Practical Psychology is a weekly newspaper column I have been writing for over 20 years. It is designed to address psychological topics that are most useful to its readers. Please feel free to re-print any of them in any form you wish. I ask only that you give the information about how to subscribe and credit for authorship. Thanks.

DEATH IS NOT A DISEASE
By Lloyd J. Thomas, Ph.D.

There are over 3 billion people on earth and everyone, without exception, will be dead within this lifetime. Today alone, over 250,000 have died. We die by accident and by design. We die from overeating and from starvation. We die of old age and before we are born. We die of thirst and of drowning. We die earlier, later, or on time. Everybody does it! The death rate is 100 per cent. No one gets out of this life alive.

Death is not a secret. It is not a disease. But like so many diseases, we often want to keep it a secret. Hide it from our friends and relatives, even from ourselves. Cancer, venereal disease, AIDS, and almost every other disease, except perhaps the common cold or flu, we seem to want to keep out of our awareness. In shutting out the reality of death, we often shut out being alive. For death is the one common certainty in our individual life experiences. In death, we share the commonality of everything that is alive. Other than birth, it is the one great, singular experience we all have.

We need to give up the notion that death is like a disease...something to be hidden, something to avoid at any cost, some kind of catastrophe, or even strange. Death is never a stranger. It is known to each and every living cell. Death is not a disease; it is a part of Life.

We live in a culture which is conditioned to deny death as a real part of living. Perhaps we have it so confused due to the vast amount of time and resources we spend on keeping our bodies young, beautiful, and healthy. Perhaps we deny death because we feel guilty about it. Like sex, it is usually talked about in hushed tones, behind closed doors, with guilty overtones. Like sex, death is something everybody does, but nobody talks (seriously anyway) about it.

In a society such as ours, technology has allowed the acquisition of material goods physical aids, and supportive conveniences, we spend less and less time concerned about our day--to--day survival, and death seems so far in the distant future, we don't concern ourselves very much with it. This lends strength and support to our denial of it.

We cover up as best we can all signs of aging that might point to death). We do everything we can to change our metabolism, our middle-age paunch, those "liver spots," skin wrinkles, that loss of hair and weakening of muscles, the loss of energy.

We experience the loss of friends and loved ones. We read the newspaper account of people dying in tires, plane crashes, by homicide, suicide, and natural disaster. We tend to take this news as reinforcing the idea that everyone else dies, but not me! We may observe that literally everything changes in life. We may even sense that we also are the stuff of history. How can we go on denying and just plain disregarding death?

In addition to denying it, we also treat it like a disease. We send dying people to the hospital. We subject them to all kinds of indignities of nakedness, helplessness, and tubes in all kinds of orifices of the body...some natural and some man-made. We isolate them from friends and loved ones. We put them in strange beds, surround them with sterile unfamiliarity, and rob them of all self--sufficiency. We jab them with needles to take out blood and insert chemicals. We feed them only what we choose and what we think is "good" for them. It is tragic, but most people in the hospital with terminal illness actually die of starvation rather than the fatal disease. We even avoid administering pain--relief medications out of fear they will become addicted. So what if a person is addicted to a pain killer while he or she is dying? Others want to be as fully awake and conscious as they can be in order to experience this once--in--a--lifetime event.

A woman, having been diagnosed as having terminal cancer once said, "Being terminal just meant that at last I acknowledged that death was real. It did not mean that I would die in six months or even die before the doctor who had just given me the prognosis. It simply meant that I acknowledged that I would die at au." Does it take a fatal disease to strike before we are ready to acknowledge our death as a reality?

Death is an absolutely certain part of life. If you are afraid in life, you will fear death. If you are angry with life, you will be angry at death. If you love and accept life, you will love and accept death. If you are open to all of life, you will be open to death. Death is not a disease, to be treated and cured. It is a vital part of being alive!

Lloyd J. Thomas, Ph.D. has 30+ years experience as a Life Coach and Licensed Psychologist. He is available for coaching in any area presented in "Practical Psychology." Initial coaching sessions are free. Contact him: (970) 568-0173 or E-mail: DrLloyd@CreatingLeaders.com or LJTDAT@aol.com.

Dr. Thomas also serves on the faculty of the Institute For Life Coach Training and the International University of Professional Studies. He recently co-authored (with Patrick Williams) the book: *Total Life Coaching: 50+ Life Lessons, Skills and Techniques for Enhancing Your Practice*and Your Life!* (W.W. Norton 2005) available at your local bookstore or on Amazon.com.

Return to Article Index