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#1775 In The Proximity Of Death - Harps · The You Project

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Speaker 1: I'll get atm hope you bloody terrific. So today I'm
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Speaker 1: not exactly sure how this is going to go. It's
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Speaker 1: this is another freestyle, of course, this is just me.
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Speaker 1: And while I've done hundreds of solo episodes both here
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Speaker 1: and with Life, the podcast that I did two hundred
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Speaker 1: episodes of, and this is different because I've never I've
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Speaker 1: never done a solo episode about death. And I also
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Speaker 1: know that it's something that elicits a you know, a
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Speaker 1: broad range of emotions and thoughts and feelings and responses
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Speaker 1: from people. But having said that, it's it's something that
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Speaker 1: impacts all of us, and eventually it's where we all
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Speaker 1: end up, right, And I don't. I don't. This is funny,
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Speaker 1: But I don't really have a major plan or intention
0:54
Speaker 1: like with a lot of my a lot of my messages,
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Speaker 1: I have a clear plan, you know, what I want
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Speaker 1: to get out of this and what I want to
1:02
Speaker 1: you want to leave you with, and what I want,
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Speaker 1: you know, like, what's the point. I've got an idea
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Speaker 1: of what the point is, but I'm not actually sure.
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Speaker 1: But what I'm sure of is and I could be wrong,
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Speaker 1: by the way, this is just what I think. But
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Speaker 1: I'm reasonably sure that someone needs to hear what I'm
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Speaker 1: about to share, and statistically that's very likely because we
1:22
Speaker 1: have thousands of listeners a day. But I think maybe
1:26
Speaker 1: for a person or quite a few people, perhaps this
1:31
Speaker 1: might be not because it's coming from me, and not
1:34
Speaker 1: because I'm a fucking genius. We know I'm not, but
1:38
Speaker 1: just because I think the ideas and thoughts and messages
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Speaker 1: might resonate with some of you, or maybe even a
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Speaker 1: lot of you. I'm not sure. So this is one
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Speaker 1: that I couldn't just freestyle. I thought, I can't just
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Speaker 1: riff on on death and dying for twenty minutes or
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Speaker 1: thirty minutes or forty minutes. And so I've written a
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Speaker 1: lot of stuff. I've spent the last hour or two
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Speaker 1: just writing and thinking, and so some of what I'm
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Speaker 1: about to share with you is written by me. I
2:12
Speaker 1: don't normally. I don't normally write things. I don't normally
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Speaker 1: read things per se. I might have some dot points
2:20
Speaker 1: that are written down, but as you know, like right now,
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Speaker 1: of the last minute or two or three, I've been freestyling.
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Speaker 1: As I do. Mostly I sit down and if I think,
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Speaker 1: for example, I'm going to talk about goal setting. I'll
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Speaker 1: have ten dot points and off I go. If I'm
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Speaker 1: going to talk about mental and emotional health, same thing,
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Speaker 1: eight or ten dot points and off I go. And
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Speaker 1: I talk for bloody way too long. But today is
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Speaker 1: going to be a combination of stories, real stories, and
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Speaker 1: freestyling and some stuff that I've written. The last year
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Speaker 1: for me has been an interesting time in many ways,
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Speaker 1: but specific to this, a lot of people, quite a
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Speaker 1: few people that I care about, have been very sick,
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Speaker 1: are still very sick, and some have passed away. And
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Speaker 1: there's something profoundly humbling about standing at the edge of
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Speaker 1: life with somebody that you love, you know, like in
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Speaker 1: the proximity of death, It's like the air feels heavier,
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Speaker 1: like time bends and stretches and contracts, and the bullshit,
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Speaker 1: the trivialities of the world seem to melt away and
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Speaker 1: leave behind only truly what matters. I've sat with quite
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Speaker 1: a few people in my life who are dying close
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Speaker 1: to death, some of them some of them hours away
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Speaker 1: from death. And it's for me it's been in those
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Speaker 1: moments that I'm off at a window into almost like
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Speaker 1: some way more profound, deeper truth about existence and the
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Speaker 1: human condition that I can't normally access or I don't
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Speaker 1: pert maybe I can, but I just don't because I'm
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Speaker 1: so caught up in bullshit, a truth that I often
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Speaker 1: overlook because I'm just way too busy and distracted and
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Speaker 1: full of whatever, you know, to see what is and
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Speaker 1: maybe to pull back that curtain and to be in
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Speaker 1: the moment and to be in that level of love
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Speaker 1: and connection with somebody, because I'm just too busy doing
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Speaker 1: stuff and doing life and ticking boxes and and not
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Speaker 1: that those things are bad, you know. And I don't
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Speaker 1: think we need to walk around with this morbid kind
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Speaker 1: of awareness of death and dying, but rather I just
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Speaker 1: think every now and then, you know, for me, I
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Speaker 1: think this is a one in two thousand conversations. So
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Speaker 1: this is not going to be a reoccurring theme, But
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Speaker 1: it's I find the way that people are psychologically and
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Speaker 1: emotionally and personally and interpersonally, the way that people are
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Speaker 1: around the proximity of death and dying, whether it is
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Speaker 1: the person themselves that are sick and dying or it's
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Speaker 1: somebody that we care about, and to see the interpersonal
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Speaker 1: dynamics between two people change drastically because all of a sudden,
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Speaker 1: things are different, and they're not temporarily different, they're fucking different.
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Speaker 1: All of a sudden, my friends got cancer, or all
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Speaker 1: of a sudden, my friends in hospital on life support,
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Speaker 1: or all of a sudden as is as was the
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Speaker 1: case for me about five years ago, my friend dropped
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Speaker 1: dead in front of me on the gym floor. And
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Speaker 1: and I know that story has been told a few
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Speaker 1: times here, and it turned out great for those of
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Speaker 1: you who don't know the story. In my training partner
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Speaker 1: had a cardiac arrest in the gym on a Friday
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Speaker 1: night at five minutes past five on a Friday night,
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Speaker 1: and he was dead until twenty two minutes past five.
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Speaker 1: He was literally dead, not breathing, no heartbeat, no respiration, nothing,
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Speaker 1: for seventeen minutes. And it turned out well. And it
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Speaker 1: was lucky that I was there, and it was lucky
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Speaker 1: that the ambulance got there within eleven minutes, and a
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Speaker 1: whole lot of things happened, but for me that moment
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Speaker 1: where so now I'm standing over the top of my
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Speaker 1: friend who's dead for the last five or ten seconds,
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Speaker 1: just took his last breath, exhaled. I had to turn
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Speaker 1: him over. He was face down on the floor in
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Speaker 1: the gym. I had to, you know, assess what I
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Speaker 1: needed to do and all of that and turn him
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Speaker 1: over and start CPR and all of that, which I did.
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Speaker 1: And this ain't at all about me. This is in
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Speaker 1: terms of what I did. It's about for me. It's
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Speaker 1: about the perspective and the I can't even really find
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Speaker 1: the right words, but the awareness and the clarity and
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Speaker 1: the significance of that moment and in that moment where
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Speaker 1: there was a chance that I might be able to
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Speaker 1: help him. It is so interesting to have that level
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Speaker 1: of focus and that type of mindset where not that
7:48
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this consciously, but when nothing matters
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Speaker 1: at all except life, nothing in that moment, and trying
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Speaker 1: to give this person back a life, trying to get
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Speaker 1: that body breathing, trying to get that heart beating. And
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Speaker 1: it's funny how seventeen minutes, I don't know how long
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Speaker 1: it felt. I was going to say seventeen hours. It
8:13
Speaker 1: felt like seventeen fucking years, to be honest, And it
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Speaker 1: all turned out well, and the ambos, who were fucking amazing,
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Speaker 1: got there and they brought him back to life. And
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Speaker 1: you know, I'm forever grateful, and we're still training and
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Speaker 1: he's alive and thriving and well, and he's now got
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Speaker 1: a pacemaker. But to be in that moment where someone
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Speaker 1: that you love is literally in your arms, like dying
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Speaker 1: in your arms, and then dead and then collapses to
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Speaker 1: the floor, that for me changed me forever. That for
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Speaker 1: me made me. And I'm not saying I have this
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Speaker 1: new profound, spiritual exist it's none of that. I'm still
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Speaker 1: a fuck wed. I still do dumb shit. But it
9:02
Speaker 1: gave me a level of gratitude for life that I
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Speaker 1: did not have the same level of anyway. It's yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's profound, and I don't wish that on any of you.
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Speaker 1: But it always dawns on me that sometimes, sometimes for
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Speaker 1: some of us, something horrible or terrible or transformative in
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Speaker 1: a bad way has to happen for us to all
9:31
Speaker 1: of a sudden be aware of and have gratitude for
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Speaker 1: the thing that we had yesterday that we didn't appreciate
9:39
Speaker 1: or didn't value. And all we want today in the
9:42
Speaker 1: middle of the horrible thing that's happened, is we want
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Speaker 1: yesterday back. We want yesterday's version of reality back, the
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Speaker 1: one that we weren't grateful for. And so it's this
9:55
Speaker 1: interesting thing of trying to find gratitude when there hasn't
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Speaker 1: been some kind of profound negative thing that gives us
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Speaker 1: a level of perspective, Trying to find perspective, trying to
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Speaker 1: find clarity without having to go through the catastrophe. I
10:15
Speaker 1: guess that's one of the challenges. I guess when someone
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Speaker 1: we love is dying, it's like our usual filters, the
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Speaker 1: one that protect us from all the uncomfortable truths and
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Speaker 1: realities of mortality and vulnerability. You know, that's all stripped
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Speaker 1: away in their absence, and we find ourselves face to
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Speaker 1: face with the rawness of the human experience, the fragility
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Speaker 1: of the human body, the resilience of the spirit, and
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Speaker 1: the profound interconnectedness of love and loss and joy and pain.
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Speaker 1: And then you know, being being around someone or being
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Speaker 1: near someone who is nearing the end of their life.
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Speaker 1: You know, somebody a family member or friend us who
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Speaker 1: you love, who's sick. This like being in that moment,
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Speaker 1: being in that reality with them invites or I think
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Speaker 1: maybe creates, invites, creates a kind of awareness that's difficult
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Speaker 1: to articulate, but it's unmistakable to feel like when you
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Speaker 1: when you're in that, which is why I'm stumbling and
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Speaker 1: bumbling a bit. It's you'll know it, you'll feel it,
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Speaker 1: you're like, oh oh. It's as if time itself shifts
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Speaker 1: from a linear march to something that's kind of circular
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Speaker 1: and sacred almost still, Like for me being around people
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Speaker 1: who are nearing the end of their physical journey, it
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Speaker 1: bends time. Five minutes feels like five hours. Of course,
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Speaker 1: time is a constant, but when we inject that constant
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Speaker 1: of time with extreme emotion, then rather than being something
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Speaker 1: that's linear and constant, time becomes a subjective experience where
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Speaker 1: those five minutes feel like five hours. The things we
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Speaker 1: take for granted, you know, a shared glance, the sound
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Speaker 1: of someone's breath, the proximity of their arm or hand,
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Speaker 1: or you know, a kiss or a conversation, an interaction
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Speaker 1: like something that we don't even notice, Like these become
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Speaker 1: treasures that we cling to with reverence. It's like the
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Speaker 1: ordinary transforms in that moment into the extraordinary. The things
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Speaker 1: we normally wouldn't notice are amazingly and instantly profound. The
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Speaker 1: meaningless and forgettable become the profound and memorable, and minutes
12:51
Speaker 1: and moments become gifts, stored in our minds and our
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Speaker 1: hearts forever. I remember my first trainer. His name was
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Speaker 1: Maddie and he's obviously I say it was because he's
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Speaker 1: passed away. He passed away in his early twenties and
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Speaker 1: he was working with me. He was, when I say,
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Speaker 1: my first trainer, the first trainer that worked for me.
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Speaker 1: So he was one of the first personal trainers in
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Speaker 1: Australia after me. He was amazing and he was a
13:20
Speaker 1: gifted teacher and coach and just people always say this,
13:26
Speaker 1: but truly an amazing human. And he had an accident
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Speaker 1: and he ended up in his early twenties, fit, strong,
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Speaker 1: healthy in hospital on life support. And back in the day,
13:42
Speaker 1: I don't know if they still call it, but back
13:44
Speaker 1: in the day, they would call it the person with
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Speaker 1: his kind of traumatic brain injury brain dead. And I
13:51
Speaker 1: was him and I were close. Him and I were
13:57
Speaker 1: like brothers. I was like his big brother. And we
14:02
Speaker 1: had breakfast together, and we had lunch together, and we
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Speaker 1: worked out together, and we worked together all day and
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Speaker 1: I mentored him and coached him and loved him. And then,
14:15
Speaker 1: you know, seemingly, a moment later, I was sitting in
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Speaker 1: a hospital, sitting in a chair beside his bed, holding
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Speaker 1: his hand, and looked at him in the bed, and
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Speaker 1: he looked perfect like like there was no like he
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Speaker 1: looked just he looked just like Maddie asleep. And because
14:37
Speaker 1: he was a young bloke, I'd seen him asleep a lot.
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Speaker 1: He'd sleep on the gym floor, he'd sleep in the
14:43
Speaker 1: staff room. He could sleep at the drop of it.
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Speaker 1: And it was just like I was seeing him sleep again,
14:49
Speaker 1: but his body was there, but he wasn't there. And
14:53
Speaker 1: you know, in that moment, I was thinking about what
14:55
Speaker 1: I would say to him, what I wish he could hear,
15:00
Speaker 1: How I wished it was yesterday. I wished it was
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Speaker 1: the day before. I wish that I could have twenty
15:07
Speaker 1: four hours again, or twenty four minutes, or even twenty
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Speaker 1: four seconds. What I would say to him. You know,
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Speaker 1: he knew that I loved him, but I never told
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Speaker 1: him that. And I don't know why I didn't tell him.
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Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know, Maybe because I was a fucking
15:23
Speaker 1: dumb al for male, or it didn't come up. You know,
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Speaker 1: it's amazing in that moment when and I was sitting
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Speaker 1: there holding his hand or maybe his forearm, and I
15:41
Speaker 1: remember just like it being surreal, feeling like I know
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Speaker 1: this is real, like logically, like intellectually I understand what
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Speaker 1: has happened, but I'm looking at him and it just
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Speaker 1: seemed unreal. It seemed surreal. It was true, but it
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Speaker 1: just it. I couldn't really get my head around it.
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Speaker 1: I think the proximity to death has the power to
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Speaker 1: reorder our priorities in an instant, you know, like arguments
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Speaker 1: and grudges and regrets dissolve in the face of life's
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Speaker 1: finite nature, and what often rises in their place is
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Speaker 1: this clarity, you know that I've spoken about before, this
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Speaker 1: understanding that love, like in its purest, most unguarded form,
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Speaker 1: is the only thing that endures. In those sacred moments,
16:45
Speaker 1: we stop worrying about being right or wrong, or about
16:48
Speaker 1: success or failure, and instead we're just there. We're just
16:52
Speaker 1: present on simply being with someone and being there for someone,
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Speaker 1: like not thinking, not not doing anything, just connecting, just connecting,
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Speaker 1: just sharing energy. And you know, there's obviously there's an
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Speaker 1: undeniable pain in this experience watching someone we love slip
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Speaker 1: away as an ache. It's a it's a it's a
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Speaker 1: kind of pain that is indescribable. I've had lots of
17:25
Speaker 1: physical pain, but I've never had I've never had that
17:31
Speaker 1: kind of pain. But you know that there's also, I
17:41
Speaker 1: don't know, I think, weirdly, there's a beauty. There's a
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Speaker 1: kind of a bittersweet beauty that comes from knowing that
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Speaker 1: I'm witnessing somebody transition from this life to the next.
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Speaker 1: And maybe that's because I'm a little bit spiritual and weird.
17:55
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I don't know who you are or
17:57
Speaker 1: where you're at with all of that, but and I
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Speaker 1: guess it's like an intimate reminder that life, in all
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Speaker 1: its complexity and vastness and smallness is. It's simultaneously enduring
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Speaker 1: but fleeting. You know, it's precious. The proximity of death
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Speaker 1: has a way of breaking our hearts wide open, and
18:20
Speaker 1: not just in grief, but also ingratitude for that love,
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Speaker 1: that love that we have and that that love that
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Speaker 1: we got from that person. But many of us, I
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Speaker 1: guess these moments off for an opportunity to connect on
18:34
Speaker 1: a deeper level than ever before. You know, conversations that
18:39
Speaker 1: once seemed too difficult or too vulnerable become necessary and
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Speaker 1: urgent and words like I forgive you, or I'm sorry
18:47
Speaker 1: or I love you flow freely, like ego and selfishness
18:51
Speaker 1: and awkwardness make way for a level of connection and
18:55
Speaker 1: intimacy that we rarely read. I mentioned recently on one
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Speaker 1: show about my second mom, and I don't want to
19:05
Speaker 1: bore everyone, but my second mom was my mum's best friend, Ray,
19:10
Speaker 1: my second mom growing up, so I grew up basically
19:13
Speaker 1: my family and Ray's family, husband's gil. They have four daughters,
19:20
Speaker 1: shout out to the girls. And the girls were almost
19:23
Speaker 1: basically my sisters, and I was basically their brother they
19:26
Speaker 1: had They had no brother, just four girls. I had
19:30
Speaker 1: no sisters. I had no siblings at all. And so
19:33
Speaker 1: in a way we kind of became operationally each other's siblings.
19:37
Speaker 1: And so I had this family of four girls and this,
19:41
Speaker 1: you know, this alternate mom and dad that I loved
19:43
Speaker 1: very much. And Ray passed away. Oh gee, where are
19:50
Speaker 1: we now? A couple of weeks ago now, maybe maybe
19:54
Speaker 1: three weeks ago now. And on Christmas Day we always
19:58
Speaker 1: spend Christmas days together, the families every Christmas. And on
20:03
Speaker 1: Christmas Day, I went into I left, we all had
20:08
Speaker 1: lunch together, and I left there and I went into
20:11
Speaker 1: the hospital to be with her, and she knew that
20:14
Speaker 1: she was dying, and she knew that she was on
20:18
Speaker 1: the home straight. I knew that she knew that. And
20:24
Speaker 1: it was profound, you know, it was It's interesting to
20:29
Speaker 1: sit with someone for an hour when you know that's
20:32
Speaker 1: the last time you will ever talk to this person
20:35
Speaker 1: that you love, Like what do you say? Like what matters?
20:44
Speaker 1: And I don't remember thinking this consciously, but I'm sure
20:48
Speaker 1: at some stage, you know, I just I didn't go
20:51
Speaker 1: in with a plan other than see her, be with her,
20:55
Speaker 1: talk to her. She passed away not too many days
20:59
Speaker 1: after that. But but what was what was beautiful was
21:04
Speaker 1: that she was aware and awake. We could talk. We
21:09
Speaker 1: had a good talk, and it's just, you know, things
21:14
Speaker 1: come well they did for me. Screamingly into perspective about
21:22
Speaker 1: not talking about things that don't matter, didn't mean we
21:27
Speaker 1: needed to sit there and have a profound conversation for
21:31
Speaker 1: an hour. We spoke about different things, and she laughed
21:34
Speaker 1: and I laughed, and she smiled and I smiled. But
21:39
Speaker 1: you know, there was, of course, there was an underlying
21:41
Speaker 1: awareness and sadness on my part, of course, that this
21:45
Speaker 1: would be our last conversation. And I've said this once before,
21:53
Speaker 1: but what was amazing was that in that moment where
21:59
Speaker 1: we both knew what was happening. Ray that's her name,
22:04
Speaker 1: my second mum, she was more concerned about me being
22:09
Speaker 1: okay than the pain she was in that where she
22:16
Speaker 1: was at on her journey, that what was happening with
22:19
Speaker 1: her to her, she wasn't in that moment, she wasn't
22:24
Speaker 1: concerned about that. We didn't talk about that. Really there
22:29
Speaker 1: was only there was just me and her, like there
22:35
Speaker 1: was just for me anyway. I can only speak for me,
22:39
Speaker 1: but profound the gratitude, profound connection and love and sitting
22:47
Speaker 1: there like holding hands, holding my arm, me holding her arm,
22:53
Speaker 1: and I shared this once before, but I'll share it again.
22:55
Speaker 1: And she told me that she loved me, which she
22:57
Speaker 1: told me pretty much every time I saw her, and
23:03
Speaker 1: being the son in inverted commas, I kind of flippantly said, yeah,
23:09
Speaker 1: I know, you know, I know. Of course, of course
23:12
Speaker 1: I did that. Of course I of course I kind
23:15
Speaker 1: of fobbed it off with my own whateverness. And then
23:20
Speaker 1: she squeezed my arm and then made me look her
23:24
Speaker 1: in the eyes, and then she told me again and
23:26
Speaker 1: said you know, don't you. And I knew why she
23:31
Speaker 1: did that. I knew why she did that because she
23:38
Speaker 1: she wanted me to know that. She wanted me to
23:41
Speaker 1: know that, you know, when she was gone, which was
23:44
Speaker 1: going to be soon, that that I could continue on
23:49
Speaker 1: knowing that. And it's funny because you know, all of these,
23:58
Speaker 1: all of these moments and all of these like these moments,
24:05
Speaker 1: these profound moments that we can have where of course,
24:12
Speaker 1: in the day to day nous of our human experience,
24:15
Speaker 1: of course we get caught up in stuff. Of course,
24:17
Speaker 1: we've got to pay bills, and of course we've got
24:19
Speaker 1: to wait at the traffic lights, and of course we've
24:21
Speaker 1: got to get out of bed, and of course we've
24:23
Speaker 1: got to feed out you know, of course, of course,
24:25
Speaker 1: and none of those things are bad things. And it
24:27
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that we're not deep or profound or spiritual
24:30
Speaker 1: or ungrateful, because the constancy of being human and the
24:35
Speaker 1: requirements are ticking all the being human boxes and going
24:38
Speaker 1: to work and looking after kids and navigating the messiness
24:41
Speaker 1: of life. Of course, that's never going away. But god,
24:49
Speaker 1: it's amazing to hit the pause button. It's amazing to
24:56
Speaker 1: just try to extricate yourself mentally and emotion only and
25:01
Speaker 1: behaviorally from all the stuff that doesn't matter so much
25:06
Speaker 1: sometimes and to step into that space of awareness, you know,
25:14
Speaker 1: And I guess it can be in these moments and
25:18
Speaker 1: silences where like there's new meaning, Like the silences, you know,
25:24
Speaker 1: me sitting there sometimes in silence with Ray, it's like
25:31
Speaker 1: it takes on a new meaning, or it took on
25:33
Speaker 1: a new meaning. It was no longer empty, but full
25:37
Speaker 1: and kind of overflowing with the unspoken understanding, you know.
25:41
Speaker 1: And sometimes like words, words aren't enough, Like words don't
25:46
Speaker 1: do it, words don't matter. She didn't need to say
25:50
Speaker 1: a lot. She said a few things that were profound.
25:55
Speaker 1: But in some ways, I think spending time with someone
25:58
Speaker 1: that you love who is nearing the end of their journey,
26:04
Speaker 1: you know, it makes us think about stuff about our
26:06
Speaker 1: own mortality, about the end of our own life, and
26:10
Speaker 1: not in a morbid way or a sad way, but
26:13
Speaker 1: you know, for me, it makes me think about things
26:17
Speaker 1: that I might otherwise avoid. What does it mean to
26:22
Speaker 1: live a good life? What am I going to leave behind?
26:26
Speaker 1: What am I going to do while I'm here? How
26:28
Speaker 1: will I be remembered? Not from an ego point of view,
26:30
Speaker 1: but just how will I be remembered? Like these reflections
26:35
Speaker 1: can be uncomfortable, but maybe they're helpful. Maybe they're transformative.
26:40
Speaker 1: Maybe they remind you and me to live more intentionally,
26:45
Speaker 1: maybe to love more deeply, maybe to be more present,
26:49
Speaker 1: maybe to be more grateful with this twenty four hour
26:54
Speaker 1: period that you and I have this day. Like I'm
26:57
Speaker 1: recording this on the twenty third of January twenty twenty five.
27:02
Speaker 1: It's a Thursday. I'm never going to have this Thursday ever. Again.
27:09
Speaker 1: I've had lots of Thursdays, but I've never had this one.
27:14
Speaker 1: I've had a bunch of January twenty threes, sixty one
27:18
Speaker 1: of them, but I've never had this one. And sometimes
27:24
Speaker 1: I think, like what for me? What actually matters? Like
27:28
Speaker 1: I'm always you know, I'm always talking about what are
27:33
Speaker 1: my values? Does my life reflect those values? Do the
27:38
Speaker 1: things that I purport to hold or that I say
27:40
Speaker 1: I hold in the highest regard? Is that true? Like
27:45
Speaker 1: when I'm not on a podcast, when I'm not in
27:47
Speaker 1: front of an audience, when no one's looking, when no
27:49
Speaker 1: one's paying attention? Am I am I the real deal?
27:56
Speaker 1: Am I full of shit? Am I authentic? I? Think
28:01
Speaker 1: you probably know I'm serious about all of this. I
28:04
Speaker 1: actually think this. This is not a monologue for a show.
28:08
Speaker 1: This is actually how I feel. I think, you know,
28:14
Speaker 1: maybe for those of you who are spiritual, whatever that means,
28:19
Speaker 1: the proximity of death can feel like a almost like
28:23
Speaker 1: a crossing over, like a crossing of a threshold, some
28:30
Speaker 1: kind of I think of it as like almost like
28:33
Speaker 1: a metaphoric door that I walk through from the known
28:37
Speaker 1: into the unknown. Some describe a sense of the sacred,
28:42
Speaker 1: as though they're standing in a space where the veil
28:44
Speaker 1: between the worlds is thinned, or maybe where a curtain
28:48
Speaker 1: gets pulled back. And of course some people will find
28:51
Speaker 1: comfort in rituals and prayers, in the belief that there's
28:55
Speaker 1: something beyond the physical, a continuation, a reunion, a heaven,
29:00
Speaker 1: a peace that passes all understanding. So the Bible tells us,
29:06
Speaker 1: I don't know. I used to think I knew. I
29:09
Speaker 1: thought I absolutely knew. But can I believe with not knowing? Well,
29:13
Speaker 1: of course, because belief is about belief. Belief is about
29:17
Speaker 1: having faith in something that you don't necessarily know to
29:20
Speaker 1: be true. And even for those who don't you know,
29:25
Speaker 1: hold such beliefs or have that faith. I think there's
29:27
Speaker 1: often a sense of wonder and mystery about dying, about
29:32
Speaker 1: the process of dying, like an awareness and a recognition
29:35
Speaker 1: that it's both ending and ending in a beginning. I
29:42
Speaker 1: think to be with someone that we love as they
29:45
Speaker 1: near the end of their life as one of the
29:46
Speaker 1: most difficult things will ever do, but maybe one of
29:49
Speaker 1: the most amazing and beautiful and meaningful and profound. Like
29:54
Speaker 1: it requires us to be brave and loving and compassionate
29:59
Speaker 1: and aware, to stay present even when it hurts, and
30:02
Speaker 1: to offer our love without expectation or reservation, like there's
30:07
Speaker 1: no agenda, there's no strategy, there's just love. It teaches
30:11
Speaker 1: us in the clearest and most powerful way that the
30:14
Speaker 1: essence of life ain't found in what we achieve or get,
30:17
Speaker 1: or own or acquire, but in the connections that we
30:21
Speaker 1: create and the love that we share with people. I
30:26
Speaker 1: feel like the proximity of death ultimately kind of reminds
30:31
Speaker 1: us of what it means to be fully human. Strips
30:35
Speaker 1: away all the bullshit, all the pretense, all the unimportant stuff,
30:40
Speaker 1: and just leaves the truth. And it's in that truth
30:44
Speaker 1: that we find not just lost, but also like profound
30:48
Speaker 1: beauty and being alive and joy, and maybe we find
30:53
Speaker 1: the courage to face our own mortality, the wisdom to
30:56
Speaker 1: cherish the time we have, and the grace to honor
30:59
Speaker 1: the lives of those that we love and those that
31:01
Speaker 1: we lose, you know, both in their presence right here,
31:06
Speaker 1: right now and then their absence. At sixty one, I'm
31:11
Speaker 1: way closer to the finish line than I am the start.
31:15
Speaker 1: And of course it's my intention to live a much
31:20
Speaker 1: longer life, and to learn more stuff and do more stuff,
31:25
Speaker 1: help people, serve people, and lift more heavy things, and
31:29
Speaker 1: have more laughs, and ride more motorbikes, and you know,
31:33
Speaker 1: do all the things. But the truth is, I don't know.
31:38
Speaker 1: I don't know how long I'll live. I don't know
31:40
Speaker 1: how long I'll be there. I don't know what the
31:42
Speaker 1: future holds. The truth is, I'm not in control of
31:46
Speaker 1: all the variables in the lifespan equation, a lot of them,
31:51
Speaker 1: but not all of them. And having had lots of
31:55
Speaker 1: people die that I love, I'm aware of the gift
31:58
Speaker 1: that is one day. I'm aware of the fragility of
32:03
Speaker 1: life and also the gift of life, the gift that
32:07
Speaker 1: is love, that is kindness, that is connection. And while
32:12
Speaker 1: I'm not looking forward to dying, neither am I scared
32:17
Speaker 1: of it and friends and listeners. I'm not exactly sure
32:22
Speaker 1: why I felt compelled to do this episode today, but
32:27
Speaker 1: as I said at the start, I feel like someone
32:29
Speaker 1: or someone's one of you, some of you, a few
32:33
Speaker 1: of you, a lot of you. I'm not sure, but
32:35
Speaker 1: I feel like someone needs to hear it. And so
32:39
Speaker 1: now I've done it. Love me,