Death Is an Everyday Practice
We don’t talk about death enough. Not in therapy, not in community, not in the soft corners of our private lives. We touch it only when forced — in hospice rooms, in hospital hallways, in the sudden phone call that splits the day in half. But here’s the truth: Death is not an event. It’s a condition of being alive. It is with us constantly, humming in the background, shaping the contours of every choice we make. We just pretend it isn’t. We treat death like a far-off shoreline, something we’ll eventually come to. But we are already knee-deep in the waves.
Mortality as an Invitation to Authenticity
To live authentically, we must get real with our mortality. Not as a source of fear or pathology, not as the clinical language of “end-of-life planning,” but as a relational practice. A daily reminder that everything - every intimacy, every breath, every version of ourselves - is temporary.
When we turn toward death rather than away from it, something radical happens:
Our values clarify.
Our relationships deepen.
Our bullshit tolerance drops.
Our capacity for joy expands.
Mortality asks: If I am going to die, who do I want to be while I’m still here?
This is not morbid. It’s liberatory.
The Myth That Grief and Death Are the Same Fabric
Grief and death are often sewn tightly together in our cultural imagination — but they are not actually part of the same fabric.
Death is a fact. A biological shift. A cessation. A boundary.
Grief is a process. A movement. A relational ache. A response to the fact that we loved.
Death lives in the body; grief lives in the psyche, the nervous system, the breath.
Death is final; grief is ongoing.
And grief does not wait for death to arrive. We grieve:
the dreams that died quietly in the background
the versions of ourselves we’ve shed
the relationships we outgrew or were forced to release
the safety we once believed in
the childhood innocence we never got
the communities we lost
the futures we imagined but won’t live
To be alive is to be in constant mourning — not because life is tragic, but because life is ever-changing.
Grief is the shadow side of aliveness.
Why Death Work Belongs in Everyday Life
We often associate death work with end-of-life care, hospice, and the moments “at the end.” But death work is also:
saying no to a life that shrinks you
telling the truth about who you are
ending a relationship that harms your spirit
acknowledging burnout before it steals the years
letting your work evolve
aging without apology
allowing your identities to shift
releasing the performative life you were taught to live
Death work is daily work. It is boundary work. Identity work. Liberation work.
Every time we let something die, we make room for something more honest to emerge.
Death work is life work. Grief work is liberation work.
Patriarchy Trains Us to Avoid Death
Avoiding death is not neutral ~ it is cultural.
Colonial, capitalist, patriarchal systems depend on our avoidance of mortality. If we truly remembered we were going to die, we would stop:
overworking ourselves into the ground
delaying joy
postponing rest
chasing perfection
prioritizing productivity over presence
tolerating oppressive structures
Mortality disrupts the “grind.”
It questions the meaning of achievement.
It unravels the myth of invincibility.
This is why talking about death is radical.
It is an act of refusal.
An act of rebellion.
A return to what matters.
The Body Knows What the Mind Avoids
Death and grief both live in the body — even when language fails.
We feel grief in the throat, the ribs, the stomach.
We feel mortality as urgency, as clarity, as a subtle ache behind the breastbone.
When we tend to the body’s wisdom, our relationship with death shifts. It becomes less about fear and more about orientation. A compass. A grounding force that says:
“Be here now. This moment will not return.”
Somatic awareness softens death’s edge without diminishing its reality.
Living More Fully by Accepting We Will Die
When we stop resisting the truth of death, we start living differently:
We speak more honestly.
We choose people who make us feel alive.
We stop settling.
We take risks.
We let go of what drains us.
We create.
We rest.
We love with fewer conditions.
This is the paradox: The more intimately we hold death, the more life we get to inhabit.
This Is Liberation
Talking about death is not just philosophical - it is political. It disrupts systems that benefit from our numbness and disconnection. It returns us to ourselves.
Grief invites vulnerability; death calls us into truth. Together, they make liberation possible.
Because liberation is not just your loudest yes -
it is also your willingness to let things go.
To let things end.
To let things die.
This is how we live free.