As medicine keeps us all alive much, much longer, we face a longer old age. But those medical advances have also increased uncertainty: how do we cope with these changing prospects of end of life? In this gentle and highly individual workshop, director of Seven Songs for a Long Life, Amy Hardie, works with audiences, guiding them through a series of questions designed to express the individual values that have guided your life until now, and how those can provide a blue-print for how you want to spend your last years. This has become increasingly important: 80% of us say we want to die at home but almost none of us do. US doctors discovered the reasons are our unwillingness to think about and discuss end of life for ourselves and our loved ones. We need to raise our emotional readiness around end of life care to match the new medical readiness! It takes courage, but the rewards are enormous, and this easy workshop is the perfect introduction to the subject.
The workshop finishes with a group song, the last song in the film ‘Dream a Little Dream', facilitated by the film’s singing coach and ‘magical singing nurse’ Mandy: this allows the audience a chance to experience song from the inside!