Facing Own Death

Facing our own death can be an experience either of fear, helplessness, and pain or of acceptance, gratitude, and continuing engagement with loved ones and valued activities. Models have been crafted about stages of facing one’s death that suggest we initially cannot accept it but that our anger, our efforts at bargaining, our sadness all still take us to eventual recognition and acceptance. Whether or not we feel our own death is imminent, there is much great wisdom that shares the thought that facing—and accepting—our own mortality is essential to living a full, vibrant, and meaningful life in the moment we are alive, here and now.