It’s not always easy to remember that this gift of life is precious and full of possibility. The finite nature of life can serve to wake us up before our time’s up so we connect with who and what matters most .
Did you know that we are the only animals who actually know we’re going to die? It’s the one thing in life we’re most certain of, yet most people would do anything to avoid talking or even thinking about it. For most of us, it takes death itself—whether recent or impending— to prompt us to bravely consider the reality of our mortality.
People in their dying days often speak of experiencing enormous growth and transformation, a time of truth seeking and risk taking. Many have observed and noted that in the face of death, people tend to focus on what gives (or has given) their life meaning. Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar around a health risk or the death of someone you knew.
If you’ve experienced the death of someone close to you, alongside your sorrow or perhaps even your relief, you may have felt a compulsion to renew or change something in your life. A diagnosis of serious illness may have suddenly brushed you with the reality of your mortality. Either of these experiences can open you up in ways you never expected.
There can be a capacity to do and think about things that you never felt comfortable doing or thinking before. While you may be experiencing grief and loss, you may also be yearning to dig deeply into your own reflections on the meaning of life (and death), who you are and what you stand for, and how you wish to be remembered.
But you don’t need to wait until death or a life-threatening, or life-limiting illness to experience these benefits.
You can start by reflecting on these foundational questions:
- When in your life have you felt most like yourself?
- With whom do you need to right a relationship and what would be required of you to do this?
- If the people you love were to remember three things about you, what would you want them to remember?
- When you die, how will your absence affect the people, places and things in your world?
- If you had a limited time to live, what would you want to do, and with whom would you spend your time?
- How will your legacy help make the world a better place?
Reflecting on who and what matter most can help you get clear about the quality and status of your important relationships and the significance of important experiences in your life. These personal-discovery questions also help you explore what kind of legacy you’ll leave, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
This is a great set of questions to do in pairs. So if that works for you, consider bringing these questions to a friend, partner, or family member. Take turns answering while the other just listens silently.
In answering these questions, we hope you’ll see your some-day, one-day, inevitable death as a tool to guide you to live and love fully now so that you can wake up before your time’s up.
Exploring the reality of your mortality is an expedition into all that matters in the end, and therefore all that matters now.
Reena Lazar and Michelle Pante are the co-founders of Willow End-of-Life Planning and Education. They facilitate green and holistic approaches to death-care in our families, communities and in our culture at large and are authors of 7 Tools for Making Sense of Life & Death: a workbook to explore the reality of your mortality.
For more information on Willow, find out about upcoming events, and to download free tools visit WillowEoL.com
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