June 12, 2025 • 26 mins
We don’t like to talk about death—but what if your fear of death is shaping how you live, and driving your anxiety?
In this solo episode, Jesse shares how his personal experiences with death—and how a therapist’s simple question unlocked a deep truth: our fear of death may be the hidden source of our anxiety, ambition, and need for control.
Drawing from global traditions, we explore what Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and modern secular thinkers believe about death and the afterlife. From Ecclesiastes to Michael Singer, Alan Watts to David Gibson, this episode offers a guided reflection on how our beliefs about death shape how we live.
EPISODE RESOURCES
- Intro Clip: Learn more from Alan Watts: Alan Watts Org - Audio Lecture Collections, Official Videos, Books, & Quotes
- Book Suggestion: Living Life Backward, by David Gibson: Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End by David Gibson | Goodreads
SPONSORS:
- Take control of your drinking with medication-assisted treatment from Oar Health: https://bit.ly/OarStrength
- Boost your performance and recovery with Momentous Supplements—get 20% off with code "STRENGTH": https://livemomentous.com
RUNNING FREE RESOURCES
- Visit our website here.
- Subscribe to our newsletter here.
EPISODES YOU MIGHT ENJOY
- Are Today’s Kids More Addicted Than Ever? | Chris Herren, NBA Star & Recovery Advocate: https://spoti.fi/3AZ8f0P
- How to Eat to Drink Less Alcohol | Dr. Brooke Scheller: https://spoti.fi/JAPP9g3
- Social Media Addiction - 5 Statistics That Should SCARE You: https://spoti.fi/ygZw3lZ
SUBSCRIBE & SUPPORT
- Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4at8Yhn
- Spotify Podcasts: https://spoti.fi/3GAGVPJ
- YouTube Channel: Running Free Podcast - YouTube
Life is short, and it moves fast. This show will help you make the most of it.
Running Free is a podcast about optimizing health, and breaking free from the habits and distractions that hold us back. We cover fitness, mental health, culture, addiction, parenting, humor, and everything in between.
Hosted by veteran, fitness expert, and health advocate Jesse Carrajat, each episode explores what it means to live fully—through honest conversations with thinkers, creators, and everyday people who teach and inspire us to trade distraction and frivolousness for healthy, long, meaningful lives.
Stop Chasing Life. Start Running Free.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Second-half of life is a preparation for death.
That to Western ears is a very gloomy enterprise.
We pretend death doesn't happen.We sweep people under the
carpet. So the occasion for an immense
celebration. Because if you accept that
you're going to die, you can letgo of yourself.
There should be some very special conscious entry into
(00:24):
death of letting go of oneself, because you only die once and it
should be a very important event.
You know, this is this terrible American way of death which does
not accept it, which pretends itdoesn't happen, and doesn't see
(00:47):
that death is the most life giving thing there is.
I don't think that in this general tradition we really get
down to seeing how revivifying death is.
That in other words, if in the course of life you die before
(01:10):
you die physically, if you accept the fact that you are
completely disintegrating and there's nothing you can do to
hold on to yourself and nothing you can do to be safe or secure,
you come alive. Now, everybody imagines they can
be secure. You have investments, insurance,
(01:31):
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.But this doesn't make the
slightest difference because thewhole world is falling apart.
When you were born, you were kicked off the edge of a
precipice, and it's pure illusion to console yourself by
clinging on hard to a rock that's falling down with you.
(01:51):
There's no way of not disintegrating.
The whole thing's falling apart.Life is something that's always
falling apart. But if you get with it, and of
course you accept this situation, you flow with it, you
come alive because you acquire courage.
You're not defending yourself all the time.
You acquire energy because you're not all locked up
(02:13):
wondering what's going to happennext.
You have to. You get the capacity to take
risks, and you can't have a freepeople unless you're willing to
take risks. It's all gambling, this falling
apart of everything, which incidentally is what makes it
alive. Change is life.
This is the Tao, and to flow with the Tao and not fight it,
(02:36):
you see flow with a stream. This is the next great principle
of Taoism, which is called wuweiWu.
This means in Chinese negative not, and Wei means interfering,
(02:56):
but wuwei means not acting against the grain of nature,
acting in accordance with it. And the best possible example of
wuwei is the art of sailing. You see, it's much more
intelligent to put up a sail than to use ores, because you
don't have to work so hard. Though a higher form of
(03:20):
intelligence would erect A sail,a lower form would just rho.
But when you sail, you cannot sail directly against the wind.
Now the story that he's told is about the farmer who lost a
horse, ran away and all his friends came round, said that's
(03:42):
too bad. And he said maybe the next day
the horse returned and it brought 7 wild horses with it.
And they said my that's great. And he said maybe the next day
his son, in attempting to train one of these horses, was thrown
and broke a leg. And everybody came around and
said, oh, that's too bad. And he said, maybe the next day
(04:06):
the conscription officers came around and rejected his son
because he had a broken leg. And everybody came to
congratulate and said, isn't that great?
And he said maybe, though you see this farmer was with the
course of things and he knew goes this way and it goes that
way, goes up and it goes down, because if you didn't go down,
(04:31):
you would never know you were up.
Welcome to Running Free. I'm Jesse Carajet On March 12th,
2004. I was 19 years old, living in
Brick, NJ, my hometown, and delivering pizzas I had pulled
(04:51):
out of my freshman year of college.
I was going to a junior college working part time, delivering
pizzas. And my brother called me while I
was working. And I'll never forget what he
said. He said, Jess, you got to come
see dad. And of course, I asked him why,
you know, what's going on. And I think he said, I don't
know, but they're telling me youneed to come now.
(05:16):
And I thought I knew what he meant.
My dad had been in the hospital.He had a aggressive form of
brain cancer. He had some other health
complications going on, and he was discharged to a nursing home
for Hospice care. 19 year old Jesse knew what that was.
Also didn't know what that was. But I knew that I had never
(05:37):
gotten a phone call like that from my brother, my older
brother, he's a year older than me.
So I told my boss who just looked at my face and I think he
knew he knew something was wrong.
So I jumped in the car and made the 25 minute ride to go see my
dad. And to this day I wrestle with
(05:59):
whether or not I regret going onone side out of principle.
Something was happening with my father and I knew that it was
near the end for him and as his one of two sons I should be
there. And on the other hand, based on
what I experienced that day, I don't know that it's been good
(06:24):
for me. So I walk in and when I get to
his room I can remember feeling anxiety, fear while still moving
in the direction of his room. My brother greeted me at the
door and I don't remember if he put his hands on my shoulders or
if he hugged me or I could just be honestly projecting that
(06:44):
because maybe that's what I needed.
But he met me in the door and I remember he was saying something
and I was already looking over his shoulder and within minutes,
it could even have been seconds,my dad started having these
violent seizures and it was really hard.
It was really hard. The people, staff from the
(07:06):
nursing home came walking up to me.
I assume potentially A Hospice counselor or worker tried to
talk to me and I was just, therewas just too much happening and
I just, I just walked out of theroom.
I remember I was emotional. My brother put his arms around
me and my dad went right past mein a in a Gurney, still having
(07:27):
seizures, convulsions. And it was it was hard.
It was very, very hard to see. And within minutes my father
passed in the ambulance. And that sparked for me as a 19
year old man, But boy, my equivalent of sort of a rock
(07:48):
bottom. I started really being in
self-destructive mode, drinking heavily, got a DUI, just kind of
went off the rails and join the Marines and have been spending
much of my life since then making up for it, making up for
some bad decisions I made, etcetera.
(08:09):
And I've still that I've told that story on this show.
But that experience of death early on in my life to someone
that close to me and, and in that much of A scary kind of
dramatic way had a serious, serious impact on me that I'm
only now coming to realize. Fast forward June 21st, 2021,
(08:34):
happily married, 3 kids. We just had our our third child,
a boy. We got the boy as they say.
He's four months old and I'm in Bricktown, New Jersey again.
And this time I'm in an ICU withmy stepfather who I love dearly.
He stepped up in such a big way when I was a kid to help give me
(08:58):
that guidance, that true north that I needed as a young man,
just figuring out life and goingthrough some trauma.
And I'm holding his hand, He's unconscious, he's on life
support, respirator, the whole deal, and that equipment's being
removed. It's the end of his life.
And I held his hand the entire time in a quiet, cold room,
(09:23):
listening to the beeps which represent his heart just get
slower and slower and slower, hold away until it stopped.
And I was there the whole time, experiencing death in the most
intimate possible way that a mancan, holding the hand of another
man right to the very end. When I was a young boy, I, I, I
(09:49):
don't know how old, 678 years old, staying up at night, having
a hard time going to sleep, crying because I was afraid of
death. And why?
Why would it be that a young boywould be focused or fixated on,
on that age? I don't know.
I have young, young kids now andI've, I've never experienced
that with them. But for some reason it was
(10:10):
always something that I was afraid of.
It was the inevitability of it and the mystery of it.
What is it like nothingness? What is nothingness like?
And I think it was the combination of that.
It's inevitable. No one can escape it, and it's
coming for all of us. And there's nothing that I can
(10:30):
do in my life to prevent the fact that I will die and I will
experience that nothingness. Those two combined terrified me
because it's inescapable. And it's only now just picturing
that boy fixated and fearful of death, experiencing the death of
(10:53):
my best friend as a freshman in high school, my father as a
freshman in college, and then mystepfather, you know, as a grown
man and all the other people I've lost along the way.
It's only now that I'm connecting these dots that death
has played a very, very insidious but impactful role in
(11:15):
my life. I can point to mental health
issues as a middle school or high school, or things like OCD
that came and went, but panic disorder, anxiety disorder,
alcohol use disorder later on inlife, workaholism, just
distraction, disassociated behavior.
It's now that I can connect the dots that death and the fear of
(11:38):
it drives so much of how I seek to control my life because it
feels uncontrollable. And that's why I wanted to talk
about, in this sort of special breakout episode, death.
To bring it to the forefront, toshine a light on something that
we're all going to face, but nobody talks about it and no one
(11:59):
really gives it the significance.
And having conversations around it so that we can free ourselves
from the fear of death because we don't have to be afraid.
Look, one in ten Americans todaystruggle with alcohol use
disorder. And I was one of them.
Did you know that there is a safe, science backed daily pill
(12:20):
that you can take to drink less or even quit alcohol for good?
It's called naltrexone, a doctorprescribed medication that you
get online. And our sponsor OR Health is the
nation's leading provider of naltrexone To date OR Health has
helped over 35,000 people find freedom from alcohol.
And I'm proudly one of them. Get started.
(12:41):
Text Strength to 710710 again, that's strength to 710710.
And get started on your journey to finally find freedom from
alcohol. Fraid.
So in the West and in America, our beliefs and our posture
toward death are largely centered around Christianity.
(13:01):
I think we all know that personally, growing up, teens,
20s, I did not have faith. I was not an atheist, which is a
specific thing that believes a specific thing.
I was more of an agnostic, but Ididn't have faith, which is why
death was so scary, because there was no definition for me
in terms of what comes after it.It was an end point followed by
nothingness, right? So in the West, the majority of
(13:24):
people, historically anyway, it's focused around
Christianity. It's the cultural lens through
which most of us, even secular people, absorb ideas about
dying, heaven, hell, what comes next, and to marry many American
families. Death is something tragic.
It's managed through the lens ofmedicine and this sort of
(13:44):
sanitized grief. But it's not how the whole world
sees death. The whole world and pockets of
the world views death differently.
They treat death, the process ofit, the aftermath of it,
completely different. And I think it's healthy to
understand that and to start to question our own views of death
so that we can understand how much it may be driving our
(14:06):
behavior and our feelings and how we experience the world.
So again, starting with Christianity, predominantly
Western America, parts of Europe, the belief is that
Christianity, or in Christianityas I say, teaches that death is
not the end, but it's a transition into eternal life,
heaven, and based on faith in Christ's resurrection, believers
(14:28):
anticipate either heaven or hell.
And there's different conversations around purgatory
in different circles, but essentially it's heaven or hell,
black or white from the Bible, John 1125.
I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me, though hemay not die, he shall live.
And one of my favorites, 1 Corinthians 1555.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
(14:51):
You know, I grew up in, I say, aCatholic family, like a non
practicing Catholic family. And I absorbed that image of
death as this gateway to judgement, right?
There's death, there's judgement, and then there's
something that comes after it. And while there's some reverence
to that, it also for me, plantedanxiety and a little bit of
(15:13):
fear. And there's, there's good,
there's morality, which really should inspire you to do good
and to be good and to love thyself and love thy neighbor.
But it is sort of a, a baseline that is created that you're
being judged, right. And, and I think on the western
side, Christian, I think most people are, are familiar with
heaven and hell and what that means.
(15:33):
But also in the West around death, there's this medicinal
reality to it. You picture your death because
most of us don't know how and when we're going to die.
And because of that mystery, we just go to what's normal and
what's familiar. And what's normal and familiar
to us is this sterile hospital room.
(15:55):
It's the nursing home room on Hospice that I experienced with
my biological father and then the ICU with my stepfather.
And damn, that's, that's a scary, sad place that is not a
place of comfort and love. It's scary, which is why my view
of, of death and therefore life has been altered by these
(16:17):
experiences. And I think so many of us can
relate with that. But it doesn't have to be that
way. And we don't have to think about
it through the lens of familiarity.
There are other practices and other ways that are healthier to
view death. Hinduism, India, parts of
Southeast Asia, for example. They believe that death is part
(16:37):
of a cycle. Birth, death and rebirth.
The soul were Ottman is eternal and takes on new forms until it
reaches what's called moksha, liberation from the cycle.
And there's something deeply humbling about viewing death as
a continuation rather than an end.
(17:00):
That reframing might actually reduce anxiety and increase
compassion for all living things.
Moving on to Buddhism, SoutheastAsia, Tibet, parts of the West,
their belief. That belief is that death is a
necessary transition. Attachment to yourself is the
root of suffering. So mindfulness and non
(17:23):
attachment prepare you or your soul for this next stage.
And rebirth continues until 1 reaches a Nirvana, which is a
blissfulness. So for myself while a Christian,
this teaching is reassuring for me.
(17:44):
And I found that thinking about death as a transition as opposed
to an end, and saying it and meditating on that slowly starts
to release myself from that fearof it.
So let's talk about Judaism. And with Judaism, beliefs do
vary widely, but Judaism emphasizes a life over
speculation about death, meaningmore emphasis on life and how we
(18:07):
live it than death and what happens afterwards itself.
From the Bible, Ecclesiastes 12/7.
The dust returns to the earth asit was, and the spirit returns
to God who gave it. Which I think really I thought
summarizes Judaism or just some of the beliefs in the afterlife.
But what strikes me most is the emphasis on honoring the dead
(18:29):
through how we live. Grief isn't hidden.
It's ritualized, it's given space, it's focused on.
It's not pushed kind of in the back burner after someone dies.
And I think, frankly, that's something we're missing in
America. And then I think another one to
bring up is Taoism, primarily inChina, and the belief there is
that life and death are part of the Dow, which is the natural
(18:53):
flow of the universe, right? And to resist death itself is to
resist nature or the order of all things.
Harmony is found in surrenderingto life itself, not trying to
control. I heard this beautiful metaphor
from Alan was where he talks about life being an ocean.
(19:15):
And ocean currents and waters are tumultuous and
unpredictable. And our life is the boat.
And we fight so hard and we are so desperate for those waters to
just stay calm. But life will life and they will
get turbulent. And it all comes down to what do
we do in the boat when that happens?
Some of us will just use all of our might and strength and
(19:36):
anxiety and everything to just row, right?
Because we want to get to where we're going in life instead of
surrendering to its natural flow.
Our goals, our aspirations, whether that's finances, career,
family, status, we want to row towards that goal.
And what he says and what Taoismis all about is why not just put
up a sail? Why not just let the wind take
(19:59):
you where it goes, not being full of fear of that ending, but
just go with the flow. And again, that's Taoism.
And I think that's a beautiful, beautiful concept.
And I think we can all take something from that lesson,
right? Why row?
Think about how much harder it is to row and we can just put up
a sale and just let life. Life.
Look, life can be hard and stressful sometimes, we all know
(20:22):
that. But when it comes to
supplements, why is it that nobody talks about stress and
resilience? For me, I take the Adaptogen
stack from Momentous Supplements.
It's a daily blend of ashwagandha, rhodiola, and L
theanine, all clinically backed to help you stay calm, focused
and resilient. I'm proudly partnered with
(20:42):
Momentous Supplements because they are the industry's best.
They don't cut corners. Everything's third party,
tested, used by pro athletes, and high quality.
Head to livemomentous.com and use code strength for 35% off
your first order. Again, that's live momentous.com
code word strength for 35% off your first order and get started
(21:08):
today. Right?
So for me, Taoism really just reminds me that control is an
illusion. Like there are things we can
control on a day-to-day basis, but in the grand scheme of
things, accidents, chronic illness, crime, bankruptcy,
disease, natural disasters, the big things completely out of our
(21:29):
control. And we try so hard in our silly
little bubbles to just desperately control everything
in the world around us. And sometimes that just takes up
all of your head space and heartspace.
And that's how days stack into months, into years and years fly
by. Next thing you know what, you
look back and you're like, wow, I've acquired and accumulated
(21:52):
quite a bit. And you can even be proud of
what you can accomplish. But did you enjoy it?
Did you go with the flow? Were you rowing or did you put
up a sale? And then the last piece, I'll
call it the secular, the humanist view, if you will,
modern Western global society, atheism, all those things that
can't believe that death is it. Death is there, there's
(22:14):
consciousness and you die and you're done and that's it.
The universe, the world, your life, all of that has no deeper
why? There's no meaning connected to
it. It's random and happenstance.
And when you're here, you're here.
When you're done, you're done. I, I can't, based on my life
experiences and my faith, I can't wrap my head around that.
(22:36):
I know that, you know, atheism isn't necessarily a choice
people are making. Sometimes they just don't have
faith and logic and rationale will push them away from being
open to the idea of believing insomething that you can't prove
in the in the tangible most times.
But, you know, in that view, there's no afterlife.
I think there's some sadness in that perspective, honestly, if
(22:58):
this is all there is and your love, your work, your time, your
family, those precious moments, it's, it's the only version of
this world you'll ever get. And that could be terrifying.
And that's exactly why as a young boy I struggled so much
because I didn't have a deep rooted faith in anything, let
alone Christianity. So here's the invitation, You
(23:21):
know, think about what you believe in death.
Think about it now. Like what?
What do you truly believe? Because whether you realize it
or not, that answer is shaping your life and how you live it
every day in The Untethered Soul.
Which if you haven't read it, I could not recommend that book
(23:43):
more. It's by Michael Singer, he talks
a lot about that book. If you knew that you were going
to die in a week, what would youstop doing?
Importantly, what would you start doing?
But what would you stop doing? I'll tell you what you'd stop
doing. You'd stop worrying.
You'd stop spending time with people who don't make you better
(24:08):
and who you don't love and don'tlove you.
You'd stop abusing your mind andyour body with things like
social media, alcohol, drugs. You'd stop wasting your time
with things like doom scrolling,pointless entertainment and
YouTube pointless shows, and you'd start spending real time
(24:30):
with real people and start spending real time with
yourself. But we don't live like that.
We live like we have five years,10 years, 20 years, 30 years,
but the reality is we don't havea lot of time.
And if you're living life backward, like Gibson writes,
(24:52):
keeping the end in mind, how would you do life differently?
I think that's important to consider everyday.
Take some time and put some clear thought to this, because
death itself and its inevitability, because that one
thing is true, may be driving your life more than you think.
(25:13):
And once you face it, if you canliberate yourself from that
fear, you can finally start living.
You can stop chasing and start running free.
Thanks for joining the podcast. All right everybody, that's the
show, folks. Thank you so much for tuning
into this podcast and spending some time with us today.
(25:35):
We've got a favor to ask. If you enjoyed the show, would
you please consider subscribing to the show and even leaving a
rating and review? That simple act drastically
helps us reach more people in our mission to help them live
better, longer, healthier lives.You can also follow us if you'd
like on Instagram and YouTube for regular tips and motivation
(25:58):
around mental health, addiction,and so much more.
Know that your support fuels ourbrand and is greatly
appreciated. So until next time, stay strong
and live deep.
Second-half of life is a preparation for death.
That to Western ears is a very gloomy enterprise.
We pretend death doesn't happen.We sweep people under the
carpet. So the occasion for an immense
celebration. Because if you accept that
you're going to die, you can letgo of yourself.
There should be some very special conscious entry into
(00:24):
death of letting go of oneself, because you only die once and it
should be a very important event.
You know, this is this terrible American way of death which does
not accept it, which pretends itdoesn't happen, and doesn't see
(00:47):
that death is the most life giving thing there is.
I don't think that in this general tradition we really get
down to seeing how revivifying death is.
That in other words, if in the course of life you die before
(01:10):
you die physically, if you accept the fact that you are
completely disintegrating and there's nothing you can do to
hold on to yourself and nothing you can do to be safe or secure,
you come alive. Now, everybody imagines they can
be secure. You have investments, insurance,
(01:31):
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.But this doesn't make the
slightest difference because thewhole world is falling apart.
When you were born, you were kicked off the edge of a
precipice, and it's pure illusion to console yourself by
clinging on hard to a rock that's falling down with you.
(01:51):
There's no way of not disintegrating.
The whole thing's falling apart.Life is something that's always
falling apart. But if you get with it, and of
course you accept this situation, you flow with it, you
come alive because you acquire courage.
You're not defending yourself all the time.
You acquire energy because you're not all locked up
(02:13):
wondering what's going to happennext.
You have to. You get the capacity to take
risks, and you can't have a freepeople unless you're willing to
take risks. It's all gambling, this falling
apart of everything, which incidentally is what makes it
alive. Change is life.
This is the Tao, and to flow with the Tao and not fight it,
(02:36):
you see flow with a stream. This is the next great principle
of Taoism, which is called wuweiWu.
This means in Chinese negative not, and Wei means interfering,
(02:56):
but wuwei means not acting against the grain of nature,
acting in accordance with it. And the best possible example of
wuwei is the art of sailing. You see, it's much more
intelligent to put up a sail than to use ores, because you
don't have to work so hard. Though a higher form of
(03:20):
intelligence would erect A sail,a lower form would just rho.
But when you sail, you cannot sail directly against the wind.
Now the story that he's told is about the farmer who lost a
horse, ran away and all his friends came round, said that's
(03:42):
too bad. And he said maybe the next day
the horse returned and it brought 7 wild horses with it.
And they said my that's great. And he said maybe the next day
his son, in attempting to train one of these horses, was thrown
and broke a leg. And everybody came around and
said, oh, that's too bad. And he said, maybe the next day
(04:06):
the conscription officers came around and rejected his son
because he had a broken leg. And everybody came to
congratulate and said, isn't that great?
And he said maybe, though you see this farmer was with the
course of things and he knew goes this way and it goes that
way, goes up and it goes down, because if you didn't go down,
(04:31):
you would never know you were up.
Welcome to Running Free. I'm Jesse Carajet On March 12th,
2004. I was 19 years old, living in
Brick, NJ, my hometown, and delivering pizzas I had pulled
(04:51):
out of my freshman year of college.
I was going to a junior college working part time, delivering
pizzas. And my brother called me while I
was working. And I'll never forget what he
said. He said, Jess, you got to come
see dad. And of course, I asked him why,
you know, what's going on. And I think he said, I don't
know, but they're telling me youneed to come now.
(05:16):
And I thought I knew what he meant.
My dad had been in the hospital.He had a aggressive form of
brain cancer. He had some other health
complications going on, and he was discharged to a nursing home
for Hospice care. 19 year old Jesse knew what that was.
Also didn't know what that was. But I knew that I had never
(05:37):
gotten a phone call like that from my brother, my older
brother, he's a year older than me.
So I told my boss who just looked at my face and I think he
knew he knew something was wrong.
So I jumped in the car and made the 25 minute ride to go see my
dad. And to this day I wrestle with
(05:59):
whether or not I regret going onone side out of principle.
Something was happening with my father and I knew that it was
near the end for him and as his one of two sons I should be
there. And on the other hand, based on
what I experienced that day, I don't know that it's been good
(06:24):
for me. So I walk in and when I get to
his room I can remember feeling anxiety, fear while still moving
in the direction of his room. My brother greeted me at the
door and I don't remember if he put his hands on my shoulders or
if he hugged me or I could just be honestly projecting that
(06:44):
because maybe that's what I needed.
But he met me in the door and I remember he was saying something
and I was already looking over his shoulder and within minutes,
it could even have been seconds,my dad started having these
violent seizures and it was really hard.
It was really hard. The people, staff from the
(07:06):
nursing home came walking up to me.
I assume potentially A Hospice counselor or worker tried to
talk to me and I was just, therewas just too much happening and
I just, I just walked out of theroom.
I remember I was emotional. My brother put his arms around
me and my dad went right past mein a in a Gurney, still having
(07:27):
seizures, convulsions. And it was it was hard.
It was very, very hard to see. And within minutes my father
passed in the ambulance. And that sparked for me as a 19
year old man, But boy, my equivalent of sort of a rock
(07:48):
bottom. I started really being in
self-destructive mode, drinking heavily, got a DUI, just kind of
went off the rails and join the Marines and have been spending
much of my life since then making up for it, making up for
some bad decisions I made, etcetera.
(08:09):
And I've still that I've told that story on this show.
But that experience of death early on in my life to someone
that close to me and, and in that much of A scary kind of
dramatic way had a serious, serious impact on me that I'm
only now coming to realize. Fast forward June 21st, 2021,
(08:34):
happily married, 3 kids. We just had our our third child,
a boy. We got the boy as they say.
He's four months old and I'm in Bricktown, New Jersey again.
And this time I'm in an ICU withmy stepfather who I love dearly.
He stepped up in such a big way when I was a kid to help give me
(08:58):
that guidance, that true north that I needed as a young man,
just figuring out life and goingthrough some trauma.
And I'm holding his hand, He's unconscious, he's on life
support, respirator, the whole deal, and that equipment's being
removed. It's the end of his life.
And I held his hand the entire time in a quiet, cold room,
(09:23):
listening to the beeps which represent his heart just get
slower and slower and slower, hold away until it stopped.
And I was there the whole time, experiencing death in the most
intimate possible way that a mancan, holding the hand of another
man right to the very end. When I was a young boy, I, I, I
(09:49):
don't know how old, 678 years old, staying up at night, having
a hard time going to sleep, crying because I was afraid of
death. And why?
Why would it be that a young boywould be focused or fixated on,
on that age? I don't know.
I have young, young kids now andI've, I've never experienced
that with them. But for some reason it was
(10:10):
always something that I was afraid of.
It was the inevitability of it and the mystery of it.
What is it like nothingness? What is nothingness like?
And I think it was the combination of that.
It's inevitable. No one can escape it, and it's
coming for all of us. And there's nothing that I can
(10:30):
do in my life to prevent the fact that I will die and I will
experience that nothingness. Those two combined terrified me
because it's inescapable. And it's only now just picturing
that boy fixated and fearful of death, experiencing the death of
(10:53):
my best friend as a freshman in high school, my father as a
freshman in college, and then mystepfather, you know, as a grown
man and all the other people I've lost along the way.
It's only now that I'm connecting these dots that death
has played a very, very insidious but impactful role in
(11:15):
my life. I can point to mental health
issues as a middle school or high school, or things like OCD
that came and went, but panic disorder, anxiety disorder,
alcohol use disorder later on inlife, workaholism, just
distraction, disassociated behavior.
It's now that I can connect the dots that death and the fear of
(11:38):
it drives so much of how I seek to control my life because it
feels uncontrollable. And that's why I wanted to talk
about, in this sort of special breakout episode, death.
To bring it to the forefront, toshine a light on something that
we're all going to face, but nobody talks about it and no one
(11:59):
really gives it the significance.
And having conversations around it so that we can free ourselves
from the fear of death because we don't have to be afraid.
Look, one in ten Americans todaystruggle with alcohol use
disorder. And I was one of them.
Did you know that there is a safe, science backed daily pill
(12:20):
that you can take to drink less or even quit alcohol for good?
It's called naltrexone, a doctorprescribed medication that you
get online. And our sponsor OR Health is the
nation's leading provider of naltrexone To date OR Health has
helped over 35,000 people find freedom from alcohol.
And I'm proudly one of them. Get started.
(12:41):
Text Strength to 710710 again, that's strength to 710710.
And get started on your journey to finally find freedom from
alcohol. Fraid.
So in the West and in America, our beliefs and our posture
toward death are largely centered around Christianity.
(13:01):
I think we all know that personally, growing up, teens,
20s, I did not have faith. I was not an atheist, which is a
specific thing that believes a specific thing.
I was more of an agnostic, but Ididn't have faith, which is why
death was so scary, because there was no definition for me
in terms of what comes after it.It was an end point followed by
nothingness, right? So in the West, the majority of
(13:24):
people, historically anyway, it's focused around
Christianity. It's the cultural lens through
which most of us, even secular people, absorb ideas about
dying, heaven, hell, what comes next, and to marry many American
families. Death is something tragic.
It's managed through the lens ofmedicine and this sort of
(13:44):
sanitized grief. But it's not how the whole world
sees death. The whole world and pockets of
the world views death differently.
They treat death, the process ofit, the aftermath of it,
completely different. And I think it's healthy to
understand that and to start to question our own views of death
so that we can understand how much it may be driving our
(14:06):
behavior and our feelings and how we experience the world.
So again, starting with Christianity, predominantly
Western America, parts of Europe, the belief is that
Christianity, or in Christianityas I say, teaches that death is
not the end, but it's a transition into eternal life,
heaven, and based on faith in Christ's resurrection, believers
(14:28):
anticipate either heaven or hell.
And there's different conversations around purgatory
in different circles, but essentially it's heaven or hell,
black or white from the Bible, John 1125.
I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me, though hemay not die, he shall live.
And one of my favorites, 1 Corinthians 1555.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
(14:51):
You know, I grew up in, I say, aCatholic family, like a non
practicing Catholic family. And I absorbed that image of
death as this gateway to judgement, right?
There's death, there's judgement, and then there's
something that comes after it. And while there's some reverence
to that, it also for me, plantedanxiety and a little bit of
(15:13):
fear. And there's, there's good,
there's morality, which really should inspire you to do good
and to be good and to love thyself and love thy neighbor.
But it is sort of a, a baseline that is created that you're
being judged, right. And, and I think on the western
side, Christian, I think most people are, are familiar with
heaven and hell and what that means.
(15:33):
But also in the West around death, there's this medicinal
reality to it. You picture your death because
most of us don't know how and when we're going to die.
And because of that mystery, we just go to what's normal and
what's familiar. And what's normal and familiar
to us is this sterile hospital room.
(15:55):
It's the nursing home room on Hospice that I experienced with
my biological father and then the ICU with my stepfather.
And damn, that's, that's a scary, sad place that is not a
place of comfort and love. It's scary, which is why my view
of, of death and therefore life has been altered by these
(16:17):
experiences. And I think so many of us can
relate with that. But it doesn't have to be that
way. And we don't have to think about
it through the lens of familiarity.
There are other practices and other ways that are healthier to
view death. Hinduism, India, parts of
Southeast Asia, for example. They believe that death is part
(16:37):
of a cycle. Birth, death and rebirth.
The soul were Ottman is eternal and takes on new forms until it
reaches what's called moksha, liberation from the cycle.
And there's something deeply humbling about viewing death as
a continuation rather than an end.
(17:00):
That reframing might actually reduce anxiety and increase
compassion for all living things.
Moving on to Buddhism, SoutheastAsia, Tibet, parts of the West,
their belief. That belief is that death is a
necessary transition. Attachment to yourself is the
root of suffering. So mindfulness and non
(17:23):
attachment prepare you or your soul for this next stage.
And rebirth continues until 1 reaches a Nirvana, which is a
blissfulness. So for myself while a Christian,
this teaching is reassuring for me.
(17:44):
And I found that thinking about death as a transition as opposed
to an end, and saying it and meditating on that slowly starts
to release myself from that fearof it.
So let's talk about Judaism. And with Judaism, beliefs do
vary widely, but Judaism emphasizes a life over
speculation about death, meaningmore emphasis on life and how we
(18:07):
live it than death and what happens afterwards itself.
From the Bible, Ecclesiastes 12/7.
The dust returns to the earth asit was, and the spirit returns
to God who gave it. Which I think really I thought
summarizes Judaism or just some of the beliefs in the afterlife.
But what strikes me most is the emphasis on honoring the dead
(18:29):
through how we live. Grief isn't hidden.
It's ritualized, it's given space, it's focused on.
It's not pushed kind of in the back burner after someone dies.
And I think, frankly, that's something we're missing in
America. And then I think another one to
bring up is Taoism, primarily inChina, and the belief there is
that life and death are part of the Dow, which is the natural
(18:53):
flow of the universe, right? And to resist death itself is to
resist nature or the order of all things.
Harmony is found in surrenderingto life itself, not trying to
control. I heard this beautiful metaphor
from Alan was where he talks about life being an ocean.
(19:15):
And ocean currents and waters are tumultuous and
unpredictable. And our life is the boat.
And we fight so hard and we are so desperate for those waters to
just stay calm. But life will life and they will
get turbulent. And it all comes down to what do
we do in the boat when that happens?
Some of us will just use all of our might and strength and
(19:36):
anxiety and everything to just row, right?
Because we want to get to where we're going in life instead of
surrendering to its natural flow.
Our goals, our aspirations, whether that's finances, career,
family, status, we want to row towards that goal.
And what he says and what Taoismis all about is why not just put
up a sail? Why not just let the wind take
(19:59):
you where it goes, not being full of fear of that ending, but
just go with the flow. And again, that's Taoism.
And I think that's a beautiful, beautiful concept.
And I think we can all take something from that lesson,
right? Why row?
Think about how much harder it is to row and we can just put up
a sale and just let life. Life.
Look, life can be hard and stressful sometimes, we all know
(20:22):
that. But when it comes to
supplements, why is it that nobody talks about stress and
resilience? For me, I take the Adaptogen
stack from Momentous Supplements.
It's a daily blend of ashwagandha, rhodiola, and L
theanine, all clinically backed to help you stay calm, focused
and resilient. I'm proudly partnered with
(20:42):
Momentous Supplements because they are the industry's best.
They don't cut corners. Everything's third party,
tested, used by pro athletes, and high quality.
Head to livemomentous.com and use code strength for 35% off
your first order. Again, that's live momentous.com
code word strength for 35% off your first order and get started
(21:08):
today. Right?
So for me, Taoism really just reminds me that control is an
illusion. Like there are things we can
control on a day-to-day basis, but in the grand scheme of
things, accidents, chronic illness, crime, bankruptcy,
disease, natural disasters, the big things completely out of our
(21:29):
control. And we try so hard in our silly
little bubbles to just desperately control everything
in the world around us. And sometimes that just takes up
all of your head space and heartspace.
And that's how days stack into months, into years and years fly
by. Next thing you know what, you
look back and you're like, wow, I've acquired and accumulated
(21:52):
quite a bit. And you can even be proud of
what you can accomplish. But did you enjoy it?
Did you go with the flow? Were you rowing or did you put
up a sale? And then the last piece, I'll
call it the secular, the humanist view, if you will,
modern Western global society, atheism, all those things that
can't believe that death is it. Death is there, there's
(22:14):
consciousness and you die and you're done and that's it.
The universe, the world, your life, all of that has no deeper
why? There's no meaning connected to
it. It's random and happenstance.
And when you're here, you're here.
When you're done, you're done. I, I can't, based on my life
experiences and my faith, I can't wrap my head around that.
(22:36):
I know that, you know, atheism isn't necessarily a choice
people are making. Sometimes they just don't have
faith and logic and rationale will push them away from being
open to the idea of believing insomething that you can't prove
in the in the tangible most times.
But, you know, in that view, there's no afterlife.
I think there's some sadness in that perspective, honestly, if
(22:58):
this is all there is and your love, your work, your time, your
family, those precious moments, it's, it's the only version of
this world you'll ever get. And that could be terrifying.
And that's exactly why as a young boy I struggled so much
because I didn't have a deep rooted faith in anything, let
alone Christianity. So here's the invitation, You
(23:21):
know, think about what you believe in death.
Think about it now. Like what?
What do you truly believe? Because whether you realize it
or not, that answer is shaping your life and how you live it
every day in The Untethered Soul.
Which if you haven't read it, I could not recommend that book
(23:43):
more. It's by Michael Singer, he talks
a lot about that book. If you knew that you were going
to die in a week, what would youstop doing?
Importantly, what would you start doing?
But what would you stop doing? I'll tell you what you'd stop
doing. You'd stop worrying.
You'd stop spending time with people who don't make you better
(24:08):
and who you don't love and don'tlove you.
You'd stop abusing your mind andyour body with things like
social media, alcohol, drugs. You'd stop wasting your time
with things like doom scrolling,pointless entertainment and
YouTube pointless shows, and you'd start spending real time
(24:30):
with real people and start spending real time with
yourself. But we don't live like that.
We live like we have five years,10 years, 20 years, 30 years,
but the reality is we don't havea lot of time.
And if you're living life backward, like Gibson writes,
(24:52):
keeping the end in mind, how would you do life differently?
I think that's important to consider everyday.
Take some time and put some clear thought to this, because
death itself and its inevitability, because that one
thing is true, may be driving your life more than you think.
(25:13):
And once you face it, if you canliberate yourself from that
fear, you can finally start living.
You can stop chasing and start running free.
Thanks for joining the podcast. All right everybody, that's the
show, folks. Thank you so much for tuning
into this podcast and spending some time with us today.
(25:35):
We've got a favor to ask. If you enjoyed the show, would
you please consider subscribing to the show and even leaving a
rating and review? That simple act drastically
helps us reach more people in our mission to help them live
better, longer, healthier lives.You can also follow us if you'd
like on Instagram and YouTube for regular tips and motivation
(25:58):
around mental health, addiction,and so much more.
Know that your support fuels ourbrand and is greatly
appreciated. So until next time, stay strong
and live deep.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.