Picture by Gregory Brennan
Throw off Fear: “Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see”.
― Helen Keller
We all have our own path to follow but what we all have in common is that something starts us on our journey. Death like other paths is one that is seldom easy to navigate if you allow the fear to overcome you. In time we learn to cope with others passing but it doesn’t always leave us as quickly as we would like, if at all. Harder still is the fear of our own demise.
*Throw off Fear*
For me death was always something to fear. This started at a very young age and through the years has re-visited me from time to time. The earliest memories I had was being scared by horror films on TV. More importantly around the age of 7or 8 hearing ghost stories form an older boy in the neighbourhood one evening in an abandoned building. Myself and a group of friends sat in a huddle as the older boy started telling stories about ghosts and the shadows played tricks as we sat listening in the darkened building.
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All I recall from that time was leaving and going home for my tea. The stories obviously had their desired effect during that evening I kept waking up in the night. I had been dreaming about the stories we’d heard and still recall vividly seeing the faces of ghosts spinning around above me. Even today I still recall the book cover that we had heard stories from that evening. It had a grainy black and white photo on the front of an old mansion with the blurred image of people. Another fear to add to my list as a young child.
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For me however, it was my brother’s cancer that allowed me to throw of that fear some 40 odd years later. A few months prior to his death due to bone cancer and during his time in hospital i spent time with him and my siblings and that for me can only be described as new chapter in my life.
*Throw off Fear*
Fear has many masks. Some we learn to put down and never wear again whilst others remain to revisit us time and time again.
“Most fears stem from a past event, experience or notion, and once you identify what that thing is that prompted the birth of that fear, you are able to diminish the fear’s power over you.” – Carl Jung
In the last couple of years that fear has certainly been removed from my shoulders. I feel a whole lot more comfortable with the matter these days.
An important factor in this was the way my brother after learning of his bone cancer appeared to be very relaxed about the diagnosis and showed no fear at all. This I found very brave indeed and it made me ask myself if I too could be as strong as he was under the circumstances.
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It certainly opened a whole new chapter in my life as I looked further into spirituality and other paths opened up for me to discover. Paths of which I gladly walked down without fear or bias in the search for further enlightenment and truths as of then unknown.
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Books like AC Bensons Where no Fear Was: A Book about Fear and Michael Tymn’s Dead Men Talking opened my mind . They helped me explore my fear and with the latter book answers to questions I didn’t even think I had.
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Another book In Times Of War: Messages of Wisdom from Soldiers In The Afterlife brought further clarity and helped change my way of thinking.
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I think my fear stemmed from the fear of the unknown whereas my view now is enjoy the now and look forward to the future. Nothing ends just new paths open to us. Light doesn’t fade it merely travels on in a new trajectory we just have to embrace that journey and live life to the full. I am a firm believer in what will be will be and things happen for a reason. It can be hard at times knowing the answers but in time it will all become clearer and we can embrace the next chapter with hope and understanding.
Gregory Quinn Brennan
Our next Healing day is fast approaching. Saturday the 2nd of November 10am – 1.30pm upstairs in Crosby Library. If there are any reading this who are struggling or wish to know more then please come and speak with us. There is no need to suffer. There is more information on what we do and why, in the below links. All the help that we give is free of charge but we do accept donations if offered to cover the cost of the room. Pop in for a cuppa and piece of cake.