This may be the biggest irony about death - we don't die when we die. We only die when we live.

What I mean by this is simple, and you see it everyday: People whose souls have abandoned their bodies because of trauma, sadness, and detachment are truly the dead among us. They are those with lifeless eyes, beings lacking light, and they just shuffle through experiences with little emotional connection at all.

Maybe you've been through this kind of death in your life. I know I sure have. I spent a good portion of my twenties under an alcoholic haze, barely able to react and feel the spectrum of life.  It was just too much. I had an overall energy of being physically present, but rarely emotional. I wasn't showing up, consciously. And when I did rush back into a state of alertness, I would have a full on breakdown. More than once, these anxiety attacks landed me in the ER. They would load me up with drugs, pacify the soul that needed to express itself, and back to a near comatose state I would go.

Interestingly enough, I don't have a lot of vivid memories from my early twenties. Not because I was high or drunk (although the latter happened plenty), but because my soul was hanging on by a thread. I just wasn't aware of anything. I didn't want to be. I just couldn't handle lit.

Yes, our souls can come and go in our bodies, without totally disrupting our life force. Shamanic journeying often centers around retrieving all or a portion of someone's soul. They leave in peak moments, or over a long period of depression. And that creates a shell of a being, sustaining oneself on purely a level of survival. These beings don't thrive. They are dead or dying.

If they do pass on in this state, living returns once more. We can't escape life for long. She always sucks us back into awareness, whether we like it or not. That's how much creation loves us. It lets us die as a contrast, so that we may appreciate the true zest and power of awareness and life.

If you're among the walking dead, you don't have to wait to transition for life to return. There are so many methods to help you be reborn. Shamanic rituals, sacred plant ceremonies, targeted spiritual coaching, subconscious therapy - the list is gratefully long and varied. Reach out to me, or someone like me, for sincere help, because you deserve to live.