The Secret To Changing Bad Habits (and replacing them with good ones!)
a death meditation to start your week
I recently shared this video to my IG:
Most people commented a lovely ‘Happy Birthday!’ but a few others were disturbed by the line: ‘because you’re going to die soon.’ Commenting ‘that got dark’ and sharing fears about death and leaving behind their family.
Let’s step back a bit first to provide some context re my life.
I’m not sure how I would conduct my life if I wasn’t an influencer. Being an influencer opens up a whole new world of scrutiny I never anticipated. Everything is magnified. If you feel self conscious about your body and you’re sharing bikini pics this becomes more elevated; if you’re a people pleaser and hate to disappoint people this becomes more elevated; if you get off from being a bully this becomes more elevated. Social media is the perfect space for growth (and not always in a good way). Things fester. They multiple. They spread.
I was never an overly anxious person before being on social media but I was always a people pleaser who wanted everyone to like me at all times. So when I had trolling comments, when people told me what I was saying was ‘stupid/wrong/idiotic’ or that my ‘body wasn’t muscular enough to be a fitness influencer’ or that ‘my voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard’ (this one was only a few days ago!), I would doubt myself. My instinct was to believe them. I would think, ‘how can I take that feedback on board and change myself so that they like me’? I was constantly thinking how I could show up online so that I didn’t upset anybody, to ensure I said the ‘right’ thing.
I had an experience of being cancelled in 2019 and I think part of me has been in self protection mode since. The experience was so traumatic that I would do anything to avoid being in that situation again. I didn’t trust myself anymore. It’s been a slow process to trust myself again and I’m still working on it. But part of that process has been to come back to the voice in my head that says, ‘if you say the wrong thing and they cancel you again you won’t recover, so stay safe and don’t do or say anything that could get you in trouble’. I found it difficult to show up online, and impossible to show up authentically. I preferred to write here as it felt safer and more private; Instagram felt like a red hot danger zone to my nervous system.
As my birthday was approaching, I started to really think about the fact that I was turning 34. Like, that’s a proper grown up age. Well to me it is. It’s an age that doesn’t feel young anymore, like, I’m a grown ass woman! I mean, I’ve been a grown ass woman for quite some time now if I’m honest lol but I’ve been living like a scared child. What does it mean to be a grown up? What does it mean for wrinkles to deepen and grey hairs to sprout? What does it mean to not give a f*ck about what random people think about you who don’t love you?
If you contemplate and meditate on your age you will inevitably land on your death. Buddhists have a practice that stretches back at least 1000 years; renowned Buddhist teacher Tsem Rinpoche describes in this excellent video how a specific morbid practice is the key to changing your bad habits.
So what is this secret key to changing our bad habits and replacing them with good ones? It’s not using a habit tracker or reading Atomic Habits or wearing nasty tasting nail polish, nicotine patches or putting a lock on your cookie jar. Tsem Rinpoche reaffirmed what I know to be true; the key to changing a habit and inserting a new one is death meditation.
I was already aware that meditation was key for change; all my life I’ve never made my bed and since incorporating meditation into my life I found myself making my bed every single day. Meditation clears the mind to allow new seeds to grow; it sweeps the debris from the garden-bed and pulls the weeds from the soil.
Death meditation is not as simple as changing a habit for another (that’s just the hook!) it’s best described as transforming your life. Death meditation results in a feeling of utter gratitude towards the gift of life. Death meditation results in questioning: how am I spending my life? am I happy? am I making other people happy? Death meditation results in fearlessness, in kindness, in peace, in ease.
How to practice death meditation
There’s many ways and Trungram Gyalwa Rinpoche - one of the highest tulkus of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, offers a few practical starts in this fantastic article. He states:
You can incorporate impermanence into a meditation on the breath. Every time you breathe in, each time you breathe out, life is shortened... You can also think about how your own life changes from infant to child to adult… With each change your life grows shorter.
It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just sitting in silence for a few minutes each day contemplating the truth that we all die (and we don’t know when) could be enough to get you started. I’m a visual person and I love going into detail from the start. I imagine my death, my last moments, my heart stops pumping, I breathe my last. I am watching my body from above as I pass, who is there holding my hand? I watch from above at my funeral, I see the coffin lowered into the ground, the rose petals thrown on the coffin, I see how my body decomposes over time.
If we meditate deeply on the truth of impermanence; nobody escapes death — then everything else in life becomes secondary. This meditation helps us appreciate every moment of life, it brings in gratitude, it shows us what is important and what is not, it encourages living a fearless and heart-led life, it asks: ‘who do you want to be in this one short precious life’? Because changing a habit isn’t a small thing we can put in a box with an easy to follow (and sell) 4 step process. To change habits we change our entire lives; we burn them entirely to the ground, we transform! but to start with, we can start with making the bed and wondering who will show up at our funerals 😂
Warm hugs and happy death meditations,
Madalin xx
I started having panic attacks a few years ago, and although I don't experience them anymore (thanks to meditation and therapy), they left me with a lingering fear of death. The first few panic attack experiences I had, I didn't know what was happening. I just thought I was dying and it was the first time in my life I had ever seriously considered my own mortality. About a year and a half later, my grandmother, whom I was very close to, passed away. This only left me with more discomfort surrounding death. I now mostly try to avoid thinking too deeply or for long periods about death, but I have desired to learn more about how other cultures (I'm American) view death and the process of dying. I still intend to look into it, but reading this article and hearing for the first time about "death meditations" just blew my mind?? I rarely comment on anything online, especially not longwinded comments like this, but your article really just hit something deep within me. Thinking about my own death to become more comfortable with it? What a concept. I'm afraid to try it but I think it's exactly what I need. Thank you for sharing that with us today.