Happy September everyone. I can’t believe we’re turning the corner to Fall and then the holidays already, again. The seasons we are falling into, pardon the pun, are of things dying annnnd recognizing the beauty that also surrounds it.

Finding beauty in dying is usually challenging. For most of my life I had total fear around it, which I think began when I was 13 when my great uncle passed away. It was my first experience with someone I was close with dying. He was bigger than life and everybody loved Uncle Sam. My family flew to Chicago to go to his funeral and we stayed in his home, which really spooked me at the time because all his things and medicine were in place as if he were still there. At the funeral they had his casket open and I’ll never forget how scared I was as I saw him under this red-ish light that was hanging above, and my grandfather loudly crying over his brother. It was the only time I had seen my grandpa cry.

Needless to say that left quite the impression on me with regard to death and dying. And not a good one.

Last year I happened to watch a TEDx talk on this topic with Dr. Martha Jo Atkins from 2013, which has over a million views. And when I heard her say, “When we educate families and the patient about the experiences of dying, there is less fear. And my goodness, we need less fear around death and dying” I grabbed my computer and wrote to ask her to be my guest on Loving Later Life. And I am so thrilled to tell you that she said yes!

Dr. Martha Jo Atkins, is a dog-loving, (Ph.D.) end-of-life licensed professional counselor and counselor supervisor (LPC-S), coach, speaker , doula and author. Dr. Atkins has a thirty-year career helping children and adults negotiate end-of-life and grief.

She is the founder of the Children’s Bereavement Center of South Texas, served as Executive Director of Abode Contemplative Care for the Dying in San Antonio, and is the author of the book Signposts of Dying. She is the founder of Dying School, designed to build community while deepening conversations around end-of-life + aliveness.

Now don’t touch that dial! I can’t wait to share this conversation with you and I do believe that it will have you thinking a little differently about death and dying. And I really want to have her back because there is so much more I want to talk about with her that we just didn’t have time for.

So get comfy, and let’s let Martha Jo help us think about and talk about dying…

This episode is a follow up to a story that began in Episode 2 of Loving Later Life. It’s the one about how I reached out to a jazz band about singing with them.

As I was getting my thoughts together about how best to share the experience of what happened, my mind went off on a creative tangent in a very different direction. This episode has turned into something that wasn’t at all planned and I decided why the hell not. So here it is! I’ve had so much fun putting this together and I think it’ll make you smile. Come join me!

Carole Montgomery is a respected veteran of the stand-up scene nationwide. She has over two dozen TV credits, has headlined clubs across the U.S., starred in two Las Vegas production shows, did eleven comedy tours with Armed Forces Entertainment, and has been a featured performer for Montreal Just for Laughs and Boston and New York Comedy Festivals. 

Carole is also a director and producer. In 2017 she created the live stand-up comedy show Funny Women of a Certain Age which premiered on Showtime and became the network’s highest rated comedy special for 2019 making TV history as the first comedy special to feature six women over the age of 50! In addition to her hilarious self, Carole has brought to the show some of the most respected names in comedy including Fran Drescher, Janeane Garofalo, Caroline Rhea, Julia Scotti and many more.

In this episode, Carole openly shares the funny, touching, jaw dropping stories of her career. Don Rickles gave her the ultimate compliment of dissing her. Richard Pryor brought her to tears in the best of ways. Her stories of how she has faced ageism, sexism, and how she continues to persevere are compelling. Carole is still going strong at 64 years old bringing laughter to audiences across the country.

The path to getting older is oh so interesting, isn’t it? As we grow older we accumulate some wisdom along the way, which can be cleverly disguised as heartbreak, loss, pain, disappointment, sadness, embarrassment, hurt or growing pains. So, if we get wiser as we get older, why do so many of us, so often, look outside ourselves for the answers? Perhaps they’re in a place inside us where we’d least expect!

In this episode, we experiment with a different way of discovering wisdom to find answers, feel emotionally safe, loved, and heard. Please join me, and I’d love to hear how it worked for you!

Nicole Aloni has had many lives and many losses. She is a French-trained chef (she cooked for Julia Child and Queen Elizabeth to name a few), was the director of catering of the Music Center in Los Angeles, founded a restaurant, catering company, food manufacturing business and photography studio. She was married to the love of her life, Ami Aloni, a prominent personality in the Jewish musical life of L.A., most especially revered in the synagogue world as a composer, arranger, pianist, and conductor.

After Ami’s tragic passing, Nicole reinvented herself several more times. She authored articles and books about food and entertaining. She also wrote, produced, and performed her autobiographical one-woman show, Le Grand Fromage, which you can watch on YouTube! In this funny and poignant show, she cooks French food on stage as she tells the riveting stories of her life. It will have you laughing and keep you on the edge of your seat. Nicole is also a certified coach specializing in collaborating with creative risk-takers, entrepreneurs, performers, public speakers and those re-inventing. You are going to be glued to her every word!

Today I’m talking about what I believe is quickly becoming a lost art: Listening. I think it’s also the biggest gift we can give someone else. When we aren’t truly listening, it means that the person who is trying to share something with us is likely not feeling heard. Feeling heard, is one of the most universal human needs, and when that need is not met on a consistent basis, it just doesn’t lead to anything good!

Whether we’re 5 or 85 we want to feel that someone is listening to us. Do you always ‘listen’ with your head down in your phone? While watching TV? In this episode I share some stories that might just make you never want to do that again. It may also change the way you look at listening forever. I hope you’ll listen. (See what I did there?!)

Join me and my special guest Kathryn Nicolai. Kathryn is the creator of the enormously successful podcast Nothing Much Happens and the author of the book of the same name. Nothing Much Happens is consistently ranked in the top 1% of all podcasts in the world and has received over 65 million downloads.

As an architect of cozy, she leans on her years of experience as a yoga and meditation teacher to seamlessly blend storytelling with brain training methods that build better sleep habits over time. And imagine …wait till you hear about this… doing all of this not being able to picture a person’s face or see things in her mind. Kathryn lives in Michigan with her wife and two dogs.

This is an unplanned episode. My efforts to be organized and plan somewhat ahead got thrown off course a little as I felt blindsided by some friendly feedback. So, I deviated from the plan (heaven forbid) and this, My Confession, is now episode 6. It’s my reaction, my feelings, my introspection about how something many may consider morbid is my motivator; and a whole lot more. I hope you’ll join me.

I am honored and thrilled to share a conversation I had with Ciji Ware. Ciji is a Harvard graduate, New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist, Emmy award winning television producer, reporter for TV and radio, a DuPont award winner for investigative journalism, and sought-after event speaker.

In this episode, Ciji shares fascinating fun facts and stories you won’t believe. She grew up in Hollywood (and James Cagney was her godfather); as a married TV reporter for NBC, she was fired in 1971 because she got pregnant; just a few years ago she found out she had cancer with the help of a spider; and now at 80, she is writing her 16th novel. This book is the third in the series “American Spy Sisters” inspired by brave U.S. women secret agents who fought the Nazis in WWII.

Ciji has had many setbacks and challenges, and she persevered. Listen to this inspiring conversation and you will be reminded that you can make it through anything by accepting change, and staying both curious and grateful.

Are you more patient with other people than you are with yourself? Do you talk to (or about) yourself the same way you would a dear friend? Have you noticed what you’ll do for others but not for yourself?

I’m not going to give any spoiler alerts about how I’ve decided to change the Golden Rule! However, I will say that the main topic in today’s episode is about how we treat ourselves and how we talk to ourselves compared to how we do so with others.

Please join me in tweaking the Golden Rule in a way you may not have thought about before, and let’s do it before we do any further harm to ourselves!