“People living deeply have no fear of death.” -Anaïs Nin
This last weekend, I had the pleasure of working at the Wisdom 2.0 Business Conference in San Francisco, California. One of my speaker liaison team members was Alison Raby, founder of “Life Before Death,” an organization dedicated to teaching others to embrace the finality of this lifetime so they can make better choices about the precious time they do have.
Strange as it may sound, embracing impermanence is one of the most powerful things you can do as a creator. For one, it allows you to focus on the process of creating instead of the end product. It also helps you to get beyond the illusion that some part of you or something you make will endure. When you get beyond such illusions, your experience of living becomes grounded and empowered in the reality of dying.
When you get beyond such notions, when you stop trying to hang on to work or for a better life sometime in the unknown future, you become more open to the wisdom of the present. The result? Your creativity flourishes.
When I asked more about what she did, Alison handed me a shiny black business card with pink lettering saying “Life Before Death” on one side and “This Will End” on the other. Wow! Here is an excerpt from her powerful website:
LifeBeforeDeath bridges the gap between Life and Death and asks the question: Given that none of us are getting out of here alive, how will we live?
It is the work of demystifying Death: welcoming it in, making friends with it, and, if necessary, staring it down, before it knocks unexpectedly at our door. LifeBeforeDeath teaches us to embrace Death as the natural counterpoint to birth. Only then can we truly open ourselves up to the unknown and the endless possibilities of our lives.
LifeBeforeDeath is also a celebration, a practice of actively waking up to reality, to the miracle that is every human life. It is a path to more aliveness.
The work is both individual and group oriented, but it is, ultimately, a Do It Yourself model. At the end of the day, no matter how many loved ones surround you, the work of living and dying is your own. In the day to day, only you can answer the questions: How do I choose to live? How do I cultivate more aliveness, more spark in my life? How do I birth my dreams? How do I become the person I truly long to be, wholly and fully living my life without regret? We want to both inspire and ignite you to consider these questions and add your own.”
For more information on Alison’s powerful message, go to Life Before Death. Strange though it may sound, by embracing your mortality your creativity will flourish.