everything you love you will lose...
Last year I trained in a group coaching methodology and part of our homework for one week was to go through a meditation called the gates of grief. This line was the first gate to mull over and breathe into… everything you love you will lose.
On this day, those words cut through all the chatter in my mind and brought me into focus & feeling around how life actually works. Life has a beginning and it will have an end for everyone and everything on this planet and in my life.
I have spent the better part of the last 17 years looking at death from nearly every angle and perspective.
I have read books written by intellectuals on the topic, others by NDE survivors (near death experiences), some of the spiritual teachers I follow, doctors, brain surgeons and Auschwitz survivors. Not to mention the heavy weights of grief in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Athol Gawande, Zach Bush and David Kessler to name a few.
The reason I have been so enamored with the topic of death, why I run death cafes, coach those in cancer treatment and more recently trained as a death doula (specialist carers who support the dying).
It’s quite simple really… death defines and ascribes value to life.
Without it, I notice I become petty, focus on the trivial and often get lulled into numbing routines.
One of the most beautiful gifts I have ever experienced in life is that of facing death experientially, as a cancer patient.
My friend and one of the most colorful, warm hearted and nutty mates, Conn Bertish, calls those who have survived cancer “wizards” and those who haven’t “muggles”.
There is no way this Harry Potter metaphor will make sense unless you have been face to face with your own mortality, and that's most certainly not a gift reserved for those diagnosed with cancer. I have witnessed friends, family and clients reach wizardry levels through the loss of a marriage, the loss of a job, a partner, a pet and even a seemingly insignificant, a twisted ankle.
A muggle does not see the magic behind life, the darkness or the majesty. But the wizard having taken the red pill, has been into the darkness and only because of this now sees light in places others don't. (Zach Bush MD does the most eloquent description HERE)
The gift of facing one's own death is quite subtle but is unquestionably, life altering.
The death of a family member has forged our family together more than once, creating holidays together which would unlikely have happened without the loss of one of us.
I started my first business from my hospital bed, recovering from my last surgery,... and what an amazing journey that was ;-)
I ran my first comrades marathon which I had dreamed of doing for decades but without “death” being a guiding nudge, I wouldn't have fully found “why the &*^% not?” as a guiding force in my life.
I probably also wouldn't have invested as deeply into my relationships as I have because I would have been too “busy” earning a living.
And this one, this subtle change on prioritizing a chat over a task has changed the entire game of life for me.
Wherever I look into my life, I find the shadow of death whispering wisdom into my ear, nudging me along and standing there looking at me with a wry smile when I am contemplating something “urgent” over something important…
It says… “what you got to lose Bretto?”
“Really what have you got to lose that you won't lose completely at some future point when you don't have enough life in your bones to give it a proper crack?”
Thanks to death I am more comfortable moving in and with fear as a guide at my side.
Life can be so ironic!
Who would have thought befriending that very thing we fear holds the secret to living. Weird planet this ;-)
