98. How to Live So We Can Die Peacefully with Death Doula Alua Arthur

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Hi, everybody.

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

I am happy today

because because we

are finally talking about death.

Oh boy.

Yes.

So since we started this podcast, my sister, her big topic that she was most excited to talk about was menopause.

And my

topic that I was most excited to talk about was death.

So I feel like it's a mystery why sister and I don't get invited to more parties.

And I know that this is a scary topic for a lot of people, but we're going to do it unscarily and beautifully.

We are so excited to introduce our guest today, the joyful, hilarious, effervescent, brilliant, and deeply wise Elua Arthur.

As Elua Arthur says, talking about sex won't make us pregnant.

Talking about death, won't make us dead.

Elua 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 this question that I love so much.

What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully?

Going with Grace works to improve and redefine the end-of-life experience for people rooted in every community, using the individual lived experience as the foundation.

Elua is inspired by the gift of life itself and is always on the quest for the best doughnuts and fried plantains.

Elua, welcome.

Thank you so much.

I'm so happy to be here with you all today.

Same with us.

We've been counting down to this day.

And I wanted to tell you when we

found out that you had agreed to be on We Can Do Hard Things.

My quest to understand everything about you began.

Uh-huh.

Uh-oh.

I may not know everything, but I know a lot.

I feel like I could write your biography if you need one.

I need help.

Okay, great.

And I just wanted to tell you that because of your work, I just a couple of weeks ago started talking to my kids about

what I would like for end-of-life plans.

And actually, we're on vacation and I sat down at dinner and thought, said, this is going to be so fun.

Let's talk about this.

Do you remember that?

Oh, yeah.

Can you tell us, Elua, what do you envision for your

death plan?

So as I'm dying, I'd love to be on a deck someplace looking out on the mountains.

I'd love to see trees everywhere.

I would love if it was like dusk or sunset.

The sky is starting to change, oranges, pinks, blues, some yellows still, but day is certainly dying in tonight as I'm dying as well.

I'd love to smell nagchampa incense because it's one of my favorites, the amber scent.

I want my loved ones around, but I don't want anybody like fussing over me necessarily.

I want them minding their business.

I mean, I want them to keep an eye on me for sure.

I want everybody to care that I am dying, but I want them to also mind their business.

I don't want any hospital.

I don't want any machines.

I don't want any beeping.

I just want to be like soft.

I want my feet to be warm.

I want to be in total surrender about this ride I'm about to take that none of us have any idea what actually entails.

And then as soon as I die, or once they notice that I've died, I want them to clap.

I want them to be

like joyous that I've done this hard thing, hopefully with a lot of grace and surrender and joy.

And I want them to be proud of the life that I lived too at my death.

Yeah, I'd love it if they'd clap.

I mean, it might be hard, you know, but I'd love it if they would like slow clap.

Good job.

Good job.

I mean, Glenn, can you tell

Elua what you told us that night?

Well, I mean, a lot of things.

I had all kinds, you can imagine all the details I had in my truest, most beautiful death plan.

But the one thing we talked about a lot is that I want my family to

do something that is similar to sitting Shiva

because

pre- or post?

Post when I die.

Like, I want my family to be forced to all sit together in a house for many days because I feel like in our culture, we just rush through.

I know I'm always trying to get everybody to hang out with me, like,

but

I feel like we rush through grief or losing someone and then we just go back to our lives.

And then all of that unprocessed grief comes out in a million different ways.

We try to help our kids plan for hard things their whole life.

That's all we're doing.

And then we don't help them plan for the hardest thing, which is losing us.

So I just wanted them to have some sort of

processing time.

You should have seen our daughters.

They were dumbfounded that we were having this conversation.

One of them was like, can we please stop talking about this?

Because it's, you know, it's intense.

It's an intense conversation.

Yeah, but I love it.

I love the idea.

It was hard for them.

Well, one of them was into it.

One of them was interested and curious and asking a lot of questions.

And then the other one was getting an upset stomach and didn't want to talk about it anymore.

Yeah.

That sounds about right.

I was also getting an upset stomach.

Oh.

Elu, when I think about what y'all are saying about your death plans, it makes me think of birth plans.

At least for me, there was a lot of grief and trauma based on my birth of my firstborn that did not go according to plan.

And so I had had this kind of very concrete vision.

And it wasn't just a plan.

You know, I did the six months of breathing classes and all the written out stuff.

And I feel like when it didn't go that way, it felt like I'd lost something.

So I'm wondering about that in connection with death plans, because sometimes ironically, the trauma is heightened in the case of birth plans precisely because we had such a clear vision.

So I realize the dead person is dead.

But it seems like a lot of folks who do everything right are able to give their loved ones.

a beautiful death.

And then a lot of folks who do everything right

are maybe holding a double grief because they're holding both the loss of their loved one and the loss of this kind of passing the way they wanted to give it to them.

So do you see that?

And how do people

process that?

I do see it.

And I'm so glad that you brought that up because what happens often is that we get so fixated on this idea of a good death.

You know, what I just described to you is my perfect death.

Like that would be the way to go.

And who knows?

I might be like screaming like, no, I'm not ready.

And it's like afternoon and I'm really young.

Who knows?

Like it's, it's a way that when we are healthy and even those that are not can look forward to find out what their values are so we can do as best as we can to align closely with those values.

Clearly, my values revolve around being outside, being around people I love, not being fussed over.

You know, it's all pretty evident.

And so let's say I'm in the hospital and I'm.

55 and I don't get to have the type of death that I thought that I would.

Perhaps they can inject elements of those, that death plan that I told you about into the current to make it as good as it can.

We often strive for the most ideal death under the circumstances.

So these are the circumstances we've been given.

What is the most ideal for you right now?

And how can I, how can we, I'll see if we can bring that forward.

There's so much judgment that goes into this idea of like a good death.

And you're right, it ends up like re-traumatizing folks when they don't have it.

I often try to remember like, who is the good death for?

If it's for the dying person, then they're gone.

They're gone.

They're gone.

If it's for the people that live after them, which I I hope that the way that we die can be instructional to our children, to our loved ones, then maybe the best that we can do is be in some type of surrender around the fact that it's happening.

And that would be a great teaching tool to begin with.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

Yes.

It does.

And the taking the themes makes so much sense.

So then in my case, if they weren't doing the particular stay in the house for six days, they would be thinking, well, it was important to mom that we process together.

So we might do it in a different way.

But they take the theme.

Bingo.

I love that.

Take the values.

Understand the values around it.

That's the value of talking about it to me, is that everybody's kind of on, they understand what you want.

They kind of see what you care about.

They see what you like.

And we try to do that as close as possible.

And we release.

Death is a lot about surrender.

So you got to release.

And I think birth, similarly, I've never given birth.

I think you also reach a point where you just have to surrender.

It reminds me, what you just said reminds me of Ocean Vuong.

He was just on the podcast and he walked his mother through death and he said, death is the closest thing I've seen to truth.

You don't get to say when or how you experience it.

So that surrender is surrendering to the truth of what is happening for everyone.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Beautiful.

Eloa, your story of how you came to this work is as beautiful and fascinating as your approach to this work.

You were a lawyer and you experienced some major depression around that time.

And you describe yourself during that time as an empty dark house with nothing but a flicker left inside.

And then am I right that you met a woman in Cuba, I think,

that

you ended up talking to on a bus for six hours.

14 hours.

Oh my.

Okay, tell us about that conversation.

First of all, was that when you were in the depression and still in the law in the law firm?

Yeah, yeah.

So a little bit of background context.

I went on a medical leave of absence from work and I found myself in Cuba through some serendipity.

I started meditating to try to see if I could cure myself or at least bring myself back to self.

And I started thinking about this kid, Elian Gonzalez from the 90s, who was coming over on a raft with a, you remember?

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

For some reason, that kid popped in my head.

So I did all this research about him and learned he was Cuban and learned about the Cuban Missile Crisis and everything.

Later on that day, I went to go return a book at the library and somebody was holding a bag that said, Cuba te espera.

Cuba is waiting.

And I thought, hold on a minute.

At that point, I was also deeply searching for any meaning I could find anywhere because I was so depressed.

So I went to Cuba, went out one night, met this woman, we danced all night, woke up in the morning, wanted to return something to her.

And a car almost hit me along the way.

And I, you know, got myself together real quick, got on the bus eventually and met this woman, Jessica.

We started chatting about her life.

We talked about death.

We talked about illness.

We talked about men.

We talked about orgasms and uteruses and scars and the backstreet voice.

We just went everywhere.

We had so much fun.

And during that conversation, it got really clear to me that

there was no place for this woman who was ill to have conversations about her death.

Nobody was willing to talk to her about it.

It was so unfair to her, at least it felt unfair to me, that she was grappling with this major thing that every single last one of us are going to go through.

And there was nobody to talk about it with.

It broke my heart.

And,

you know, my broken heart has been really my North Star in life because I'm like, there's something to lean into there.

So yeah, I think you all probably understand this phenomenon quite well.

I leaned into the broken heart and I was like, let's do something about this.

It's a short version of the long stories.

We got off the bus after 14 hours together.

She was supposed to get off after seven, but she stayed with me.

And yeah, turns out she was in that car that had almost hit me in the town before we left.

And so it was just really just a crash, crash course with what would eventually become my life's work.

It turned out really beautifully.

And then I want to move on to what happened next.

But before that, I just want every pod squatter to listen to the fact that Elua followed the flicker.

There was still a flicker.

And then she followed the flicker and listened to the signs, even when that was all there was.

And that's how she ended up in Cuba.

Unfreaking amazing.

Okay.

Unamazing.

Unamazing.

I love it.

So then, Elua,

you have this idea in your mind about righting this wrong, that this woman had nowhere to discuss this unbelievably important thing for her.

And then your brother-in-law gets sick.

Yeah.

It was so cruel.

So cruel.

My older sister, Bozema St.

John's husband, Peter, got sick.

And Peter was my homie.

You know, I don't have an older brother and this tall white guy comes into my life and starts trying to tell me what to do.

And we became very, very fast friends.

I mean, we clashed all the time, but it was a, I think what brother-sister relationships are like.

I only have sisters.

So when Peter got sick, it

rocked me.

I wasn't ready.

He was 43.

He was, for all intents and purposes, healthy, at least assumed.

I assumed he was.

And he got Burkitz lymphoma.

And four months later, they weren't going to be able to treat him anymore.

And I was on a trip with my boyfriend at the time, but

packed up a small bag, thinking I'd just go for the weekend to see how everybody was doing.

And I stayed for two months and Peter died.

Yeah.

So what made you feel like you could be

one to help walk him all the way home?

Because that's what blows my mind with so many things about your story.

Most people make a casserole or just decide they can't handle it or whatever it is.

What was it that made you say, I am here and I am staying and I'm going to walk my brother home?

My heart was broken.

My heart was broken.

I didn't know what else to do.

I feel emotional talking about it again.

Peter died eight, almost nine years ago, and I still have tears when I think about him in that time.

This person I love so dearly was dying and they needed help.

There were things that needed to be done.

And if I left, that meant that my sister would have had had to leave the hospital to go pick my niece up i mean she had people and i'm sure somebody would have stepped in but it was like well i can be with layout i can be with my niece you know so i'll do that i'll spend time with her i'll run the errands i'll pick people up from the airport i'll research medications i'll see if there's like a generic option that's cheaper i'll find out what about his will i'll help him pick out an urn i'll go to home depot and buy the boxes like I can do it.

If I do it, then she can just spend time with him.

His parents can just spend time with him.

And so that's what I did.

I stayed and I did all the things that they needed so that they could be present with their beloved who was dying.

I mean, he was mine too, but

the help was necessary.

And so I did it and I learned how to do love through Peter gratefully, gratefully.

Yeah.

And you told Bose the truth too.

I read that there was a moment where she was leaving Peter's room and no one was saying what was happening.

Everyone was talking around it, even the doctors, nobody was saying it.

And she said, well, what do you think is going on with Peter?

And you told her that he was dying.

How did you know that?

First of all, what was that moment to look at your sister and say the hardest thing?

That's the hardest thing.

It was the hardest thing

up until recently when we talked through it, because she didn't have any memory of that.

And up until very, very recently, when we talked about it again, she said it was the right thing to do because I've had a lot of, cared a lot of guilt about whether or not I should have done that because I said it and she collapsed.

We were in the elevator bank.

She collapsed.

She's on the dirty ground.

And so I got down with her and I was like, shit, I made the wrong call.

I should have lied or not spoken my truth at the time because maybe it's not the truth, you know?

But Peter is sick.

He has a terminal illness that they cannot cure.

They say they can't cure him anymore.

He looks the way that he does.

He was so thin.

He was frail.

He was dying.

It was obvious.

The light was starting to fade in his eyes.

It was obvious to me.

And why nobody was saying it outright and saying it consistently, like maybe they said it once or twice and somebody missed it, that would have been, but it wasn't like a regular thing.

We weren't behaving like he was dying.

And it shocked me.

And it made me really sad for all of us.

It made me sad for her.

Peter knew.

Peter knew.

Yeah.

Peter knew.

In his quiet moments, in our quiet moments, we talked very frankly about it.

I think that also gave me that knowing that he was dying because he knew he was dying.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was our thing.

What do you think that robs from people

when they don't have that information, when no one is willing to say the thing that is happening?

It robs them of presence.

It robs them of presence because they don't have an opportunity just to be with what's happening and be with the person that they love who's dying.

Because once you know somebody is dying, then, you know, every time they touch you, it gets more sweet.

Every time you're around them, it gets more interesting.

You look in their eyes because you don't ever want to forget.

You know, it's going to be gone.

Everything feels so fleeting and that much more precious as a result.

It robs them, I think, also of the joy.

It robs them of a goodbye.

It robs them of the opportunity to be with this tremendous gift that it is to love somebody and to sit deeply in the loving, even though they're are leaving.

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We talk about this hope a lot on this pod and how

Sometimes I guess it's a good thing, but lots of times it's a spiritual bypass of what's actually happening.

Or I love your quote.

Hope is a fucked up thing.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Perfect.

You tell me how hope it is, isn't it?

And Lua, talk about hope being a fucked up thing, please.

It's a fucked up thing.

It's a fucked up thing.

So in end of life context, in particular, it can be dangerous.

Now, I'm not saying that people should not hold out hope for a miracle, but you cannot hope that you're not going to die.

You know, you can hope that maybe you live to see your granddaughter graduate from high school.

You can hope to make it to next Thursday.

You can hope that this particular medicine doesn't make you feel really ill.

But to hope that you won't die, not a reality for most of us.

And I think that what happens oftentimes is that we put so much weight on hope that we're going to get out of this illness somehow that it ends up blindsiding us, bypassing from the reality.

We don't prepare for what could happen.

We can hold both.

We can hold hope of smiling again and feeling joyful and being with people we love and preparing for death.

They are not at odds with one another.

And that's what we do.

We pit them against each other.

It's like you hope for a cure, so you don't think about death.

You're trying to worm your way around it.

That's not fair.

It's painful.

Yeah.

I don't know if you think this is related to the hope thing, but as an observer, again, if the battle language of fighting death is galvanizing for people who are experiencing illness and death, that's wonderful.

But just as an observer of it, the battle language or specifically around cancer has always been disquieting to me.

Like, Sarah's battling cancer, she's going to beat it.

Or Laura lost her battle with cancer.

It suggests that that's a person's responsibility to wage that battle.

And if they tried hard enough, then they could do it.

And if they didn't, then they lost.

Is that kind of language useful to people?

Or do you see, is that related to this hope situation where we're just kind of like putting the promise of hope on them that they're they're going to fight it and that relieve us of the burden?

It might.

I feel like we all try to carry hope with the dying person, but when it comes to their battle, it's a private one.

But I would agree with you, I tend to agree with you that this battle language isn't helpful.

It makes our bodies battlegrounds rather than these vessels that we use to engage with life, rather than bodies that are simply responding to treatment or not responding to treatment.

No responsibility on the part of the person who's dying whatsoever.

Some people I've learned do find it helpful.

It makes them feel like they want to get up and fight.

Yet I also see plenty of people who fight, plenty of people that really wanted to live that die.

Peter wanted to live.

I wanted Peter to live.

There was nothing that we could do.

Nothing that we could do.

The cells replicated faster than the treatment could keep up with, and he died.

And it's what happens.

We make winners and losers out of people we love when we say they lost their battle with cancer.

No, no.

So many people face cancer so valiantly.

You know, they smile.

They still get up.

They try to do their hair, they try to pick up their kids, they are still living with a disease that they know might kill them, and they wake up and do it every single day.

Those are not losers to me, even when they die.

They're not losers.

But some people like it.

Right.

You know, some people like it.

And so for those people, I'm down.

We can hold both.

Yes.

Yeah.

I would definitely, if ever I get ill, I'm going to be battling.

I'm in war.

You'll fight.

I'm going to fight.

You fight.

We'll be here with you.

You fight.

And I will win the fight even if I die.

Yes.

Yes.

I can get behind that.

That's good.

That's good.

What did you witness, Elua, during that time with Peter that you felt like needed to be changed?

Where would I begin?

For starters, I think that we should have had.

It would have been really helpful to have somebody who was knowledgeable and kind and compassionate to explain to us all the things that were happening but to also just be there when i was like yo this up right they'd be like yeah this real up that would have been helpful somebody be like this is hard you know so this really hard or somebody to have some information like how do i talk to my four-year-old niece she's asking me these questions and i don't know how to respond i talked to my sister about it plenty but neither of us knew how to have the discussion.

It would have been great just to have some basic information.

How do we access the DMV after he dies?

What kinds of things do we need to be prepared for?

What do we do with his computer?

What do we do with his car?

Like it would just somebody to answer questions would have been really useful.

And that's on the preparedness side.

On the medical care side, open, honest, frank conversations about death would have been great.

Would have been great.

Like, here's where we're at.

This is what's going on with his body.

Here's what you can expect in the next few days.

We got a referral for hospice, but it was too late.

It was was on like Friday afternoon and he died on a Wednesday, I believe.

Like it was too late.

There was not enough time anymore.

So a little bit more time would have been helpful.

A lot more compassion would have been great.

Some knowledge, some frank, open,

regular conversations about the reality of what we're dealing with would have been queen.

And that's what death doulas do.

That's what death doulas can do if we choose to use them.

I think most of us have a fear of death.

And it seems like it's like in two separate buckets, though.

There's this fear of the actual dying process, right?

The actual, we don't understand it.

We don't want to be in pain.

We don't know what to expect of that process.

And then there's this whole other bucket that's kind of this tragic reality that death means that we will no longer have the chance to live.

No, there's like, we're going to be dead.

We're going to be dead.

And that's like all the things that we told ourselves we'd do one day and the conversations we thought we'd have and, you know done but on the first bucket where we just don't actually understand the process of death like what you were just saying in a couple of days this is what it's going to look like having been a part of so many deaths is there anything you can share with us about that first bucket that kind of demystifies the death process so

we are less afraid because there's some things that you just know will happen or is every death different?

Well, a lot of deaths are very different.

The body kind of does the same thing when it's shutting down from disease.

The order that the system shut down in might be different based on the disease.

But generally people that are dying from disease die similarly unless it's sudden like a heart attack or a stroke or something of that sort.

And I want to just be clear that often when I'm talking about our work, I'm talking about people that are dying at the end of a disease process.

Now, so systems shut down at different rates, but generally people begin to withdraw a lot more.

They don't engage so much with the outside world.

They spend a lot more time sleeping.

They stop eating.

They don't want to drink so much.

They might be a little thirsty, but they don't really want to take in any fluids.

The extremities get cold, the breathing slows down, and eventually death occurs.

There is some level of pain that occurs, but often it's the disease process that's painful.

And there's medicine to treat it.

One of the biggest fears around dying is that it's going to be painful.

We don't want pain.

We try to run away from pain at all costs when we're we're living.

So while we're dying, nobody wants to be in pain.

And what we do then is we treat it with medicine.

There's ways around it.

You don't have to be in pain when you're dying.

And I think this goes back to the surrender bit.

If you don't have to be in pain, then you just have to surrender to what's happening.

And that is also terrifying.

You know, that's also really, really terrifying.

You're right.

We don't know where we're going afterward.

We don't know what death is going to be.

And so that's another big fear.

They sit in tandem when talking about death.

The fear of the unknown, the fear of the death itself is

something that I find real fascinating because none of us know what it is.

Nobody who has lived, has gone and come all the way back, has gone all the way there and come all the way back.

I mean, they say that there's that one.

I'm talking about Jesus Christ, but I went there.

So I don't know.

I wasn't there.

I wasn't there.

I'll leave that one alone.

I'll leave that one for other people to talk about.

There's always one.

There's always one.

There's always that one.

That was like 2,000 years ago, not since then.

So that's some pretty good indication that it doesn't happen so often.

But in any case, we don't know what it is that it's going to be.

None of us know.

You know, people ask me all the time, what happens when you die?

As though I know, like I'm not still sitting here talking out of this mouth and like talking to y'all.

And I think what happens is that we fill the unknown with so much fear, like the worst case scenario.

fire and brimstone and hell and you know it's just going to be terrible terrible terrible and it's like well what if what if it was like the best thing you experience while you're living for all of eternity what if that was the thing it doesn't have to be awful we can fill it with anything we want yet we choose the things that don't serve us we choose the pain we choose the horror of it all what if it's actually really joyful to watch your kids grow up from the other side i don't know what if there is no other side i don't know what if you get to be more intimately connected with the people that you love when you're dead i don't know i don't know we know this we know life And so we want to hang on to it because it's known.

The unknown is a thing that rocks us.

What is the most comforting?

Not we know, we don't know what's true, but have you seen a framework about dealing with what's going to happen next or what might happen next that seems to be most comforting for people in their last stages of life?

Do you ever hear something that someone says that makes you feel comforted?

It's so individualized that what I've I've noticed consistently is that the people that have come up with something that feels good for them and can rest in it are the most comforted.

The people that are still unsure, unclear, being like, oh, well, I think I don't know.

It's the people that have some clarity for themselves.

That clarity looks different.

One woman I remember was really excited about the idea of joining a giant eye in the sky.

That was not comforting to me at all.

I was like, so you mean it's just looking at us the entire time?

Where?

What?

God, no, please, no, no.

But that comforted her.

I was down.

Not for me.

Not for me.

So whatever feels best for the individual is the thing that

once they settle upon it.

And something, one part of our work is sometimes to help people talk through their beliefs so that they can get some clarity for themselves.

But it's kind of scary.

We all have these beliefs, but beliefs are.

untested.

Yes.

They're just, they're untested.

And then you're about to find out real quick.

You get to get some evidence for that thing that you believe real quick.

Yeah.

And it's terrifying.

Do you have a belief that helps you?

I have something I'm playing with just because it's kind of fun.

The idea of this glitter wave.

So at the moment of my death, I'm there, they've clapped.

And I can feel every feeling I've ever felt in my life before, like all of them, the grief and the sorrow and the pain, but also like the joy and that one orange I ate that one time and the sun on my skin when I was in Venezuela and that like one really incredible orgasm, all the things at the same time.

And I just

explode because I cannot take it anymore.

The human in me is just like, we're done.

I explode into all this glitter everywhere.

And the glitter goes up.

This is biodegradable.

Good for the earth, glitter.

Okay, good for the earth.

The glitter goes everywhere.

And then it slowly settles down.

And I, I think the eye that watches, the observer, the Elua Arthur that is not tied to my experiences in my human body is watching it all come down and also feeling really joyful that every little bit of human expression, every little bit of human I let myself lean into is now settled onto this big, huge glitter wave that just coasts for all of eternity.

Could that not be pretty rad?

Just something she's working with, y'all.

Just something she's

just a

theory.

A theory.

Wow.

Everything.

It could be cool.

That's so beautiful.

It could be cool.

And it joins like all the other human expressions all of her time.

That could be rad.

But we'll see.

I'm curious to know how you personally deal.

Because we talk about the lack of compassion maybe in the medical industry.

And I do think that a lot of nurses and doctors have to kind of steal themselves to insulate them from that dying or death reality.

How do you deal with it?

Because I feel like...

you seem compassionate to those that are dying.

What is your process?

And joyful.

You're so consistently joyful that's so what is it that keeps that for you i love life i love life i love all the bits and pieces of it i don't steal myself you know i want to feel all the things but i feel the things i also let them move through me i don't hold on to them it's hard because i fall in love with my clients all the time i fall in love i love humans like we're so weird like this whole thing is so weird and i love it i love it and it allows me i think to be able to get into all of my edges of the sorrow and the pain and the grief, but recognize that it's just another part of the experience.

It does not define me.

I won't always be sad.

You know, I won't always be grieving.

And so you let it come in.

I think you let it move through.

And then you move on to what's next, create space for what's new.

Yeah, I don't think I'd be effective at my job if I stealed myself.

Nobody wants that.

They want somebody who feels things.

I also want to feel things.

I'm human.

i'm human that's i think what i'm doing here is i'm feeling it i'm doing the ride

heylu i was uh

reading everything i could about you

um and listening to everything i could about you and your work last week um when i was on vacation with my family and i was in the hotel working and they were at the beach and i came across a talk you gave about your deathbed test

yeah and i listened to it.

And then I listened to it again.

And then I closed my computer and I walked to the beach and I spent the rest of the day splashing around with my family.

And I want to thank you for that.

And I am wondering if you would be willing to share that deathbed test with our listeners because it meant a lot to me that day for sure.

Yeah, sure so often when making decisions i try to put myself on my deathbed and consider whether or not i be happy i did it sad i didn't or will it even matter is this thing that i'm doing how important is it to me on my deathbed future cast way to the end um it helps for a lot of things like a breakup for example on my deathbed Will I be happy we broke up?

Will I be sad I didn't do it?

Or will it even matter?

If it doesn't matter, go ahead and break up, girl.

Go ahead and break up.

Break up.

If it will matter, probably do it sooner, you know?

And if it won't,

you know what I mean?

It's just a stark way.

There's various versions of it that people use in psychology.

They future cast maybe five days, five months, five years or something.

I, as always, like to push it all the way to the extreme and go straight to death.

Why not?

Will this matter on my, why not?

Why not?

Will this matter on my deathbed?

Will this day matter?

Will I remember these little things?

If it won't matter, then why not enjoy it for what it is right now?

Or shut it up and move on?

Do something else?

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Let's go back to the main, one of the main reasons that people are afraid to die, which

your work has had the three of us talking about this ceaselessly, which is just something that sounds obvious, but is at the crux of everything, which is, oh, once I die, my chance to live is over.

Yeah.

The regret of all of the things you didn't do, you said being around death has made me more honest.

I see that what we don't say chokes us as we die.

So fear of death is kind of like about fear of future regret.

It's like the moment time's up and the chance is over to ever have done things differently,

which is why the core question of your work is so

amazing.

It's why all of your death work is really about life.

It's what must I do to be at peace with myself so I may live presently and die gracefully.

So can you just tell us real quick, what must we do?

Real quick.

Real quick.

Just what's the thing that we must do?

So what's the theme at least for you that you find?

Well, I want to start off by saying that the question is mandatory.

It's what must I do?

Not what are the things that'd be really nice to do.

Yeah, I'd really like to go to Machu Picchu, but like what must I do so that I may live presently?

One of the fears of death, as you were saying, is a fear of a life not fully lived.

All the things that we didn't get to do, all the things that we wanted to and maybe were too afraid or too shy or not worthy enough or we thought we were too fat or too tall or too whatever, all the lies that we tell ourselves.

So stepping outside of those things, if I knew, similar to the deathbed test, that tomorrow would be my last day, what choice would I make?

Who would I be?

And it would certainly make me more honest.

I would tell somebody how I felt about them.

I I would make choices out of my purest authenticity.

I'd eat a lot more cake, probably.

You know, who cares?

Like, one of the things about doing death work is I'm heavier as a result.

I'm in a heavier body.

Like, I was so concerned with my weight before.

And now I'm like, who cares?

Like, let all this extra thigh to love.

And also, the worms are going to have a field day when I die with them and be so happy.

I ate that cake.

They more glitter.

I didn't even have that cake.

More glitter.

More glitter.

Tsunami wave of glitter because of these thighs, because of that cake.

It makes me more honest consistently.

So when we think about what must I do, what must I do?

What is your must?

Like what must you do so that you may live presently and also die gracefully?

I, right now, I'm working on a book.

I must get this book finished.

I must.

I must.

It's my biggest must right now.

And it's something that I'm like, you know, so close to and reaching for.

And it still tickles at me because I'm like, if this were it, the book isn't done.

Let's work on that book.

Let's work on the book.

It tickles on me.

That's so good.

What is tickling on you even when you're doing other things?

You're putting all of this wisdom that has been in every interview and that you learn through your work into a book right now.

I did not know that.

That's amazing.

I'm doing my best.

That's for sure.

But it's hard.

It's hard.

You've written a few of them, yeah.

Yeah.

And every time I write one, I keep a little note on my desk.

It's a quote from Cheryl Strade that says, what writing a book feels like is that you definitely can't write a book.

That's what it feels like.

Oh, thank you.

The whole way through.

Okay.

Like it's

never going to happen ever.

And it's, it's 100% for sure not going to work.

That's how it feels the whole way.

Yeah.

That's where I am today.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

That's where I am today.

So what do you feel like people would be surprised to know about death?

That it could be beautiful.

That you could watch the life leave somebody that you love and feel not joy that they're dead, but feel joyful that they have completed this element.

That you could feel

joy that they are at peace.

That you could feel joyful at the way that they did it, about the time that you got with them, about the intimacy that you shared.

And what are some practical things that people should do?

Because part of your job as a death doula is to help people envision and also plan, do the actual things that people need to do to be ready and not make things extremely confusing for their families.

So what are, what, what do people need to do that are

simple things that

are details that wouldn't help people be prepared?

So many of them.

One of the most important things is to remember that at some point you might not be capable of making your decisions for yourself anymore.

And so designate somebody who can and communicate with them about what it is that you want.

Tell them your ideal, if you can, if you can humble yourself enough to death to say, this is how I want to die.

Tell them what you envision.

Pick somebody who is trustworthy, who's going to make decisions the way that you would, who is going to be centered and grounded enough to be able to carry it out when the time comes.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be somebody that you're related to.

So important to at least have that conversation with somebody.

Then beyond that, what do you want done with your body?

What do you want done with your body?

What do you want done with your body?

It's yours after all.

Think about your burial options, cremation options, aquamation, natural organic reduction, also known as recompose.

There's so many options now.

So look into them.

Think about what you want done with your service, if you want one at all.

And in there, there's a whole bunch of options.

Do you want an autopsy?

Do you want a viewing?

Do you want a visitation?

What do you want to wear?

Do you want people to look at you?

Like all that stuff.

Also consider what you want done with your possessions.

People know that you should get a will of some sort, but what about your sentimental things that don't have much monetary value?

You know, the things that I wear these bracelets every day, like they're not worth $5,

but like, what are we going to do with them?

You said you're going to lay them all out, right?

And people get to ping them their

jewelry.

All my jewelry.

All my jewelry is decorating my funeral and people need to wear it and take it away because I don't know what there are pounds and mountains of jewelry

so people can wear and walk away with it.

So what do you want done with your possessions?

How is somebody going to interact with them when you're gone?

And also, what's the story behind some of these possessions?

I found a crystal in Peter's backpack and I kept it.

And when I die, it's just going to look like a rock to somebody.

But to me, it's Peter's crystal.

I don't know Peter's story behind it, where he picked it up from, but it'd be great if that continuity was present.

People also need to think about their dependents and their pets, like who's going to care for your children?

Are there future hopes and wishes that you have for them?

Is there nicknames that you should know about?

Things like that.

How do you want the people that you care for to be cared for after your death?

And also gather all of your important biographical information, your details, put your documents into place.

Let somebody know, communicate while you're in this.

But most importantly, most importantly, get really real with yourself about what you are doing with yourself here.

I don't mean a big life purpose or meaning, but I'm talking about the little things that bring you joy-like popping the little seeds in the lemon poppy muffin.

Oh, feeling when you just crunch it and you're like, Yeah, I got it.

Yeah, yeah, when you get it exactly right, when it bursts, yes, and it pops, and you're like,

Yes,

yeah, it doesn't have to be a big meaning, it doesn't have to be big purpose, it could just be that, you know, hey, Louis, that just made me think of um, my grandmother who loved herself herself a tomato sandwich.

She would, she would like a big thick slice of homegrown tomato on white bread with a lot of mayo and salt and pepper.

And that was her jam.

And then in the

weeks leading up to her death, all seven of her children surrounding her, they're there to give her anything, comfort.

Does she want to share confidences, anything?

And she wasn't talking much or eating much at all.

And then one day she sat up and she said, I want a tomato sandwich.

And

that, I think that's the first time that I was like, oh, I get what death is.

Like it's going to be a time where you can no longer have and taste a tomato sandwich.

Like there are a finite number of tomato sandwiches in this round.

Yes.

And that maybe it's those things that we can taste and touch and see and feel that are going to be the things that we're coveting most at the end.

Bingo.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

The experiences of being human, being in these bodies, using the senses, being able to use the senses, all that goes away when we die.

You know, smell, touch, taste, sight, even the feeling of our bodies in space, all those things go away when we die.

And so while we're here, why not?

As much of it as possible, the things that feed us, that feel good.

That's what we're doing.

Like I can touch things.

I can hear my knees laugh.

I can make out.

I can dance.

I can squat.

I can drop it low.

Well, not so much anymore.

My knees do not support.

Aging is not making that possible.

Drop it low-ish.

Very low-wish and some help back up.

But if we can use these bodies, enjoy the experience of being human as best as possible.

I think that's what makes us feel like we've lived a life that we can die from.

Lived a life we can die.

I have a question.

Because I have, I think, probably an unrealistic level of anxiety around death.

I grew up in the Catholic Church.

What would you say to somebody in my shoes that is just really scared about what could come next?

You see a lot of people in their final moments.

Should I be scared?

I just need you to tell me.

I just.

Well, if you just needed to tell you something, I'm going to tell you no.

And, but more than anything, I'm going to try to figure out what it is that you're afraid of.

I think because there's so much of that fear of hell, I don't even know what I believe in.

And probably that's the bigger situation.

Like the.

I don't have an idea of what is next.

And to be fair to you, you were told that you were going to hell.

Right.

As a gay person in the Catholic Church.

Literally told.

Right.

I'm trying to reframe that.

And so maybe that's the work I need to do is to try to reframe what the next is in my mind first

and maybe engineer it that way.

I'm just scared of nothingness.

I've done a lot of things.

I don't think that I'm going to feel regret at the end.

I just don't know what's next.

And she's the most FOMO person on earth.

So she gets annoyed if someone's talking about something in the kitchen and she's not there.

So

death is kind of like, to her, the ultimate FOMO.

It just always gives me like, I think of it once or twice a day.

And every single time I think of it, I get a pit in my stomach.

And I'm like, nope, can't touch it.

Nope.

So what do you say to folks like this one?

Well, I was smiling as you were talking because you worked yourself into it.

It's so important for us to think about A, what we do believe, but B, what we were given.

So many of these fears of death aren't our own.

They're things that somebody told us about what we should fear.

And so if we can get to the root of what we were told, who told it to us and why they told us?

What was it that they were trying to control or give when they told us that thing?

In some, it's totally honest.

Parents give it to you because they think it's going to help or, but what they're doing, in fact, is giving us this incredible fear.

Or the church gives it for a whole bunch of other reasons.

I told you I'm not touching that one.

But think about who gave it to you and why, like what was underneath it.

So that when we are able to uproot it, then we can implant something else that works better, something that serves.

So FOMO doesn't serve necessarily, missing out on something doesn't serve.

Nothingness also doesn't serve.

What would serve?

What would feel good?

What would you like?

What could be a fun way to spend all of eternity, if there is one at all?

What are the little elements of being alive that you're like, yeah, I really rock with this, that you can forward into what death might be like?

I know this is going to sound pretty wild, but

I love pranking and scaring people.

And so I think that if I were a ghost,

oh my God, that would make me really happy.

And like, I'd flicker the lights on you.

Yeah, it's hell for me.

So you once again want to recreate heaven for you and hell for me on earth

as it is in heaven.

I just think that.

Have you ever heard this in all of your years?

In all of your, oh, so many deaths.

I just want to stick around and just kind of, because I believe that there, I believe in that.

I believe that there's different dimensions of space and time and people and ghosts and energies and spirits live amongst us all.

I think nothingness is like probably the greater fear.

But in the end,

sticking around and just messing with our kids for the rest of their life and their kids.

That sounds like love.

Sounds like love.

You go for it.

Go for it.

I'm so down.

I mean, leave me alone, but I'm so down for everybody else.

You leave me out of it.

Okay.

Yeah.

But I'm down.

Yeah.

If that serves, if it feels like exciting or like, is that a possibility?

Could that be what I do?

Yeah.

I like ghosts.

What if ghosts is what I did?

Then stick with that one.

Okay.

It doesn't have to be nothingness.

It doesn't have to be hell.

No.

None of us know.

Right.

And since none of us know, then everything

is equally

possible.

That's right.

Everything.

That's right.

Nothing is off the table.

Even things that are outside the confines of these bodies as we understand them, because we're going to be outside of the confines of this body.

Anything is possible.

Even the things that sound wild.

Sure.

Yeah.

Be a unicorn flying through the sky for all of eternity.

Whatever feels good.

Or just, I think of it as back to the ocean.

If we were born, we were scooped up with cups like a little cup our body's a cup scooped up we're having this experience and then when we die we just get

out back out of the cup tossed back into the ocean so we're still us

but the us like you said before eloa the you that is you inside the observer that is observing this experience you're having in your body and your emotions and your mind not that one the one behind it right yeah the big guy yes not the big guy in the sky but the one that you know is aware of all of these things that's going on, the one that continues to exist even when I go to sleep.

And I, a little Arthur, don't have a conscious recollection of, but it is still always present.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So maybe that thing does some cool things after we die.

I have no idea.

We're about to find out.

Yeah.

Not too soon, though.

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For our next right thing today, a couple things.

First of all, everyone should follow Elua on Instagram.

I feel that your work helps me live more alive.

Whatever that, it's a terrible sentence.

It like wakes me up.

It's it's about death, but it's more about life to me.

And I just think that you're just really, really special teacher.

So do that.

And then

I just wanted to read this one.

You said,

being around death has made me more honest.

I see that what we don't say chokes us as we die.

People always think they have more time.

And when they realize that they don't, they have regrets about things they haven't done.

I try to do what I feel like doing right now.

And if that means eating white cheddar Cheetos for breakfast, I will, which is what I did this morning.

I won't always be able to taste delicious things.

So let me do it now.

Yes.

So our next right thing today is to just eat your tomato sandwich.

Yes.

Or white cheddar Cheetos.

Or your

burst your little poppy seeds.

Yeah.

Do it today.

Let me do it now.

Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves, touch what it touches.

I love it.

I love it.

I also love your exercise of looking in the mirror, Elua, and just looking at your face, you said, and saying, I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

Putting it right front and center makes it less fearful.

It's just a,

it's beautiful.

That scares me.

It's very confronting.

Yeah, it can be very confronting.

And also, I think, sometimes it helps people get in touch with the observer.

because when you're looking in your eye, deep into your eye, then you can see that thing that is outside of that thing that is outside of my experiences.

And when I say I am going to die, which I am I referring to?

Yes.

Shit.

Okay.

All righty, Lila.

Is I in the sky?

Is that what we're referring to?

No.

No.

I have private time in my bed.

I do not want that thing watching me.

I have private time in my bed.

Also, do that now and today, all right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

When life gets hard, don't forget this week.

We can do hard things.

We love

everybody.

Thank you so much.

We'll see you next time, everyone.

I give you Tish Milton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through fire.

I came out the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure I got what's mine.

And I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks are map.

A final destination

lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find a way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do a hard pain.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem.

Sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue to believe

the best

people are free.

And it took some time,

but I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that

A final destination

we lack

We stopped asking directions

to places they've never been

And to be loved we need to be known

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do hard pain.

We're adventurous and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay

back.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places

they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back on.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do hard

things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do

hard

things.

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