Your Life Review
What Can We Learn from Near-Death Experiences About Our Lives?
Sometimes I contemplate what it will be like to go through my Life Review.
I am referring to reports from Near-Death Experiences (NDEs): “life review” is a panoramic re-experiencing of one’s life accompanied by profound and moving insights into the effects of one’s actions on others. What can we learn now about what death is like in order to guide our lives?
The main repeating features across researched reports of life review are the following:
· The entire life review is usually experienced at once (outside of time) — instantaneous and panoramic – with many events perceived simultaneously.
· The focus of the review is moral and relational. People do not simply remember what they did. Instead, they experience how their words and actions affected the other people around them, reporting often feeling the effects as if they were the other people.
· The review contains extraordinary clarity – revealing motivations and consequences that were unconscious.
· There is no condemnation, only clarity.
In the best book of comprehensive scientific reports on NDEs, by psychiatrist and researcher Bruce Greyson MD, called After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond, the accounts of “life review” reveal that experiencers return to their lives with enduring changes: greater compassion, reduced fear of death, less concern with material pursuits, and a stronger commitment to living authentically and helping those around them.
These effects should raise questions about how we spend our time and what we prioritize.
The Three Questions
There is a traditional folk tale called “The Three Questions” in which a king asks the following questions:
Who is the most important person?
What is the most important thing to do?
What is the most important time?
The story unfolds through an adventure in which the king discovers the answers: the most important person is who you are with right now. The most important thing is to care for that person: do what is required to express love, compassion, or concern needed now. And the most important time is “now” because it is all that we have.
The takeaway is that wisdom is not discovered through abstract spiritual or philosophical searching, but comes to us through our wholehearted presence with those we relate to, especially those we relate to regularly. The present moment requires us to engage with the person/people IN THE ROOM (not those on social media) who need our immediate mindful attention and emotional responses.
The story agrees remarkably with life review reports.
In these demanding and turbulent times, you may believe that you need to get “to the bottom” of what is happening. How much further can you get than the life review?
From Carl Jung’s Near-Death Experience in 1944
In Carl Jung’s NDE in 1944, he recalls the somewhat painful dropping away of his identity – his achievements and successes – as he was walking into the temple of his master. At that moment, after he had shed his identity, he was startled to experience all of the relationships and engagements of his life and to know objectively that “this is who I am. I am the collection of these relationships.” At which point, he became content and felt lighter. Then he was called back into his life on earth.
May we all learn from the following before we walk the path into our own death:
The most important people are the ones you are with, and the most important moment is now, and your most important task is to engage attentively with the people in your life, so that you can develop your own natural wisdom and flourish day by day.
BEING HUMAN
Learn to Live Wisely, Love Well, and Lead Confidently
Six Weeks of Courses, Interactive Small Groups, and Much More
Begins July 21, 2026 1PM ET US
Love between Equals: Relationship as a Spiritual Path
Strong relationships aren’t built on perfection—they’re built on awareness, honesty, and real dialogue. In this practical guide, Polly Young-Eisendrath draws from decades as a psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher to challenge outdated ideas of love and show what actually works.
You’ll learn how to navigate conflict, communicate more effectively, and deepen your connection without losing yourself in the process.
Get your copy and start building stronger, more intentional relationships today.
This passage stands out: <<The takeaway is that wisdom is not discovered through abstract spiritual or philosophical searching, but comes to us through our wholehearted presence with those we relate to, especially those we relate to regularly. The present moment requires us to engage with the person/people IN THE ROOM (not those on social media) who need our immediate mindful attention and emotional responses.>>
It gets at why the screens of our smartphones and similar devices, while ostensibly serving to connect us to a wider world, often pull us away from the world at hand.
So, instead of connecting, we disconnect at least from what matters.
Popular culture readily hijacks mindfulness and “living in the eternal present”:”to assert that only here and now exists is solipsism and the complete opposite of what spiritual cultivation is about” (Senior Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist David Brazier, Not Everything Is Impermanent, 2018.)