Death and rebirth are no strangers to me. I have hosted death in my own home, uninvited but eventually welcomed. I sat across from him, stared into his deep and lifeless eyes, and faced the burden in my mind and my soul of the truth that is to come to us all eventually. The truth is that we all die many times within ourselves while our body still breathes and our heart still beats. We die, again and again, reduced to ash within our hollow bodies and transformed through a gentle process of healing, where we are eventually born into a new version of ourselves. Alive and true. It happens more for some and less for others. Sometimes it leaves us more powerful and true than before, sometimes it leaves us exhausted and weak, in need of more deaths until we decide to pick ourselves up again. We wake up each day and sometimes we know that it's coming and sometimes we don't. We cannot control when and how we die within, but we can control how we are reborn. Sometimes being reborn is the only option and sometimes it is harder than life itself to get back up and carry on. Lucky for you, I sat down with death and he told me all his secrets.
We wake up one day, usually unaware of the soul death that is coming our way. The day seems oddly normal, perhaps even joyous and bright! We grab a breakfast sandwich from the cafe and we label it a treat because we got to abandon our regular oatmeal or smoothie and fill up on something delicious and not made by us. The sky is already bright even though it is only 8 AM. People are hustling around you, moving from place to place as they always do. Nothing gives you the slightest idea of what lies ahead until the energy drops and things shift immediately. The news breaks and you know that you have no choice but to walk away and leave a world behind entirely. You may teeter for a bit, in shock and attempting to grasp at anything coming your way for stability, but eventually, it sinks in that the woman you woke up as earlier that morning, the woman who ate her sandwich and stared at the commuters thinking nothing but, "I hope they feel loved", is now dead and a new you must take her place. There is no going back, it is instantaneous. She is gone and the only way from here is forward.
There will be a period of shock. For some, it could last hours and for others, days. Already your mind and body begin to prepare for the birth of a new you from the ashes that you are currently sweeping and tending to. Your stomach purges, your eyes clear your soul of all the heaviness that has been cooped up for years and years. Your adrenaline pumps and your blood courses through your body, hot and thick. You begin to form a plan and percolate the steps that must be taken. There is a long road ahead of you, but somehow you know that this brush with death will sink all the way through eventually, just as it has time and time again, and you will peak out from the soil, on your way to a much bigger and brighter bloom. For now, however, you are saturated in pain and grief. Buried under a heavy coat of land. The blooming feels an eternity away and the pain can begin to set in as the shock wears off. Unbearable. Unconscionable. The darkness and depth without the sun is devastating.
The quiet of your home plants nightmares in your mind that won't cease. The images come floating by, without warning and unwelcome. Life becomes about filling your time and you can struggle to balance feeling the pain with surviving and caring for yourself. Numbing to a certain degree is helpful, especially if you are struggling to get out of bed each morning. But you must face the pain and carving out the space to feel safe enough to feel is what will bring you to your healing journey as soon as possible! So, reluctantly you oscillate between feeling total despair, sinking into your heavy, uncomfortable, and painful emotions, and carrying on. You go to work and suddenly have more energy to put into each task and movement. You somehow have the motivation to work harder than ever before. You cry when it comes, you feel angry when the heat surges, and you smile at each and every minuscule thing that presents itself because smiles are a precious resource at this time. They carry you in the moments that you can't catch your breath. They ground you in the absurdity of it all.
You continue to care for yourself the best that you can. You clean up around your space, you shower and moisturize, and you prepare food that nourishes your body. You have no choice in this matter, you are your only hope at surviving, and caring for yourself is the least you can do at a time when you are so tender and vulnerable to the world around you. The moments come and go, the despair is countered more frequently by friendly faces and warm embraces. Before you know it, you instinctually find yourself drawn to people and places that bring you such warm and uplifting love. You surround yourself with softness and comfort, you give yourself more breaks than ever before, and you tend to your wounds and bruises like an angel sent from above with only that as their task. You surprise yourself more with each breath, at the sheer strength and capacity to process, not to mention the willingness and discipline it takes to decide to show up for yourself and take care, rather than give up and bury yourself under a pile of can't and won't.
You could have given up on yourself like the world seemingly had. You could have decided not to move forward. But you knew that there were better things ahead. After all, if this death released you from the mirage that was never truly the dream you had in your heart, that means it is still out there somewhere. Probably sipping tea in a small cafe pondering the same dreams. You begin to realize that what felt like death and a final ending of something that belonged to you, was actually you holding onto the wrong thing. Usually disguised for learning purposes, you were actually saved from taking a wrong turn by fate with only moments to spare. How lucky are you?
This thing that you thought you lost, this dream that had seemed to perish before you, was lost so that you could find yourself once more. Because darling, you were lost before you died. Before you lost a piece of your heart, before you entered the world of grief and healing, you were already lost and needing a new start. You needed to die and be reborn long before life stepped in and handed you the tools. And while the loss remains as is and deserves just as much honor as your own sacred journey, it is now time to be reborn. You can choose to ball up on the floor and cry until your eyes run dry, but you will always be faced with the choice to stand up and be taller than before. Don't you want that for yourself?
Now you are beginning to understand the importance of such a heavy and volatile time. You might be able to feel the energy rising within you, like a kettle heating above a freshly sparked flame. It is time to gestate and heal, to be reborn into this world a little bit wiser, a little bit stronger, and a whole lot more closer to your true and authentic self. It will be messy. It will be scary. It will be harder than quite possibly anything you have ever experienced until this point, but you will move through the dark and heavy soil towards the light and you will rise tall and proud once more, reaping the harvest of the seeds of healing. And that dream that you thought had died too? The loss that hit you like the wall of a storm never intended to kill your dreams. It was placed in your path to kill the part of you that was holding you back from your own dreams. It was set loose on your life, wreaking havoc in the name of destiny and the highest good for all, just for you. Just for the dream you hold so dearly.
When tragedy hits, when betrayal or loss strikes, you will fall down, crumble into pieces, and die. But that is the point and purpose in it all, for when death comes along and dines with you, he intends to shake your world up. He intends to take the life that you thought was meant for you and redirect you to the life that illustrates your deepest dreams using golden and pink hues. Death intends to keep you from settling for anything less than magical and what you truly deserve. So remember that when death comes knocking and you let him in, be sure to ask him all the questions you want to be answered. Tell him of your deepest and truest dreams. Watch as the colors around you become saturated with warmth and the feelings in your gut grow stronger and more true. Death never shows up empty-handed and the night is long and winding, but the morning that follows is filled with a brighter and deeper sense of being in all ways you could ever imagine!
When death comes knocking, please let him in. Let him tell you of the life that is planned that you would have unknowingly passed upon if you had not answered the door. Let death teach you of fate and truth, let him hold you as you cry, crippled by pain and grief. Let him sing to you as you find love and peace once more. But most importantly, let death come back again. Even if you know it brings pain, even if you know it is such a long and tiresome journey back to life again, let him come and bring you a new world for his novelty will bring you to people and places you never felt worthy enough to ask for. Once you arrive here you will look back on your death with reverence and majesty; a life well lived and a whole life yet to come. All because you let death in that fateful day. All because you watched yourself die once more, knowing full well it was time. All because you knew it was the only way. Take your steps forward and never look back. The life that died has been buried and exists no more. You are safe, you are free, you are on your way to bigger and better things. Let death show you the way, he has all the good trails mapped out, and most importantly, he knows how high the mountain truly goes. What you thought was your view spot and turn around point was actually another leap up.
Clink your glass with his and know that by killing you, however painful and horrible it was, death was the only way to save your life.
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