However, following the sudden, heartbreaking death of a close family friend, Goodman undertook a profound shift in how she approaches fear, grief, and the inescapable reality of human mortality. Rather than allowing a fresh tragedy to reinforce a lifetime of apprehension, she used the experience to pioneer a new way of engaging with the present moment—moving from a state of perpetual fear to one of active presence and appreciation.
The Deep Roots of Chronic Fear
Goodman’s struggle with existential anxiety began long before adulthood. During her early childhood, three close friends lost a parent within just a few short years. Observing the severe emotional devastation that followed these losses altered her view of the world. The realization that loved ones could vanish in an instant shattered her sense of safety, triggering persistent panic attacks regarding the safety and survival of her own parents.
This early psychological vulnerability was further compounded by her family heritage. Both of Goodman’s parents were Holocaust survivors who had been orphaned during World War II. In addition to losing almost their entire extended families, they suffered the complete loss of their material possessions and homelands. Growing up in a household steeped in unspoken grief and trauma, Goodman inherited a hyperactive nervous system that remained perpetually primed for catastrophe. To her, death never felt like a natural or predictable part of the human life cycle; instead, it felt apocalyptic.
Despite these challenging beginnings, Goodman built a prominent career. Over a 30-year span, she co-founded Earthbound Farm, helping to transform a simple backyard garden into the world’s largest grower of organic produce. She also authored four books and created Quest for Eternal Sunshine, an online platform dedicated to providing free resources for healing and emotional well-being. In recent years, through extensive personal healing work and intentional practice to calm her nervous system, Goodman had begun to experience a greater sense of daily ease.
That fragile sense of peace was suddenly put to the test when tragedy struck her close circle. Seth Pollack—a cherished family friend described as wise, joyous, and generous—was struck by an automobile during a morning bicycle ride and killed instantly.
The death left Pollack’s wife, who is one of Goodman’s closest friends, and their daughters navigating immediate, overwhelming loss. For Goodman, the suddenness of Pollack’s passing sent shockwaves through her personal progress, causing long-standing terrors about the fragility of life to return with full force.
Accepting the Truth of Impermanence
In the months following Pollack’s death, as his family bravely navigated their grief, Goodman began to process the tragedy through a different lens. She realized that while her chronic anxiety had been magnified by inherited trauma, her fear of sudden loss was not inherently irrational. The reality of the human condition is that no one can guarantee that they—or the people they cherish—will still be here tomorrow.
Goodman recognized that the basic terms of human existence are non-negotiable. Crucially, she understood that constant worry provides no actual protection against tragedy. Endlessly fighting or bracing against an unalterable reality was an exercise in futility.
While acknowledging that nothing lasts forever can be frightening, Goodman observed that this truth can also serve as an awakening. The certainty of impermanence highlights the absolute preciousness of the present moment. She realized she faced a fundamental choice: remain mentally imprisoned by the fear of inevitable loss, or allow the reality of impermanence to deepen her appreciation for the life she has right now.
Cultivating Presence Instead of Fear
As time passed, Pollack’s enduring legacy provided Goodman with a roadmap for how to move forward. Despite the tragedy of his abrupt passing, those who knew him recognized that he had lived a remarkably full, generous, and meaningful life—one defined by faith, joy, and open engagement with the world rather than fear.
Recognizing that her friend would never want his memory to make those he loved more fearful of living, Goodman questioned her own trajectory. She considered how she would view her life in retrospect—whether she would regret letting anxiety steal her peace, or whether she could cultivate true serenity.
Because logical reasoning had rarely succeeded in dismantling her anxiety, Goodman devised a practical emotional experiment. She approached the frightened, vigilant parts of her psyche with a simple proposal: instead of demanding permanent change from a nervous system accustomed to constant alert, she asked if those protective instincts could be put on hold for just a single afternoon.
During this experiment, whenever anxious thoughts or catastrophic scenarios arose, Goodman gently acknowledged them. She reassured herself that she could attend to those worries later, but chose not to engage with them in that moment. Rather than suppressing her fear, she redirected her focus entirely to the present, intentionally tuning into physical feelings of relaxation and trust.
The results of the afternoon were transformative. Although Goodman carried out her standard daily routine without any external changes, her internal experience shifted dramatically. She reported feeling lighter, more at ease, and significantly more open to genuine connection. She found herself able to hold her husband’s gaze longer, sing with enthusiasm while walking her dogs, and offer warmer, more extended hugs to those around her.
The Cost of Living in Fear
Through her repeated practice of this experiment, Goodman gained clarity on the true cost of chronic anxiety. Fear, she realized, does far more than cause emotional discomfort; it actively shrinks a person’s perspective, fostering suspicion, wariness, and hyper-fixation on potential disasters. By continuously directing attention toward what might go wrong, fear pulls individuals away from what is actually occurring in the present.
While fear demands total certainty before allowing a person to feel safe—a standard that life can never satisfy—trust enables an individual to participate fully in an inherently uncertain world.
By stepping away from chronic vigilance, even for short intervals, Goodman experienced the vitality and magic that become accessible when mental energy is no longer drained by constant worry. Returning to this practice regularly has made present-moment engagement feel increasingly natural and accessible.
Choosing What to Carry Forward
While Goodman acknowledges the heavy legacy of trauma she inherited, her experience following Pollack’s death demonstrated that deeply ingrained emotional patterns do not have to dictate the future. Individuals retain the agency to reshape their internal lives and choose what emotional weight they carry forward.
Being confronted once again with sudden, devastating tragedy confirmed for Goodman that loss can strike without warning. However, it also delivered a vital lesson: continuously anticipating pain does not prevent it, nor does it make loss any easier to bear when it arrives.
Ultimately, mortality offers a powerful counter-narrative to the logic of fear. Where fear insists that potential loss requires constant defensiveness and bracing, a deeper understanding of mortality suggests the opposite: because life and relationships are temporary, they deserve to be fully valued, loved, and savoring right now. The inevitability of loss, Goodman realized, is not an argument for living cautiously—it is a compelling mandate to live and love with complete devotion.
