“What if I don’t want to die? I know that can’t be resolved…”
Penny writes:
One question that comes up for me: What if I don’t want to die? And the other side of that is I believe I will anyway. Is that a tangle? I know it can’t be resolved, right?
Dear Penny:
Not wanting to die is a Tangle if it makes you suffer. If it preoccupies your thoughts, if it brings anxiety, if it prevents you from living your life in an enjoyable and fulfilling way, then there is something going on there that could shift.
Sure, everyone will die. But how we feel about that fact varies widely from person to person and from time to time. And if I know one thing for sure, it’s that feelings can change.
I thought I would always hate weight training and working out. But after a serious injury, my body whispered to me that it wanted to get strong — and now weight-training is one of the high points of my week. Our feelings and attitudes can change, especially if we turn toward them with open, interested curiosity.
So there is something in you not wanting to die, and anxious about it. And there is another part of you saying, “But you will anyway,” as if it is trying to get the emotions to shut up and go away.
What I’d suggest is that you bring awareness into your body, feel your groundedness, and then invite both those parts into awareness. You might say Hello to each one. The key here is that you are not either one of those parts. You are curious and interested in each of them.
After a while you might ask what the part that is anxious about dying is most worried about. You might be surprised what you learn!
A few years ago I tried an experiment. I asked a group how many of them didn’t want to die. Everyone raised their hands. Then I invited them to each ask inside, what it was about dying that they didn’t want. Amazingly, for every person it was a different answer. When you get to what it really doesn’t want, and hear it, there will be a relief. Nothing is different…but everything has changed.
