#emotion focus

Inside Out as a film does not have to deal with Death itself, but it does deal with emotions, and I’ve used this format to talk about analyzing and getting a better understanding of emotions, to get at the heart of the fear, and help come to terms with it. So, for that, I recommend Inside Out, as well as the fact it deals heavily with loss.

In fact, that’s the cause of all the trouble. 

Riley is an 11 year old girl, who’s had her life uprooted by a move. Nothing is going right. She embarrasses herself in school, the moving truck with all her things is late, she doesn’t do well on the first try-outs for the hockey team, and she’s losing her sense of happiness. She starts to think happiness can only be found in Minnesota, and so she attempts to go back there -- all because the emotion, Joy, won’t let her feel Sadness, and won’t let Sadness overtake the happy memories. 

This movie begins to show how memories, and emotions, can be multifaceted. What was once something happy, and only happy, suddenly becomes something sad. I have many positive memories of my paternal grandparents, but with both deceased, there is now a layer of sadness over that joy. 

That’s why I never want the discussion of the Death Anxiety to be solely based on Fear. It isn’t just fear. There are layers to this, and while we all may not share all the layers to the same degree, they do deserve to be explored and considered, to help us come to terms with the feeling as a whole. 

This is also why deconstructing, and figuring out what we’re feeling can be difficult. When I think of my grandmother, of course there is a warmth to the memories. She wanted to spend one last Christmas with us, but...well, situations didn’t allow for it. I got my last Christmas gift from her in the summer, after she’d passed. The Christmas decorations were kept up. She didn’t get to give it to me herself, because she wanted us all together, and that never happened. I did see her the day she passed -- I had that fortune. So now, thoughts of her are tinged with guilt, for not being able to get everyone together one last time, all at once. For not recognizing what that would mean. There’s sorrow, too, sorrow that comes up around Christmas, because after she passed, there’s never been a Christmas where we all were together and it felt, well, right. Yes, I’m atheist, but I enjoyed that the holiday brought us together. 

The feelings are mixed, and I can identify them, and accept them, and understand where they come from, and why. Perhaps the guilt is undeserved, but emotions aren’t always logical, and sometimes we have to accept that, too, and move ahead anyways. I can take the guilt, and the hindsight, into the future to do better at making time for special events in people’s lives. It’s a hard lesson, but a lesson nonetheless.

Inside Out helps to explore emotions, and how they get complicated as our understanding of the world develops. It also helps to explain why each emotion is USEFUL, from fear, to anger, to disgust, and of course, joy, and sadness. It shows the console change to be more complex, too, and gives interesting explanations for REM sleep, how memories are remembered and forgotten, and “core” memories. 

The Youtube video I’ve linked is also what I watched some months back, prior to watching Inside Out for the first time. The movie was on my radar, but not yet ‘on’ it. The youtube video helps to break down some more of what the film tries to do. 

This is the Feelings Wheel. 

In sum, it helps to identify emotions. It’s of course, useful with children, but it may also be useful for many of you. You may have already been exposed to it, but if not, it works like this:

First, you identify the strongest, core emotion (understanding that they can be mixed). Many of us would say “Fear” for Death Anxiety. From there, we can go further. Is it fear based on being scared, anxious, insecure, weak, rejected, or threatened? 

For many of us, it’s probably a mix of these things. Just going along “scared” shows us Helpless, which is so close to the truth, isn’t it? Death is an impending thing that makes us feel Helpless, because we can’t figure out what to do about it! There’s no stopping it, so what could possibly help?

Well, that’s what we’re working on here. 

Creating tools, and identifying things that may help. 

On the Anger chart, I find it usually goes Anger-Frustrated-Infuriated! It’s so infuriating that there is nothing that I can do to stop death! 

Using this chart, may help you better specify the emotions you feel relating to the death anxiety, and from there, you can look at what to do about that emotion. Identifying it, is always the first step. We can’t do anything if we don’t know the source of the problem!

There are other ways to do this, too. I’m not the best at colored charts like this, because it’s often a bit too simple -- I can acknowledge multiple feelings at once. If that’s the case with you, you may want to try the process of talking (or thinking, or writing) out your feelings, and where they stem from, so you can identify them, their root causes, and determine what you can do from that perspective. 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/art-and-science/201801/identifying-your-feelings

Psychology Today discusses a bit more about identifying the emotions, and questions you can ask to figure them out, as well as practices you can begin to use to remain aware of these emotions. 

https://www.healthline.com/health/list-of-emotions

Finally, one last setting that helps to break down the emotions even further, so you can have a better idea of how they feel, when you’re just not sure.

The first, then, let’s have another emotion focus: let’s talk about Love.

Platonic, Familial, and Romantic all have their place in our life. Even love of things, and love of animals, has a place here. I’m not sure what “love of Star Wars” could be considered, but I’m here to say that loving things is valid, even if people will say otherwise and that we replace people with things.

First, and foremost, I try to go into the world with the mindset that I love, care for, and want to help, everyone I meet. Do I always succeed at this? Absolutely not. I can be petty and spiteful, and I can get frustrated and angry. I have cut people out of my life and the best I wish them is Hope.

Nonetheless, I try to go into that for the strangers I’m going to encounter on my day to day, because they have done nothing to earn my ire on a personal level. Most of them who do irk me, are probably having a bad day themselves – I work in customer service, so I see plenty of bad days, and I’ve heard enough people crying (for good and bad reasons) on the phone.

Why is Love something worth talking about in relation to Death Anxiety?

Love, and those things we love, are often contributing factors to our fear.

We fear losing the people and things we love.

We fear losing ourselves, and I assume at least most of you love yourself!

Identifying these things that we love, are important, of course, but how does love feel when it isn’t inhibited by the fear of loss?

The purest form of love I can think of, that’s not complicated, is the love I have for animals. It’s warm, it’s wholesome, it’s filling. I smile. I want to reach out and touch the animals near me. I want to just sit and observe them. It’s pleasant. And there’s no real expectations.

A bit unlike the love of a friend, where there’s some expectation that they’re going to contribute more than sitting around and looking cute. They’re going to be there for you, whether it’s a slap you need, or a hug. They’re going to help you through problems, by listening or offering advice. They’re going to be there to talk about the nothings, and to talk about the Everythings. They’re also going to get angry and shun you for a bit, or let you know they need some space. It’s a more delicate balance that requires some work on both sides.

Romantic Love is often something of an upgraded Friend. For many people, it’s your Best Friend, and the friend you also, well, make love to (not a requirement, asexual people can have romantic love without sex, just a generalization). It’s someone who you may require more from than your other friends, but not always. Usually, there is so much more involvement of working towards a shared future, whereas friends will go their own ways, and you’ll meet up where and how you can. Romantic love, you begin to grow your lives together – you are one tree. Yes, you branch out in opposite directions, but you share the same trunk.

So for Death Anxiety, identifying these things of love, can help us focus on what we want to keep in our life. What we want to keep meeting up with. Who we want to grow with. And even how we want to grow and branch out – the “things we love” part of love, our love of fandoms, our love of our career, our love of hobbies – the things that add to our lives.

Consider what it is you love. Who you love. How you love, and how those around you love. I won’t get into love languages, but learning how friends and lovers, love, is important to show them how you care, and not just forcing your love language on them.

We adapt for those things we love. We learn about those things we love. This includes the people we love.

Outside of the anxiety, there is Anger. That’s the one I’d like to discuss first, and we’ll explore others, hopefully finding a way to remind you that happiness is, also, a part of this. 

Anger comes from questions and thoughts like these: “It isn’t fair!”, “If I die at this point, I won’t get to experience these things!”, “Why does this person get to live this long and I might not?”, “Why does it have to be like this?”, “But I never accomplished this!”, and on and on.

It usually stems from a sense of things being “unfair”, with life being too short, other people being granted more of life, missed experiences, or things left unaccomplished. Death concludes all stories. 

Focusing on the anger, and the cause of it, does have its benefits. It highlights: who you may not like, who you feel in competition with, what you want to accomplish, what you cannot accomplish, and things of that nature.

With the people you may not like, or may feel in competition with (”Why do they get to live longer?”, “Why aren’t they experiencing similar pain?”), you can learn to better focus your thoughts away from them, and remember that you are doing different things in life, and you should not allow their path to determine yours too much, if it is bogged down in anger and resentment.

It also gives you opportunity to explore why it is you hate them so much. In the case of personal wrongs, that may be obvious, but in the case of distant hatred, like of politicians, it can help to solidify what you like and value, and help you to create a social group of people who share such values. It will help you learn what people you want in your life. 

Now, a friendly rivalry is something else, and not to be confused with this. Friendly rivalries can be mutually beneficial.

Competition born of anger and resentment is another matter entirely. For example, one can think of Xena and Callisto from that old TV Show, Xena. Callisto reviled Xena, she spent her entire life trying to be better than Xena, and it led to her death (and subsequent revival as a goddess, but we’re not here for that). Her anger never let her grow into having a life where she could be happy and fulfilled. 

Anger born of the thought of life being unfair, of missed opportunities, is a way to begin to make plans to accomplish what you can, and give up what you can’t. I know the latter is hard. Letting go of dreams, is hard. I would love to live for 500 years, and see how VR video games advance, I would love to see what stories we have in the future, but I can’t. It’s unfair. It’s so terribly unfair -- even if, of course, it’s exactly what is normal, and in no way unfair. 

It feels unfair, because I am special, and I deserve to see these things, to know these things, and experience these things, damnit! 

It would be unfair if I were to die in 10 years, at the age of 40 -- when I should have at least been allowed to grow to 70, to 80, to 90 -- to ages humans typically live to. 

There will never be a time it is “fair” to perish. 

Acknowledging it, though, has led to good changes. It means I have finite time to do things like get in shape for cosplays (and health), visit Disney, and much else. It also makes it clear that I will, unlikely, live long enough to travel the entire world and see EVERYTHING I would like to, so I have to instead plan accordingly to what I can accomplish, and prioritize them. 

Sorrow comes from questions like, how will my family move on? How will my loved ones cope? What experiences am I losing if I die at this time? What joys did I want to know before my death? They are questions that tend to focus on loved ones, moving on, and experiences. It’s similar to anger, but it usually ends up framed differently, in a way that causes more reflection and sorrow, rather than vindictive anger at how unfair it is.

It stems from the loss – the loss your loved ones will feel, the experiences you will personally miss out on, and what you wanted to know in your life. It allows a similar focus to anger, but I believe also shows you which people you’re most concerned about outliving you.

Knowing this, you can better write your will and consider your beneficiaries. You can determine who you want to work on making happy, and who you want to grow alongside you, because you want to have the most experiences with them. You want to leave them with as many positive memories of you, so that when you’re gone, they have that to reflect on.

Perhaps you even want them to have goals because of you, or carry on a legacy. Obviously, that can’t be forced onto someone, but often times in growing with someone, we develop goals that work around them, too. Though I’ve always wanted to go to Japan, it was never a priority until my brother began to work there. Now, it’s on the priority list, because I want to see the world he’s seen, and I want to be a part of it.

My mother watches shows like Cobra Kai she wouldn’t ordinarily watch, so she knows what her children are talking about. She finds ways to show she cares about us, by finding ways to engage with us.

You find ways to engage with people, to help mitigate the sense of loss, to help lessen that feeling of “I wish I had known them better”, and leave your memory with them. Much of our sense of loss, relating to sorrow, relates to the people we lose, and what we leave behind, so work on reaching out and making more of those memories. Find the people who want to share the experiences with you.

Make your connections.

Yes, it will make more people sad when you pass – but they’ll have so much to fall back on, too. And, you will have experienced so much in your life, too – not only from shared experiences, but eye-opening conversations, and the small things, like video games together, talking about shows enjoyed, or grabbing a bite to eat.

Even those who contemplate suicide, may end up talking themselves out of it because of feelings of guilt tied to their demise; I speak from experience as well as from knowing a few suicidal people. What inspires guilt?

Usually, it’s the people left behind.

“If I die, how would my loved ones feel?”, “If I die, I am leaving a bad financial situation behind.”, “If I die, my children/spouse/parents will never have closure on this thing.”

Guilt is so often tied to things left unsaid, or left undone, but unlike the fear of missing out, it’s more about the people left behind, in those situations. They are the ones missing out on something, whether it’s an incomplete project, a bad financial situation, words left unsaid, or trips left untaken, it’s no longer “all about you”, it’s about them.

Guilt can be resolved in a few ways, of course. Not all may be accessible, we do not all have the luxury to have funds to take out life insurance, but if you do, that is one way to help make things easier for those you will be leaving behind. You can also already have a plan in place for what you’d like done, after passing, so your loved ones don’t have to worry about that. Be sure to include any pets in your plans – either that they are returned to where you got them, or that you have found someone who will take care of them after your passing. So often they are forgotten in all this upheaval.

I know that should I pass, my dad will continue to care for my cats – though he may end up renaming them “Pitter Pat” and “Purrito Grande”, which is what he calls them already. I know if he passes, I will take care of his dogs, Alice and Snickers. I know I will have to do better by them; dogs are a bit foreign to me, but I know the basics, and have a fenced yard.

Other ways that aren’t tied to finances, necessarily, are of course clearing the air with people. Telling people how you really feel, and what you really want out of your relationship with them. Still on my dad, we are very different people. I try to find the spaces where we connect, but sometimes that’s hard. He really likes just sitting on the porch and listening to music, and I honestly find that boring as hell. Of course, I will still do that, now and then, but I’d rather watch a show together, or go somewhere together.

We do that, now and then, too. We’ve been watching WKRP in Cincinnati, and we’ll be taking a trip soon to the “Garden of Eden” in Kansas. He’s not one for conventions, and he’s probably never going to watch Star Wars. He is going to help build the library, though, and projects are definitely a thing with him that we can work on together, so we find ways.

Finding ways to be there, and be present, with loved ones can help with the guilt. There’s less that needs closure on. There’s less that needs resolved. It’s said in words, and in actions.

Of course, your loss will still hurt them.

Of course, unexpected financial issues are going to come up.

This is how life works, only now, you’re not there to help make it any easier. That sucks. That really does – but there’s probably been times in life you weren’t there before, either, due to ignorance of a situation, or inability to help. Think of all those times as a child, where maybe you heard discussions about bills, or food.

Being unable to help, hurts.

This stems, of course, from the unknown aspect. 

I could die in my sleep and never wake up again. I could die in car accident. I could die of cancer I don’t currently know I have. I could die at ANY time, and there is still so much I want to do -- and once I’m gone, I won’t be able to do any of it.

I know, when I pass, I won’t feel this fear. I’ll simply be gone.

And that’s absolutely terrifying to me.

The thought will creep up at night, and sometimes I can push it aside by focusing on the background noise, deep breathing, petting my cat, but sometimes I can’t. 

When I can’t, it’s usually a heart-pounding, immobilizing fear. It usually follows a nightmare that woke me, and now the background noise is off because of power savings on my systems, but I can’t move for so long to turn them back on, and I’m stuck with these thoughts and trying to imagine the unimaginable -- of not being able to feel, or see, or breathe, or hear. 

If I can open my eyes, I can look at the glow-in-the-dark stars (and death star, and starships, and...) above my bed. I can focus on it, and try to take myself into a Star Wars day dream. 

If the nightmare lingers, my mind may end up reviewing it over and over and over. The political climate in the USA hasn’t helped with that. I’ve had nightmares of violent uprisings (where for some reason my only concern is seeing a movie, but Dream Logic, right?), I have dreams of creepy doll-like women with black hair and scribbled faces coming out of dark waters surrounding a castle I’ve already died in 5 times -- because oh yes, I die in my dreams, but my dreams take on Video Game logic and WE HAVE TO DO IT ALL AGAIN.

And my heart will race. 

Sometimes I will end up breaking and crying. 

Sometimes a cat will have mercy and make me mobile by stepping on my chest, and drawing me out of it early, before I can deep into imagining what it would be like not to be able to feel the blanket around my body. 

I am fortunate, in some respects, that these thoughts tend to just come on at night, when I am trying to sleep, or when I have woken from a nightmare.

They were more frequent. I have found methods to help beat them back. 

Occasionally, it still happens when I drive, though that is more of a dissociative episode rather than a panic attack. 

Sometimes, when I have severe pain, or even moderate pain, it will happen, though my panic attack is usually offset by hours spent googling symptoms and worrying myself over that, rather than dissociating, or crying. 

I don’t know why the difference exists, honestly. 

That is how it feels. That is how it happens. It’s terrible. It’s absolutely terrible and it happens too frequently of late, even if I have started to get it into better order, so it doesn’t intrude on as much of my life as usual. 

Some of that is in large part due to getting a better grip on my chronic pain. I think the other parts have to be due to many of the practices mentioned here, and others besides.

The fear stems from that Unknown.

I know, that sounds weird to consider on a blog about death anxiety, existentialism, and fears, but stay with me. 

When we consider what makes us angry or sad, we can also turn that into thoughts of what joys are inspiring these thoughts. 

For example: “It’s unfair that I will die in this time!” -- you can also turn this, and think about what is unfair about this, in a positive light. “I get to enjoy Star Wars, and I get to see it expand greatly under Disney. I want to see more of that!” or “I have enjoyed this life, and I want to continue to enjoy it!”

You can start to think of all the wonderful things you do have, and be grateful for getting to live in this time, with these things!

Easy to access hot chocolate? Centuries ago, this wasn’t even a thing! 

Binging television series? Not even 50 years ago, this wasn’t possible! You had to schedule it, and watch the show at the time it came out, separated by weeks, and years! 

The people you know? If you were born at any other time, in any other place, you may never know these people. Certainly, you wouldn’t know them the way you do now. 

When you have the negative thoughts, and the negative feelings, when you’ve digested them and taken what use you can from them, try to turn them to the reasons why you experience them. There’s a loss at the source of it -- and the loss is what you enjoy in this life. You can learn to be grateful for what you do have, and carry that gratitude forward.

We need to feel our anger and our sorrow.