Am I ready or willing to die?

It’s really difficult to not think about dying when you are told you have cancer. On a logical level, I know that much of this is because cancer has such a huge social awareness; as a result of so much media coverage. Cancer is common these days, and we all know people who have died from it. We also know that many people die in car accidents. Somehow, it is lodged within the psyche that having cancer kills us, and yet, we believe that it is unlikely that we will die in a car accident. There are countless things which can kill us but none of them taunt us the way that cancer does.

I believe that the best way to get what you want in life is to focus on the ideal outcome. Any kind of goal setting requires focused attention, imagination, determination, tenacity and a clear mental picture of having or attaining what you want. Athletes do not dwell on losing, entrepreneurs don’t sit and wait for others to bring them opportunities, artists do not paint in the dark and winners do not visualize failing. If you want something in life you must, ‘keep your eye on the ball’. In this case, it is right down to, “If you want life – keep your focus on living.” Fearing death is much the same as planning to die – It’s voodoo!

The thought of dying is quite terrifying when you find yourself in a real possibility of doing so. Most of us have had fleeting thoughts about our own death, but we manage to convince ourselves that it will be at a much later date, and we will probably die peacefully in our sleep - of old age. We all secretly hope that we will be completely oblivious to our own death. Having cancer snaps us into a realization that death might be very soon and it might also be a painful, degrading and torturous process. It’s overwhelming; unfair, too soon, surreal and tragic. We are afraid, angry, sad, guilty, resentful, confused and devastated. At first we don’t believe it, and yet we anticipate it and even prepare for it. We tell ourselves it can’t possibly be true, and yet we imagine that it is happening.

My initial reaction was that I would not allow myself to think about anything other than the lump. I would have it removed and that would be that. I didn’t want to buy into the idea of a disease, so I imagined it as nothing more than having a cyst removed. Maintaining that idea was harder than I expected, especially as I had so many appointments with doctors, so many procedures, so much information, other people to consider, as well as practical considerations. The realization that, “This is Life Threatening,” slapped me into alertness. I was forced to face the possibility that this could be the end of the game for me.

Death was no longer an obscure or hypothetical concept. Its long finger pointed at me and beckoned me to follow. It was no longer a place behind a veil, but a real face, with a real agenda, and a very personal and intimate relationship with me. It is a date with destiny, not necessarily set in concrete – pencilled in perhaps, but my name is on the list and, cancer or not, I have had to do some thinking about my life and death.

Consciously, I want to live. I love my life and the people in it. I live a very fortunate life and have much to be grateful for.

On deeper reflection, I wondered how much I desired a long life and what was my purpose. Did I have any burning passion or desire for a long life? Did I have any long term goals? I was a bit disappointed to find that I didn’t really; I realized that I was in a place of comfort and just happily cruising along and doing my best to stay here.

I had always thought that my life was just going to get better and better. I expected and actively pursued success, wealth, happiness, relationships, travel and lots of fun. I looked forward to meeting my soul mate and probably marrying him and having children. I wanted to own my own business and my own home. I expected to have grandchildren and a retirement home by the sea. I wanted to teach, inspire and heal – I wanted to write a book. I expected to either live forever or to have a choice to slip away effortlessly in my own time. I realized that I still had desires but I was sad to see that I no longer had any great passion for anything other than comfort and ease of existence. Quite simply, I am happy where I am, with who I am and how I am. But, this worries me now, because I see that this contentment might also be seen as indifference. Am I excited by life or just biding my time here? It seems to me that if I am going to fight death, then I had better have a damn good reason to live!

Some people are afraid of death; I’m not, and that also worries me a bit. How fiercely will I fight something if it does not frighten me? There are many people who think that death is the end of their existence, whilst others believe that they will be judged and allocated a place in heaven or hell. Of course, there are also many other beliefs, but I had to think hard about my own expectations. I needed to find out if I had any unconscious desire to die. I needed to test how great my will to live was. It’s an easy question to answer when you don’t think about it, but it does become blurred when you dig a little deeper. I am not talking about the physical discomfort of dying but the actual place or concept of death.

Having many years of meditation experience has probably influenced my awareness of myself in a way that others might not understand. I feel that I am comfortable in my physicality, but I am equally as at home in an energetic awareness. I function very well within the language of intellect and emotion but just as well within the language of intuition and/or spiritual knowing. Meditation takes you away from a physical sense of the self and holds you suspended in an observational way. It’s often described as an altered state of consciousness but that’s hard for someone to imagine, if they have not experienced it. It’s hard for anyone to think of the body as anything other than solid structure even though science teaches us that we are a mass of vibrating cells. We are energy living within a sea of energy. In meditation we lose the sense of denseness and experience the self as energetic. That awareness merges into all energy; the way a drop merges into an ocean.

Many animals can hear sounds which humans can not. The human ear cannot pick up the frequency of a dog whistle. The dog knows that the sound exists and the human accepts it to be so (because he sees the dog respond to it) even though he can’t hear it himself. It’s the same with what we refer to as the sixth sense. Some people can interpret information or knowingness from a greater range of frequencies. It’s not magic or talent, it is just a matter of adjusting perception or in a way listening to the silence within.

To me that is how I perceive death. Changing the vibration or frequency and dispersing the density of cells. We can’t really see or measure sound frequencies but we do know that that are all around us and probably reach into infinity. I believe that on an energetic level we also exist into eternity, even though our conscious awareness and our educations restrict us by only relating to the dense, physical part of ourselves. We are also trained to communicate with ourselves through intellect and emotion. Our fear of death is intellectual programming but our true belief or spiritual understanding of death could and probably is very different. Personally, I believe that the soul longs to go home.

If it was possible to exhale and simply float away, knowing we would be absorbed into a peaceful, blissful place, wouldn’t most of us leave right now? Or even if we could die without physical or emotional pain, wouldn’t we all consider closing down?

Some people make a decision to push through the fear and pain barrier and initiate their own death. Society and religion frowns upon suicide and family and friends are devastated by it. It’s really a matter of application and degree, if we are really honest about it. I would suggest that most of us are suiciding, by degree, a great deal of the time. We all have ways of retreating, closing down or disappearing. We all “step out of our bodies” very often. We all medicate our lives. We can see it in drugs, alcohol, reckless behaviour, smoking, poor diet, rage, depression, sex, sleep and countless other escape devises and mechanisms. Most of us have mastered the art of being away on an emotional or mental level. Years speed by and we wonder where we or our lives have been. ‘Living in our happy place!’ We are vacant or absent and our lives are running on auto pilot. Most of us are living outside of ourselves most of the time. We check in long enough to keep the motor running and snap back if we are under threat or for the occasional good time. Most of us treat our bodies like a slave or an encumbrance a lot of the time. If we could all get very realistic and honest with ourselves, we would find that we treat ourselves with disrespect, indifference and sometimes self-loathing. (Are we unconsciously sending out a plea to be released?)

We talk about fighting cancer and focus on treatments. I believe that there is no fight to win if we don’t have reasons to live. Treatments are standard, but each one of us must explore our deeper desires at a personal level. We need to be clear that we are willing to fight, and we need to have a clear understanding of what it is that we are fighting for. Cancer cells can be cut out, but sadness, despair, loneliness or hopelessness can not. No matter how we treat the disease we must be willing to live! I believe that the most important thing to do to is to get back inside our bodies and ground ourselves. Be present, live as fully as you can, and start behaving like you do in fact exist.

Cancer or any disease or illness comes as a giant wake up call.Cancer is just a word - not a sentence; at least not a death sentence. It is a simple sentence:
“Do you want to live or do you really want to die?”

Copyright Sonya Green 2008 www.reinventingmyself.com
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