Dear Julia:

I'm disinterested in living. I'm not suicidal or depressed, but I've never understood why most people cling to life or fear death. It's almost as though I long to leave this world for that "better place." I have a busy life, a demanding profession, friends, etc., but deep down, I'm only putting in my time until I can leave the Earth. I devote a great deal of energy to helping and supporting others with problems and challenges. I've never seen life as a gift, and I feel a little guilty about that. I had a very close relationship with my mother, and when she became terminally ill with cancer, I had a very hard time understanding why she fought it. She knew she was going to a place of uncommon love and light, yet she didn't want to die. Don't get me wrong, I miss her terribly - we had a wonderful relationship, but I was happy that she had no more suffering and was finally at peace. I never react the way others do when someone dies or falls seriously ill. I have to "fake it" in a way, but I do feel sorry for the survivors. It's risky for me to even voice my opinion, because most people feel it's strange or sinister, but I'm tired of pretending. Are there other people who feel this way too? (I'm an Aquarius).
- Kay

Dear Kay:

Thanks for the great question. I'm sure there are a number of Spiritualists in the audience (whether they consciously identify as such or not) who can relate. I know I can.

In most cultures, it is very strange to deal with death after you've awakened to the truth that life does continue on, and that death and departure from this dimension is no more a bad thing than birth into it is. When someone we love dies, we are expected to grieve. If we don't display the typical signs of grief, we fear that it will look like we didn't really love the person who has crossed over very much.

I vividly remember pondering this at the funeral of my beloved grandmother many years ago. My mediumship was really blossoming at this time in my life, and as everyone sat somberly around me in tears, I was very happily (mentally) talking to Grandma. She was so very present, and has been present to me many times since her passing. In fact, she's been far more present to me since she passed over than she was the last few years of her life, when she was really just a shadow of the woman she had once been. After death, she became the warm, comforting presence I had known as a child again.

I knew enough to keep all of this to myself. I remember feeling guilty for not being more upset, and guilty for not sharing my understanding at the same time, for I could see all the pain my family members were going through, and felt if they just could know what I knew, they'd be at peace too. Nevertheless, I remained quiet about it all, and went along with the whole funeral process like everyone else. I feared if they knew how happy I was for Grandma, they'd think me heartless.

You and I have something else in common that is playing a part in all of this: we're both Aquarians. Aquarians have a unique and often maddening ability to just turn off our emotions. If we intellectually determine that there is nothing to get upset about, we just don't. Most people are not able to do this. My fiery Leo husband, for example, can know without a doubt that getting upset is only going to make things worse, and yet he just can't seem to help himself. If we couple this Aquarian placidity with the spiritual understanding that death is not "bad," of course we will have a hard time understanding what everyone is getting so worked up about.

I'm also betting that you have been Buddhist in a past life (if not several). It's common for Aquarians and anyone else who is able to just detach from life and its endless dramas to have developed this through spiritual practice in the past. If you aren't already into Buddhism, you might explore it now. It may feel strangely familiar to you.

Or you could check out Spiritualism. You made a great point that is central to Spiritualist philosophy: those who survive the departed suffer far more than those who pass on. A key objective of mediumship is to bring through communication from beyond to comfort the grieving.

You don't have to share others' distress to have compassion for them. When my son was three years old, we went to a party where a clown made him a sword out of balloons. Nick thought this was the greatest thing ever. When we left the party, a big thunderstorm was brewing, and a wild wind just whipped it out of his hands. It was up and beyond the treetops in an instant.

He was emotionally destroyed. It was hard to see him so crushed, especially because he was not the kind of child who really was into "stuff" anyway. He was always sweet and agreeable, so to see him bawling over his "loss" broke my heart. I tried everything I could to talk him out of being so upset. I told him it was just balloons, that it would have only lasted him a few days anyway. I told him that he could always get a new one in the future. He didn't care. He wanted THAT one.

Now, this may seem like a silly example, but from the perspective of Spirit, our tendency to fall to pieces over death seems just as distorted. After all, it's not really the end, but a new beginning. We will see this person again - in fact, they're not really "gone" at all. We can tell all of this to the grieving, but they won't care. They just want their loved one back again. I can think of nothing greater than to help folks make peace with death - hence my work as a medium.

I do want to encourage you to rethink your view that the afterlife is somehow a "better place" than life here on earth. Many years of spirit communication have led me to see life beyond as neither better nor worse, just different, much as life in the United States is not better or worse than life in Europe, just different. It may FEEL like the afterlife is better to you, however, because you've evolved to the point where you're energetically more in harmony with the non-physical.

You see, the more evolved we become, the less in harmony we are with the Earth's vibration, and the more the non-physical feels like "home" to us. Instead of being like rocks that have to be cracked open and ground to a powder to be carried by the wind into the non-physical, we're like helium balloons that just naturally float upward. When we finally drop our fear of death, it's like we've dropped the biggest weight a human can carry. It makes us extraordinarily "light" in every sense of the word. It's not something to be ashamed of, but it does make staying in the relative density of the physical feel more and more awkward.

What we must realize is that reaching this state of "enlightenment" lends us the potential to live extraordinarily magical lives. When we're no longer constantly running away from death or afraid to really live, we can leap in with both feet and really chase our dreams, free of the fears that weigh so many people down.

When we're this evolved, manifesting whatever we desire comes easily to us. Faith conquers fear every time. We can heal, teach and lead others to new peace and understanding. Ironically, perhaps when we begin to really "not care" about living or dying anymore, we are at the peak of our potential here in the physical, and ripe for becoming powerful positive influences.

It seems to me you need a strong sense of purpose. Instead of wishing your life away, you might summon new passion for it by recognizing that your discomfort with being here suggests that you actually have extraordinary spiritual power. Why not step into that power and live a magical life, or help others to find peace with death too?

- Julia