Facing death is necessarily costly

Cheap Therapy | Clarissa's Blog

The ego reads change as “death”. That is why, in terms of shamanism, to change at all, once must “face death”. This can be extremely grueling and weirder still, since nobody sees the anguish from the outside. 

I look at photos of myself ten years ago, which were wonderful, but clearly I was an extremely different person back then. I'm richer through combat.

I should take also take the opportunity to clarify a previous issue, which when I first encountered it had baffled me. Facing death is certainly not related to masochism, but is rather more like taking the bullet between your teeth and expanding.   Destruction and growth are necessarily intertwined in relation to the ego:

O my brethren! With whom lieth the greatest danger to the whole human future? Is it not with the good and just?—
—As those who say and feel in their hearts: "We already know what is good and just, we possess it also; woe to those who still seek thereafter!
And whatever harm the wicked may do, the harm of the good is the harmfulest harm!
And whatever harm the world-maligners may do, the harm of the good is the harmfulest harm!
O my brethren, into the hearts of the good and just looked some one once on a time, who said: "They are the Pharisees." But people did not understand him.
The good and just themselves were not free to understand him; their spirit was imprisoned in their good conscience. The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise.
It is the truth, however, that the good must be Pharisees—they have no choice!
The good must crucify him who deviseth his own virtue! That is the truth!
The second one, however, who discovered their country—the country, heart and soil of the good and just,—it was he who asked: "Whom do they hate most?"
The creator, hate they most, him who breaketh the tables and old values, the breaker,—him they call the law-breaker.
For the good—they cannot create; they are always the beginning of the end:—
—They crucify him who writeth new values on new tables, they sacrifice unto themselves the future—they crucify the whole human future!
The good—they have always been the beginning of the end.-

To put it plainly, those who demand that all things stay the same because they are unable to "face death", to allow for change in themselves and others, end up doing the most harmful harm.