The Five Invitations, a new podcast & more

The Rewilded Soul, #46

Jul 28, 2024

Greetings from smoky Oregon, where the entire state is on fire, and the air quality is so bad that getting the mail shaves as many years off your life as a pack of Marlboros.

It’s been a week, but despite the slow-motion apocalypse to the east, I’m excited about life, especially two Things I’ve been waiting to share with you.

🎙️ Thing 1: A New Podcast

I like to write about ideas, but I like talking about them even more.

I’m excited to share that the Rewilded Soul Podcast just released. New episodes explore life’s infinite sandbox and the big questions I have about who we are, why we’re here, and how we can create a life of clear purpose and deep fulfillment.

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your ear candy. If you listen in and love it, please rate and leave a short review. It makes a massive difference and also pleases the Algorithm Gods.

🗓️ Thing 2: A new publishing rhythm

Since starting The Rewilded Soul, I’ve experimented (and struggled) with how often to publish. Going forward, I will be sending a weekly email on Friday or Saturday. I’ll be experimenting with the format, but my intention is to make the weekend edition a short (< 5 mins), but potent read.

I subscribe to many newsletters. The ones I actually read and love most lean toward short-form. They’re more like a thick reduction sauce than a soup. I want every word count because I greatly respect your time. As always, thank you for reading. It means a lot and I hope these words encourage you on your journey.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program…

The Five Invitations

Life is a game no one escapes alive.

An obvious truth, sure, but one I think about a lot lately. Not in a morbid way. Perhaps, my recent birthday is to blame. I just turned 49 so, if I live as long as some of my ancestors, this could be Half Time for me.

One thing I think about is how the dead (and dying) have a lot to teach me about the game and how to play it better. All the books on my shelf are testament to that. I never met most of my greatest teachers. They died long before I was born, but their lessons have shaped my life.

Frank Ostaseski is a man who sits with the dying and gathers their life lessons. He is a Buddhist teacher, lecturer, and author focusing on contemplative end-of-life care. He wrote a book titled The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully as a way of gathering the wisdom of the dying.

I recent stumbled upon a 2017 talk he gave on the topic. It’s well worth your time (you can watch it here) even if only to experience Frank’s gentle spirit.

The Five Invitations are perennial wisdom—ever fresh while, at the same time, always the same. They’ll be as true in a century as they are now, but people will still be reminding us of them because we so quickly forget.

Today, I want to pass along my notes after listening to Frank, just as he passed along his to me so we can all live a little more.

1. Don’t wait.

The days often feel long, but the years vanish quickly. Don’t wait. Don’t wait to be yourself. Don’t wait for the right moment, which might never come.

Be bold, as bold as you can be. Be a person of action. Dreams, plans, and intentions die without feet and hands are worthless in this world. If necessary, give yourself permission to be a “ready, fire, aim” kind of person even if just for a day.

There will always be reasons not to do something, and most of them are rooted in fears about imagined things that will never happen. Be a doer.

2. Welcome everything, push away nothing.

You don’t get to choose what comes your way or doesn’t. If you wish to live, you must welcome all of life, and not simply the convenient and gentle parts.

Many years ago, someone very dear to my wife and me committed suicide. Until that day, I’d never experienced the kind of grief that sucks the air out of your life in a moment. It’s easy to say “welcome everything” until something like that happens.

I would never blame someone for pushing such an unbearable pain away. It’s crushing beyond words. But it’s possible to be with it, and to not fight the reality of what’s happening. It was my wife who showed me what welcoming everything looks like, and what depth, grace, and richness can be found in the midst of it and on the other side of it.

If you wish to be alive—truly alive—you must have a willingness to open yourself to and accept life as it is. All of it. If you’ll take that dare, you’ll need fearless receptivity and most of all, vulnerability. It is never done as an act of sheer will. It can only be done as an act of love.

3. Bring your whole self to every experience.

We all wear masks and hide parts of ourselves so we can feel safe, find belonging, and avoid being outcast. We have as many versions of ourselves as we have relationships and situations in our life.

The good stuff of life, the real stuff, happens when we bring our whole selves to each other. The tricky part is, the aspects of myself that I most want to hide are often what open the way for true connection with others.

We often think it’s our expertise, talents, or advice that serves others the most. It’s not. It’s our humanity. It’s our willingness to see and be seen. To invite intimacy into our interactions, which requires openness.

The key to intimacy in any relationship is hidden in the phonetics of the word itself: into me see. Accept yourself as you are. Not as you could be or should be, but as you are. And then bring all of you to others.

4. Find a place of rest in the middle of things.

I know what it is to be burned out, passionless, empty, untethered, lost. I also know what it’s like to feel vitality, curiosity, and deep fulfillment in my life. Both experiences can often be traced back to how much loving-kindness I offer myself and how rested I am.

I am not a machine, though I often expect myself and others to be. This, of course, is insane. You’re probably insane, too, like me. So, stop it. Go outside and play. You’ll be better for it. Find a place of rest. Your place of rest, right in the middle of things. Mine is in the woods, walking the trails around my house or by the river.

You don’t have to escape your life to find rest. You can make spaces, even small ones, even in the noisiest of places. And there you can discern the signal in the noise. I once saw a man in a suit meditating in the middle of Times Square in Manhattan. I’ve never forgotten that.

You cannot give what you don’t have, most of all your energy and gifts. A depleted version of you serves no one, neither yourself nor the world.

5. Cultivate don’t-know mind.

What will happen tomorrow? I don’t know. What will the stock market be at in a week? Dunno. The algorithms don’t know, either. You don’t know. No one knows. So why are we always desperate to know?

The nature of the mind is restlessness. It demands to know. It is always running the numbers and seeking to predict, shape, and control life as a way of eliminating uncertainty so it can feel a sense of safety.

I check the news a lot (read: too much) these days. My mind is itchy and wants to know… something, anything, everything. It gives me anxiety just thinking about it.

But the nature of life is uncertainty. Mystery. Possibility. No one knows what will happen, and the way to peace is to give up your need to know. How would you feel if you could let your mind relax? What if you stopped pulling the threads? What if you no longer needed to control outcomes?

Final Words

Everything has been said. There is nothing new under the sun, especially the Five Invitations. We’ve both heard these before, or a thousand variations on them. And yet we move on.

You and I must keep reminding each other of the obvious truths like the Five Invitations because we so often forget. We’re hypnotized by the tyranny of the urgent, the noise of distractions, and the demands of a modern life always cranked to 11.

Time slips away and soon we, too, will reminding those who are too busy creating a life that they must not forget to live. This is our time, your time. So don’t wait. Live now.

REWILD

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