Early in our marriage, my husband would take the milk out of the fridge, check the expiration date, and say, “We all have an expiry date. I wish we knew it.”
I would roll my eyes. Death talk before breakfast? It felt morbid. Then we started joking about it, and somewhere along the way it stopped being a joke and became a steady reminder that we are not here forever. So, what does that mean for how I live my life today? These questions and funny memories came up a lot during my last Live on Substack with John Hopkins.
I chatted with fellow coach and Substack creator, John Hopkins, who goes by Hoppy. We opened with a short grounding meditation, feet on the floor, breath breathing itself, hands pressed together at the heart. It was a clear, intentional beginning to a really insightful conversation.
A dream they nearly didn’t act on
Hoppy and his wife realized they had been carrying a dream for years of traveling the world with their three children. A few years ago, they sold the house and all of their possessions and got down to one carry-on bag each. Along the way, they decided they wanted to live in community, visited one in Costa Rica with a quality school for the kids, and decided to stay.
I asked what was behind that leap and Hoppy’s answer took us somewhere I did not expect.
The panic attacks that pointed somewhere
Hoppy had spent his career as a film director and then founded a drone light show company. He told me he was building things from an extractive mindset and that his inner guidance system was asking him to be in service to something greater. That’s when the panic attacks started. They made him feel as if he were dying, and they stirred memories of near-death experiences from earlier in his life.
Then a question beckoned to him… maybe he was supposed to work with death. He said it charged at him like a rhino. He resisted it, then surrendered, and trained as a sort of midwife for the dying, an end-of-life guide. He sits with dying people, many of whom have no family with them, and helps them make their transition.
What slips away, and what stays
I asked Hoppy what people at the end of life say mattered and what did not. Wealth and status fade, he told me. What remains, he said, are the questions of whether you were brave enough and whether you were kind enough.
He believes we treat death as taboo, and that this makes us take life for granted, postpone what matters, and drift somewhat aimlessly. In his view, the fear of death is what rests underneath our other fears, and talking about it is how that fear starts to subside.
His support to the dying left him focused on what it means to be alive and gave him a desire to better understand and bring that feeling of aliveness and joy into our relationship with mortality.
Two-minutes to more alive
Near the end of our conversation, Hoppy offered to share the practice he constructed to help him stay focused on maintaining a sense of aliveness and I was delighted to share the experience with him on the Live Conversation. Here it is as he shared it.
When you wake up, before you reach for your phone. Take two or three big breaths, emptying the lungs fully. Remember that you are mortal, not morbidly, but as a reminder of how precious this life is. Be grateful for the day. Name one thing you will do today that you have been putting off. It can be small, like telling your children you love them at breakfast. Picture yourself in bed tonight, having done it, and feel how good that feels.
At night, in bed before resting your eyes. Breathe again and ask three questions. Did I remember I am mortal today? Did I remember to be grateful? Did I do the thing? If you didn’t, simply recommit tomorrow morning.
That’s it. That’s the whole practice. It’s simple and yet effective. Try it tomorrow and report back to us so we know how it goes.
Mindful Moment: What is the one big thing you keep putting off? What would change if you knew your expiration date?
Hoppy writes the Aliveness newsletter at newsletter.aliveness.be and offers a mini-course to a more alive life. Check it out!
A note on care: this conversation talks openly about death and dying. If it stirs up grief or difficult feelings, please go gently and reach out to someone you trust. In the US you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, and findahelpline.com lists free support lines in many countries.
