Season 2 Finale: Mastering Death for a Masterful Life: Embracing Completion and Gentle Release

Speaker 1 I'd love to welcome you back to this season two finale of Masterful Listening by reading a poem. I wrote this poem about a week ago and it is about our topic for today called Mastering Death for a Masterful Life, Embracing Completion and Gentle Release. It feels quite fitting to end the season by talking about the real power of embracing the endings and completion with as much fervor as we often give to the things that we're starting and birthing. And yet, as I have learned, there is no life without death, there is no creation without destruction. And so here we go. In the realm of fear, most

Speaker 1 hearts reside, terrified of death, they never truly thrive. Dreams left untouched, never given a chance, bound by worries of the eternal dance. But listen closely, for wisdom does unfold. In the words of Young, a story to be told.

Speaker 1 Whispers a clear destruction, a birth creation. Let go, my dear, for in the dying, new life shall arise, a masterpiece woven beneath the skies, to live a life worth dying for so grand, love, expression, growth at your command. Yet many cling to endings, fear the unknown, missing the present seeds left unsown. But masterful living is tied to dying's grace. Completion defines us. Not just the starting place, but death's inevitability, a truth we all share. Why not embrace it? Release our despair. For many deaths greet us, moments of transition, losing love, changing paths, a soul's rendition. Let go or be dragged, the wise ones say. Hold on

Speaker 1 tightly, let go lightly, find your way. To love life, people, and yourself so true. Bid farewell to what no longer serves you. So let yourself die in fragments or whole, and witness the birth of your radiant soul. Embrace the dance of life, both death and rebirth, and live your most masterful life on this precious earth.

Speaker 1 This is episode thirty one, which, as someone who pays attention to numbers and signs, because that is all a part of masterful listening, I love that number, and I decided to end the season with 31 because the first season ended with 13. And today is 313, March 13th. So I've always said things come in threes, and I've said since the very beginning of this podcast that my intention was to enjoy it. And so if you've been listening, thank you by the way, and if you're a subscriber, you might have noticed that this episode took a week to post, whereas usually I post two a week. So

Speaker 1 I could say I'm behind schedule, and why would you take a week off to post a finale instead of taking a week off after you post a finale? Well, great question. The answer is that I am right now going through another death. I'm in a chrysalis. Uh, if you are not familiar with that word, the chrysalis is that stage between where caterpillar turns into the butterfly. And what happens is the caterpillar goes into this sort of structure. It's like in this soup-like bath, it melts, it melts fully, and after it melts, that liquid transforms into a butterfly. And what is so interesting about that, they uh

Speaker 1 did a study looking at, you know, do these caterpillars really die and then get reborn, or do they just transform? You know, butterflies are often considered a symbol of transformation. And in this one particular study that I found, what they showed was that before the caterpillars went into this chrysalis, they were given some smells to smell. And after they emerged as butterflies, they were given the same smells to smell. And the caterpillars, now butterflies, reacted to the smell that they had smelled when they were still caterpillars, before they completely melted and dissolved and took a completely different shape and re-emerged. And I love that because it

Speaker 1 showed me that death isn't exactly what I think a lot of us believe it to be. And this isn't like a spiritual conversation. I'm not going to be talking about like what happens after we lit leave our body, like die in, you know, in the way I think most of us think about death. This is more a conversation about how many deaths we face within ourselves as human beings, and of course, how we are all facing death every day. Uh, the one thing we all know for sure is we will die. We don't know when, we don't know how. But if you're alive and listening to

Speaker 1 this show, I know that you've somehow encountered death in your life. And I don't know what your experience of it is. Wow, a crow just landed on my balcony, which is so fitting because I am masterfully listening to this moment. What does that mean? It means I'm fully in it and I'm paying attention to everything. And crows are both a symbol of magic and mysticism, and in some cultures, they're considered bad luck and associated with death, which is pretty interesting, right? Because I could choose to see this as an omen, maybe a scary one, or maybe a magical one. And that is up to me. I

Speaker 1 don't think we really get to choose how we die, unless we choose to take our own life. But we do get to choose how we live our life, not only, you know, in the things that we do, but in how we react to the inevitability of the darkness that comes for all of us. And as someone whose name, Svetlana, means the light, I spent so much of my life chasing happiness, wanting to embody this light. And I gotta say that uh I am so much more interested in the darkness than the light, because there is no light without darkness, it just does not exist. You know,

Speaker 1 we plant the seeds deep in the dirt, and often they're just in there, in that dark dirt, and can't see anything, looks like nothing's happening, and then poof, a plant sprouts up. I think bamboo is something like it stays under the dirt for a very, very long time, and then it almost overnight shoots up, and it's like, whoa, how did that happen? Well, that is exactly the creation, destruction, destruction, creation process. So I thought that this would be a really great topic to end the season with because a season ending is a sort of completion. It is very important, I've always said, how we complete things.

Speaker 1 It's super important to notice how do people show up at the end of a relationship versus at the beginning when all is great and exciting? How do people show up when they gotta fire someone or when they get fired at the end of a job versus when they came on their first day or for an interview? I think the way you complete an end is so much more telling than the way you start and begin. Because it's easy to put your best foot forward and have a great attitude when you're excited about something. But what about when something is coming to an end, especially when it's

Speaker 1 something you do not want to come to an end? That's tough. And yet we do get to choose. As a line in my poem says, let go or be dragged, and hold on tight, love your life, live your life, be in it, and yet let go light. Because if you keep letting go to something when it's time to really say goodbye, you will be dragged physically, emotionally, mentally. I think so many people are afraid of death that they never fully live. I think so many people are afraid of loss that they never really love. That is so sad. I really feel like I would have rather

Speaker 1 not ever been born than be half alive, be so afraid of loss that I don't ever go for the things I love. I was, I was so scared to get a dog because I knew my dog would most likely die. And I was so afraid that I could never survive that. And honestly, now that I have Rad and I love Rad more than anything in the freaking universe, the idea of him dying is so sad and scary for me. And yet, oh my God, I am so happy that I did not let that stop me from the joy and the love I feel every day with

Speaker 1 this being for as long as I have him. That has enlivened me truly more than anything. And so I think about the fact that he'll die, but I don't think about it all the time. I learned something from all of my happiness research in my 20s that one of the happiest countries in the world called Bhutan, on average, people think about death for six minutes a day. They meditate on it. And it could sound a little morose, maybe. It's like, why would you be sitting around thinking about death? Well, because death is coming. And yet, do you want to sit around your whole life every day,

Speaker 1 all day, thinking about it? No, because that's probably not living your life to the fullest. And I do not mean you're happy all the time. Uh fuck the toxic positivity. But what makes life beautiful, amazing, powerful, incredible is not just the happy highs. It's all of it. It's giving yourself the chance to feel all the feelings and not get stuck in anyone to keep going, right? So that was a little intro to the death conversation. And of course, we are at the world's first super rad listening school. And as we wrap up season two, I'm gonna invite you to listen in the following way. Masterful listening,

Speaker 1 as always, means you are genuinely curious. You want to be here. Now is a good time. You are not distracted. You really want to dive into a topic that might, you know, you might be curious about, you might be scared of, you might be excited about. Whatever you're bringing in, cool. You're invited to bring in your experience of death. I've had a lot of death in my life recently. I've had a very dear friend's father pass away in the past week. I've been facing my parents' mortality recently with my dad's illness, my mom's been sick. I've been honestly in my own death. I see so many

Speaker 1 parts of myself dying. And it's super hard, but now I'm not afraid anymore because I understand that it's actually very, very, very normal. We have a death instinct. In my poem, if you were listening, I mentioned the word thananos. This is Carl Jung. He talks about this. And literally, we have a death instinct because, in order for us to keep living and really living, we must allow parts of ourselves to die. But when that happens, it could be excruciating because you don't know what's on the other side. And you might even believe there is no other side. My death instinct was so strong at times where

Speaker 1 I really thought I wanted to actually leave my body, but I didn't want to leave my body. Parts of me did, and they needed to leave. And so I've been in this massive transformation recently, dealing with a lot of grief, dealing with a lot of life changes, and I've been so tired. I've been so exhausted. That's why I waited another week to post this because I couldn't get myself to sit down and record it with that intention of enjoying it. Even if it's a hard topic, I could still enjoy recording it, but I just didn't have the energy. And I thought, okay, am I gonna push

Speaker 1 myself to do something in the way that I said I wouldn't do it? No. And that's where that part of me died. The people pleaser, the one who was worried about how I looked or how people honestly felt about me. I I can't say I don't give a fuck what people think because I do, but it's different. I I just care so much more about what I think of me and what I care to experience in my life, especially around something like this podcast, which is one of the most meaningful projects and creations I've ever birthed. And I thought if I need to take a week

Speaker 1 and do it in my own time, I am so doing that. And I will gently bury the part of myself that's worried about the judgment. She can go. I thank her. And I release her because I'm doing this for me and I'm doing this for you. And I do believe that I am exactly perfectly on time, even though it is not felt that way recently. So as you masterfully listen today, listen to my words, listen to my energy. What am I saying? What am I not saying? Make sure you're really curious. And if you realize at some point that you're not, please go and do something

Speaker 1 you do want to be fully present in. Presence is the greatest gift that anyone can give themselves. So give yourself that gift. And thank you for gracing me with your presence through these 31 episodes. If you've heard them all, how cool if you've heard some of them, how cool. If this is your first one, what an awesome one to start on. Let's just go right deep. Let's go into death in the darkness, right? So it's a special day, mostly because I'm actually sitting down to finally do this. It's a perfect circle from, you know, 13 episodes, season one, 31, season two. I don't even know how

Speaker 1 many I'm gonna go for, season three, but I know that whatever happens will happen the way it is meant to, which does not mean I am not the boss of my life and does not mean I'm driving the bus. It means that if I end up taking a really awesome detour, having a rad adventure, that's okay. That's interestingly enough, another death. Really, when I say death, I mean it is an end. It is an end to life as we know it. It is an end to life as spirits in our human body, which is what I believe. Um it's the end of, well, you'd say it

Speaker 1 could be the end of everything, but at the same time, wow, it's such a beginning, but it's challenging to deal with death because we've never been taught, honestly, in this culture in the US, especially to deal with death. Other uh cultures, religions, you know, there's the idea of uh reincarnation and karma. And again, I'm not going into that aspect of it. I do not believe our soul really ever dies, energy just gets transformed. But I actually have never had someone super close to me die and leave their body. So I've been kind of preparing myself for that my whole life. And I used to be so

Speaker 1 terrified of it because I thought, well, how can I survive? How would I want to live without, you know, my friend near me or my dog or whatever? And the truth is, I've now had my own deaths where truly parts of me died, sometimes overnight, and I just fought it and I was so devastated that I thought, oh my God, if I keep having this perspective around it, I will never live a life that feels like a life I want to live. So, how do I shift my mind around death and a just accept it truly? Just really accept the possibility that anyone on any day,

Speaker 1 including you, could this could be your last day, you could die. And so before I go further, I want to also give you the lens of today. Because this is a challenging topic, I invite you to listen through the lens of compassion. We've all had loss and death in different ways. We've lost people, we've lost relationships, we've lost dreams, we've lost parts of ourselves. Uh, maybe that we loved, maybe that we didn't. This can be really hard. And it could also be the most beautiful gift if we can embrace our death fully. And the death of even the death of dreams, or the things we wanted,

Speaker 1 or the places we wanted to go, or the jobs we wanted to have, or the relationships we thought we'd have, or anything. Because with every ending, there is a new beginning. The sun sets, it gets dark, then it rises every day. I mean, nature shows us this cycle of you know death and rebirth everywhere. Uh, they burn fields sometimes because once you burn all the soil, then it comes back so much stronger, healthier. So I want you to notice as I'm speaking today, as you're listening, notice what comes up for you. Is there resistance to things I say? Maybe there's tears. Whatever is there, invite it

Speaker 1 in. And maybe even invite yourself to allow some part of you to die right now. Maybe you're resisting a lot in your life. And the first thing I learned about resistance, which is, I guess, a little bit ironic, maybe that's the word, is if you keep resisting the resistance, it persists. So allow the resistance to be there, feel it in your body, and then just breathe through it. That in itself is a death of sorts, but it's a very peaceful one. And I hope that when I do leave this body, it will be a gentle, peaceful release. Okay. So I'm gonna share a little bit about

Speaker 1 how I discovered this death instinct, how I learned this was an actual thing, and it helped me because I thought I was honestly going crazy. I thought I was dying when about a decade ago I just started waking up in the middle of the night and I couldn't sleep, and I was terrified, and I was spinning in my head, and I was hearing my own voice say, Why are you trying to kill yourself? I mean, I it scared the shit out of me. And when I shared this with my analyst, she told me about Thananos and how it's actually very normal for human beings to want

Speaker 1 to die. What's important to understand is that just because you have a feeling of I want to die or I feel like I'm dying doesn't mean you are actually wanting to take your life. For me, I think a lot of parts of me had to die. I was not on the path that I am on now, and had my entire life not fallen apart and had so many parts of me, frankly, not died. I don't think I would have been on this path. And I know I'm on the right path. This path I'm on is not all sunshine and uh is not all sunshine. It's gloomy

Speaker 1 as fuck sometimes, but it's incredible. It is rich, it's so rich. And I don't mean financially rich, I mean just rich in spirit and love and adventure. And I'm so glad that I realized though that oh, this is normal, this is natural, this is how humans evolve. But if you don't know that, you could very well think you're going insane. And if you start telling people in our society that you're thinking about dying, they will potentially put you in a mental institution, as they put me in there for a few days. And then the psychiatrist said, I don't think you belong in here. I'm like, Yeah,

Speaker 1 I don't think I do either. I think I'm just a person who's transforming and heartbroken and hasn't slept in a while, and I'm scared and confused, which is so normal. We do not know how to deal with this stuff in life. It's so hard. So I'm telling you, there is a natural death instinct. And I'm also not gonna say that if you or someone in your life is really truly thinking about killing yourself, that that is not something to take seriously. I've said this before and I will say it again. I am not a doctor. Uh, I am a mental wealth advocate, I've done a lot

Speaker 1 of research in the field of psychology, and I've had a lot of very personal mental health-related experiences. I always say that if you or someone you know is in danger of really hurting yourself, that it is very smart to very quickly go and seek some help from a professional. And that might very well mean going to the hospital for a few days. Actually, when that happened to me, despite the fact that it was terrifying, and I thought that I was literally losing my mind and might, you know, never live again or be working again or functioning again. That's just what happens when you're drenched in fear.

Speaker 1 And here I am, perfectly capable, stronger than ever, and more in touch with my feelings, my experiences. The mental strength that I have cultivated by going into that darkness is pretty profound. And I am so grateful for it. So I want you to know thinking about death, that's normal. Um, seeking support if you're really struggling is brave. So please do that and take care of yourself. But also remember that if if people are thinking about death and they're struggling in life, the best thing you can do is just listen to them. Hold their hand. Because trying to fix someone and make them feel good literally is

Speaker 1 the worst thing you could do. I really suggest you learn and apply this masterful listening skill that I've been talking about for 31 episodes, especially in times where people in your life are struggling. I have never met someone in a dark, dark time who wanted someone to show up and drag them out and fix them emotionally. Most of the time, all I wanted, and I think what most people want, in my experience, is for someone to be like, hey, you want me to just sit in the shit with you for a while? Hold your hand, you're not alone. That really helps. And then at some point,

Speaker 1 you do got to get up. You know, when you find yourself at the bottom of a well, don't furnish it, as Liz Gilbert said. Um, but give yourself some time to fall apart. Lose your shit, find yourself. That was another episode in season one, really. When you keep saying, Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine, uh, you're not gonna actually be fine. How about we start admitting the times in our life where we feel like crap and we feel like we're dying and we feel like everything's falling apart, and then we'll start seeing that so many of us feel this way, and it's okay. Doesn't mean you're crazy,

Speaker 1 doesn't mean you have mental illness. It could mean that you are struggling deeply in your mind, and that's okay too. It happens to so many of us. I don't want to say it happens to the best of us because it doesn't make you good or bad. It just happens. It's part of the human experience. Oh my god, the crow is back. Hi. Wow, that's crazy. I usually have hummingbirds flying here. And now that I'm recording this death episode, there's just literally a crow just hanging out right outside my window. Well, thank you, crow, for uh being a little wink from the universe. Uh yeah, so I

Speaker 1 discovered the death instinct many, many, many years ago. And recently I realized, wow, I think I'm in another death cycle. Uh I've recently, the past six months, I've lost like a relationship with one of my best friends who I never thought a relationship would end with over a complete misunderstanding. It was so surprising. It was so sad. Um actually, it happened with another friend as well. So two people that I love deeply. It really feels like they died because they're still alive, but they're not at all in my life, which in a way feels almost worse because I know they're there, but I just can't connect

Speaker 1 with them. That's been really, really, really, really sad for me. I have moments where I'm fine and then it hits me and I just cry. And yet the difference between this time and other times where I've lost friends, uh, people I really, really loved is I was, I mean, I was so devastated. I was so scared that it really destroyed my life. I couldn't focus, the anxiety, the depression, I couldn't function. And now I'm not afraid of this. I've just been there before. I know that this too shall pass because it's tattooed on my arm, and I believe it. I've seen how truly anyone I've lost,

Speaker 1 I need it to let go of. There's clearly some reason that they are not serving me and I am not serving them. And while that is so hard, the fact that I can just accept it and be really sad about it is kind of amazing. I think that was another death is the the really, really sensitive part of me that felt like without this person, I will die. My life will fall apart. She died too because I've lost so much in my life. So many opportunities and jobs that I thought were it I've lost. A lot of material things that I thought were my favorite things

Speaker 1 in the universe, I've lost. Uh, the man I really thought was the husband I've been waiting for my whole life, lost. Um dreams that I thought, you know, were it. You know, I'm the this is it girl. Uh-uh. Nope. I've funny enough, achieved so many of the dreams I've had and still been so miserable that I was like, wow. It was like a loss of faith or a loss of hope. And yet it all led here to this moment where I am able to hold so much loss and still look outside and see the sun and see the crow and hear Rad snoring in the background

Speaker 1 and be grateful that I'm sitting at this beautiful table that was handmade for me, and that I have a microphone that allows me to share my words with you. But the loss hasn't completely erased the the life that is always, always, always, always here.

Speaker 1 So that death instinct, Thananos, and that life instinct, which is called Eros, they symbolize this internal conflict between this self-destructive urge that we have and this desire for creation that we have. It essentially reflects the psychological struggle that we have with mortality, right? Like, isn't it wild? We basically come into this life and we know that everyone we love will die. We don't know how, and often it happens in very unexpected, painful ways. We're also taught to like build and create and educate ourselves, and at the end of the day, we lose everything, literally. Like everything goes away. So it's this like pursuit of all this

Speaker 1 creation with this inevitable destruction, and then we have these hearts and these minds and these bodies, and they feel everything and they get sick, and it's just like who designed this? It feels kind of cruel, and yet is it? Maybe that's the point. Maybe we really came here as spiritual beings. Consider this, you know, maybe to have this experience of everything. And everything does not mean everything good. It means everything, everything gain, loss, love, hate, you know, that kind of ecstatic life and deeply, deeply, deeply uh yeah, sad moment when you realize you'll never see someone again, and you'll never laugh with someone again. And for

Speaker 1 me, truly, it it was seeing me die. It was seeing a woman who was always so vibrant, had a really strong voice, uh, dreams, ambitions. I almost overnight woke up and I didn't recognize myself. I didn't look like myself. I didn't sound like myself, I couldn't speak, I couldn't get dressed. I mean, my transformation really felt like I was dying. It was so scary, it was so deep that I literally wanted, I couldn't, I didn't think I could handle more pain. And that was when this word came into my awareness, this idea of the death instinct. And then I started asking myself, well, what does need

Speaker 1 to die? Even if I don't want it to, even if I'm holding on, because our ego holds on, right? We want to hold on to ourselves even if we don't really like parts of ourselves. Think about yourself right now. And think about the parts of yourself that you perhaps do love, that you have an attachment to, you know, I am this. What do you say about yourself that feels good? And what about the other side? What about the parts of yourself that you're like, oh, I'm always late, or I'm a procrastinator, or I'm messy, or whatever. What would it feel like to have those parts die?

Speaker 1 Seriously. Because let's just take an example here with me. I you know, it's funny, I didn't even plan which one I was gonna talk about, but I will take a breath in this moment and let's see what appears.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, the thing that just popped into my head is I think the biggest part that I know has to die right now, and it's really hard, is the part of me that loves and wants to heal and help those I love. That might sound weird, like really, you want the part of you to die that's loving and helpful, and yet, yeah, and here's why that aspect of me, that like healer, lover, has been doing that my whole life. I feel like in a very big way, I've been the like emotional support for my family, and that is a gift. I'm an empath, I'm very sensitive,

Speaker 1 I'm a healer. I do that for my work as a coach. But when you're always doing that and you're always showing up for others, it is exhausting and it is depleting. Have you heard of that idea of the wounded healer? Have you met healers before that are out there trying to heal everybody, but they're not well? Yeah, I was seeing that that's where I was heading. And I I just I don't want to go there. I don't want to sacrifice my own well-being anymore to help others, even if it feels really good to like be the helper and the savior. So I've realized recently that I

Speaker 1 am releasing myself from needing to not just heal the world and those I love, but to even love the world and those I love. Because that healing and that love has always been attached to this sense of like, but this is just what I have to do. As a good daughter, I have to do this for my parents, and then I'm guilty if I don't. But is that really who I want to be? Do I want to sacrifice my own mental health, my own emotional health, my own joy to keep showing up to save someone else? And the answer is no. And it's really hard to

Speaker 1 say that and to discover it because it feels selfish, and yet I'm gonna own that. And I invite you to consider what it would be like also to let the part of you die that thinks it's your job to save anybody else. Because let me tell you, when I was drowning, I really wanted someone to come and save me. And I was so scared and angry that no one was there and no one could do it, and no one, I made up stories, they don't care about me, and I'm not worthy, and none of that was true. I realized while I was really feeling like I

Speaker 1 was drowning, that the only way I was ever gonna survive and make it back to shore is if I found that warrior within and that fierce compassion and all those things that I had to find and saved myself because I would have dragged people down with me, and I did, and I stopped, and it was hard, it really is hard, but I'm telling you, nobody will save you, nobody will save you, but you can save you, and I know you can save you. So letting that part of you die that's waiting for someone to come along and save you, even if it happens, uh, it's not

Speaker 1 gonna happen every time. And imagine how much more empowering and free you would be, or empowered and free if you knew that you got your own back and then lived life in a way that helped you acquire the tools to have your own back, right? Those mental wealth tools that I talk about, those things that ground you so that I used to be someone who, as soon as I felt bad or uncomfortable, I'd pick up the phone and I'd call everyone. I'd call, I'd call, and call, literally. And someone I needed to talk to. And by the way, I am not saying to not pick up

Speaker 1 the phone and call a friend when you're in need. Yes, definitely do that. But do not expect that someone else will save you. They are not. And this is the fierce one in me that is being fierce with you because I had a yoga teacher who I thought was gonna be all gentle. With me, say that to me in a moment where I thought I needed to just be held and loved and told it's gonna be okay. And you know what she said? She said, Hey, Svet, do you want to die for real? Because the only way you're gonna get through this is if you tap

Speaker 1 into the fucking warrior within. And I was like, What? And I heard her. And I'm saying this because of course people will be there. Someone can throw you a life jacket, right? And and receive that. But at the end of the day, you need to want to live. You need to want to find the strength to do your freaking best to swim back to shore, the shore of your life. And that's not an easy thing to cultivate, but it's possible. And I really think that the sooner you embrace that you will die, you will suffer, and until the actual physical death happens, if you can allow

Speaker 1 yourself to transform and change into the person you want to be, into the person who's gonna swim for your life, but in every moment. That means going for the job and speaking up for yourself if you've been someone who's been really quiet. It means setting boundaries with people, if you've struggled with that. It means stopping making excuses for yourself and other people if you've been a people pleaser. It means stepping up and believing that you can change your life. Because when I say let yourself die, that's what I mean. I mean let yourself live and become who you came here to be. And the only way

Speaker 1 to become it is to unbecome who you've been. You don't have to make it bad. You can just say thank you to the people pleaser, to the perfectionist, to the whatever you've been that you know maybe in this next chapter, after this next chrysalis, you know you're ready for something else. And it's always scary because it's dark. We don't see through, right? Like you can't tell what's in a dark alley. So they say don't go in there. But I say go into the dark alley of yourself. Go into that basement. The faster you run, the bigger your shadow. Face it. I had a vision one day.

Speaker 1 I don't remember if it was a dream or just like I get these flashes of visions sometimes in my life. And it was I was running away and something was chasing me, and I was in this dark alley, and then I just turned around and looked at it, and it was like this little me shaking, scared. And I just stopped and looked at her and hugged her.

Speaker 1 Because they can't anyway. Therapists can help, friends can help, medicine can help, meditation can help you. All of it is helpful, but you just being able to sit with the reality of here's where I'm at. This is it. If you like it, awesome. Maybe you're not in a death uh cycle. Great. Well, then I hope you live your life fully. But if you are, I just hope that these words might inspire you to stop running. Just slow down and sit there. The next time you feel like crap, and you're maybe you're thinking about death, or maybe you're feeling really just bad in your body and your

Speaker 1 soul and your heart and your mind. Don't try to fix it. Don't try to change it. Just breathe into it. Say to yourself, hey, I I am here. I feel that. I feel that pain. And I'm with you. I am not leaving you ever. After I saw that little girl chasing me in the alley and how scared she was, I started saying to myself in moments where I felt so scared, so much pain, literally, physical or emotional, I would say, Hey, Sveti, I got you. I am never leaving you. You are safe. I got you.

Speaker 2 I got you.

Speaker 1 Because it's really easy to be around people when they feel great and happy. It's a lot harder to be around someone who's suffering all the time, right? And yet abandoning yourself when you're down.

Speaker 1 That hurts. So stop abandoning your death, stop abandoning your pain. And I guarantee that if you even consider this, you will stop abandoning yourself in life too. You'll live deeper, you'll live more fully. There's a book called A Year to Live by Stephen Levine. I'm gonna link it. It's an incredible book. I discovered it when I was in a Dharma group. Uh, I love Buddhism. I've I'm drawn to it. I'm more of a Taoist, but Buddhism very heavily focused on uh suffering. But what I love about Buddhism and what I love about this particular book that I learned about is it's called A Year to Live.

Speaker 1 Uh, How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last. And uh I mean, I'm gonna read a little bit about what this is about, and I'm gonna invite you as your homework for this wrap of this season. I get no money for this. I'm just promoting it because this really did change my life. And it's very connected to this topic of death. Um, in A Year to Live, Stephen Levine, author of the perennial bestseller Who Dies, teaches us how to live in each moment, each hour, each day mindfully, as if it were all that was left. On his deathbed, Socrates exhorted his followers to

Speaker 1 practice dying as the highest form of wisdom. Levine decided to live this way himself for a whole year, and now he shares with us how such immediacy radically changes our view of the world and forces us to examine our priorities. Most of us go to extraordinary lengths to ignore, laugh off, or deny our grief over the fact that we are going to die. But preparing for death is one of the most rational and rewarding acts of a lifetime. It is an exercise that gives us the opportunity to deal with unfinished business and enter into a new and vibrant relationship with life. Levine provides us with a

Speaker 1 year-long program of intensely practical strategies and powerful guided meditations to help with this work so that whenever the ultimate moment does arrive for each of us, we will not feel that it has come too soon. I did this experiment as well a very long time ago, and I kind of want to do it again. So perhaps I will masterfully listen to my own homework and reread this book. I'm posting it and I invite you to sit with death for six minutes a day. And just really ask yourself if this was the last year of my life, how would I show up? Who would I be? What

Speaker 1 parts of myself would I want to live into deeper? What do I want to let go of? What would I do? Who would I be? Who would I spend time with? Where would I go? What would I eat? What would I wear? Because guess what? This might be the last year of your life. Or you might have another 50 years ahead, or however more. But when you really start living with the appreciation of this life is a gift and everything you lose is a gift in some way, if you choose to believe that. And if you masterfully listen to what brings you alive and what needs

Speaker 1 to die, I don't know. That's a pretty magical way to be in this world. And I'm not saying I've perfected it. In fact, I struggle with it also. But where I have done a lot of work, and what I do hope for you is I'm just I'm not afraid of these times anymore where I am really sad and I'm dark and I'm low energy. I don't like them. But I know the chrysalis is melting. I know that soup is melting, but I know that when I emerge, just like those butterflies emerged and they reacted to the same smell as the caterpillar. It showed that they didn't

Speaker 1 fully die. Some part of them stays, even though it looks totally different. You will still be you if you allow parts of yourself to die. You're just gonna kind of drop that backpack of boulders that you've been carrying around that you might just not need anymore.

Speaker 1 Self-belief and patience that might just be the like ultimate formula. Believe in yourself enough to just consider that you might be that savior you've been waiting for. Make a list of the parts of you that you are okay letting die. Have a ceremony for them. Thank them. And uh be patient because this is uh not for the faint of heart. This is a hero's journey. Those of us that are here to transform and grow and heal and change the world. Uh that is a massive thing. And I honor you if you're suffering, because you can sense that you're growing and it's hard and it's scary. I've

Speaker 1 been there, I am there, and every tunnel ends in light. So enjoy the tunnel. Enjoy it because it will end. And at some point, you might even look back at that time that felt like the worst time ever, and nothing was happening and be like, wow, that was actually not as bad. You know, that was actually kind of calm. There is an interesting, calm, like beautiful, hauntingly beautiful melancholy vibe around a death, too. You know, I just hope that today you consider or consider reconsidering how you felt about this topic of completion and death. Because it doesn't have to be dark. And the reality is it's

Speaker 1 gonna happen. And the more you just look at the things you're afraid of, just like I turned around and saw that little kid shaking in the alley, the less it scares you. The thing that scares me the most is not living my life fully, because then I think dying will be really sad. Whereas when you've lived fully and embraced yourself,

Speaker 1 I think that's how to live a masterful life and end with a masterful death. But you know, practicing along the way I think could be a really beautiful journey. And as I wrap up today, I'm gonna thank you again for listening. I'm gonna thank you for being on this masterful listening journey as an aspiring, masterful listener alongside myself. And next season is gonna be rad. Lots of exciting things coming. And I'm gonna end with a poem. It's one of my favorite poems. It's called The Dachini Speaks by Jennifer Wellwood. My friends, let's grow up, let's stop pretending we don't know the deal here. Or if we

Speaker 1 truly haven't noticed, let's wake up and notice. Look, everything that can be lost will be lost. It's simple. How could we have missed it for so long? Let's grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings, but please let's not be so shocked by them. Let's not act so betrayed as though life had broken her secret promise to us. Impermanence is life's uh only promise to us, and she keeps it with ruthless impeccability. To a child, she seems cruel, but she's only wild and her compassion exquisitely precise, brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth. She strips away the unreal to show us the real.

Speaker 1 Let's give ourselves to it, let's stop making deals for a safe passage. There isn't one anyway, and the cost is too high. We're not children anymore. The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost. Let's dance the wild dance of no hope.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening, you masterful listener. I hope this death conversation inspires you to live whatever kind of life you came here to live. And may you have the courage to discover it and let go gently of the things that you no longer need and hold on really tightly to the things that you do until it's time to let those go as well.