I am going to die
1. Is it true?
I will answer that from the place of someone being stuck in a small barrel with another prisoner in a concentration camp.
In that very moment, yes, I believe that.
2. Can you absolutely know that it is true?
No.
3. How do you react when you think that thought?
I am having a panic attack. I feel the other one’s body pressed to mine. I scream. I want to kick. I want out. I can’t breathe. I need out right now. I think I can’t take it. There is an amazing physical power. I try to break the barrel. And I realize it’s not working.
Absolute panic.
Right here as I am sitting here imagining the situation, my shoulders are incredibly tense. They are hard like steel. I have trouble breathing. I am breathing very shallow. I am sweating. Just imagining the situation brings great discomfort.
With the thought: sheer terror
4. Who would you be without the thought?
I am calmer. I breathe. I relax some. I would surrender. I might feel the other person’s body and imagine it being my loved one.
Mmh, yeah much more peaceful.
Turnarounds:
I am not going die.
- Right now I am alive.
- In this moment I have enough air to breathe, my blood is flowing through my veins, my heart is pumping.
I am going to live.
- Since I don’t know the future, that may be just as true.
- That feels better, so that might be an indication that it is truer.
- That thought is also more supportive of my situation right now. Even if it is not truer, it serves me in the moment.
Filed under Body, Control, Fear and Depression, Time by on Sep 6th, 2007. Comment. 
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Comments on I am going to die
Christine, I’m not clear on why you chose the viewpoint of a concentration camp inmate for this inquiry. Would you care to share your reasoning? — Love, Nancy
Hi Nancy,
It is part of the inquiries I have done around physical pain. I am getting clearer and clearer that nothing on the outside can hurt me. Nothing someone says to me or about me can hurt me. Events that happen or don’t happen don’t determine my happiness. But I have yet to really GET that the same is true for physical pain.
Two years ago I visited a concentration camp. I saw how the people "lived" and the way they were tortured. I thought that just being shot would have been the least painful way to die. These images often revisit me, and there is a fear that is so strong yet so fuzzy of how physical pain is the most terrible thing that could ever happen to me.
I wanted to shed more light onto that fear of physical pain. So I decided to choose a situation that I imagine as being so terrible, awful, and frightening to see how that very same situation would be without the thought "I am going to die".
Was my answer helpful?
Christine