17 Mar What Matters Most

Love and death are the greatest gifts that are given to us. Mostly, they are passed on unopened.
– Rainer Maria Rilke

We cannot be truly alive without maintaining a relationship with, or an awareness of, death. Author Frank Ostaseski, in The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, says, “Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is a secret teacher hiding in plain sight. She helps us discover what matters most.”

Hello~

I read this passage and it made me think about standing beside my husband as he told someone at a party we were at on Saturday, “There is nothing like cancer to remind you of what matters most in life.” He had been saying he was quitting his salaried position to pursue the work he felt called to do. No guarantee of success, but the drawing forward of knowing nothing is guaranteed, and the compulsion to really, truly live a life that mattered to him.

I have been living in the shadow of death almost as far back as I can remember. I have a few memories, but none etched in my brain and my heart as deeply as being told at eight that my mom was going to die and having to say goodbye to her. She lived, but since then, I have carried that uncertainty of getting to live into old age very tenderly. Nothing is guaranteed.

This week, I told a client, “I have an obsession with helping people live their best lives.” I often think at the end of the day, if this were my last day, would I be pleased with how I spent my time? Many days, I am grateful I can answer yes.

We are all given this gift of life, and, as the poet Rilke says about death and love, they are passed on rarely opened. Perhaps the same can be said of life.

I do not know if I view death as a gift. As far as I can tell, more often than not there is much suffering in death, and I am not sure I have the courage or the tenacity to participate in something often so gruelling with much grace or strength. Time will tell. That is one thing I am certain of.

Death is the gift that, if I opened prior to its imminence, can be the gift of light and clarity. Death, perhaps like a flashlight looking back to shine a path over our life, almost like a lighthouse in the dark, inviting, or at least illuminating, what matters if we let it.

When I was diagnosed with the same condition my mom had at 30, and a decade later with four brain tumours, knowing the life expectancy was 49 at the time (recently it’s been extended beyond that), it was as if I developed a deep clarity about what matters and what does not.

I asked my friend who was fourth stage cancer what she would tell people if she had three minutes to tell us all what mattered most. She said something like this. I was driving and trying not to cry at the same time, so I did not get it exactly right.

She said, “This may sound cliché, but it is true. Live. Tell people you love them. Do not do shit you do not want to do. Eat the food you love. Do the things you love and do not hold back.”

She went into more detail, but again, I was trying not to careen off the road, given the resonance I felt in what she said and my emotional connection to it.

She did not even take the three minutes. Her response was simple and concise. Live. Do and be what you love.

How often are we so far from this? So far. And I am included in that.

I get overcome with work, work I love, but also work that can distract me from the ease with which I want to live my life. I get distracted with what my body looks like, what I should eat, and how I should exercise.

I want to spend time with people I love. That matters to me. I want to be nice and loving to myself, and that includes space to rest, read and restore myself.

I tell people I love them more often and do things that remind me that I am trying to love myself, with how I treat myself and what I engage in.

In this week’s podcast, I have my first, and perhaps one of my most beloved guests, my partner, my love. And as I often say to him, I would be honoured just to know him on LinkedIn, and yet I get to be his partner. We talked about redefining success and what he has learned along the way.

I would be honoured if you would listen, even more honoured if you subscribed and perhaps rated the show.

Tune in now: Finding Joy

If you are wondering what it would mean to create a life you love, try something my coach tried with me early on. Consider writing your eulogy. I know this sounds perhaps crazy and remarkably hard. It might be. But I can also promise you it would crack away any façade about what it means to live a life that matters to you.

Another idea, perhaps a bit more gently, is to write a list of 20 things you love and start calibrating your life around them. I would love to hear which one you choose and how it impacts you.

I will close with the poem from the book The Five Invitations, “Sono’s Death Poem.”

Don’t just stand here with your hair turning grey,

Soon enough the seas will sink your little island.

So while there is still the illusion of time, 

set out for another shore.

No sense packing a bag. 

You will not be able to lift it into your boat.

Give away all your collections. 

Take only new seeds and an old stick.

Send out some prayers on the wind before you sail

Do not be afraid.

Someone knows you are coming, 

An extra fish will be salted.

Mono (Sono) Santacroce 1928–1995
The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaseski

1000 blessings on our journey as you live alive, that’s fully aligned with who you are and what matters most to you. 

Leona xo

If you could use some support on your journey-consider joining the JOY Journey – helping you create a life you’ll love~on your terms.