Death Anxiety

Let’s learn how this got started! This anxiety can begin with emotional pain in very young children, when life felt pretty miserable much of the time.

To survive, we needed to find ways to endure this pain. As a coping strategy, we tried to think of what could possibly be worse than what we were experiencing, so that by contrast, our immediate circumstance wouldn’t feel as bad. Are you one of those people whom in the face of setbacks, always exclaims, “it could’ve been worse”??

Given that DEATH is the only thing a child’s mind can seize upon that seems a lot worse than daily the pain he’s already in, it sticks. Thus, all childhood feelings of instability, lack of safety and sadness that this poor kid is trying to 'normalize' for himself and somehow endure, get channeled into “Fear of Death,” and it's followed him into his adult life. 

I guarantee you, whole, happy people who’ve created satisfying, rich lives for themselves aren’t preoccupied with death! The clients I’ve helped with this fear were profoundly unhappy lifelong (which I guess is what attracted ‘em to my wellness practice).

Turns out, these folks were really more scared of fully living, than dying (death is actually the ultimate release from pain). We don’t know what death will be or feel like, so it’s scary and intimidating~ but many fear happiness too, because thus far, they have no frame of reference for it.

Because living life fully and joyfully and death are uncharted waters and they’re each unfamiliar or foreign to us, we fear both. But how many people would admit to fearing happiness?? Thus, “fear of death” becomes the identity or face they end up giving to their anxious feelings.

I have known several people who clinically died, and came back to tell about their experience in precise detail. I no longer fear death as a result. I'd be happy to share those stories with you, if you're ever interested in hearing them. 

There are many good books on the topic of what happens to us upon our physical passing. It's a mystery we've all been concerned with on some level, which I suppose is human nature.

A friend who'd once had a near death experience (while scuba diving) was facing a fairly imminent demise from bone cancer later in life. When I asked if she was afraid, I already knew her answer. She said to me, "Shari~ dying is easy . . .  it's living that's hard!"