At a depth our finite minds can hardly comprehend, we've collectively rubbed up against death more than I can remember in my entire adult life.

I intentionally choose the word "collectively". By that, I mean we are going through deaths together. We are experiencing day-to-day demises through a million invisible cuts within the individual containers of our tribal lives. It's not our default to be completely aware, but together, we are participating in a grand grieving through billions of fragmented human experiences. These individual experiences with death connect us deeply, more than we know.

Photo by Mathias P.R. Reding on Unsplash

What deaths have you experienced?

If I may, I'd like to share mine in hopes that you find your story in it too.

I've experienced the death of loved ones. Expected and unexpectedly. Some who were gone too soon.

I've experienced the death of a career.

The death of an expected business revenue.

The death of a friendship.

The death of this arbitrary vision of how much money I would have in my bank account by now. And the freedom I thought I would feel once I achieved that.

The death of this image I propped up to myself and everyone else so that I would seem significant. That I mattered. That I was special.

The death of the amazing lover persona I thought I was to my wife.

The death of future plans.

The death of what I thought this country was.

The death of my relationship to my brown skin.

What I've learned is that death is both an event and an invitation. In order to receive what wants to be given to you, you must first say yes to the deaths knocking on your door and let them in. Here's the thing about death though. It won't impose itself. It won't force itself on you. You can ignore it as long as you want. You can suppress it and keep pushing it down. You can force your way to accomplishments without saying yes to death. By choice, you can hang on to all the ways you are surviving and just stay there. Just keep surviving.

Or you can accept the invitation.

You can surrender.

You can let go.

The first step is awareness.

The second step is receiving the help. It's out there.

The third step is to be faithful to the journey. To trust. To keep trusting. And to receive grace when you find that you are imperfectly human.

The journey isn't easy, but it doesn't have to be hard either. You can simply let go, which coincidentally, is the hardest part. After the letting go, you can just allow one thing after another to unfold. You can show up moment by moment and respond to the unfolding. Once you do, help will show up every step of the way. Inexplicably, almost in a divine interceding, help will always show up.

For today, maybe the death that wants to be accepted is the unfair expectation you are putting on yourself in your work. Just let that expectation die.

Or maybe, the death that needs to die is your current relationship to productivity. The way you operate is not sustainable. It's time to let this go.

Perhaps the death that needs to die is the unfair expectation you're putting on your team. Maybe it's time to really listen to what they want. Maybe that's what leadership looks like now.

Maybe it is time to have that difficult conversation.

Maybe you're a mom and it is time to give yourself rest. Book two nights at a hotel. Let your family go. Tell your husband you're out for a little while and go treat yourself.

Maybe you're a husband and you feel awkward about initiating sex. Perhaps it's time to let your fear of rejection die and discover a more bold persona of the type of lover you can be.

Maybe you're a parent and the thing that needs to die is the comparison of your kids to other kids.

Maybe you're an entrepreneur and in order to keep the business alive, you need to let your ego die and take on a new job to sustain yourself financially.

On the other side of death is the birthing of something new.

On the other side is creation.

And the whole process can be beautiful.

But it won't show up until you give in to the death.

The reality is there are various ways these deaths can externally manifest.

But internally, we are all invited to the same journey.

We must be radically honest with ourselves.

We must grieve.

We must surrender.

We must feel. Deeply. Perhaps even shed tears.

We must be willing to face death to the point where we believe we will be destroyed by it.

And when, like the phoenix rising out of the ashes, we come out on the other side transformed; we will find that we are truly more interconnected to each other than we conceptually know.

We are more compassionate to the plight of others. Even the ones we think we hate.

We are grounded in presence.

We are rooted in love.

We are at peace.

We are in deep gratitude.

We are in joy. And I'm not talking about happiness. I am talking about a deep joy that envelopes and wraps our darkest hour in grace; and allows all of it to belong.

We come home to ourselves and we realize that we belong to each other.

This is the path.

If these words have even a subtle hum deep within you, then my friend, you are already on the path.

Let's keep walking together.

Not even death itself can stop us.

Fiercely loving and rooting for you,

Jomar

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