Meeting Mortality, Together

We’ve all heard the saying what you resist persists, or the playful challenge: Try not to think of an elephant. Both point to the same truth: Once a bell is rung, it cannot be unrung. Pretending not to hear it only sharpens its echo.

As we move through the seasons of our lives, thoughts of mortality and decline naturally arise for all of us. These thoughts are not failures of optimism; they are the spirit’s effort to live in harmony with natural law. But those laws, and the lessons they carry, stand in tension with our cultural conditioning. We are taught to label them “morbid” or “dark,” and we push them away. So, the echo grows louder.

Over time, many of us begin to feel unsettled. We wake in the night with thoughts of death—our own or someone we love. We soften the mirror’s reminders with creams or injections. We soothe ourselves with sweets, alcohol, new commitments, and next big goals. We postpone writing our wills and avoid completing our advance directives. Slowly, quietly, our mortality fades into the background of our lives, and we delay the beautiful things we once promised ourselves we’d do “before we die.”

Without quite noticing, we have become unwitting participants in a death-phobic culture.

But something powerful is afoot. We are living through the second great death-consciousness movement in America. The first brought us Hospice. This one—the rising death-positive movement—is bringing brave new ways of living and dying with intention. Across the country, groups gather to talk about death and dying, to embrace mortality’s unexpected opportunities, to plan for themselves and those they love, and to reclaim agency over their final chapter—right up to and even after their last breath.

These big cultural shifts begin within each of us.
And they are much easier when we do not walk alone.

If contemplating your mortality feels too heavy in solitude, consider doing it in community. With others beside you, the work becomes less frightening, more joyful, more stabilizing. 

You might sit with a death doula to explore your relationship with mortality. We are trained to help you discover your deepest values and ensure they are woven into your emotional, practical, and legal preparations. Or you might attend a Death Café or another death-positive gathering, where the simple act of speaking aloud what is true can bring connection and relief.

Wherever you find yourself, befriending your mortality in community brings profound gifts of peace and ease to the body and heart.
Monthly and ad hoc gatherings are listed on the Community Events section of our website.

We are all going to die, and we are all grieving the losses that shape our lives.
Let us learn how to do this well—together.