Workshops
Living Legacies offers personalised workshops about living, dying and funerals. These can help you plan your funeral and make your wishes known to your family and friends, and/or explore your feelings and any fears you may have about your death or the death of someone you love.
In particular, we offer workshops to family* groups, whether or not someone has been diagnosed with a terminal illness (because we are all mortal), as an opportunity to build on your relationships and communicate with one another your feelings, plans, worries and hopes around death. A funeral can be a time of great conflict if the deceased’s wishes are not fully understood and accepted by all, and grieving can be prolonged if it’s complicated by regrets such as “We should have done….”, and “I wish I had said something”, and “Now it’s too late.” Conversely, it can also be a time of celebration, understanding and love. Whilst funerals are seldom enjoyable, groups who have participated in such a workshop and discussed the matter in depth before someone dies usually manage the event much more gracefully than those who are emotionally unprepared.
Feedback from a recent family workshop, of 9 family members from 3 generations in 2 different locations:
“Having just been to a Natural Funerals wake of a friend prompted us to finally tackle the subject ourselves. One group was linked by Skype, while the rest of the extended family sat around the table with Lynda. It was great having a knowledgeable outsider sitting in with us whilst we went through the questionnaire. There are choices and opportunities that I just didn’t think of, or think possible, especially since my family is overseas. I can highly recommend Lynda and Living Legacies and the process of talking about death and funerals whilst everyone has the chance to hear peoples wishes and feelings before the stress situation happens. And hearing our friends talk about the wonderful opportunity it gave the whole family and circle of friends to say good bye and have a stress free grieving process was really inspiring.”
*Living Legacies uses the word “family” to describe any group of people bound together by choice or by any common thread.
For information about arranging a 2-3 hour workshop in your area, please click here.
Our workshops cater for the needs of groups of 3 to 40 people, can be designed and varied according to participants wishes, and held anywhere in New Zealand. Please let us know what your requirements are.
Workshops can cover:
- How and why to plan your own funeral
- How to arrange a funeral for someone you love
- The environmental implications of the funeral industry and the effect on those left behind
- How to save $1000s in funeral expenses
- The value of a meaningful celebration of life
- Natural burial parks
- The NZ Day of the Dead
- Grieving and how to support someone who is bereaved
- Natural burial parks
- Communicating your feelings about death with your loved ones
- Grief and family dynamics
- How and why to preserve your personal life legacy through photos, journalling, memoirs, autobiography, ethical wills etc….