Death’s Real Shadow Is Regret 🌑
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live." — Marcus Aurelius
I still remember sitting in my car outside a grocery store one night, engine idling, lights buzzing overhead, the air stale with fast food and asphalt.
"Maybe we fear death because deep down, we fear we haven’t truly lived."
I was twenty-seven. "On track," by everyone else’s standards. Good job. Family. A home close to the school. And yet, I stared at the steering wheel like it might offer answers, feeling hollowed out, brittle. Like a stand-in for a real person.
I wasn’t afraid of death then.
I was afraid I’d sleepwalk all the way there.
We’re told to build resumes, chase stability, get serious. Fine. But somewhere in the noise, the real, aching hunger to live… to actually feel alive… gets quiet. Pushed aside. Neutered.
And when you face your mortality, it’s not the number of years that burns the most.
It’s realizing how many of them you spent half-awake.
These small notes arrive quietly,
like morning light through a cracked window.
No noise. Just truth.
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Inner Work
Here’s your task.
Today, find one small thing that makes you feel genuinely alive. Not numb. Not distracted. Alive.
A cold shower that stuns you awake.
A long stare at the sky until the stars blink back.
A conversation where you say what you actually mean.
One thing.
Stop waiting for your life to start someday. You’re standing in it.
Your shadow speaks in symbols.
In patterns. In pause. In the ache you keep dismissing.
The 30-Day Shadow Work Journal is a place to listen… gently, honestly, bravely.
Let’s talk about it.
I’ll ask you bluntly:
Where are you half-living?
Where have you traded pulse for autopilot?
Where have you postponed something you know would wake you up inside?
Share it. Rip off the veneer.
No judgment here, only fellow travelers trying to shake off the dust.
Let’s wake ourselves up together.
All in all.
Most people aren’t afraid of death.
They’re afraid of reaching the end and realizing they never really showed up.
You still have time.
Not forever. But enough.
Enough to touch something real. Enough to leave behind the empty templates and pick up the paintbrush. Enough to stretch your hands toward something that feels terrifyingly beautiful because it’s yours.
So go on.
Live a little messier. A little louder. A little more honest.
Death can wait.
Life is tapping its foot.
Thanks for reading today’s Healing Text.
If you’re here, you’re part of something honest, something that makes space for healing without the performance. And I don’t take that lightly.
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And if you’re craving deeper reflections, long-form stories, raw journal entries, and shadow work tales that cut through the noise, I write those in my other newsletter…
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With gratitude,
— Ryan Puusaari ☕💛
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If it holds your ache, your becoming, your breath...
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