Ep#14: Intro to Reflections on Death & Dreams

In this bonus episode, I prep my listeners for a conversation coming up on Death & Dreams, by sharing my personal thoughts on this discussion.

I'd love to know your thoughts over on my Instagram.

With All My Heart,
Amaru Küng

I'd LOVE to Connect with you:
www.amarukueng.com

The Amaru Podcast (Instagram)
Amaru Küng (Instagram)
Amaru Küng (Linkedin)

Transcript

Unknown: 0:01

Hey, welcome back to the Amaru podcast, season two, y'all keeping it fresh, fresh, fresh right here. Welcome to the Amaru podcast. Welcome to Season Two. My name is Amaru Küng. I am the host of this podcast. And it is such a deep honor for you to join me today. I so we're going into a series of conversations that I'm really nervous and excited to be having with you. And today's episode is a preparation for the next episode that's coming up. So in the episode that's going to be coming up, we're going to be talking about death. And kind of well is the episode that's going to be coming up, we're going to be talking about dreaming with a death sentence. And that's a conversation I had with a dear friend of mine, who made some huge strides towards living out one of his just biggest hearts desires and dreams. Once he found out that he had a really short time left to live, and you know, as we're getting ready for that episode, I am just thinking about I'm thinking a lot about about death and my relationship with death and, and the correlation between death and dreaming who so I'll be the first one to share that death of freaks and creeps me out. I'm not gonna lie. Just Just the other day. So we were in Paris last weekend and on the way back the day when we were leaving Paris. As some of you might know, I wasn't feeling well. And so there I am walking down the street and with my family, we're walking down the street. And we were basically avoiding places where there's a lot of people so we're just like walking in the more uncrowded streets. And so we walked down this particular street. And as we're walking down the street Well, we didn't know this. But we happen to have picked a street that was right where there's like a mortuary. And so while walking down the street, they were this this funeral service was like loading a casket in the van. And so it was it was like a really slim slim street. So my husband's like walking with our son and I was not I was I was actually wheeling our son like pushing him in the in the carrier, rather in the stroller. And my husband was ahead and I just stopped. And so he was he kept walking and then he he like stopped to turn back. And he saw me and I just shook my head like no, we're not going there. We're no we're not we're not doing this. We're not walking past them. And because he knows me well enough by now he just he basically he stopped. And that was that felt like what was the longest five minutes of my life just waiting for them to like, load that van and drive off and I was just, I felt cold to my feet. I felt I was fighting all of like the fear all of the I don't know how to describe it. But I don't enjoy funerals. I don't I don't want to see the corpse. I don't I'm not you know, this. I remember there used to be this apartments in New York that would be advertised as like, oh, it's next to a graveyard. And that was supposed to be a selling point. That was like the biggest that was like the biggest deal. Deal Breaker. Can you say that? Basically just to see that something was next to a grave yard was clear to me. Yeah, I'm not living there. I don't care if it costs $2. Like, no, thank you. I'm not interested. And it's just strange way to live. Knowing that I am going to die, all of us are going to die. And yet, death just death creeps me out. Death freaks me out. And it's something that I felt this way. For like the longest time I remember the first corpse I ever saw the first funeral. I remember, as a child attending, I remember just being really creeped out. And that's something I've always struggled with because I've lost some people close to me. And one of the last times that I felt this so strongly was at the at the at the funeral of my auntie, and one of my mom's sisters. I remember. Yeah, I remember being being at that funeral. And, and just being so being so just being so bothered by the fact that I was so creeped out. And I remember thinking, just a few days ago, I was with her, you know, just a few days ago, I would have held her and wanted to be close to her just a few days ago. She meant so much to me. And yet now, a few days later, I'm so afraid of her body. I'm afraid of her means I don't want to be close. And I remember really trying to process that Because I thought this, this can't be right, you know? And what I realized I was trying to understand what is the difference and I realized that for me one of the differences and this this this this, this was a huge moment for me was between the living and the dead was that the things that that I loved things that made me made a connection between us were gone, I realized she was still she was laying there. No more heartbeat, no more dreams no more. You know, the things that make us human like, like, the things that are annoying are like all the things that make her her, like, her voice, her thoughts, her ideas, her dreams, her opinions, her worldview, like all these things, her passions, her, just the things that were hers, were not there anymore. And now it was just a thing. Like she was a thing. Like a body, you know, and I just that was so hard for me to it was so hard to face that you know, and I just kept thinking about I want this long, like written exploration of like, why am I afraid of corpses. And I realized it's like corpses, in my opinion, are things they're not people anymore. Like, it's like the people or the people left to things that that that gave them that sparkle in the eye, it's gone. The thing that made that body move, it's gone. The soul, the spirit, it's gone somehow. And what's left is something that doesn't speak to me as tomorrow. It's something that freaks me out. It's something that frightens me, it's something that I'm afraid of. And that makes me really, really sad. And that got me thinking a lot about it got me thinking about, about my own life and thinking about am I already a thing. Because I think the things that the things that make us alive. The things that make us living are things that I realized that often we try to, we don't own those things that we don't, our opinions are our worldview, our thoughts, our feelings, our passions, I realized we often just kind of hide those things, we were so silent about them, we keep them to ourselves. And the thought that one day, those things won't be there anymore in the living world. And one thing what will be left is just like this, this, this, this, this housing, you know, our bodies that are just stale and cold, and start to rot and decay and just like fade and are things that I am going to be afraid of, you know, that's just so sad to me. And so that day, just like reflecting on my Auntie's corpse, I realized I wanted to be, I wanted to be a person I wanted to live, I wanted to really live while I lived. Because I thought one day I'm going to be dead, and I'm going to be scary to some people. And when they were scary to myself, you know. And, I mean, I, I don't want to be buried. For example, I definitely want to be cremated. I just don't want anybody to look at my body and feel the way I feel when I look at corpses. It just, it's creepy to me. And so that's death, right? We're all gonna die. And yet we're here. And why dreams are so important to me is I feel that dreams are our dreams that matter. Okay, now dreams can be like the dreams that when I talk of dreams, that dreams worth dying for the dreams that we know without a like, if we found out we were left with a week to live would be like this dream needs to come to I need to make this happen. Those particular dreams. Those are dreams, I believe are linked to our purpose, their dreams that are part of the reason we are here. Their dreams that are linked to, to the reason that we that we have the privilege of life. And I feel really connected to what those dreams are for me. I wonder if you do I wonder if you have a connection to to your purpose? Do you have a sense of like, this is why I'm here. You know, this is why this is why I feel that I'm on earth if if my time was up, and I had accomplished this, or will be well with my soul, you know, like, do you have that? And if you don't, I want to challenge you to to start to reflect on that. Because our next episode is going to be a conversation with a dear friend of mine who, who who lived out you know, like he, he made he made that dream happen. You know, he found out that he was left with a short time to live. And he embarked on this one on something that had been a dream of his heart for a really long time. And he he made it happen. And in the next episode he he's going to share learnings the journey to making that dream happen and I hope that episode will inspire you. But before we go in for that episode before I upload that episode, I really want you to reflect for yourself, you know, as we get into this conversation about death and dreaming. Do you have dreams, you know, like really like dreams that are not just like, Oh, I wish I could do this now. Are there things on your heart that you feel deep inside you're called to do called to be? Is there a purpose you feel called to live out? And what is it and what what strides are you taking towards it? Yeah, I just want to challenge you to to like, pull that up from the archives have your mind and your heart and start to reflect. Are you connected to your purpose? What do you think you were put on this earth to, to pursue to do to accomplish to live out? And, you know, just I want to leave you with that. Hey, until next time with all of my heart, Amaru Küng.