June 5, 2023 • 38 mins
What would a meaningful life look like for you?
According to Death Doula Alua Arthur, conversations about death can be the most enriching conversations we have. It’s not about accepting death, or avoiding grief - it’s about building a relationship with yourself and others that doesn’t hold anything back. Why should you listen? Yeah, because you’re mortal and one day you'll die, but more importantly: because one day, hopefully in the far off future, you’ll look back at this life you’ve lived. Conversations about death can make that life so much better.
7 things you’ll learn in this episode:
- What’s a Death Doula?
- Does being honest about death give you access to joy?
- Should you tell someone that they’re dying, or does that remove hope?
- Why living each day like it’s your last is unrealistic (and what to do instead)
- Should you reach for a “meaningful life”?
- Why hope sets you up for disappointment - and why hope is dangerous at end of life
- The linking of death and grief: Death and grief are married, but grief definitely dates around.
Related episodes:
Trauma Surgeon Dr. Red Hoffman on the surprisingly broad umbrella of palliative care
Notable quotes:
“I'm the only one who's going to have to contend with all the choices I made at my deathbed. Nobody else.” - Alua Arthur
About our guest:
Alua Arthur is a Death Doula, recovering attorney, and the founder of Going with Grace, a Death Doula training and end-of-life planning organization that exists to support people as they answer the question, “What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully?” She’s been featured in the LA Times, Vogue, Refinery29, The Doctors, and alongside Chris Hemsworth on the docuseries, Limitless.
Find her at goingwithgrace.com and on Instagram @going_with_grace
About Megan:
Psychotherapist and bestselling author Megan Devine is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on grief, from life-altering losses to the everyday grief that we don’t call grief. She helms a consulting practice in Los Angeles and serves as an organizational consultant for the healthcare and human resources industries.
The best-selling book on grief in over a decade, Megan’s It’s Ok that You’re Not OK, is a global phenomenon that has been translated into more than 25 languages. Her celebrated animations and explainers have garnered over 75 million views and are used in training programs around the world.
Additional resources:
The Going with Grace website
Megan mentions this book - Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia
Want to talk with Megan directly? Two options: apply for a 1:1 consultat
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can we just be human?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Yeah? Like, what is wrong with just being human?
Speaker 3 (00:05):
To have pain, to feel sorrow, to feel disappointed, to
be insecure, feel disappointment, failure, Like, can we just be human?
Speaker 4 (00:16):
This is it's okay that you're not okay and I'm
your host, Megan Divine. So what would a meaningful life.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Look like for you?
Speaker 4 (00:23):
According to death Doula Ailua Arthur, conversations about death can
be the most enriching conversations we have. You're curious about
how facing death plays a role in a good life,
not actually sure what a death doula is, and should
you live each day like it's your last?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Like?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
There are a lot of questions answered in this week's show,
all coming up right after this first break. Before we
get started, one quick note. While we cover a lot
of emotional relational territory in our time here together, this
(01:00):
is not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed
mental health provider or for professional supervision related to your work. Hey, friends, So,
Ailua Arthur and I have known of each other for
a lot of years. We've got a lot of friends
in common, our professional spheres overlap a lot, but I
(01:23):
never actually got a chance to talk to her until
this episode. Ailua Arthur is a death doula. She facilitates
conversations about mortality for people not planning to die anytime soon,
and she helps people at the end of their lives,
supporting them and their families through death. If you don't
know her work, you might think that all of this
(01:43):
stuff she does, these conversations about end of life and
facing your mortality, it sounds kind of morbid.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
But here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
People who directly engage with the reality of life tend
to be immensely joyful, not more bbid. Alua is this expansive, generous,
joyful person, and she just happens to talk a lot
about death. It's a serious subject, obviously, but it's rooted
in this truly embodied joy that's like a conversational sweet
(02:15):
spot that's hard to nail, but Ailua does it over
and over and over again in this conversation that we're
having here today and out in the world now. In
this episode, we get into ideas of what makes a
meaningful life, like, what a meaningful life even means. We
discuss why with all of her work on normalizing conversations
(02:36):
about death and getting friendly with your own mortality why
Ailua may still leave this particular life kicking and screaming
and clawing at the door. Ailua also confirms this age
old annoyance. I have a little pettiness on my part,
but this like the squishing together of end of life
like death and mortality and preparation, the squishing together of
(02:59):
that stuff as a subject and grief as a subject
like death and grief are not the same things, but
they often get treated the same. If you don't know
what I'm talking about, you will after you listen to
the show. So what does a.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Meaningful life look like for you?
Speaker 4 (03:14):
And how can exploring mortality help you figure that out?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Also?
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Why is the relationship between end of life and grief
more like an open marriage than a monogamist marriage. All
of that and a whole lot of joy, starting right
now with the excellent Ailua Arthur.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Aleena.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I am so glad to have you here with me
today like this. I feel like this has been a
long time coming for us, so welcome.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Thank you, Megan. I'm actually really, really really happy to
be here, my fellow.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
We love this and honestly, like us, being so excited
about spending this time together is something that I want
to get into in my second question, but my first
question so that people know where we're starting. I introduced
you in my introduction, but can you give people your
definition of what a death doula is.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
A death doula is somebody who does all of the
non medical and holistic care and support for the dying person,
their circle of support, and their whole community through the
death process. When people are healthy, we can help them
complete comprehensive end of life plans when they know what
it is that they're going to be dying of.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
We help people create the most ideal.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Death for themselves under the circumstances, and then after a death,
we help family members wrap up affairs of their loved
ones life, which just offer holistic death support.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
I think that people on the outside of your profession
and of mind profession, think that these are really depressing
things to spend your time on.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And all of.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
The death and grief people I know are the most
joyful people that I've ever met. Do you think that's
true for you?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Have you experienced that?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Absolutely true? In my experience?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
What is it about those of us?
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Maybe it's just my sample size, but like what is
it about those of us who do these really goodbye
intensive professions, these emotional landscapes that a lot of people
try to avoid, Like how are we happy?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I think it has a lot to do with the
fact that we touch those emotional landscapes and we kind
of ride them. I think we give ourselves permission to
be in it all all the time, which means that
we have access to joy I think, and access to
like the full spectrum of life that makes it so
much richer and fuller and more exciting and twinkly because
(05:42):
we can also always see and we can be with
a difficulty too.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
I think there's something in the energy it takes to
hold back the truth.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
F that's juicy.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yeah, I know that, Ailiu, and I know what I'm
talking about when I say that, But diving into conversations
that a lot of people try to avoid, like that's
a struggle to not tell the truth about these things.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Absolutely, it's really hard to keep the truth hidden and
also just to keep the truth of where I am
and how I'm feeling inside, certainly at the bedside or
as death is approaching. I've certainly had families who have
been like, don't tell the dying person that they're dying,
And I'm like, you don't think that they know. I
get in there, and then the dying person's like, don't
tell my family I'm dying. I'm like, y'all need to
(06:32):
start talking to each other, because it's going to be
so much more.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Complete and easy once you do, well, easier once they do.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I think that extrapolating from the bedside into our lives itself.
Like I have a hard time not letting I love
you jump out of my sproat when it's ready to
do so. Or I'm hungry, or I'm tired, or I'm
out of social energy and I have to go back home.
All these things just come out, which I think is
me an opportunity to be with the truth of who
(06:59):
I am I'm at that moment.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
This is really what this work is.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
I mean, you you have one of your signature taglines
is thank you for giving me a moment of your
life to talk about the end of yours. I might
have just butchered that close enough, close enough, okay, but
I love what you just said there about the conversations
that we have at the bedside when somebody is dying
or when we know they're dying, or we're talking about
(07:23):
our own mortality. Like those skill sets transfer to the
rest of life. One of the things that bugs me
about grief work is we think it's siloed. Right, these
are only conversations you need to have when something terrible
has happened. One of the things that I love about
you is that you don't silo this stuff. On PBS
News Hour, you said, I really struggle with why we're
(07:45):
not talking about death culturally and societally, because it seems
to me the most enriching conversation we could have.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Death touches every aspect of society, every aspect of our lives.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It's present with us all the time.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
It's not just when somebody's body is starting to not
respond to treatment anymore. It's everywhere regularly. And when I
can see, I think, when I can see death in
the living, it amplifies the living. You know, when I
can see that my body one day won't have access
to delicious food, I want to eat the delicious food
(08:20):
right now. When I'm aware that because of my death,
I won't be able to do my work anymore, well,
it drives me to want to do the work as
completely as I can right now. This is not in
favor of hustle culture, but about being true with what
it is that I want to put out and what
I want to do. Death constantly highlights my life over
and over and over again, and when I let it,
it magnifies it.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I think it gives us an opportunity to do kind
of a constant value assessment.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yes, of what am I doing with this life?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
One, who I want to be, how I want to
spend my time, What of me I'll leaves behind. I'm
constantly checking in with that while I'm living, because one
day I'll die, and I want to make sure that
while I'm here, I'm doing me as best as I can.
I'm the only one who's going to have to contend
with all the choices I made at my deathbed, nobody else.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
This reminds me of so when my partner died accidental
drowning of a thirty nine year old, perfectly healthy male
like that shook our community up, and I remember one
of our friends coming to me and saying, like this
is messed up. Like it's made me start thinking, like
you're supposed to live every day like it's your last.
But honestly, that's a lot of pressure. Yeah, so when
(09:35):
you start saying like keeping death in mind, thinking about
this makes you really conscious of the choices that you
make in your life. Is there a lot of pressure
there to be like, I can't have any days where
I wish I had made different choices, Like is there pressure.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
For you in that?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
No, it actually is very freeing.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I think it's a stress reliever that I'm going to die,
like it makes the thing not seem so serious and
so important anymore. Permission to take a nap, you know.
I think one read on using death as a motivator
is go go, go, do dooo doo, get everything right
now when you can. But for me, it's also what
type of life do I want to lead? And I
want to lead a rested life. I want to take naps.
(10:14):
I want to take my time, take a walk, lay
in a hammock. I don't want to be producing and
going and getting everything all the time. For me, it's
not about gathering all the experiences. It's about experiencing the
magic with what my life is right now.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I love that distinction.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
I actually hadn't thought of that that this idea that
you're supposed to live each day like it's your last,
is a product of hustle culture, Like what can I produce?
What can I optimize? What can I make the best
of because tomorrow I might die?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, go get it, go do it, Go experience everything
right now. And it's like, also slow down and take
a deep breath in and marvel at the wonder it
is that we bring in oxygen and we spit out
carbon dioxide.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
What it's undermagic, It totally is exactly is right. That's
so exciting to me.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I heard recently or I read it someplace, and I
wish I could remember where I read this from, because
it really just rocked my thoughts. Rather than living each
day like the last, about living each day like the first.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Ooh, right, that's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Yeah, that brings that like that sense of wonder into things.
Right back in the nineties, I mean, the book still exists.
Is called Pronoia is the antitude of paranoia.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Pronoia is marveling at the precise.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Wonder of the world.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
The sun is the exact distance it needs to be
to warm us without killing us. The chemical content of
our air. Depending on where you live and how much
pollution is happening, but like the chemical makeup of the
air is exactly what our lungs need and our bodies need.
Like that that is wondrous. I love that live each
(11:54):
day as if it was the first.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Right, that's magic. I love that.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
I use the phrase goodbye intensive professions without defining my
terms here, but like you spend so much time at
the bedside at end of life and also not at
the bedside talking with people about their mortality, helping them
explore what kind of life they want for themselves and
what kind of death they want for themselves. You started
(12:20):
out your sort of professional career as a lawyer, though,
Bill Boh, Yeah, I know it's a silly comparison between
like what did the world look like as a lawyer
versus what did the world look like now? But because
end of life is so in you and in your
face and in your consciousness, Like, how has this work
changed what you see in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Well, this work is it's created a I want to say,
a new filter, not the absence of the one, but
a new filter, because there's always one. And when I
was practicing law, I was working at Legal Aids, so
I wasn't working in the big corporate, you know, doing
the whole big thing, but rather doing work that other
people found very meaningful.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I did at the time.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I've always wanted to live a life with service, and
so I was doing that on some capacity. But what
has happened now is that I see the world, I think,
for more of its wonder and awe for us being here.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I also think that.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
This work allows me to use more parts of who
I actually am naturally, and so it's just a better fit.
May not have been death itself, but whatever work I
went into had to have me be at my optimum,
where I can be in wonder about humankind and I
can ask all the questions I want and be super
nosy and not have to fill out too many forms
(13:42):
for anybody, and be really sensitive and have it be okay,
and be a little weird and have it be okay.
I value my weirdness and my lack of bored and
my curiosity about humans and humankind.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
So it sounds like, you know, doing this work almost
lets you see this sounds so corny, but like lets
you see your correct place in the world, right Like
that you see the world as a place that supports
and encourages all of the parts of you. Yes, and
it happens to be in a profession that a lot
(14:16):
of people would run screaming from.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Absolutely, it just happens to be. I think a lot
of people mistake that my work is a thing that
gives my life meaning. But in contrary, I think it's
the way that the work works in my life gives
it meaning. You know what I mean? Like, I don't
have meaning just because I do death work, But I
think I have I'm creating meaning because I look at
(14:39):
the world differently because I do death work.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Interesting, We're such a meaning making culture, right, Like, oh,
you do such meaningful work, But what I just heard
you say is different than that.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the meaning making
out of the baseline, right.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Meaning making as a baseline for life is not helpful.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
No, it's so unfair. It's so hard. It makes people,
I think, winners and losers somehow.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
How so well, Some people are like, oh my god,
you work at so much meaning, Like I've won something.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
You unlocked the secrets of life by doing death work.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
My problem with meaning is that it is completely prescribed
by our filters and our experiences and we often like
ascribe meaning to others. Yeah, and that's problematic for me,
Like you know, oh you had you had a dream
about this, it means this, or you know, I saw
a white feather on the ground and that means that
(15:41):
your mom is nearby? Like hello, can you not tell
me what my symbols mean to me?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Meaning is just I think meaning.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Is that that desire to put an order on something
amorphous and living.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, and try to make it make some sense. How
can any of this make any sense? We're on a
giant blue rock spinning through space.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, none of sense. There's no sense to that. There's
no sense to that.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
If you're going to make meaning, make your own right, Like,
what is it that feels meaningful to me? And this
goes back to what we were talking about with like
do you live each days as if it were your
last or as if it.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Was the first?
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Like what does a meaningful life look like for you?
And I feel like that question of what does a
meaningful life look like for you is a lot of
what you do when you are doing workshops and guiding
people who are not actively at end of life, but
they're exploring their own mortality.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Does that feel accurate?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
It is absolutely accurate how people like zoom out and
look at their lives and figure out their values and
their priorities for themselves, you know, not the ones that
we've been told or given, but what actually matters to me.
And then support folks as they try to figure out
how to help their lives match up as closely as possible,
because it's not possible for most to do it exactly
(16:54):
the way that they want. We have a bunch of
responsibilities that must get taken care of, and then we
have questions about privilege and access.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
But to the extent that we can, we could.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Before we get back to my conversation with Alua, I
want to talk with you about getting help inside grief.
You know how you know, if you're talking about how
rough things are for you, people will say, like, maybe
you should talk to somebody.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, reality check here. Finding skilled grief support is hard.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I get a lot of messages from people wanting to
speak with me directly because they want better grief support.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
My team used to say no because I simply do
not have time.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
But now right now we are saying yes for a
limited time and a limited number of people. To apply
for one of the grief consultation spots on my calendar,
send us an email at support at refuge in Grief
dot com, or use the contact form at Megandivine dot
c oh if individual work with me is out of
(18:03):
reach or that waiting list gets too long, you can
also join me every month for a live Q and
A at patreon dot com. Backslash Megan Divine two different
ways to get your questions about grief answered, and details
about both of those options are in the show notes.
All right, let's get back to my conversation with Alua Arthur.
(18:24):
Do you think that exploring your own mortality will make
dying suck less?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
No? Why not?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I don't think as a baseline rule. I used to
romanticize it and think that it would. But you know,
even with all this robro death talk I do, I
might go kicking and screaming it might be my turn and.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Be like, oh, I'm not ready.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I'm doing my best right now to be in my
life so that when that time comes I can be like,
all right, I did it, but who knows?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Who knows?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
I think I have value for today, It's not necessarily
value for the future.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
You know, Matt and I talk a lot about death
and end of life. He was very much into meditation
and all of these things and awareness and the ephemeral
nature of life. And I remember at his funeral people
actually said he was so friendly with death. I know
he went gently, and I was like, pitch, I was there,
(19:20):
he did not go gently. Like, being friendly with death
does not mean you're psyched about it. I think this
gets really confusing. Like you and I you definitely work
in the death positivity space and I'm sort of a
death positive field adjacent here. But being friendly was with
death does not protect you from grief.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
No.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I think being friendly with death means that you can
acknowledge grief. Perhaps I can identify when I'm grieving when
maybe previously I wasn't capable of. But I'm gonna have
a hard time when my parents die, when my turn
is coming, when my partner's turn is coming, when anybody
in my life's turn is coming.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Oh he it's gonna stop. And I think that's okay.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, I think that's the nature of this work, right,
Like we don't say all of these goodbyes to make
goodbyes not hurt us. Like we say all of these
goodbyes so that we're okay with being hurt. Yeah, like
we know how to care for ourselves and care for
each other and identify it and know that saying goodbye
is fucking painful.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, that's really hard.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Something else I've been really playing with lately is along
the same vein where how much of my practice of
any practice I do for today as opposed to putting
in the bank for later. And I'm really trying to
stick with the practices that I do because they have
value right now. First of all, I don't know that
I have a later and next, Like, why not for today?
(20:45):
You know this is what I have right now. Let
me be with it right now, as opposed to meditate
because it's going to give me something, or think about
my death because I'm going to get something. Yes, I
want to prepare for my death now because it will
eventually make it a little easier on my loved ones.
But I also get value out of doing it right now.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
I love that you brought up that sort of transactional nature,
like we do this stuff so that something in the
future doesn't harm us. And really like I feel like
you and I are like joining hands and saying no,
like let the world hurt you, Yeah, because it is
hurting you, and can we make space for that and
learn how to care for ourselves and care for each
(21:24):
other and come together in the pain of this world
instead of pretending that there's something we can do to
protect ourselves from it.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Yeah, or like things that we should do to claw
ourselves out of it.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
But if we could just be with it.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
You know, a big part of my work, I think
there's a misconception that death doula's jobs or to help
people get over their fear of death. I might here
trying to be like, oh, you know, here's all the
things that you can do steps one through fifteen to
get over your fear of death, or saw them happen
like that and next that doesn't do anybody any favors,
you know, Like, I'm just here to be with people
(21:58):
where they are, to meet them in the trying to
just sit alongside with them, to bear witness to their pain,
to acknowledge what is that they're going through. And if
they want to start working things to move on or
get through, then they'll be there with them.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
But what is really moving on when it comes to grief?
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I'm going
to bring up a small sore spot for me, not
with your work, but with end of life work in general.
End of life usually gets lumped in with grief, like
in training programs in counseling school, and like all of
these things, you get like one in the course of
an entire master's program in counseling or in social work,
(22:36):
you get like one day or maybe a half a
day in death and dying, which is not enough time,
and they lump grief in with that. And if you
go to a physical bookstore, you will see support your
independent bookstores, people go visit them. But if you go
to a bookstore, you'll see that the grief books are
in the very tiny death and dying section. And you
go to an end of life conference and there's like
(22:58):
one speaker on grief, and those speaker on grief is
talking about getting your memorial rituals correct. Right, like I
rant on this stuff that like death and grief are
not the same thing. They are cousins, they are not
the same thing. I love the way that you talk
about grief because like I mean, am I just like
(23:19):
am I splitting hairs here? I guess this is my question.
End of life and grief are related. But I feel
like people think that if they just get the funeral correct,
if they just get their rituals correct, if they just
make the bright art project very soon after their person dies,
then again we come back to that transactional thing of
if I get my rituals correct, this won't hurt.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Have you seen that?
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Am I the only one seeing that? Is that just
my personal pusiness?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
What's happening here?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I see it all the time.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
In our end of life training course, there is a
module on grief, and the languaging about it is the
two are inexorably linked. They're married as far as I
see it. However, it's an open marriage. Everything is Paul,
everything is Paul, everything is queer, and grief gets to
go and play with all the other partners it wants to. Now,
(24:12):
death is pretty tied to grief, I think, but there's
so many other ways that grief shows up, and I
find that people do often try to fast track the
grief after death in an effort to try to get
over and move on or something of the sort, but
also don't take time to think about the full spectrum
of the grieving that they're doing, all the different things
(24:32):
that they're grieving in the process, and I love being
able to highlight that and call attention to it. You know,
so many things died when somebody dies, and the grief
shows up in so many ways, and let's like acknowledge
the loss of the sexual relationship, all of it.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, all of it.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
You've said that an element of the grieving process is
the reidentification of self.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I'm going to take it away from death for a
second to do and make it land a little bit easier.
But I have been an average runner for most of
my adult life, and a few years back, my knees
started really hurting and I'd have the pen of the
middle of the night and would hurts so bad and
I'd be aching afterward, and I was like, God, I
got to stop doing this, you know, I have to
(25:13):
stop doing this. I have been grieving it ever since.
And the re identification is am I still a runner
if I'm not running? Because I've identified myself as a
runner for so long, So I have to come up
with a new definition and find a new way to
identify myself out there in the world, and it's painful.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
And every time I think we.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Go through a shift in identity, there's a grief that's occurring,
Like when we go from maiden to mother, even though
we think of it as a happy thing out there
in the world, but holy shit, there's a lot of
grief in that I go from single to engaged grief,
massive grief in that every time that we have to
think of ourselves differently out there in the world, we're
(25:53):
leaving something behind. It may not look like a loss,
but there is a loss occurring, even if we're moving
forward into something.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
Yes, I've been talking about this so much lately. I
did a lecture a couple weeks ago about the everyday
grief that we don't call grief, and in my sort
of list of things that we can grieve, I made
what I thought was just like a throwaway statement. I said,
the grief of getting what you've always wanted, right, And
it was just like in my list of things. And
then like, there's time at the end for Q and A,
(26:22):
and that we're going through the Q and A and
people are like, what do you mean the grief of
getting what you've always wanted? And you just described it
so perfectly and so beautifully Like with every yes, there's
a no, and with every no there is grief. Just
in the same way that our deaths are always walking
beside us and inside us, grief is always walking beside
(26:45):
us and inside us.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And that is not wrong.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
All of this work, like all of this work is
about like can we just see and acknowledge the fullness
of all of this life?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Can we just be human?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah? Like what is wrong with just being human?
Speaker 3 (27:05):
To have pain, to feel sorrow, to feel disappointed, to
be insecure, feel disappointment, failure, Like, can we just be human?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
You know, the full spectrum, not just like the happy,
giddy and getting everything I want. My body's banking, but
i have cellulite on my arms and I'm still dealing
with internal life fatphobia, human too, Like the full spectrum
of it.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Yeah, showing up for that and learning the skills that
we need for that. People ask me, like, how do
you survive grief? And I'm like, you survive grief by
building communities. Building a community with yourself and a community
with others that allows you to feel exactly how you
feel and feel seen and supported in it. Like that's
how you survive grief, and how do we practice that stuff?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
How do we build that stuff?
Speaker 4 (27:51):
We do it by saying exactly what you just said, like,
can you be fully human to yourself in your day
to day life? Can you be fully human with the
people you love and that you choose around you? Like,
we build this stuff every single day. It's not break
this box in case of emergency, right, it is do
this for today, for right now, for the body and
(28:12):
the being you are in this life, and in case
you need it later.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Absolutely, And I think that some of that being with
that consistently is what turns out to be a practice
that can support at the end of light. Yeah, because
I'm doing it daily. It's like a well worn groove
in my body and my heart. And if when I
get to the end of my life, if I am
(28:37):
having a hard time with what's going on, if I've
practiced plenty before I get there, then maybe I can
also say, Hey, this hurts, or hay, I'm really uncomfortable
or I'm scared, or I don't want to right now
or whatever, and I'm just not fighting against it anymore
because I've given myself permission.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Yeah, and you're not trying to learn a new relational skill. Yes,
in a moment when you're right now needs your attention.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Honey, And there's so much to be doing at the
end of life, let alone be also trying to figure
out how to give myself permission to feel things.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Who yeah, yeah, that's like, don't do that to yourself.
And also like trying to learn the communication skills you
need to advocate for yourself to say what you need
to ask the hard questions, like all of that stuff.
It gets infinitely easier if those communications, If those kinds
of talks.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Aren't new for you, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Like diving into goodbyes is a beautiful, beautiful thing. I
feel like we could talk for nineteen thousand hours, and
I hope that we get to do that more. But
I want to make sure that we have time to
ask you the question that I ask everybody. You spend
so much of your time inside things that a lot
(29:50):
of people work very hard to avoid. We already know
that this work is full of joy, because it is.
But I'm also really curious about hope. You spend so
much time saying goodbye, so knowing what you know and
living what you've lived and what you live.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
What does hope look like for you?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
It feels like I'm going to get disappointed.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I want to be as present with today and what
I've got as possible when I am hoping for something,
when I'm reaching out there for something else, what I
find is that I'm living out a relationship with what
is because I want different or better. And when I
can just be with what is, that's a far more comfortable, well,
it's a far more present place to be.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
It might be harder, but it's a for me.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
It's a better place to be than reaching for something
that might not be because then the pain that comes
along with it. I think hope at the end of
life can be a really dangerous game. People hope for
a cure, they hope for a miracle, They hope to
get better.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
When they don't, then there's a big let down.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
As opposed to hoping you make it to see your
grandson graduate from high school, you know, keeping the hope realistic.
For lack of a better way to put it, so,
hope often leads to disappointment and sadness and supporting folks
as they think through what they hope for and reconcile
what they actually got. Is challenging, but it's a big
(31:15):
part of the work that we're doing.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
I think hope is so complicated, honey, it's so complicated,
Like it shows up so clearly at end of life
with like, Okay, we don't have time to get into
this one and bring it up and leave it here anyway.
Is like when you are facing a terminal diagnosis and
you want to not allow quote unquote failure, not allow
(31:41):
death to be a possibility because you want to fight,
right like that? For some people, is hope like that
machinery that drives let me see if I can fight
for myself, right like that, there's hope in that. I've
also seen a lot of people miss the territory of
end of life because they are holding on to a
(32:03):
hope that.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
It gets better.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Yeah, right, I hope that I am going to have
like a last minute.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
It's miracle, miracle.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
I feel like hope in that instance can really rob
you of something beautiful.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
I agree one hundred percent. I'll just tell you a
very quick story. I think it's actually too funny. My sister,
my older sister, was a Saint John was my brother
in law, Peter Saint John, and getting close to the
end of his life. They had a lot of hope,
a lot of hope that he would get better, and
that didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
He died and at some point we were sitting there.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
This is not long after The Audacity of Hope came out,
and she said, you know what, I'm going to write
a book and I'm going to call it The Fucacity
of Hope. That's not what her book was eventually called,
but that would have been a good one, the Facacity of.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Hope, because it fucked them up.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I think that's a great subtitle, or like the secret title,
the secret title for a book that's also good marketing.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
This book has a secret title. Join this club to find.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Out what it is, all right.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
It is so fitting that we end this conversation about
end of life and somewhat difficult topics cracking up, because
this is who.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
We are and this is how we show up.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
I am so glad that we finally got a chance
to meet and spend time together, and I hope it
is the first of many. And I am so glad
that you are here in this world.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Me too, Megan.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
I'm going to link to your website and your Insta
and all of those things in the show notes, But
is there anything else that you want people to know
or where they should find you or where they should
not find you because you are out in a hammock
somewhere having a beautiful moment.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah, the website's a great place to find me and us.
I'll say us, because I'm not pushing this thing by myself,
but I do plan to be in a hammock off
the grid.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
My phones can be inside the house, so good luck.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
But they can reach your team at the website, which's
not leaving y'all alone at end of life. That will
never ever happen. All right, everybody, stay tuned. I will
be back with your questions to carry with you right
after this break. Each week I leave you with some
(34:28):
questions to carry with you until we meet again. This
conversation was so much fun. Before we started recording the
actual episode, Alu and I spent like over half an
hour just hanging out talking about writing and work and
the work around the actual work that we do, like
the mechanics of doing the public facing work that we
(34:50):
both do. At one point, aluis said, I just want
to talk about death, you know, I don't don't want
to live my life dealing with HR issues and tech platforms,
And I felt so seen when we were talking about
that stuff, the frustration, the fiddly bits that get in
the way of the work that we really love to do.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
So from the episode itself, I loved the perspective.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
A Lua shared around meaning that her life doesn't have
meaning because she does meaningful work. It has meaning or
meaning is constantly created by what she takes from her
work back out into the world. Right Like, one way
of looking at a meaningful life is defined by your labor,
(35:32):
your profession, your work. Another way to look at it
is to center the fullness of your life and find
meaning there. And there's a nuance and a subtlety there
that I really really like. I am wondering more about
it in my own life and I'm carrying it with me.
So how about you. Well's stuck with you from this conversation.
(35:54):
Everyone's going to take something different from the show, But
I do hope you found something to hold on to.
If you want to tell me how today's show felt
for you, or you have thoughts on what we covered,
let me know. Tag at refuge and grief on all
social platforms so I can hear how this conversation affected you.
You can follow the show at It's Okay Pod on
TikTok and Refuge and Grief everywhere else. To see video
(36:15):
clips from the show, use the hashtag It's Okay pod
on all the platforms, so not only I can find
you and my team can find you, but other people
can too. Community building is important. None of us are
entirely okay, and it's time we started talking about that together.
It's okay that you're not okay. You're in good company.
(36:40):
And that's it for this week. Friends, remember to subscribe
to the show, share it with your friends, and leave
a review. Reviews are super important. They make the show
easier to find, it makes the show show up in
search results a lot easier, and it also makes me
happy to read them. I love to read your reviews,
So wherever you find your podcast, leave a review, subscribe
(37:01):
and share it with everyone you know. Now coming up
next week, a very special guest. When your life looks
amazing and objectively is amazing, do you have any right
to grief? Find out next time with Emmy nominated photographer
and Creative Live founder Chase Jervis on the grief of
(37:22):
getting exactly what you want. Follow the show on your
favorite platforms everybody so you don't miss an episode. Want
more on these topics, Look, grief is everywhere. As my
dad says, daily life is full of everyday grief that
we don't call grief. Learning how to talk about all
that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements is
(37:43):
an important skill for everyone. Whether you're trying to support
a friend going through a hard time, or you work
in the helping professions, get help to have those conversations
with training's professional resources and my best selling book, It's
Okay that You're Not Okay at Megandivine dot Co.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It's Okay that You're Not Okay.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
The podcast is written and produced by me Megan Divine.
Executive producer is Amy Brown, co produced by Elizabeth Fozzio,
with logistical and social media support from Micah, Post production
and editing by Houston Tilly. Music provided by wave Crush,
and today's background noise provided by an overly caffeinated me
wiggling around in a slightly squeaky chair.
Can we just be human?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Yeah? Like, what is wrong with just being human?
Speaker 3 (00:05):
To have pain, to feel sorrow, to feel disappointed, to
be insecure, feel disappointment, failure, Like, can we just be human?
Speaker 4 (00:16):
This is it's okay that you're not okay and I'm
your host, Megan Divine. So what would a meaningful life.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Look like for you?
Speaker 4 (00:23):
According to death Doula Ailua Arthur, conversations about death can
be the most enriching conversations we have. You're curious about
how facing death plays a role in a good life,
not actually sure what a death doula is, and should
you live each day like it's your last?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Like?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
There are a lot of questions answered in this week's show,
all coming up right after this first break. Before we
get started, one quick note. While we cover a lot
of emotional relational territory in our time here together, this
(01:00):
is not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed
mental health provider or for professional supervision related to your work. Hey, friends, So,
Ailua Arthur and I have known of each other for
a lot of years. We've got a lot of friends
in common, our professional spheres overlap a lot, but I
(01:23):
never actually got a chance to talk to her until
this episode. Ailua Arthur is a death doula. She facilitates
conversations about mortality for people not planning to die anytime soon,
and she helps people at the end of their lives,
supporting them and their families through death. If you don't
know her work, you might think that all of this
(01:43):
stuff she does, these conversations about end of life and
facing your mortality, it sounds kind of morbid.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
But here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
People who directly engage with the reality of life tend
to be immensely joyful, not more bbid. Alua is this expansive, generous,
joyful person, and she just happens to talk a lot
about death. It's a serious subject, obviously, but it's rooted
in this truly embodied joy that's like a conversational sweet
(02:15):
spot that's hard to nail, but Ailua does it over
and over and over again in this conversation that we're
having here today and out in the world now. In
this episode, we get into ideas of what makes a
meaningful life, like, what a meaningful life even means. We
discuss why with all of her work on normalizing conversations
(02:36):
about death and getting friendly with your own mortality why
Ailua may still leave this particular life kicking and screaming
and clawing at the door. Ailua also confirms this age
old annoyance. I have a little pettiness on my part,
but this like the squishing together of end of life
like death and mortality and preparation, the squishing together of
(02:59):
that stuff as a subject and grief as a subject
like death and grief are not the same things, but
they often get treated the same. If you don't know
what I'm talking about, you will after you listen to
the show. So what does a.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Meaningful life look like for you?
Speaker 4 (03:14):
And how can exploring mortality help you figure that out?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Also?
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Why is the relationship between end of life and grief
more like an open marriage than a monogamist marriage. All
of that and a whole lot of joy, starting right
now with the excellent Ailua Arthur.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Aleena.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I am so glad to have you here with me
today like this. I feel like this has been a
long time coming for us, so welcome.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Thank you, Megan. I'm actually really, really really happy to
be here, my fellow.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
We love this and honestly, like us, being so excited
about spending this time together is something that I want
to get into in my second question, but my first
question so that people know where we're starting. I introduced
you in my introduction, but can you give people your
definition of what a death doula is.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
A death doula is somebody who does all of the
non medical and holistic care and support for the dying person,
their circle of support, and their whole community through the
death process. When people are healthy, we can help them
complete comprehensive end of life plans when they know what
it is that they're going to be dying of.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
We help people create the most ideal.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Death for themselves under the circumstances, and then after a death,
we help family members wrap up affairs of their loved
ones life, which just offer holistic death support.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
I think that people on the outside of your profession
and of mind profession, think that these are really depressing
things to spend your time on.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And all of.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
The death and grief people I know are the most
joyful people that I've ever met. Do you think that's
true for you?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Have you experienced that?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Absolutely true? In my experience?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
What is it about those of us?
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Maybe it's just my sample size, but like what is
it about those of us who do these really goodbye
intensive professions, these emotional landscapes that a lot of people
try to avoid, Like how are we happy?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I think it has a lot to do with the
fact that we touch those emotional landscapes and we kind
of ride them. I think we give ourselves permission to
be in it all all the time, which means that
we have access to joy I think, and access to
like the full spectrum of life that makes it so
much richer and fuller and more exciting and twinkly because
(05:42):
we can also always see and we can be with
a difficulty too.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
I think there's something in the energy it takes to
hold back the truth.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
F that's juicy.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yeah, I know that, Ailiu, and I know what I'm
talking about when I say that, But diving into conversations
that a lot of people try to avoid, like that's
a struggle to not tell the truth about these things.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Absolutely, it's really hard to keep the truth hidden and
also just to keep the truth of where I am
and how I'm feeling inside, certainly at the bedside or
as death is approaching. I've certainly had families who have
been like, don't tell the dying person that they're dying,
And I'm like, you don't think that they know. I
get in there, and then the dying person's like, don't
tell my family I'm dying. I'm like, y'all need to
(06:32):
start talking to each other, because it's going to be
so much more.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Complete and easy once you do, well, easier once they do.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I think that extrapolating from the bedside into our lives itself.
Like I have a hard time not letting I love
you jump out of my sproat when it's ready to
do so. Or I'm hungry, or I'm tired, or I'm
out of social energy and I have to go back home.
All these things just come out, which I think is
me an opportunity to be with the truth of who
(06:59):
I am I'm at that moment.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
This is really what this work is.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
I mean, you you have one of your signature taglines
is thank you for giving me a moment of your
life to talk about the end of yours. I might
have just butchered that close enough, close enough, okay, but
I love what you just said there about the conversations
that we have at the bedside when somebody is dying
or when we know they're dying, or we're talking about
(07:23):
our own mortality. Like those skill sets transfer to the
rest of life. One of the things that bugs me
about grief work is we think it's siloed. Right, these
are only conversations you need to have when something terrible
has happened. One of the things that I love about
you is that you don't silo this stuff. On PBS
News Hour, you said, I really struggle with why we're
(07:45):
not talking about death culturally and societally, because it seems
to me the most enriching conversation we could have.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Death touches every aspect of society, every aspect of our lives.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It's present with us all the time.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
It's not just when somebody's body is starting to not
respond to treatment anymore. It's everywhere regularly. And when I
can see, I think, when I can see death in
the living, it amplifies the living. You know, when I
can see that my body one day won't have access
to delicious food, I want to eat the delicious food
(08:20):
right now. When I'm aware that because of my death,
I won't be able to do my work anymore, well,
it drives me to want to do the work as
completely as I can right now. This is not in
favor of hustle culture, but about being true with what
it is that I want to put out and what
I want to do. Death constantly highlights my life over
and over and over again, and when I let it,
it magnifies it.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I think it gives us an opportunity to do kind
of a constant value assessment.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yes, of what am I doing with this life?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
One, who I want to be, how I want to
spend my time, What of me I'll leaves behind. I'm
constantly checking in with that while I'm living, because one
day I'll die, and I want to make sure that
while I'm here, I'm doing me as best as I can.
I'm the only one who's going to have to contend
with all the choices I made at my deathbed, nobody else.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
This reminds me of so when my partner died accidental
drowning of a thirty nine year old, perfectly healthy male
like that shook our community up, and I remember one
of our friends coming to me and saying, like this
is messed up. Like it's made me start thinking, like
you're supposed to live every day like it's your last.
But honestly, that's a lot of pressure. Yeah, so when
(09:35):
you start saying like keeping death in mind, thinking about
this makes you really conscious of the choices that you
make in your life. Is there a lot of pressure
there to be like, I can't have any days where
I wish I had made different choices, Like is there pressure.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
For you in that?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
No, it actually is very freeing.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I think it's a stress reliever that I'm going to die,
like it makes the thing not seem so serious and
so important anymore. Permission to take a nap, you know.
I think one read on using death as a motivator
is go go, go, do dooo doo, get everything right
now when you can. But for me, it's also what
type of life do I want to lead? And I
want to lead a rested life. I want to take naps.
(10:14):
I want to take my time, take a walk, lay
in a hammock. I don't want to be producing and
going and getting everything all the time. For me, it's
not about gathering all the experiences. It's about experiencing the
magic with what my life is right now.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I love that distinction.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
I actually hadn't thought of that that this idea that
you're supposed to live each day like it's your last,
is a product of hustle culture, Like what can I produce?
What can I optimize? What can I make the best
of because tomorrow I might die?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, go get it, go do it, Go experience everything
right now. And it's like, also slow down and take
a deep breath in and marvel at the wonder it
is that we bring in oxygen and we spit out
carbon dioxide.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
What it's undermagic, It totally is exactly is right. That's
so exciting to me.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I heard recently or I read it someplace, and I
wish I could remember where I read this from, because
it really just rocked my thoughts. Rather than living each
day like the last, about living each day like the first.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Ooh, right, that's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Yeah, that brings that like that sense of wonder into things.
Right back in the nineties, I mean, the book still exists.
Is called Pronoia is the antitude of paranoia.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Pronoia is marveling at the precise.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Wonder of the world.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
The sun is the exact distance it needs to be
to warm us without killing us. The chemical content of
our air. Depending on where you live and how much
pollution is happening, but like the chemical makeup of the
air is exactly what our lungs need and our bodies need.
Like that that is wondrous. I love that live each
(11:54):
day as if it was the first.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Right, that's magic. I love that.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
I use the phrase goodbye intensive professions without defining my
terms here, but like you spend so much time at
the bedside at end of life and also not at
the bedside talking with people about their mortality, helping them
explore what kind of life they want for themselves and
what kind of death they want for themselves. You started
(12:20):
out your sort of professional career as a lawyer, though,
Bill Boh, Yeah, I know it's a silly comparison between
like what did the world look like as a lawyer
versus what did the world look like now? But because
end of life is so in you and in your
face and in your consciousness, Like, how has this work
changed what you see in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Well, this work is it's created a I want to say,
a new filter, not the absence of the one, but
a new filter, because there's always one. And when I
was practicing law, I was working at Legal Aids, so
I wasn't working in the big corporate, you know, doing
the whole big thing, but rather doing work that other
people found very meaningful.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I did at the time.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I've always wanted to live a life with service, and
so I was doing that on some capacity. But what
has happened now is that I see the world, I think,
for more of its wonder and awe for us being here.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I also think that.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
This work allows me to use more parts of who
I actually am naturally, and so it's just a better fit.
May not have been death itself, but whatever work I
went into had to have me be at my optimum,
where I can be in wonder about humankind and I
can ask all the questions I want and be super
nosy and not have to fill out too many forms
(13:42):
for anybody, and be really sensitive and have it be okay,
and be a little weird and have it be okay.
I value my weirdness and my lack of bored and
my curiosity about humans and humankind.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
So it sounds like, you know, doing this work almost
lets you see this sounds so corny, but like lets
you see your correct place in the world, right Like
that you see the world as a place that supports
and encourages all of the parts of you. Yes, and
it happens to be in a profession that a lot
(14:16):
of people would run screaming from.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Absolutely, it just happens to be. I think a lot
of people mistake that my work is a thing that
gives my life meaning. But in contrary, I think it's
the way that the work works in my life gives
it meaning. You know what I mean? Like, I don't
have meaning just because I do death work, But I
think I have I'm creating meaning because I look at
(14:39):
the world differently because I do death work.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Interesting, We're such a meaning making culture, right, Like, oh,
you do such meaningful work, But what I just heard
you say is different than that.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the meaning making
out of the baseline, right.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Meaning making as a baseline for life is not helpful.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
No, it's so unfair. It's so hard. It makes people,
I think, winners and losers somehow.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
How so well, Some people are like, oh my god,
you work at so much meaning, Like I've won something.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
You unlocked the secrets of life by doing death work.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
My problem with meaning is that it is completely prescribed
by our filters and our experiences and we often like
ascribe meaning to others. Yeah, and that's problematic for me,
Like you know, oh you had you had a dream
about this, it means this, or you know, I saw
a white feather on the ground and that means that
(15:41):
your mom is nearby? Like hello, can you not tell
me what my symbols mean to me?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Meaning is just I think meaning.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Is that that desire to put an order on something
amorphous and living.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, and try to make it make some sense. How
can any of this make any sense? We're on a
giant blue rock spinning through space.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, none of sense. There's no sense to that. There's
no sense to that.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
If you're going to make meaning, make your own right, Like,
what is it that feels meaningful to me? And this
goes back to what we were talking about with like
do you live each days as if it were your
last or as if it.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Was the first?
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Like what does a meaningful life look like for you?
And I feel like that question of what does a
meaningful life look like for you is a lot of
what you do when you are doing workshops and guiding
people who are not actively at end of life, but
they're exploring their own mortality.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Does that feel accurate?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
It is absolutely accurate how people like zoom out and
look at their lives and figure out their values and
their priorities for themselves, you know, not the ones that
we've been told or given, but what actually matters to me.
And then support folks as they try to figure out
how to help their lives match up as closely as possible,
because it's not possible for most to do it exactly
(16:54):
the way that they want. We have a bunch of
responsibilities that must get taken care of, and then we
have questions about privilege and access.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
But to the extent that we can, we could.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Before we get back to my conversation with Alua, I
want to talk with you about getting help inside grief.
You know how you know, if you're talking about how
rough things are for you, people will say, like, maybe
you should talk to somebody.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, reality check here. Finding skilled grief support is hard.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I get a lot of messages from people wanting to
speak with me directly because they want better grief support.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
My team used to say no because I simply do
not have time.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
But now right now we are saying yes for a
limited time and a limited number of people. To apply
for one of the grief consultation spots on my calendar,
send us an email at support at refuge in Grief
dot com, or use the contact form at Megandivine dot
c oh if individual work with me is out of
(18:03):
reach or that waiting list gets too long, you can
also join me every month for a live Q and
A at patreon dot com. Backslash Megan Divine two different
ways to get your questions about grief answered, and details
about both of those options are in the show notes.
All right, let's get back to my conversation with Alua Arthur.
(18:24):
Do you think that exploring your own mortality will make
dying suck less?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
No? Why not?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I don't think as a baseline rule. I used to
romanticize it and think that it would. But you know,
even with all this robro death talk I do, I
might go kicking and screaming it might be my turn and.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Be like, oh, I'm not ready.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I'm doing my best right now to be in my
life so that when that time comes I can be like,
all right, I did it, but who knows?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Who knows?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
I think I have value for today, It's not necessarily
value for the future.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
You know, Matt and I talk a lot about death
and end of life. He was very much into meditation
and all of these things and awareness and the ephemeral
nature of life. And I remember at his funeral people
actually said he was so friendly with death. I know
he went gently, and I was like, pitch, I was there,
(19:20):
he did not go gently. Like, being friendly with death
does not mean you're psyched about it. I think this
gets really confusing. Like you and I you definitely work
in the death positivity space and I'm sort of a
death positive field adjacent here. But being friendly was with
death does not protect you from grief.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
No.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I think being friendly with death means that you can
acknowledge grief. Perhaps I can identify when I'm grieving when
maybe previously I wasn't capable of. But I'm gonna have
a hard time when my parents die, when my turn
is coming, when my partner's turn is coming, when anybody
in my life's turn is coming.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Oh he it's gonna stop. And I think that's okay.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, I think that's the nature of this work, right,
Like we don't say all of these goodbyes to make
goodbyes not hurt us. Like we say all of these
goodbyes so that we're okay with being hurt. Yeah, like
we know how to care for ourselves and care for
each other and identify it and know that saying goodbye
is fucking painful.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, that's really hard.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Something else I've been really playing with lately is along
the same vein where how much of my practice of
any practice I do for today as opposed to putting
in the bank for later. And I'm really trying to
stick with the practices that I do because they have
value right now. First of all, I don't know that
I have a later and next, Like, why not for today?
(20:45):
You know this is what I have right now. Let
me be with it right now, as opposed to meditate
because it's going to give me something, or think about
my death because I'm going to get something. Yes, I
want to prepare for my death now because it will
eventually make it a little easier on my loved ones.
But I also get value out of doing it right now.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
I love that you brought up that sort of transactional nature,
like we do this stuff so that something in the
future doesn't harm us. And really like I feel like
you and I are like joining hands and saying no,
like let the world hurt you, Yeah, because it is
hurting you, and can we make space for that and
learn how to care for ourselves and care for each
(21:24):
other and come together in the pain of this world
instead of pretending that there's something we can do to
protect ourselves from it.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Yeah, or like things that we should do to claw
ourselves out of it.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
But if we could just be with it.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
You know, a big part of my work, I think
there's a misconception that death doula's jobs or to help
people get over their fear of death. I might here
trying to be like, oh, you know, here's all the
things that you can do steps one through fifteen to
get over your fear of death, or saw them happen
like that and next that doesn't do anybody any favors,
you know, Like, I'm just here to be with people
(21:58):
where they are, to meet them in the trying to
just sit alongside with them, to bear witness to their pain,
to acknowledge what is that they're going through. And if
they want to start working things to move on or
get through, then they'll be there with them.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
But what is really moving on when it comes to grief?
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I'm going
to bring up a small sore spot for me, not
with your work, but with end of life work in general.
End of life usually gets lumped in with grief, like
in training programs in counseling school, and like all of
these things, you get like one in the course of
an entire master's program in counseling or in social work,
(22:36):
you get like one day or maybe a half a
day in death and dying, which is not enough time,
and they lump grief in with that. And if you
go to a physical bookstore, you will see support your
independent bookstores, people go visit them. But if you go
to a bookstore, you'll see that the grief books are
in the very tiny death and dying section. And you
go to an end of life conference and there's like
(22:58):
one speaker on grief, and those speaker on grief is
talking about getting your memorial rituals correct. Right, like I
rant on this stuff that like death and grief are
not the same thing. They are cousins, they are not
the same thing. I love the way that you talk
about grief because like I mean, am I just like
(23:19):
am I splitting hairs here? I guess this is my question.
End of life and grief are related. But I feel
like people think that if they just get the funeral correct,
if they just get their rituals correct, if they just
make the bright art project very soon after their person dies,
then again we come back to that transactional thing of
if I get my rituals correct, this won't hurt.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Have you seen that?
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Am I the only one seeing that? Is that just
my personal pusiness?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
What's happening here?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I see it all the time.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
In our end of life training course, there is a
module on grief, and the languaging about it is the
two are inexorably linked. They're married as far as I
see it. However, it's an open marriage. Everything is Paul,
everything is Paul, everything is queer, and grief gets to
go and play with all the other partners it wants to. Now,
(24:12):
death is pretty tied to grief, I think, but there's
so many other ways that grief shows up, and I
find that people do often try to fast track the
grief after death in an effort to try to get
over and move on or something of the sort, but
also don't take time to think about the full spectrum
of the grieving that they're doing, all the different things
(24:32):
that they're grieving in the process, and I love being
able to highlight that and call attention to it. You know,
so many things died when somebody dies, and the grief
shows up in so many ways, and let's like acknowledge
the loss of the sexual relationship, all of it.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, all of it.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
You've said that an element of the grieving process is
the reidentification of self.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I'm going to take it away from death for a
second to do and make it land a little bit easier.
But I have been an average runner for most of
my adult life, and a few years back, my knees
started really hurting and I'd have the pen of the
middle of the night and would hurts so bad and
I'd be aching afterward, and I was like, God, I
got to stop doing this, you know, I have to
(25:13):
stop doing this. I have been grieving it ever since.
And the re identification is am I still a runner
if I'm not running? Because I've identified myself as a
runner for so long, So I have to come up
with a new definition and find a new way to
identify myself out there in the world, and it's painful.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
And every time I think we.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Go through a shift in identity, there's a grief that's occurring,
Like when we go from maiden to mother, even though
we think of it as a happy thing out there
in the world, but holy shit, there's a lot of
grief in that I go from single to engaged grief,
massive grief in that every time that we have to
think of ourselves differently out there in the world, we're
(25:53):
leaving something behind. It may not look like a loss,
but there is a loss occurring, even if we're moving
forward into something.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
Yes, I've been talking about this so much lately. I
did a lecture a couple weeks ago about the everyday
grief that we don't call grief, and in my sort
of list of things that we can grieve, I made
what I thought was just like a throwaway statement. I said,
the grief of getting what you've always wanted, right, And
it was just like in my list of things. And
then like, there's time at the end for Q and A,
(26:22):
and that we're going through the Q and A and
people are like, what do you mean the grief of
getting what you've always wanted? And you just described it
so perfectly and so beautifully Like with every yes, there's
a no, and with every no there is grief. Just
in the same way that our deaths are always walking
beside us and inside us, grief is always walking beside
(26:45):
us and inside us.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And that is not wrong.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
All of this work, like all of this work is
about like can we just see and acknowledge the fullness
of all of this life?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Can we just be human?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah? Like what is wrong with just being human?
Speaker 3 (27:05):
To have pain, to feel sorrow, to feel disappointed, to
be insecure, feel disappointment, failure, Like, can we just be human?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
You know, the full spectrum, not just like the happy,
giddy and getting everything I want. My body's banking, but
i have cellulite on my arms and I'm still dealing
with internal life fatphobia, human too, Like the full spectrum
of it.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Yeah, showing up for that and learning the skills that
we need for that. People ask me, like, how do
you survive grief? And I'm like, you survive grief by
building communities. Building a community with yourself and a community
with others that allows you to feel exactly how you
feel and feel seen and supported in it. Like that's
how you survive grief, and how do we practice that stuff?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
How do we build that stuff?
Speaker 4 (27:51):
We do it by saying exactly what you just said, like,
can you be fully human to yourself in your day
to day life? Can you be fully human with the
people you love and that you choose around you? Like,
we build this stuff every single day. It's not break
this box in case of emergency, right, it is do
this for today, for right now, for the body and
(28:12):
the being you are in this life, and in case
you need it later.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Absolutely, And I think that some of that being with
that consistently is what turns out to be a practice
that can support at the end of light. Yeah, because
I'm doing it daily. It's like a well worn groove
in my body and my heart. And if when I
get to the end of my life, if I am
(28:37):
having a hard time with what's going on, if I've
practiced plenty before I get there, then maybe I can
also say, Hey, this hurts, or hay, I'm really uncomfortable
or I'm scared, or I don't want to right now
or whatever, and I'm just not fighting against it anymore
because I've given myself permission.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Yeah, and you're not trying to learn a new relational skill. Yes,
in a moment when you're right now needs your attention.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Honey, And there's so much to be doing at the
end of life, let alone be also trying to figure
out how to give myself permission to feel things.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Who yeah, yeah, that's like, don't do that to yourself.
And also like trying to learn the communication skills you
need to advocate for yourself to say what you need
to ask the hard questions, like all of that stuff.
It gets infinitely easier if those communications, If those kinds
of talks.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Aren't new for you, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Like diving into goodbyes is a beautiful, beautiful thing. I
feel like we could talk for nineteen thousand hours, and
I hope that we get to do that more. But
I want to make sure that we have time to
ask you the question that I ask everybody. You spend
so much of your time inside things that a lot
(29:50):
of people work very hard to avoid. We already know
that this work is full of joy, because it is.
But I'm also really curious about hope. You spend so
much time saying goodbye, so knowing what you know and
living what you've lived and what you live.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
What does hope look like for you?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
It feels like I'm going to get disappointed.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I want to be as present with today and what
I've got as possible when I am hoping for something,
when I'm reaching out there for something else, what I
find is that I'm living out a relationship with what
is because I want different or better. And when I
can just be with what is, that's a far more comfortable, well,
it's a far more present place to be.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
It might be harder, but it's a for me.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
It's a better place to be than reaching for something
that might not be because then the pain that comes
along with it. I think hope at the end of
life can be a really dangerous game. People hope for
a cure, they hope for a miracle, They hope to
get better.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
When they don't, then there's a big let down.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
As opposed to hoping you make it to see your
grandson graduate from high school, you know, keeping the hope realistic.
For lack of a better way to put it, so,
hope often leads to disappointment and sadness and supporting folks
as they think through what they hope for and reconcile
what they actually got. Is challenging, but it's a big
(31:15):
part of the work that we're doing.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
I think hope is so complicated, honey, it's so complicated,
Like it shows up so clearly at end of life
with like, Okay, we don't have time to get into
this one and bring it up and leave it here anyway.
Is like when you are facing a terminal diagnosis and
you want to not allow quote unquote failure, not allow
(31:41):
death to be a possibility because you want to fight,
right like that? For some people, is hope like that
machinery that drives let me see if I can fight
for myself, right like that, there's hope in that. I've
also seen a lot of people miss the territory of
end of life because they are holding on to a
(32:03):
hope that.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
It gets better.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Yeah, right, I hope that I am going to have
like a last minute.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
It's miracle, miracle.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
I feel like hope in that instance can really rob
you of something beautiful.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
I agree one hundred percent. I'll just tell you a
very quick story. I think it's actually too funny. My sister,
my older sister, was a Saint John was my brother
in law, Peter Saint John, and getting close to the
end of his life. They had a lot of hope,
a lot of hope that he would get better, and
that didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
He died and at some point we were sitting there.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
This is not long after The Audacity of Hope came out,
and she said, you know what, I'm going to write
a book and I'm going to call it The Fucacity
of Hope. That's not what her book was eventually called,
but that would have been a good one, the Facacity of.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Hope, because it fucked them up.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I think that's a great subtitle, or like the secret title,
the secret title for a book that's also good marketing.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
This book has a secret title. Join this club to find.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Out what it is, all right.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
It is so fitting that we end this conversation about
end of life and somewhat difficult topics cracking up, because
this is who.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
We are and this is how we show up.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
I am so glad that we finally got a chance
to meet and spend time together, and I hope it
is the first of many. And I am so glad
that you are here in this world.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Me too, Megan.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
I'm going to link to your website and your Insta
and all of those things in the show notes, But
is there anything else that you want people to know
or where they should find you or where they should
not find you because you are out in a hammock
somewhere having a beautiful moment.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah, the website's a great place to find me and us.
I'll say us, because I'm not pushing this thing by myself,
but I do plan to be in a hammock off
the grid.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
My phones can be inside the house, so good luck.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
But they can reach your team at the website, which's
not leaving y'all alone at end of life. That will
never ever happen. All right, everybody, stay tuned. I will
be back with your questions to carry with you right
after this break. Each week I leave you with some
(34:28):
questions to carry with you until we meet again. This
conversation was so much fun. Before we started recording the
actual episode, Alu and I spent like over half an
hour just hanging out talking about writing and work and
the work around the actual work that we do, like
the mechanics of doing the public facing work that we
(34:50):
both do. At one point, aluis said, I just want
to talk about death, you know, I don't don't want
to live my life dealing with HR issues and tech platforms,
And I felt so seen when we were talking about
that stuff, the frustration, the fiddly bits that get in
the way of the work that we really love to do.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
So from the episode itself, I loved the perspective.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
A Lua shared around meaning that her life doesn't have
meaning because she does meaningful work. It has meaning or
meaning is constantly created by what she takes from her
work back out into the world. Right Like, one way
of looking at a meaningful life is defined by your labor,
(35:32):
your profession, your work. Another way to look at it
is to center the fullness of your life and find
meaning there. And there's a nuance and a subtlety there
that I really really like. I am wondering more about
it in my own life and I'm carrying it with me.
So how about you. Well's stuck with you from this conversation.
(35:54):
Everyone's going to take something different from the show, But
I do hope you found something to hold on to.
If you want to tell me how today's show felt
for you, or you have thoughts on what we covered,
let me know. Tag at refuge and grief on all
social platforms so I can hear how this conversation affected you.
You can follow the show at It's Okay Pod on
TikTok and Refuge and Grief everywhere else. To see video
(36:15):
clips from the show, use the hashtag It's Okay pod
on all the platforms, so not only I can find
you and my team can find you, but other people
can too. Community building is important. None of us are
entirely okay, and it's time we started talking about that together.
It's okay that you're not okay. You're in good company.
(36:40):
And that's it for this week. Friends, remember to subscribe
to the show, share it with your friends, and leave
a review. Reviews are super important. They make the show
easier to find, it makes the show show up in
search results a lot easier, and it also makes me
happy to read them. I love to read your reviews,
So wherever you find your podcast, leave a review, subscribe
(37:01):
and share it with everyone you know. Now coming up
next week, a very special guest. When your life looks
amazing and objectively is amazing, do you have any right
to grief? Find out next time with Emmy nominated photographer
and Creative Live founder Chase Jervis on the grief of
(37:22):
getting exactly what you want. Follow the show on your
favorite platforms everybody so you don't miss an episode. Want
more on these topics, Look, grief is everywhere. As my
dad says, daily life is full of everyday grief that
we don't call grief. Learning how to talk about all
that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements is
(37:43):
an important skill for everyone. Whether you're trying to support
a friend going through a hard time, or you work
in the helping professions, get help to have those conversations
with training's professional resources and my best selling book, It's
Okay that You're Not Okay at Megandivine dot Co.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It's Okay that You're Not Okay.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
The podcast is written and produced by me Megan Divine.
Executive producer is Amy Brown, co produced by Elizabeth Fozzio,
with logistical and social media support from Micah, Post production
and editing by Houston Tilly. Music provided by wave Crush,
and today's background noise provided by an overly caffeinated me
wiggling around in a slightly squeaky chair.
Host
Megan Devine
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