Dying has taught me how to live

I am dying.

In fact, according to medical statistics, I should have died ten years ago. More recently, in June 2020, my palliative care specialist told me that based on my CT scan results, I had 3-6 months to live.

I am still here, still very much alive. On no regular medication except occasionally I inject myself with morphine for pain.

I have terminal, metastatic breast cancer. Obviously, the primary cancer is in my breast, and then I have metastases in both lungs, femurs, left hip, my entire spine, my pelvis, my shoulders, ribs, a tumour encroaching on my heart, and many random small tumours that have popped up all over my body.

It sounds like everyone's worst nightmare, and yet, I have never experienced it as such.

Cancer has taught me how to die, and conversely, how to live. It has been a gift.

I used to live in fear. I was always anxious.

Then at the age of 40, my life as I knew it fell apart. I fell in love with a man who wasn't my husband and left the church I had belonged to since birth. This church had taught me that if I left it, there was a special place reserved in hell for me. It had taught me a punishing, jealous, petty, revengeful God who would be angry at me if I cut my hair or wore jeans.

I was absolutely terrified.

I went through an excruciating 18 months of classic "dark night of the soul" where everything that I had based my life on was shown to be shallow and empty. Including myself. And during this time, the cancer began to grow in my breast. Fueled by terror, self-loathing and pain.

I lost my church, my friends, my community, my business, my marriage. I was broken, ashamed and afraid. Out of the ashes of my life, I eventually found myself.

The only thing that saved me from complete mental breakdown was an unfathomable "knowing" that this had to happen. That everything was unfolding perfectly and I just had to show up each day and trust. I had no experience of connecting to my "higher self", my soul. Fundamentalist Christianity has no place for anything other than rigid conformity to their own interpretation of the Bible, and everything I was being prompted to do was breaking every rule, every concept of God that I had lived by my entire life.

I resisted and struggled and tortured myself beyond enduring until I had to surrender. I couldn't go on.

I made three conscious decisions:

1 That if God was a God of un-conditional love as new friends were telling me, then there must be a way to live in this world without fear, and I would not stop looking until I found it.

2 I would learn to trust the inner promptings from what I could only assume was my soul.

3 I wanted to know what Truth was.

And thus began a so far 14 year journey into learning how to die and how to truly live.

Once I left the church and my mind began to reluctantly open to new ideas, I quickly understood that all fear originated in my mind, then I felt it in my body, making it seem real. I realised that other people could be in the same position as I was, and yet experience it completely differently. It was very clear that my beliefs created my perceptions which created my reality which reinforced my beliefs which reinforced my perceptions which strengthened my reality. An endlessly repeating cycle.

On one level this was good news because it meant that I had the power to change the cycle - I could choose HOW I experienced whatever life brought my way. On another level it wasn't such great news because I was so full of fear and so disempowered I could not imagine my future self ever making a decision fearlessly. And I didn't know where to start.

The wonderful thing about this amazing universe we live in, is that it is designed to support us. So, having made these 3 conscious decisions, life brought me all the books, people, experiences that I needed to grow into the person I wanted to become. As I learned to trust and to be open and willing to learn and grow, life became easier and I became stronger, and stronger, and stronger.

I actively reprogrammed myself. My mind gradually moved from fear to love, and I began to trust that whatever happened was perfect. Even the death of the man whose love for me and mine for him, began the whole journey. He died of pancreatic and liver cancer 6 years after we got together. My belief in the perfection of life unfolding exactly as it is meant to enabled me to only feel peace, joy and a deep sense of being surrounded by love when he died.

I have sat with my own dying and meditated deeply in it, and found only deep love and peace and joy. I truly, totally believe now that we are energy beings, spiritual beings that continue on after physical death. I believe that we are fully supported and held in love at all times. I believe that there is nothing to fear,, that we are beautiful and perfect exactly as we are - beautiful works in progress that continue joyfully for ever.

I have few regrets, except perhaps that I haven't been bolder, that I haven't grasped life with both hands and lived it fiercely and passionately. I have taken the quieter route, perhaps because old habits die hard, or maybe boldness just isn't part of my personality.

I want to tell you this. Life is beautiful. Full of depths and layers that we miss because we are moving too fast, too concerned about the destination to really enjoy the journey. Slow down. Love deeply, Practice feeling gratitude for what you have. Find a sense of wonder and awe again at the magnificence of creation. Appreciate beauty. Seek peace. Find joy in simple things like the sound of the wind in trees, the song of birds, the silky wetness of the ocean.

And above all, Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy your life!

There is nothing to fear.

If you find this story helpful, please like or even tip.