Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.Have you ever thought about how you want to die?Yeah, me either.Mostly I think about how I don't want to die.What if I told you that thinking about your death
could be the key to living your most vibrant, fulfilling life right now.Today, you and I are sitting down with someone who will transform the way you see not just death, but life itself.Our guest is best-selling author and death doula, Elua Arthur.
She says that there's a way to use your death as something that's incredibly empowering. She has three questions that she's going to ask you today and an incredible exercise to share that she wants you to do every year on your birthday.
It's going to help you unlock deeper joy, purpose, and happiness in ways you've never imagined.This conversation will challenge you, move you, and my hope is that it inspires you and how you live the rest of your life starting today. Hey, it's Mel.
I am so excited that you're here.Welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.It is always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together.And if you're brand new, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast family.
Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast.And you know what it tells me?It tells me that you're the type of person that values your time and you're interested in learning ways that you can improve your life.I love that.Me too.
You know, recently I read something that just stopped me in my tracks.It was written by a woman named Alua Arthur.Here's what she wrote.Our deaths are practically begging us to live.
When I'm thinking about my death, I can see very clearly who I want to be.I've never thought about death that way. that it's gonna help me clearly see who I wanna be?Well, that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today.
A. Lua, she's a best-selling author and a death doula, and she's the founder of Going With Grace, an organization that has trained thousands of people in end-of-life planning.
And she's flown here today from Los Angeles to be in our Boston studios to speak to you and me.She says that simply allowing yourself to think about your death, how you wanna feel, where you wanna be, Who do you want to be surrounded by?
What kind of life do you want to live so that you're proud of yourself? Just thinking about it unlocks a deeper joy, purpose, and happiness in your life in ways you can never imagine.
She also has three questions to ask you today and a powerful exercise for you to do every year on your birthday.And if you answer these three questions with courage and honesty, it will inspire you to make some incredible changes in your life.
After you and I spend time with Alua today, I promise you, we'll both be looking at our lives and our death in a whole new way.Alua, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
Thank you very much for having me.
I am so excited that you're here.And there's a number of reasons why I'm excited that you're here.But the main one is that I watched your TED Talk.
And it is one of the most beautiful, profound, and just kind of jaw-dropping 20-minute talks I have ever seen in my entire life.I was absolutely captivated.And that led me to your book, Briefly Perfectly Human.
And I have to say, first of all, before you even crack this book open, This is one of the most gorgeous books I've ever seen in my entire life.
And I cannot wait for you as you're listening to us to hold this book in your hands because it's going to make you think completely differently about your life.
And where I wanted to start is there's so many passages in your book that just had me gasp. and reread.And I want to open up to page 10 and have you read to the person listening from your beautiful book.Thank you.Okay, ready?
Looking out the window toward the surreal cumulus clouds blanketing the countryside, I think about what I want for my life and who I want to be at my death.It's the first time I'm asking myself these questions.I'm 34 years old.
I realize that the Elua I want to be on my deathbed is a woman who has filled her life cup all the way up and has built a life she feels comfortable leaving. On that bus in Cuba, I feel far off from being that Elua.
I'm a shell of a human with the mere pinprick of light left inside my body.I feel the heat of shame for not knowing I've been living dead for so long.My insides tighten.
Looking around the bus, I take stock of the individuals aboard and wonder what end they will meet. These people are currently distracted by the daily business of living.One day, they will die.
If they sensed the immediacy of life, the preciousness of it, the insignificant significance of it, what would they be doing differently now?
How many unwritten books, undeclared loves, and unfulfilled dreams lie dormant here in these seats and in these bodies?Would they be content dying from the lives they live, or do they hunger for more?
This book begins where you start to talk about how death brings you back to life.What does that mean?
And can you tell the person listening where you are in your life right now, just personally, because you're 34 years old and you're not facing death, you're just contemplating it.So what does this passage mean?
This passage means that I'd spent 10 or so years in a career that didn't really fit me, doing work that, while very important and noble, wasn't really working for me.I'd put on somebody else's life.
It felt like I was wearing somebody else's skin, pretending I was in somebody else's life, but I was in my own.And at 34, at this moment, I was finally noticing that I was Not in my life.I wasn't living it.
I was surprised to find out that this was my life, even though I'd very carefully created all of it.And when I look back on my life, I saw somebody who hadn't lived the way that she'd wanted to.
I saw somebody who was living out of alignment with who she was, but yet kept going and just kept putting one foot in front of the other.That's not the death I wanted to meet.So something had to change.
Have you always been this deep?
I don't find myself to be very deep.
What?That's my mom maybe?Well, the reason why I say that is because I think almost everybody has the experience of feeling stuck.And boy, oh boy, did I relate to that sentence that you said that you felt like you had put on someone else's life.
That even though you had carefully created it, now that you're in it, you're thinking, well, this doesn't feel like I thought it would feel.
And what's interesting to me is you're the first person that I've ever talked to who in that very normal, real human experience of waking up and being unsatisfied with your life, or having the courage to recognize this isn't what I want it to feel like, that you immediately jumped to your death.
Why is that an important leap and how did it help you to access something within you to truly change?
In full reality, our deaths are practically begging us to live. My death is my best advisor.It's my greatest teacher.It's my greatest motivator.It's the one that tells me all the time that this life is brief and it's precious and it's short.
And so when I'm thinking about my death, I can see very clearly who I want to be.I can see how I'm spending my time.I can see if I'm pleased with what it is that I'm doing.And if I'm not, well, my death is asking me to change it all the time.
I'm going to be the one who has to meet myself on my deathbed.I want to make sure that I've been happy with what it was that I did while I was here.
Can you tell the person that's listening how their life might change if they take to heart absolutely everything that you're about to share with us today?
Well, my hope is that when we are thinking about our deaths consistently, that we think of our lives and context like a big glass bubble that holds all of our hopes and our dreams and our wishes and our authenticity and our fear and our doubt and our insecurity.
And when I'm thinking about my death, it allows me to see exactly who I've become.And knowing that I'm still living, I have an opportunity to change it.
I think death can be a great inspiration for us to start living more authentically and be real with who we are and who we want to be.And you're going to teach us how to do that?Well, I'm going to do my best to share what I've learned along the way.
I have a feeling you're going to teach us how to do that because I'm already thinking about time traveling ahead.And I, of course, create a lot of space for myself between where I am now and where I am when I'm on my deathbed.
Why is it that we have such a hard time talking about death?It scares us.
It makes us uncomfortable.It brings up all of our greatest fears.It brings up our inadequacy.We feel really, really small in the face of it.We don't know anything about it.
And nobody who's ever been there all the way has been back to tell us exactly what happens.We use our human minds to try to think through something that is not part of the human experience.To die is human, but the death part, well, then it's over.
And so my brain can't quite fathom what that might be like. uncomfortable.
I hadn't even thought about the death part.I guess I'm more focused on the sadness that I feel for leaving.Yeah.How does that also prevent us from seeing death as our greatest teacher and advisor in life?
Well, we shun it because of the sadness and because of the pain and because of the grief and the loss.You know, we're conditioned to feel the good things all the time.I want to feel happy and free and joyful and like I have everything I need.
But to think that one day my life will end or that of people that I love also makes me really uncomfortable.You know, we shy away from pain.We try to do our best to guard ourselves from pain.And that's a certain pain that's coming.
And so people don't want to think about that too much either.
It's true and there's this saying that you have that I find both hilarious and comforting that talking about sex won't make you pregnant and talking about death won't make you dead. And why is it important for us to be able to talk about this?
People pretend it's not happening and they pretend it's not happening by not talking about it.But it doesn't change the fact that it's happening.
And then there's the other side of it that says, well, I can't talk about it because if I talk about it, I'm going to bring it on myself.But it's going to happen anyway. And so not talking about it doesn't make it not happen.
It just means that we are ill-prepared and it goes unexamined when it's time.So we may as well just start talking about it.It's going to happen anyway.
You have made it your career to be a death doula, and a lot of people have not even heard that term before.Can you explain what a death doula is?
Sure.A death doula is a non-medical care and support person for the dying person and their entire circle of support through the process.When I say the dying person, I mean anybody who has come into recognition of their mortality.
That means that even when people are healthy, we can help them create comprehensive end-of-life plans to think through their ideas about or thoughts around their death.
When people know what they're going to be dying of, which is typically what we think of a death doula doing, we can support them in creating the most ideal death for themselves under the circumstances.
And then after death occurs, we can help family members wrap up affairs of their loved one's life. And so we're doing all full-scale emotional, logistical, practical, spiritual support for the dying. Wow.
A lot of people have heard of hospice.How is this different from what hospice may provide to a family or someone who's dying?
It's collaborative.It's supportive.
I like to think that we play really well together because often what happens is that I can either catch somebody much further upstream, like they're still healthy and they're starting to think about their death or they have a serious diagnosis and they're not yet on hospice and they're trying to figure that out.
But when somebody is on hospice, we work really well together.Oftentimes, a hospice nurse will come into the room and ask me what's going on with the day.How is everybody doing?What needs paying attention to?
But it also sounds like you work with people who aren't, well, I guess I should correct that.We're all dying.We're all dying.And we're all going to die.
And you work with people that don't have an acute diagnosis and aren't even that close to dying.They're just wanting to use death as a teacher and as a way to really think about and reshape their life.
and also get their plans down, you know, start to think practically through it.
I noticed that a lot of the clients that come for end of life planning, probably have parents that have died recently or they're seeing the elders in their family die or a friend died and they think what a mess, I don't want to create that for myself.
And so what can I do right now in order to get that going?
You know, when I think about end of death planning, when I'm about to get on a plane with my husband, and I can't help but think over and over in the back of my mind, okay, do we have our affairs in order?Great.
Like what happens if this plane goes down and we die? And I don't want to think about that.Understandable.Speaking of which, how's your planning going?I think it's done.
We've done some things with with with people, my husband, we've done some things with lawyers and and planning and setting things up.But I haven't looked at it in three or four years.I probably should.
Yeah, that'd be helpful.How often should you look at this? Yearly?Yearly?I think so.I love to do it around my birthday.
And I know that sounds wild, but being able to celebrate another year reminds me that I'm still here, but one day I won't be like, I may not see my next one.And so let me take some time to reflect.
I think we need to look at all the practical things, but also start asking like the tougher questions like, What kind of death do I want to experience?Who do I want to make my decisions for me if I can't?How do I feel about life support?
How do I feel about my life currently?Who do I need to say I love you to?Who do I need to forgive?Think about it like big picture.I love that you do this on your birthday.
Yeah, it's a nice, it's a nice little ritual.It's a nice little touch. So if you were to, in fact, my birthday's coming up.Great.So what questions could I ask myself on my birthday to really invite the subject or the, I guess I should say reality.
Look at this.I'm even sanitizing the way I talk about this to create distance between me and something that is going to happen.I will die.How do I use my death
to shape my life and what questions could I ask myself on my birthday to invite the reality of my death in and help me truly think about how I want to live my life.
There's a lot of ways to go about this.You know, we can spend time on the practical, which I think is an easier entry point for some people, thinking about your affairs, you know. Who do you want to make your decisions for you?
What do you think about life support?What do you want done with your body?What services would you like?How would you like it celebrated, etc.Also your possessions, any dependents, all your important information and stuff.
suggest that we think about the life that we've lived so far.
If folks are interested, there's a little exercise that I like to do, which is to think of my life as a line, think of my lifespan as a long line, and place myself somewhere on that line, my birth being one end and my death being the other.
So if I place myself someplace on that line at that current birthday, how far do I think I am?How much further do I have to go?And what do I want to experience in the time that I have remaining?
It allows me to conceptualize my life in terms of a lifespan and then see visually where else I still have to go, hopefully.How old are you?I'm 46.How long do you think you have? I would like to live another 40, 45 years.
I don't want to be like a hundredth and something.
I'm thinking about it right now, cause I'm going to turn 56 and I'd like to be a hundred.Well, I mean, when I pull out the line and I visualize what I want, because I get to say that might not be what happens, but I get to say what I want.
I want to be vibrant and active and engaged and connected to my family.
Great.So what you just said is you listed also some core values, which is really helpful when we start thinking about how we want to experience the rest of our life.
If we have a serious illness or if there's treatment or something coming, you can think about your values.
You said engaged and with your family and all those things that can be helpful when you're starting to think about what is remaining of your time and how you're going to spend it.
I love that.How the heck did you get into this?
Into death work?Yes.You know, I'm still wondering that myself.I mean, I know some events happened that made it so, but big picture.Sometimes I'm like, now how do we pick this one?But I really don't think that we choose death work.
I think death work chooses us. I was just going to say, do you think you picked this?No, not at all.I mean, when I look back, I can see how perfectly set up everything was so that this is what I'm doing with my time right now.
I am a attorney by trade.I worked at Legal Aid for about eight years.And while I was doing so, I grew a very, very thick depression.And I say thick, because it was heavy, it was dense, but I was incredibly thin.My body was a hollow shell.
I wasn't living in it anymore.And during that depression, I took a medical leave of absence by my psychiatrist was like, girl, you can't work anymore.And I said, I think you're probably right. So I took a leave of absence.
And during that leave of absence, I went to Cuba, where I met a fellow traveler on the bus.And her and I talked a lot about life.And we talked a lot about death, because she had uterine cancer.
And that's how the ideas around being with mortality really started.
Can you share more about that story of meeting this woman on the bus and how that impacted you?Yeah.
So through all this beautiful serendipity, I ended up in Cuba.And as I was heading to the bus stop to go get on the bus to go to Santiago on the other side of the island, a car almost hit me along the way.
And I slammed my hands on the hood and thought, don't die on these streets, please.Like your parents will kill you.
Well, you'd be dead.So like, yeah.
Right.I would be mortified also with roots and death, but I'd be mortified that this occurred.And I, as after the almost car accident happened, I was just kind of like shocked back into myself.
I did what I had to do and raced out to the bus stop where I met a woman in line and we started chatting.She offered to hold the bus for me so that I could get on it because I was in the wrong line and I was running late.
She did hold the bus for me in a really interesting way.And when I got on the bus, we started chatting.She told me that she was in Cuba to see the top six places in the world she wanted to see before she died because she had uterine cancer.
And it was jarring to me. I didn't know anybody my age who had died.She was 36, I was 34.And we started talking a lot about her mortality.
I asked her questions that I still don't know where I got the hubris to ask, but I asked her about herself on her deathbed.I asked her what meaning her life's work had had up until that point.
And it created a really fertile ground for us to get into the thick, thick, thick bits about how we're living and ultimately how we're dying.
During that bus ride, I thought there should be somebody that people can talk to about death because she hadn't been talking about it because when she would, her friends and family would tell her to focus on hope and healing and said, don't think about that.
No, you're going to get better.Don't worry about it.Oh, think about now. But the reality is that she is dying.We are all dying and we should be talking about death.
And the fact that we'd had an opportunity to do so together, it seemed to create some value for her.And I also felt totally in my pocket talking to her about death.
Like I could ask all the weirdo curious questions I have anyway, and somebody finally answered them.So it made it really a right place to begin talking about mortality.
Do you remember the first question you asked her about death?
I think I asked, what would happen?Well, she was telling me about uterine cancer and she said she was sick.And she said, I might die.And I said, well, what would happen then?And she said, well, I guess I'll be dead.
And it was the beginning of like, well, what happens if this is it?Like, what does that mean?What does that mean?So we started talking about the afterlife.We talked about herself on her deathbed.
I asked her to look at herself on her deathbed and tell me what she saw.And while she did that, I started to think of myself on my own deathbed.And I didn't like what I saw.I didn't like what I saw, which is where that passage came from.
I wanted somebody who was really full of her life.You know, somebody who like enjoyed it, somebody who was present for it.And I wasn't.
And that's what you meant when you said talk of death is starting to bring me back to life.
Yeah.I finally felt signs of life in my body again.I finally felt like myself.I felt like a version of myself.I really liked somebody who was curious and engaged and connected and present. Like I was really present for that conversation.
You know, I was leaning forward and maintained eye contact and wasn't thinking about what a mess I've made in my life.Rather, I was almost hopeful that I could feel myself again.
Well, it's interesting because if you do time travel forward, it creates this space that allows hope and something different to come in to your consciousness.
And so many of us have this experience in our day-to-day life of just going through the motions.And it is true that when you allow yourself to push through the fear and the sadness and truly think about that moment on your deathbed,
that it forces you to think about how you want to feel about your life and ironically creates an opening to change.What are some of the things that people say wrong when
they are talking to someone and maybe it's a friend that has a cancer diagnosis or maybe you find out that somebody's parent is, you know, got dementia and their hospice is called in.What are some of the things not to say and what can you say?
Let me start with what you can lead with.Oh, great.Which is perhaps that you don't know what to say if you don't know what to say. That's a great place to begin.What does that mean?I don't know what to say.This sounds really tough.
This is a really big deal.This sounds really difficult for you.But I just I really don't know what to say now.
That's a great place to begin, rather than try to fill the space with platitudes and, you know, the things that we think that we're supposed to say.We can just begin with saying, I don't know what to say and acknowledge and validate their experience.
It sounds really hard or How are you feeling?How are you doing with this news?
I think if we can keep our focus on the person who is in the experience of it, then we can avoid getting into some really yucky, muddy waters where we're trying to tell them how to feel about their experience.That's beautiful.
And that's probably where the problems come.You're like, oh, it's going to be OK and you'll get through it.We don't know that they might die from it.Well, they're going to die at some point.
They're going to die at some point.It might be this disease, Alzheimer's and dementia is gnarly.It might be going downhill really fast, like saying it'll be OK or, you know, I know what you're going through.
That's another thing we should avoid because we don't know what their experience is like. Even if we have a similar family situation ourselves, I don't know what it's like to be you experiencing this thing right now.
And so we can also avoid trying to put ourselves in their shoes or trying to, I say, invalidate what they're experiencing by filling it with what I've experienced or what I would like to experience or what I think the experience should be like.
I love that, that I don't know what to say.It sounds like it's very difficult.How are you doing today?Great.A plus.Oh my gosh.Thank you.I'm very motivated by doing well.So thank you.I appreciate it.I can do that one.I can do that one.
In your experience as a death doula, what are some of the best ways that you can show up for other people when either they're dying or they're supporting somebody else who is?
It's a similar way to approach it, which is you show up, you acknowledge and you validate and you create space for the person to have their experience.
And you keep asking questions and you just allow them to be and you allow them to guide the conversation because maybe they also don't wanna talk about it.Maybe they wanna talk about the Kardashians instead.And that's totally fine.
That's totally fine.So it's important that we create space for them to be where they are and to be in their experience primarily.
Ehlua, that's so helpful, especially that visual of creating space, because I'm always thinking about what I need to say, but if I can just focus on creating space for them to have their experience. that makes it a lot easier to do.So thank you.
You know, I want to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our sponsors, but don't go anywhere because Alua has so many more profound takeaways to share.
And a little bit later, she has three questions that she wants to ask you and you're not going to want to miss it.So stay with us. Welcome back, it's your friend Mel Robbins.You and I are here today with the amazing Alua Arthur.
Now, Alua, you know, I mentioned earlier, I've seen this amazing talk that you did online, where you talk about how you wanna die.At sunset, with socks on, if I die with a bra on, you're coming to haunt everybody.Everyone.
You wanna die at home with your affairs in order. And then you said, and when my loved ones notice that I've released my last breath, I want them to clap.I want them to clap because I died well, but I died well only because I lived well.
Can you talk more about that?I've never heard anyone say, I want you to clap.
I want them to clap. I want them to clap at how authentically I lived my life.I want them to say, yeah, she did her.I want them to clap in honor of a life that I lived and the grace with which I let it go.I want them to have been proud of me.
You know, even at my death, I still want the people that I care about to think, yeah, girl, you did it.I want them to feel as though I filled out my life and that I lived by example.
I want them to think that I was generous and present and I cared and I did my best and that I was here for the time that I was here.
I just love the visual of everyone clapping.Isn't that cool?It is because I didn't have the context.It sounds like, you know, your cranky grandmother who you couldn't stand.Oh my God.Thank God she's finally let go.Oh baby.
But even in that instance, you're clapping because they were a fighter.Yeah.But I love the acknowledgement of the spirit. What do you think happens?
After we die?Yes.I hear so many theories that I'm constantly cobbling it together myself.
One of the things that I really love is when somebody presents something that I'm just really struggling to understand and they give me a little bit more context.Can I share one with you?Please.Okay.
So there was a client not that long ago who at the 11th hour decided that she needed to be baptized.
that she was not sure about anything that happened, but she felt that she needed to go back to the religion of her childhood, because that may get her into heaven or wherever else after she died.
And so I asked what had been going on, like, why she got to that point.She had been having these really incredible dreams right before she died, when she was in her unconscious state, and she'd see a great big eye in the sky.
When she said that, I thought she meant the, you know, the capital I in the non-dualistic perspective, like the I that exists within us all.But she meant an actual like eyeball in the sky.Really?Yeah.That sounds scary.
Like watching us all the time, I got very uncomfortable all of a sudden. And as we talked through that, she said, yeah, an eyeball that she sees in the sky that sees all and also that we'll go back to so we can watch all.
And she thinks of that as heaven.And so she wants to get baptized to go to heaven, to that eye in the sky.
And is that a piece that you cobbled together that helps you think about what you believe about what happens?I like the idea of an I, but I like the idea of the letter I, the capital I. Yeah, the eyeball scares me.
The eyeball makes me a little uncomfortable.
So what have you cobbled together in terms of how you think about what happens?
Well, what I've cobbled together is This is tricky because it's changing all the time.And also the more I talk about it, the less it makes space for my clients to have whatever experience that they may be having.
You know, when I, when I fill the space with what I think or how I feel, it makes it a little harder for other people to share with me what they think or feel because first of all, everybody thinks I'm right because of the work that I do.
Now I really want to hear it.They think I'm right because of the work I do.
You know, my hope is that we can all return to all that ever was and all that ever will be in a place of absolute perfect and profound stillness and perfection and peace and love.
The transcendent, the space from before we were born where I have no conscious memory of. which I think was also a perfect place because it made a perfect human along the way.
And my perfect death will hopefully lead me back to that real juicy, perfect place.
I think I believe something very similar.Yeah.Yeah, I think a lot about the fact that when you're at the moment of creation and you're in your mother's womb, you have no consciousness about the world that you're about to be born into.Yeah.
And I feel that death is the exact same sort of birth, that there is a entire world and I have no consciousness of what it might be.I know what I hope it might be.
But I just trust that as the transition happens, that it is another form of birthing yourself from one world and one state of consciousness to another.
Well, every death is a birth into something new. And every birth is also a death.Upon my birth, I died from the womb.I changed the way I breathe.I changed probably how I think.I changed how I experienced the world.I changed my sensory experience.
I died from that experience into this.So I'll likely be dying from this into something else.Now what?I don't know.
I hope it feels like riding a glitter wave for all of eternity, where I just see sparkles and I am in that perfect place, reconnected with everything that ever was.Hey, Lua, I'll see you there, right on that sparkle wave.
I have never been present when somebody died.Can you walk us through kind of what happens in those moments?Sure.
So dying itself doesn't happen linearly when people are dying from disease.However, it generally happens that the cells shut down and then the systems, the tissues, et cetera.So it goes outward like that.So it looks different for every person.
But for the most part, what I experienced more often than not is that the person starts to recede in the days before death.You can tell that there is a distance that's happening.
If they have a death rally, it'll probably happen right before that time.And the death rally is, I think, when the last little bit of life's light is just all burned off, all the energy is used up.
And so if the rally has occurred, there is a stillness that starts to happen that you can tell in the person.They recede, they likely fall asleep and stay asleep for a while.
And the breathing changes, the skin color changes, breathing gets kind of jagged. You can tell that the body has kind of taken over.It is doing what it needs to do to die.And I trust every body's innate capacity to know how to die.
And so it's doing what it must do.And at some point, when the space between the breaths gets very long, you can tell that there is a separation that's occurring, and then there is a stillness.
and the stillness comes when the breath has stopped.
And do you, in your work, feel that separation and you feel an essence or spirit of a person leaving?
I can tell that something has occurred because the room seems to get very full.Like it feels like there's a blanket in the space, but like a warm cozy blanket, you know. If you've been in the space of it, you know what I'm talking about.
Like after the breath is complete, it, the room is still very thick.The clapping would help.
The clapping would break it out.Yeah.For sure.Wow.Thank you for sharing.How do you bring this conversation up with your parents?There are so many people listening around the world who have parents that are aging and
I personally kind of tap dance around it.I'll then say, hey, you know, we should probably have the conversation.And my mom will say something like, yeah, we should.And she'll remark about how there's so much stuff in this house.
Like I'm not even going to do anything with it.You and your brother are going to have to clear it out.And so it's more about the surface level stuff.
But do you have advice for the best way to set up a conversation with your parents so that you can talk about this topic?
I love that your mom is bringing it up and she's bringing it up that way.And I think that the practical is a great way into the deeper emotional, spiritual, psychological stuff that happens.Great.
Yeah, because as she's talking about it, like, oh, I won't be here.And so I don't need this thing anymore.She can explain to you what the meaning behind certain objects were.That meaning has her look back on her life.
Oh, I got this in 1967 when we were kids and we were doing this.You know what I mean?So it's a way into like the deeper emotional stuff.
Thank you for saying that.Yeah.Because I, maybe it's my discomfort, but every time I go home to Michigan where I grew up and we start going through stuff and she's like so focused on what do you want?What do you want?
Let's get this stuff out of here.And she's only 70 something.I mean, she is like full of like, Oh, you know, like let's go.She's got a lot of life in her.Thank God.Um, but I always was thinking this is a deflection. Yeah.
And that's not you're saying, actually, no, this is fantastic.She's talking about it.
I'm so glad to hear she's talking about it.It's an entry point, you know, to talk about the things or the practical things.And often, as I was saying, it shows what else is under the surface.
You know, it may be through an object, but when talking to people about what they want with their body after they die, I'll hear people say things like, I can't think of my body burning when talking about cremation, or I can't think of myself burning.
That suggests to me that they think of themselves and their body as one, or they don't because they said my body's burning.So that's an opening into the deeper spiritual conversation.It's all in front of us.
We can tell how people think about their death based on how they talk.And certainly when they're talking about their stuff, that's another way into.Thank you, Mel's mom.
Yeah, thanks, Mom.In fact, you know what I'm gonna do while we take a quick pause and hear a word from our amazing sponsors?
I'm gonna send this episode to my mom, because I think it'll spark an even deeper and cooler and awesome way to talk about this important topic.And why don't you do the same?
Share this with someone that you love, and don't go anywhere, because Alua and I will be waiting for you after a short break. Welcome back.It's your friend, Mel.
I am so grateful for this time that you and I are getting to spend with the extraordinary Alua Arthur.
And, you know, as we were listening to our sponsors, I couldn't help but think about a moment that I had with my mom just a few weeks ago when I was back in Michigan.
We were down in the basement, we're flipping through a bunch of framed things that used to hang on the wall that have now been replaced and like, oh, I love that thing.Oh, those are drawings from my kids.Like, we'll take that.Like, I love this.
Is there in that moment where you're engaging in the stuff? Is there a way to just crack the door open a little bit more to go a little deeper?
Into the emotional stuff?Yeah.Well, one way is if you're noticing that she likes particular objects or if there's some things that she likes, maybe you can ask if this is a way that she'd like to be remembered.
When I see a spoon, will this help me think of you?And she'll maybe say yes or I don't care or whatever else, but maybe she'll say, well,
I really like butterflies or I feel like your Aunt Helen visits me through the butterflies or something to start that part of the conversation also.
Well, she's been very funny about it because I know exactly what she wants to happen.Yeah.She's literally like melt down all my jewelry.Great.And then get an urn and let's put the jewelry all over the urn.Cremate me.
And then that urn can rotate between you and your brother's house.And when your father dies, he goes in there, too. great.I'm like, okay, thanks.She's giving you some pretty clear instructions.
Mom gets an A plus too.Wow.She's going to be really happy about that.And meanwhile, I feel like a jerk because I've been sitting here going, we haven't talked about the end of life care.We haven't talked about where you're going.
We haven't talked about whether or not you're going to stay in this house or whether or not we're going to look for something else.When what you're saying is that
Those conversations actually are an open door and they represent somebody processing this reality.
It's starting to happen.You know, people often say people don't want to talk about death or older folks don't want to talk about death.And I think that they do.I think we're uncomfortable with it.
And so when we hear the opportunity, we shun it or we pretend it's not happening or we make it mean something else. there goes mom being crotchety again, or mom is starting to engage you with her end of life because they are thinking about it.Okay.
I mean, the older I get, the more I think about my mortality because I feel it in my kneecaps.And so at like 80 something, you're definitely thinking about it more and more.Your friends are dying.
You're seeing people that you grew up with die on TV, like.
It's true.I think about my dad who just turned 80 and he's had three very close friends die very suddenly, including his best friend.He had a surgery on his eye for glaucoma go wrong.And so he's got now floaters in there and he can't quite see.
And I know that makes him feel frail.And he just had back surgery because of a pickleball injury. And so I've been thinking a lot about him and he's very stoic and doesn't talk a lot about that kind of stuff.
The way my mom is very out there, get the urn, melt the jewelry.Let's go get this crap out of this house.I'm not cleaning this out.This is on you and your brother.Just bless her. How do I engage my father?
You already said some really useful things.The fact that his friends are dying, that's a great place to begin.What's his grief like?What happened when they died?Did somebody have an accident?Was there a surgery?What happened medically?
Like using the deaths of people in their lives is a great place to begin.Just ask them how they're feeling or what their thoughts are around it.
You can also, if that's not happening in your family, you can also talk about celebrities or people that are happening in popular culture, people that are dying there as another entryway in.Did you like what happened?Did you not like it?
I got to be with a group of black elders around the time Aretha Franklin died.And when I tell you all their end of life plans were done by a time that we left,
Because one of them was like, I can't believe they had her in all these outfits and I would never want a glass coffin and nobody better put shoes on me when I die.Got it.Got it.Got it.You know what I mean?
These are great ways to start the conversation.It's available.
Well, you know, it's true.We all go to weddings.Yeah.And let's be honest. We enjoy ourselves and then either on the way home or the next morning, we're like picking apart.I do this.I wouldn't do this.Why did they do that?
Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah.
Never even thought about funerals being a point of understanding what people like, what they don't like, what they want, what they don't want, what they're comfortable with, what they don't, what they're not like.Get no open casket for me.
Absolutely not.Cremation all the way.You don't want to be viewed at all. Oh my God, no.
And there was this thing that happened at my father-in-law's funeral that I thought was the coolest thing in the world that I had ever seen.I absolutely want this to happen.
He was cremated and my mother-in-law, I don't know if she went to like eBay or whatever, she bought all of these tiny little, remember the film canisters that were metal that you would kind of screw apart?She got like a hundred of them.
And I just have this image of her spooning his ashes into all these canisters.And at his end of life celebration, she came out and had them in this huge salad bowl.
And she invited anyone who wanted to have a piece of Ken to come up and take a canister.But there was one requirement. You had to spread his ashes somewhere or keep him in a certain place.
And when you did it, she requested that you write her a letter and send a photo of the place where he is.And she now has this extraordinary photo album of him all over the world.
We, I have a friend that snuck onto the U S open golf course the last night of the tournament and poured him into like the 10th hole.And then he was sealed up.He's overseas.He's been on bike trips.
He, you know, my husband, every time he rides his bike, he puts his little, he takes his canister of his father and tucks it underneath and is just a beautiful way to see what he meant to other people.And that's what I want.
Have you written it down?Uh, no.Okay.Well, I'm glad now we've recorded it.Now we know that's what you want.
Yes.That is so great.What do you want?I know how you want to die, but what do you want to have happen after?I want a green burial.
Meaning they put you somewhere and light you on fire?Is that what that is?No.Oh, okay.See, see, I would like, boom.I see.Okay.Because I feel like, okay, that's a beautiful, natural thing to do.
It is also a very beautiful, natural thing.I want to be in a hot pink and orange, raw silk shroud, no more than three and a half, maybe four feet underground so that the natural decomposition can happen.The bugs can get to me.
The elements can- Ooh, really?
Why do you want that?I'll go back into the earth.Also, I spend a lot of time, like, getting all the cellulite.Like, the bugs should feast.
You know the chocolate can't go to waste.Let's use it.Let's use it.Let's use it.
Oh my gosh.And I love that you're sharing this and that we're going to details.And as you're listening, think about what you want.Yes.Allow yourself to truly reflect on this.
I feel like my daughters popped into this world and they've been planning their weddings ever since.Yes.
And it's interesting to think about your own death and celebration of your life and how you want it to feel as something that can be as amazing as wedding. Even more so.Why even more so?
Well, weddings are cute.You know, I wish that we focus more on the marriage than on the big day itself.But the weddings are cute.Weddings are cute.
I think funerals, to me, are a nice, big, beautiful period on that sentence that really would be nice if they showed who the person was, if it really showed who the person was, you know?
And people had a chance to be together in their grief around the end of this person's life.
I ask all the students that come through the Going with Grace End of Life training program what kind of death that they would like, what kind of funeral they like, about their legacy, et cetera.
And there was this one student years ago who got stuck in the question about who her body belongs to and who her life belongs to.I thought it was so rich.
Yeah, because when we were talking about who her body belongs to, it got her thinking, got me thinking about what happens to this body after I die.You know, in this story that you shared about, is his name Ken?
that his body now belongs to all these people and they are now spreading it everywhere.They're doing what they want with it.And so we can use our value system, like try to figure out what do I actually, what do I care about?
And now you see, I care about eating enough cake so that the bugs can be happy after I die.Like I'm trying to give back, you know?It's not just about me and my taste buds.No, it's about the earth.I'm trying to help the earth.
Well, I think some people do that when they think about whether or not they want to be an organ donor.But there's a even deeper, richer way to think about who you are.Yeah.And how that gets expressed through your death.
That's what death does for us every single time about my work, about my relationships, about my love, about how I care about my body.It's certainly what I want to have happen to it after I die, how I planned for it.
That's what my death does every single time, if we let it. But most of us are way too scared to even engage in the conversation.
In your experience, what are the biggest regrets that people have? on their deathbed.
They're mostly around how they spent their time, how they lived, about being authentic.I wish I'd lived a life for me, not for my parents or society or my partner or my kids, but what was most authentic for me.
People also often regret how they spent their time. you know, spending more of it at the office or not playing pickleball or not doing the things that they really want to do with their time.
I also find that people regret how they showed up for the people that they loved or didn't show up for the people that they loved.Probably more.Far more how they didn't show up, not saying their I love you's and thank you's or please forgive me's.
That's something that I think a lot about, that it's only when it's over that some people find the ability to forgive or to ask for forgiveness.
And for somebody that's listening to us right now, could you speak directly to them about what's available today based on the reality of death and what to do today in order to not die with regrets?
There are three big questions that I suggest people ask themselves when thinking about their lives and their relationship and their death, which is, who did I love?How did I love?And was I loved?
Now, these questions, I speak of them in the past tense because I'm thinking about somebody who's on their deathbed.But those questions are available for us right now and should be available to us right now.
I don't say should very often, but this is one where it's wildly, wildly important for us to think about how we relate to one another and what's still what's still sticky between us.
Too often I see people at the deathbed where they're wishing for that, you know, magic moment where that person that they've been loving from afar because they did something or the other person did something, they're waiting for that to be reconciled and it just isn't.
was a client a few years ago who was in her late 80s.She has a grandma and one of her grandkids was there.She'd had three biological children, nine grandchildren, and only one was there.
This one grandchild had been busting her butt to make so much money to put grandma in one of these homes where there was maybe like six people in a room.You know what I mean?
It was not fancy or top of the line, but this kid had worked really hard for it. Turns out grandma was a terrible parent.Her kids didn't want to be there.They'd made their peace.
But grandma insisted that she did not want to die until those kids came to say goodbye to her.And I talked to all those kids and they were all done.They'd made their peace with her dying.
We eked out a letter, and when I say eke, I mean she was practically nonverbal at this time, but there were things that she still wanted to say.So we tried really hard to get all these things out.
Some of them were asking for forgiveness, but also some of them were staunchly, I did what I need to do and how I need to do it, and you kids should be grateful.And she moved into active dying a very short while later.
I don't know what happened with those letters.I don't know if those kids got them.I don't know what they thought of them.But I know that they did what they need to do for themselves.Sometimes we don't have to forgive just because somebody is dying.
We need to speak the truth about how we feel about people while they're living.And if grandma maybe had tried that earlier, she may have been in a different position when she was dying.
Wow.Well, I have a very good friend who's been estranged from her parents for a number of years and her father just died.How's she feeling? I don't know how she's feeling today, but I can only imagine that her feelings are all over the place.
And mourning someone that you have been estranged from for a long time must just It doesn't, it doesn't prevent you for it.Like you still grieve somebody, even if you haven't seen them for a long time, even if you ended on bad terms.
And so I don't know how she's doing today, but as soon as I heard the news, I told her that if you want to go to the funeral, I will get on a plane with you.I will go.If you do not want to go to the funeral, that is okay too.
I will, I will come and support you if you want somebody to be there. And she thanked me and said, you have no idea how much that means.And I just felt like I wanted to do something.
And so I decided to send her just a beautiful arrangement of flowers from my husband and I. And I thought and thought and thought and thought and thought about what to put on the card.
And so I put this, never forget you cut ties with your father, not because you didn't love him, but because you loved yourself enough to know you deserve to be treated better.
you get another A+.That is incredible.That's so good.That's so good.What I'm hearing from that is the reinforcement of the choice that she made.And what I think is wildly important is that we remember
Just because somebody is dying doesn't mean that we then have to undo all the things.It doesn't make them a great person anymore.It doesn't make them a great person for us anymore.
I think it's important that we tell the truth about who people are when they were living and after they die.They tell the truth.We tell the truth about their impact on us.It doesn't change because they died.
And when we make people saints after they died, it marginalizes, it disenfranchises the grief of those people that didn't experience them like that. Yeah.You know?Yeah.It's like people still have to grieve complicated relationships.
They still have to grieve when they haven't seen their parent in decades because they chose to step away.And sometimes to me, healing looks like that.It doesn't look like maybe speaking the forgiveness.
It looks like making a choice and reconciling it within ourselves.
Yeah.That's a lot.It's big.What advice do you have for
all of us as we experience grief?Like, how do you think about the process of grieving, which I don't think ever leaves?
No, it doesn't leave.It just changes form.You know, when I think about my brother-in-law, I still get emotional thinking and talking about him.And it's been, it'll be 11 years this December.
Can you tell us about Peter?Oh, I would love to.
Peter was my older sister's husband, Bozema St.John as her husband.And I loved Peter. He was the only big brother I had.I didn't have one.
And I was his younger sibling because he was the youngest of seven and didn't have anybody he could exercise dominion over until I came around.Peter, Peter was gregarious.
He was silly and really, really smart and probably just as stubborn and self-righteous as I am, which made for a lot of butting heads. because he was really conservative in nature and I am not.
And so we would just go to war over the death penalty and vegetarianism and veganism and just anything.We got along really, really well despite our challenges.And I got to support him in his death.Did he know it was coming or was it an accident?
He knew it was coming.It wasn't long.He got diagnosed with Burkitt's lymphoma in June, and by October, they said they couldn't treat him anymore.
So it was fast, but it was, there was some awareness it was coming, even though the doctors never, they never said he was dying.They said they couldn't treat him anymore.
And that, for somebody who was wishing, hoping, with all hope that he would live, I did not hear that he was dying.I heard that they weren't going to treat him.
My brain maybe made the jump, but my body, my spirit, my insides didn't want to hear it, didn't want to receive that.How old was he?He was 43.
You write about his death in your beautiful book, Briefly Perfectly Human.Would you mind reading us that passage?It's on page 53.
Oh, I'll do my best.Okay.As I'd done countless times before, I took my position at Peter's feet, which I'd regularly massaged with moisture-rich lotion to prevent them from cracking.Today they were cold and yellowing due to jaundice.
I since learned that in some faith traditions, the soul disengages from the feet first to leave through the head.
I held them quietly and tearfully, thanking him for walking the earth and walking into my life and wished him well for wherever he was walking to next.
Shortly before 4 a.m., four days before his 44th birthday, My brother in love, Peter St.John, breathed his last.
I feel like I'm right there in the hospital with you.
Every single time.Every single time.The grief doesn't go anywhere.I just learn how to live with it.You know, I learn.I think I learned how my grief wants to express.Gratefully, I get to talk about Peter all the time because of my work.
Because I learned how to do love through Peter. Many people don't get that chance.You know, people stop asking about that person after a while, but I still get to talk about Peter.I still get to remember him.
He feels very present for me, even though I haven't heard his voice in almost 11 years.And, you know, he hasn't seen my niece as a teenager.He hasn't seen me finally get it together.
I think he'd be pretty proud of you.Yeah, I hope so.I hope so.What do you want the person listening to know about Peter and how he lived his life and how it impacted you?
It sounds wild to say, because when I look at it at a distance, it kind of pinches in a way.But Peter's death did serve as a gift to me.Of course, I want him to live.
And with the reality that he died, it ultimately created a lot of opportunity for me.And that's something that we don't think of.I don't want to, I don't mean to bright side it, that's not what I'm doing.
But rather I'm seeing what was created from his death, which was for me a real purpose.Like I learned how to do law.I got really angry about how society does death.I wanted to do something about it. I created a company to do it.
I teach people how to be death doulas.I'm still angry about how he died.I still wish that he got better, but that has now turned into fuel to support other people. Grief allows a new version of ourselves to emerge.
It allows whatever version is being held and boxed in to come to light.It allows a ceiling of self to grow because when it's all cracked open, who wants to come out?All bets were off.I didn't even wear pants for a while.I was like, forget it.
I don't have to.I'm grieving.I'm sad.Everybody's just going to have to deal. And what I saw was a me that was really on purpose, who was really on fire, who was clear about what she wanted to create in the world.
And I used my grief to support me in doing it.That grief became, it became a way through.It still is a way through.Grief can be useful.It's hard, but it can be useful.
You talked earlier about how all death is also a birth, and it sounds like Peter's death was a birth for you. like a new version of you was born in that moment?
I met myself in my grief.And I think we often do if we're willing.You know, I saw really who I was and what I wanted and how I showed up in the world.What did you see?I saw fire.I saw anger.
my grief expressed a lot through anger, which is something that I typically had not allowed myself to feel much.You know, I think a lot of women are socialized to sadness first before anger.
I also, as a black woman in America, being angry is something, is a trope.And so I did not often allow myself anger.I just would defer to sadness, but I was pissed.
I was hot about the medical care system, but how we care for our dying, about our lack of support for it.And I wanted to fix it. Now, anger can move mountains if we'll let it.You know, I'm sitting here right now because I got really pissed.
I'm still a little mad.It's all right.You're using it to make incredible change.Thank you.And those feelings are valid.
Yeah.Well, that's the thing about grief, too.I think when we're allowing ourselves to just be in the experience of it, we see how nuanced it is and that we have a lot of emotion and all of them are fine. They're all totally OK.
You know, grief allows us finally to express all the things that perhaps we keep repressed because we're too busy trying to pay the bills and do our taxes.But grief allows us to be in a deep emotional space.
You know what else I love that you touched on is the fact that when somebody dies, it's almost as if we anoint them with sainthood.Come on.
And you read these, these eulogy, not the eulogies, you read these things that people put in the paper and you're thinking, Did this person also walk on water?Like what?
And you see at funerals sort of that quiet murmuring of, you know, and now we're just talking about all the good stuff and there's no acknowledgement that there were real difficulties in the relationship that you may have had with this person.
Is it important to kind of acknowledge that for yourself so that, you know, as part of the process of grieving, like grieving even who that person wasn't for you?
Absolutely.It's a necessary component of grieving is being honest with ourselves about the nature of the relationship, what we got from it, things that still stuck and robbed us, because those don't change just because the person died.
Not everybody lit up a room. when they walked in, but virtually every obituary says she lit up the room.Maybe she was meek and hung out in the corner.That would be fine, too.That's how her humanhood was expressed.And people experienced her that way.
And we don't give them an opportunity to be with their grief if we don't tell the truth about somebody.We need to tell the truth.I want people to tell the whole truth about who I am.I can also be a massive pain in the ass.
What does it mean to leave a legacy and how do you advise people to think about creating yours or what you want yours to be?
Our legacy is often sometimes rooted in who we are.I think people often mistake a legacy with the money or our accomplishments, but rather it's more about who you are as you're accomplishing those things.
I noticed that at funerals, people do talk a little bit about, you know, how many lives the person changed, but they also talk about the fact that they changed lives because they were kind or generous or thoughtful.Legacies aren't optional.
You know, we're all leaving one every single day.Even people that we think of as those that maybe don't hold a big position in society are still leaving a huge legacy. I tell you another quick story.Absolutely.
There was a human that came to me for some support because she wanted to plan a funeral for somebody who did not have much of a family, at least that she knew.He was unhoused.
He lived on the corner where she got a coffee every morning on her way to work.And so she would talk to him sometimes and got to know him a little bit over the years.One day she noticed he wasn't there anymore and searched
up and down for him and found out that he had died.And she wanted to honor his life.
What happened was we planned what we thought was going to be a small ceremony, and about 400 people showed up because of the impact that he had had on her life, because of how she talked about him, because of the gems he dropped on her, because he was a touchpoint for her every single day.
In her grief or in her sadness or in her anger or in her joy, she would talk to him when she got her morning coffee. That was his legacy.Somebody who otherwise folks would just disregard, you know, pretend that their life had no meaning or purpose.
He touched that many people through her.
That's a legacy.Yes, it is.Hey, Lua, what are your parting words?In my life?In this conversation?
In your life?What are the last words you want to say?
I hope the last words I say are thank you. I hope they're a thank you, because this life is an utter gift.
I am so grateful that I get to look you in the eye and feel connected just by virtue of my sight, that I get to feel joy and cold and crunchy french fries.I'm also grateful that I get to feel anger and grief.
I'm grateful that I get to live in my purpose and teach death doulas and spread the message as far as it will go. I'm grateful for cake.I'm grateful for exercise.I'm grateful for feeling my heartbeat.I'm grateful for this air that I breathe.
I'm grateful for my life.I want my last words to be thank you.Thank you.Thank you.Thank you.Thank you.Thank you to all the beings that journeyed with me, to you, to everybody that I met today, to the folks that'll fly the plane.Just thank you.Yeah.
We'll all be clapping, that's for sure.I got the memo.And I'll see you on that glitter wave.I hope so.I believe so.In gratitude.In gratitude.You are a remarkable human being. so deeply moved and changed by our conversation today.
I'm glad to hear that.And I also want to just take a moment and thank you for being here with us, for staying all the way until the end.
And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you, I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life.
And what an extraordinary gift to use your death as a way to help you make the most of the time that you have left so that when you are on your deathbed, you are saying, thank you, thank you, thank you for this life too.
I'll be waiting for you in the next episode.Wow, you're so good.
You are so good.I will take that.I think I'm just doing, you know, the things that come up for me.
Oh, my gosh.I thank you for the gift of you.Thank you.Great.Oh, you are so amazing.Well, I know who I'm hiring.Yes.Oh, my gosh.I would feel so safe with you.Great.Yes, I would feel so safe.
Oh, I have like a little thing where Tracy can talk to me in this thing next to you.Okay.So we have an iPad sitting up there that reflects just so that if she has to be like, you know.Yeah.Very cool.Stay right here.You're doing great.Oh my God.
Oh my God.Am I getting marmalade?It's like, oh my God.So good.So good.I'm just in awe.Oh, well, I'll take it. Take it.
Thank you.You're welcome.Thank you.Although I didn't do anything for it.
My nature.You woke up today.I did wake up today.
Oh, and one more thing, and no, this is not a blooper.This is the legal language.You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you.This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.
I'm just your friend, I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.Got it?Good.I'll see you in the next episode.
