DYING TO BE BORN:
Death, Deadliness & Renewal
A Master Class with David Bedrick
PERSONAL NOTE
Salome was always a free spirit; she lived in ‘the other world’. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when she left this Earth two years ago. Losing a dear friend and beloved teacher, after speaking a number of times per month for seventeen years, was strange. I still spoke to her; I still felt her presence. Yet, the way she would wander through the dream world with me had shifted.
Then, just 2 weeks ago, another beloved teacher and mentor died. Arny and I met a half a dozen times a year for 34 years. He was the first human to show me that illness was not only illness, that what lied in the shadows was more true than what we saw in the light (at least more powerful and important), that what we today call “somatic experience” is a bodily connection with the psyche and our nighttime dreams (he called it the “dreambody”). He clarified my spiritual path and modeled how to walk it, run it, swim it, climb it, fall down on it, love it, hate it, and die over and over on it.
These two humans were my true parents, leaving me now in a kind of orphaned state. How can I honor them, connect with them, do more than remember them by ‘dying’ a little bit as a way of being even closer to their spirit.
This impulse calls me to offer a teaching on death, deadliness and the flowering that naturally follows.
Would you be open to taking this journey with me – learning to die and integrate aspects of your own ‘deadliness’?
If I asked you now, “Do you know you're going to die?” You would say yes.
But then if I asked, “Do you act like you're going to die soon?” Most would say no.
We live our lives like we have many years left, infinite time for all of the plans and goals we have for ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with that BUT the intimate sense of our mortality proceeds differently.
Change can come through action and intention; AND change can come by letting go, by “DYING."
Becoming intimate with death may give you the sense that certain things need to change not by “trying” and action, but by letting go. There are some deep patterns in our lives that don’t change by working on them. They change through living, being, aging— they get worn down and things we used to be able to do we just can’t anymore.
They are things you may not be able to therapeutically change, you just don’t have the energy to keep doing it anymore, AND THAT’S OKAY.
Certain psychological processes change by engaging them:“I'm going to learn this about myself. I'm going to create a new habit. I'm going to change this pattern. I'm going to stop an addictive pattern. I'm going to stop a relationship pattern. I'm going to pursue things that are important to me. I'm going to make boundaries.”All these kind of things are assertions of our life force, energy going into creating movement in these areas, but there are certain changes that happen by dropping ways of living, letting go of belief systems, feeling worn down, feeling tired— chronic tiredness itself is often a sign of dropping out.
“I just can’t do it anymore.”
Resurrecting this person, trying to get them more energy so they can go back to a status quo is not always right.
Death & Dying…
This is why, for me, the idea of dying is a really important part of psychological development.
Is there a moment something wants to not go on?
This can look like dying, it can feel like a death. People grieve.
I wish I could do the things I was doing.
I wish I could make this meeting and I could have gotten up when I was sick to do this thing but I can't. I want to but my body just says, I can't do it.
I used to be able to do all these things and now I just don’t have the energy for it anymore.
There can be grief here BUT THERE’S ALSO SOMETHING SO BEAUTIFUL ABOUT LIFE SAYING THERE’S ANOTHER WAY. That you can change not by force but by letting go.
The Deadliness of Life…
There are forces in life that are against your life that could “take” your life.
For example, there are forces or energies in the body, like serious illness, that could end your life.
There are early traumas that are so potent they can stop the force of your life from unfolding.
For example, there are oppressive forces in the world that threaten to stop the forward motion and flowering of your life and there are internalized oppressions that do the same.
There are abuses and cultures of violence and rape and war that could end a life.
When you make contact with those forces, when those forces are relevant or prevalent in your life, then you have the opportunity to perform some alchemy.
That alchemy involves dancing with those forces integrating those forces, and allowing yourself to claim aspects of those forces to use in your life— integrating the deadliness of life.
There are times you need that deadliness in order to stop a pattern, in order to stop a way of living, in order to end a relationship, in order to walk away from a family or system.
We need the clarity of saying more than no but saying, “This ends, this whole dynamic, this whole way of life needs to stop!”
Sometimes, hopelessness invites a little “dying,” a little letting go.
When a person comes to me and says, “I've been trying to change this thing for years. It feels hopeless but maybe you're the one who can help me.”
Then I think, “Maybe it's not supposed to change the way that person thinks it is. Maybe they have to let that go.
Maybe we need to work a little bit on dying."
Go into the feeling of hopelessness. Feel it in your body, lay down, give up. What would that be like?
When my clients have done this, they often connect with spiritual qualities that are less about the things that they think they should be doing— ways of being in relationship, ways of parenting, working, being, all based on old models — and what emerges is something new, something beautiful.
There can be a lot of beauty, a lot of LOVE in the dying process.
An opportunity for Renewal…
Something happens when you let go, when you “die”a little.
It's a profound spiritual state.
The dying process creates a path forward for your next steps in life— a Rebirth.
For many people, “dying” is a doorway into a life not built on the stuff of everyday life. In this way the process of dying is a very uncapitalistic notion, it's not about how productive you are because those things become irrelevant.
So what is relevant?
This is what you will discover through this process.
In this class we will:
Die. Ok, I don’t mean literally die. BUT, You will actually be led into the somatic experience of being dead. This can be done; I’ve done it 100’s of times, including with people who are literally near the end of their life. AND, don’t worry, I’ll make sure you come out of it :-)
Discover your deadliness: You’ll make contact with the energy, the spirit, that could kill you. It’s a shamanic ally. And that will allow you to build a relationship with that source and even integrate it.
Discuss issues of suicide, hopelessness, chronic difficulties that don’t change, depression, and changing life long patterns.
And OF COURSE, as always, you will get a chance to watch David do his magic by facilitating indivduals, modeling his Unshaming
Dying to be Born:
Death, Deadliness & Renewal
The RECORDING of this class is now available - get instant access with your purchase!
COST: $60 for just this master class OR get the recording of the Anger, Truth & Power master class plus this class for $100
What students are saying about this class…
I’m so profoundly moved by people’s sharing and feel such depth of experience of love here.
My deadliness is no longer denied.
I’m so profoundly moved by people’s sharing and feel such depth of experience of love here.
I love the safe authentic container.
Thanks everyone for showing up in such a vulnerable way.
David held the space with such compassion and care.
Beautiful and permission-giving.
My life is not going to be the same.
Sophisticated magic.
That is fucking brilliant, David!
So beautiful.
Unshaming is world changing.
MEET YOUR FACILITATOR:
David Bedrick, JD, Dipl. PW, is a teacher, counselor, and attorney. He was on the faculty for the University of Phoenix and the Process Work Institute in the U.S. and Poland and is the founder of the Santa Fe Institute for Shame-based Studies where he offers facilitation training to deepen the skills and awareness of healers as well as workshops for individuals to further their own personal development. David’s embodied way of teaching is far more than informational, students are often brought to tears and face to face with their beauty, power, life path and soul.
David’s passion for studying shame arose from his childhood, growing up with a father who used fists and belts to express his rage and a mother who coped by denying and gaslighting his experience. Over thirty years of research, teaching and working with individuals awakened his heart and mind to how the dominant healing paradigm pathologizes people - seeing our sufferings and ills as something to fix and cure, instead of messages to be understood and invitations to deepen our relationships with ourselves and the world around us. In this way, David understands our difficulties to be “dreams” - invitations to insight, soul, and the divine unfolding of our lives.
David writes for Psychology Today and is the author of three books: Talking Back to Dr. Phil: Alternatives to Mainstream Psychology and Revisioning Activism: Bringing Depth, Dialogue, and Diversity to Individual and Social Change. His new book is You Can’t Judge a Body by Its Cover: 17 Women’s Stories of Hunger, Body Shame and Redemption.
His upcoming book, The Unshaming Way, will be published by North Atlantic books in 2024.