How Embracing Death Can Help You Live Fully: Unlocking the Power of Mortality

Ep 90. Embracing Mortality: How the Awareness of Death Can Empower Your Life

The concept of death is often considered a morbid preoccupation by many, yet it holds profound wisdom for those seeking to unlock their full potential. Death serves as a powerful reminder of our mortality, pushing us to make the most of the limited time we have. By embracing this reality, we are better able to cultivate self-regulation skills and focus on what truly matters.

Warriors of the past often referred to death as an "old friend," and this perspective highlights the importance of living with awareness of mortality. By understanding that tomorrow is promised to no one, we are empowered to let go of meaningless distractions and live more fully in the present moment. This approach allows us to love more deeply, be more connected, and embrace life to its fullest.

In this episode, we explore how facing death can actually help us live better. Through mindfulness and acceptance, we can reframe our perspective and focus on what truly brings us joy and fulfillment.

Take care, and walk well—because time is the most precious gift we have.

Transcript

Welcome back folks to episode 90 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast. With me, your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. And what we're going to be discussing today, since we're so close to Christmas here in the United States and the holiday season is upon us, is going to be loss. We're going to be discussing grief, loss,

and not just death of loved ones, actually death of things, those things that we grieve, that we attach to and mourn, and how we can go about managing that. Because when we discuss the loss of life, loss of loved ones, loss of job, loss of identities, this sort of thing, there's a grieving that goes on because it is the death of a thing, this sense, or a person, or a relationship for that matter. So...

We're going to kick this off with a couple of ideas. One is a term in Latin that is memento mori, and that is the art of contemplating death to live a better life. that term, memento mori, means that we always keep close to us, close to our best, if you will, when we live, when we live most fully and most embodied and most present and consistently.

with the greatest deal of appreciation, we keep it close to our vest and death, the idea of it means that we become appreciative of where we're at, but also what we're doing. That means not only we're present, but we're embodied, we're not dissociated, we're not worrying about what's coming next in the future, we're not worrying about what happened yesterday, but just fully in the moment, engaged, in flow, so to speak, not unlike Mikhail Chik sent me high.

studied so many years ago and brought into the psychological social sciences. The idea is that we are there and present and embody doing what we're doing moment to moment. Now that's a very Zen thing and it sounds almost cliche now because people have become so familiar with term flow but also embodiment and being present and also the idea of being in quotes mindful and these are all terms that we've come to use to learn how to

armando (02:49.087)
actually enhance our experience, our experience of living. Also to enhance our experience, our experience of performing, whether it be sport, martial art in my case, and also things like business and just relationships get along with each other. So we developed these tools to smooth out the edges of what we would call our social interactions. And these tools help us get along better, help us maintain our center and not get knocked off of our saddle, so to speak.

If you're in West Texas, you understand what that saddle is and it's not always what you're riding with on a horse, but also what you do as far as your everyday walk or ride, so to speak, that we do in our lives whenever we're dealing with the consistencies and consistencies and the phenomena of our life that we call it relationships or interactions with people or even cattle for that matter. So why is memento mori so important as far as an idea?

And this is a rhetorical question. I want you to ask yourself this. It's not a morbid thing. Death in the West is looked upon as something separate from the way we live our lives, and it's the end of life. If you are a believer in an afterlife, and there are many, it's not a denominational thing, that would indicate that it's a marker, and a marker into the next life, or into the next step of existence, so to speak.

Those of you that are following the quantum ideals that are coming out now relative to consciousness know that energy cannot be destroyed, transformed, yes, but it's gonna be along those lines that we use that template to make sense of what we call our spiritual expectations whenever we leave this mortal coil, so to speak. Now, what happens if you're an atheist or a theist?

with limitations within a certain religion. Well, you have these ideas, these ideals of acting and living according to those, not unlike those that would be more religious along the lines of something different than what you might believe in. Also, maybe something more spiritual where it's more the direct experience and I'm going to seek that versus have somebody show me some words that were written by men and otherwise dictated from a spiritual influence of some sort.

armando (05:05.575)
and saying that this is the way. So what I'm pointing at is the fact that, you know, death is one of the things that we keep in mind whenever we worry about our own mortality. Uh-oh, I'm threatened, I'm in danger. But whenever we keep that at a distance, we lose something. We lose something of what we call a sense of urgency, a sense of being embodied, because we have this idea.

this expectation that we have more time. And time in the temporal linear sense from point A to point B from yesterday to today to tomorrow does elapse and is measurable to the degree that we agree that it is measured in that sense. But what are we actually measuring? Those are just markers. They're little flags that tell us that these are reminders of what I have done. And these are the flags I'm placing forward in my own mind. Subjectively can't really move them forward in that sense.

not in the physical sense of that, tell us where we're going to be once we reach these markers. And we have a degree or sense of movement or motion through that time. And time is very much close to, and probably the closest kin to what we call death. And if we look at the archetypes, the images of death Kronos, time, time basically is what it is that wins in all races, no matter what.

And whenever we're living a life, it is Cromus, also known as Father Time, also known as Death in some cultures, is the one that comes for us when our time is up, so to speak. So in the conceptual sense, dangling is little timepiece. whenever we look at it running out of sand, so to speak, then it relates to how our life will end in that idea, in that metaphor.

for living and the end of life. So what does memento mori mean to me as a constant companion? Being in the martial arts has taught me that moment to moment, whenever you're under duress and somebody's pressing you, and if you make a mistake, you get hurt. And if it weren't a real life, it could not only injury, but it could cost you your life. Then you deal with things in a much more serious sense. It doesn't mean you're getting angry. It doesn't mean you get all emotional, but you certainly

armando (07:32.087)
very most likely are paying attention and you're attentive to everything that's going on in that moment. So it's a focusing thing. It helps. Not focusing on the knife, not focusing on the stick. Well, you might be able to duck the knife and the stick, but on the way back, if you're not focusing, well, you might get hurt. And in life, generally, we understand that there is pain. We can't avoid pain. Pain will occur in our life, whether it be mental, whether it be emotional, whether it be physical.

We can't avoid those things. In a life, we will hurt. But suffering is one of the things that the Buddhists say can be avoided. So here's the question. How can I avoid suffering? Well, whenever we get attached to an outcome, there's our little aspect of ego that's involved. And once again, our idea of self, our self-image, all of that, is something that we work with within the social realm. And it is a concept, it's subjective, it's merely a thought process that I embody and a belief that I've come to.

believe as a result of thinking that this thing that I have created called me, myself, and I, and in this case Armando, is somehow real. Now those are the things that we tend to agree and play in with in this consensus reality, this experience that we call our day-to-day lives, but do we have to suffer? And the Buddhist say no. And fact of the matter is...

If we're attached to an outcome, attached to this self, this idea, this is also a term or concept that's called self grasping, trying to hold on to the self or solidify or protect the self. And as an example, when people get insulted, what is it that's getting insulted? If somebody says something, just mere words, not physical insult by injury or somebody threatening your being, but rather somebody saying things that might be calling of names or calling someone out and saying,

that you're this, you're that, or whatever. Why do we get so offended? What is it that we're protecting? And I might add that what we're protecting is our social value, our social market value, not just in the dating sense that people throw this term around, but our social market value, sense of when somebody interacts with me that they know that they're able to gain something. They get something of benefit by interacting with me. So, suffering and self-grasp.

armando (09:56.623)
are very closely tied. Self grasping also the term attachment. When we become attached not only to things, relationships, items, my car, and even how I look. I look really good because I work really hard. And whenever those things get derailed, we take offense sometimes, we get hurt. And sometimes we even mourn a loss if we've had an injury that keeps us from working out. Whereas before I was in

phenomenal shape and doing marathons and now I can barely hobble with a walker then that shapes up a person's identity who I thought it was and my self-image is now shattered not unlike a mirror or a glass which the metaphor for knowing the self in meditators terms in Zen in particular and that's a non-religious religious faction but rather a practice so we can get the clarity and touch the divine is a mirror

So what does the mirror provide to us? If we were to look at it, the reflection is light bending, and in a sense, you know, that was me a moment ago, if we look at it from the temporal light traveling to the eye and be an interpretive sense. So that is an old image of me, a solidified, gelled image of sorts, in a way that I can come to believe is me. Or at least I've been told that, who I see in the mirror is me.

And that goes back to old learns and teachings whenever we were very small and still couldn't identify ourselves in the mirror. Didn't know who I was or who me was other than the fact that I was experiencing and embodying my moment to moment by virtue of my perception. So what does this have to do with death and keeping that close? Well, it helps us appreciate and have gratitude for those things that I'm doing, recognizing that time is promised to nobody.

And just as easily as we can wake up 10 minutes after taking a nap, we may as well recognize that if we're lucky, we'll wake up. But what if we don't? The possibilities there. And it's not a morbid thing, but one of appreciation and being able to live life to the fullest. So being more aware is one of the skills that arises from this. But also being more gracious towards people and things and having gratitude for those things that you have.

armando (12:22.189)
life and being willing to love in a sense with abandon and not holding back knowing that at some point yeah people are gonna hurt us but it doesn't mean I should live a life without that because there is always risk involved with those things that are important to us even if it's not necessarily a romantic relationship but just loving a thing loving what you do whenever you do things and I was discussing this with a friend an old friend died yesterday during training

And we're both a little older now than whenever I've met him. It's been about 30 years since I've seen him. So the reacquaintance was rather pleasant, but just discussing the differences in our bodies and how we slow down, but yet still alive and kicking and doing things and how things have to be modified to continue doing those things that we have interest and curiosity and love for, so to speak, in this case, athleticism. But just some ideas to think about. Things will change, but it doesn't mean you don't have to.

do them anymore because you can't do them anymore rather it sometimes means we have to adjust how we engage and how we mind ourself in the process allows us to get more out of it maybe I'm coaching more versus practicing competing more this sort of thing still giving to the art so to speak still given to the arts and to those skills by teaching people to learn how to do those things taking your wisdom and let them live within them so immortality the other end of

Mort la morto la muerte in Spanish is by leaving things legacy Protecting a legacy by allowing it to be imbued and seeded in those that come after sharing your knowledge So by the time they get to something let's say a skill level man Let's say they get to a dinner 15 years earlier than what you did then you have elevated not only the skill level But the pool of knowledge and you saved it from death because by reason of your experience

you have passed it, you have given it, and you also allowed it a fertile bed with which to grow and flower so it can continue to grow and flower and evolve. And those are important things. Not everyone has all knowledge, but there are people that have variations in perspectives, different lenses, based on how they interact and relate to a set of knowledge. And I say set because there are sometimes groups and bits of information that go together.

armando (14:46.445)
that some people find very useful and then others find that well that's really helpful but I don't know how to use this in a conscious way such as the use of verbal vision for combat versus just for sport and some have an idea but don't know how to manage it and also some relative things that go with it such as being able to intentionally distort time perception and I am saying perception in particular versus actual time travel but the reason I'm mentioning it is that there's so many things that are within that.

but depending on how you relate to it and who you learn from, you may gain some new things and you may speed the learning curve. You may flatten that learning curve to something really small so that someone can get to a higher level and however they come to that knowledge, if they come with gifts and understandings that you don't have, then the art will evolve, the methods will evolve and get better. But yet these are things that will help you in an immortal sense continue.

as part of that information. And even if it's an experience, maybe it's even sharing a little time in a joke and maybe just going over and visiting somebody and sharing a newspaper and talking about day-to-day things. And that's part of the legacy that you leave behind. Because at some point we leave this body behind. We all do. And as much as I'd like to say, hey, I'm going live forever, if you figure out immortality, hey, you know what the email is. Send me a message. Let me know. I'd be really interested. I'd like to check that out.

But in all seriousness, what I'd like to tell you is that whenever we have loss, we have attachment. And that attachment has to do with injury to self, immoral injury. It could be emotional injury, mental injury. It doesn't always have to be physical. Because when loss occurs, often the attachment and the expectation that all those good feelings continue, they make us feel bad. Because we want it to continue. And we realize that it has gone, or it's going to go, or we'll...

no longer be for this world so to speak. So at this point of this discussion what I want to tell you is that I'd like to encourage you to pay attention to those things that you've lost and ask yourself this question and this is something that sometimes therapists help out with and I am a licensed counselor therapist but you don't have to have a therapist there to help you do it but if you're mindful and aware of it allowing yourself to grieve, fully grieve a loss, that's an important thing.

armando (17:13.138)
And sometimes we're so in a hurry to fill that vacuum or that space that occurs. People say that nature of F4 is a vacuum and I would say that that kind of is a belief that we take on into our relationship whenever you've been in a loving romantic relationship or have lost a partner, this sort of thing. Time needs to pass, one, so you can heal yourself and fix those things if there were things that were unhealthy behaviors, but...

Time needs to pass so you can come to terms with all of those things because part of you and what you invested in that relationship also passed, not just the relationship. And it leaves a void or a vacuum where we so quickly feel uncomfortable sometimes that we don't want to look at what's going on inside me and realize that their survival instincts and those feelings of loss and being not only alone but lonely and physical loneliness is a very uncomfortable space. I've had that experience, not a fun place to be.

but it certainly has given me an opportunity to have compassion and to help teach skills so it will mitigate some of the discomfort not only from kiddos but for adults going through divorce for instance and helping them realize that we can very quickly go off the deep end and start creating more problems such as being abusive and neglectful of our loved ones or even ourself for that matter, our health. So whenever we consider grieving, understand that the stages of grief and loss and

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross came up with that list during the time she was at Esalen Institute, late 60s, early 70s, and it was a hippie-dippie place, supposedly, but what came out of that in the 1980s became prolific in that it hit the therapy circles and also the common rush to the bookstore for self-help and learning about how I grieve, because sometimes it's a very personal thing. Grief and loss.

looks different person to person. can be in the same family, but we all feel different. It's rather unique. Now there's some commonalities and those five stages of grief or anger. Also denial, depressed, that sort of thing. And then making deals, trying to get somebody to make a deal with you, basically. Not really begging, but it kind of resembles that.

armando (19:32.51)
And you can look those up. don't have them at the top of my head, even though I teach them every week. But the idea is that those stages of grief aren't things that are linear. Then finally you get to the point of acceptance. start at denial and anger and that sort of thing. But whenever we get to the point of acceptance, don't think that you'll never revisit or never come back to having anger about it. Because there will be some days that you'll think about it. And there are some things that, no matter how well resolved it is, there are always

these feelings that pop up because the memory, mind you, if you go back into the earlier episodes of this podcast, are largely visual. Sometimes we have a visceral experience or remember feeling that we start having event memories and having the recollection of that mental movie. And we get upset, or we cry, or we hurt, or we get angry, and we have resentment and those things pop back up. It doesn't mean you're experiencing it again. You're not reliving it. But your body at the physical level can't tell the difference.

So it prepares by allowing you to run through the gamut of those emotions and preparation and protection of a said event, even though it's a memory of said event versus it's happening. So some things to pay attention to. Once again, a self-regulation. Whenever it's due to stress in our life, in our jobs, if we apply self-regulation to loss of things, generally, we have to understand that we have to grieve loss and treat it like a loss, a death sometimes.

whenever you have the close of a career, whenever you can no longer compete, or whenever you retire, when you change identity, in the sense that you are no longer an athlete because you've been injured. You're now no longer a young person, now you're an elder because of this and that. And we have to come to terms with those. And sometimes we do this gradually, step at a time as the changes come. And sometimes there are massive changes that occur that get thrust upon us in a way that we have no choice but to either deal with it.

we're going to maladapt and dysfunction and sometimes we start reaching for substances or behavior that on a healthier good for us So why did I want to talk about this going into the holiday? Well, I have a couple of reasons one of the main reasons is that often holidays are filled with people that are wanting to Recover good feelings or they've had bad experiences around the holidays because of dysfunction in families because of abuse of misinfatuation because of being left behind and

armando (21:57.912)
being abandoned and those are some huge things and they definitely affect people and often we see an increase in the use of substances alcohol in particularly in the United States is legal so therefore we see a lot of use of that in the social sense and it's no longer the social lubricant but the social medicate because it hurts and I'm trying to numb the pain. We also see an increase in people going to the mental hospitals as a result of using drugs and they get depressed and most people

don't know that alcohol is a depressant, even if they're using other substances that are stimulants, still causes depression in the person, or if you just use an alcohol, it exacerbates things in a very hyperbolic sense, in the sense that it's so exaggerated and extreme that they become absolutes and we tend to trust what we're experiencing as a belief and we respond or body responds. Remember, it can't tell the difference what we're remembering, if it's happening again or not.

and not unlike PTSD. The post-traumatic stress reactivity, even if it's not at the disorder level, is still enough to get the body to respond and react in a very intense fashion to where we start believing that there's nothing else. And we remember whenever our heart rate goes up and if we're under five-flag level stress, heart rate goes up, blood flow goes to the body and gets stronger. That means our perceptual sensations are probably increasing as well. But also our ability to cognitively do

the dance of reason and deduction, it goes down the tubes. If we drop about 10 to 14 % IQ with an average stress, what happens when it's an extreme stress or a terror or a pain because I've been injured or I've been under threat and I thought it was going to die? We drop up to 30%. That's about 30 IQ points. And that's wild. When we start thinking about average IQs about 100 to 105, now we're dealing with a 75 or an 80. And our reasoning capacity,

has dropped down immensely. We're physically stronger, but we're also perceptually oriented and things tend to be interpreted as no longer friend or foe, but more so foe or potential threat. So things become rather ugly. We look at things through a very darkened lens and whenever we see through that lens darkly, darkly not because the lens is dark, it's because we become dark. We become negative. We become much more apt to be

armando (24:26.552)
irritating and irritated. So how can I use the principle of memento mori, keeping la muerte close, that does not have to be a morbid nor dismal thing? How can it help me be more self-regulatory whenever things are difficult? How can I control those things that can get out of control? Because often we can get stuck in the memories and often just wallow and stay in this perpetual loop of pain.

So here's the thing, so whenever things are difficult, or whenever they're particularly special and beautiful, if we know that these things are temporary, it puts things in context. And when we look at the fact that sometimes things feel like, man, I wish there would just be over. I could just go to sleep and not wake up. The wonderful sense of that perpetual rest in our minds, in a way, the concept of it, is somehow a respite to the discomfort. Or maybe understanding that this

wonderful thing that's going on could be soon over so I want to be mindful and present. These are the reminders that keeping death close, memento mori, la morte, will give us perspective and appreciation and grace in those things that sometimes require more grace and sometimes we don't exhibit grace because we seem to assume that we'll do this again sometime or somehow that there's gonna be more time that we'll revisit that again.

And that may not be the case. What I'd like to add is something from a favorite author of mine. name is Stephen Barnes and he's since become a friend on Facebook. Wrote some of the science fiction books that got me into science fiction. I never used to be a science fiction writer, but he writes something today that is really fascinating. And this is where keeping death close is helpful. But what our goal is to enjoy more, to get more out of our lives. And those reminders help us to be more mindful.

and able to be embodied and present for whenever we're doing those things that we want to do to get us those quality things in our life in higher quantities. And he writes, all aligned to create a wonderful 2025 with commitment to create enough abundance to help at least three other people from your harvest, not your seed corn. Get body heart and mind all working in the same direction and success is guaranteed. How can I say that? Because success isn't reaching a destination. It is the pro.

armando (26:52.056)
of a worthy goal. And the worthiest goal is to escape suffering, embrace joy, and be of service. And when you are in a flow state, you have escaped suffering. If you are in flow state, take an action that supports your ultimate dream. You are making genuine progress. So if you deliberately learn how to be happy, emotion is created by attention, focus, the way you use your body, and the language you use to represent your experience.

You then have success everyone really wants, progressively escaping pain, gaining pleasure, and building abundance however you define that. Now that to me is amazing and these are the goals that we want for ourselves and by self-regulation we mitigate those things that are not only negatives but potentially threatening and damaging by avoiding those but also engaging in those things that you know give us that payoff, that sense of life, the life-given quality that we pursue every day.

Whether it be in relationship, the jobs that we do or the things that we participate in that are just really kind of fun. And with that, I want to close this discussion to say, hey, send in love out in all directions and be kind to each other during this holiday season. Be patient because a lot of people suffer with things that we don't know. And we honestly don't know the roles that we play in other people's lives. And this weekend I found out that I actually played a very positive role to somebody's life that 30 years later.

through my oldest son, somebody returned and said, hey, you had a positive impact on my life even way back then. And I'm grateful for that. And I'm very appreciative. And I'm glad I was here to harvest that gold, so to speak. So if you have any comments or questions or any kind of feedback you'd like to send me, please send it to the Gmail at runningmangetskills at Gmail, please.

I would love to hear from you and certainly I hope your holidays go well and if you're not celebrating holidays, I hope you're doing well anyway. And if you are ever on YouTube, please like, subscribe and share this podcast. You can also find this podcast at all platforms you can get your podcasts at. And we're moving forward and trying to elevate ourselves here at Running Man Podcast. I said we as in me, myself and Armando, and those are my imaginary selves, I think. And I treat them well.

armando (29:13.365)
Mind you, I don't treat them badly. But whatever you do, treat yourself well. Love yourself, extend that to others, and take care and walk well.