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hey this is Leo for actualised dot-org and in this episode I'm going to be talking about contemplating your own death how to use death to stay motivated for life in order to do effective self actualization work I think that it's very important to have a keen sense that your life is short and just how short it is and I think that this is one of the things that people at large are missing our friends are missing this our parents are missing this people who pissed their life away are missing this very important element in their life they're not really conscious of the fact that they only have a little bit of life left they're not conscious of the finality of their life and they're not conscious of the fact that there's only one there's no second chance there's no warm-up round this is it that's one of the really fascinating things about life is that we're just born and that at some moment we just happen to become conscious self conscious and we realize like well here I am I guess I'm here I don't really know where I came from or how I came into existence but I must be here and I can reasonably assume that I probably won't be here for very long given what I see around me given that I see death all around me I see animals dying plants dying things dying cars getting crushed in automobile accidents and airplanes getting destroyed and blown up and so we see wars we have a rich history of death and destruction over the last several thousand years alone so just looking at all this stuff you start to scratch your head and say hmm I'm probably not going to be here for much longer and there is no real reason for me to assume that I would ever get a second chance and there's actually a rich history of this so in philosophy and Eastern traditions and other contemplative traditions for thousands of years has been a rich history of pondering and contemplating one's own death Marcus Aurelius comes to mind from the ancient antiquity Greek and Roman times the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius he has a work called the meditations where he has these ruminations about how short life is and he puts everything into perspective by contemplating the thing about his death a lot it's kind of like his personal reflections on life really inspiring work to read if you've never read it I highly recommend it so Marcus Aurelius was really be he was a stoic he was really big on this idea of thinking about your death a lot because when you think about your death it puts everything else into perspective it takes a lot of the pettiness that people are usually engaged in and it makes you go like oh why am I doing this petty stuff in the cosmic grand scheme of things on the cosmic scale it makes no sense to be wasting the short little sliver of life that I have on doing these petty things such as gossiping or stealing or cheating someone or screwing someone out of a business deal or speaking badly of them or whatever it might be and Marcus Aurelius would use that to ground himself so that's a really great example also the Buddha the Buddha is a classic Eastern example of what happens when an individual really seriously contemplates and reflects on the fact that his life is going to end and that he's only got one of them and then he's got to make the most of it so when the Buddha realizes he went on a mission to actually find something that can transcend death and then that led to his enlightenment and then from there a bunch of stories and traditions got made and so on and so forth but I think this is a very important point and for me I think one of the things that has given me a leg up in my life I feel is that I have been philosophical and I have been reflecting on the fact that life is pretty miraculous I don't really know the forces that got me to where I am but here I am somehow I exist somehow I'm conscious we human beings with all our signs have still not figured out exactly or even at all what consciousness is what it relates what's in relation what it writ what its relationship is to to matter and how all that works there's still much we need to try to understand about that but you know I just think about that and I also from a very early age I've just had this sense that this is it this is the only chance I have it's kind of like going golfing and you only get to play one game of golf and that's it it's like you've got 18 holes and those are the only 18 holes you're ever going to play in your entire life so when I am conscious of that I'm not always conscious but when I am conscious of that it's like man every stroke that I make in this game of golf this 18 holes that's it there's not going to be anything else that's it and then after that what some traditions say that there's an afterlife ah we can't strictly be sure because once you're dead you can't come back and tell us but here's the thing I think that there is a danger about this afterlife idea and one of the dangers is that it has you think like well I'll get a second chance it's okay if I [ __ ] up here in my first chance because this is just kind of like the warm-up all the good stuffs going to come later now that's a that's a dangerous bet to make pretty dangerous bet to make I've never thought that way I always assumed because I say you know if there is an afterlife okay good that'll be like a nice little bonus but I have to assume the worst and the worst is this is all that there is and I only got this one chance so I want to make the most of it right I want to make sure that when I get to the end of this life I can say yeah I did this and I did that and I try different things and I can die reasonably happy because I understand that I had limited powers but I did the most I could and I'm proud of my life and I contributed to the world and I grew myself and I experienced all the richness of the world that there is as much as I was humanly able to within reason and so now I can die happy and that's always kind of been a motivating force for me is that that's kind of what I'm shooting for on the big picture with all the plans that I make in my life I kind of run it through that filter like am I going to be proud of myself at the end of my life for having done that but I get the sense that most people don't do this in fact I know most people don't do this because what most people do is they distract themselves from death death is something that actually takes a mature ego to be able to contemplate its own death most egos are so fragile and so neurotic that they don't want to think about this at all they press the off button or they look the other way to distract themselves or whatever and we distract ourselves with food with television with sex with relationships with marriage with kids with family with business with career with making money with spiritual quests with whatever and not all this stuff is bad and that's what makes it distracting is because some of these things are legitimately good it's legitimately good to go to the gym and it's legitimately good to have a business that helps the world and it's legitimately good to have a family and to take care of your family and be concerned for them and spend a lot of time making sure that your kids are growing up properly that stuff is good but you got to make sure that you're not using that just as a smokescreen from taking a look at what's really lurking under the surface and what's under the surface is this deep existential void that you have in your life that you're trying to Phil with all this stuff that you're doing but it never quite gets filled because in the end the fear of death is always lurking and there's nothing really that you're going to do to fix that at least not in any conventional activity that you're doing in your life so in that sense is a distraction what I want to do here is I want to do a little guided visualization that will help put you in touch with your own death to get you a real palpable sense of what I mean about contemplating death and we're going to do that in a second here what I want you to do is I want you to get a piece of paper and a pencil or a pen and have that handy right now next to you before we get into the visualization because at the end of it there's going to be some stuff that I'm going to want you to write down and not be distracted running around looking for paper so pause this right now go get the paper and pen and then come on back okay good so you should have that now I'm going to guide you through this it'll be a pretty quick 10 or 15-minute visualization something like that but the the other point I want to make before I get in there is is this in my own life as I started meditating more just doing meditation and as I'm doing more enlightenment work trying to understand really what my consciousness actually is and it's a whole can of worms that I can't go into here you can see my videos about enlightenment spiritual enlightenment for that but what I've been noticing is that now every day almost not every day but maybe at least a couple of days a week especially now that I'm in my 30s I just turned 30 this year uh-huh I think about my death a lot like I wake up and I'm like well another day has gone by it just flew by I'm already 30 I've only got maybe 30 more years left if I'm lucky what am I doing with this time it really focuses my my mind on what I need to get done and it helps me to get rid of all the fluff and distractions in my life which are robbing me of this little time that I do have all right so let's do this visualization so go ahead and sit with your back up straight on chair get comfortable get relaxed and close your eyes okay good take a moment to get in touch with the feelings and sensations in your body whatever you feel is there you don't need to make anything up just notice what's there notice the pressure of the seat on your button on your legs notice the sensation on your feet the soles of your feet notice any feelings in your torso and upper body area in your chest while your attention is on your chest notice that it's breathing in and out at its own pace and just overall get a sense that you are your body get a sense of the entire envelope of skin that surrounds what you think of you your body and just notice that your present right now and that what you are fundamentally is that you exist these sensations are changing every second but these are real sensations this is the most real thing that you have about you is these sensations get in touch with that also get present to any sounds that are around you maybe some birds chirping or some cars driving or the air conditioning humming notice sounds notice the sound of my own voice that's also happening in the present moment and that's another sound and it's changing every second notice any mental images you might have or mental sounds that you might hear which would be thoughts notice the internal dialogue in your mind if there is any and just allow all of this to be exactly as it is allow it to happen right now in the present moment get into real time so to speak start to wonder what is all of this these sensations sounds thoughts images feelings in the body all of these things are sensations so just start to wonder as your eyes are closed start to wonder what are these sensations really do I really know what they are and resist the urge of your mind to jump in and give you a ready-made answer leave the question a little bit open and just allow yourself to savor those sensations good now what I'd like you to do is to imagine yourself before your birth what was that like who do you think you really were before you were born before you were conscious before you even had this body and any of these sensations what do you think you were try to imagine that the best you can and notice that whatever you were for you there was no such thing as space and there was no such thing as time and there was probably no such thing as sensation and there's probably no such thing as even consciousness and now just recognize that that was your state of existence not for a million years not even for a billion years not even for a trillion years but literally for infinity you exists it existed as that entity which I will call nothingness you existed as that for infinity forever for an eternity and now think of the moment when you were born and actually think about the moment when you first became conscious of yourself and you have your first childhood memories so that was the moment that you came into existence as you presently know yourself and then you lived through all that and then you got to where you are today imagine yourself kind of running through life all the way to today however many years that was maybe it was 15 years 20 years 30 40 50 years something like that notice how quickly that time flew by and now what I want you to do is to imagine and just notice and become aware that every night when you go to sleep and you go into deep sleep who do you become when you're in deep sleep when you have no dreams at all you have no memories at all you basically return to your original state which is this nothingness with no dimensions no sense of time no sensations no awareness of any kind notice how freaky that is it's almost as though every night you go to sleep you are dead and it's almost as though every morning when you wake up you are reborn now estimate how much time you think you still have left in your life so whatever age you're at now assume that if you're a healthy individual you'll probably live to 65 or 70 years so how much do you have left what do you have 10 years 20 years 30 years 40 years left pick a number that you think is realistic and now imagine going to sleep the way that you will later tonight and never again waking up you go to sleep like you always do but you never again wake up ever you never again experience anything not even space not even time not even blackness there's not even an experience of blackness or darkness it's just pure nothing really feel what that's like to be nothing so to speak and just notice to yourself how sad it is that you will never again get to experience anything that you experience for their short little window of time that you were alive what are you going to miss the most you're not going to see colors anymore you're not going to get to see the world anymore you're not going to get to smile anymore or feel good in your body anymore you're not going to experience the richness of life in any way at all get in touch with that notice how final this is there is no second saving grace there's no redo here there's no undo button when you go to sleep and you finally go to sleep and you don't wake up notice the finality that is there that's it it's lights out forever notice that what you have right now is the most miraculous the most mysterious the most beautiful the most remarkable thing that you could possibly have which is simply existence what you have is you have the ability to exist in a very rich way not in a one-dimensional way not in a two-dimensional way not in a three-dimensional way but in a trillion dimensional way you have colors and sights and sounds and all these experiences that you can have and everything that comes with being a human being that's conscious you have all of that at your disposal your experience and your existence is a rich one it's not a faint one it's a very vivid one and now just recognize and become very conscious that this is your one chance this is it what are you going to do with it what's worth doing with it what would your life look like if you honored this miracle and this remarkable opportunity that you've been handed somehow we don't even know how this opportunity came your way but however it came your way you've got it just take a last few moments to really soak in the finality of win this thing hold when this whole thing will end and it will end so just take that in as a reality that you're not going to escape and also I would suggest instead of being afraid of it or worrying about what's going to happen to you except this is a beautiful aspect of life is that you have been given this remarkable little window the sliver of time and that's not something to be fixed or changed but that's fine and perfect just the way it is and notice that the only thing you need to do to not be afraid of it is to simply live the best most rich life that you can and that if you just live the most rich life that you possibly could no matter how long it is whether it's ten years or a hundred years if you just do your best then that's going to be enough you don't need anything more you can then die in peace and you can accept your fate okay good I'm going to count up to three and when I get to three you're gonna wake up and open your eyes and come back alert and refreshed one you're starting to slowly wake up to here we coming more present and out of Fantasyland three open your eyes and wake up nice and refreshed here present in this moment and out of your head good welcome back so that got you a little taste of what contemplating death is all about this is not a morbid thing this is a very powerful spiritual experience this grounds your entire light this gives priority to your entire life so go ahead and take out that piece of paper that you had and your pencil or pen and I want you to write down the following questions and then you're going to answer these questions immediately after I tell you to pause so here are the questions number one what would I miss the most about life what would I miss the most about life number two what do I want to get out of this life what do I want to get out of this life number three what is really worth doing what is really worth doing and number four what isn't worth doing what isn't worth doing okay those are your questions go ahead pause this recording right now and answer those questions while the visualization is still fresh in your mind and you're still in that emotional state of higher consciousness right now you have this window of opportunity your consciousness is expanded so here is where the gold can be gotten so jot down some answers to these questions right now all right pause it go alright welcome back so you answer those hopefully that was insightful for you I want to just give you a couple of last points and a few ideas for how to keep up this practice in the future and a couple of more questions right so the idea here one of the biggest lessons that I think you can take away is to stop doing petty [ __ ] in your life all of us to waste a lot of our time and energy in life by doing petty things that we would not otherwise do if we were fully conscious of the fact that our life is short and it's singular you only get one and when it's going to be over it's going to be over forever so this is why you have to keep reminding yourself it helps you to get rid of the pettiness in your life the gossip the criticism the bickering the fighting all the petty stuff you do so here's a question I want you to write down an answer after this video is complete the question is how am I being small-minded how am I being small-minded think about that not just with people but I want you to think about how you're being small-minded with your overall strategies and objectives in life for example you if you have a goal to buy yourself a Ferrari or some fancy car just ask yourself is that really a large minded goal or is that a small minded goal and if you have a goal to start your company and make it go public and to earn three hundred million dollars ask yourself is that a small-minded goal or is that a large minded goal I'm not talking about ambitiousness here or what other people think of you or quote-unquote success in the external world I'm talking about what is large minded in the context of the fact that your life is going to be over very soon you probably won't care about having 300 million dollars if you're going to die next week nor will you care about your Ferrari that's a really good question and the second takeaway that you can get from from this is think about how you could reorganize your life so that it is more aligned with the fact that your life is singular and it will soon be over how can you actually change the structure of your life I'm talking about deep structural changes so maybe you should quit your whole career maybe you decide like man if I really think about this then I I can see that my career is just uh it's just a sham it's just complete empty ah just monkey business I would rather be going doing something over here instead that would be a deep structural change that you can make your life based on this higher consciousness awareness or maybe you decide that you know this person that I'm in a relationship with that I'm married to what what am I doing with this person it makes no sense when I put it into the larger context and that makes you decide to break off that relationship and so on and so forth so here's my question that I want you to write down for yourself you can ask later at the end of this video it's this how do I need to reorganize my life how do I need to reorganize my life and this is one of the most difficult questions you can ask yourself it's a very scary question because we're afraid to make huge changes in your life we're afraid to say that man I spent the last 20 years in this relationship and it's just going nowhere or I spent the last 30 years building this business and now I see that it's just a sham but you have to be able to make these tough self honest assessments when you're trying to self actualize this is this is why self honesty is so important and it's emotionally difficult to do it you need courage to be able to do it I'm going to give you now an exercise that I want you to do for the next seven days to really drive all these points home here every day for the next seven days every single morning first thing in the morning I'd like you to do the following thing and it only will take you less than five minutes I want you to wake up and I want you to immediately think or have some sort of reminder there by your bedside that tells you to start to think about the fact that your life is singular and that it's finite it's going to end and once it ends it will be over forever and you're never getting it back and you're never getting a second chance I want you to go through that thought process for seven days straight in the morning and then I want you to do this one sentence completion exercise you can have a piece of paper or notebook and every day you're going to do this again and again and again for seven days straight so you're going to complete the following sentence it goes like this if I was more conscious of my death I would blank if I was more conscious of my death I would blank and your job is to fill in that blank and what I want you to do is I want you to quickly rattle off ten different completions to that sentence you're not going to spend a lot of time trying to come up with the perfect answer you're just going to rattle off ten quick responses whatever comes to your mind and the way you're going to do it is like this you're just going to read the sentence that I gave you and then where it comes to your mind you can write that down so I would ask myself like this if I was more conscious of my death I would have more sex okay that popped into my mind I'm writing it down then I would ask was okay if I was more conscious of my death I would find a new job and then you write that down or whatever it is and just write ten of those down and you do that for seven days straight so you can have 70 responses and that's it and then I just want you to soak in that energy and I want you to feel how powerful that energy is and you're going to tap into something that the Buddha tapped into you're going to tap into that energy that Marcus Aurelius tapped into and a lot of other remarkable people in the past have tapped into who use this idea of contemplating our death to motivate ourselves and to focus ourselves in life all right this is Leo I'm signing off go ahead post me your comments down below please click like button share this video with a friend and lastly come check out actualised org right here this is my website I have free stuff on there I have some exclusive stuff that you can't get anywhere else so check that out I have a course on life purpose I have a book list there and also I have a free newsletter I want you to really stay onboard with Ashley org and with creating an extraordinary self actualized life for yourself my vision for you is that you really take these psychological principles that I share with you very seriously and you become a student of this you start to see the power of mastering your own psychology and then mastering your own life and using your life to your fullest because in the end we're all really desiring deep down inside is we want to die happy we want to die knowing that we've lived the best possible life that we could have and after spending many years in my youth warn't wondering about how can I do this how can I accomplish this kind of lofty abstract goal what I discovered is that it's through learning these psychological principles which I'm delivering to you for free on a weekly basis if you stick with me every single week and you keep watching this stuff and you become a student of your psychology and you start doing some of these exercises and then you even go beyond what I tell you to do what you're going to discover is that a kind of life is available for you that's so beautiful and remarkable and powerful that it's outside your present reality at the moment but you can work your way to it through baby steps and the process of working your way there is really one of the most beautiful things in life one of the most people things in life is just growth and self improving it's self actualization that is its own reward but then of course you know it brings you a lot of the more quote unquote material tangible rewards that we also want all the kind of creature comforts of life that comes automatically when you master your own psychology so you get all that stuff plus you get the higher consciousness stuff of living a remarkable high conscious life that's the best that you can do in life you can't really do much better so it's worth I think investing a little bit of time every week to put yourself on track with that and it's difficult I know how easy it is to fall off track so actualize that or get here to help you to stay on track so sign up and I hope to see you soon you