How To Live A Life Worth Living - Teal Swan -

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In this episode, Teal provides an exercise that causes us to see our lives objectively enough that we can discover the kind of changes we need to make to our life in order to live a fulfilling life. In this exercise, you imagine that you died yesterday and from that stand point you answer a list of questions that cause you to get back in touch with the life you truly want to live.
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Kuan Yin's Mantra (c) 2002 Lisa Thiel

Music by Lisa Thiel - Kuan Yin's mantra

Hello there.

Every week, I receive questions
from people all over the world

that basically boil down to:

"How do I live a more fulfilling life?"

For some of us, our life feels
routine, empty and stuck.

We don't really feel alive.

We go through the motions,
we do what we think we have to do,

but we don't really feel that zest for life.

I'm gonna tell you exactly what do about it.

When we're young, so often we stop
following our internal guidance system,

our internal compass in the direction of
the things that cause us to feel alive.

We abandon that pathway,

specifically so that we can feel
the approval we get from others

as a result of doing
what they think we should be doing.

Going in the direction
they think we should be going.

Eventually, when we grow up,

we tell ourselves that those things
that they wanted us to do make us happy.

But it's sort of like a drug.

We want the drug of approval
to cover up the loneliness, the emptiness,

the absence we feel when we're not following
our internal guidance system.

But just like a drug, eventually,
it doesn't work to cover up that void within us.

We start to feel as if we're not alive.

We start to feel that emptiness.

We start to feel like we don't know what we like.

We don't know what we want.

We don't know which direction to go.

We feel lost.

If we try to deny this aspect of ourselves,

to reject our internal compass,

to not follow the direction
which we are being told that we need to go

and we try to numb ourselves out for long enough,

our soul will create a crisis.

This type of crisis is designed
specifically to get us back on track.

But sometimes this crisis
will bring us face to face with death.

The reason we're a match to this, is because
if we're living according to other people's approval,

instead of our own definition
of what life really means for us,

then we are living a waking death anyway.

I have spent countless hours at the bedside
of people who are terminally ill for this very reason.

And those who tend to recover are the ones who can manage to let the visitor of death educate them about life.

The ones who let a brush with death
bring them back to life.

The bottom line is, when a person
is terminally ill, priorities change.

And they change into
what they always should've been.

The absolute gift of surviving a brush with death,

is that you can make this change in priorities
without being physically ill or dying.

Then you have a shot at really living.

Some of us are catastrophy-thinkers,

we're always putting ourself in the worst case scenario,

and quite literally we're always living
as if tomorrow will never come.

The downside to this
is that we're not very happy,

because we spend most of our lives
panicking and worrying about things.

But there is an upside to this.

Your life will be full of meaning

and your life will always be rich

if you can live your life like tomorrow will never come.

And this is the very teaching
which those of us that are catastrophy-thinkers

can bring to the world.

If you're a catastrophy-thinker
and if you tend to worry

I do have two video's on that particular subject.

You can go look at them up on youtube.

The first is called: "How to stop worrying".

The second is called: "How to stop expecting the worst".

But for the sake of today's video,

we're going to take the direction

of what catastrophy-thinkers
are here to teach the world

because it would benefit us,

to live today as if tomorrow may never come.

So I'm gonna give you a practice,

this practice is to be used as a tool

to get your life back on track.

I urge you to throw yourself
into this practice with vengeance.

What you're gonna do,
is to close your eyes

and you're going to imagine
that you died yesterday.

I want you to imagine how you died.

Imagine all the circumstances surrounding your death.

Who is there?

Imagine how the news was broken to the people
that love you and the reactions that they had.

Spent some time really making this imagined experience
believeable and real to you.

And when you are ready,
I want you to ask yourself the following questions.

For the sake of time consumption,
I'm going to run through these questions quickly.

But what I encourage you to do,

is to pause the video after each question,

so you allow yourself time,
to actually answer it from the core of your own being.

And then resume this video for the next question,

once you have done that.

1. What do I regret the most about my life?

2. Who do I most want to say "I love you" to?

3. What am I incomplete with?

Or what do I desperately wish
I could have gotten complete with, before I died?

4. What was I the most afraid of?

And if I wasn't afraid of those things,
how would my life have been different?

5. Regardless of what my priorities
were while I was living,

looking back on life, what do I now see
is the most important thing in my life?

6. Was there anything I worried about
that in the end did not really matter once I died?

7. Is there anything I needed
to say to someone, but didn't?

8. Was there a time in my life
that I chose something else, over love?

Would I have made a different choice?

9. What am I the most glad I did in my life?

What was the best decision I made?

10. What were the top 3 best memories of my life
and why were they the best memories?

11. What fed my spirit?

What did I love doing that I didn't do enough of?

Think about those things
that make you fall to your knees in awe

or give you goose bumps
or make you feel full of life.

Why didn't I make that thing
or those things the center of my life?

12. Knowing now that I could choose
anywhere on earth.

Where would I have moved to and lived?

13. What will people remember me for?

What legacy am I leaving behind?

Keep in mind that the truth
may not always be a positive one.

14. If I could have chosen, what legacy would
I have liked to have left behind and be remembered for?

15. Now that I am dead, looking back at my life,

if I could have written a bucket list,

essentially a list of things I want to experience,
accomplish or do before I die...

What would be on that list?

16. What life that other people lived was I envious of

and didn't give myself the permission to go after?

17. Now that you are dead.

What advice would you give
to anyone who is living, especially your children?

18. Looking at life now that I am dead.

What would I say is the meaning of life?

19. If I were given one more shot at life,

what would I do differently?

20. If I were given one more shot at life.

What would I now have the courage to do,

that I didn't have the courage to do before?

Now I want you to imagine that an angel

or some other transcendental being

comes down and actually tells you:

"I'm gonna give you another shot at life,

you are going to wake up to live another day."

Imagine this being doing so.

And as you open your eyes,

imagine that you are coming back to life
after having died

You get to live your life from scratch.

Everything was put into perspective.

Look back over the answers you gave
to the questions you were asked while you were dead.

I am not concerned
about you making the right decisions for your life.

Having done this exercise,
you know exactly what you're meant to do.

And you also have the perspective

and potentially even the courage
to do so from this point on.

Make those changes and make them today.

Your world is being created through you
and the decisions you make every single day.

You may think that you have lots of time.

But the truth is, you can't know that.

The truth is, you may not be alive
in an hour or a day.

So there is no time to waste.

You cannot afford to live a minute of your life
thinking or saying or doing something

that is not worthy of your life.

You may have a list five miles long

of the things you think you should be doing

but would those things really matter if you were dead.

This is your life and you came here to live it.

It doesn't belong to anyone but you.

And the only thing that's going to happen

if you play it safe and don't take risks

is you will arive at death safely

because I'm gonna break it to you today.

None of us are getting out of here alive.

And that might just be good news

if we use our life instead of waste it.

All of us need to start living our life
as if next year may never come.

And so the question
I am going to leave you with is this:

"If you were going to die tomorrow,
what would you do with today?"

To close this episode,
instead of wishing you a good week,

I'm going to read you a truth
by my personal favorite poet Dillan Thomas

because this particular truth
holds the exact frequency of the bravery that it requires

to live this life the way we were meant to live it.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning

They do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see the blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze the meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now, with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.