What's Ready to Die?

Death terrifies me but life without death seems much worse.

Imagine living forever, endlessly, in the same form. Nothing dying. Nothing changing. How meaningless it would all become.

Fortunately, everything dies.

This moment is dying to give life to the next. One day these words will be read for the last time. The universe itself goes through cycles of expansion and contraction.

When chapters of our lives come to an end, parts of ourselves die with them. We lose a job and the parts of us that identified with the work feel like they too are being lost. A relationship ends and the parts of us still intertwined feel like they too are ending.

Some deaths are forced upon us. We have no choice but to step into the darkness.

Others arrive as an invitation, brought to us by the current of the universe, and we must make the choice to to let ourselves be swept away into the uncertain abyss.

Who will I be after this ends?

What if I never find safety again?

What if the darkness never ends?

We just don’t know. And so we grasp, holding onto relationships, habits, commitments, expectations, opinions, identities, jobs, identities, and all forms of attachment that are ready to die. In doing so, we delay our chance for a new birth.

To accept death is to dance with mystery. It is a leap of faith. A trust that there is new life waiting to be birthed. A belief that nothing stays in darkness forever.

Eventually, there is always a new light.

A new light that reveals what wants to be alive now, in this moment, given all that has moved within you.

A life that is aligned with who, deep in your heart, you now know yourself to be.

Without this death and ensuing darkness, you cannot find the new light.

Without this death, you cannot find the life that is waiting for you.¹

Reflection: What’s ready to die in your life?

As you step into the end of 2024, a death of its own, what in your life is ready to be put to rest, so that new life can bloom in 2025?

I'll share a few of mine...

I sense my former identity as a community professional is dying. Community is still alive in me, and my work, but it's being reborn in a new shape and form. My work as a coach and healer is emerging. I am called to help people find belonging within.

I sense my attachment to only expressing my masculine is fading. The fear of being seen as "cringe", "crunchy", "too vulnerable" is ready to be put to rest. The bravery to more fully express my inner feminine, in balance with my masculine, feels like it's ready to bloom.

I sense that many of my former relationships and networks went through a process of death in 2024. They were relationships attached to who I was trying to be. As I've come into deeper contact with who I truly am, new relationships are blooming that are rooted much more deeply and authentically. Some with new people, and some with the same people, but in a new form. These relationships feel like they are going to flourish in 2025.

What comes to mind for you? Comment below or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

For a longer annual reflection process, you can download the Downshift Annual Review notion template for free here.

This is likely the last you’ll hear from me in 2024.

At this time last year, I was deep in the abyss. The past year has felt more like four. It was the most difficult but meaningful year of my life. A lot of death. A lot of new life.

I feel so grateful to be ending this year with a sense of grounding and connection, firmly on the other side of the darkness. I don’t know what wants to unfold from here, and expect more darkness to arrive, but I feel more capable than ever of surrendering to the current.

I’m so grateful for all the interactions I’ve had with you all this year. All of your thoughtful comments and replies have been lights in the darkness, often in the moments I needed it most. Thank you for being on this journey with me. I can’t wait to see what unfolds for all of us in 2025.

Wishing you all a restful holiday. See you next year.

Warmly,

David

1. I was inspired to write this piece after listening to David Whyte’s essay on Death which I first heard him read on Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton (around the 1:30 mark). His closing line hit me straight in the heart: “Death doesn’t find us. Death only comes to find the person we have always secretly wanted to be.”