Coaches' Corner: Living, Dying, and Loving with a Broken Heart

 It's wild that I would come across this blog today.  For the past several years I have been confronted with disease and dying in people who I love and to be honest, I have not handled it well.  Just 2 hours ago my cat, who is so important to me since I don't have kids, had the biggest seizure I've seen him have since he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.  In 2 hours I take him to the doctor...  My mom has had lung cancer twice and is doing well right now, for which I am so grateful.  My dad and best friend were both diagnosed with cancer in the same month and since that time they have both stopped talking with me.  I had 3 other family members and a friend die this past year, my brother almost died twice as well.  Again, it's been overwhelming and I don't feel like I am handling it well.  I've developed the worst anxiety of my life and depression is constant.  I don't know how to get through this.  I have almost no support as far as friends, but I do have a therapist.  This is probably the most abstract and dissociated I've ever felt towards life and it is scary to me.  I know I shouldn't be and it's part of the problem, but I'm finding it hard to comprehend that all this has happened.  Yes, lack of acceptance... a lack of acceptance of what are immovable facts at this moment.  Yes, I appear to be arguing with reality.  I surprise myself that I am writing all this on a website blog.  My pain feels like it's spiking right now.  I don't really have anyone to talk to right now, that's probably why I dare say all this.  I want to open up more than anything, I do and I've tried.  Kevin, I will be reflecting on the things you've written here.  It amazed me with all the thinking about death that I've been doing that I would find your writings at this time.  I had the thought, "I'm not the only one!"  And for that, this broken heart thanks you.

Eldon

After reading this I recall two things that J. Krishnamurti said that stuck with me "I see fear arises because I don't know what to do with my emptiness and there for I depend; therefore I am attached..." And "As you watch (thoughts) you learn that the observer is merely a bundle of ideas and memories without any validity or substance, but that fear is an actuality and that you are trying to understand a fact with an abstraction which, of course, you cannot do." 

My translation of this is all the things you think you are fearful of are only the things you are attached to, that cover up my/your emptiness. If I/you can feel into and just be with this emptiness, that causes me/you to depend on material things/people, situations, that in turn cause me to become attached. But if I can just sit with it, I/you begin to see that the emptiness is the fear itself, then i/you see that I/you are apart of the fear, that you are fear, then you cannot do anything about it, which is when the FEAR is gone.

but it did.  Thank you again, Kevin, for your beautiful words and soul.  Rachael

Thanks for this beautiful text, Kevin!

I have always been fascinated with death, maybe a little too much. Lets see what my fear is. I will take some time and work with the questions...and hopefully get some insights to share.

Anne

 All too often we think ABOUT stuff rather than open to it.  I appreciate your comments as I feel you are opening to the unknown.  A lot of integral has fallen away from my forefront as it is so much ABOUT and is usually narrative-mind doing its separate thing (at lest that was my view of my conditioning).  Using integral to open up and stand naked with death is skillful means.  I often consider that we suffer so we can have real compassion for others suffering, instead of mind-level projection compassion.  Coming out of conditioning (at any 2nd or 3rd tier level) is HARD and often filled with real-actual-near-death-suffering. Sounds like you are doing real work. Try not to reassemble yourself. Stay radically open. Thanks for the blog. - Steve

Dear Kevin,

Your post has touched me very much and I had the sense that your heart was talking to my heart. I'm a broken heart as well, as I believe everyone is in it's own way. I've just finished reading a book on death "tuesday,s by morrie" and I remember one phrase that he kept telling : "...learn to die and you will learn to live. " I believe also that the first step towards that is to talk about it, brake the taboo and share with each other. Thank you so much Kevin ! Dying, is the one thing we can be 100% shure that will happend in life. There is no way to escape this fact even if we ignore it ... It will happend ! And learning how to die for me means, to learn as you say so well, learn new perspective on how do I relate to dying, go beyond the fears. Learn to see new ways to approche this subject and let go...

To all , merry christmas !

Manon

 Thanks Kevin!  Nothing like a little blog about death to wake help me wake up. A wonderful invitation to "come home" right in the middle of our Christmas chaos. Beautifully written.  Beautifully timed. My family and I can have a deeper and more "holy" Christmas by embracing these, our broken hearts, a little more fully. Maybe even some real healing.  This is so Cool! the freedom is here all the time.

Thanks again,

Mark

Wow. I'm very moved by what you all have written here. I'm learning from you all now too! If there's one thing I can be sure of, it's that learning to attend to our own suffering and "love anyway" is a life long practice. It's so inspiring to hear too how each of you have come more to life by being with death. Beautiful. 

Thank you for your kind words. I'm touched that this hits home. One of my fellow coaches gave this to me as a practice of expressing my despair to others. So it's very heartening to feel that it serves. That's good for me to see. I just got my first client whose topic was "dealing with loss" so this all is timely too for me professionally. I often tell folks that Integral Coaching is the practical injunction for relieving suffering. Cheers to that...

-Kevin 

http://integrallife.com/coaching/home