I am reading from Anna Forrest’s book, Fierce Medicine. Here, I share the death meditation with you.

Find a comfortable seated position, and if you haven’t already, grab a pen and paper.

And I begin. I recommend you begin this exercise in the early evening so the fading light and the cooling air can help create the correct atmosphere. Right at the top of your paper. Death meditation. Now, close your eyes. Have your written materials open in front of you as you get your breath going very deeply.

Get your core wide and spacious. Feel your breath moving through your lungs, your heart beating, and your blood moving through your veins. These rivers of life are moving through you.

Now consider, if you knew that in 12 hours you would be dead, what would you do for these last 12 hours of your life? Without a doubt, no matter what you did, run away, kick and scream, curse me or the heavens. It wouldn’t matter because you’d still be dead before morning. No escape. Get a feel for that.

This is your last little bit of life.

You wouldn’t even get to see another sunrise. Breathe that in. Feel the truth of that. All the plans and things you were waiting to do in the future are gone. Maybe you were planning on becoming a teacher, or a pilot, or a lawyer, or a yoga teacher. Maybe you wanted a mate or children. Maybe when you were finally healed enough, you were going to allow yourself to love.

But now, it’s too late for all that. Feel that. In the midst of that feeling, taste how precious each moment becomes because you have so few left. Take a very deep breath and savor it fully. This is one of your last breaths.

Now, get ready to ask yourself some questions.

Feel the death of your hopes and your dreams. Everything you were getting ready for. As you sit here feeling that death, that loss, what are your regrets? What are all the ways you were going to live your life? All the dreams you were waiting to live? What were the promises that you made to yourself or your loved ones that you can no longer keep because your time is over?

Perhaps you told yourself you’d start caring for yourself in a kind and sane way someday in the future. Well, now, you don’t have a future. Let yourself fully feel your loss. Write down your regrets. If

you need more time, feel free to pause the recording. But if you’re ready, let’s continue.

Think about all the feelings you normally keep shut away because you have to function. Well, there’s nothing left to function for anymore. Be brave enough to feel fully now with, without any guard, because these are the last few feelings you get to have. Take another deep breath.

Feeling your regrets and your loss. Feel just how precious your life is. Now, you only have 11 hours and 15 minutes left to live.

What are your unfinished communications? What do you want to say or write to your loved ones, to the people who touched your heart or who broke it? What are the communications you need to complete before you die? To those who hurt you, those who hate you, and those you love, Write down everything you wish you could say to these people and be 100 percent honest.

If

If you need more time, just pause the recording. Come back when you’re ready. We continue. Stay connected to your breath, to the reality of your death coming closer. As you feel your impending death looming over you, ask yourself, What am I still withholding? What’s behind my inhibitions? Am I waiting for the right time to feel or express myself?

Why? Think about all the rules that have kept you inhabited or inhibited from doing what your spirit yearns for. And now? It’s too late. Your time is up. Write down what you’re holding back.

As you feel your impeding death come closer, feel that coolness of death coming closer. Realize there’s really no escape from your death. Take a deep breath, and allow yourself to savor the pain because it means you are still alive. As you’re feeling the dread and coolness of death, ask yourself, What am I still imprisoned by?

Answer honestly.

Take a deep breath. Savor that your lungs and heart still work. Feel for maybe the first time how your breath sparkles through you—something you never took the time to notice before. Feel how precious these last breaths are—these previous breaths of life.

As you feel your death begin to strip away your delusions of immortality and comfortable numbness, ask. What have I been lying to myself about? What are all the ways I’ve sabotaged myself? As your death strips away the lies, can you finally be completely honest with yourself for these last few hours of your life?

Check in. See if one of your lies is about how you need your lies. What can you finally be honest with yourself about? Write down what you’ve been lying to yourself about and all the ways you’ve sabotaged yourself.

If not now, you don’t have any other when. Now is all you have. As you feel your death touch and chill your skin, can you finally recognize what you have in your life that should have died long ago?

Recall the dead leaves of the trees that need to fall off and turn to compost to feed their roots. What in your life needs to break off and die in order for you to live freely? An eating disorder, abuse, your illness, your pain, or a bad relationship? Which things have been eating your life force like a parasite?

Are you going to feed those parasitic energies up until your last breath? What in your life needs to break off and die so you can live freely for your last few hours?

Feel death coming closer, coming right up to your face. Feel that coolness of death permeating your skin, chilling it bone-deep, slowing your blood and organs. Feel this unstoppable presence of death coming into you. Take another breath. It’s one of your last. Treasure it. As the cold invades your extremities, feel that loss of sensitivity in your fingers, toes, hands, and feet as your life force begins to fade.

Now, what do you say to your loved ones, knowing that you’re not going to see them after sunrise? What are you going to say to them? Write down your last words to those you love.

Take another deep breath. The air is getting heavier, and pulling it into your lungs is harder. The oxygen isn’t moving much. Take a breath while you can.

Feel death seeping through your core. Slowing your blood and your heart. Turning your lungs flaccid and increasingly useless. What could you do to prepare for death in these last few hours? What steps could you take to have a death with integrity, a noble death? What will you do if you can’t have a life in the last few remaining hours?

To at least have a death that you can be proud of. Write it down.

Now, your adrenal glands are pumping frantically. You feel your heart. It’s actually starting to beat faster. It’s racing desperately. Beating faster than a trapped bird as death closes in on you. Your vision starts to darken as you grow even colder.

Has it finally become clear to you what you really love? As death strips away your veils, what matters most to you?

Feel your heart abandon its frantic efforts, slowing once more, struggling to beat. Feel death fill every last cell and permeate your brain, extinguishing your final thoughts on earth. Feel death come over your heart, and your heart stops. At this moment, when your vital forces are stopped, can you make a choice?

Can you make a warrior’s choice to choose the life you most deeply desire? Make that choice. Feel death’s power. Now, use the power of your inevitable death to drag out all that you are ready to let die.

Feel death’s cold fingers dragging and scraping all the scar tissue, the pain, the pain. Betrayal and debris right out of you, through your lungs, your heart, your back.

Feel the rest of your death moving through you, pulling with it the remaining garbage that needs to turn into compost. Let death take out what you are ready to be free of.

Now draw in a fresh breath. A breath that sparkles. The first after your return from death. And use it to breathe out all of the foul thinking that fed that debris. Everything that kept you from living the life that you want. That you desire. That is what your spirit yearns for. Breathe it out. Now. Take another breath.

Fill those places that so desperately want to live with this new life force. Put breath in there. Know that death is your ally. Breathe out your death. Breathe in this new life force. Sparkle up.

Breathe that new life into your heart, back into your lungs, and into your blood, and get it moving again. Feel your body slowly warming from your core outward, radiating into your arms and legs, life-giving blood warming you down to your fingers and toes.

Feel yourself moving toward what quickens your blood, living your life as your spirit desires. Living the life that quickens your blood. What dreams are you willing to invest in your life now? Write them down.

Keep breathing as you write. So you add the aliveness of your breath to your purpose, vision, and dreams, knowing they’re worthy of your life force. Know the truth of this. You don’t know when death will revisit you. You don’t have a moment to waste anymore. Take another breath. Now that you know what matters to you, can you live it?

Keeping your realizations of the death meditation close to you, what reminders do you need to keep steady with yourself when your addictions or old behaviors call to you? What are you going to do instead to honor your new life, this life that is so precious? Write down the reminders that align with the purpose you’ve just committed to fulfilling.

Take a deep breath, washing that sparkling energy of your spirit into those areas that death cleansed out.

Welcome your spirit home into your body fully. You have a tremendous amount of heart and courage. Use it to move past whatever held you back and imprisoned you. Commit yourself to living the life your spirit yearns for.

Take this new commitment into your next sunrise and every sunrise.

The notes you’ve taken during this death meditation are the blueprint for your new life. Keep them close and reread them often. They will help you live the life your heart and soul most desire. And in doing so, you will be a gift to the world. You have met what is sacred in you. You have moved out what is not.

Hari Om Tat Sat Namaste