Left to our own devices, finding time, or the inclination, to stop and take stock is challenging. Sometimes though, Fate stops us in our tracks. A tragic death, like the sudden loss of World marathon record runner Kelvin Kiptum in February, at just 24, was a shock. It really brings home how none of us can ever know how long we have left and ask are we making the most of it or sleepwalking through life?
Look at Sven-Goran Eriksson, 76, former England football manager, who revealed he has terminal pancreatic cancer and perhaps one year to live. The sad news galvanised him to make the most of what time he has left. He had always wanted to be manager of Liverpool Football Club! The Club kindly gave Sven and his family a warm welcome on 23rd March when joined a dugout of former LFC greats making up the LFC Legends management team for the annual LFC Foundation fundraising charity match - to fulfil this dying wish.
You may have seen interviews of ordinary people talking about coping with or surviving their own cancer diagnoses with two of our senior Royals currently undergoing treatment for cancer. We wish them well and a good recovery.
The point is - we never know what is going to happen. Transpersonal psychologist, academic lecturer and author Dr Steve Taylor has written a number of books on transformational experiences including encounters with serious illness, loss or death. One of his books, “The Leap”, is about the psychology of spiritual awakening and includes instances of people who have had transformational experiences after becoming aware of the reality of death.
His new book has just come out. It’s called, “The Adventure. A Practical Guide to Spiritual Awakening” and has a foreword by Eckhart Tolle. Dr Taylor is also running an online course based on the book. Please see www.stevenmtaylor.com for details.
“I’ve done a lot of research on people who have been told that they are going to die of cancer or people have had a serious brush with death. In the cases I’ve investigated, it has a very powerful positive effect because it makes death real to them and most of the time human beings aren’t really aware of death. We subconsciously assume we are immortal. In the past, people were very conscious because they often had to face the possibility of the death of their children and regularly experienced the reality of bereavement with so many serious illnesses around, like small pox, cholera, typhoid - all these diseases and other illnesses that have been largely wiped out. Nowadays, with much being hospitalised rather than at home too, we don’t usually experience bereavement in the same way or as frequently.”
“When someone has had a close encounter, it can have a profound effect and changes everything. Life becomes precious because we realise it’s fragile and temporary. Such people don’t put things off for another day, delay or avoid opportunities. They don’t procrastinate like we do when we feel as though we’ve got plenty of time on our hands. If you know that your time is, or might be, limited, that you’ve only got a bit left, then you don’t postpone anything.”
“They have a new and wider sense of perspective. Their personality is more open – especially women – welcoming and taking every new experience that comes their way; being creative and curious about life and having unusual experiences and states of consciousness. Such people live and operate at a higher level of purpose. Trivial matters and emotions don’t concern them anymore and petty jealousies, even competitiveness, tends to fade away – replaced by more of a feeling of connection to other people rather than competition,” says Dr Taylor.
“Things look more beautiful as well because you don’t take the world itself for granted. Flowers, the sky, the trees look more beautiful. Before, you were just taking them for granted and weren’t valuing them or even really looking at them. You were half asleep! Everyone should have a close brush with death at some point in their life to make sure that they don’t live their whole life in a subconscious state of ‘taking for grantedness’ as I call it!”
It brings to mind that scene in the female gaze road movie Thelma and Louise (1991). In the midst of their doomed adventure, Thelma (Geena Davis) stares in wonderment as if for the very first time at a mountain range while chatting with Louise (Susan Sarandon) who is driving their convertible down the long, straight road to nowhere, and says, oddly prophetically… “Me, too. I feel awake! Wide awake! I don’t ever remember feeling this awake…Everything looks different.”
The expert says, “I have found in my research that women seem more likely to have altered states of increased awareness and these kind of transformations than men. I don’t know why that is! There is this thing in psychology where there are five essential personality traits. One of them is openness – where you are open to new experiences, curious about life and creative. I think women generally tend to be a little bit more open and to unusual experiences and consciousness, whereas there’s this idea that if you’re a man you ought to have strong boundaries.”
Many people do just go back to normal after a brush with death - taking things for granted and getting bothered by trivial things again as the memory recedes – yet spiritual awakening is surprisingly common according to the expert.
“Faced with the reality that life is short can bring some positive transformational effects. The kind of people that you would think would never wake up in this way – who are extremely egotistical and materialistic – even they can sometimes undergo this kind of transformation. There was one guy in my research who had a serious heart attack and afterwards everything was different. He totally transformed - in the way he sees the world, the way he lives his life. He became much less materialistic and much more aware of the value of other things in his life.”
A spiritual awakening, which can happen anytime regardless, can be so powerful that afterwards people intend to ‘to live each day as if it were their last’ – to coin the popular phrase. There might not be the spare cash to visit the dunes of Death Valley, but pausing the washing machine in favour of a splendid afternoon at a nearby sandy beach, or park, might be doable.
“A ‘living each day as if it were your last’ mentality, taken literally, would be too problematic, because the future gives us a sense of responsibility and there are consequences to our actions,” says Dr Taylor. “You can’t just go out and kill someone! Living as if ‘the next year were your last year’ is probably more sensible and easier to attain.”
We all know our date of birth and how reaching another birthday spurs us to celebrate! Big birthdays, like the zeros, takes us away from thinking about past problems or future concerns and focuses us to do something extraordinary that is on our bucket list. We are more in the present for a while. We have thought about how we want to spend our time – like it really matters.
Dr Taylor gives his psychology students an exercise, which might sound a bit morbid, but concentrates the mind and provides beneficial insights.
“I give them a date - one year from now- which is ‘your date of death.’ Then I tell them: ‘You’ve got one year left as your last. You need to decide how you would you spend those last 365 days most valuably – with relationships, activities, achievements, hobbies, etc.’ Even though they seem like fairly typical students - young people and quite hedonistic - they still say they’d spend more time with their loved ones and in nature. Most of them are very mature and spiritual about it, though occasionally some say they will have as many drugs, drink and sex as possible! But that’s quite rare. They say travelling, of course, and some would take up a new hobby like surfing or paragliding. They sometimes say that they’ll mend broken relationships or tell people that they love them. They all put down different, interesting things.”
“There is a general feeling that they wouldn’t waste time on trivial things or emotions anymore. They all say it has a really positive effect and makes them count their blessings and to be aware of the preciousness of life. Life depends on so many things. Millions of processes are going on in my body right now and if anyone of those processes goes wrong, I’m gone!”
There is a Buddhist practice called cemetery meditation where Buddhist monks go to meditate in cemeteries to be aware of the precious, temporary nature and frailty of life. The intriguing novel “The Immortalists” by Chloe Benjamin follows the unfolding lives of four siblings, who, as curious youngsters in 1969, visit a fortune teller they have heard about in New York. She tells each of them the date of their deaths – an experience that changes them forever as each of them lives out their lives according to the prediction potentially coming true. What would you do?
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