1 year to "live" exercise

We use this one year to live exercise with all our clients. This exercise you may recognize from previous treatment settings or other mental health support systems. Reclaiming reality starts with a clear sense of our limitations as human beings. But we live in a culture that denies these limitations at times. We are constantly invited to overextend ourselves- for instance, to spend more then we earn, (ala gambling addiction) work more than we need to, (ala self-esteem issues) or eat more then we should (ala eating addictions). We live as if there is no end. Take some time right now, and see how you answer these questions. This powerful exercise can show you your own limitations by picturing your own death. Looking at death provides vital perspectives about what gives your life meaning! What priorities you are ignoring and who or what your higher power is? Ok, imagine you are in your physician's office. What does it look like, smell like, and feel like? Your doctor shares the results of the tests that are in. You have a year to live, reflect for a moment? As you start to adjust to dying, do you change your life? Stop working? Do something different? You begin to make changes for self. Do you travel, or wish to take a trip? Who do you take with you? Perhaps, you want to try something you have never done before. What are some of these activities? Self begins to look at all the "unfinished" things that we have not completed. Will you complete them? What unfinished projects do you need to do before your die? Could making amends to people be one of your unfinished projects? Self has the power to say, "I'm sorry, or I love you".  Picture yourself saying the things you need to say before your time is up. Now the time line is here. You have three months before you die, your health is going, while you can still function, what are you doing, who is with you? Take your time with these questions, it is important you are honest and being real with self. Now, it's a matter of weeks before you pass, where do you go? Do you want to die in your home, a lake, mountains, where do you spend the last days? As you think over the events of the last year of your life, what were the most significant for you? What did you make worth while? Now as you complete this exercise, think about this- your are ALIVE, very much ALIVE, and these events you can create for self! Self has the ability to share feelings, and get in touch with your own grief and losses in your life. Do not avoid the feeling, you have the power to work through it. Use this exercise to make changes in your life, some new things you would try, and how you complete the unfinished things in your life. Find your spiritual connection, your own higher power! Learn about your current interpersonal relationships, and work on re-building them! Thinking about death may help you find what is real in your life and what is important to self. Addicts need to understand how they can balance, focus, and acquire self-responsibility. Denial and delusion we want to work on. Stay in your health, stay in the moment.