April 22, 2024 • 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.
Alua’s new book is Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real about the End. For more info visit aluaarthur.com
In this episode we cover:
- 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)
- The linking of death and grief: Death and grief are married, but grief definitely dates around.
We're re-releasing some of our favorite episodes from the first 3 seasons. This episode was originally recorded in 2023.
Looking for a creative exploration of grief? Check out the best selling Writing Your Grief course here.
Related episodes:
Trauma Surgeon Dr. Red Hoffman on the surprisingly broad umbrella of palliative care
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 aluaarthur.com and on Instagram at @going_with_grace
About Megan:
Psychotherapist Megan Devine is one of today’s leading experts on grief, from life-altering losses to the everyday grief that we don’t call grief. Get the best-selling book on grief in over a decade, It’s Ok that You’re Not OK, wherever you get books. Find Megan @refugeingrief
Additional Resources:
Read Alua’s new book - Briefly Perfectly Human
Megan mentions this book - Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia
Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A grief clinics: your questions, answered. Want
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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 2 (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
look like for you? 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,
(00:37):
and should you live each day like it's your last?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Like?
Speaker 2 (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. Two quick notes. One, this episode is an
on poor performance. I'm on break working on a giant
(01:01):
new project, So we're releasing a mix of our favorite
episodes from the first three seasons of the show. Some
of these conversations you might have missed in your original seasons,
and some shows just truly deserve multiple listens so that
you capture all of the goodness. Second note, While we
cover a lot of emotional, relational territory and our time
(01:21):
here together. This show is not a substitute for skilled support,
for a license mental health provider, or for professional supervision
related to your work. Take what you learn here, take
your thoughts and your reflections out into your world, and
talk about it. Hey, friends, So, Ailua Arthur and I
(01:42):
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 never actually got a
chance to talk to her until this episode. Ailua Arthur
is a death doula. She facilitates conversations about more mortality
for people not planning to die anytime soon, and she
(02:04):
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 stuff she does,
these conversations about end of life and facing your mortality,
it sounds kind of morbid. But here's the thing. People
who directly engage with the reality of life tend to
(02:25):
be immensely joyful, not morbid. Ailua 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
spot that's hard to nail, but Ailua does it over
(02:47):
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
about death and getting friendly with your own mortality, why
(03:09):
Alua may still leave this particular life kicking and screaming
and clawing at the door. Alua 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
that stuff as a subject and grief as a subject
(03:32):
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 meaningful life look like
for you? And how can exploring mortality help you figure
that out? Also, why is the relationship between end of
life and grief? More like an open marriage than a
(03:52):
monogamous marriage. All of that and a whole lot of joy,
starting right now with the excellent Alua Arthur.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Aleena.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
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 (04:12):
Thank you, Megan. I'm actually really really really happy to
be here myself.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
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 (04:33):
A death doula is somebody who does all of the
non medical and holistic Karen 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. We
help people create the most ideal death for themselves under
(04:55):
the circumstances. And then after a death, we help family
members wrap up affairs of their loved ones life we
just offer holistic death support.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
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, And all of 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? Like, have you experienced that?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Absolutely true in my experience?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
What is it about those of us? 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 3 (05:47):
That's a good question. 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
(06:09):
and twinkly because we can also always see and we
can be with the difficulty too.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I think there's something in the energy it takes to
hold back the truth s that's juicy. 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
(06:37):
truth about these things.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Think that they know?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
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 start talking to each other, because it's going to
be so much more complete and easy once you do, well,
easier once they do. 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
throat when it's ready to do so, or I'm hungry,
(07:17):
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 gives me an opportunity to
be with the truth of who I am at that moment.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
This is really what this work is. I mean, 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
(07:50):
they're dying, or we're talking about 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 silo 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,
(08:12):
I really struggle with why we're not talking about death
culturally and societally, because it seems to me the most
enriching conversation we could have.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Death touches every aspect of society, every aspect of our lives.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
It's present with us all the time.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Amplifies the living. You know.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
When I can see that my body one day won't
have access to delicious food, I want to eat the
delicious food 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
(09:02):
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 2 (09:10):
I think it gives us an opportunity to do kind
of a constant value assessment. Yes, of what am I
doing with this life?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yes, who I want to be, how I want to
spend my time? What of me I'll leave 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 2 (09:41):
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
(10:03):
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 for you in that?
Speaker 1 (10:20):
No, it actually is very freeing.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
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, And it gives me permission to take
a nap, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I think one read on using death as.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
A motivator is go go go do doo 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. 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
(10:54):
about experiencing the magic with what my life is right now.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I love that distinction. I 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 (11:13):
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 spin out
carbon dioxide.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
What it's under magic?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
It totally is, And that is right.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
That's so exciting to me.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I heard recently or I read it someplace, and I
wish I could remember who I read this from, because
it really just rocked my socks. Rather than living each
day like the last, about living each day like the first.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Ooh, right, that's fantastic. 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 antiitude of paranoia.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Pronoia is marveling at the precise wonder of the world. Right.
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.
(12:19):
Like that, that is wondrous. I love that live each
day as if it was the first.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
That's magic.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I love that. 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.
(12:48):
You started out your sort of professional career as a lawyer, though, boh, yeah,
I know it's a silly comparison between like what did
the world look like as a lawyer versus what are
the word world look like?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Now?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
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 (13:13):
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 (13:31):
I did at the time.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
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.
I also think that this work allows me to use
more parts of who I actually am naturally, and so
(13:54):
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 for anybody and be really sensitive
and have it be okay, and be a little weird
(14:15):
and have it be okay. I value my weirdness and
my lack of bored and my curiosity about humans humankind.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
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
(14:44):
of people would run screaming from.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Absolutely, it just happens to be.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
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 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 a creating meaning because I
look at the world differently because I do death work.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
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 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the meaning making
out of the baseline.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Right, Meaning making as a baseline for life is not helpful.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
No, it's so unfair, it's so hard. It makes people,
I think, winners and losers somehow.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
How so well.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Some people are like, oh my god, you work at
so much meaning, Like I've won something.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
You unlocked the secrets of life by doing death work. Yeah.
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
(16:07):
a white feather on the ground and that means that
your mom is nearby? Like hello, can you not tell
me what my symbols mean to me?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Like?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Meaning is just I think meaning is that that desire
to put an order on something amorphous and living.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, and try to make it make some sense. How
can any of this make any sense? We're in a
giant blue rock spitting through space. Yeah, none of it
makes there's no sense. There's no sense to that. There's
no sense to that.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
If you're going to make meaning, make your own right, Like,
what is it that that feels meaningful to me. And
this goes back to what we were talking about with
like do you live each day as as if as
if it were your last or as if it was
the first? 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
(16:55):
and guiding people who are not actively at end of life,
but they're exploring their immortality. Does that feel accurate?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
It is absolutely accurate.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Help 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 the way that
(17:23):
they want. We have a bunch of responsibilities that must
get taken care of, and then we have questions about
privilege and access. But to the extent that we can,
we could.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Hey, before we get back to this week's guest, I
want to talk with you about exploring your losses through writing.
There are lots of grief writing workshops out there with
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(18:06):
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you hear your own voice, and that is incredibly powerful.
You can read all about the Writing your Grief Course
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(18:29):
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show notes. Do you think that exploring your own mortality
will make dying suck less? No? Why not?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I don't think at a baseline rule. I used to
romanticize it and think that it would. But you know,
even with all this rob deathtalk I do, I might
go kicking and screaming it might be my turn and.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Be like, oh, I'm not ready.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
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 (19:12):
Who knows?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
I think I have value for today, It's not necessarily
value for the future.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
You know, Matt and I talked 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,
(19:40):
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 (19:59):
No.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
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 (20:18):
Oh yeah, shit, it's gonna stop. And I think that's okay.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
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 (20:42):
Yeah, that's really hard.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
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 now. First of all, I don't know
that I have a later and next, Like, why not
for today? You know this is what I have right now.
(21:06):
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 2 (21:22):
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
(21:43):
other and come together in the pain of this world
instead of pretending that there's something we can do to
protect ourselves from.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
It, yeah, or like things that we should do to
clar ourselves out of it.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
But if we could just be with it.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
You know, a big part of my work I think
there's a misconception death doulah'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 where they are,
(22:18):
to meet them in the trench, to 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 I'll
be there with them.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
But what is really moving on when it comes to grief.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
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,
(22:56):
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 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 one speaker on grief,
(23:18):
and the 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 am I splitting hairs here?
(23:40):
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. Have you seen that?
(24:03):
Am I the only one seeing that? Is that just
my personal pusiness? What's happening here?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I see it all the time.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
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,
(24:31):
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
(24:52):
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 (25:05):
Yeah, all of it. You've said that an element of
the grieving process is the reidentification of self. Yeah, what
do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
I'm going to take it away from death for a
second to do it make it land a little bit easier.
But I have been an avid runner for most of
my adult life, and a few years back my knees
started really hurting, and I'd have the pin in 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
(25:33):
stop doing this. I have been grieving it ever since.
And the reidentification 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.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
And it's painful.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
And every time I think we 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
we go from single to engaged.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Massive grief.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Massive grief in that every time that we have to
think of ourselves differently out there in the world, we're
leaving something behind. It may not look like a loss,
but there is a loss occurring, even if we're moving
forward into something beautiful.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
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
(26:41):
A 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 noah, and with every no there is grief.
Just in the same way that our deaths are always
is walking beside us and inside us. Grief is always
(27:03):
walking beside us and inside us. And that is not wrong. Yeah,
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 (27:19):
Yeah? Can we just be human? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Like what is wrong with just being human?
Speaker 3 (27:25):
To have pain, to feel sorrow, to feel disappointed, to
be insecure, feel disappointment, failure, Like, can we just be human?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
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 2 (27:47):
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 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?
(28:09):
How do we build that stuff? 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,
(28:29):
for right now, for the body and the being you
are in this life, and in case you need it later.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
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
(28:56):
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, that's hurts, or hey, 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 2 (29:13):
Yeah, and you're not trying to learn a new relational skill. Yes,
in a moment when you're right now needs your attention, honey.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
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 2 (29:30):
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 card questions, like all of that stuff.
It gets infinitely easier if those communications, if those kinds
of talks aren't.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
New for you, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
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
(30:10):
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. What does
hope look like for you?
Speaker 1 (30:29):
It feels like I'm going to get disappointed.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
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 of 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. It might
(30:55):
be harder, but it's a for me. 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. When they don't,
then there's a big let down as opposed to hoping
(31:15):
you make it to see your grandson graduate from high school,
you know, keeping the hope realistic.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
For lack of a better way to put.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
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 part of the work that we're doing.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
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, allowed death
(32:01):
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 hope that
(32:22):
it gets better. Yeah right, I hope that I am
going to have like a last minute it's miracle, miracle.
I feel like hope in that instance can really rob
you of something beautiful.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
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 sisters with Saint John, 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. He
died and at some point we were sitting there is
(33:00):
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 a book will eventually called, but that
would have been a good one, the fcacity of.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Hope, because it fuck them up.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I think that's a great subtitle,
or like the secret title, the secret title for a
book that's also good marketing. This book has a secret title,
Join this club to find out what it is.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
All right?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
It is so fitting that we end this conversation about
end of life and somewhat difficult topics cracking up because
this is who we are and this is how we
show up. 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 me too, Megan.
(33:56):
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 (34:11):
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 (34:20):
My phones can be inside the house, so good luck.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
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
(34:48):
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
(35:09):
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.
So from the episode itself, I loved the perspective Alua
(35:31):
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, your profession,
(35:52):
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? What's stuck with you from this conversation.
(36:13):
Everyone's going to take something different from the show, but
I do hope you've 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
(36:35):
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.
(37:00):
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 and share it with
(37:22):
everyone you know 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 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
(37:45):
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. It's Okay that You're Not Okay. 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
(38:07):
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 2 (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
look like for you? 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,
(00:37):
and should you live each day like it's your last?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Like?
Speaker 2 (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. Two quick notes. One, this episode is an
on poor performance. I'm on break working on a giant
(01:01):
new project, So we're releasing a mix of our favorite
episodes from the first three seasons of the show. Some
of these conversations you might have missed in your original seasons,
and some shows just truly deserve multiple listens so that
you capture all of the goodness. Second note, While we
cover a lot of emotional, relational territory and our time
(01:21):
here together. This show is not a substitute for skilled support,
for a license mental health provider, or for professional supervision
related to your work. Take what you learn here, take
your thoughts and your reflections out into your world, and
talk about it. Hey, friends, So, Ailua Arthur and I
(01:42):
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 never actually got a
chance to talk to her until this episode. Ailua Arthur
is a death doula. She facilitates conversations about more mortality
for people not planning to die anytime soon, and she
(02:04):
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 stuff she does,
these conversations about end of life and facing your mortality,
it sounds kind of morbid. But here's the thing. People
who directly engage with the reality of life tend to
(02:25):
be immensely joyful, not morbid. Ailua 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
spot that's hard to nail, but Ailua does it over
(02:47):
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
about death and getting friendly with your own mortality, why
(03:09):
Alua may still leave this particular life kicking and screaming
and clawing at the door. Alua 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
that stuff as a subject and grief as a subject
(03:32):
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 meaningful life look like
for you? And how can exploring mortality help you figure
that out? Also, why is the relationship between end of
life and grief? More like an open marriage than a
(03:52):
monogamous marriage. All of that and a whole lot of joy,
starting right now with the excellent Alua Arthur.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Aleena.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
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 (04:12):
Thank you, Megan. I'm actually really really really happy to
be here myself.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
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 (04:33):
A death doula is somebody who does all of the
non medical and holistic Karen 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. We
help people create the most ideal death for themselves under
(04:55):
the circumstances. And then after a death, we help family
members wrap up affairs of their loved ones life we
just offer holistic death support.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
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, And all of 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? Like, have you experienced that?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Absolutely true in my experience?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
What is it about those of us? 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 3 (05:47):
That's a good question. 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
(06:09):
and twinkly because we can also always see and we
can be with the difficulty too.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I think there's something in the energy it takes to
hold back the truth s that's juicy. 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
(06:37):
truth about these things.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Think that they know?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
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 start talking to each other, because it's going to
be so much more complete and easy once you do, well,
easier once they do. 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
throat when it's ready to do so, or I'm hungry,
(07:17):
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 gives me an opportunity to
be with the truth of who I am at that moment.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
This is really what this work is. I mean, 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
(07:50):
they're dying, or we're talking about 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 silo 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,
(08:12):
I really struggle with why we're not talking about death
culturally and societally, because it seems to me the most
enriching conversation we could have.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Death touches every aspect of society, every aspect of our lives.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
It's present with us all the time.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Amplifies the living. You know.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
When I can see that my body one day won't
have access to delicious food, I want to eat the
delicious food 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
(09:02):
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 2 (09:10):
I think it gives us an opportunity to do kind
of a constant value assessment. Yes, of what am I
doing with this life?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yes, who I want to be, how I want to
spend my time? What of me I'll leave 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 2 (09:41):
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
(10:03):
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 for you in that?
Speaker 1 (10:20):
No, it actually is very freeing.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
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, And it gives me permission to take
a nap, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I think one read on using death as.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
A motivator is go go go do doo 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. 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
(10:54):
about experiencing the magic with what my life is right now.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I love that distinction. I 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 (11:13):
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 spin out
carbon dioxide.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
What it's under magic?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
It totally is, And that is right.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
That's so exciting to me.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I heard recently or I read it someplace, and I
wish I could remember who I read this from, because
it really just rocked my socks. Rather than living each
day like the last, about living each day like the first.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Ooh, right, that's fantastic. 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 antiitude of paranoia.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Pronoia is marveling at the precise wonder of the world. Right.
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.
(12:19):
Like that, that is wondrous. I love that live each
day as if it was the first.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
That's magic.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I love that. 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.
(12:48):
You started out your sort of professional career as a lawyer, though, boh, yeah,
I know it's a silly comparison between like what did
the world look like as a lawyer versus what are
the word world look like?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Now?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
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 (13:13):
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 (13:31):
I did at the time.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
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.
I also think that this work allows me to use
more parts of who I actually am naturally, and so
(13:54):
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 for anybody and be really sensitive
and have it be okay, and be a little weird
(14:15):
and have it be okay. I value my weirdness and
my lack of bored and my curiosity about humans humankind.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
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
(14:44):
of people would run screaming from.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Absolutely, it just happens to be.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
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 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 a creating meaning because I
look at the world differently because I do death work.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
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 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the meaning making
out of the baseline.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Right, Meaning making as a baseline for life is not helpful.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
No, it's so unfair, it's so hard. It makes people,
I think, winners and losers somehow.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
How so well.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Some people are like, oh my god, you work at
so much meaning, Like I've won something.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
You unlocked the secrets of life by doing death work. Yeah.
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
(16:07):
a white feather on the ground and that means that
your mom is nearby? Like hello, can you not tell
me what my symbols mean to me?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Like?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Meaning is just I think meaning is that that desire
to put an order on something amorphous and living.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, and try to make it make some sense. How
can any of this make any sense? We're in a
giant blue rock spitting through space. Yeah, none of it
makes there's no sense. There's no sense to that. There's
no sense to that.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
If you're going to make meaning, make your own right, Like,
what is it that that feels meaningful to me. And
this goes back to what we were talking about with
like do you live each day as as if as
if it were your last or as if it was
the first? 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
(16:55):
and guiding people who are not actively at end of life,
but they're exploring their immortality. Does that feel accurate?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
It is absolutely accurate.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Help 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 the way that
(17:23):
they want. We have a bunch of responsibilities that must
get taken care of, and then we have questions about
privilege and access. But to the extent that we can,
we could.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Hey, before we get back to this week's guest, I
want to talk with you about exploring your losses through writing.
There are lots of grief writing workshops out there with
prompts like tell us about the funeral, that sort of thing.
My thirty Day Writing your Grief course is not like that.
The prompts are deeper, there, more nuanced. They're designed to
get you into your heart and into your own actual story. Now,
(18:06):
writing isn't going to cure anything, but it can help
you hear your own voice, and that is incredibly powerful.
You can read all about the Writing your Grief Course
at Refuge in Grief dot Com backslash wyg. That is
WYG for Writing your Grief. You can see a sample
prompt from the course and get writing your own words
in minutes. My thirty Day Writing your Grief Course is
(18:29):
still one of the best things I've ever made for you.
Come join more than ten thousand people who have taken
the Writing your Grief Course Refuge in Grief dot Com
backslash wyg, or you can find the link in the
show notes. Do you think that exploring your own mortality
will make dying suck less? No? Why not?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I don't think at a baseline rule. I used to
romanticize it and think that it would. But you know,
even with all this rob deathtalk I do, I might
go kicking and screaming it might be my turn and.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Be like, oh, I'm not ready.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
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 (19:12):
Who knows?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
I think I have value for today, It's not necessarily
value for the future.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
You know, Matt and I talked 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,
(19:40):
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 (19:59):
No.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
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 (20:18):
Oh yeah, shit, it's gonna stop. And I think that's okay.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
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 (20:42):
Yeah, that's really hard.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
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 now. First of all, I don't know
that I have a later and next, Like, why not
for today? You know this is what I have right now.
(21:06):
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 2 (21:22):
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
(21:43):
other and come together in the pain of this world
instead of pretending that there's something we can do to
protect ourselves from.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
It, yeah, or like things that we should do to
clar ourselves out of it.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
But if we could just be with it.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
You know, a big part of my work I think
there's a misconception death doulah'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 where they are,
(22:18):
to meet them in the trench, to 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 I'll
be there with them.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
But what is really moving on when it comes to grief.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
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,
(22:56):
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 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 one speaker on grief,
(23:18):
and the 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 am I splitting hairs here?
(23:40):
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. Have you seen that?
(24:03):
Am I the only one seeing that? Is that just
my personal pusiness? What's happening here?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I see it all the time.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
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,
(24:31):
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
(24:52):
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 (25:05):
Yeah, all of it. You've said that an element of
the grieving process is the reidentification of self. Yeah, what
do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
I'm going to take it away from death for a
second to do it make it land a little bit easier.
But I have been an avid runner for most of
my adult life, and a few years back my knees
started really hurting, and I'd have the pin in 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
(25:33):
stop doing this. I have been grieving it ever since.
And the reidentification 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.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
And it's painful.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
And every time I think we 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
we go from single to engaged.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Massive grief.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Massive grief in that every time that we have to
think of ourselves differently out there in the world, we're
leaving something behind. It may not look like a loss,
but there is a loss occurring, even if we're moving
forward into something beautiful.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
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
(26:41):
A 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 noah, and with every no there is grief.
Just in the same way that our deaths are always
is walking beside us and inside us. Grief is always
(27:03):
walking beside us and inside us. And that is not wrong. Yeah,
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 (27:19):
Yeah? Can we just be human? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Like what is wrong with just being human?
Speaker 3 (27:25):
To have pain, to feel sorrow, to feel disappointed, to
be insecure, feel disappointment, failure, Like, can we just be human?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
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 2 (27:47):
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 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?
(28:09):
How do we build that stuff? 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,
(28:29):
for right now, for the body and the being you
are in this life, and in case you need it later.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
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
(28:56):
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, that's hurts, or hey, 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 2 (29:13):
Yeah, and you're not trying to learn a new relational skill. Yes,
in a moment when you're right now needs your attention, honey.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
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 2 (29:30):
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 card questions, like all of that stuff.
It gets infinitely easier if those communications, if those kinds
of talks aren't.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
New for you, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
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
(30:10):
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. What does
hope look like for you?
Speaker 1 (30:29):
It feels like I'm going to get disappointed.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
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 of 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. It might
(30:55):
be harder, but it's a for me. 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. When they don't,
then there's a big let down as opposed to hoping
(31:15):
you make it to see your grandson graduate from high school,
you know, keeping the hope realistic.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
For lack of a better way to put.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
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 part of the work that we're doing.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
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, allowed death
(32:01):
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 hope that
(32:22):
it gets better. Yeah right, I hope that I am
going to have like a last minute it's miracle, miracle.
I feel like hope in that instance can really rob
you of something beautiful.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
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 sisters with Saint John, 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. He
died and at some point we were sitting there is
(33:00):
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 a book will eventually called, but that
would have been a good one, the fcacity of.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Hope, because it fuck them up.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I think that's a great subtitle,
or like the secret title, the secret title for a
book that's also good marketing. This book has a secret title,
Join this club to find out what it is.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
All right?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
It is so fitting that we end this conversation about
end of life and somewhat difficult topics cracking up because
this is who we are and this is how we
show up. 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 me too, Megan.
(33:56):
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 (34:11):
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 (34:20):
My phones can be inside the house, so good luck.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
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
(34:48):
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
(35:09):
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.
So from the episode itself, I loved the perspective Alua
(35:31):
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, your profession,
(35:52):
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? What's stuck with you from this conversation.
(36:13):
Everyone's going to take something different from the show, but
I do hope you've 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
(36:35):
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.
(37:00):
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 and share it with
(37:22):
everyone you know 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 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
(37:45):
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. It's Okay that You're Not Okay. 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
(38:07):
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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