Last week, I posted Ilene’s thoughts after reading alot of the questions that people submitted around Conscious Living and Conscious Leaving. Here, Ilene answers a specific question from the list. She’ll continue to answer one specific question a week, as long as she is physically able to type. I encourage you to continue the dialogue with her by leaving comments to this post. If you are confused about what I’m talking about, please read the initial posting in this category of Sacred Work.
Question: I’d love to know what both of these terms, "conscious being" and "conscious leaving", really mean to her, especially "conscious leaving.”
Conscious Being or Conscious Living means this to me:
That I am not on automatic pilot, going through the motions of my life without being aware of my being; my emotions, my thoughts, my physicality and what my spirit longs for in a given moment.It means being very conscious and taking time to check in with myself, especially my heart. What is in my heart and is wanting to be felt, done, expressed?
It helps me to have a ritual or practice or some scheduled way to remind myself to look inside, so I don’t get swept away in the moment. For me that can be drawing, writing, meditation, sitting and watching the sunset or closing my eyes, taking some deep breaths and asking my self, “what is true right now that I might be pushing aside?”
Conscious Leaving means this to me:
That instead of just letting my illness and loss lead me and control me, that I stay tuned into what is happening, the implications and what possible choices I have. Then I talk about what I notice with my family and tell them my choices and ask for their input.
It means not seeing myself as a victim but as an empowered being with choices. Choices about how I want to spend each day, whether painting, writing, visiting, seeing a movie, going for a drive or laying on the couch.
I have consciously designed how I would like to go. Starting with a big gathering celebration in the place of my choosing. I have invited who I want and requested what I want to take place including art and creative activities and a pot luck and a fire circle. I have decided who I will call when I am ready to stop living and how that smaller circle can assist me in my transition.
I have started conversations with people that may in fact be my last contact with them, saying what is important for me to say. And taking in what they want to say to complete our interaction, as best as possible. I have made a list of what I leave to whom and talked about it with them and my family, in some cases asking people if there is something of mine that has meaning for them that they would like.
Mostly I stay conscious of each day and what calls to me and what I want to do and who I want to be. I find it is very much who I wanted to be before; someone who inspires, creates, gives, teaches, laughs and loves.
I’d just like to appreciate you for your willingness to share your journey with a larger audience. I feel so grateful to read your words. They evoke a sense of awe and wonder about your experience.
I too am committed to working on conscious living and conscious leaving, even though I don’t currently have a physical illness of which I’m aware. I have started to have conversations with my children, my brother and my mother around the time when we will need to part. I believe that we are eternal beings, so last week I was contemplating the thought that even though I or one of my beloveds might leave this plane of existence, a leaving is also a “going towards” others who have moved along before (father, brother, grandmother, friend). It’s like: instead of dying as a leaving loved ones, I was thinking of it as a joining of other loved ones who may be in the non-physical world. In that way I was understanding that “dying” to this life is truly being born to another, more like simply taking a journey from one location to another. I guess the trick is to maintain a connection even though someone I love is not physically present.
So, my “hit” from your comments, Ilene, was to step up my efforts to bring the discussion around death into more conversations. Why wait until something is truly imminent? Why not have these conversations now about what needs saying, what items need passing along, what the most perfect and fitting good-bye party would be, who to include in the last, perfect moments of a perfect life?
So, again, thanks for your sharing. It is being warmly received by me.
Margaret Pevec