Confronting Death to Live a Fuller Life
Back in February, I took the stage for my first TEDxTalk. Although I eventually found my flow and finished with a standing ovation, I forgot a critical chunk of research in the beginning (despite hours of prep).
Turns out I had a metastatic brain tumor the size of a lemon in my frontal lobe at the time. (No I’m not kidding, and yes, I’m hopefully ok now after emergency brain surgery and radiation.)
Now I’m finally going to say what I planned on sharing that night — with no lemon to interfere this time!
Note: Some have found it slightly creepy that I mention a brain tumor in my talk, having no idea that I was actually living with one at that very moment.
TEDxGCU | Feb 21, 2020
Life is full of uncertainties, but there is one thing we know for sure. One thing that’s absolutely going to happen. One truth all of humankind actually agrees on.
That one truth? We’re all going to die.
Death is the only absolute in this life, and yet — we don’t talk about it. In fact, we avoid the whole topic altogether.
I get it. Thinking about death can be really scary.
Imagine tomorrow you’re at your doctor’s office. She says, “I’ve got some tough news. We got your test results back. You know those headaches you’ve been complaining about? I’m so sorry but unfortunately, it’s a brain tumor, and there’s nothing much we can do. We expect you have a month, maybe two to live. Again, I’m so sorry.”
Instantly, everything in your life changes. That work thing you stressed about? The last argument you had with your spouse? Those 10 lbs you wanted to lose? None of it matters now. The retirement savings you’ve squirreling away? You won’t live long enough to spend it, and you can’t take it with you. Your hopes, your dreams for the future, all fade away because you won’t be here. You’ll be dead. Gone. Forever.
How do you feel when I talk like this? Scared? Sad? Or do you not feel anything at all — because it doesn’t actually feel real. If something inside you has trouble ”going there” when it comes to death, you’re not crazy.
In 1974, anthropologist Earnest Becker wrote a Pulitzer prize winning book called The Denial of Death, which became the foundation of Terror Management Theory.
Terror Management Theory explains what happens to us inside when think about our death. One one side, as humans, we’re built to survive at all costs. We want to believe we’re invincible, immortal. But then, we have to reconcile that with the reality that our death is inevitable. We can’t outrun it and we can’t predict when or where it’s going to happen.
This reality triggers deep, existential terror and paralyzing fear. It’s called “Death Anxiety” and there’s a ton of research on it. Our systems essentially short circuit, so we just choose to avoid thinking about death altogether.
Some of us didn’t have the luxury of avoiding it, though. We didn’t have a choice. Death…found us.
In September 2018, I was 38, seemingly healthy, super active and fit. Didn’t drink, smoke or do drugs. Minus all the Diet Coke, friends said I was one of the healthiest people they knew. Until I found a lump on my breast.
It was cancer. Triple Negative breast cancer — the most aggressive type, with the least available treatment options. And we didn’t catch it early. I was diagnosed Stage 4 Locally Advanced / Non-Metastatic. That means the cancer had spread, but not to my vital organs. So it was bad, but not incurable. If treatment didn’t work, though, we’d be out of luck as my cancer would be terminal. Then it would just be about prolonging my life as long as possible.
In those early days, my brain would fixate on the questions: What if chemo doesn’t work? What if I’m in treatment and sick for the rest of my life and then I die? Will I even be alive in a year?
So I started doing what any normal person would do — I started Googling. A word of advice: This is a TERRIBLE idea. Zero stars. Would not recommend it.
Why? Here’s me.
I’m on some woman’s Instagram — we’ll call her Susan. She’s got the same kind of cancer as me. I see pics of her going through treatment. Then, celebrating remission. This makes me smile. But then less than a year later, she announces the cancer came back. I scroll hurriedly to the top for the most recent post to see how she’s doing now. It’s written not by Susan but by her son who shares the news that sadly, his mom lost her fight with the disease and died.
In this moment, I am devastated. Tears roll down my cheeks but I’m trying not to make any noise as my partner sleeps soundly beside me in bed. I am sad, scared, and feel so alone in these late night hours. They are some of the worst memories I carry from those early months.
In the light of day, I’d try and write down my fears but I’d always start crying and stop. Talking to my partner or my family about my very valid concerns about dying seemed impossible. It was too scary, too painful — and I didn’t want to cause the people I loved any more pain.
But it turns out, there were a few friends, and my therapist, who were able to sit with me in that emotional space and let me talk about death, dying, and everything in between. And despite my fears, I didn’t end up a puddle on the floor, unable to get up again. Quite the opposite. I started to feel better :) Turns out, facing the reality of my possible early death actually took the power out of it.
So then it was like: Well, now what? I’m your classic Type A. I’m intense. I’m “extra.” I am the girl who went to Staples the day before starting chemo to stock up on office supplies to prepare for cancer treatment. Dry erase calendar for dr appointments and test results. Daily journal to document food, meds, and side effects. Google doc to provide daily updates to my inner circle, because running separate text strings seemed inefficient.
But I didn’t build a flow chart for this. I didn’t write down goals and objectives, or pen some grand manifesto, or write a will. I didn’t have to. Because this wasn’t about processing the idea of death up here, in my head, thinking my way through it. It was about feeling it in here, in my heart.
What did I feel? Terror. Paralyzing Fear. Panic. Like the floor just dropped out from under me. I felt all of that, as expected. What was unexpected was what I experienced on the other side of my own death anxiety.
Clarity & Perspective
In an instant, I gained this superpower. It’s crystal clear now what matters to me in my life. There’s no questions, no grey area. Looks, money, career — none of it holds the weight it once did. Now, there’s only one thing that matters: my health. I just want to beat this cancer and live until I’m old and wrinkly and all I do is eat pudding and play bingo.
In a world where we lie about our age, hide our grey hair, and cover up our wrinkles, all I’m asking for is the privilege of growing old. Beyond that, everything else is gravy.
Urgency
I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing that lights a fire under me more than a countdown clock. When we’re acutely aware of the fact that our time is inevitably running out, we’re driven to accomplish more. On some days, this kind of hyperawareness leaves me feeling anxious and scattered, like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland scurrying around showing everyone my pocket watch screeching I’M LATE! I’M LATE!
On better days though, this urgency helps me focus more, and procrastinate less. It reminds me to spend my energy doing the things that bring me joy, happiness and fulfillment.
Giving vs Getting
Ever wonder why your 95 year old grandma is obsessed with giving you her good china? It’s called “Mortality Legacy Awareness” — the driving need to leave something behind after we’re gone — and it intensifies the closer we get to death. But it’s not just about grandma’s favorite gravy boat; it’s about making a mark. Leaving the world a bit richer than you found it. Thinking less about what you can get and more about what you can give.
My Legacy? If I can compel just one person in this room today to approach their life differently so they end up on their deathbed without regrets — that’s my legacy. And I think it beats a gravy boat.
Gratitude
Jesus may have turned water into wine — which is impressive — but gratitude turns everything we have into enough. For someone like me who’s built to never settle, always push for better, for more, realizing I have everything I could ever want, feels like such a…relief.
Today, I have so much more than enough. After 15 months, I’m finally finished treatment, and there’s a good chance I’m going to beat this thing. My hair is coming back! It’s not the long straight hair I used to have, and I am fighting a mullet most days, but i’ll take it.Same thing goes for eyebrows. You know you’ve been through something real if you’re grateful for eyebrows.
One of the hardest things for me to deal with during treatment was the loss of my independence, feeling like I was cooped up and isolated from the world. Now I’m free as a bird again — free to go work, to be in crowded public places without obsessively wiping everything with Purel, free to travel and fly on a plane without wearing a mask. [more foreshadowing here…]
It’s an incredible feeling to have been so restricted because your life depends on it — to have the cage open and all of a sudden, you can flap your wings again. You’re free.
You can start experiencing life like this. with vibrant color, steeped in gratitude. And you can start right now.
1. Invite Death to Dinner: Don’t avoid the topic — face it head on.
I was reminded when I saw the movie about Mr. Rogers that he wasn’t afraid to talk about death — even with young kids. He said: “To die is human and anything human is mentionable. Anything mentionable is manageable. When we talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”
Tonight, on your drive home, talk about this topic with whomever you came with. Have the courage to be vulnerable and share what you felt when I was having you think about your own death. Give your fear a voice and you will take the power out of it.
2. Let Gratitude Be Your Guide: Focus on the blessings in your life
Remember, the magic of gratitude is that it turns everything you have into enough. Tonight, before you turn the light off, write down five things you’re grateful for. They can be big things — my health, family, faith — but little things work, too! I can wear flip flops all year round bc I live in Arizona! I found $5 in my jeans this morning — score!
When you’re in the weeds of gratitude you’ll be surprised what you notice. And the more you focus on gratitude, the more it will grow.
3. Do All The Things: Seek out rich experiences that light you up
You can see here what lights me up — outdoors, sports, travel, adventure. Maybe for you it’s spending time with your kids, or your dogs. Jamming out with your band. Gardening. Whatever! So start a Life List. Now, this is not a bucket list of things to do before you die (although you can include them here) but big things and little things that bring you joy.
I started my list when I was 15. On it: Learn to surf, Go on an African Safari, Give a deserving restaurant server a $100 tip. (Happy to say I checked them all off in 2019!). Tonight, maybe even in between speakers, I challenge every single one of you in this room to pull out your phone and instead of scrolling Instagram, start a Note. Title it: LIFE LIST. Put down at least one thing on that list before you go to sleep tonight. Tomorrow, start adding to it and make it a priority to start checking things off before your time runs out.
Sadly, a lot of us don’t take stock of our life until it’s too late.
The 5 most common regrets of people on their deathbed?
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work as much
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I take you back to that earlier scenario. If you found out tomorrow that your time was almost up, what regrets would you have? I’ve thought more about my own death In the last year and a half than I have in my entire 39 years combined. And I’m not saying every day is easy.
Anxiety still makes it hard to fall asleep. Fear jolts me up in the middle of the night. Stories of people’s cancer coming back, of it silently spreading through the body of some poor soul who’s living life with gusto thinking they’re cured, only to have it come back stronger than ever and kill them.
The fear can be paralyzing. But I’ve learned that it is by confronting death that I am able to truly live.
Becker (the guy who wrote The Denial of Death) said: “Guilt results from unused life, from the unlived in us.”
I don’t want to be in my final moments, realizing there was still a lot of life left in me. As Thoreau wrote, I want to suck out all the marrow of life. I want to lay my head down on the pillow at night without regrets, look back at the memories I created that day and go, “Man, I really did it,” then say a prayer that I’m lucky enough to get to wake up the following morning and do it all over again.
You don’t have to wait for a diagnosis, a brush with death, or rock bottom to approach life differently. USE THIS AS YOUR WAKE UP CALL INSTEAD. Don’t fall back into a state of blissful ignorance, telling yourself of course you’ll be around long to get old and eat pudding, or take up golf. Start today. Face death head on. Sit with it. Talk about it. Give the fear a voice. Treat every day as a gift. Watch how gratitude transforms your perspective. Find what lights you up and go make the most of your moments.
If you have the courage to work through your own death anxiety. I promise you will experience a life that is far richer and more meaningful than you ever thought possible.
Just don’t let your time run out.
Live — and love — like there’s no time to waste.
Watch the TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=122Rzx_A7WE
About Alison
Alison Hadden is a marketing executive, veteran speaker, cancer warrior and wellness advocate. A popular Keynote Speaker with 15 yrs of experience engaging business audiences on stages across the world, Alison is now excited to share what she believes is the most important information of all — how to live every day like there’s “no time to waste.”
For more, visit alisonhadden.com and follow @notimetowasteproject
