This is our heaviest episode yet….by far, but Ryan and I felt it necessary to use our platform to help bring even more awareness to the topic of suicide, and suicide prevention. We’re obviously not professionals, and you shouldn’t confuse our advice with being anything close to medically sound or a suitable replacement for the advice of a trained professional. So if you’re suffering, and if it’s even remotely possible, get yourself some professional assistance. Please.
Anyway, as Ryan states in the episode, this Tumblr blog he found back in the day really hits pretty hard in all the right ways, and it’s a piece of beautiful prose, overall. I’m sure you’ll agree, especially if you’ve ever wrestled with this stuff. In lieu of blathering on in this episode’s blog, we’re just going to share the following piece by Jeff Foster. We don’t know who he is, or how qualified, but his words resonate. It’s also worth noting that we’re reprinting this without his permission, so hopefully, Jeff, you’re cool with it. But check it out:
Understanding the Urge to Die, by Jeff Foster
I spent the first 23 years of my life wanting to die. And here is what I discovered:
The urge to die is the urge to live in disguise.
The urge to die is the urge to disappear as a separate self, to vanish into the vastness of Being, to rest deeply, as we have never rested before. It is the wave longing to return to the ocean… forgetting that it was never divided from the ocean in the first place. An innocent mistake, easily corrected with a little investigation.
The urge to die is not negative, sick, dark or sinful, but it is deeply, deeply misunderstood, that’s for sure! We ignore the urge, push it away, hide it, medicate it, keep it a secret, try to numb ourselves to it or even philosophize it away. But when acknowledged, honoured, listened to, even the suicidal urge, the urge to shed our false skin, contains infinite intelligence. All feelings do!
For secretly, the urge to die is the urge to awaken, to come alive, to stop identifying as a separate body-mind, to remember our original nature, vast and free! It is the urge to shed the false ‘me’ (ego, self, person) to stop pretending to be something we are not, to let go of all that is second-hand and inauthentic, and to live, to really live, fearless and free, as consciousness itself, full of life and potential and cosmic creativity!
The urge to die is not our enemy – it is not to be annihilated and not to be feared. It contains a profound message of awakening and change. It says, shouts, screams, “You are not limited to what you think you are! You are a child of the Universe, remember, deserving of all its riches! Only the false can die, and you cannot be false!” Can we hear its call? Can we listen, really listen?
The wave cannot return to the ocean, cannot get Home. It was never divided from its Home in the first place! You are already Oceanic, friend, and the true suicide is not the stopping of the body-mind but the remembrance of your original and unblemished nature, here and now, beyond the ravages of time!
LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! NOTHING TO LOSE!
