You’re About to Die, Here’s How to Deal With It
Aside from birth, the only thing guaranteed to happen to every person on the planet is death. No exceptions, no workarounds. Aside from your own death, chances are good that you will be affected by the death of loved ones, and you will most likely have to plan a couple of funerals before your own.
People who think and talk a lot about death are often called “sickly” or “obsessed with death.” Guilty of the indictment, I believe. But that’s exactly what I recommend doing. Find out everything you can, talk about your mortality and funeral wishes, talk to friends and family about their dreams. Most people won’t want this – one of the downsides of being a conscious person is knowing that someday you’re going to die, and it’s okay to scare the hell out of you. Denial of death is the norm in modern Western culture to the point that we try to extend life beyond common sense and hire people to dress and decorate the corpses of our loved ones in order to create a supposedly comforting memory picture.
Here, I’ll present several ways to think and talk about mortality that will hopefully make you relax a bit, deal with your anxiety, and maybe let go.
How and where to start talking about death
Fortunately, as the last five years or so ushered in an exciting era of positivity towards death, there are more and more opportunities to think about and plan for your death. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a selection of some of the organizations or activities you could participate in that can help reduce anxiety about death.
- YG2D (You’re about to die) in San Francisco is “an open space where people can share their thoughts and feelings about death.” This usually takes the form of an open mic evening, described as “creatively engaging people in the conversation about death and dying, helping to inspire and empower them from the context of unabashedly confronting loss and mortality.”
- Death Cafe was opened in 2011 in London, but now exists all over the world . These are casual gatherings, described as simply gatherings to have tea, eat pastries, and talk about death with no plans.
- Death Salon is a group of funeral leaders, artists, intellectuals, authors and “independent thinkers who seek to subvert the denial of death by opening conversations with the public about death and its anthropological, historical and artistic contributions to culture.” They held events in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other cities. The next scheduled meetings will take place in Seattle and Boston.
- The Death Talk Project , based in Portland, Oregon, aims to “stimulate helpful, honest conversation about how we die, how we grieve, and how we care and remember our dead.” They also run workshops, death cafes, movie nights, and other events to bring people together to learn how they feel about death and dying.
- Mortalls (“what to talk about before the time is up”) is a “deadly positive conversation.” Starting up a conversation about death and dying is difficult and embarrassing, perhaps even more so when done in a family setting. But now you have no excuse – and it might even be fun.
You should be able to find some kind of community or activity, at least in the big cities. If you can’t find someone to participate, consider creating your own!
Contemplation of corruption relieves you of the fear of your own death.
For those who are spiritually inclined, there is a Buddhist meditation practice specially designed to help overcome the fear of death and realize that one day your physical body will cease to exist. With Contemplation of the Graveyard, you meditate on the various stages of decomposition through which a corpse passes, using illustrations, photographs, or even looking at real corpses and skeletons. One Theravada Buddhist source explains this as follows:
“After examining the corpse, we apply this consideration to our own body. It breaks or destroys that smug thought, “I will live forever.” This body will last forever. ” When this happens, irritation or anxiety arises. Then a feeling of detachment arises – the realization that the body is based on causes and conditions, and it will disappear when these causes and conditions are no longer there. The end result of this meditation is a feeling of lightness or happiness; he is not forever connected with this body. “
In 2005, as Thailand was recovering from a major tsunami in which Buddhist monks had to cremate thousands of corpses, the press mentioned the fact that they were somewhat psychologically prepared by studying photographs of decomposing corpses during their meditation. One monk explained:
“It is very common for us to have photographs [corpse meditation] with us to use, or just have in our hut, or have with us when you eat, or just watch and reflect.”
On a slightly lighter and more approachable note, alternative undertaker and New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Doughty (see above) offers similar advice for thinking about your own body. This will help you to really consider all the options and decide what suits your own beliefs, spirituality, and even phobias.
The order of putting things in order in the documents comforts everyone
However, this is all pretty dizzying, and sometimes the difficulty in the face of death has more to do with the uncertainty that you are not ready to make important decisions regarding the end of life or your condition. But when will you be more ready? When will you get older and sicker? When you have only a few weeks of your life left – is it when you want to spend your time on paperwork and communicating with lawyers?
Clear conversations and specific directions can ease the minds of all participants and reduce the anxiety associated with thoughts of death. It is also a great kindness to those left behind. Best of all, there are documents you can file to help loved ones make the decisions you need about your health care, your body condition, the type of funeral you want, and so on.
Once you decide who will handle your business, when you can no longer, can they find what they need? Who will handle your stuff? You don’t have to worry about it if you have children, but if you outlive them, then who else? What if you don’t have children or other obvious immediate family members?
Downsize, donate and clean up the clutter so no one else has to
While we are talking about your belongings, understand that you probably have too many of them. After death, everything becomes someone else’s problem. As Robert Ringham wrote:
“Our things are unlikely to be used or appreciated by descendants. They will find it a nuisance and want to get rid of it as quickly as possible, because they already have too many things without inheriting them. Most likely, they will treat some of them with love and say “silly old grandma” before selling them in one big lot to the customs clearance company or throwing them in the bin. “
It can be very gratifying not only to get rid of the mess once and for all , but to do it consciously to ease the burden on others after you die.
Aside from giving away lots of trash, consider organ and tissue donation and consider becoming an organ donor . Knowing that no matter how, when, or where you die, you will be helping other people live better is a great comfort.
Don’t delay achieving goals and resolving conflicts
People who are actively dying from an incurable disease are often advised to make peace with people and settle conflicts, tell people that you love them, explore their religious beliefs, and take stock of their lives and achievements. But there is no reason to wait until you are on the verge of death to do these things.
Some people, when their doctors give them a limited amount of time to live, may use the remaining time to travel or mark classes, but again, there is no reason to wait – do it now. Living with a constant and conscious awareness of limited time helps you enjoy and value health and life while you have it. Try to mark these to-do items early.
Let the dying accept and discuss their situation
Of course, some people with mortal anxiety may be nearing the end and have yet to speak to any of these important conversations. Friends and relatives of actively dying people often scold them for making room for “negativity” or for giving up hope, but there is no reason why you cannot continue to hope while remaining realistic and practical. Not everyone needs to be angry about the fading of the light, and accepting the inevitable doesn’t mean giving up.
Andrew Kneier, a clinical psychologist who works with cancer patients, shares that often dying people want to talk about what is happening to them, but their friends and family do not give them the opportunity to do so, encouraging them to remain positive. and hope and “struggle”. In a study he conducted at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, which he discusses in his book Finding Your Way Through Cancer, he was able to identify six major factors that his patients consistently cite when they came to terms with their imminent death:
- Gratitude for life and positive experiences
- Pride in your achievements
- Faith or spirituality
- Making changes to be more calm when death comes
- Their legacy or positive contributions to the lives of others
- To love and to be loved
He emphasizes that these were topics that were privately dealt with by his patients who felt unable or unwilling to discuss these topics with their families and loved ones.
This makes me terribly sad, and it just confirms that accepting, hugging and, yes, perhaps even obsession with death is an important and valuable part of life.
Read about death. Learn about death. Think about death. Make decisions about your own death. Ask your friends and loved ones about their deaths. And if possible, do your best to make sure you die a good death.