by John El-Mokadem

Dear friends,

I am writing this month’s newsletter whilst I am on my honeymoon!!  As on any holiday (or indeed most of the time wherever I am) I find myself with a stack of books to get through.  One of the book’s I am reading currently is “Veronika Decides To Die” (great theme for a honeymoon, eh!) by Paulo Coelho.  I like the theme of this book, because on many levels it describes the lives that many of us get caught up into.  

Veronika has many of the things that we are told should fulfil us – she is young and good looking, attracts the attention of many admirers, has a good job and a family who love her.  She is comfortable, yet something is missing, and one morning she wakes up and decides to die.  She overdoses on sleeping pills, but her plan fails, and she wakes up in the “famous and much-feared lunatic asylum” called “Villette”, where she is told that she has irreparably damaged her heart and has only days to live.  The novel follows Veronika throughout these final days as she really begins to feel things she has never really felt before.  She gradually finds herself opening up, seeing through all the veils that have held her back from wanting what she really wants and from being who she really is.  She starts to fall in love again, and ironically finds herself wanting to live again.

I find it curious how so many of us (and I have fallen into this trap too) end up living the conditioned life, like Veronika, putting off what we really want because “there will always be time”, or because “that’s not the done thing”, or because “x wouldn’t approve”.  When faced with death, all these excuses start to come into perspective, and we can start to see them as just that – excuses or stories we tell ourselves about why we can’t be who we really want to be.  But who is this really serving?  I am reminded of a wonderful quote from Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’  Actually who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.  There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”. (Marianne Williamson, “A Return to Love”).

In some ways, people can become too locked into the idea that there is always time, that our lives don’t end.  In the west, death is something that is often feared and not really spoken of, pushed away so that we don’t have to face it.  But yet, when we do open ourselves up to the reality of death, it can be tremendously liberating.  If you knew you were going to die in the next week, how much of what you do would you really want to keep doing?  Who would you be and what would you do differently?  What would really be important to you, and what would fall by the wayside?  Spend a few moments allowing yourself to feel what that would feel like, and then ask yourself when would be a good time to live this truth?  After all, we just don’t know what is going to happen, or when our time will come.  When we spend time noticing that actually everything that we think is living is, in fact, in the process of dying we are then, ironically, able to really start living what is real – right here and right now!!

Does this message inspire or ire?  Would be happy to hear your comments or feelings - drop me a line at:

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Live full!

Love,

John.