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Alua Arthur Quotes

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“For life's sake, don't die with a freezer full of bananas. Make the banana bread. Scream into the pillow. Take a nap. Eat the cake. Forgive yourself. Buy the shoes. Apologize to the people you've hurt. Watch the birds make a nest. Tell your truth. Tell the ones you love that you love them. Fuck. A lot. And make love. Quit the job. Or take the job. Whatever it is that you know you must do to reconcile your life with your death. Do it. Do it today.”

“Dying is the most intimate act we will undertake. It requires us to be intimate with ourselves, our bodies, our lives, and with the present moment - to reveal the parts we believe are difficult to love, the face beneath the mask we wear for the outside world, and the squishy parts that bear wounds and form scars. Everything else is a show. To be helped is to die a small death of the ego. To allow love in is an invitation to allow our messy human glory to take front stage, and let love pour into those places that have been beaten down by the ego and the outside world.”

“No wonder death makes us so uncomfortable. We can't gather much informaiton about it, and gathering information is what makes us feel safe. Thinking about death drives us directly into the discomfort of "I don't know." In my work supporting people through dying, I meet many who cling to what they think they can control, to avoid surrendering to life's biggest "I Don't know.”

“We can spend our lives fretting about our deaths, or we can use our brief time to sink deeper into the experience of being human, for all it entails. The good, the tricky the impermanent. We can acknowledge that our death will one day come and use that knowledge to create a life so whole, so honest, so juicy, that it is worth leaving.”

“Societally, we have internalized some of depression's lies - that sadness is wrong, that it is bad, that it is not valuable. That it needs to be made "better." We celebrate wellness and leave no space for sorrow, brokenness, grief, or anything other than "I'm fine" when the truth is that life is complicated, painful, and difficult. Whole humans feel a whole range of emotions, but we applaud only half of them, driving our negatively perceived emotions deep into hiding for fear of judgment. There, they are safe to fester and grow stronger, which in turn drives us to hid them more.”