How death can bring us back to life
I was totally devastated when I first heard my maternal grand mother had died. She was so passionate about making the most of life. She awoke a passion in me for amazing movies and delicious seafood.
I wept at her funeral and felt a deep love for her, but then very soon felt at peace with her death. There was actually very little grief. However, it was only a few years later when the grief struck me again that I came to understand death in a deeper way. I was at the movies and I saw the wonderful ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton. My grandmother would have absolutely loved it. I thought about her as the credits rolled and suddenly out of nowhere I dropped into a vast sea of grief. I wept uncontrollably as I realised she was never going to see that movie. The realisation hurt so much. There was nothing that could be done about it.
She was never going to see so many things. She never got to meet my daughter, her great-granddaughter. She was going to miss so many other great events, so many great stories, and so many delicious lobsters. It soon became clear that I wasn’t crying for her. I was crying for myself — for all the things I would never experience once I am dead.
Do you ever stop to think of all the amazing things you will never see? All the amazing movies you won’t enjoy or the incredible music you won’t ever hear. What about the family members that you won’t meet and get to love? The weddings you won’t be part of. The foods you won’t taste. The years of life you won’t have?
If you were submerged in a tank of water, with your head being held down so you couldn’t breathe it would not be funny for long. Very soon you would be clamouring for breath, trying to break free. But what if the person holding you down did not relent and you really had to fight to break free? What if for a moment there, you thought your time had come, it was all over? Then imagine finally fighting yourself free and you break the surface of the water and you take one huge joyous breath in. How much would you love that breath? How much would you appreciate your life?
That desperation for air is a very real thirst for life. Do you bring that enthusiasm to your daily life? Is your life a reflection of your true love of life? In the past I have been asked to offer emotional support for people who are dying. So far, I have never been asked to go to the deathbed of anyone who could say they had lived fully. Helping someone reconcile with the fact that they haven’t made the most of their life is very difficult. In that situation, the only thing that makes sense is to encourage them to use the remainder of their time to convince their loved ones to grab life with both hands and make the necessary changes required to enjoy their life to the full. Plan to be at peace on your deathbed by making the most of this precious life now.
Do we all need near death experiences to wake up to how precious life is? So many people are so terrified of death that they do not fully live now- keeping so safe and careful to ensure they survive. And yet amidst all of that caution and control so many people have forgotten the joy of what it is to be alive. Death is tucked away in our modern world. Like an embarrassing inconvenience it is shielded from view, so that we can get on with enjoying our lives. But what if we have that the wrong way round. The greatest beauty of death is the remembrance of the value of life. The deepest aspect of grief is actually a deep love and appreciation of life.
Funerals therefore, should be the most important rituals in our lives. It would then surely serve us better if death and funerals were more central in our lives. A great funeral should make us all remember that life is short. That life is precious. This is not bad or sad news. If we are breathing, we could be celebrating every breath. We should be sat in a funeral and asking ourselves, ‘Why the hell am I working at this job that I hate?’ ‘Why am I staying in this relationship that is not fulfilling me?’ Life is so short. The best honouring for the dead is for their death to be a reminder of what is wonderful about life.
Tombstones are chosen to commemorate our existence. We carve the details of our presence into stone so we may be remembered. Graveyards are filled with fallen slabs wiped clean by the simple truth of an ancient wind that cares not for names and dates.
Carve your tombstone today with your life! Burn yourself into the memory of human consciousness by your great, wild and wonderful acts of freedom, love and courage and make every single precious breath count.
Deathbed Questionnaire
Imagine yourself on your deathbed right now and cast your mind back across your life. What would stand out? What memories would surface as the golden moments? Take a moment to consider this …
Would it be holidays? If so, then that might suggest that your life is not fully a reflection of your greatest potential. This is not true in every case but these following questions
are always worth checking in with every year, or certainly at every funeral.
* Are you living fully?
* Do you love fully?
* Are you happy?
* If you were given one more hour to live, how would you feel about your life?
It is a truly wise person who plans their deathbed experience now. Plan to be at peace on your deathbed by making the most of this precious life today. Make a to-do list, prioritise it, and even set dates to do things by. Take it step by step and make the necessary changes to ensure that you are living and loving your life to the full. The FreeMind Project is all about raising awareness about what it is to truly be alive. Where happiness really comes from and what the true meaning of success is. If you want to know a beautiful definition of a life lived well go to www.freemindproject.org.
Tom Fortes Mayer, Author & Harley Street Hypnotherapist.
The FreeMind Experience- The Three Pillars of Absolute Happiness.
