My fear of death began as a … Read the rest →]]>

Fear can undo even the best of us. But it can also teach us a lot about ourselves if we are willing to look deeply enough.

My fear of death began as a child. I used to lay awake at night and imagine being buried in the ground forever. And EVER. I guess in my child’s mind I assumed I would be awake, or at least aware, of what was going on, and the thought terrified me beyond measure.

I’ve always believed it God, even went to church and Sunday school as a young girl, but apparently I missed the part about how—when you die—your soul leaves your body and goes to heaven. Or maybe by then my fear was too deep-seated and those discussions were too scary. Or maybe (and this is very possible), because I was just a kid, I wasn’t paying attention.

But my fear led me to a lifetime exploration for something more. From the time I was a teenager I began to read books on various religions, spirituality, pretty much any self-help book I could get my hands on. But nothing quelled that paralyzing fear inside me.

So great was my fear that I could not—would not—have a conversation about death with anyone (at least not without having a full-on panic attack). I wanted, more than anything, to believe that when I die my soul would leave my body and go to heaven, but then that fear of lying in the ground for eternity would rush back up to greet me. And so, when my husband suggested we have our wills done? No way. It was never going to happen.

And then a couple of amazing things happened.  First, in 2008, I read the book A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle. This book was a life changer for me. I read it over and over and eventually bought the book on tape, to which I’ve listened at least a hundred times. The book is filled with so much wisdom, but in terms of living with my fears, the most significant piece of advice was simply learning to acknowledge that there is fear in me.

Yep, I would say over and over, there it is. That fear of death. Eventually, by the simple act of acknowledging it, the fear lessened its grip on me.

I then took things one step further and told my friend and carpool partner, Elizabeth, about my fear.  As it turns out, my girlfriend has NO fear of dying and so we ended up having many discussions about death and what happens afterward.

After a while, I began to talk more openly about death. I told my husband to go ahead and make an appointment to have our wills and living trust done. I even told him what I would like done with my remains when I die (this was HUGE).

It wasn’t a perfect solution because the fear was still there, I just refused to let it have such an important place in my life. After all, if I spend my life being afraid of dying, how is that really living?

What about you? What’s your biggest fear? I love hearing from you. And to prove it, for every comment you leave, you’ll be entered into a drawing. At the end of the month, I will draw a lucky winner who will receive a $10 gift card (your choice, Amazon, Starbucks or iTunes). Winners will be announced in the first post of the following month.

Please tune in next Tuesday for The Gift of Fear: Déjà vu or Reincarnation?, where I’ll talk about how I actually overcame my fear of death.

Because I have two sisters who have had breast cancer, and because I have extremely dense breast tissue, every six months I go through some form of breast-cancer screening. In October, I do a mammogram, in … Read the rest →]]>  

Because I have two sisters who have had breast cancer, and because I have extremely dense breast tissue, every six months I go through some form of breast-cancer screening. In October, I do a mammogram, in April an MRI.

This year, in April, I had both. Last October the radiologist saw something she didn’t like and wanted more pictures of it in April when I had the MRI. After 6 hours of testing, she broke the news: “I want to do a biopsy.”

That was a Monday, and I scheduled the biopsy for Friday. For the next three days until the biopsy, as you can imagine, I thought of little else. I knew that biopsies were not for sissies, and while I did not consider myself a sissy, panic seized me every time I thought about it. I fought anxiety during the nights…which wasn’t so awful thanks to my sister’s present. She gave a amazon weighted blanket that helped me feel a bit of pressure that helped me sleep during the night. And it also helped during all the things I went trough. You can also have one, just click on the link and learn more about it.

On the morning of the procedure, I decided to go for a run to work off some of the nervous energy. And as I ran I thought, Suzanne, you can be scared or you can be brave, but you can’t be both.

And in that moment, I decided that I would be brave. And so later, when the tech called my name, my husband squeezed my hand and said, “You gonna be okay?” I replied, “I am a Noble Warrior heading into battle. I’ve got this.”

And I did. I really did. I climbed up on the table, my face set and determined, and braced myself for the battle to come. And when it was over, and the doctor asked if I was okay, I said, “Piece of cake.”

And it was. It really was. Despite the fact that the accounts I’d read on the internet about Stereotactic Biopsy promised it would be excruciatingly painful. And it did hurt, a lot, but rather than resisting the pain, I leaned into. Accepted it. Said, “this too will pass.”

And to this day I’m not sure why it went so smoothly. Was the procedure really no big deal? Or is the mind really that powerful? If you take fear out of the equation (or at least push it to the background), are the big things in life that much easier to endure?

What do you think? How much of a factor is fear when facing the scary moments of your life? What strategies do you use to get through them?

Leave a comment and you’ll be entered in a drawing for a chance to win a $10 gift card (your choice, Amazon, Starbucks or iTunes) at the end of the month. Winners will be announced following the first post of the following months.