you.
A Legacy Love Letter® is for loving messages and not the place to work out any issues with the recipient.
You can write a lot in five minutes.
Because a sudden death is always a possibility, writing a Legacy Love Letter® will create peace of mind that nothing is left unsaid.
Get what’s in your heart onto paper. With six meaningful prompts, the 5-Minute Legacy Love Letter® helps you write lasting messages to important people in your life, and transform those relationships in the here and now.
In this engaging and interactive workshop, you’ll be warmed up and guided to write at least one Legacy Love Letter® to someone in your life. We also discuss how this powerful tool can be used for people supporting or assisting others.
In this workshop you will:
Get introduced to and experience using the 5-Minute Legacy Love Letter®.
Experience how writing a Legacy Love Letter® creates an opportunity to reflect and connect.
Discover how writing a lasting message can impact your relationships, here and now.