The Liz Moody Podcast - How To Overcome Fear of Death (+ Genius Tips For Navigating Grief) with Alua Arthur

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

I’m excited to welcome Alua Arthur to the podcast. Alua is a certified death doula who works with clients to develop end of life plans and provide non-medical support leading up to death. Her company Going With Grace staffs a team of death doulas that provide professional end of life support as well as courses, training, and retreats for future death doulas. Alua also sits on the Board of Directors of the End of Life Doula Council of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. On this episode, we talk about: exactly what a death doula does where fear of death comes from how to get over the fear of dying without finishing what you wanted to do actionable ways to acknowledge + deal with grief in all its forms  a genius practice for building resilience exactly how to show up for someone in your life that’s grieving  how to stop letting fear of death limit your life  what a death meditation is + how it works  what your intrusive thoughts about death may be trying to tell you  realistic tips for navigating fears of oblivion and nothingness when you die  the impact of religious or spiritual beliefs on facing death  the one thing people who are the strongest at the face of death have in common exactly how to talk to kids about death without scaring them  tips for facing anxiety about leaving the people who need us most when we die  what to do if you’re hesitant to get preventative medical care due to fears of finding out bad news and so much more!  We would LOVE to hear from you any thoughts, reactions, or takeaways you have as you’re listening, so definitely screenshot and tag me @lizmoody and Alua @going_with_grace on Instagram.  To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. Get your Healthier Together Deck today at healthyconvo.co and use code LAUNCHDAY to get 10% off, just right now to celebrate launch. This episode is sponsored by Paleovalley. Head over to paleovalley.com and use the code LIZM for 15% off. This episode is sponsored by Ava Jane’s Kitchen Colima Sea Salt. Go to HealthierTogetherSalt.com to get your first bag of Colima Sea Salt for free.  This episode is sponsored by Pique. Get 5% off plus a free blooming teas pouch complete with premium Pique samples when you purchase 2 or more cartons from piquetea.com/LIZMOODY and use code LIZMOODY.  Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're learning science-back secrets for having more fun, getting doctors' tips for optimizing our gut microbiome, or learning how to network like pros. And yes, those are all real episodes. So if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. I am so excited that not only have the healthier together decks been restocked and they

are ready for new orders, but they're also new and improved. We listened to your feedback and removed all of the R-rated questions so you can play with your mom and dad and grandparents at Thanksgiving with no weirdness, and we replaced all of them with brand new questions. We also added a die for more structured gameplay, and we now ship internationally so that anyone can get their hands on it. If you're listening to this and you're wondering what the heck is the healthier You're Together deck. It is my first ever totally self-funded product and I am so, so, so proud of it. It is a conversation game with 150 obsessively tested questions in six different categories. We've got love, wealth, adventure, well-being, what-ifs, and growing up.

It is designed to fuel thoughtful discussion, making boring surface-level conversations a thing of the past. You know, I hate surface-level conversations. I want to go deep immediately. This is the perfect thing to bring to Thanksgiving this year if you want to avoid political discussions or just get along and get to know your family members as real people. So if you would like it for Thanksgiving, go to Healthycombo.combo.com to order it to get it in time. We also have a special code just to celebrate launch as a little thank you to all of the members of this community. You can use Launch Day, L-A-U-N-C-H-D-A-Y to get 10% off. Again, you can check that out at healthyconvo.co.co.co. This deck sold out three times last year, and I've gotten so much feedback from you about how it's helped you have the best conversations

ever with your spouses, with your family members, with your friends, and I'm just so, so proud of it, and I'm so excited for you to get your hands on it so that is healthyconvo.combo.co. Okay, let's get into today's episode because I am also very proud of it and very excited about it. I had the idea a while back to do an episode about overcoming fear of death, but I wanted to find the perfect guest to do it, which was not an easy feat. Death is a heavy topic. It involves a lot of scary emotions, and it's something that I have personally struggled to face in my own life. The fear of oblivion and nothingness gives me a ton of anxiety, and I tend to get a void in about talking about death, especially because it's such a taboo topic and there's just not a lot of safe

spaces to discuss it. So today, because of all of that, we are facing it head on. I could not think of a better person to tackle all of the scary questions that I had about death than today's guest, Elua Arthur. Alua is a certified death duel whose company Going with Grace staffs a team of death duels that provide professional end-of-life support as well as courses, training, and retreats for future death duels. Aulua also sits on the board of directors of the End-of-Life Dula Council of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

In this episode, we talk about exactly what a death dola does, where fear of death comes from, how to get over the fear of dying without finishing what you wanted to do in your life, actionable ways to acknowledge and deal with grief in all of its forms, a genius practice for building resilience, exactly how to show up for someone in your life that's grieving, how to stop letting fear of death limit your life, what a death meditation is and how it works, what your intrusive thoughts about death may be trying to tell you,

realistic tips for navigating fears of oblivion and nothingness when you die, the impact of religious or spiritual beliefs on facing death, the one thing people who are strongest in the face of death have in common, exactly how to talk to kids about death without scaring them, tips for facing anxiety about leaving the people who need us most when we die, what to do if you're hesitant to get preventative medical care due to fears about finding out bad news and so much more. A Liu and I would both love to hear your thoughts as you're listening, and I am so interested to hear what sticks with you most,

and if any of this even help, so definitely share and tag us both on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody and she is at Going underscore with underscore grace. If something in this episode really speaks to you or sounds like it might be helpful for someone in your life who's maybe struggling with grief or the idea of death, please share it with them. Alua's words are so powerful and I hope that this episode can be shared with as many people as possible so we can all feel a little bit more at ease and just break some of the taboo about talking about these types of things.

Thank you so much for continuing to share and grow the healthier together podcast. We have had so many episodes recently trending on Spotify, and it's not only amazing because it means that I can continue to get the best possible guests for you guys, but I also just love knowing and hearing how much these messages are resonating. I do want to give a little warning for this episode. It is very much about death, so if you find that triggering in any way, this might not be the episode for you. While I think that the wisdom that A. Lua shares during the episode can be so helpful in addressing

those fears and hard feelings, I know that not everyone is ready to hear or talk about it, and that is 100% okay. You can always come back and listen when and if you're ready. Okay, are you ready for a very real, very honest, very open conversation about death with Aulu Arthur? Let's get right into it. A Lua, welcome to the podcast. I am such a huge fan of your work. It is such important and unique work. So thank you for being here. Thank you, Liz. I'm really excited to get to talk to you about death. So I would love to start off with just hearing about what a death dula is. So can you share a little bit about your role and maybe a few examples of what being a death dula actually looks like in practice? I'll do my best because it can look like everything. Since there's so many of us and we all live

unique lives, we all have really unique deaths. And so our needs at death are really different for everybody. However, a death dula is somebody who does all of the non-medical care and support of the dying person and the family, the circle of support through the process. So we're dealing with any of the emotional needs. Sometimes people want to pay attention to their relationships and healing aspects of their relationships. Their spiritual needs. They are curious about what, if anything comes after death. Their logistical needs. Like, what do we? do with all this stuff after my loved one dies? What do we do to do the hospital bed? Do we need to get a will? Who do we need to go to for that? How do we get our affairs in order? And also just basic,

like, what might be undone in my life type of questions and concerns. So death doulas are able to support with all of the end of life needs that somebody might have, which are not medical, because doctors do a great job at that, but we're there for social support. Okay, so if somebody says to you, like, what comes next, what comes after death, what do you say to them? I ask them what they think. It's a really fun conversation to have, you know. And my beliefs don't really matter in this space. It's far more important that the person who's dying have an opportunity to be with their fears or their beliefs or really dig into them because they're about to find out real quick. I might still have a little bit of time, but the person who's dying, they're going to know the truth pretty soon.

I find that so hard to get my head around because I don't know what happens and that's why I'm so scared. So if you were like, well, what do you think? I'd be like, I don't know. Help me. Like, tell me what to think because that. That's what terrifies me. Yeah. Well, in that case, what we do is probably spend some time thinking about all the images that you have that terrify you and start to think about where you got those from.

So much of our fear of death is given to us. We learn it in religion. We learn it from our parents. We learn it from adults that are scared of death and tell us terrifying things or even things that seem benign. Like grandma just went to sleep, they sound benign enough. But then to a seven-year-old and they're terrified of going to sleep because they think that sleep is eternal, you know? So a lot of our fears of death are really given to us. A lot of them are ours to begin with.

And, you know, the reality is that none of us know. Like when I say, well, what do you think happens? They say, I don't know. Well, of course you don't know. I don't know either. None of us know. We're all still on this side of life, you know? Nobody knows.

Nobody. Any of the prophets or scholars or wisdom seekers, nobody knows. It's all conjecture. So the best that we can do is fill it with what we might want it to be. Like what could be the best case scenario. That's really interesting. I actually remember that from being a kid having a period where I was afraid to go to sleep. That's funny that you mentioned that.

Are you afraid of your own death at all at this point? The longer I'm around people that are dying, the longer I'm in conversation with those folks that are curious about death and dying, you know, the deeper my fear of death seems to hide. Because in order to do this work, you have to have a solid personal relationship with death. So I'm constantly like looking at it. What does that mean? How does that show up? And one place that I still notice it is I have a big vision for this work, and I think that death doulas can really be instituted in society, and I fear that I'm going to die before I get to see that

actualized. I don't really know what that looks like, but I'd really, really, really like to see it done. I'm also writing a book. I'm really afraid I'm going to die before the book is done, but they have my permission to just go ahead and print it because I work too dang hard on it. So some of the fears of death I have are around, like I know for sure that when I die, my work will be done because that's just how it goes. And at the same time, it still makes me a little sad to think that I won't be able to see

people being able to walk in and apply for a death dula job or get a death dula just because somebody, their life wants to start planning, you know? Can you explain that notion a little bit further, the idea that when you die, your work will be done? Because I do think that's a fear. A lot of people have the idea of dying with unfinished business. on this planet. Understandable, because there's a lot of business we want to get to. But the timing of death is sovereign. When it's not time, it won't be, and when it is time, it just will be,

which means that that is it. It's a hard line. Do not pass go to not collect $300. There's nothing left to do after that. Everybody dies with a to-do list of some sort. Even the very elderly amongst us have some idea, but they might want to do tomorrow, even those that are really just waiting to die and have seen it all. On some level, think, well, I'm probably just going to watch my same shows tomorrow, and maybe so-and-so will come and visit me, or I'll take these medicines. So most of us have a vision for the future, and death in its sovereignty cuts all of that short, which means that I can't argue with it. It is what it is, you know? And so when I die, that'll be it. That'll be it. Hopefully what I've done thus far will live and still have impact.

but my portion will be done. Does the way that you would help somebody grapple with the idea of their own death change if that person is in their 20s and dealing with terminal cancer and having their life cut incredibly short versus somebody who's in their 80s or 90s and has lived this long, full life? Yeah, because I think that their fear or death and things that are coming up for them look different. I should say I've met a woman who was in her 20s who had a breast cancer who was feeling ready.

She was sick, and she'd been sick a long time, and she's tired of being sick, and she was ready. So her fear or death, I'll say, seemed really diminished as compared to what you might expect, given her biographical data. I think that we all have various levels of fear of death that show up at different points in our lives. Like, I've recently fallen in love again with the same guy after a few years,

and I notice how sometimes I look at him while he's sleeping, and I'm like, he better not die. Oh, I think that about my husband all the time. It's the most unimaginable life-altering thing I can think about. And so sometimes like he won't, I don't know, like text me and it's been an extra hour and I'll just make up these scenarios in my head of like, oh my God, he got in a car accident and my entire life is over now. And it's just, oh, the thoughts that can penetrate this brain. Absolutely. So that's your fear of death that lives in other people. Sometimes people say that they don't have any or they have no fear of death at all. And I'm like, where are other people in your life? that you have some pain or itch or difficulty or rub hesitation about their death. That's the fear of death that's speaking. And I just want to also acknowledge that there are many, many, many people that have faced that unimaginable and survive. You know, plenty of people widowed, plenty of people who their loves of their life dropped

dead or were sick for a long time and are still kicking. I know, but I have this idea that those people are more resilient than me. Like I think a lot of it comes down, at least for me, to this idea that, if my resilience were tested, I wouldn't come out well. Where'd you get that from? I don't know. Can you tell me where I got that from? No, I have no idea. I mean, because our sense of self and capacity is shifting all the time, you know, and we grow it in various ways. Humans are so adaptable as I trust you are. I don't know much about your career, but I've noticed that you seem to have taken on a lot more than used to not that long ago and your capacity has grown. I think the same is with grief and with

pain and difficulty. And even sometimes I hear people when we're doing end of life planning sessions say things like, well, if I become disabled to a certain point, just take me in the back and shoot me. Like if I can't wipe my own ass, just take me out and shoot me. And I'm like, now what makes us think that being disabled to that point, we would not adapt to it? We all do. Plenty of people do billions of people adapt to disability all the time. Our capacity grows. Our capacity grows. capacity for grief grows, our capacity for love grows. We're humans. We're adaptable, naturally. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have. Like, if it's off-gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life. And most conventional mattresses

are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants, microplastics, and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning. You're going to be really hot. And sleep is the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my house, no other things in my house, I would invest in my mattress. And in fact, I have four years well before I had much money to spend on any of these things because it is such a big needle mover. The birch mattress is incredible. It is made with organic cotton, natural latex, and ethically sourced wool. So it has literally no off gassing. You can not smell anything right when you unbox it. It has no microplastics, no synthetic foams or

flame retardants. And the wool makes it so breathable, which if you've listened to this podcast for more than five minutes, you know that I run very, very hot. Like I am a furnace. Zach has basically accepted that sleeping next to me is like sleeping next to like a little fire. And the birch mattress has been a game changer for that. It's made me sleep so much better. Like I can see my sleep score going up because I'm not hot all night long. It's also hypoallergenic, which is really worth paying attention to if you find yourself waking up stuffy or congested. Dust might be. in a conventional mattress can actually impact your breathing and your sleep quality without you even realizing it. And again, we need to be able to breathe to get good sleep and getting good sleep is the

foundation of our health. And then comfort-wise, Zach sleeps on his back and then I sleep on my side and my stomach. So we have two completely different sleep styles and we both wake up feeling really good, no aches and pains. CNN actually named the Birch mattress, the best mattress for side sleepers and Wired named it the best organic mattress period. So there you go. Birch has options for every kind of sleeper in your household. They have three firmness layers. I like the Lux Natural, which is the medium one. And then parents, they even have a Birch kids' natural mattress. Burch ships right to your door. It sets up in minutes and it comes with 120 night risk-free trial. So if it is not for you, they will pick it up for free. You have

nothing to lose here. I want all of you to enjoy a deep, restful night's sleep with a new mattress from Birch, go to birchliving.com slash Liz Moody for 20% off. That is birchliving.com slash Liz Moody and you're going to get 20% off birch living.com slash Liz Moody. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has

genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes, every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here's the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more. We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements. We're trying to do harder workouts. And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we

also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement mitopure does. It contains urolithin A, where you. which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking mitochondure increased muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change in exercise routine,

it's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithin-A keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, Eurolithine, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age.

Support yourselves and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitopure gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. Is there any way to almost practice that adaptability or to be able to take it on in your mind so that you can feel confident that if you were faced with circumstances that you might be lingering on in a negative way, that you would be resilient and you would be able to handle it? A great place to start is by acknowledging how resilient you've already been. We're adapting all the time.

Humans are masters, masters of managing the unknown. and what may come because we wake up every day not knowing what it's going to bring us, and yet we adapt to the circumstances. Right before this call, I thought I was driving to go pick up this beautiful table I'd seen, and along the way realized that I didn't have enough gas to do so, so I adapted. It's a small thing to say, but we adapt. We're adapting on the fly time and time and time again. We adapt when our cell phone battery dies and we're in the middle of somewhere.

We adapt when we break up. We adapt when we move. we adapt when we change jobs. We adapt when become mothers or fathers or non-binary parents. We adapt constantly. And we're highly, highly, highly resilient. We all have been. I mean, at some point, you lost all your baby teeth.

You know what I mean? It was painful. It was difficult. You did it. That's interesting. Do you think that resiliency then is like a muscle? It's almost like a gratitude practice in some ways. Like by noticing the moments in which you're resilient,

you can start to build the faith in your future resilience. Could not have said a better myself. Thank you, Liz. That was eloquent. Perfect. Yes. Okay. That's interesting.

I like the idea in some ways of having a resilience practice in addition to or in Lua, but like alongside something like a gratitude practice. I've never thought of that as a concept. And I feel like in some ways I need that just as much. That's pretty rich. I love the idea. It can show up in so many different places. Like grief is one too.

You know, we are grieving consistently. but our level of awareness on it is slim until it's like a big one and then we can identify it as grief. But grief is showing up around us all the time. And if we can pay attention, oh, I'm grieving. We can learn how we grieve so that when the big one comes, I'm not saying they're going to be any easier, but at least we'll be a little bit more familiar. What do you mean by that? We're grieving consistently.

Like, do you mean even in lieu of having loved ones actually die? For sure. Like we grieve breakups. We grieve housing situations. this kind of goes hand-in-hand with adaptability. We grieve when we lose jobs. We grieve when we're single and getting married, even though it's a joyous occasion. There's also some grief in it because you are leaving your secret single life and secret single behavior behind. We're grieving often without the focus on it. Right now, I'm grieving a former life. That's surprising me.

I mentioned to you. I just moved and I'm in this big house now and I'm like, oh my God, I have to walk so many steps every time I can't find myself on and I have to walk a bunch of steps. And while it's a joyous thing, it's also like, wow, there was another me that lived in a tiny house. I'm like a lot of gardens and we go outside all the time. This is a beautiful thing, you know, it's a beautiful thing, this thing that has now been created in my life. And yet, I am leaving something else behind. Any time that we're shifting in identity or circumstance or something of the fact, there's some grief involved. It's so interesting.

I've heard friends who are new moms express a few. feeling like that where they're so happy to have their baby, but there is a grief that forevermore you're a mom, that your identity has changed so fundamentally in a way that is never going to change back that you have to almost mourn the loss of that former self. Yes. And societally, we don't make space for it because it's like, oh, you're a mom now. Oh, you're a parent now. Yay. It's like, yay. And we have to allow both at the same time. It's not dismissing the yay to have the and. Absolutely. But what it does do when we dismiss our versatility as humans, we don't allow ourselves to be fully the full range of human. Yeah, I can be happy. I can also

be sad. I can hold grief. I can hold love. I can hold grief. I can hold joy. I can hold grief. I can hold presence. We're human. I was married once. It was a brief marriage. But what happened is we had been together for a while and then got married, we got engaged and got married very quickly. And I think the engagement period is part of the time where you're also supposed to grieve a little bit, where you put all the single stuff down and you think about what your future is going to be. And our engagement period was so short. And we went straight into marriage. And then I was like, holy cow, what happened to me? Like now I'm just somebody's wife, you know? I did not pay any attention to that difficulty in the changing of identity. And when I speak about it,

People were like, oh, but this is so great. And I was like, it's great. And also I'm struggling, y'all. Like I'm having a hard time reconciling single me and now married me. It was a grief process that I wasn't aware of that had me run to see if I could save the single self rather than identify that sadness that I was experiencing was just grief. Does that make sense? It absolutely makes sense. Can you share some more effective ways then that we can acknowledge and deal with?

with grief? One way, and we've already identified this, is to look at any change you're experiencing an identity. Anything that sounds like I used to be this, I am that, or I used to be that, I am now this, there's probably some element of grief in there. And so paying attention to when those shifts in identity occur, paying attention to also any shifts in belief structure or system. I used to be an evangelical Christian, and now I'm a practicing Buddhist or something, for example. There's probably a little bit of grief in there. You're leaving rituals behind. You're leaving customs behind. You're leaving a way being in the world behind. So those are two areas in particular to pay attention to when trying to identify where there might be grief occurring that is in our

conscious awareness. And similar to now our resilience practice and our gratitude practice, we can also identify a grieving practice. Today I am grieving. dot, dot, dot. So what does the grieving look like in practice? Like are we, you know, begging our heads on a pillar? Are we doing a primal scream? Are we watching a movie that's going to make us cry? It almost feels like a very basic question to ask, but I also feel like we are not taught societally to process our emotions

in a healthy or progressive or constructive way. I'd agree with you on that one. And I think part of the challenge that we have with grief is just that. is that our emotions are something that we're taught to not tune into or to not pay attention to or only let out in private and in small old doses because who knows it could take you out. You know, you might be laid out on the floor. That's such a good point. I think we have pushed off our emotions for so long that we're afraid if we opened ourselves up to them fully,

they would knock us over like a tidal wave. Yeah. And we'd be thriving like reptiles on the floor. We might, but that's probably going to be brief because this two shall pass because it all does. You know what it all does. Part of the challenge with grief societally is that we don't talk about it. We don't share our sadness. We don't share our pain. And then when we do, since those on the listening side are often uncomfortable with their own, they try to quell it. Somebody starts crying. You say, oh, don't cry. We hand them a tissue as though their tears aren't welcome, as though they

have to hide them away. We don't make space for people to be in sadness, to be in grief. and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just hard, but it's not bad. It's just hard. So acknowledging that we've not been taught it and that there is that discomfort, are there very pragmatic practices that you would recommend for people dealing with grief that you found helpful in your work? Oh, that's a great question. I'll say this for starters, that my work focuses on death in particular, and death and grief are married because of the nature of the loss, but I do a lot more work in the death space. When it comes to grief, though, acknowledging that your grieving is a great place to start,

looking at what you're grieving, what is shifted in your life, in your identity, and your belief structure in your world, noticing the loss, being able to name the loss and identifying it as a loss rather than, you know, just like a happy experience or event. I also want to acknowledge that you'd asked about how we do it, were the different ways in which what does grief look like? And grief doesn't always look like crying and sadness. Sometimes grief looks like anger. Sometimes grief looks like promiscuity.

Although I hate that word, we need a better word for it. Sometimes grief looks like laughter. You know, I've seen many people laughing hysterically at a bedside or after death. Sometimes grief looks like freedom because the person who died, it was a complicated relationship or something like that. And so in all these times, we're adjusting to the loss. And emotions are coming up. And identifying, acknowledging those emotions, just letting them be,

just allowing ourselves to be human is a great place to start for whatever it might look like. Sad movie, playlist, that just makes you a boo-hoo. That's one of my personal favorites. Walking around outside. I love the idea of giving ourselves permission to give us. ourselves what we actually need to process grief. Like I love the idea that you're saying it can sometimes look like laughter. It can sometimes look like tears. And I think there can be a lot of guilt and shame around the idea that we're not grieving correctly. And that whole like we're not

doing it right thing. But there's no right way to grieve. It is how it is. It is how it shows up for you. We teach death do lives at going with grace. And one of the fun inquiries that we have is I I ask the students of myself to notice what it is that I'm currently grieving, notice how I've been grieving, and what expressions of grief that I'm comfortable with or familiar with for myself. Because in the work, I'm going to see a lot of them. And if I can't identify it as grief, I'm going to probably give the folks that are experiencing the grief a hard time, not being able to witness them, you know? That makes a ton of sense. I'll get back to us overcoming the fear of our own death in a second. That makes me want to ask about if there are better or worse ways to support somebody grieving,

and somebody who is dealing with loss. You just said you can see that this is a sign of grief. What do you do? Do you step into that space with them? Do you try to hold that space? Like, what can we do when we're witnessing that? I think the highest call for all of us, and this is certainly the death of the creed, is to meet people where they're at.

Be there with them. It's not my job to fix it. I don't have to make it better. I don't have to make them feel better. If I can just be there with them, meet them where they are, acknowledge, validate, hold it, and not fill it with advice or suggestions or platitudes. God, please, no platitudes. None of this, he's in a better place or anything that sounds like at least dot, dot, dot, that probably is not very helpful.

I will say that I'm not like a he's in a better place person, but the way that my brain works is I'm always trying to make logical arguments for things. And so I think that the way that I would gravitate towards helping somebody with grief is to try to make a logical argument for something being better about the situation, even though I know in my heart of hearts that it's not true. But that's just like the way my brain works. Yeah. Liz, can I tell you something a little uncomfortable? Yeah, tell me. That that's your inadequacy that's showing up. Okay, tell me more. You're inadequacy in the face of grief. Because, well, I also heard you say that if you're trying to help somebody through their grief, but you don't have the power to do so necessarily.

Grief is such an individual journey. And the best that we can do is hope that somebody holds our hand along the way. Somebody doesn't tell us this is what we should do instead. And oftentimes advice or suggestions about what it is that we're experiencing and how to make it better suggest that the thing that we're experiencing is wrong somehow. I do know what you mean. And that resonates strongly with me. It also taps into a lot of the other things that I'm working through around control and thinking I can exert control over situations that are out of my control, which is where a lot of my anxiety comes from in my life. I'm curious.

I'm curious in practice what that looks like, though. So like if I have a friend and she's just had a scary diagnosis or I have a friend and she's just had a loss and I go and I sit with her and then do I say nothing? Do I say, like, I'm here to talk about whatever you want to talk about? And then if she doesn't know what she wants to talk about, am I saying nothing? Am I ordering her Uber Eats? Am I suggesting like 25 movies and seeing if one appeals to her? Like, in the moment pragmatically, what am I doing?

Those are all so great. Okay. And I just love how you're trying to find the solution. You're like, how do we make this better? We're a very solution-oriented podcast here. Okay, so show up. That's a great place to start. Don't pretend that nothing has happened because people do that sometimes.

So show up. Acknowledge that something has happened. Acknowledge of something has happened. And then really let them take the lead. Like you can say, oh gosh, I'm so sad to hear that your dad died. I'm here. Is there anything that you'd like to do tonight? Is there anything that you'd like to talk about?

If you want to talk about him, that's okay. If you don't, that's okay too. Ask them if they're hungry. Ask them if they've eaten today. Order some food. Ask them how they slept. Ask them if they want some wine. Ask them if they want to watch a movie.

I love all your suggestions. What we're trying to do here is we're taking their lead. We're taking their lead. Maybe they want to talk about the thing. Maybe they don't. They don't have to. Maybe their relationship with you, their time with you is a time to pretend that the world is still right side up rather than upside down in the face of serious loss or diagnosis. That's always my thing that I'm scared to do is to talk about normal things.

Do you think that literally just asking if that's what the person is interested in? Like, would you rather talk about this or, you know, have a little bit of an escape from it? Or is there a way to kind of test the waters there without feeling like you're just ignoring this very significant thing happening in their life? What you said was perfect. Okay. You know, maybe they just do want to talk about, I don't know, Kim Kardashian. Totally. Maybe that's the thing because maybe that's an opportunity for them to silence the difficult emotions that they're dealing with or a way to look away from them for a little.

little bit. Maybe that's what your relationship is there for. Maybe it's what it's good for. And maybe three hours later, they might want to start talking about the difficult thing. We can't necessarily make it better. You know, I can't do somebody's grief for them. Now, I can show up. I can be a friend. I can let them lead. I can sit in silence if that's what they're choosing. I can bring all the potato chips if that's what they're choosing. But asking them isn't putting too much on them because that's the other thing that I worry about. Like, oh, you're so energy depleted because you're going through this thing. I don't want to make demands of you, even if the demands are asking how I can show up for you. And that's so conscientious of you. I think a simple thing, like, have you eaten today?

And does anything sound good? That's a great place to start if the inquiry is about a meal. I think it's really cool to be keen on whether or not you're making demands of the person. but showing up is the first best thing that will get you so far down the line and then see what the space is asking of you. Okay. Let's get back into facing the fear of our own death because I have made a soft promise to this community that we can all kind of overcome our fear of death together with this episode. One of the things I'm curious about is addressing the fear of death in these very pragmatic

ways that it shows up in our lives. So for me, I'm afraid of flying because I'm afraid of death. So I limit the flights that I take because I'm so afraid of dying. I also limit the risks that I take because I'm so afraid of dying. I worry about getting cancer. So is there any practice or tip or mindset shift that we can use to stop letting our fear of an eventual future impact our lives in this moment? That's a big question.

A really big question. Here's a deal. Fear death is built into how. we are as humans. It's that thing that says don't walk over the edge of the cliff or run when a bear is coming or hydrate and eat food. You know, keep yourself alive. It's a useful component to how we live. It can also provide context about what we value and give us information about what we could be doing now with our lives, knowing that my death is coming and I'm worried about my death coming or the reasons I'm worried about my death coming and can I do any of those things right now with my life?

I think it becomes a challenge and perhaps useful to have professional support with it, and I mean like a mental health professional, when it starts to impact how we're living. Like if there are things that we won't do because we're afraid of death. But let me also say that a fear of death sometimes, fear of the process of dying. You know, we do these death meditations with folks that say that they have a fear of death. And what I find most often is that it's not the death itself that they're afraid of. It's what happens as life is ending.

What is it pain in the body, the process of the body? What am I not going to be able to do anymore? I'm going to be worried that my time is up, but it's not the death itself. And so in that case, it's like, well, what are the things that you have challenges with? Is it pain? Is it the process of the body? Let's make it a good plan for you to get good pain care when your end of life is coming. Is it that you haven't done enough yet with your life and so you don't want to die?

What can we start with today? What can we start doing? So one of the best things to do is to figure out what is at the root of it. I'm afraid to die is a very, very big category of what's underneath it. And also, where did it come from? Is it information for me about my current life right now, things that I need to do? Or is it a religious fear? Is it a fear of what's happening after I die?

Like, what is the root of this fear? And then work on that route. And our fears are so different based on who we are, that it's hard to give broad-scale support or advice. The best is to spend some time sitting in it, thinking about your fear of death isn't going to make you die right now. So you can be with it a little bit. Spend a little time. What is the thing that I'm so afraid of? What does a death meditation look like? Ooh, honey chop. A death meditation, for me, it's kind of fun. But it's a practice that was developed by this human named Joan Halifax Roshi, and I think his name is Larry Rosenberg back in the day, based on the nine contemplations of dying that were written by

Atisha, who's an 11th century Buddhist scholar. And those nine contemplations of dying, are the things that we all are thinking about regularly when it comes to death. Now, some of them are more painful for us than others. And so in the death meditations, we offer at Going with Grace both online and in person, we get a chance to walk through all those nine contemplations of dying, and then sit with the ones that make us most uncomfortable, and then meditate on those while we walk through the process of the body's decline. So we walk through losing consciousness, not being able to breathe, expanding consciousness,

looking at the body as a corpse, et cetera. And then naturally, we come back, we come back alive and present. What I've noticed a lot in these death meditations is that people can better identify what they're afraid of. And they don't just have a long panic attack? Not yet. It sounds so scary that. picturing that process feels really scary to me, which I guess maybe you would say is just a sign that I probably need to do it.

Well, I understand why it's scary, and I will say that you're safe the entire time. You're going toe to toe with your imagination and your brain during that time, but you're physically going to be safe. You're not going to die doing a death meditation unless that's some real interesting luck you've got. Okay, you're going to be fine. And then in that case, to your earlier point, that was just your time. And that's just how the world works. Yeah. And you'd be pretty lucky if you're dying right in front of a death dula. You did pretty good. You know? True. I've heard you note that there's a difference between acting in a way that's more of a resistance to death versus an embracing of life. I would love to hear you explain that a little bit more. It's almost a subtle difference, but it impacts how we live all the time.

For some, the fear of death has us anxious and urgent and like, go, go, go, get, get, do, do, because I'm going to die. And for others, where it's the embracing of life, it invites us into the present. It invites us to stop and marvel and wonder at what an experience it is to be alive at all. So on the one hand is get it all while I'm here, hustle, go for it. And on the other is, wow, I'm here. Now, those two things, I go in and out of those all day, I'll have to say, because as I mentioned, I still have concerns about my work not being complete. And so I want to work hard.

And then I'll trip out on a butterfly for 20 minutes. Stone cold, sober in the middle of the day. So one feels very much like anxiousness and the fear of death. And the other one is like allowing life to be and to flower and to blossom and to open. I'm curious moment to moment if you feel like you're in one headspace, if there's a way to kind of switch into the other. Like switch from, oh, I have so much I need to do. I have to get all this done. My life is so short and fleeting to this is a beautiful gift this time on this planet, this moment.

As you were talking about I have so much to do and whatever else, I took a deep, long, hard breath. That's a great place to start. Look at your feet. Look at your feet. Where are they? Plant your feet down. feel all corners of them because your brain can be 30 years in the future at your death, but your feet are right here right now.

And to look at your feet, bring yourself right back to the present. What a mystery it is even to be able to feel the floor, you know, to feel cold or wood or carpet or a pain in that toe that I stubbed the other day. That's a mystery. That invites all just in its very essence. Are there other things that you have learned in your experience working in death that have changed how you live your life day to day? Everything, everything. Prior to death work, I was a lawyer.

I worked at legal aid. And I was working in domestic violence and sexual assaults and working with long-income clients. And the work was good work. You know, it was like noble work. But it wasn't work that left me feeling full. I would push my edges intellectually occasionally, but I wasn't. pushing the edges of my life, like I wasn't feeling into it fully. And death constantly reminds me to fully feel into it, to allow all the things I want to come through to come through.

The pain, the sorrow, the crying, the grief, and all of the joy, the mystery, the awe, that moment when I look into my lover's eyes and I feel loved, that is awe-inspiring. So death has really brought me into my life. It's made me come to life in a way that I don't know that I would have been able to tell you was possible prior to beginning death work. I was just kind of going around, doing emotions, doing life, but not in my life. It's interesting. It makes me think about what a disservice we might be doing all of ourselves on a societal level by kind of high. death away in the way that we have, at least in Western cultures. Ooh, come on over to this side list. It's interesting.

Do you think everybody could kind of benefit to weird word, but benefit from more exposure to death so they could get more? I feel like that's not the right word, but get more out of their lives. Yes, and emphatic, full-bodied, yes. And if only, for the point of being in our lives right now, that's good enough. you know, if it also allows you to live in such a way that you're prepared for death, a plus. But if for a moment I can be here with my life, really, miracle it is to be alive.

Because I'm going to die, top of the pops. Is there anything that we can do to bring some of that feeling into our lives if we're not going to drop everything in our lives and become death dolas or something like that, that we can bring a little bit of that energy and spirit you have into our own lives? Yeah, I'm actually so bummed. I didn't convince you to become a death dula during this podcast. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Yeah, just thinking about your death could be useful.

Just a small thing. There's extra exercises that you can do, but just something as small as thinking about your funeral or your service, who's going to be there? What are they going to say about you? What are they going to say about you? What kind of life would they say that you've led? That's going to bring you into your life a little bit closer. Every chance that we have to think about the fact that we might die could invoke fear, but it could on the other side also invoke presence.

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It dries down really quickly, which is always a pet peeve of mine with moisturizers. I hate that, like, sticky feeling when you go to put your clothes on. This does not do that. But it does moisturize really, really well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age. I am not making it just look younger. I am making it actually younger.

One skin has four peer-reviewed clinical studies in over 10,000 five-star reviews. The data backs everything up. For a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at oneskin.co slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.com with code Liz. Can you walk me through an example of what a reframe might look like? What are some of the internalized ideas that you think a lot of us have around death and what would be a more helpful way to think about it?

I have one that happened to me this morning. Some in the shower. And it's winding down. and I turn off the water and I reach for my towel with wet feet and I reach a little too far almost. And for a moment, I'm like, oh no, like that could have been it. Man, they would have found me a wet, naked corpse, okay? That's just not the way I want to go. And fear, a little bit of fear came up.

Like, wow, I got so close. Now a reframe is, holy shit, that didn't actually happen. I have another minute. I have another hour. I have another day. I have another shower, hopefully, coming in the future. Yeah, I don't want to be a wet, naked corpse. This is a little bit different, and I'm not even sure if you'll have an answer for this,

but your story about slipping, and that moment of slippage is what conjured this idea for me. I sometimes have this feeling when I'm on a subway platform and the subway is going by, or if I'm on a busy street, I don't want to jump in front of the car or jump in front of the subway, but there's this part of my mind that is like, you could. Like look how close you are to death at this moment in your daily life. And it's just this little intrusive, joltie thought I have every so often. And I'm curious, is that like my own brain trying to come to terms with death in some way, do you think? It could be. I mean, provided you don't have any suicidal ideation otherwise, okay, then it could be. It could also

be an opportunity for you to think about what that would mean if that's the thing that happened. And if you're like, well, shoot, if I jump in front of this bus or if I just jump onto the platform, then my life will be over. And then what does that mean for me? And also, I'd like you to note, here's another reframe possible, that your brain stopping you from doing that is your useful fear of death. That's interesting. It's actually really interesting to think about the ways in which your brain is using fear of death in a helpful way. We think of it as such a negative thing all the time, but it isn't necessarily. And I think that often we think I want to get over this. First of all, it's a really, really,

really high bar. And next, why? Unless it is impacting your daily living. There's a lot of juice in there for you, if only you're willing to sit with it for a little bit. I am most afraid of the idea of oblivion. Like the idea of not being able to think, I think I am so attached to my thoughts and my mind that the idea of not having access to them anymore, the idea of just like a nothingness or a blackness is the thing that scares me the most. Is there any thing you can say that would be helpful for that? Well, I'm curious where you got that from, that that might be what happens when we die. I was raised in a deeply unreligious family, and I think that they were so keen to contradict religious notions of death that maybe both of my parents had been raised with. that they were like, no, it's blackness, it's nothingness. That's what happens.

And so knowing that, what could be the best case scenario? That I never die because we discover immortality. Oh, yeah? You ask the best case scenario. So forever, like 2,836 years old. I mean, people think I'm crazy, but I would be down for that, yeah. Really? Would you still be down for, like, birthday cakes? Oh, yeah. I'm a Leo, so I'm never going to be tired of celebrating my birthday.

Oh, got it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. So let's now take immortality off the table. What's the best case scenario for what eternity could be like if there is one at all? So the thing that I tell myself, and I don't know if this is a scenario or what you're looking for, but the thing I tell myself is the upside of oblivion is that you don't know you're in it. And so I won't be aware of that thing. And that is really scary to me, but also it's the thing that I find the most comforting. That you might not have any awareness that you're in oblivion or in eternity. Also, I just want a presence and make absolutely clear that what you are describing is a very normal

fear of death and also something that the brain has a hard time doing. Like, the brain's job, I think, is to experience consciousness, not to create it, but to experience it, to think, to think of myself as a separate human being to be able to feel things as hard when my brain and science tells me that it's just atoms floating around each other. The brain's job is to experience consciousness. And so to ask the brain to imagine the opposite is terrifying because the brain isn't built to do that. And so the oblivion that you're thinking of is like, no, there's no way the brain can do. That sounds awful because it's meant to do this thing. And so if you can find a way to think through the opposite of oblivion with lack of awareness of it and it brings you some comfort,

please keep riding with that one. Is there a better thing that would bring me comfort? What if I had said, I can't think of anything that brings me comfort? I just find that notion scary. I'd probably start asking what are the things that bring you joy while you're living, where are the things that give you meaning while you're living, where the things that bring you comfort now, and then we build an actual life for you that looks like that.

Do you think that people who are religious or are spiritual are better able to face their death? Like, do you think that finding a religious or spiritual practice would be helpful in confronting that fear? I'll put it this way. I grew up deeply religious. My parents were missionaries and ministers and we were evangelicals and also say that I never fully believed for myself. But I was given a lot of ideas about what happens after we died. and none of them really sat right with me. And for even the most religious amongst us that I've been privileged enough to sit with as they're dying,

there are questions about what happens afterward. They are just beliefs. It's faith. None of us know. And some hold on a little stronger to that faith than others, but most have a bit of a question as they're getting close to the end. I think religion does a great job of painting a potential picture, but I think most of us spend some time picking parts of that picture apart because of our other fear of death

or what we've come to believe while we're living and growing and aging. I was taught to fear eternal damnation. Death would be fire and brimstone in hell unless I went to heaven where I'd sit on the right hand side of the father on streets paved with gold. I was so confused by it as a kid. I was like, wait, how many people are there going to be that if I'm on the right side, How many seats down am I? Who else is going there? Who all is going to be there? As a kid, it was so confusing for me, and it wasn't inviting. It wasn't exciting. It didn't make any sense.

And so as an adult, I have an opportunity to look at where the fear of brimstone and hell came from. Toss it because it doesn't work for me and rewrite for myself. So it's not a get out of jail free card. Like being religious doesn't necessarily make you more equipped when that day comes? Not in my experience as far. There's still plenty of opportunities they take to test it and to question it. I'm curious if there's anything in your experience, the people who are facing death in the best possible way

who seem like they've come the most to terms with it versus the people who are having a harder time. Are there any qualities or things that those people who are doing really well with it have in common? Their degree of contentness with their lives. Yeah. What I've noticed is that for the people that reached the end, they're like, okay, I'm ready, have reconciled what their life has become at every turn,

such that if today were it, am I pleased with what I've done? Am I pleased with my life this far? Am I content? Happy is one thing, but content is good enough. My content. Could I go today and be content? And I have to say the answer is yes. Obviously, I want to see my niece become a woman.

I want to see what's happening with my nephew down the line. I want to see my book out there in the world. I want to spend more time with this man that I love. And we did all right. I could go. I find part of that really hopeful, but I also find part of it a little bit scary or hard or tricky because it's like, well, what if we're not content in our lives? I think a lot of us spend a lot of time delaying contentment or not feeling like contentment is accessible to us.

And maybe that's part of what Stokes the fear of death and maybe it's separate from it. But it puts this burden on you to figure out how to live in a way that you're content, which maybe it's a good burden. But you know what I mean? What can we do about the people who don't feel like that contentment is accessible to them? I think they need to go look for it in some ways. Let me back up. There's no get out of jail free card. There's no thing to do that's going to make it easier eventually to die. We're human. The thing is complicated. It's hard. It's difficult. And at the end of it, we got to die. So whatever it is, whatever ways that we can find a way to get comfortable with the fact that our death will come, we have to go and make it. People often, I think, hope or think that death do lists can help them get over a fear of death, like I was saying. But that's our individual work to be done. Contents is how we define it individually. But it doesn't have to be your name on the side of a building or a million dollars.

It could be an amazing lavender elderberry syrup that you make. You know, I'm really good at that. That tastes so good. I'm proud of that thing that I've done in create. We think of it in big, big, big strokes, like love of my life, an amazing career and a banging body and all these things. And it's like, and also, saggy titty's stretch marks. relationship after relationship after relationship and peace about what has happened this far. It's difficult. It's hard. I wish there were easy ways around this, but it's part of the mystery of

being alive is that there aren't any real clear answers about what we're supposed to do with this or how we get to a place where we can say, okay, it's ending and that's okay. You know, we have to make it individually. A lot of our conversation has been around normalizing conversations about death and how important it is for it to not be taboo, for grief not to be taboo. Is there any advice you could give for doing that? Like if we bring up death and our friend is like, oh my gosh, I don't want you to talk about that or the conversation goes silent. Is there anything we can do to sort of normalize those conversations on a societal level without people thinking we're weird?

Well, welcome to my world. I'll tell you this, though. For a while, I thought that people would just be really uncomfortable with the fact that I was doing death work. I found the opposite is true. That more often people will get curious. They'll ask more questions. They'll share with me grief. They'll share sadness. They'll share fear.

I think that talking about death does just create permission for other people to be able to do so. And so people might think that you're weird, but you might have also given them the only opportunity that they'll have to talk about this deep existential questions that we've all got. Is there anything that you'd suggest that we do to talk to kids about death without scaring them? Oh, yeah. Well, we've got to reassure them. We can't tell them things like Mommy won't ever die, but we can say things like I don't plan on dying for a while. And what are you afraid of or ask them questions about what's present for them right now,

what they're thinking about, how come they're thinking about it. Kids also are far more resilient than we think that they are. We can be honest without scaring them. Because when we try to give them something that ain't true, it makes it more complicated for them. And it also perpetuates the societal fear of death. So when a kid says what happens after we die, we could say, I don't know, but I'd really love to be able to see you there.

I'd really love it if we could keep talking to each other. What would you like to have happen? What if your favorite stuffed animal was there? It's interesting. I think a big fear that a lot of people have speaking to the idea of like, I'm not planning to die anytime soon and saying something like that to your kids is the idea that they'll die and leave their kids, they'll leave their partner, they'll leave these people that they have this immense caretaking role in their life, that will be their sort of unfinished work,

which I think feels different. Leaving the people that need you feels really scary. Is there anything that you would say to help people come to terms with that idea? Oh yeah, that's a big, tough one too, and understandable. I'd say on the practical part, obviously there's trying to write down as much as possible so that if somebody does have to step into that role for you, they can manage it in some way. I mean things like your kids, doctors, and where their Social Security card is and where their birth certificates are and your hopes that you have for their future and their favorite toys, their favorite snacks or nicknames you call them, things of that sort. That's practically. And on the other side, time and again, we come up against this,

what will happen to everybody else after I die, you know. And we are all the center of the universe. And life goes on, sadly, scarily. My niece was four when my brother-in-law died. And I remember being so heartbroken that she would not get to have him for her life. And I was sad for him that he also didn't get to see who she became, and I know for sure he'd be so tickled with the human that she is right now. Laelle's doing great. She's thriving. This is what her life has been. This is what she knows.

She's not any worse off for it. She will always be Peter's daughter. She knows that. That brings me a lot of peace, too. And she's growing up without her father. And she's okay. It feels like and is a really important word in your line of work. Yeah, thanks for presence of that.

It feels like one of the secrets to getting our mind around the idea of death is to kind of simultaneously hold a lot of seemingly contradictory thoughts at the same time and simultaneously hold a lot of seemingly contradictory emotions at the same time. Yeah, I mean, we're human. Sometimes I wish it could be so simple. so straightforward, but that's not how it goes, you know? Yeah. One of the listener questions that I got a lot was something around the idea of a fear of death preventing people from actually taking steps to prevent death, like doing biopsies or preventative care. And I'm curious if there's

anything that you would recommend to get over that hump. Yeah, because it's so scary that they don't want to go get the mole checked out because they're certain that the mole's going to be cancer. get some support, have somebody go with you, talk through the things that are coming up for you, but by all means, please go do it. Get support. Talk it through. Be with somebody. What does support look like? Can you reach out to a death dula if you're not actually dying? What kind of support would you recommend? I'm so glad you asked. Yes, mental health support would be great. Death dula's do work with people who don't know yet what it is that they're going to be dying of. We work with healthy people also to get their affairs together to create comprehensive.

of end-of-life plans and also to talk through, to work through some of their fears of death. I was going to say that one exercise that could be helpful that you could do with the death dula is to walk the conversation all the way from if this, then that. So if I go to the doctor, then they're going to check out my mole. If they check out my mole, then it might be cancer. If it's cancer, then I'm going to be sick. If I'm going to be sick, then I'm going to die. If I die, then dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, and run it all the way to the end. What does that do to your brain? I think it allows you space to, first of all, playing the worst case scenario rather than pushing it forward.

And then what I find often happens is that people reach the end of that, and that worst case scenario, they recognize that everything's actually okay. It occurs to me, there's this book that I read was when I was completely agoraphobic. I was experiencing a really extreme period of anxiety. And there was one piece of advice in it that really stuck with me, which was that one of the best ways to make anxiety lesson was instead of pushing it away to lean into it, to accept it. So when you have those waves of anxiety washing over your body, if you're pushing it away, you're creating this resistance that makes your anxiety more powerful, almost like a tug of war or something like that. And I started doing it when I would feel those surges of a panic attack rising in my body instead of trying to kind of. kind of like push it down, I'd be like, okay, I'm experiencing a panic attack right now. This is anxiety. This is what it feels like. It's okay. I welcome it. I accept it. And ironically, it does.

It makes it go away. It's been incredibly helpful for me. And hearing you talk about death, I kind of feel like that same concept would apply to death. Would you agree with that? I would 100% agree that this resistance that we have to death isn't serving us in any way, that by being with it, we generally find I'm still here. You know, I didn't die in all this worst case scenario that could possibly be. If I just let it run all the way when I'm done with that scenario, I'm still going to be alive. Yeah, 100%. It's very useful.

Do you think that historically people were better at dealing with death because they were surrounded by it all the time? I do think so. They were surrounded by it a lot more. They didn't have as much science. I don't know that anybody then was even thinking about the possibility of living for forever because now we have cryogenics and, you know, all types of things. I think that they probably just accepted that death was going to be happening disease and they worked their bodies really hard and they got sick quicker and they died faster. I would love to end with a homework

assignment. One very pragmatic action step that we can all take as soon as we turn off this podcast to help us get over a fear of death or accept death more into our lives. First begin by embracing your fear of death. That's nothing to get over necessarily, but it is just part of the way that you're built. And next, start thinking about what the root is. What is the root? What is this fear of death telling me about my life? And if you're feeling really brave, go look in the mirror and look at yourself in the eyeballs and repeat, I'm going to die and see what comes up. You're going to be safe. Pultureguise is not going to come out the mirror and you're not going to drop dead at that moment. I promise. Be present with it. Be present with your fear. I love that. Something we can

do to cultivate this perspective on life that I feel like you've gotten from being around and surrounding yourself with that so much. Like, we can't all do that in the same way. So is there one tip you could give us to embrace that same perspective in our own lives? Well, for starters, I want to say, I'm still a hot mess, okay? Like, I'm still a hot-ass mess. All right. So now that that's out the way, I think what's really useful is just constantly practicing presence, like bringing ourselves back to right here. You know, because when we're we're here. It's hard not to feel all. It's hard not to be like, yo, this thing is weird. The life thing is bizarre. And I'm doing it. And it feels incredible at some points and it feels

terrible at some points. And that's true for anybody, regardless of where you sit in relationship to power or privilege or any of those things. It is weird. Like the human experience is weird. Sometimes I'm like, I'm this unique combination of cells that had to have. happened in this one specific way, in this one specific time on the planet. I'm on a rock hurtling through space and I'm like sending an email. It's a weird experience to be human. It's so bizarre. I trip out on it constantly. When I think about that, I also think, gosh, and then one day, because of all this thing, I suddenly, I, as I know myself, will no longer be here. And that inspires awe to me across the board.

It inspires awe to you to think about your own demise. To think about how weird life is and a part of how weird life is is that we die. Like I can't separate out the joy and the awe and the wonder of being alive for my death because it's a part of it. Yeah, absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit about all of the beautiful work that you do and where people can find you on the internet and in the world in general? So I'm the founder of Going with Grace, which is an end of life. planning, training, and support organization. We help people get ready, plan their death when they're still healthy, help them make comprehensive end-of-life plans. We train death doulas and people that are

interested in supporting other people through death. That happens mostly online, but we do have an in-person retreat coming up and a couple more in the future. And we offer services for people when they are getting close to death, help people have the most ideal death for themselves under the circumstances possible. We can be found anywhere on the internet. Instagram, going underscore with underscore grace, and Facebook. That's great. Thank you so much for the work that you're doing and for the knowledge that you share. I think it's such an important topic and your wisdom is very appreciated. Thank you very much for the opportunity to come and talk about this list. In terms of normalizing the conversation around death and dying, this right here is doing it.

just by virtue of you talking about your fear and creating opportunity to do so, we are shifting society. And so I want to thank you so much for your commitment to doing that alongside me. Thank you, Lou. And thank you for the mini therapy session, too. It was helpful. Yeah, it was helpful. It really was. Okay. If new things come up, holler, okay? Oh, I will. Wow. This is definitely going to be one of those episodes that I keep coming back to. I went into it expecting to get a direct answer on facing my fears of dying, but coming out of it, I've realized that it's far more about feeling content like now in our lives while we are alive.

A Lewis wisdom really helped me feel at peace with the topic that I have always found terrifying, and I really hope that this episode was helpful for you too. As a reminder, the new Healthy Together deck is officially available on healthyconvo.co. I am so proud of this product and I cannot wait for you guys to start using it at the holidays this year. We also have free two-day shipping for orders over $65. So grab a few for gifts. They're so pretty. They make such a good gift.

Be sure to tag me on Instagram if you order yours and let me know who you are going to play with. And if you give it as a gift, I would love to see that as well. That is healthyconvo.co. If you're new here, make sure that your subscribes. You do not miss out on any future episodes. We have amazing ones coming up, including a. new blood sugar balance episode with a highly requested doctor and a really fun astrology episode where we can all find out what's in our stars for 2023. So subscribe, subscribe, subscribe.

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