Tuesday, February 5, 2013

The 5 regrets of the Dying

Not sure if you missed this article posted online recently, so let's review. It listed the five regrets of the dying: Not that this is what is happening to me, it’s just a fact of life.  How I would reply to these are in parentheses, so this list is also my "5 regrets".
 
Number one: I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
(For me I answered yes-not at dance-just my straight jobs. 
I work stressfully to please others and never recognized for it.)
 
Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
(YES! I need to contact them more often and that would include visits, too.  )
 
Number three: I wish I had let myself be happier.
(Okay….  I think I’m a pretty darn happy person.
I’m just practical and deny myself of material things I wouldn’t have 10 years ago
but I AM a happy person)
 
Number four: I wish I'd had the courage to express my true self.
(When I'm being my dance self or my reiki self, I am my true self -
but not when I am in my working life, which is most of the time)
 
And number five: I wish I'd lived a life true to my dreams, instead of what others expected of me. (I have lived a life true to my dreams – but I also did what I thought others expected of me the majority of the time and that was a lot of pressure)
 
Then the article makes a fascinating leap to a little-known phenomenon called post-traumatic growth. We've all heard of post-traumatic stress. But sometimes, when people are faced with a deeply traumatic experience -- illness, accident, or another brush with death -- they walk away not diminished, but super-charged by the experience. Suddenly, they can live a life without fear, focused on what matters most to them.
 
Now this is where I wish I wake up and land from having this illness, super-charged by the experience.  I recently watched Deepak Chopra’s “The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success” again on DVD.  He says a most amazing thing at the end, “I am an impulse of the universe.  I am part of a collective wave of consciousness.  After I am gone, I will have come and done what I came to do and that’s enough.”  Agreed.