547: Reflecting On Death (Our Own and Our Loved Ones)

[INTRODUCTION]

 

Hal Elrod: Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod. And today we’re talking about a very serious topic, a very impactful topic, reflecting on death, our own and our loved ones. And I lost one of my closest friends this week and this inspired me to talk about what was on my heart. So that’s what we’re talking about today and the way that I want to address this episode or approach it is I want to honor my good friend John Ruhlin, who passed this week. And then I want to talk to you about dealing with our own death, because death is something that’s inevitable for all of us and how we view it, how we anticipate it, how we interpret it, determines how it impacts us while we are alive. If you have a great fear of death, of course, that impacts your quality of life while you are living. And so we’re going to start by talking about our own death. And I’ll offer you some different perspectives and ways of approaching it. And of course, my own life, I’ve been very close to death a couple of times. And so sharing from my personal experience and then talking about the death of people that we love, losing our loved ones, which is also inevitable for most, if not all of us. Depending on who goes before whom. And, also sharing with you a perspective on death, of people that we love and having or being in the midst of dealing with that right now. Sharing some thoughts on how I’ve been processing the loss of someone that I care greatly about. Today’s episode is brought to you by two of our sponsors. And first is Organifi. 

 

If you want to improve your health in any way, one of the fastest, easiest ways to do that is Organifi’s high quality, organic, whole food supplements. Most of them, if not all of, well most of them, are in powder form that you can put in your smoothie or a juice or some water, and then there are some different capsules that I take. I’m a big fan of their focus supplement, which I take often in the morning and or afternoon. Their protein powder, their red juice, you name it. Head over to Organifi.com/Hal that is spelled O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I, Organifi.com/Hal, and use the discount code Hal for 20% off your entire order. And it really is one of my favorite supplement companies to improve my health in every way possible.

 

And last but not least, CURED Nutrition. For me, I bookend my days with CURED Nutrition. I take their rise supplement first thing in the morning, which is a nootropic to help with focus, to help with cognitive function and sustained energy without caffeine. Although I do take caffeine, to be clear. And then I go to bed with their product Nighttime Oil. And Nighttime Oil, also, Night Caps in a capsule form has CBD and CBN oil, which help you fall asleep and stay asleep. There is both a sedative effect, and what’s the other word I’m looking for? Bottom line, it helps you fall asleep and stay asleep. And I take it seven days a week, every single night. If you want to wake up with more focus and you want to go to bed and stay asleep and sleep better, head over to CuredNutrition.com/Hal and use that discount code H-A-L, Hal for 20% off your order as a listener of the Achieve Your Goals podcast. 

And without further ado, let’s talk about reflecting on death. How to view death in a way that doesn’t. Oh, how do I even put this into words? Let’s just keep going. All right. I love you all so much. I hope this episode is really impactful for you. 

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal Elrod: Hello, friends. I have been procrastinating on recording today’s episode all morning. I was supposed to start at 9 a.m. and it is now 12:15, and I found myself doing everything but recording. And the reason for that is yesterday I found out that one of my longest and closest friends passed away, John Ruhlin. And John and I have known each other for 25 years, give or take. Our families have gone on vacation together. We’ve roomed together at conferences and worked together for many years and been very close friends for over two decades. And he is a father. He has four daughters and a wife and, yeah, it’s just, it’s surreal. I cried a lot yesterday. And I’ve been processing it as you do when you find out really difficult news.

 

And what I realized is that our worldview, the way that we view the world, the beliefs that we have, the perspectives that we maintain really determine our ability to get through adversity, to get through a challenge or loss, whatever life throws at us. And I would say that I am processing this relatively well, if you will, as well as one can. And so, as I had a podcast to record this week, I just felt like this was an appropriate topic, how to deal with death, how to deal with it in a healthy way, in a proactive way, and just share with you not the end all be all, right? I don’t think anything I would ever share is like, “Hey, this is the way it is. These are the facts.” No. It’s, “Hey, these are perspectives or a perspective that collectively that I’ve gained or that people that I bring to you on the show have gained.”

 

And, by the way, before we dive into kind of the content today, and I’m going to talk about dealing with our own death, I think that’s an important place to start, and then dealing with the death, the loss of people in our lives that we care about. Before I get into that, I do want to mention I want to honor my friend, John Ruhlin. And if you don’t know who John is, you would be one of the few. He has literally hundreds of friends because he’s one of the most generous giving human beings that you could ever have the privilege of knowing. In fact, he wrote a book about it. He is the author of Giftology. And it’s an entire book about strategic gifting. How do you give people gifts that are heartfelt, that are meaningful, that they will use maybe every day for the rest of their lives?

 

And if you are a, I would just encourage you, anybody, everybody go check out John’s book, Giftology. And he talks about radical generosity and really just loving on people, pouring into people. And that’s who he was, and that’s who he was for his friends and for his clients and for his colleagues. I mean, he was just an amazing giver. And yesterday, when the news, I found out the news within hours. I had dozens of text messages from people asking, “Is it true? You know, this can’t be true. This is surreal.” And his impact has been felt. And I will tell you that I am committed to doing everything in my power and rallying our friend group and his friends/colleagues to provide a support for his family indefinitely, and to continue his legacy.

 

And so, it’s funny, as an author, I was talking to one of our mutual friends and I said, “Well, I would hope that when I pass away, which inevitably we all will, I would hope that y’all keep the Miracle Morning going. That was my mission. That was my message.” And for John Ruhlin, his book, Giftology, was part of his mission of radical generosity and really inspiring people to give and give and serve and be more generous. And so, that’s my little piece that I can do to help John continue his legacy. And I will continue, this is top of mind for me, and it will be for a long, long, long, long time indefinitely. That’s one thing that I realized.

 

I was talking to my wife about this last night, and she’s also very close with John’s wife and their family and so she took this as hard as anyone. We were talking about that so often when someone passes, it’s like maybe there’s a GoFundMe to raise some money for the family or you send your condolences, but then you move on with your life. And I thought, “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to move on with my life. I want to keep John a part of my life forever.” And that, for me, is to honor someone you love to in any way you can to support the person, the family. And we’ll talk today a little about like, how do you do that? I want to get a little tactical with you today. It’s really easy to get emotional. I could just cry for this entire episode, but I don’t think that would serve you. So, I want to share with you on how we can deal with our own death and how to deal with the death of another person.

 

So, let’s start here. Dealing with our own death, addressing the fear of death that a lot of people have. And it’s totally normal. Since individuals tend to have a self-preservation instinct, it’s natural to feel or to fear death. But is it necessary? Is it sensible? Is it helpful? And I was reading an article on PsychologyToday.com and the author of that article, Michael Edelstein, PhD, said, “Fearing death is useless. It doesn’t help and makes you feel worse.” Now, at first glance, it felt a little a little insensitive, a little bit harsh but if you think about it, I mean, fearing death is unequivocally not necessary.

 

And what I mean is that since your emotions are caused by your thinking about situations, not by the situations themselves, right? Our emotions are caused by our thinking about situations, not about the situations themselves, which is why two different people can be focusing on the same situation or dealing with it, and they deal with it in totally different ways because of the way they think about it, based on their beliefs, based on their perspectives, based on their worldview. And because you can learn to change your thinking, you can overcome your fear, any fear, including your fear of death by identifying the thinking that’s causing the fear, that’s perpetuating the fear, and then determining if your perspective is reasonable, if it’s helpful, if it’s proactive, and then you can change it if it’s not those things, right, if it doesn’t feel that those things are correct.

 

There’s a philosopher, Epictetus, and he said, “I cannot escape death, but at least I can escape the fear of it.” And I personally have been relatively close to death at least a couple of times. During my car accident, technically, I was clinically dead for six minutes. My heart stopped beating for approximately six minutes. And during the next week, while I was in a coma, I flatlined twice more. And so, that was the first brush with death that I had when I was 20 years old. And then now I was unconscious for all of that. So, that’s a different brush with death, right? Meaning, yes, I was clinically dead but I wasn’t aware of it. At least I don’t know that I was. I’m sure maybe some part of my consciousness was aware and experiencing it, but I don’t recall that.

 

Now, more recently, seven years ago at age 37, so 17 years after the car accident, I was diagnosed with a rare aggressive form of cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and I was given a 20% to 30% chance of surviving. Now, as a dad, as a father of two young children at the time, my daughter being seven and my son being four, that was terrifying to be told that there was only a 20% to 30% chance that I was going to be alive for my kids. And if you flip that statistic upside down, that meant there was a 70% to 80% chance that I was going to die. And when I was given that news, my heart was failing, my lungs were failing, and my kidneys were failing. And I was told that if I didn’t start chemotherapy, I would be dead within one to three weeks.

 

So, that was my second brush with death, if you will. And I will tell you that I did not fear death. And I don’t fear death to this day. I haven’t feared death since I don’t know when I stopped. I think it was after my car accident, I recall, and it might have been that that’s when I started kind of going down more of a spiritual journey. I can’t exactly pinpoint like a moment where I went, “I’m not afraid of dying anymore. I’m completely at peace with it.” But that is how I’ve lived the last 20, how old am I? 45. So, the last 25 years of my life has been completely, I shouldn’t say completely, because there was a fear of death when I had cancer. It was not the fear of death. It was the fear of losing, not losing. Sorry. It was the fear of my children losing me, be them being without a dad. That was my fear, the impact that it would have on them.

 

And right now, as I think about my friend, John Ruhlin, that’s my greatest concern, is the impact that it’s going to have on his daughters and his wife. And I try to reconcile what I can do to mitigate that, to help that. I don’t know. But that was my fear was that, “Oh, I can’t imagine the potential harmful, detrimental impact that it’s going to have on my kids to lose their dad at that young of an age.” And that’s often, for some of us, the fear of death is it’s very much about dying, about losing our own life. In fact, in extreme cases, there is a condition known as thanatophobia, I think I’m pronouncing that correctly, which is an intense fear of death or the dying process. So, it’s considered an anxiety disorder.

 

So, while it’s natural to feel anxious about death from time to time, thanatophobia is considered an extreme disorder that can disrupt every aspect of your life. So, if that is you, if you’re concerned that, “Oh, I might have that disorder,” and I think disorders are interesting because someone made them up, right? Someone made up a name for a thing. So, that’s another topic for another time. But if that is you and if what I say today, you’re like, “Hal, that doesn’t even make a dent. My fear, my anxiety is so overpowering I cannot control it with my thinking.” If that is you, do not be afraid to talk to a healthcare provider professional about your fears, okay? Seek help if that is you.

 

One of my perspective shifts around death came when I read one of my favorite books about that topic, which is titled Home with God by Neale Donald Walsch. Home with God. Highly recommended. And Neale Donald Walsch, if you’re not familiar, we had him on the podcast a few years back. He is the author of one of my favorite book series, which is Conversations with God. So, there’s Conversations with God, Book 1, and there’s Book 2, Book 3, Book 4, and then there’s various spin-offs such as Home with God. And by the way, that book series has sold over 10 million copies. And I just share that with you that something within his writing, within Neale Donald Walsch’s writing, resonated with well over 10 million people. And I am definitely one of those. So, in that book, the key insights shared in these conversations that Neale had with God, if you will, is the assertion that the fear of death stems from a misunderstanding of its true nature.

 

So, death, according to the dialogs is an opportunity for the soul to evolve and reconnect with the divine. So, this perspective encourages readers to shift from a fear-based view of mortality that so many of us have to a more accepting and peaceful and enlightened understanding, if you will. And the narrative in that book emphasizes that life and death are integral parts of the same continuum, and the spiritual journey does not end with physical death. Now, as you’re listening to this, there are a myriad of different beliefs that you might have about death. You might be an atheist and believe that when you die, that’s it. Nothing else happens. And that might be true, right? I don’t know. You might have a strong religious or faith-based belief that you will go to heaven or hell, but hopefully, heaven, be with God, be with your relatives. That’s also a belief.

 

You might have a belief somewhere in between or you might have the belief of I don’t know. And that’s actually, honestly, that’s definitely a part of my belief is like I don’t know for sure. And that’s also an interesting place of curiosity where I’m not afraid of death. I’m actually really excited for when not anytime soon but I’m actually really curious. I’m really excited to see what happens. And I think that it was Michael Singer in I think it was his new book. Not the Untethered Soul but Living Untethered. I think it was the new book where he talked about death is the most exciting adventure of all. And he said, “When it happens, either your soul is going to ascend from your body and it’s going to be in a new realm of consciousness.” And he’s like, “Wow. What an amazing experience that’s going to be.”

 

He said, “Or nothing is going to happen. Like, nothing’s going to happen.” He goes, “But in that case, you won’t know. So, what would you be afraid of? Like, either way, it’s great.” So, that was Michael Singer’s perspective. But I’ll share my personal view of death with you and I hope parts of all of this, parts of this, some of this is helpful for you to consider. And number one, it’s inevitable. So, to me, it doesn’t make sense to fear something that is inevitable. To me, the usefulness of fear, the value of fear is to signal us to make a change, meaning if we’re afraid that if we don’t change course, something might happen, something bad, something painful, then that’s the utility of fear is, “Oh, that fear is signaling me that I should do something differently so the thing I’m afraid of, the possibility of things not going the way I want them to, I can affect change so that that doesn’t happen.”

 

But if it’s inevitable to me, fear is a waste of our energy. It’s a waste of our emotion, a waste of our perspective, a waste of our life. Right? Why allow ourselves to perpetuate fear over things that are absolutely inevitable? To me, again, fear’s utility is being able to make change. And you might think, well, but I’m not controlling the fear. Well, I would go back to what I said earlier that fear of death is unequivocally not necessary since our emotions are caused by our thinking about situations and not the situations themselves, and we can learn to change our thinking, therefore changing the emotions that are generated by the thoughts that we have, that we perpetuate, that we maintain, the beliefs that we endure. We can change our thinking and we can overcome fear of anything. My wife used to have a paralyzing fear of flying for her entire life up until, I don’t know, probably early 30s. And then she finally went and saw a therapist. The therapist shifted her thinking around flying and she overcame the fear.

 

And I will say it’s still subtly there but there’s a profound difference between a fear in your life being debilitating, being overwhelming and all-encompassing, and a fear of your life being subtle that’s still there but it doesn’t overwhelm you. It doesn’t overtake you, right? And so, that for her, by shifting her thinking, which the therapist helped her simply think of things differently. In fact, we were just talking about this this morning. We were laying in bed and snuggling and talking and chatting and she actually brought up the therapist. And I’m trying to remember what she said. I told her that I was going to record a podcast on the fear of death. And whenever I record a podcast for y’all, I not only jot down my own stories and experiences, I also always spend a good 30 to 60 minutes depending on the topic, sometimes longer, doing research online and getting different perspectives on various topics.

 

And when I was reading about the fear of death, I googled, “What causes the fear of death?” And I read a handful of articles and one of the articles said, some people have this fear that if they think about death, they are somehow going to manifest it, that if they think about death, that they’re going to will it into existence. And I mentioned that to my wife and she said, “Oh, yeah, that’s what the therapist, one of the things the therapist worked on me with is I told her that was my fear. I feel like if I’m afraid of the plane crashing.” She goes, “So, then I start thinking about the plane crashing, and then I’m afraid that me thinking about it is going to make it happen.” And the therapist said, “You know how many people think about winning the lottery every week? They buy their lottery tickets and they really think and they really focus on it. And it doesn’t happen for 99.99999% of them. Right? So, the thoughts don’t generate that result.”

 

She said, “Right now, you could think about a cockroach coming out of that air conditioning vent.” This is exactly what my wife told me. Her therapist said, “You could think about a cockroach coming out of that air conditioning vent.” She said, “In fact, do it right now.” She goes, “Put all your energy for the next few minutes. Just focus on and you can say it out loud. A cockroach can come out, is going to come out of that air conditioning vent.” And the therapist said, “I would bet that you thinking it isn’t going to make that happen.” My wife said, her response was, “I’m going to do it, but if a cockroach comes out of that vent, you’re going to be sorry.” And sure enough, for like three minutes, she focused on it. She tried to will it into existence and nothing happened. So, that’s one of the reasons that we have a fear.

 

Well, the way I look at it is death is inevitable, and here’s an important nuance to that perspective. Let me ask you a question. Do you fear birth? Did you fear your birth? And I would imagine your answer would either be, “Well, no, of course not,” or, “I don’t remember.” One of those two. But when I say death is inevitable, what I mean is it’s just as inevitable as birth. It’s two sides of the same coin if you will. We are all born, and that enters us into our physical body into a life, and then every person eventually dies. So, it’s inevitable. And it goes back to that a fear’s utility being able to enforce change. So, that for me it’s like, well, it’s inevitable. So, I’m not going to waste a second of my life fearing death. So, I encourage you to consider that.

 

That also goes along with my philosophy of the can’t change it philosophy, right, which is if we can’t change something, there’s no value in wishing that we could. If we can’t change something, something from our past or some inevitability like death, then there’s no value in wishing that it were different, wishing that it didn’t happen or wasn’t going to happen. So, there’s no, and you may, if you’ve heard me talk about this can’t-change-it philosophy, it’s based on the premise that every painful emotion is self-created by our resistance to our reality. If you have a pen in your hand, you might want to write that one down. Every painful emotion is self-created by our resistance to our reality. Let me unpack that quickly.

 

If the same thing happens to two different people and one person completely accepts their reality, “I’ve lost this person,” or, “I’ve lost my job,” or, “I had my leg cut off. It was amputated.” If they’re completely accepting of their reality, then they are at peace with their reality. Acceptance is what fosters a state of peace. Now, the opposite of acceptance is resistance. And so, the same thing can happen to two different people in person. One accepts it. They’re totally at peace. Person number two resists it. They wish it didn’t happen. It’s not fair. And they’re putting all of their emotional energy into a delusional reality, wishing and wanting that reality could be different in a way that’s out of their control, that they can’t change. Obviously, you can change certain things in your life, but the fact that you’re going to die, you probably can’t change that.

 

Now, maybe some scientific breakthrough comes along and we live forever, and I’m doubtful of that. But up until this point, let’s deal with reality now. Up until this point, death is an inevitability. And so, living from that place of like I’m not going to resist reality and wish I could change things that are out of my control. And of course, death falls into that category. And then the last thing I’ll share is this. I’m not sure what happens after we die. I have ideas about it. I have beliefs about it. And they’re more curiosities than beliefs because I don’t know. I’ll tell you this, though. Number one, I choose to be at peace with whatever it is. So, I’m at peace with death. I’m at peace with whatever happens after. If nothing happens and I’m just buried in the ground and that’s it, then that’s reality. I’m not going to resist it and wish it were different. I’m completely at peace with that.

 

And that, of course, this is one of the most important philosophies in life, in my opinion, to understand that painful emotions, inner turmoil, negative states of mind of being are self-created by our resistance to reality and wishing things that are out of our control were different. If you understand that and you go, “Oh, so there’s no sense in wishing something were different, that can’t be different. That’s a waste of my energy. I should put my energy into things that are in my control, that I can affect change, that I can do something about it.” And by the way, the easiest thing if you want to differentiate, well, what can you change and what can’t you change? You can’t change anything that has ever happened.

 

You cannot go back in time and change anything that has ever happened. But most of our emotional pain is based on things that have already happened, right? When are you angry? You’re rarely angry about things that haven’t happened. You are angry about things that just happened. “It upsets me. I wish it were different. It shouldn’t have been that way. I had a different idea about how things should have been and I’m resisting reality,” which and to the degree that we resist reality determines the degree of emotional pain that we feel. If you resist reality at a subtle level like, “Gosh, darn it, I wish that didn’t happen. Son of a gun.” That low-level resistance creates a low level of emotional pain. But if you resist reality in a really intense like every fiber of your being, “No, this can’t be happening. I didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” then you are self-creating that same level of intensity in terms of the emotional pain that you experience.

 

And so, A, choosing to be at peace with death, whatever it is, whatever it happens, I mean, whatever happens and whenever it happens, that’s the first part of this. And then the second is instead of seeing death as a fearful or negative event, and this is my personal view, I view it as an essential transition that brings the soul closer to, I guess, you could say to its divine nature, a return to the source of all creation. Also, what most people would call is God. But I want to share a perspective for, in case you’re listening and you actually don’t believe in God or you’re agnostic, you’re atheist, even from a scientific perspective, and this is not my expertise. So, please, I won’t go deep into this but I’m trying to think of what is the field of science. I’m drawing a blank.

 

It’s the idea, though, that all things are born from a field of energy and all things die back into that same field of energy. And so, even viewing God from a scientific perspective, that this field of energy, everything is energy, all things are born from the field of energy, and they die back into the field of energy. So, even from that perspective, it’s this return to our true nature, to the source of all creation, whether that is a God as a being in heaven or whether that is a field of energy. Either way, death is, from my view of it, is that it’s not the end of something, it’s a transition to something else. And I like Michael Singer’s perspective, which is he said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m curious in an excited way. It’s either going to be a great adventure or nothing at all. And if it’s nothing at all, I won’t notice it. My consciousness is done and I won’t care. I’ll have no opinion. So, either way.”

 

But here’s the thing to consider is the belief that you hold true while you are alive here on earth dictate your quality of life here on earth, your mental and emotional state. And so, for me, whether a belief is true or not, meaning two people could argue over what happens after they die until they’re blue in the face. And one’s argument is based on, let’s say, the Bible and what is said in their religion, and the other person’s belief is based on logic or science or it doesn’t matter. Whatever their beliefs are based on, they could argue until they’re blue in the face. To me, the question is, how does your belief impact you on a day-to-day basis, ongoing basis? Does your belief bring you peace and joy and optimism and faith and love, or does it bring you fear and indifference?

 

And so, how does the belief serve you? So, I’m not sure what happens when we die, but I choose to have faith that it’s something positive, something beautiful, something wonderful, and you can’t see me. I’m not on video right now but I’m smiling really big. And that was unintentional but just articulating that belief brought joy to my spirit, to my body, to my being, to my face in the form of a smile. So, that’s dealing with death, just personally our own death. And I want to shift gears. By the way, that resource I mentioned, the book, Home with God by Neale Donald Walsch, one of my favorites, and another book that I’ll recommend just because I don’t want to forget to recommend this. It’s called Click Here When I Die. And I pulled this book off the shelf today. It’s a book that I had never finished reading, and now I’m committed to finish reading it and implementing it.

 

And it’s basically the idea that our lives are so complicated now in terms of we’ve got dozens if not hundreds of passwords to different bank accounts. And we have life insurance policies and we have savings accounts and investment accounts and mortgages. There are so many things that when you pass away, if you are unorganized, you burden the people in your life with having to figure it out. So, let’s say it’s your spouse or your parents or whomever, right? You die. They’re at the emotional, maybe the lowest point in their life. They’re so distraught. And now they have to figure out how to, I mean, the amount of things they’ve got to figure out how to cancel all of your accounts that are on recurring billing, how to collect your life insurance, where to find it, where your will is.

 

That’s not just known what your wishes are, right? “Wait, wait. Do you want me to sell our home and downsize? Because this was our dream home, do you want me to keep it and try to sustain the payment? We didn’t talk about that,” because people don’t talk about death. It’s this like taboo topic that we don’t talk about. So, this book Click Here When I Die, I highly recommend it. And it’s basically the essence of it is getting all of your affairs in order, whether they’re in a file that you click or in a folder that’s hidden in a safe in an underwear drawer, whatever. It’s just making it so that when you eventually pass, which as of now, we all will, the people in your life who love you, who are going to be heartbroken and grieving, those people can quickly and easily everything is organized so they know exactly what your wishes are, where your passwords are, what every asset, everything that you have in place that they need to deal with. And it makes it as easy for them as humanly possible.

 

Again, I don’t know the author’s name, but again, the book is Click Here When I Die. And I want to transition. I won’t spend as much time on this because a lot of what we’re and, by the way, this is dealing with other people’s death, right? Dealing with our own death is one piece of the puzzle. That’s not the best analogy but it’s one thing. And that we have fear around, and then the fear of other people dying, or not even the fear, but just what happens when they pass and you experience an extraordinarily painful loss. How do you deal with that? And again, I am just sharing from my own perspective, my own as I always am, right? For me, losing someone that you love for all of us I think it can be one of the most unimaginable and painful losses that you can experience, meaning, if you lose your job, you lose your career.

 

I lost my first house that I bought. I lost my house. That was painful. Like, that was, “Oh, my gosh, what does this mean? I worked hard, I saved up, I bought a home, and now the bank is taking it because I can’t make the payment.” Back in 2008, that happened and that was painful. But I don’t know that there is any pain that we experience that is that of losing someone that we love. And I’ve lost people that I love. I’ve lost friends, I’ve lost family members. I would imagine for most, for you, you probably can relate to that. I’m also aware that my parents and I almost hate to even talk about this, right? It’s that whole speaking it into existence or the uncomfortability of talking about death.

 

But the reality is my parents, who right now they’re in their late 60s, approaching 70, but I know they’re going to die one day. And I’ve actually put a fair amount of energy into finding peace with that now so that when it does inevitably eventually happen, I’m able to process it in a healthy way and I’m able to take care of their affairs, without being emotionally distraught. Now, that’s easier said than done when it actually comes to pass. I have no idea how it will hit me. I mean, I love my mom and dad. I’m very close with both of them. But I’m also aware that it is inevitable that one day we all die. And how we process the loss of a loved one, it can either devastate us. I mean, it could literally ruin our lives if we allow it to or we can grieve in a healthy way. Also, in a way that especially if you have, like, if you have children grieving in a way where your kids see you grieving in a healthy way.

 

And again, this can be easier said than done but it’s a lot easier done if you’ve said it, if that makes sense. Right? Meaning, if you’ve already thought through this and you’ve got kind of a, I don’t want to say plan in place, but just a way of viewing death. And so, a lot of what I said already and how we view our own death helps me be at peace because I’m at peace with my own death. I’m at peace with everyone’s death. I’m at peace with death as a concept. I’m at peace with death as a whole. But, again, it doesn’t make it necessarily easier when you realize as I’m experiencing right now with my friend, John, you realize you can’t text him anymore. You can’t call him anymore. You’re not going to see him anymore. I did talk to him a lot yesterday. But in the physical realm, there’s not contact anymore and that it’s hard.

 

So, here are three, I’ll give you three things to consider when it comes to dealing with the death of someone that you care about. You could almost say these are three steps, if you will. And I’ll go through this relatively quickly. I think we’re about ready to close out this episode. I hope it’s been helpful for you. Step one is to grieve appropriately. You know, I had a call with a mutual friend of John Ruhlin and I, Jon Vroman. In fact, that’s how I found out my friend Jon Vroman and Justin Donald called me on a three-way call and gave me the news. And Jon Vroman is one of my best friends as well. We’re all a very close-knit group, and he’s also very wise. He’s the founder of Front Row Dads. You probably heard me talk about him quite a bit.

 

But one of the things he said, and I’m paraphrasing, but he goes like, “It’s surreal. I can’t even believe it’s happening. And I’m processing it and I’m having all different sorts of emotions and reactions.” And he said, “The one thing I am really going to let myself do is to feel this deeply, not to brush it aside, not to just move past it or move on or try to talk my way through it. Try to find the silver lining.” He said, “No, I really want to allow myself to feel this deeply, this loss of someone we really love and really care about.” And so, that’s my first step, if you will. My first piece of advice is to grieve appropriately. And there’s no defined appropriate grieving. I mean, that’s what’s appropriate for you. It’s feel your feelings. No emotional bypass here, but really feel the loss. Feel the grief. There’s a reason that God gave us all the myriad of emotions that we have. I believe they all serve a purpose and they’re all valuable and the human experience.

 

And I didn’t always believe that, by the way. I used to be very much positive emotions are good and negative emotions are bad, and I only feel positive emotions. And then in 2021, I went through the most difficult time in my life after cancer and chemo and sleepless nights for six months. I went through every emotion imaginable and I went, “Oh, God is teaching me. Life is teaching me that I need to feel all of my emotions.” And I’ve bypassed way too many of them under the guise of them being “negative” for far too long. So, grieve appropriately.

 

Number two is accept reality. Accept reality. Reality is reality, right? It is what it is. And, remember, the source of all emotional pain is our resistance to reality. In other words, all painful emotions are self-created by our resistance to our reality. In other words, it’s our wishing and wanting that something were different that can’t be different that causes all of our pain. As soon as you accept reality exactly as it is, it doesn’t mean that you’re happy about the thing. I’m not happy I lost my friend but I’m at peace with it. And from that place of peace, I get to choose the emotion that best serves the moment. I haven’t talked to John’s wife yet, but when I do because I’m at peace, I can choose the emotion that best serves the moment. And in your own life when you’re dealing with loss, if you live in a state of perpetual resistance to reality, again, you can let a loss completely ruin your life indefinitely. There are so many people that are still suffering over things that happened when they were children because they still resist that reality. They wish it didn’t happen. It’s not fair. They didn’t deserve it so on and so forth. And so, accept reality exactly as it is.

 

And then last but not least, the third step. I would encourage you to consider if you are dealing with the loss of someone you love, ask yourself what they would want you to do. Ask yourself what they would want you to do. And for me, I figured John would want me to make sure his family is taken care of, to make sure that his legacy continues and his message continues. As I mentioned, his book, Giftology, impacted my life in a way, and I will continue to share his message of radical generosity and giving to others. And if you ask yourself what they would want you to do and you don’t know, you’re not sure, I think the next best question, and maybe even a better question, is ask yourself, what would you want them to do if you had died? What would you hope that they would do?

 

And that was helpful for me because I thought if I passed away, I would hope that my friends would rally together to support my family, first and foremost. Nothing would be more important to me than that. That’s number one. And the second thing I would hope is that they would continue my work, the Miracle Morning mission, to elevate the consciousness of humanity one morning and one person at a time. That’s so important to me. I’ve dedicated 15 years of my life to that, and plan on dedicating the rest of my hopefully long, healthy life to that. And I would hope that my friends would rally together to, once my family was supported, to continue furthering that mission that I started so long ago.

 

So, I hope this is helpful for you. And while the thought that just came to my mind is to say that I hope you don’t lose anyone that you love, I thought you’re going to lose someone you love. So am I. I just did. And we’ll lose more people that we love. And one day we will die. So, the question is not whether or not we’re going to die and the people that we love are going to die. The question is, how are we going to live? How are we going to live every day of our lives in fear of this inevitability that is death or completely at peace with life and reality and all inevitabilities exactly as they are, so that we can truly, fully live and enjoy and embody this one beautiful life that we’ve been blessed with? That’s my vote. That’s my vote. And I encourage you to do what makes sense for you.

 

I love you so much. And please, that’s the one thing I would encourage you to do that for me has been on my mind the last day since I heard about my friend, John, and it’s just to hug all the people in your life and to love them intensely and passionately and to help us put things in perspective. Like, whatever you’re arguing about right now with your significant other or your employees or your team member, like, I think that when you’re facing death, you realize how insignificant so many of the conflicts that we entertain in our lives really are. So, let’s love on each other. Right now, this world is in a pretty intense place. It has been for the last, well, I mean, you could go back for since the beginning of time, but really, in the last few years, things have been taken up a notch. And unity is what we need. We need to love each other despite our differences.

 

And I love you. Have a great week. Make it a great week. You don’t have a great week. You make it a great week. And I’ll talk to you next week. Take care, everybody!

[END]