Sometimes we feel ourselves as existential beings floating around in the cosmos. Living with the knowledge of death approaching and with the hardship of life at the same time
Dealing with the fear of death and the suffering that comes with living simultaneously is a hard, if not an impossible task.
Perhaps this death anxiety doesn’t come from our brains, but from our body. And when we come into an anxious state our mind starts to think of negative things, such as death.
Now you feel anxiety in your body and psychological distress by a heavy topic such as death. You may think that by someone resolving the fear of death you will also resolve your anxious bodily feeling, but that doesn’t work when the sudden fear of death is an effect of the cause, bodily felt anxiety.
Perhaps instead of retreating deeper inside our minds, we should try a different approach. We should treat a physiological problem, with a physiological solution.
Go on a run, to the gym, even a simple walk will do. After you will feel grounded. Even though those problems will still be there, they don’t pressure as heavily on your soul as before.
And maybe after the run, when watching the sunset, with all those endorphins flowing through your body. Instead of worrying about not being given eternal life, you will be grateful for even getting to experience it to begin with. No matter how long, every minute passing starts to feel precious.
And suddenly you understand. Maybe tomorrow you will start wandering again in doubt, but next time you know how to get where you want to be.
Having had a near-death experience, and because I believe we are, in essence, eternal, I don’t really fear death. What I do fear is the death of people I love, because I don’t know if I will be able to deal with the loss. But in any case, we do have to learn to cross bridges when we get to them, and your post is a beautiful reminder of how we can shift our anxiety about things that are completely out of our control. Thank you.