On Death and Dying

Elise Esther Hearst, in her novel exposing the day-to-day reality of people experiencing inter-generational trauma, makes the unequivocal statement in the title of her book, One day we’re all going to die.   This is an undeniable aspect of the human condition.  Buddhists remind us of the impermanence of everything and the need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable reality of our dying and death.  They strongly urge us to savour the preciousness of life and nature and to meditate on death.

The recent Death and Wisdom Summit offered free recently is now available on a paid, upgrade basis.  During the Summit, a number of presenters addressed the issue of preparing for dying and death.  They shared the lessons from their own research and work in the hospice arena and in providing grief counselling.  One of the keynote speakers Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations: Discover What Death Can Teach Us About Living Life Fully, spoke of the similarities between dying and meditation.

Similarities between the dying process and meditation

In an interview with Steve Heilig, Frank shared his lessons about living from accompanying over 1,000 people in the dying process. In the Death and Wisdom Summit, he focused on sharing his personal insights into the similarities between the dying process and meditation or other spiritual practices such as retreats.  Frank, himself, had been a meditation practitioner over many years.

Frank identified the following aspects as similarities between the dying process and meditation:

  1. Withdrawal from daily life – there is a peeling back of identity and a re-focus on the present moment and experience.  Roles and ego identity are stripped away – the face we present to the world is no longer needed or relevant.  In dying, as with meditation, distractions are reduced, habituated responses removed and other parts of our life are left behind, including our wide circle of friends.  We are either left alone or engage, sometimes silently, with an intimate few.
  2. Breaking down of conventional boundaries – there is a move away from duality towards wholeness.  Elements previously experienced as separate are gradually integrated – such as mind and body, I and  others.  On a different level, the barrier between persona (projected or perceived ideal image) and the shadow (the unconscious, emotional blind spot) is broken down.  So someone who is normally gentle and soft-spoken can suddenly appear as aggressive and loud (or vice versa).  The shadow can emerge from behind the mask as the unconscious seeps into conscious life.
  3. Increasing silence and appreciation of being silent – there is new-found comfort with, and valuing of, silence.  People can experience a coma-like state before dying and, as a result, savour the silence.  Frank noted, for example, that one person who emerged from a brief coma before dying stated, “If I had known that quiet was so beautiful, I would have spent a lot more time in silence”.  There is a gradual process of “turning down the noise” – both the external interactions and the internal dialogue.  There is an emergent clarity about our inner landscape.
  4. The realisation of ordinariness – the progressive acceptance that we are all subject to the human condition, there is awareness that there is a naturally occurring “unfolding” of causes and conditions.  This leads to humility and a sense that we are “no better or worse than anyone else” – we are all conditioned by our humanity and its fragility, its foibles and its impermanence.  It can lead to the breaking down of “constructed protection” that results in “self-limiting identity”, thus allowing a fuller, more humane identity to emerge.
  5. Emergence of a state of “not knowing” – a recognition that our fixed ideas about ourself, other people and the world around us are limited and limiting.  Not knowing frees us to embrace the unknown and the uncertainty of death.  Frank notes that “we all carry stories about our death” and these not only “shape the way we die” but also can shape how we live and love.  Self-stories can blind us and their progressive release in meditation and dying can create openness to emergent possibilities.
  6. Surrender – flows from “not knowing” and often follows a state of exhaustion.  Frank describes it as a form of expansion, moving beyond our limiting self-stories to a “kind of spaciousness”.  It is beyond struggling, beyond fighting with ourselves and our death and beyond acceptance. 

Frank was adamant that “surrender” was not the same as “acceptance” and was “infinitely deeper than acceptance”.  He explained that having been mentored by Elisabeth Kubler Ross he was convinced that many people, including those working with the dying, misunderstood what she was talking about in her book, On Death and Dying, when she identified the “five states of dying” – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  He maintained, that contrary to popular belief, Elisabeth never saw the stages as linear or sequential, but sought to identify some of the defence mechanisms employed by people who were dying.   Frank also explained that later in her life, Elisabeth mentioned to him that she had come to realise that the “five stages” did not represent the full picture of the dying process.  Part of Frank’s unique contribution to our understanding of the dying process is his elaboration of the stage of “surrender”.

According to Frank, “acceptance” is a conscious act of “letting go”  – removing attachment to, or constraint by, objects, people or false ideas.  He suggests that, in contrast, surrender is an “effortless, easeful, non-doing” state that enables realisation of our basic nature without internal or external interference.  He likens it to the experience of “time standing still” that some people experience in a car accident situation.  In grappling to find the words to describe “surrender” fully, Frank resorted to telling the story of his near-death experience in a whirlpool while rafting in the Grand Canyon and how surrender followed exhaustion.  He provides further elucidation of this elusive concept in his podcast, Surrendering to Death.

Frank maintained that we could develop qualities that enable us to be more ready to achieve the state of “surrender’ when dying.  He suggests, for example, that a sense of wonder and awe, religious conviction, love or confidence in our acquired wisdom (achieved through mindfulness), can “engender surrender”.   He further likens “surrender” to an initiation process involving prioritising the essential over the dispensable.  Frank stated that our natural reaction is to resist and fight death through fear, but that “the essential is so magnetising, the surrender so compelling, that fear does not stop us”.

Reflection

Frank provides a very strong exhortation.  He maintains that it is a “ridiculous gamble’ to assume that when dying “we will have the physical strength, emotional stability, the mental clarity to do the work of a lifetime”.  He argues that NOW is the time for personal transformation – to grow in mindfulness through meditation, silence, developing wonder and awe, cultivating love and compassionate action and strengthening belief. 

In the process we can let go of limiting self-stories, misconceptions about death and dying, attachment to externalities, and fear of losing control.  We can develop a “not knowing” state, realise the reality of our human condition and our own ordinariness and increase our sense of connectedness to nature and others.

Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach provide a Power of Awareness Course online with 21 hours of teaching. The Course helps you to develop a daily practice of mindfulness mediation and provides ways for you to sustain this practice. It enables you to live life more fully, break free of self-limiting thoughts, increase your sense of wonder and joy and enrich your relationships at home and at work.

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Image by Nicky from Pixabay.com

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

Beyond Mindfulness at Work: Soul in the Workplace

Richard Barrett, author and business coach, presented at the encore release of the 2018 Mindful Leadership Summit which was presented online over 10 days from December 3-12, 2018.  Richard’s presentation, Soul in the Workplace: the Future of Mindfulness at Work, brought a new frame of reference to the discussion of mindfulness.  He argued that meditation and mindfulness constitute the journey, while “soul awareness” is the destination.  He puts forward a seven-stage development framework illustrating the journey and its destination.

After many years researching and writing about the evolution of human values in society and organisations, Richard contends that the next phase of the development of mindfulness at work is, “Soul in the Workplace”.  His insightful and integrative thinking has led him to reframe the proposition, “I have a soul” to “I am a soul”.  

Soul awareness

Richard drew on his experience at the World Bank where a “spirituality group” morphed into a mindfulness group focused on “soul awareness”.  He argues that beyond the three-dimensional reality that we all have access to, there is a fourth dimension of “soul awareness” which involves awareness of an individual’s existence within a universal energy field.

Richard argues that a person’s “soul” is the “individuated aspect of the universal energy field”.  In other words, we are each an incarnated soul that is an individual expression of the universal energy that surrounds us.  Many studies of human anatomy support Richard’s contention that our body, brain and mind are energy fields and that we are surrounded by energy fields, e.g. sound energy utilised in sound therapy,  or energy transfered through touch.  

The concept of the Seven Chakras, which has existed for thousands of years, identifies the location of energy centres in the body.   Similarly, the concept of Qi (Chi) in Chinese Medicine relates to the energy flow in the body that is activated by acupuncture through needling of specific points on a person’s energy “meridians” (pathways).

Personal development stages 

Richard suggested that our life journey involves seven stages involving different levels of consciousness.  The developmental stages are illustrated in the Barrett Model.  The model draws on the earlier work by Erik Erickson in identifying the stages of psychosocial development.  The stages identified by Richard can be summarised as follows:

Stage 1 – Focus: Basic need to survive – the reptilian brain (the most primitive part of our brain) is dominant.

Stage 2 – Focus: Conformity to achieve a sense of belonging and being loved -limbic system (where our emotions are centred) is dominant.

Stage 3 – Focus: Personal integration and group acceptance – designed to achieve recognition as an individual together with identity as part of a group.

Stage 4 – Focus: Personal identity (individuation) – breaking free of conformity to parental and societal controls to explore autonomy and freedom.

Stage 5 – Focus: Self-actualisation – finding meaning through self-expression utilising gifts and talents.

Stage 6 – Focus: Making a difference – through connecting with others whether spontaneously with other individuals or as part of an ongoing group.

Stage 7 – Focus: Contribution through selfless service – utilising unique knowledge, skills and experience for the greater good.

According to Richard, regression at any one of the stages can lead to ongoing problems as we seek to realise soul awareness and “soul activation” which can be interpreted as “living a values-driven, purpose-driven life”.

Developing soul awareness and soul activation

Richard suggests that our core problems underpinning maladaptation have their origins in the frustration of the needs pursued in the first three stages.  The resultant developmental blockage can be perceived as the “shadow” discussed by Robert Masters and explored in my previous blog post.  in contrast, stage 4 (individuation) places a person on the pathway to soul awareness in that it involves a person moving beyond a self-absorbed, ego focus.

The last three stages of personal development – self-actualisation, making a difference, and contribution – are about soul activation, pursuing our true life purpose.  In his book, What my soul told me (available as an inexpensive eBook)Richard identifies detailed processes to move beyond self-absorption to soul awareness and soul activation.

Soul in the workplace

Richard, through his writing, public speaking and consultancies, has worked tirelessly to bring soul awareness into workplaces around the world.  He has pursued this goal through a focus on developing values-driven and visionary leadership, organisation culture transformation and whole system change in organisation.  He maintains that organisations do not transform, people and leaders in them transform themselves and in the process change the level of consciousness in their organisation.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and mindfulness practices, we can move beyond self-absorption, progress in our psychosocial development and achieve a values-driven life that enables us to achieve our true life purpose.  Our positive energetic field can have a real impact on everyone we encounter throughout our day.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of MemoryCatcher on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Plumbing the Depths: Exploring the Shadow

Tami Simon recently interviewed Dr. Robert Augustus Masters, author of a number of books, including, Bringing the Shadow Out of the Dark: Breaking Free from the Hidden Forces That Drive You.  Robert explained in his interview that each of us is influenced by our shadow, born of early life experiences and associated conditioning.  We can access this shadow through observing our reactivity to the words and actions of others and exploring this responsiveness in terms of the forces underlying what is often our inappropriate behaviour.  He explains that it takes courage, patience and persistence to plumb the depths of our shadow.

A near-death experience leads to self-exploration

Robert explained the concept of the shadow and its impact by sharing his own experience of plumbing the depths after a near-death experience (NDE).  He had started a community designed to develop the spirituality of participants but what started out as an open community became a cult, closed in on itself and impervious to outside influence or internal dissent.  He became delusional, enamoured with his own power and importance, and blinded by pride precipitated by the belief that he had arrived spiritually.

His near-death experience resulted from a rash action – imbibing a drug that was immediately harmful, causing him to lapse into unconsciousness and to stop breathing.   In exploring the catalyst for this impulsive action, he discovered that his pride had led him to become aggressive and totally lacking in empathy.  

Plumbing the depths: exploring the shadow

The near-death experience forced Robert to plumb the depths of his shadow – a shadow that was characterised by a belief in shaming as a basis for spiritual growth and a blindness to the harmful impact of his words and actions on those around him (members of his own community).  He discovered painfully that this desire to shame, together with his empathetic blindness, had its origins in his early life experiences where he was constantly shamed by his father (for his own good) and protected himself by becoming aggressive (fight).  His alternative was flight – disassociate himself from what was happening and retreat into himself.

Through his exploration of his shadow and its origins from his early conditioning, he became aware of his reactivity and learned the difference between healthy anger and aggressiveness.  Healthy anger maintains a sensitivity and empathy for the person who was the trigger for the angry response; aggresiveness seeks to diminish them, attack them or belittle them to prove that we are right.   This aggressive response can be during the event (face-to-face) or afterwards, as we indulge our sense of hurt  and avoid letting go.

Robert explained that he had to become intimate with the pain of the shame that resulted from the realisation of how he had hurt people in his community.  He had to look at the pain in all its dimensions (colour, shape, depth), name the source of pain and expose himself to the vulnerability that this exploration of the shadow entailed.  As he explored the depths of his shadow, he brought to light painful memories of his childhood conditioning.  The sensations associated with these deep emotional experiences were also felt in various parts of his body.

Coming out the other side from deep exploration of the shadow enabled Robert to develop “emotional resonance” (empathy), a healthy anger response and the realisation that he, like everyone else, is a work-in-progress.  Based on his experience, Robert recommended that we face up to the pain beneath our reactivity, explore the depths of our shadow and move to free ourselves from the hidden forces that drive us.  As we pull the veil aside, we come closer to understanding our responses and the triggers that set us off.

To assist with the exploration of the shadow, Robert suggested that after we experience a strong reactivity in an interaction with another person, we ask ourselves, “How old do I feel when I act this way?’  This could help us to get in touch with the conditioning we experienced as a child.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection on our reactivity, we enhance our self-awareness, develop insight into the impact of our words and actions and learn to expand our response ability, including communicating a genuine expression of sorrow for the hurt caused to another person.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of Giuliamar on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.