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Talking About Death And Dying
Judi Singleton
I work as a caregiver now and for years I worked in a hospital geriatric ward. I counseled families and patients on death and dying issues. In the Western society we have not been trained to talk about our own death so we cannot talk about dying to a loved one. Most of us find ourselves feeling inadequate to having this discussion on fear of death, issues of legacy, like what lives on after a person dies. The old arguments by the religions do not satisfy a lot of us anymore. Since discoveries like quantum physics a new view is emerging.
Issues of legacy, that is, what lives on after an individual dies:
The fear of death is to some extent instinctive: nature has given us the drive to survive. While we live we are not separated off from nature and the universe: our atoms and molucules are arranged according to our memory everyday. We arrange and rearrange our personalities daily. But most of us strive to keep this set of information intact for as long as possible. We also are afraid of losing our consciousness.
To fear death is useless Death is nothing to us and no concern of ours . . . When we shall be no more, when the union of body and spirit that engenders us has been disrupted - to us, who shall then be nothing, nothing by any hazard will happen any more at all. Nothing will have power to stir our senses, not though earth be fused with sea and sea with sky . . . Rest assured that we have nothing to fear in death. One who no longer is cannot suffer, or differ in any way from one who has never been born. [De rerum natura, iii:828-840; 864-867]
The fear of death is rooted in the belief that spirit is superior to matter. We are made up with matter and we are constantly interacting with nature. Rocks, trees, plants, animals, and other humans are all made up of matter. We are so much a part of this earth that we have created that we could not lose touch with it. We are one with nature and all things.
If you believe as I do that we create our world then you can write to your future self and create the aging process, the process of death, you can resolve your fears.
By using affirmations, journal writing, visualizations, prayers and meditation.
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