one of life's most important questions.

The Wallpaper Stays 

What were Oscar Wilde’s last words?

“Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”

This is fun. This is brilliant and…

This is an ass kicker.

What are your last words going to be?

Oh, fuck, he’s not really asking that, is he?

Yes I am:

What are your last words going to be?

This is one of life’s most important questions:

WHAT ARE MY LAST WORDS GOING TO BE?

You do know there will be a last breath, don’t you?

This is not information that we like to have in our awareness. 

AND…. one of my promises to you in this book, is two questions that will change your life.

One was: what shifts when you come into the present.

The second is this: WHAT ARE YOUR LAST WORDS GOING TO BE?

Damn.

Who wants to think about that?

Well, let’s not just “think” about that, though we’ll let thinking be a quarter of our answer. We’ll ask our head. Then our heart. Then our body. Then our soul/ real self:

What do you want your last words to be?

First, the head.

Ask your thinking mind: 

HEAD: what do you want your last words to be?

Don’t rush.

Wait for an answer to come.

What is it?

You can do this many, many times, and this, your first stab has a certain answer, or flavor of an answer, or hint of an answer.

When you ask your head, what do you want your last words to be, what is your answer?

Write, scribble, doodle something.

Next layer, the heart. Time to shift into the present. Go for being present without standing.

Yet.

Do shift to feeling your butt in gravity on the chair. Do shift to sensing your breathing and how you notice this that you know that you are alive.

Go more deeply into noticing that you are breathing.

Sense your heart in the middle of the chest, in the middle of your breathing.

Breathe a little more deeply, into your chest and your belly. Let your ribs expand and contract as you breathe.

Feel your heart beating, if you can, in the middle of this. Feel your emotional layer. Feel the you that feels into life, at a slower and deeper, and perhaps older layer than thinking.

Ask your heart:

HEART: What do you want your last words to be?

Write, scribble, doodle something…

Smile a bit.

Stand up and wiggle around.

Walk a bit, if even in small circles.

Breathe a little more fully, as if into your whole body. Try lifting your arms one at a time and sensing one finger all the way down the opposite leg to the opposite toe.

Sense both arms and both legs and two sets of fingers and opposite toes. Add on the delight of seeing out into the world and listening while being in your arms and legs and fingers and toes.

Dance just a bit.

Raise up your arms over your head and do something fun and rhythmical. Breathe as you dance around.

If you can move either outside, or to a place where you can see outside, this will be even better, so you can feel your body and your living self for what it is: a part, a real and living and vital and amazing part, of nature.

And, now, feeling as sensation, the you that is living, right now, in your body: ask your body: 

BODY: What do you want your last words to be?

And now, walk a bit more and wiggle some more, and if you are outside, maybe go to another area, or if inside, to to another area.

If you have an idea of what your “Soul” is, this is what we are going to be asking next.

Maybe, the idea of your “Real Self” makes more sense.

And how you get in touch with this is the work of a life devoted to discovering what is most meaningful in life.

So, go as far as you can toward this “Soul” or toward this “Real Self.”  Don’t demand any intellectual clarity on what this means. Just wing it.

And ask, hey, Real Self, Soul…

SOUL/ REAL SELF: “What do you want your last words to be?”

Listen from a quiet place. Listen as if to a whisper from the unknown and invisible world.

What do you hear, or feel, or guess?