Tip # 1 by Neale Donald Walsch

Here is the first of 15 Tips from Neale Donald Walsch - Tip # 1: Death does not exist. Never fear death.

BEGIN NEALE'S ELABORATION:

So here is tip number one. Death does not exist. Never fear death. If someone had told me that a long, long time ago, I think it would have changed a lot of the ways that I go through life.
Now you may wonder, "How can that be possible?" I mean, how does our fear of death affect our daily life? But I can tell you that a fear of death, and the unknown that occurs beyond death - if there even is anything that occurs beyond death - drives the engine and forms the basis of much of the expression of life, and the experience of life that many people are now moving through in the day-to-day of their existence.
If someone had said to me when I was a child, "Death does not exist, it's simply a transformation, a shifting, a movement from one way of existing to another," I am certain that I would have had moments where I did not fear outcomes in the way I have feared them. Someone once said, it was Elizabeth Kubler-Ross actually, a wonderful teacher of mien in the earlier part of my life. And Dr. Ross - who I knew well and on whose staff I served for awhile - Dr. Ross used to say, "If you don't fear death, you don't fear life to the degree that you are afraid of dying, to that degree you are afraid of living full out."
Now living full out doesn't mean living at high risk. It doesn't mean throw caution aside but it does mean living full out. Going for it, letting yourself not be afraid of outcomes that would occur in your life. And it's amazing how much the fear of death will put the fear of small outcomes, smaller negative outcomes, in the space of your life. Since I gave up my fear of death, I've given up my fear of those smaller outcomes, the so-called little deaths, and that's the point that Elizabeth used to make - that a fear of death, the bigger death if you please, creates in use and imbues us, embodies us with a fear of the smaller, little deaths, and she used to define those little deaths as interesting.
The death of a relationshp is an obvious one. It's a big deal in people's lives, of course. The loss of a job, the loss of certain aspects of your ability to do things - like when you get older you can't do some things you could do when you were younger and so forth. The loss of health in a larger way, but even she would say even something as interesting as the loss of your glasses. You know, people walk around afraid they're going to lose stuff, or afraid of certain outcomes, whatever they might be in their life, and they're afraid of those outcomes to the point where they stop moving into their life in fullness in order to avoid a possible outcome where they might be in some way lose something and have a so-called little death.
So the loss of the fear of the big death allowed me to see that anything this side of that, that I would have once called a little death, is totally okay too. Let me say something else as well on this subject: I've lived a long time now. I'm not a young man anymore. I'm okay about that. I feel good about where I am in my life. And one of the best things that I like about where I am in my life is what my life has taught me, what it's brought me, what it's given me in terms of my awareness and my understanding of how the whole process works, and what's true about everything.
And one thing I can tell you is that these little deaths that I used to be afraid of, now when I just experience them, let them be what they are, move through them with equanimity and peace and a sense of okay-ness, it turns out that there is very seldom any major, horrible, long lasting outcome that I needed to be afraid of to begin with. Oh, certainly some things don't turn out as well as I would like. And certainly there are some inconveniences in life and some downfalls, if you please - some small disappointments - but nothing to make anything major about.
And that's one of the tips I'll share with you as well, I'll talk more about that in a little bit later in this list but, for now, let me just tell you that at my age, I've learned to not worry even about the disappointments and those things that didn't turn out exactly the way I thought they might. So tip number one to really make life a lot easier, a lot less complex - death does not exist and the small deaths are not important.

END NEALE'S ELABORATION

​I will follow up with a post about my own reflections and commentary about this tip. For now, please enjoy, discuss, comment, etc.