It was 2006, a time when the world still was not ready to talk about dying. I sometimes feel it was not ready to receive me back when I was so happy to have had the experience. It would have been better if I had no memory of all that I saw and the people I spoke to while my body was dead.
But I loved dying.
It was the best thing that happened to me.
It wasn’t pain-free, and it came without a truckload of challenges. But I would do it again in a heartbeat (or no heartbeat, haha).
It was peaceful, blissful, interesting, and I got to talk to people who I had known forever. It was exciting in a way that completely redefines the word.
But I was not allowed to tell anyone: We Do Not Talk About Death.
Talking about The Fun of Dying is not a great conversation starter, and I find it can clear the room. The doctors and nurses, who had experience with other successful resuscitations, were not buying it. My friends and family looked at me blankly and told me to “stay away from the light” in Shrek’s voice… or was it Donkey’s voice? Some people started talking to me slowly, using simple words, as if I had become mentally incapacitated when my heart stopped and then started again, I hadn’t. I was also told (somewhat kindly) that my brain had created a chemical response that resulted in hallucinations… for 20 minutes or so(!) until I returned to my body and my heart started again.
I was reading a letter from a dying 27-year-old about what is important in life. In her heartfelt and inspirational message to her family, friends and humanity, she said, “I haven’t started this ‘note before I die’ so that death is feared – I like the fact that we are mostly ignorant of its inevitability. Except when I want to talk about it, and it is treated like a ‘taboo’ topic that will never happen to any of us. That’s been a bit tough.”
It’s time to talk about dying.
It was a sunny midwinter day in July when I died. When I returned to my body, the sharp technicolour reality of the Other Side caused this world to seem like a pale facsimile. On that cold and dark night in winter, it felt like pure sunshine had enveloped all of existence. The seriousness of living here on earth had faded away, and night was actually bright daylight. I could see life on earth from a different frequency, from the perspective which shows the truth: we are playing a game of our own making, and we have simply forgotten who we really are.
There is no death in the sense that you cease to exist. There is only continuous life, one part here in a faded dream of a movie, and the other on that side in the clear, blissful focus of reality. You drop your body in ‘death’ and continue to be alive — truly, wonderfully and fully alive.
I wish everyone could see and feel this in their bones. When you go on holiday, you throw yourself in wholeheartedly. You don’t plan a holiday, look forward to it, and then avoid all the experiences you lined up for yourself when you finally arrive.
This is your holiday from home, from your everyday living. This is the holiday you have planned and looked forward to. This human life is the adventure you wanted for yourself.
And after you fall off the twig, kick the bucket, stick your spoon in the wall, shuffle off this mortal coil, drop your body, or transition, you reunite with your soul family and reminisce about the experiences you had on your earth holiday. Everything you have learned, all the things you want to do the next time you put on a meat suit (as I call it) — in a few months or years, you will be there, planning your next adventure.
It’s time to talk about dying, because fear of the unknown is keeping you in a state of half living.
What my near transition and return to the gravity suit taught me:
- You can begin again at any time — several times a day if you wish.
- Starting over as an adult gives you the edge. When you start over as a newborn, you have to go to school, and grown-ups boss you around for years before you can crack on with what you really want to do.
- You are an energetic being with a body which is your key, your ticket, your toolkit to figuring this life on earth thing out.
- Being silly is vastly underrated; laughter is the fastest way to raise your energy.
- You are more powerful than you think — you create your entire human life through your feelings, thoughts and words.
- Talking about death helps you live well and then die well. Death is coming, and it’s cool.
Jim Carrey said, “Jim Carrey is a great character, and I was lucky to get the part.” He gets it. You are briefly in this role, and then you go back to being the continuous you, the real you.
It’s just that while you are playing this human-on-holiday role, you have forgotten who you are. The real you is still there, buried under layers of stories you have taken on as truths, ideas, recurring thought loops and habits. Burdens. Things that feel heavy.
The idea of letting these things go feels good — imagine feeling light, alive and free. Imagine resetting, beginning again without those stories — just with your own awareness, your own self. Imagine that lightness of being, when you can get to know yourself intimately through experiences and adventures.
You can. Begin again, I mean. You can die a death right now, which kickstarts a different life. You can let that small ego go, or that part that thinks you are not enough. Death (of thought loops) brings such liberation, such magnificent and joyful living, you should do it as often as possible.
And it returns you once again to the pure light being you are at your core. Whether or not you drop your body.
My name is Michelle, and I would like to talk about dying.
Will you join me?