My Story: Learning How to Die (and Finally, How to Live)

Survived My Own Murder - Sitting With Dying People - Finding Purpose in Letting Go

Looking back, I realise I’ve often walked toward the things that scared me. Not because I’m especially brave, but because on some level my instinct told me transformation lives on the edge of fear, not inside the walls of comfort.

Much of my life has been devoted to gathering people and entertaining them, whether as a filmmaker, events organiser or tech entrepreneur. I’ve tasted success, weathered failure, and stumbled into more than a few successful failures.

During my school and university years, I was lost… often demotivated and rebellious, unable to find meaning in the rigid structures of education. I became an expert at doing the bare minimum. At times I was bullied. And if I’m honest, at times I played the bully too. I even cheated in some exams, not out of laziness, but from pressure to succeed at something my heart wasn’t in.

My refuge was disappearing into the imagined worlds of films, comics and video games, where I could feel something that school couldn’t offer me: escape from reality, immersion and wonder.

Chasing Success

Like many, I grew up being taught to chase achievement. I believed that if I collected enough accolades; awards, money, recognition - I’d feel whole.

In my twenties, filmmaking became my passion. Writing and directing films made me feel truly alive. I had a talent for it. I created irreverent music videos and commercials and co-founded a BAFTA-nominated production company. I was building a name. A career.

There were real moments of purpose whilst making films. Times when I felt vital; plugged in, creative, aligned. But I slowly grew frustrated at the lack of bigger opportunities. Always pitching. Rarely earning.

My mind was constantly racing, playing tricks on me, comparing myself to others who seemed to be having ‘greater success’ in life.

The feature film I wrote, directed and poured myself into for years was not the success I was hoping for. I told myself it was bad luck, but deep down, I knew, I made it to prove something, not to express something.

During this time I fell in love with DJing and organising events. The energy of a dance floor full of people moving as one was electric, sacred. I felt free, alive, connected. Looking back, I was unknowingly tapping into something sacred, drawn by a deep, wordless pull.

My Purpose Evolves

As I grew older, so did my awareness of humanity’s impact on the planet. I also became aware just how disconnected and lost I had been for so many years of my life.

The deeper my connection to nature grew, the more my sense of purpose began to change.

Nature began holding my conscience to account. My misalignment became impossible to ignore. Work that once excited me began to feel empty when it wasn’t grounded in truth. It wasn’t about personal achievement anymore, it was about contribution.

Turns out my life, though creative, had been rooted in serving myself: status, ambition. And while that brought periods of excitement, it did not bring lasting peace.

An old friend once asked, “Why don’t you do something that actually means something?” It hit me hard, but I didn’t yet know how to respond.

Meaning, I would later learn, can’t be manufactured. It must be remembered.

Remembering What Matters

I had forgotten something vital: my connection to the natural world, to spirit, to the reason I started telling stories in the first place.

The remembering began in 2018, when I immersed myself in the teachings of Alan Watts. Nature’s awe and the universe’s mystery stopped being abstract, they became real.

“The fear of death is completely absurd once you realise that you were dead for billions of years before you were born, and not the slightest inconvenience did you suffer from it.” (Alan Watts)

A question began to take root: Should we really fear death?

Looking back, I realise I was taking life for granted. Not out of carelessness, but through conditioning. I hadn’t yet grasped how fleeting and precious it is.

Around that time, I had a revelation: the night sky could become the next screen, and lit-up drones could be used as pixels to create inspirational stories in the sky. In 2020 I founded Celestial, a drone art company aimed to unite people through a shared sense of wonder. We lit up London’s New Year celebrations, performed at Eurovision, opened Glastonbury Music Festival and created original ticket shows such as Sky Song with Indigenous elders in Australia, blending modern tech with ancient wisdom.

Bringing the stars to life was, for the first time in my life, meaningful work.

The Invitation of Death

On paper, I had the dream: good friends, a healthy family, a beautiful home and a technology business I’d built from scratch. But beneath the surface, a new sense of purpose was emerging in me, and I was ignoring it, terrified of being judged. As a result, I was becoming sick, burnt out, spiritually starved. Despite any outward success, I felt like I was living beside my purpose, not within it.

You see, I was too afraid to name it, because in the West, DEATH is the ultimate taboo.

I now see Death had been whispering to me for years

Aged twenty-two, I was brutally attacked on the streets of Madrid, strangled by a stranger until I blacked out. I experienced what it is like to be murdered. But I didn’t die. I woke up in a gutter, gasping for breath—flooded with a strange and powerful emotion: gratitude. I was still alive.

Years later, I met death again through sacred plant medicine ceremonies. I experienced excruciating ego deaths, dissolving into the mystery of consciousness, surrendering everything I thought I was. In 2021, I held my father as he passed, watching his eyes fill with wonder as they looked into something I could not see.

Each moment cracked me open further.

Collapse and Clarity

Then came the collapse. In 2023, panic attacks brought me to my knees. My chest would tighten at the thought of each day. Business pressure, buried fear, years of misalignment, everything came crashing in.

At night, I listened to philosopher, Ram Dass, to calm my nervous system. One of his recurring statements lodged in my soul:

“Working with dying people was the highest work I ever did.” (Ram Dass)

That line struck like lightning. I saw every moment I’d brushed up against death, and realised they weren’t accidents. They were invitations.

Finding Alignment

Terrified by the thought of working with death, I nevertheless followed the thread. I trained as a Soul Midwife, learning the sacred art of accompanying people at the end of life. I began volunteering in my local hospital with Dorothy House and the NHS, sitting with the dying, holding space in those raw, final hours.

In those moments, I found not just grief, but love. Wonder. Grace. Magic. And I discovered something I’d never truly felt before: peace.

Being in service to others for the first time gave my life a different kind of purpose. Everything changed. Clarity emerged. Synchronicities multiplied. Fulfilment arrived not through what I could create, but through how I could be.

Since then, I’ve walked a steady healing path into a more authentic version of myself. I’ve become a Druidic Bard, studied Indigenous British traditions and gone on a deep exploration of consciousness itself.

Death As A Teacher

I believe we are living through a global awakening of what truly matters. And death, when faced squarely, becomes one of our greatest teachers.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” (Gandhi)

I carry immense reverence for those grieving or suffering. It takes quiet, unshakable courage to walk through the darkness. But death doesn’t have to be feared. It can be a guide. A mirror. A source of truth. In that raw space between life and death, I found what I had been seeking all along: clarity, connection, and meaning.

Now, I am learning how to die.

That might sound morbid. But for me, it’s been the most profound discovery of my life. Because in learning how to die, I’m finally learning how to live FULLY.

I look back now at my life’s journey with gratitude for every high and low that brought me here.

Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone

And this newsletter? This is part of that learning.

Writing this is the scariest thing I’ve ever done. For the first time, I’m showing you all of me, unfiltered, unpolished. For years, I told stories from behind the lens or in the sky. Now, I’m stepping into the story. Exposing my true self.

The Invitation

That’s what this newsletter is: a living offering. An experiment in radical truth-telling.

Dying to Live with Purpose is an adventure. And you’re invited.
A shared exploration of what it means to be fully alive and to live in alignment, rooted in joy and gratitude.

I don’t have all the answers. I believe the answers can be found on the path itself.

I’m just a fellow traveller, comfortable stepping into the unknown.

Live happy,

Hoppy

If you wish to go deeper read these:

The Ripple Effect Of Denying Death

Abraham Lincoln's Wisdom On Death & Purpose

The Fear Of Death And What It's Telling Us

What Is Purpose?