Most of us do everything we can do to avoid thinking, or talking about death, dying and grief.

However, Death is a "100%-guaranteed" life event. 
How many other "100%-guaranteed" life events are there?

What would happen if we chose to avoid events that made us nervous in life?
     Would we grow emotionally, spiritually or physically?
     Would we be depriving our selves of the experiences of exploring unchartered territories?
     Would we be cultivating more fear and terror about an event that we purposely pushed to the side?

What are the possibilities of growing emotionally and spiritually,
     IF we took the opportunity to discover and explore End of Life matters?
     IF we took the leap of faith, pushed aside the anxiety, and explored, empowered and enriched your life and      
     death journey?  

**"In the article "Death Is the Roommate of Life", talks about how death is always around us, it's always present.

The presence of Death can have an editing ability in that death can guide much of what we do, and don't do in life.  
Death guides us to what's important in life, and how and with whom, we want to spend our time.

Has death brought any insights to you? 

If one talks about death, does it invite "it" into your life?

When I was young, I was always very fascinated by death.  
However, I intuitively knew that I shouldn't talk about it.  
How did I know this?  I have no idea, as no one ever said "Dee Dee, DO NOT talk about death".  
I just knew that death was not a good topic to talk about at the dinner table....or any where else.

Even though I didn't talk about death with others, I certainly thought about it a lot.
I remember chastising myself for being morbid - or surely insane!
Why would a "normal child" think about death?  

When death is present, most folks talk quietly, nod with compassion, give sweet and sad hugs.....and then
we  disappear back in to the safety of normal life.
One certainly does not bring death willingly into ones world.  Only crazy people do that, right?

It wasn't until dozens of years later that I came to the realization that death was a part of life!  Profound.
However, society pretends that death is not hanging around.  

Even if death is not an immediate part of ones life, it is all around us - movies, news, music, novels, tv etc.  
In fact, we as a society have a very strange, and detached view of death.
The view is that death is "out there somewhere".  We do not encourage it to come to our home.

What would happen if we chose to invite the conversation about death in?

​** The attached article is about John O'Donohue, whom is an Irish priest, philosopher and poet.
In this article he says...."A deathbed is the loveliest place to be if you're helping someone to die who has really lived" .  Hence, live life well to die well.
More importantly, John O'Donohue believes that we can all transform our fear of death, and this transformation will enable us to fear little else.

Death, dying and grief can be very uncomfortable subjects to speak about.    
If we chose to not have these conversations, we deny ourselves the ability to explore a major part of life, which is called death .

Ask yourself -
     Is death avoidable?
     By denying death, are you emotionally prepared for death?
     If you avoid talking about death, will this help or hurt you emotionally when you meet death?
     If you chose not to explore death, how will this affect how you when someone close to you dies?

Death awareness is not a morbid subject to me.  It is the exact opposite.  It is about living life now.
Death awareness is a journey for me.  When I am death aware, I am life aware.  
This, to me, is what "Life exploring Death" is all about.  
Learning to acknowledge, and appreciate ,that life and death are just opposite sides of the same coin.

Incorporate The 3-E's and explore, empower and enrich your life and death journey.
   

**The attached article shares that the Dalai Lama believes that if you are not "aware of death, you will fail to take advantage of this special human life you have already attained".    

"Life Exploring Death" blog hopes to create an online platform, where one is free to use "The 3-E's" - Explore, Empower and Enrich, to bridge the gap between living and End of Life.

Some people ask why in the world would one discuss death?  The answer is fairly simple in that death is the universal truth for every one of us, yet our society does not talk about it.  

When we deny or ignore that death will happen to each of us:
     We are ill-prepared 
      We have fear or anxiety

We cannot change what we do not acknowledge.  Therefore, most of us will continue to have fear or anxiety about death.   However, you have the power to take back the control and to learn and understand death, dying and grief.

You have the choice.....are you going to start Life Exploring Death?
​
Happy Exploring!