Death: The Ultimate Life Coach - Insights from a Death Doula (93)

The only thing we know for certain in life is... that we die. So why are we so afraid of it and talking about it?! 

In Episode 93 we dive into the taboo topic of death with  Death Doula and End of Life Coach, Jill McClennen. Jill shares how we can stop fearing death and start embracing mortality to live with courage, openness, and authenticity.

This episode is not just a conversation about death; it's a guide to living a fuller, richer life. 

Episodes Referenced:

• Ep 67- People Pleasing
• Ep 43- Grief

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About Jill:
Jill McClennen is a certified death doula, a non-medical professional specially trained to provide holistic care for individuals in their final stages of life. She offers comprehensive support, preparation, and deep soul healing to her clients and their families, whether in person or through virtual sessions, as she works as a death doula and end-of-life coach.

Jill is a trauma-sensitive yoga instructor and the host of the "Seeing Death Clearly" podcast.

End of Life Clarity Circle Facebook Group
IG: @endoflifeclarity
Work with Jill

Chapters

• 0:00 Embracing Death
• 10:57 Fear of Death, Importance of Conversations
• 21:07 Exploring Perspectives on Death and Life
• 33:22 Explore Past Lives, Fears, Live Fully
• 39:57 Embracing Death and Living Life Fully

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everyone, and welcome back to how the Wise One Grows. Today, we are going to talk about the only thing that we know for certain in this life. It's the only thing that is going to happen to every single one of us and the only thing that we know for sure to be true when we enter this life. And yet it's something we shy away from and it's taboo to talk about. But I think it's time that we stop fearing and start talking about death and to guide us through this conversation and journey, we have a death doula with us today to help us learn how to face death and embrace it rather than avoid it, so that we can live a more fulfilling and authentic life. And oh my gosh, how could I almost forget? Now is the time to remind you that this, right now, this very moment, this is your chance to support the podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:10

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Speaker 1: 2:14

Ready set go. Before we dive into the conversation, let's take a moment to land here together with 3D breaths, so just take a moment to notice where your body makes contact with the earth. Take a big breath in, fill your chest and your belly with air, exhale, open your mouth, let it out Again. Inhale, chest and belly. Expand, exhale, let it all go. One more inhale and exhale and you can slowly open your eyes as you return to this space.

Speaker 1: 3:13

I am so excited for our guest to be here today because we are going to talk about death, something that doesn't happen too much, though it has been happening more and more on the pod lately, but today we have with us Jill MacLennan. Jill is a certified death doula, a non-medical professional specifically trained to provide holistic care for individuals in their final stages of life. She offers comprehensive support, preparation and deep soul healing to her clients and their families, whether in person or through virtual sessions. As she works as a death doula and end of life coach, jill is a trauma certified yoga instructor as well as the host of the Seen Death Clearly podcast. Jill, thank you so much for being here today.

Speaker 3: 4:07

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about it. I love to talk about death, which I know is kind of shocking to a lot of people that are used to not talking about death ever, actually avoiding it as much as they can, so I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you about it. I feel like in the last year I've been trying to engage in these conversations about death more and more and have found so much beauty in holding space for it, so I'm very much looking forward to our conversation. Do you mind sharing just a bit about your background and how you became a death doula, and then we can kind of dive into what a death doula is?

Speaker 3: 4:51

Sure, so my professional background has been in food service for many, many, many years.

Speaker 3: 4:57

I started when I was in high school, at like 16, and I'm 45 now and I actually still work part-time in food service, so it's been my long-term career. But I took care of my grandmother at the end of her life and during that time I owned a bakery with my husband. We had a six-month-old baby and end of life caregiving was not what I expected, because we don't see the realities of it on TV and in movies, and so when I was very happy to take on the role because I wanted to do that for my grandmother, I wanted to be there for her, but I was just very confused and very overwhelmed. And hospice was amazing. I loved the hospice nurses that came in one of them actually we still keep in touch and this was 12, almost 13 years ago and they were so kind and so compassionate and really took time to explain to me that all of these things that seemed really you know, quote-unquote weird and odd to me because I wasn't expecting them, were totally normal and natural experiences that people have as they near the end of life. And even at that point I really started to think this feels like work that I want to do. This feels like really more of my calling, like, again, I've been in food service a long time. There's things that I love about it, but it was never really like my calling. It was just kind of, you know, the job that I did and I enjoyed it and I'm really good at it. But once I started thinking about working with people at the end of life, I was like, oh, this, this is good, but you know, I had a bakery and I had a baby and ended up having another baby and closing the bakery and you know, life just kind of moved on.

Speaker 3: 6:50

And then, in 2019, I heard of a death doula and as soon as I heard it, I was like, oh, that's what I want to do, because I didn't really want to go back to school to be a nurse it just you know and I saw a lot of what they did for my grandmother and I appreciate that there's people that do these things, but it just wasn't really what I wanted.

Speaker 3: 7:13

And so once I heard about a death doula, I was like, oh, this is it, this is what I want to do, which is the spiritual support, the emotional support, helping people work through their fears and their anxieties and helping families understand, educating families, preparing people for the realities of what death and dying is going to look like. And I started, you know, really getting a little anxious because at that point I was about 40 and I was like, oh man, am I really going to completely switch careers? But there's actually, you know, a lot of my food service background comes in handy when I'm doing this work, because I'm very good at service, I'm very good at helping people, and so I just kind of have brought all of those skills over into my death doula work.

Speaker 1: 8:02

So is. Is that the primary way a death doula differs from more traditional end of life care like a nurse, because it focuses on the more spiritual and emotional elements of death, or do you mind diving into that a bit more?

Speaker 3: 8:16

That's, definitely a lot of it that, if anybody's heard of a birth doula, right, we're very similar in the role that there's no medical care that is provided by doulas. We're really there to support people through really just big transitions in the natural human existence, right, not everybody has a baby, but everybody is going to die. Whether we want to admit that or not, we will all die. We just don't know when and death. Doulas really can be there to support you, even if you're not actively nearing death.

Speaker 3: 8:59

That's one of the things that I've been trying to talk to a lot of people about. Is that, because so many of us are so afraid of even thinking about end of life, what we would want at the end of life, we're not prepared. And even just locally last week, one of our neighbors, the 48 year old husband, had a heart attack and died, left behind two kids and a wife Same, I mean, could have been me and my husband. Kids are the same age, he even has the same name as my husband like and we just don't know. And I know it's hard for people to think about that. But not thinking about it isn't going to prevent that from happening Any more than thinking about it is going to make it happen. But I want people to feel prepared as best as we can for the inevitable happening at any point.

Speaker 3: 9:54

And so, whether that's you know, talking about what we want at the end of life, making sure that our legal paperwork is in order, working through our fears and our anxieties, you know, what are we most afraid of about death?

Speaker 3: 10:08

Because it kind of falls into a few categories. People are either afraid of the suffering that they might experience at the end of life Well, there's a lot of things we could do for that, to make sure that people are comfortable. People are afraid of what comes after because we don't know. Well, I mean, I can't tell you that for sure, none of us know for sure but we can have conversations about it and really work through some of the fears and the anxiety so that, no matter what stage in life you're at and that's why I'll sometimes now say end of life coach, more than I even say death rule, because I had a lot of people say to me you sound like you're a life coach and I was like, I guess, kind of, I'm just at the end of life, but again it's you know, it's important for all of us to think through these things, no matter where we're at.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Yeah, I think you bring up a lot of interesting points and I want to first lean into like death is the only thing we know for certain about life. That's the only thing we know to be true when we come into this earth is that we will leave it and we will die. Yet there's so much resistance around it, and earlier you mentioned something about like thinking about death doesn't make it like any more prominent. I think that when we can acknowledge that reality of death, that is a great act of surrender and acceptance. And I've said this equation on the podcast before and I'll say it again the question is suffering equals pain times, resistance. In life, pain is inevitable and suffering is optional, and I think we add a lot of extra suffering around death because we resist it. Like it's a pain unit. That's a part of life that's going to happen. There can also be some great beauty to it, but by resisting it we suffer so much more, whether it's our own death or the grief of someone we've lost. So I think it's it's really great work that you're doing and important to shed a light on.

Speaker 1: 12:19

Travel is one of the things that helps me grow the most and that's why this year I decided to put in some time to find the best travel rewards credit card that I could, and I ended up getting the Chase Sapphire preferred credit card and so far I love it. It's got a ton of flexibility, it gives you great rewards points and when you sign up you get some bonus points and I actually have a referral link in the show notes. If you are interested in getting a Chase Sapphire preferred or Sapphire reserve credit card, it will give you and I some extra little points so that we can continue to travel and grow together, something you have mentioned before as well. As like it's so important for us to talk about death, which we so often resist and try away from. And I guess I want to start with like one like why are we afraid to talk about death? But even a layer deeper is like why do you think we're so afraid of death If that's the only thing we know?

Speaker 3: 13:28

Hmm, well, I think they're actually pretty tied together. We don't talk about it because we're so afraid of it.

Speaker 3: 13:36

We're so afraid of it because we don't talk about it. And so it became this really kind of taboo subject that even when we've tried to talk about it with loved ones, think even children when they ask questions, what do we do? We lie to children. You know, like the goldfish died, oh, we're just going to go out and buy him a new one. You know, like the dog dies, we're going to come up with all these like stories rather than having a conversation with children. And so by the time that we actually have to face death even whether it's our own, say you know, we get a terminal diagnosis and it's like death is like in our face, of like you're going to die right, or that happens to a loved one or, god forbid, somebody you know die suddenly again it happens all the time. We're so overwhelmed, because we've avoided it for so long, that it really ends up being almost like a traumatic experience where we don't know how to process everything that's coming up. Things get said between family members that are just downright cruel. Sometimes it ends up being an experience that then we don't want to ever face it, ever again. So even the thought of it, you know like even for my family. You know, we went through an experience around a grandmother dying that it just was not good. You know, people are still not speaking in my family because of it, and so now we all have that experience as part of our memory of like death. Well, it's not really death, it was other stuff that was coming up within the family that just got triggered by the fact that my grandmother was dying. It wasn't her death that was so traumatic, it was all the other stuff that happened. And so now all of us are going into our next experiences with that old pain and that fear. And the more that we don't talk through what happened. You know, like it's not like any of us are talking about it. It's not like we sit down and we have a conversation like hey, by the way, those things that were said, I'm really sorry, I didn't really mean it, we're just acting like none of it happened or we're just not talking to each other, and so it just leads to us holding all of that inside and then the next time we have to face the death it's going to come up and so we really need to talk about it. The more it's like you know, what are they? You got to feel the heal right, like it really is true that we need to feel the emotions around death and dying and grief and all the unprocessed stuff that we're holding on to, and so the part of doing that is going to be having conversations. That might be a little difficult to start with, but the more that you do it, the easier it gets.

Speaker 3: 16:30

But it can be difficult because sometimes you want to have the conversation with a loved one. I mean, I've even talked to people that work in hospice and they'll say my spouse won't talk to me about what they want at the end of life, and so the time I try to, they change the subject, they shut it down, they start making jokes and this is what I do for a living and they still won't talk to me. So, like I try to gently encourage people to have the conversations, to start the conversations, and that's even one of the things that I do as a death ruler is I can just help mediate conversations between people, help get the conversation started, and I can just get so that it stays on track. And it's not that you know, siblings are fighting with each other over something that really has nothing to do with it, but we really do need to talk about it, and the more that we talk about it, the less uncomfortable it will get.

Speaker 1: 17:27

Yeah, it's just like any other muscle you got to use it to start to strengthen it and for it to grow.

Speaker 1: 17:34

And as you were talking, I started to have the thought to is, I think a part of why there's so much fear around death and conversations around death is in part because it's the only thing we can't prove what happens after, like there are so many beliefs and you can hold on to yours and the way that supports you and that's great, and there's no like concrete scientific data.

Speaker 1: 18:01

That's like, ah, when X happens, why curse? It's like it's the unknown and that, I think, is something we often aren't encouraged to learn how to be with in this life is the unknown, even though life is unknown all the time. And I think that can make having conversations around death really challenging, because there's not quite language for what we don't know. We can talk about this like ethereal sense of uncertainty and all these things, but at some point there aren't ever words that will convey what death is. So I think that can almost cripple the conversation. When you work with someone who is dying and they're having big emotions, how do you help them process those emotions and that reality, that in imminent of death?

Speaker 3: 19:05

I try to ask a lot of questions and then just listen a lot. I actually even sat once with a woman that was in the hospital. It's the only time I ever saw her. I sat with her for like two hours, I think, and I maybe said I don't know five or six things in the two hours, and by the time that we were done she said oh, you are so wise, you are so wonder. Like she was just praising me for how amazing I was.

Speaker 3: 19:35

I'm thinking I didn't really do anything, I didn't really even say anything, but I just let her talk and the conversation tends to flow where they'll talk about fears, they'll talk about anxieties, they'll talk about what they think maybe is coming for them after death. Because even though we think we know what we believe, when we're actually facing death it's pretty surprising how many people will actually change their beliefs and a lot of times go back to the religious beliefs that they had at childhood, and so there's a lot of processing that's going on there and then they'll be talking about it and then all of a sudden they'll go off in a tangent and like she started talking about Christmas cookies. It was like so we kind of go all over the place. But I think that's there and that's the natural way to talk about something that's a little uncomfortable. It's like we'll talk about the uncomfortable for a little bit and then we'll go somewhere that's more comfortable and then we'll swing back, and so my job is usually just to kind of keep asking and that's really a lot of it is just listening to people.

Speaker 3: 20:45

I'm not there to tell them what to believe. I'm not there to tell them that it's going to be okay, Because so many times we want to do that Like no, you're going to be fine, Everything's going to be fine. I mean, yeah, it's going to be fine. I mean, you're going to die? I mean it's it is what it is.

Speaker 3: 21:07

But I just want to be able to be realistic with somebody, because they'll even sometimes ask you know, like well, how, how much longer do you think it'll be?

Speaker 3: 21:17

Like nobody really knows, even a doctor can't tell you how much longer, and some people will hang on for a really long time at the end, for whatever reason. I mean, nobody knows for sure. There's a lot of theories but nobody knows for sure, and so when I'm with people that are nearing the end of life, it's also interesting too, because sometimes people get themselves to a place where they're ready and then it's not happening. And then they're like well, now I just want it to like happen, because now I'm prepared, I'm ready, and it feels like it's just not just dragging on and like, well, it'll happen in its own time. I mean, that's the thing the body knows what to do.

Speaker 3: 22:05

You know, we really view death as this, like medical emergency, and it's really not. The body will know what to do on its own. And sometimes I'll talk to people and they'll say well, you know, they'll die when it's God's will, and I'm like, yes, but also they'll die when we take off their breathing machines and their IVs and like so it's not really God's will when we have them hooked up to all of this machinery that has kept them alive. And that's where it gets to be a really tricky place working with people at the end of life, Because you know, I am there to support people no matter what, even if what they believe is not what I believe as far as like religious beliefs or even what they want at the end of life. But it's really hard because now we can keep a body alive for a really long time and that just puts a lot of people in a place where again, it makes the experience more traumatizing for family members.

Speaker 3: 23:17

And then we have to make decisions where, you know, in the past that wasn't the case. I mean, people would die naturally. And now we don't really do that. And that's why even you know, most people have probably heard of something called a DNR, a do not resuscitate. There's a lot of people in end of life care that are now trying to change the language to allow natural death. Because it's not that we're saying don't resuscitate somebody, Like if I was to collapse right now at 45 and healthy, like yes, then you would be resuscitating me. But if somebody is, you know, in their 80s or if they're just at the end of a long terminal illness, you're allowing them to die naturally, and that's what most people would want if you were to actually talk to them. But it doesn't always happen. We end up with these treatments and these, you know, machines and all these things.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Yeah, I think sometimes we fight death so much, we try to prolong life so much when sometimes it's time for death. I even had a friend who had, you know, terminal cancer and they moved to Washington state so that he could have the choice to, you know, to take care of that choice when it was time, to not suffer anymore unnecessarily. If you know what's going to happen and if you're ready for it, we don't need to turn to these endless extremes to stay alive, because death is, in my experience, much harder for the living, you know, I think, for the person who's going through that. Once you die, I like to hold the belief that there's something freeing, something beautiful that happens and then it's sad for us here on earth because you're not physically with us in your body, but also your spirit is, and there is a window to me that it can open up to making life more alive when someone in your life dies.

Speaker 3: 25:25

Yeah, and I think for me a lot of it, when I think about the sadness that we have after somebody dies. A lot of times it's, yes, we miss them, you know, we miss being with them physically, but a lot of it is the regrets and the shame and the guilt. And you know, anytime, because now I kind of, because I think about death so much, because I talk about it so much, I kind of do this little like activity in my head where you know, for example, yesterday I went to the park with my family and my kids were like bickering a little bit about I don't know whatever it was. I don't know whatever they were bickering about. And in the past I would have gotten very frustrated.

Speaker 3: 26:12

Part of me would have shut down. I would have wanted to just like look at something on my phone to distract myself. I would have convinced myself I had something really important to do, reading an email or whatever, right. And now I just watch it and I think, what if you were dead and you were a ghost? Would you want to be looking at your phone or would you be taking every single moment to look at every little hair on your child's head? What? Would you be?

Speaker 3: 26:43

doing and so it allows me to just be so much more present because I feel like, if God forbid, if one of my children were to die, I would give anything to have them back and fighting with each other.

Speaker 3: 26:59

I wouldn't be looking at my phone if I had a minute to even go back in time and be with them.

Speaker 3: 27:05

So there's so much, even now, like I'm still processing some shame and some guilt and regrets of like when they were little, when I was like overwhelmed and I was exhausted and I would just check out and I would distract myself and I would self-medicate with like drinking or marijuana or just leaving the house because I just couldn't do. I still have some regrets and shame about that, but now I'm so much more present every moment that I have with them. So not that it would be easy for me if my husband or my children were to die, but I know that I wouldn't have that same feeling of how I wish I would have, you know, shown up more. I wish I would have been here more, I wish I would have taken the time to really fully be present with them. And part of getting to that understanding was because I have learned so much about the regrets and the shame and all the things that people have when somebody dies or when they're dying themselves, and it has changed my life.

Speaker 1: 28:10

Yeah, I think that death is what makes life worth living. You know, the impermanence of life is what makes it beautiful, and when a death happens it opens our eyes to that. We stop taking it for granted and we can start living life more fully. You see the magic in it again, and that's a hard thing, but it's a gift. I think that's the death is the greatest gift of life. Because of that, yeah, so I appreciate you sharing that and I think especially what you're saying, those moments of life that it's so tempting because life is pain, like pain is a part of life. It's so tempting to want to numb that, to resist it, to run away from it, but that's the wholeness right there, that's the, that's the part of it too. So can we fully be here for our lived experience, because this is it and it's not gonna last forever for us or for anyone else.

Speaker 3: 29:13

Yeah, and learning to go with the flow in life has definitely helped me too, where, you know, there is always going to be pain in life but, like you said, it doesn't have to mean that I need to suffer terribly because of the pain. And so Now I just got to this place where, you know, between my meditation practice that I've had for a long time but now it seems to have like really started to sink in this idea of just not being attached to any of it, the good or the bad, and Just kind of being like it just is what it is for this moment. It is what it is. It's not gonna be forever and 99% of the time, if I was to stop and get really Quiet within me and look at whatever's happening, it's fine, like it's a, it's a perfect moment. You know, even moments that are difficult, even moments that are painful, if I could really just get some clarity around it, overall it's fine.

Speaker 3: 30:25

I'm here, my children are healthy, you know, I have a roof over my head, I have food, or maybe I don't have extra money, you know, maybe I don't have all these things. You know, my business isn't thriving, like all the things that Part of my brain wants to keep telling me is wrong with everything in my life. If I could really just shut the brain up just even a little bit and look around Like you know what, my life is perfect. It's perfect the way that it is, because the things that matter most I have, and so the other stuff doesn't really matter. But the brain and social media and Society just plants all this like garbage in our heads about what's important in life, and so sometimes, when days are bad, I'm like alright, just get really clear on what is really Going fine. Yeah, it usually does help, and now I have less bad days. I just don't react the same way to situations like I used to. I just react in a much calmer way when I'm like oh, whatever it is so it is.

Speaker 1: 31:36

This is happening right now, and yeah we, you can acknowledge, because you know that life is temporary. You know that the wide range of emotions the good days, the bad days are temporary too. When you stop resisting death, you can stop resisting life and the fullness of that experience. Earlier we were talking about how a fear of death and conversations around death are really prominent for most people, and I believe you've talked before about how most of our fears actually trace back to a fear of death, even if we aren't like conscious of it. Do you mind sharing maybe, an example of that and leaning into, like, how can we start to Look at our fears and notice if they're rooted in a fear of death and how do we work with that?

Speaker 3: 32:29

Yeah, it's really one of my favorite topics to think about and to really kind of talk about, because every time I think of somebody's, you know, fears and phobias, and Really any fear that we have, when I really dig into it deeper and deeper, the root of it is always the fear of death, it on. Let me think about any phobia, right, whether it's fear of heights, fear of spiders, fear of, you know, being around groups of people, you know, fear of the ocean, whatever it is, it's because we're afraid we're gonna die. And if we could get really clear on that idea first off, of like, well, why are we afraid of those things? I mean, I don't know. Again, you know, depending on how you know, down the rabbit hole you want to go with things, some of it, I sometimes do think if there is such a thing as a past life, maybe it is a past life.

Speaker 3: 33:33

You know, like I've had a fear of Deep water since I was a child, but yet I'm an excellent swimmer. I was a lifeguard for many years, but there's still part of me that when I'm like on a boat and we're in deep water, like I just I feel it, I'm like, nope, I don't want to be here. I don't like this, and that was when I first started hearing about past lives, because I was telling somebody that and they're like maybe you drowned in a past life and I was like, um, it's possible, I don't know, but either way again, it's because I died that way, like it's, it's the fear of death.

Speaker 3: 34:07

And so then I started thinking even about me. I don't really have many fears and phobias anymore, but I am slightly Anisocial in the sense of, like we live in a small community, I kind of stick to myself. I don't really like being around a lot of people because I feel like people have always kind of thought I was a little weird, which I am a little weird and I'm okay with that Exactly.

Speaker 3: 34:32

I think weird is good too, but when you're in groups of small town people, sometimes the weird is not good. And so then again I started to think about it and I'm like well, why do I, why do I worry about it? Well, because when you're the weird woman in town, history will prove that they often got killed.

Speaker 1: 34:57

Yeah, you're the witch, you're the oh, the, whatever, the whore.

Speaker 3: 35:03

Yeah, oh, totally.

Speaker 3: 35:05

And Even you know that I started thinking About the idea of like the mother wound and the sister wound.

Speaker 3: 35:12

And you know like I don't tend to have a lot of female friends and again, it's partially because of just like bad experiences in the past where I got really close with a woman and then the relationships ended up like falling apart. And then it usually became it fell apart because it got to a point where we were just like both trying to like be the one in charge, essentially, and then I was like well, why is that? And I was like well, that's because society tells us that you have to be the woman in charge, because you know you have to have the attention of the man. You need to be the one to get that. Like it really again went back to this idea of like, well, if I'm not in charge, that means I'm going to be the one that gets pushed out, which means I'm going to be the one that's got to like, you know, die by myself on the streets. You know, like it just traces back to survival.

Speaker 1: 36:08

We see connection with humans. We seek belonging because of these core survival needs, even people pleasing tendencies. I think we talked about that in episode 37 of how that root is a root. It's a root fear of survival, of needing to belong, to have our needs met and be taken care of. So I think you're really spot on with all of our fears. We can trace back to this fear of death. Then, when we stop fearing death, we stop fearing life.

Speaker 3: 36:40

Yeah, it's true, because so many times I have stopped myself from going out and engaging with people because I just didn't want to feel uncomfortable. And you know now that I got really clear about a lot of it, I'm like, honestly, nobody's going to kill me. Like, even if somebody threatens me, like it's not, it's not likely to happen. Could it happen, Of course. Is it likely to happen? No, and so what's the worst that happens? They think I'm weird, they don't want to talk to me. Okay, fine. And so now I'm starting to get like more involved with things and I'm finding that again I'm living life better where my daughter's on a softball team. She's nine, right, so it's like little kids. They're not very good, but it's adorable, right.

Speaker 3: 37:33

And so like you go to the games and it is just so like wholesome, like small town wholesome. But again, in the past I would have just been a little bit uncomfortable, I wouldn't have wanted to be there. There would have always been part of me that was just like thinking about other things, trying to be somewhere else. It just I wouldn't have been able to relax and feel good.

Speaker 3: 37:56

And I noticed a couple weeks ago at one of her softball games, I was just like watching these other little kids play and I was like listening to the noises and watching the sun come, like over these trees, and the whole thing was just so amazing and I was so present. I was so just in that moment and it was beautiful and I was like, wow, this is really great, like this is what I want, this is how I want to live my life all the time. And so, working with that idea of like why am I so afraid to be around groups of people? Again, they're not going to kill me and if they do, they're not going to get away with it. So it's fine, it'll be fine, but I just I really was so happy to be able to feel that experience the way that I felt it, because that is the way I want to live my life.

Speaker 1: 38:51

In my experience, when there is proximity to death whether it like I have friends who've had near death experiences or a loved one dies there is one side of the coin. That's the beauty of like wow, like you see life so differently, you can live life much more fully. It's almost like there's a window of that and the window like kind of goes away and it's easy to fall back into old patterns. But then there's also a side of the coin where it makes living life the same way hard. It makes like connecting with people, I think, a little bit harder because you see what matters and you see a way of living so differently. I would be curious about, as someone who works in death like all the time, how do you hold the beauty of the gifts it gives you and still allow yourself to live fully in this life and connect with others in an authentic way?

Speaker 3: 39:57

I think that I've always been. That's part of why I didn't connect with people was because there was always a part of me that didn't want to gossip. I didn't want to chit chat, I didn't want to talk about sports and, you know, in politics even though I am engaged in politics there was just so much of what was going on with other humans that I was like, look y'all like, this is just not the important stuff, let's talk about the important stuff. And so I've always had a hard time really connecting with other people. But now, I don't know, it has gotten easier, and I think partially because in the past there was always a little part of me that was like looking forward to dying just because I wanted this experience to be done. I wasn't like, oh, I'm going to kill myself, but it was more like like I don't know if it happened tomorrow, I would be okay with that, because there's not really much here that is kind of worth experiencing. And you know, and I don't like realizing that, that's the way I used to feel, but it was. And now I can connect with people and even though sometimes it's frustrating, because I still want the same thing where I'm like, I want to have these different conversations, like I don't want to chit chat, I don't want to be at a party listening to you talk about your kids soccer team or whatever. But then that's when I will kind of do that practice again of where I almost imagine what it would be like if I wasn't in this physical body and I was experiencing this from a different place, or if it was just a memory, if I was on my deathbed and I was looking back at this softball game or this party or this conversation that I didn't really want to be in because it was not interesting to me, right. And I think that the things that I used to feel in the past, now I'm more. It's almost like I can see life more as just like a game, as like a movie that I'm just kind of participating in and it just makes it much more pleasurable sometimes to think of it that way of.

Speaker 3: 42:25

You know, even if our soul does go on right, like if I die and this physical body is gone, but the Jill right, the me that makes me Jill, goes on. It'll never be this experience again. I'll never have this body, I'll never be able to touch my child's face again, I'll never be able to smell the smells that I smell and taste the things that I taste and like this will never be here again and that's okay. I'm not going to attach myself to this idea and want to grasp it and hold on to it, but I'm going to appreciate it and so it actually has really made it so that, even though there is times when I still really wish like I would love if everybody would talk to me about death and I think that's the thing now too is that you know, when I say what I do, when people you know ask I got, what are you doing?

Speaker 3: 43:17

I'm like, oh, I'm a death rule. I work with people at the end of life. Either people do want to talk to me about it and they want to tell me the stories of when their loved one died or you know, whatever it is, or they get really freaked out and they want to walk away, and so that I'm like, okay, sure, let's talk about death, and if you really don't want to talk to me, that's okay too, but it has. It has changed me deeply. Honestly, it has.

Speaker 1: 43:45

Yeah, I think there's so much to the impermanence of life that's kind of been the thread throughout this conversation of like that we can savor the sweetness of it because it's impermanent in the highs and lows, the good days, the bad days. They're all fleeting, just like this life is, and I'm so glad that you are holding space for so many people to be with death in their last days and to prepare for death and have more conversations about it and, by doing so, helping us make life more alive. Do you mind sharing for anyone listening what would be like one bit of advice you would give listeners to stop fearing their death and to feel more alive today?

Speaker 3: 44:43

I think probably the best piece of advice you know and I want to say quote-unquote advice, because it's not really that there's any advice to help anybody be less afraid of death, but just don't be afraid to look at it and to think about it and to, you know, have the conversations and to learn more about it and when it does start to feel uncomfortable, ask yourself why, what is it that is making you feel uncomfortable, and then, if you can kind of get to even a little bit of that why it'll help you just work through it and be able to continue down this path of really just creating a healthier relationship with death and dying and just naturally you will start to live your life differently. It's not a conscious decision, it will just happen naturally the more comfortable you get with death.

Speaker 1: 45:50

Yeah, yeah, and maybe a good place to start is if listening to this episode has been helpful for you. A way you can open the door to a conversation is like share this episode with someone in your life and, you know, give them a few days and then try to start talking about it together.

Speaker 3: 46:08

Open that door, I also have a Facebook group too, where I post questions every, almost every day. I sometimes don't on the weekends and they're not always very specific about death, but they're just questions to get people thinking and I've had a lot of comments. People will message me or I'll run into somebody out in public that I don't even know is in my group and they'll say your conversation or your questions have started conversations between me and my family, because I'll tell them the question and then we start talking about it. And so you know I've really. That's why I do the group. It's not like I'm in there selling, it really is just I want people to start thinking about things and then starting the conversation. So people are always welcome to join my group just to get little tastes of some things you can think about.

Speaker 1: 47:02

Yeah, and I'll be sure to get the link to that group from you and I'll have it in the show notes for anyone who wants to join and for people listening. What are other ways we can support you and your work?

Speaker 3: 47:15

I do have a podcast seeing death clearly and I try to do conversations with you know, quote unquote normal people like people that don't work in end of life but just want to talk about death and their experiences.

Speaker 3: 47:30

but then I do actually talk to people that have written books, you know all kinds of professionals and the end of life area so that again we could just get used to hearing conversations about death and dying. And then you know I work with clients you know, in person or virtual, at any stage of life to work through fears and anxieties, to have a conversation and get clear on what you would want for your end of life care at any time, and I work with end of life caregivers. So just kind of you know, if there's anybody out there that needs any type of support around anything having to do with end of life, email me and I do, you know, a complimentary 30 minute session to kind of talk and see what your needs are and see if I would be able to be helpful. Awesome.

Speaker 1: 48:21

And I'll make sure that I have all your info in the show notes for people to connect with you. Perfect Thank you. Yeah, jill, thank you so much for having this really important conversation with us today and I appreciate you, the work that you do, and I hope that we can keep talking about death, perfect Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1: 48:44

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