A book that will change lives…….

 A book that will change lives…….

Being around  death as much as I am is a gift….. for so many reasons.

One is that I get to contemplate my own death…..whenever that may come, not take for granted that I have forever, and do the stuff that really matters to me.

Many times this year I have thought ‘if this were my last year, what would I want to have done by the end of it?  What really matters to me?’

It seems very fashionable now to have ‘bucket lists’ or lists of 101 things to do/beaches to visit/dishes to eat/cats to photograph/ blogs to troll, etc, etc and while these are certainly valuable to make  (except for the trolling blogs bit) I think they often miss the point.  I mean sure, sky-diving, learning French, or seeing the pyramids are all wonderful things to do…but are you really going to reflect back on your life on your deathbed and be upset that you never jumped out of a plane?  (If your answer is ‘actually, yes Kristie I really would be’ then may I suggest that it is time to start planning to do this if it really is that important to you).

In my experience…and naturally this won’t apply to everyone…it is the smaller things that we might wish we had done.  Like telling those we love that we love them, how much we love them, and why we love them.  Like having the courage to live true to ourselves.  Like not being afraid to share what we really want to share with the world with less concern for judgement.

In fact, as I write this it makes me think of this gorgeous article about the real regrets of the dying (and I didn’t see skydiving on that list).

So when I contemplate what I would really want to have done this year, if it just happened to be my last, it’s actually kinda simple and comes down to 5 things.

1. Go some more places (Done…the travel bug in me has gone nuts and I am not in the same place more than a month at the moment.  Writing this from Portugal)
2. Share my love for the people who matter to me. (July will be a ’30 days of gratitude’ month.  Watch this space – I’ll be inviting you to join me on this.  This’ll be fun)
3. Put together a detailed funeral plan for myself (I’ll share this with you too as I go)
4. Train someone up to use my process (I have just the lady lined up – she has been lined up for years – and it’s on track to happen)
5.  and….write my book….

Yes the book that I have written twice before (to 3rd draft level each time)…and then stopped.  I won’t go into the reasons why – that doesn’t help me write the book and it doesn’t help you read the book.

This time I am not going to let that happen again.

I know firsthand how different your experience of death can be. I know what is like to be in agonising pain, dull numbness, and everything in between over a death.  I know what it feels like to think about someone less and less because it hurts too much to do it. I  know that dull awful emptiness……and I also know that this can change and heal completely  so you can think about them, talk about them, and love them, without it hurting you at all.  

I know what it is like to transform pain and loss to gratitude, a greater connection to them, inspiration, empowerment and freedom from pain.  And I know exactly what steps to take to get others there too. (It takes certain steps. Time sure as heck won’t do it.  Nor will sheer willpower).

Of course I do my coaching with those who want to work with me – and I probably always will – but putting my knowledge and my process in a book will be the easiest way for me to get this stuff out to you – and to a lot of others – so you can start to positively change your experience too, instead of just coping with pain and loss and slowly putting the person you love further and further out of your mind.

I have made promises to myself before about writing my book…and broken some of them.  So this time I promise YOU and anyone else reading this (I will be emailing it to close to 400 people  and putting it on this blog- that’s a lot of promises) that by July 4th – my 35th birthday – the first draft will be done.  And by this time next week I will have started sharing some of my writing from the book-to-be in blogs.

The quicker I get this done the quicker you and others will have more access to a completely different and empowering way of experiencing and understanding death in your life.

Feel free to check in on me if you want, or to give me some encouragement, or give me a kick in the butt if you feel I need it. But I will keep this promise.  Even if I slack off and find myself sitting up from the 1st to 4th July plugged into a caffeine drip to get it done.  Hopefully it won’t come to that…but if it does it does.

Right, off to write a (new) book plan!

Much love,

Kristie

xx

Tagged as: bereavement, death, empowerment, grief, writing a book