What is the best way to overcome the persistent, perpetual and even paralyzing fear of death? Is there any way to live a life of hope and happiness in the face of understanding our ultimate inevitable end?
The truth is, the very best way to tackle any fear is to face it head on….and to sort of peel back the mystery and the mystique and see if what lies underneath is as scary as you fear. Of course, that may sound good for MOST fears, but if it’s death and dying we are talking about, isn’t that the one thing that we simply can’t overcome?
The answer, in my own experience, is actually pretty easy to understand, and pretty consistent with dealing with any other type of fear as well. The more you learn about death, the less scary it becomes. And the more you pull back the layers of mystery about what actually happens during the dying process, the more hopeful about what happens thereafter.
For example?
My own ADC (after death communication) experience convinced me, without a shadow of a doubt, that something continues on after the death of the physical body.
After all, if you can be visited by the apparition of someone who has just died, completely unexpectedly, thousands of miles a way and in the middle of the night, unless you have gone suddenly stark raving mad, there is SOMETHING about the nature of our existence they didn’t teach us in high school. And continuing my own research and spiritual quest into understanding that experience….led me to realize that there are MANY different types of experiences that suggest the same thing – that point in the same direction, and many MILLIONS of people who have experienced those things as well.
Everything from near death experiences, to past life memories, to death bed visions, to SHARED death experiences, to terminal lucidity to out of body experiences, to dream visitation experiences, to evidential psychic mediums, to EVP and spirit communication technologies, to transcendent experiences of oneness and connection that are possible to experience everyday through deep meditation…..
there are simply so many unique, interesting and amazing ways to open a wide window in the wonderful world of spiritual experience in THIS life, that will totally transform your sense of power and possibility and potential for what happens in the next.
With that in mind, here is a great new book that just came out this week, published by National Geographic and mainstream journalist Judy Bachrach, and her own personal journey to overcome her own fear of death…and how what she discovered about dying, changed her whole idea about life itself. A well written, smart and scientific look at spiritual experience that will make you think twice about being afraid of anything….especially what happens when we die 🙂 Check out the full article, and an interview with Judy at the link following the short excerpt below.
Your book, Glimpsing Heaven: The Stories and Science of Life After Death, opens with you volunteering to work in a hospice. Why?
The person who put the idea in my head was former First Lady Barbara Bush, whose own daughter had died in hospice at the age of four. One of my best friends was dying of cancer. We were both at the time 32 [years old], and I couldn’t get over it. I was terrified of death, and I was terrified of her dying. So I decided to start working in a hospice to get over my terror of death.
Until the 20th century, death was determined by holding a mirror to a patient’s mouth. If it didn’t mist over, the person was dead. We now live in what you call the “age of Lazarus.” Can you explain?
Everybody who’s been revived by CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation—and there are more and more of us—is a formerly dead person. We walk every single day among the formerly dead. Death is no longer simply the cessation of breath or heartbeat or even brain stem activity. These days people can be dead for up to an hour and come back among us and have memories. I call them “death travelers” in the book.
One scientist you spoke to suggests that NDEs may simply result from the brain shutting down, like a computer—that, for instance, the brilliant light often perceived at the end of a tunnel is caused by loss of blood or hypoxia, lack of oxygen. How do you counter these arguments?
The problem with the lack of oxygen explanation is that when there is a lack of oxygen, our recollections are fuzzy and sometimes non-existent. The less oxygen you have, the less you remember. But the people who have died, and recall their death travels, describe things in a very clear, concise, and structured way. Lack of oxygen would mean you barely remember anything.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140903-near-death-experiences-bachrach-neurology-booktalk/
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