‘We live in grief-phobic societies’: experts explain how to become more comfortable with death | Well actually

For most people, death is not a standard topic of conversation. One day, over lunch, a friend started talking about her mother’s death a few years earlier. Her voice was heard from time to time, but she spoke about it clearly – as a simple fact of life. As we talked, I noticed another friend shifting uncomfortably in his seat; he didn’t say much.

Afterwards, I asked him what was wrong. “I really don’t like talking about death,” he said, his hands shaking with anxiety. “I don’t even like thinking about it. It freaks me out.”

His discomfort seemed silly to me – and also the most normal thing in the world. We will all die, just like everyone we know. So why be afraid? And how can you not be terrified?

My friend is far from alone in his discomfort. “We live in illiterate, grief-phobic societies,” says Dr Lucy Hone, a resilience and grief researcher and author of the book How Will I Get Out of This?: A Practical Guide to Navigating Life’s Most Difficult Times.

Hone began researching grief more than a decade ago, after the sudden death of her daughter, Abi. During our video call, she’s wearing one of Abi’s old hats, an orange and white polka dot beanie and a big orange beanbag on top. It’s ridiculous, Hone says, but it makes her laugh.

For someone who has experienced such intense loss and spends a lot of time talking to people about her grief, Hone is remarkably cheerful and bubbly. This is partly due to her work, she says. Hone and several other experts I spoke with said that thinking about and being close to death is “life-affirming.”

Below, experts explain why so many of us are so afraid of death and how we can learn to get a little more used to it.

Why we are so uncomfortable with death

Death disrupts the usual direction of our lives, says Dr. Todd May, professor of philosophy at Warren Wilson College.

“People in the West and beyond are looking to the future,” May says. We don’t just exist in the moment – ​​we engage in projects and relationships that we see develop over time. “The idea of ​​ending our lives violates this future orientation that we all have,” he explains.

The individualistic and typically Western approach to life affects how we feel about death, says Sister Chȃn Trì Nghiȇm, a Zen Buddhist nun born in Australia. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, “there is a strongly shared belief that God created individuals separate from each other…we have a certain lifespan and we die at a certain time.” This view arouses fear and anxiety, says Trì Nghiȇm.

In the Buddhist tradition, beginnings and endings are much less defined. Take a question as simple as when you first came into existence: was it when you were born? The nine months you stayed in your mother’s womb? When you were just a precursor cell in your unborn mother? “In Buddhism, we have always existed and there has never been a time when we did not exist,” explains Trì Nghiȇm. Seen from this angle, death is less an end than a continuation.

The idea of ​​finiteness can bruise our fragile egos, says Alua Arthur, author and death doula. “We have no control, and that’s very worrying,” she said. “We think we’re infallible, and death reminds us how small we are, and it’s uncomfortable.”

And the thought of death brings up big feelings that most people would prefer to avoid, says palliative care physician Dr. Luyi Kathy Zhang.

“Many of us are ill-equipped to handle uncomfortable emotions, and death is probably one of the most uncomfortable experiences,” she says. “It is easier for us to say that death is an eventuality that we will face when it comes rather than to face our feelings now. »

Finally, death increasingly occurs out of sight, Hone says – in hospitals or nursing homes. But it wasn’t always this way.

“Throughout human history, death has been all around us,” says Hone. “We were caring for the sick and dying at home, so we had to talk about it and think about it. »

This development accelerated in the mid-20th century. “In Boston in 1912, about two-thirds of residents died at home,” The New York Times reported in 2019. “In the 1950s, the majority of Americans died in hospitals, and by the 1970s, at least two-thirds. »

Far from our immediate environment, death has become for many something more distant and abstract.

Why it is important to think about death

Not talking or thinking about death “doesn’t mean it won’t happen, it just means you’ll be ill-prepared when it does,” Arthur says.

Thinking through and planning the logistics of death can also make life easier for those around us. “That way they won’t be grieving and also won’t be trying to figure out where your Social Security card is,” Arthur says.

Planning how we would ideally like to spend our final days empowers us, says Zhang. “You can choose to get involved rather than experience the feeling of overwhelm and the stress of having to deal with it,” she explains.

There are also more immediate benefits. I’ve spoken to more than a dozen experts on death, and they bring up the same point over and over again: thinking about death helps us live better lives.

“Accepting that we are going to die allows us to live more thoughtfully,” says Hone. For her, losing Abi and facing grief in her work clarified the brevity and fragility of life. Given this, she says, “I need to know who and what matters most to me now and focus my attention on them.” »

Thinking about our mortality can be a good way to keep things in perspective, says Zhang. For example: will this frustrating traffic jam interest you on your deathbed? And if you’re nervous about asking someone out or applying for a job, ask yourself how you might feel at the end of your life if you didn’t get what you wanted. “That might be enough to shift our perspective so we can overcome fear or hesitation,” Zhang says.

It can also help us appreciate our current life. “If we ask ourselves, ‘What if this is the last time I have dinner with my family?’ it’s a very different way of experiencing something that seems ordinary and mundane,” Zhang says.

How to become more comfortable with death

Often, the familiarity of death is something we don’t have much say over: the loss of a friend, family member, or even a beloved pet forces us to face it, whether we’re ready or not.

But experts say there are some practices that can help you begin to “tolerate” the idea of ​​death, as Hone puts it. “I’m not at peace with the fact that I’m going to die and everyone I love is going to die,” she admits. “But I can tolerate it, because I can tolerate difficult things.”

Don’t be ashamed of your fear. Fear of death is natural and often a large part of what keeps us alive, Arthur explains. “It’s what tells you to stop walking when you get to the edge of that cliff and drink water when you’re in the desert,” she says. The goal, according to Arthur, is not to completely eliminate the fear of death, but to understand where and why it might be holding us back.

Start planning. Whether it’s writing your will or drafting an advance directive — a document outlining who you want to make your financial and medical decisions for you if you can’t — thinking about the practicalities of dying can be a helpful and less emotionally charged way to approach the issue, Arthur says.

Ask yourself big questions. Questions like, “What will I regret not doing in 10 or 15 years?” and “Will I care about this on my deathbed?” help put the current moment and emotions into perspective, says Zhang.

Think of someone you know who has died. Even if it’s just for five minutes, Hone says, think about what you learned from this person and how you might want to live differently because of what they taught you. “It’s a pretty nice and constructive way to think about death,” she says.

Think about your relationships. Think about the important people in your life and ask yourself if you’re hiding something from them, Arthur says. “Who should you apologize to? Who should you say thank you to? Who should you forgive?” she asks.

Learn to balance the present and the future. While it’s important to be present in our lives, we can’t just live in the moment, May says. “We must maintain our commitment to activities for the future,” he said. But because we can die at any moment, “living only for the future sacrifices the riches of our present.” The goal is to exist in a balance between the two, May says, which is “difficult, but maybe achievable to some extent.”