The life cycle we struggle with so much
Life. This we understand.
Or not.
We’re born, we grow up, we do things, we own things, we get old, we die. That’s pretty much it. To make matters worse, we’re participants in this thing we call life. We take part in a game designed for us by others. Our parents, mentors, society.
Before you object to what I’ve said, answer me this.
Is your life meaningful? Do you know who you are and what you’re here to do?
I thought not.
My life wasn’t meaningful, either. Until I dug deep to discover why my little voice kept on asking me “Is this it?” for much of my adult life. That’s where I found the meaning.
Making my life meaningful changed everything. For me. For those I serve.
I didn’t understand death any better. And I’m guessing that you don’t, either.
When beings I loved died, I saw it as an ending. A final act. I couldn’t imagine finding that love again elsewhere. At least, not for a long time.
A lot of this stemmed from my belief system at the time. I told myself I couldn’t bear this type of heartbreak again. I also told myself that ‘replacing’ this being in my life would be disloyal to the one who had died.
I felt guilty. About a lot of things.
- Whether she knew I loved her.
- Whether I’d done right by him.
- Having feelings of happiness or love ‘too soon’ after the death.
- Not having enough love in me. So, I’d have to love him less to have enough love for someone new.
Turns out, I was as wrong about death as I was about life.
If life is meant to be meaningful, then death is meant to be enriching.
This is how nature works. A Western red-cedar tree knows exactly what it’s here to do. To be the best possible Western red-cedar tree. It spend its whole life doing this. And then it dies.
When a Western red-cedar tree dies and falls to the forest floor, it leaves its richness behind. Its wealth of nutrients are there to give life to all that inhabit the forest. Insects, animals, other trees.
In death, the Western red-cedar tree leaves its world richer, primed for new life.
And in death, we humans also leave our world richer, primed for new life. If those left behind could only see it.
When beings we love die, the pain we feel breaks open our hearts. This can prime us for even deeper love, for even deeper connections.
Or it can prime us to close down.
If we are to honour those who die, then we, too, must use the richness they leave behind. The lifetime of happy memories. The heartbreak from their death.
We must use this to give ourselves more life. To become more human. To love and connect with others more deeply. To be more compassionate. Not to waste a scrap of what these beings gave us through their lives.
Life, death, and life. Meaning, enrichment, deeper meaning.
Nature’s cycle is ours, too. Believe it.
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Sarah Blick is Well-Being Wizard and Life Coach at Aging Disgracefully Well. Sarah has the rare combination of unparalleled life experience and serious business expertise. She spent 28 years as a game-changer in senior marketing roles internationally, including a couple working directly with Richard Branson at Virgin, and four as a life transformer in coaching and mentoring roles. Alongside her successful career, Sarah relentlessly pursued another passion: understanding why, despite having everything, she felt as though something was missing from her life. This pursuit led her to experience more life changes than most people experience in three lifetimes, many of them very challenging. By the time she found what was missing, Sarah had completely transformed her life and lifestyle. Today, she is fit, healthy, happy and fulfilled — and aging disgracefully well. Her successful career and personal transformation have helped her develop what she considers to be three of her superpowers: exceptional courage, uncommon resilience, fearless action-taking. These now sit alongside her instinctive qualities of compassion, leadership, and tenacity, to enable her to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.
She works with exceptional people who have everything in life… except for the meaning they crave. They know they’ve been settling, not living fully, but don’t know how to change that. She helps them access what they need to make this change, and prepares them to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.
In her personalized signature programme, Your Lifestyle Rehab™, Sarah gives her clients what they need to overhaul their lifestyle. To enable them to start living fully — as their best self, and making a meaningful difference in the lives of others. Your Lifestyle Rehab™ is designed with her best self — the expertise she developed in her high-level business career and the life lessons she learned in her 30-year quest for a life with meaning — PLUS the latest thinking from the fields of neuroscience, aging and psychology. This powerful combination is capable of delivering transformative results, leaving her clients ready for the life they’ve only dreamed of until now. And that’s what aging disgracefully well is all about. To schedule an exploratory chat, contact Sarah today.
Originally published at medium.com