Giving someone permission to die.

A friend whose sister has been dying caught up with me in the supermarket.

I asked her how she was going.

She said - "She died last week - it was amazingly wonderful!"

Curious about her approach, I asked her to tell me more.

"Our family is usually really dysfunctional, but we got together one night and one by one, gave her permission to die."

"After we did that, the whole atmosphere lightened up and she started joking and we actually started to hear her jokes and her celebration of what life she had left."

"We all started to celebrate her life!"

Amazing!

Have I ever given anyone permission to die?

And what are the consequences to myself, and the person who was busy in the process of dying?

I strongly suspect that one result of not giving permission is that you are choosing a long suffering style of grief.

I have recently observed an amazing man give his mother permission to die. I spoke with him today and asked him if this is what he did. He agreed. He also demonstrated how once he faced that reality, that there was ecstatic states of mind - something that short sharp suffering makes possible and that long suffering destroys.

So, have you given people who have died, permission to do that?

Have you held out on them...and on your self?

Are you willing to retrospectively give them that permission?

Let me know.

Email Mike...