Today, I want to touch on death, and encounters with death, and I'll share with you one of the experiences that I've had. It has left a mark on me.
I’ll be sharing a tip with you too that's all wrapped up in allowance and trust, and the letting go of the fear of death to allow you to begin to live more.
I've been raised with the knowing that death is a natural and necessary part of life. I was in high school when I attended my first death rites ceremony, where I saw my aunt's dead body. She had sadly passed away. It was explained to me that attending these ceremonies is a sacred part of my culture. It is a blessing for oneself but also a releasing of that loved one’s spirit onto their next life or as part of ascension to God.
I have since encountered more deaths and participated in more death ceremony rites.
Let me share one of my personal experiences. When I was in my early 20s I was working in a supermarket. It was a normal Saturday. Over the PA system there was a call out for a first aider to come to the customer service desk at the entrance of the store. There was a bit of a rush and I was told to go out to the car park. There was a large gentleman there on the ground who had been pulled out of his car.
It was evident that he'd had a heart attack.
Another customer who was on his way into the store, had actually seen him in his car with his head bowed over, and he was still in the same position when left to go back to his car. He had noticed drool coming down the side of his face, so he'd come back into the store to seek assistance.
By the time I made it outside, the store manager had already pulled this man out of his car. I was one of the first aiders for the store and the only one on duty at the time, so one of my colleagues (who used to be a first aider), supported me in doing mouth to mouth and CPR.
This was the very first time that I had done mouth to mouth and CPR on a real person! My colleague had a lot more strength, so he was administering the chest compressions whilst I was doing the mouth to mouth.
The paramedics and ambulance had been called.
Surprisingly enough, I was on autopilot. I remembered everything from my training and what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to use the equipment. But in every single moment, I was doubting myself. I was doubting whether it was working; I was doubting whether or not he was alive; I was doubting whether we should keep going. The first responder on scene arrived in a car and was on his own. He took over with the mouth pump and mask, and I took over from my colleague doing the chest compressions.
However, I absolutely did not have the capacity or the strength to do the chest compressions to the depth at which they needed to be done. So the store manager jumped in to support the paramedic.
Another ambulance arrived with about three paramedics. All four were working on the gentleman on the ground in the car park. They eventually put him onto a gurney and into the ambulance so they could use the defibrillator and the other equipment on board.
As for myself and my colleague?
Once we'd been relieved of the responsibility, we just stood there in absolute silence, watching the continued efforts of the paramedics.
I asked my colleague, ‘Are you okay?’
He replied, ‘I don't know.’
He asked me, ‘Are you okay?’ and I said ‘I don't know.’
And honestly, I couldn't tell how I was feeling. That was probably the most disconnected I can remember myself being with my emotions.
I guess there’s an element of shock associated with that. When we go into a state of shock, particularly in emergency situations, there is a level of autopilot - fight or flight, right? The ability to feel can switch off, the adrenaline allowing that autopilot state to take place.
Once the ambulance left, sirens blaring, the deputy manager of the store approached me and my colleague. He said, in a reassuring way, ‘They've left blues and twos’. This means that there's still hope, otherwise they wouldn't have put the siren on. So I felt a sense of hope in that moment that maybe this gentleman would be okay.
Perhaps what we did helped.
At this point my colleague and I returned to the staff room to sit down, have some water and decompress, I guess. Neither of us had ever done anything like that before. We were trying to talk about what had happened and express how we were feeling, but there really was just nothing there. There was just no feeling; no words that we could find to describe our experience.
The first paramedic on scene came back to the store a short while later, whilst my colleague and I were still in the staff room. He advised the duty manager, who then fed back to us, that unfortunately, the gentleman had not made it. He had passed on. But he wanted us to know that we had both done a really good job in the way that we administered first aid. He pointed out that if four paramedics with all of the tools and equipment within the ambulance couldn't save him, then there really wasn't anything either myself or my colleague could have done.
And then the wondering began. What if we'd been able to be there sooner or I'd been able to do better breaths? Maybe I wasn't using the equipment correctly? What if chest compressions were done better? These were some of the questions that rattled around in my head.
Needless to say, what the paramedic told the duty manager definitely created a sense of peace around the situation, even though we were still in a state of shock.
Even though it wasn’t my own, I was in such close proximity to someone who was passing and possibly had already passed and we were trying to revive and bring him back to life. One can only ponder on mortality and what is life?
What if that was me?
Have I don't all I wanted to?
What have I achieved?
This has the potential to create so much fear. It has the potential to create worry and anxiety about whether we're doing what we are supposed to be doing. Have we experienced life enough to be able to say that we have actually lived? Are we doing everything that we possibly can to live a life without regret?
These are really big questions. No. They’re mammoth questions! To really think about them in a way that is healthy, that's not fused and infused with worry and fear, takes a lot of effort.
Why does it take a lot of effort?
It takes effort because there's a sense of acceptance that needs to be created first around what death is.
Many people have a fear of death and this drives the way that we behave and engage with life. If we're afraid of dying, our decisions on things that are around our mortality become a lot more fear based.
If I died, what would happen to my family? What would happen to the mortgage? Who's going to pay this? Who's going to pay that? Who is going to look after this person? What's going to happen to my house? My bank account? What's going to happen to my things?
We worry about all of those things when we think about mortality and the end of our lives. In that state of fear, we lose our ability to think critically and think creatively. In this state of fear, we lose our ability to truly live and make choices for ourselves that are about living. We start to make choices that are about avoiding dying. That's not what we're here for. We're not here to be in this state of constant worry about dying. We are here to experience life. We're here to experience all of life's wonders and joys and complexities and challenges and play.
Our tip from this blog is about moving into a state of acceptance and trust.
When you let go of the fear of death, you begin to live more. There can be a range of emotions that you are experiencing around dying and death. Fear, panic, worry, anxiety – even being terrified about how you might die.
Creating awareness around the way we're feeling and our perceptions and beliefs around situations is our first step. It allows us to transform these current states of being into something much more supportive to the life we want to live.
We're going to start by doing a body scan. So when you're thinking about dying and death, you're going to start doing a scan from the top of your head, slowly working your way all the way down to the tips of your toes.
It's really important that you take your time and go steadily. Notice where you're holding any tension in your body, or discomfort, dis-ease or tension around death, maybe even how you might die.
Once you've identified these sensations of discomfort, dis-ease, or tension in your body in relation to death and dying, you can start to transform them. We do this using the techniques I use with clients in my one-on-one or in group sessions.
Alternatively, you can do an exercise at home which utilises the breath. When you're finding discomfort, tension or dis-ease in your body around death and dying, use your breath and guide it to these spaces. Use an intention of transforming it into a state of acceptance and trust. You can hold any other intention that you would like – peace, non-attachment, calm, lightness, ease etc. Whatever intention feels good for you and whatever energy feels good for you. You want to transform the discomfort, dis-ease, and tension that you're experiencing into the desired state.
One way to work out the best intentions for you is to think about the emotional states that you're experiencing now and then finding its opposite or balancing emotion. For example, if you're experiencing being terrified, perhaps a state of peace is appropriate. If you're experiencing fear, perhaps the emotional state is love instead. If you're experiencing worry, perhaps it would be helpful to experience calm instead.
The body scan technique is a powerful way to create awareness around what's happening in your body and how you’re responding/reacting to things in your life. When thoughts and feelings are not expressed in healthy ways they can become held by and stored in our bodies. This is what you notice as dis-ease, discomfort or tension when you do the scan.
Let me know in the comments how you get on with the body scan.
I'd love to hear from you.
Love, hugs and magic!
Bhavna xx
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