Watching my mother gladly live the final weeks of her life made my face melt. “Denny, I’m really feeling peaceful and not in any pain at all.” Mom was not fitful, unhappy, scowling, or living her celebratory days as a member of the blame gang. As a psychologist, as I walk now in this world, I see hardened faces glazed over with non-emotion and apathy, or smiling with inauthentic certainty that life is just ducky. Are we half-lifer Zombies? People act as if they can cheat death by not being completely alive.
YOU LIVE AS YOU DIE
Everything’s never going to be right, but you can feel all right about living your life in ways that make you happy or glad to be alive. Signposts that you’ve lost your way:
- You feel bitter and angry
- If things aren’t perfect, you are emotional toast
- Kids feel the weight of your guilt trips
- Nothing’s ever good enough for you
- Young children don’t make you laugh
- You blame “time starvation” or being “too stressed out” for depriving others of your positive attention and respect.
Being brave of heart means you have the courage to live in times of uncertainty, and you can live with a broken heart, though you would choose not to do so. Of course, if you never get really close to people, when they leave or die your life isn’t much changed.
YOU DIE AS YOU LIVE
What expert communicators who die in each second know about the joys of living alive:
1. You don’t look in the mirror and see yourself acting like your mother or father. Expert communicators don’t look down or up at their parents but eye-to-eye.
2. You don’t care much for control, because you know the bottom can drop out of your life at any second. Expert communicators seek first to control their moods and “out-of-mouth” experiences that put people off.
3. You laugh. Expert communicators laugh at fear in the face, fear that makes us suffer and die a thousand deaths before our time.
4. You cry. Expert communicators with a sharp pebble in their shoe, which will eventually hobble them, walk extra miles alongside another, providing comfort, support, and friendship.
5. You struggle. Expert communicators make many talk mistakes, and they take time to learn from their mistakes in order not to repeat them.
6. You don’t let your past baggage weigh your marriage or partnership down. Expert communicators realize that all three time zones of past regrets, present pitfalls, and future worries can control them if allowed.
7. You don’t suck the energy out of the people who care for and love you. Expert communicators give more than they take, while not allowing anyone to take unfair advantage of them.
8. You don’t chase people away when they get too close. Expert communicators like hugs, eyes that dance, a tender touch, a small gesture of kindness that implies, “I’m with you here and now.”
9. You don’t let fear make you fret that your “stuff” is going to get taken away. Expert communicators don’t find winning to be as important as weathering the emotional storms of life.
10. You don’t think of evolving, growing and changing as a killer. Expert communicators study how change technology is a force that can be used for advantage or disadvantage.
11. You don’t beat anyone up mentally, especially yourself. Expert communicators talk in quietly comforting ways to the inner self, especially when they are embarrassed, hurt, or mad.
12. You don’t treat anyone as an icon to obey. Expert communicators work with divine powers and look for the best in people, and they don’t shut down for long after finding the repugnant side of “half-lifer zombies.”
13. You don’t attack when you don’t get your way. Expert communicators want to make their way down the two-way communicator highway, not get their way at the expense of a close relationship.
ARE YOU A HALF-LIFER ZOMBIE, DRIVING ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL OF YOUR COMMUNICATOR CAR?
Heck, of course you’re an expert communicator. You realize there’s only one way out of this life, and this life is what you make it. Are you alive today, living your life with an open heart and strong back that can shoulder the emotional realities of a changing environment? Mom looked at me in her final days and said, “I hope I’m showing you how to die well.” We all have a thing or three to learn from the dying, who showcase how to live a life as a loving communicator.
ABOUT RELATIONSHIP PSYCHOLOGIST DENNIS E. O’GRADY, PSY.D.
Dennis O’Grady is a Dayton region psychologist who provides private therapy for couples and communications training for corporations. Dr. O’Grady’s pioneering interpersonal communications theory will help you get along with anyone, even the difficult or annoying people in your life, and make you a better communicator. His entire communication system is the focus of his third book called “Talk to Me: Communication Moves To Get Along With Anyone,” which is available at www.drogrady.com and Amazon.