3. How Do I Live Presently and Die Gracefully? with Alua Arthur
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Description
Alua Arthur is a death doula, but her work has taught her how to live. She talks about walking away from unfulfilling work, pursuing joy and how to have hope when you’re facing the end of life. This week’s practice is about asking yourself: What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully?
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Resources from the show
- Sign up for Mortal, a nine week course designed to help you learn more about your relationship with death and mortality.
- Join Claire and Alua in October 2021 for an in-person retreat at the Art of Living Retreat Center in North Carolina called What Really Matters. You can find out more information at artoflivingretreatcenter.org.
Learn more about today’s guest:
- Going with Grace and Alua’s work as a death doula
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
Claire Bidwell Smith & Alua Arthur
Claire 00:09
Hi, I’m Claire Bidwell Smith. Welcome to New Day. Okay, guys, today we’re going to talk about death. But for those of you who are ready to hit the stop button, because that sounds like a huge bummer. Let me ask you to hang in there with me for a minute. Our culture is really, really afraid to talk about that. And maybe that’s because it’s scary. We don’t know what happens when we die. We don’t know when we’ll die. We don’t know how we’ll die. There’s so many huge, unknown things, and even trying to contemplate them feels like it can spin you into an existential crisis. So we just don’t think about it. We don’t talk about it. But I want to fill you in on a little secret. Talking about death actually helps us stop being so afraid of it. And talking about death actually helps us want to live more. I bet you’re nodding your head right now. Like, okay, maybe. But you’re also like, how and when am I going to talk about death and with who? And that’s where my guest comes in today. She’s the most perfect person to help answer these questions. Alua Arthur is a death doula, which means she’s someone that helps people face the end of life.
Claire
Sounds fun, right? She actually is one of the most fun people I’ve ever met. And I swear it’s because she thinks about death and faces that every day. Before we jump into my chat with Alua, I want to tell you a little story about how I met her. Several years ago, when I was in private practice in Los Angeles, a woman came to see me in my office. She was nearing the end of a long struggle with cancer. And she told me that she wanted me to help her figure out a way to say goodbye to her son. It turns out that her son was the exact same age as my daughter. And in the most random twist of fate, it turned out that her son was actually my daughter’s elementary school class. It wasn’t just that they were in the same school, but they were in the same class. And even though this woman and I had never met, our kids we’re friends. Now as a therapist, and particularly a grief therapist, I sit with a lot of hard stuff day in and day out. But this, this was one of the hardest things I’d faced.
Claire 02:05
Having lost my own mother young, I’ve been worried for a long time that I might also have to say goodbye to my kids at a young age. So here’s this woman sitting across from me living a parallel life to me, and asking me to help her with my greatest fear. I knew that I couldn’t trust myself to help her without getting some help myself. But where do you even start to get help with this kind of thing? One thought popped into my head. I need to find a death doula. Death doulas were a relatively new thing at the time, they still kind of are. But I’d heard of them. And I knew that finding one would probably be really helpful. So I sat down with my laptop and I typed in death doula Los Angeles in my search box, and this woman, a little rather popped up right away. I sent her an email. And a few weeks later, we were sitting down to lunch.
Claire
And what was going to be a quick meet and greet turned into a two-hour lunch, which turned into a really deep friendship. And I can tell you that Ilia has taught me more about life than I ever could have imagined. In today’s episode, you’re going to hear us talk about death, yes, but also why it’s more important than ever to talk about it post pandemic. We’re gonna laugh a lot because we adore each other. But we’re also going to talk about George Floyd, about how to cope with hopelessness. And we’re going to dig into the questions you can ask yourself to face your own fears around death. And I swear, it’s not going to be depressing. This might actually be one of the most life affirming conversations you’ve ever heard.
Claire
Welcome, Alua. I’m so excited to have you here today with us.
Alua Arthur
I’m excited to be with you, Claire.
Claire
So let’s dig into this big scary topic of death. But as we do that, what is that saying You’re known for? Can we start with that?
Alua Arthur
Yeah, I don’t know that it’s mine. But it goes like talking about sex won’t make you pregnant and talking about death won’t make you death.
Claire 04:01
And I mean, really, people are afraid to talk about death for so many, but I think this might be one of them. This idea that it’s going to it’s going to bring it on.
Alua Arthur
Yeah. And what I keep saying then is it’s happening anyway. It’s comment, talking about it will make it come any faster, necessarily, but it’s gonna happen.
Claire
It’s happening to all of us. We’re all living in all dying all the time. Okay, so that we’ve established we’re going to talk about death today. It’s going to be scary and awesome. Is this what you imagined doing when you were growing up?
Alua Arthur
No. By no means.
Claire
What did you think you were gonna be when you grew up?
Alua Arthur
Okay. So there’s a number of things. I remember being about five years old, and we went to a private school in Nairobi, Kenya. And most of the kids in that school started in kindergarten and went all the way and so they’d have the kindergarteners write down what it was that they wanted to be, and I wrote down that I wanted to iron for some reason. I watched my mom iron a lot and I thought it was like the coolest thing, it was probably also kind of dangerous. It was like, You can’t do that. But that’s the thing I wanted to do, surprise, surprise, of course. And now I’ll do anything to stay away from any clothes that have that require any ironing. But I wanted to iron, I wanted to be a doctor, I want to be a lawyer, my mom says, I just said, I really want to help people, I really want to help people. And then at some point, I decided I was going to be Michael Jackson’s wife. And that was all I need to do. I know, right? That didn’t turn out quite the way that I thought that it would. And then at some point, I think I just shifted into the helping profession somehow, wanted to do social justice. I became vegetarian early. I started recycling drives before they were popular. I was really down for the HIV and AIDS activism, all before ideas of what a professional life could be out there. But no, I never planned to be adaptable. It still shocks me.
Claire
So how did this happen?
Alua Arthur
I still try to figure that out.
Claire
But there’s got to be a story. I know there’s a story.
Alua Arthur
There is a story. There’s a story. So I was practicing law at Legal Aid, really depressed and not using all parts of myself, it was not my highest expression. And so the work was so fulfilling, but other parts of me still felt unused. And I was kind of swimming in this ocean of not knowing, swimming and associate of a body. I wasn’t following it up. I wasn’t like getting good most out of myself and what I thought was capable for my life, and grew terribly depressed. And I went on a medical leave of absence for clinical depression, which is totally unheard of, for lawyers to actually take a break. But I had to, because of how sick I was, I had no choice. I had no choice, I couldn’t go back to work, I could barely eat, I’d lose 50 pounds less than I weigh now. And I’m still pretty fit. But then I wasn’t eating I was wearing all black. You know, I’m in all the colors in the world today. Just it wasn’t working out. And somewhere along the line, I went to Cuba, who I met a fellow traveler on a bus who had uterine cancer. And we got to talk in a lot.
Alua Arthur 06:58
And we’re very intimate in the way that you only can with a stranger in a faraway country on a bus. And we talked a lot about her life. And we talked about her death. And I started asking her questions about what happens if this disease that she’s got kills her? And she’d never had those types of questions posed to her. She hadn’t thought about what her death might mean, I’m sure she had thought about it plenty. But she had that opportunity to talk about it. Every single time she talked about death and dying, people say oh, don’t worry, you’re going to get better and just have hope and you have surgeries coming up. And there’s treatment. And people just seem to deny the fact that one day she was going to die, and that this disease might be what did it that made me really sad for her as an individual. It also made me really sad for society overall. You know, looking around the bus, I was looking at the bus driver, and the people on the street and myself and thinking we’re all going to die one day. Now why do we pretend as it’s not happening? I just I couldn’t get my head around it. And so on the bus, I got pretty clear that I wanted to support people in their conversations around death and dying.
Claire
Did you at that time know what a death doula was? Was that kind of what you’re thinking about doing or it was a vague idea of if you wanted to be in that realm.
Alua Arthur 08:07
It was a specific idea that didn’t have any contact. I thought to myself, there should be somebody that walks people through and prepares them for death. Because we talked about all types of things. We talked about her career, we talked about her love life, we talked about her desires for family, we talked about her money, we talked about her stuff, we just went through all of it like what happens? What happens is this is it. So I was clear that preparation for death need to be a thing, not only the existential, but the practical. And then I came back to the states and threw myself into trying to find a way to make this happen. I could not find a career path where I thought about going to medical school to become a doctor but I was already $100,000 in debt from law school and no thank you. No, no loans. And I didn’t want to be a funeral director. I applied to a master’s program to become a marriage and family therapist, to talk with people that were dying that didn’t feel like it. So I just I waited, I waited and then my brother-in-law got sick. About six months after I came back from Cuba, he was diagnosed with Burkitt’s Lymphoma. And then about four months later, he was at the end of his life, the doctors couldn’t do anything more to treat him. So I packed up I went to New York, where he and my sister and my four-year-old at the time, […] work, and walked him and down through the end of his life, essentially.
Claire
How did you know how to do that? What do you mean? What did that look like at that time before your actual death? doula?
Alua Arthur
I can’t tell you that I knew intellectually how to do it. But I will say that I knew instinctively how to do it. I think we all do. I think we all do, just society and culture and mores and taboos get in the way. But it required me to fill in the gap so that my sister could be in the hospital more. I ran around a lot of errands; I asked a lot of hard questions. I remember at one point, he had been in the hospital for about two weeks, he never left the hospital. And, you know, my sister asked me to step outside the hallway with her and very, very seriously, she looks at me. And she’s like, so I have to ask you a question. You know, what do you think is happening with Peter? And I was stunned, because to me, it was clear that he was dying. But it wasn’t gotten to her. You know, I think intellectually, she just hadn’t gotten […] around it. And I wait very carefully. Do I continue playing in to what has been happening so far that nobody’s saying Peter’s dying yet. They’re saying, you know, we don’t have treatments. And we could try this. But it’s not going to shrink the tumors. But nobody was saying he’s dying. And so I did. And she collapsed. She fell on the ground, she cried, I held her in that elevator bank, and wondered if I’d made the wrong call, like if I should have lied. But, you know, I just kept repeating that I was sorry. And eventually she says, why you’re not the one who’s killing him. And then she strained her sweater walk back into the room.
Claire
And so do you feel like it was the right call to tell her that?
Alua Arthur
I want to say yes. It’s hard recovering from seeing my sister in that much pain. Certainly over words I spoken. I know I didn’t do it. But it was hard thing her that much pain. I think I don’t know what impact it had on our preparations for death. But I did feel like it needed to be said very, very plainly at some point. And the best person probably to say it would be me.
Claire
I think it was so brave. And important of you to say that I sit on the other side of death with people who weren’t told that by anyone, not by a family member, not by a medical professional. And so, and this happened to me with my own mother, your loved one dies, and you didn’t see it coming, they had no idea. And so now they’re in my office, trying to sort through the pieces of that and just overcome with guilt and angst that they didn’t know that it was coming. And that if they could go back. And if they had just known here are some things they wish they could have done differently. And so, you know, so much of my work is sitting with them through that and trying to help them come to some kind of peace with it. So from where I sit, I think you made the right call.
Alua Arthur 12:32
Thank you, Claire. You know, it’s a hard concept to get your head around.
Claire
And this is why it doesn’t get set. You know, I mean, this is exactly why it doesn’t get set by the doctors, by the nurses, by family, by ourselves. You know, sometimes we can’t even tell ourselves.
Alua Arthur
Absolutely. Sometimes we can’t tell each other. You know, but, me and Peter’s private moments, he was clear. He was clear he was dying. I brought him in for the day because the Patriots were playing the Broncos and he was a huge Patriots fan. We’re Broncos fans. And he asked me to bring my niece and so I put on her little Patriots jersey, despite myself because I want to put her in the Broncos jersey but he was dying. So it was the least I could do. Okay, that’s a dying man. I wish I could do that. So I did. And he rallied and he was alert. It’s often called terminal lucidity, where he was alert and awake and asking for food. And he seemed like his old self again. And as I was leaving, he said I’m tired that I had to lean in real close his vocal cords had tumors on them. And he had a hard time getting noise out. But he said I’m tired. And I said okay, rest. No, but then he looked at me and said I’m tired. He was ready to rest.
Claire
Yeah. That’s an incredible story. I think you’re right, that it is instinctive that we know how to do this. But oh my gosh, we also know how to run from it, too, you know?
Alua Arthur 14:01
We’re really good at that. But gratefully, there’s people like you that keep reminding folks that there’s anything to fear there and you can be held while you’re in the exploration.
Claire
Yeah, yeah. And I think that we have to keep talking about this.
Claire
So, death doulas. I’m not even sure when this whole thing started. But I know that in the last year of 2020, in the pandemic, they really rose to the forefront. I mean, I remember seeing a picture of you as the headlining article on CNN.com Monday, I was just checking the news. And I was like, what? There’s my friend, Alua. And it was all death doulas. So when did this start and what’s happening now at death doulas?
Alua Arthur
I think that as long as people have been living people have been dying, and people have been supporting them through death. We don’t do anything alone as humans, we’re entirely interdependent. And death is one of those ways, it takes a whole village of folks to support and surround and offers like to hold somebody through the process. It’s looking different now in the modern age, because we have the internet and email accounts, and a lot of choices for burial, and ritual and religions. And we live in cities and not at home with the family that we grew up in, life has changed, and death has changed. And so there are those of us now that have spent some time in the space, I’m not going to call us experts, because I don’t know anything about death. I haven’t done it, I’m still here in this body. But what I do know is some of the ways in which people approach it. Now I’ve gathered a lot of resources information, and I can show up as a compassionate and knowledgeable person at the end of life for the individual in the family, I can usher them through. It’s been around since time immemorial. But I think it’s gaining a lot of traction now, because we’re getting a little bit better at having a conversation around that. And we also had a huge pandemic that put death and how we die in our faces.
Claire 16:17
What was it like for you? What were you seeing? How did death look different here in the world or in the US? Like what was your perspective on it?
Alua Arthur
You know, there was so much going on, aside from our own individual grief over the lives that we lead, and the ones that we expected to keep living, there was also all the death that was occurring. And for the first time in a really long time, watching the news, you’d hear death count, you’d hear about ventilators, he cared about how people were breathing, hear about signs that the body, we were all hyper vigilant about what symptoms we’re having, if any, were washing our hands or paying attention to how our body is with disease and illness and also with death. And they got people thinking about how they want to die. Nobody likes the idea of people dying alone and not being able to be around their family and friends. That was a big A DEAL
Claire
That was such a hard part of last year and still.
Alua Arthur
huge. It’s a huge part for me, too. Because I felt challenged in my work. I’m so used to showing up for people when they’re dying. What do you mean, people have to die alone, and nobody can be there with them, it broke me. It broke me. But I kept remembering that my job as a death doula is to support and empower the dying person and the family. Which means that I can do my best to remind people that death is natural. And now we have an opportunity to redefine what death means to us as individuals and what it means to us as a culture.
Claire
Yeah, I think that people saw death and thought about death in ways that they never had in this last year. I mean, you and I’ve been in this world for a long time, and it’s our daily life to think about it and look at it right in the face. But so many people, I mean, I think about the frontline workers who were having to watch their patients not be able to say goodbye, you know, or trying to do some kind of FaceTime call, you know, with the nurse and the masks and the, you know, the person on the other end and, and having no experience with that, you know, having no preparation to go through that, and how to process that and no time to process it even.
Alua Arthur 18:27
And like a high number of deaths that were happening, they were just seeing people come in and die over and over and over again, incredible grief that they must be feeling. Also, on the heels of the beginning of that pandemic came the murder of George Floyd, where for, I’d say one of the first times, millions of people watched a man die. They watched a grown man back where his mom form at the mouth, be himself and die. So I teach death doulas who are going with grace. And there’s an application process where we ask the students what was the last step that you went as, we use it for a number of things to try and gauge levels of grief and how close they are to a death. But one student who I believe got into the program, wrote that the last step that she’d seen was George Floyd. And it just reminded me that people were also really strongly reacting to that death one way or another. You know, some people were grieving out there on the streets and throwing things, other people were grieving their family, other people pushed it off and pretend it didn’t happen. It wasn’t as bad as it was, and whatever response to grief that they had. So we witnessed death in a way that we haven’t in quite some time in this past year.
Claire
Yeah. What was his death like for you?
Alua Arthur
Maybe not obviously, but now watch the video. I couldn’t. I saw the image. It was all too familiar and could have just as easily been my cousins and my brothers in law and my nephew. And my heart was broken for his family and for the black community as a whole, because it’s too familiar, but also for humankind as a whole, because shit like that still happens. And some people don’t understand the incredible grief that comes along with it. And I struggled to understand how one cannot spend their own experience to honor the experience of another, that I may not understand that this just like my brother, but I can see that you do. And this is really important to you. That was very difficult to grapple with.
Claire 20:37
Yeah, I think we did see people suspend their own experience and feel that in many ways, but then we saw a lot of people who didn’t, and couldn’t. When you feel broken by things like that, what do you do with yourself like you personally? How do you move through these things?
Alua Arthur
Oh, by not moving much at all. In grief, I do one of two things either sit very still and stare out the window and stuff my face with potato chips, and French fries. And I cry a lot. Or I move I exercise a lot. I run I bike. I lift. So one of two things. And during that I sat, I sat I cried, I talked I leaned into the pain as much as I could, because at some point I couldn’t either, you know, and had to get to work. I sit at an intersection of Black people, and the death and dying industry, which meant that a lot of people started asking me questions about Black people and death. And I was like, hold on, first of all, I don’t know every Black person thats ever lived.
Claire
I watched you, it was admirable to watch from afar. But how did that go?
Alua Arthur
You know, not long afterwards. Me and a few Black women I know who work in the death care industry had a conversation amongst ourselves, we’re all saying the same thing. So we got together and made a panel called Saying It Louder, where we just again talked amongst ourselves but invited other people to come and listen. And that seemed to have quite an impact. People seem to understand what was it we were saying mostly around the themes of generational grief and trauma, how, why the death and dying industry is. And most importantly, though, how inaccessible the idea of a good death is for many parts of society, the good death is largely shaped by the white experience. And we spoke very directly to that which was useful, was useful. That was also cathartic on some level.
Claire 22:31
Yeah, it was useful and cathartic. I think we saw so much racial disparity eliminated in the healthcare system during the pandemic That was so good to look at, you know, so painful but so important. And I’m not sure we would have seen it so starkly. And abruptly, had we not had the pandemic, have we not had George Floyd in the middle of it. You know, I think that all of those things led to what I hope will be a lot of growth and changes.
Alua Arthur
I hope so too. it just gets hard to hope sometimes.
Claire
Yeah, let’s talk about hope. I felt like last year, I felt hopeless. At times, I felt like you felt hopeless at times. I know this because we talked and I think that a lot of people felt hopeless. What do we do when we feel hopeless? What do you do when you feel hopeless?
Alua Arthur
You know, hope is such a fucked-up thing. It’s a beautiful, it’s a beautiful idea that keeps you striving and reaching for something that seems out of reach, right? But at the same time, it’s also the thing that doesn’t stop you to, sometimes to force to reckon with what’s actually happening. I see it a lot and the end-of-life context, people are like hoping for cheer. They’re hoping for a miracle. They’re hoping for some big thing to happen that takes them out of the current experience they’re having into something else. And while it’s useful to have some hope, I often want it just to be a little redirected. Rather than hoping for a cure. Maybe we hope that we live long enough to see our nephew graduate from high school. And rather than hoping that we don’t die, we hope that we live a good quality life or we hope in the incremental. So during the pandemic and in the aftermath of George Floyd murder.
Alua Arthur 24:12
I did not have a lot of hope for how us as a society was going to deal with race relations. I was on the streets 20 years ago, when Amadou Diallo was murdered. Why are we doing the exact same thing 20 years later, and I’m older now My feet are not trying to be out marching for 13 days that I did in my youth. But I found a lot of hope in the relationships I had with white people that were immediately in my circle. I had a white male partner at the time, I have a decent amount of white friends. And in the minute in our day-to-day interactions and the conversations that we had the topics that we broach the honor and respect and understanding that we’re willing to bring to the conversation give me a lot of hope for how we can do it moving forward.
Claire
I love that. I think that’s good. That’s a good way to break it down. Just to make it more palatable is that right the right word or just like little pieces, you know that we can do, right?
Claire
Okay, so let’s talk about, let’s talk a little bit more about why when we look at death and embrace death, how does that help us live more fully? What is your question, your seminal question that you ask in your work and you ask of us who follow you?
Alua Arthur
And I ask myself all the time, what must I do to be at peace with myself, so that I may live presently and die gracefully? What must I do well, must, not permissive, not what I really like to do what would be cool to do, but what must I do to be at peace with myself, so that I may live presently, and die gracefully?
Claire 26:21
Is this a question you ask yourself every day? Or like every six weeks or got a calendar alarm for this one?
Alua Arthur
Yeah, I think it’s so built into my operating system right now that is constantly running in the background when I’m making decisions. If it’s whether or not I want to watch a movie or go out to dinner with somebody, what must I do? Live presently, die gracefully? Well, let’s look at my values. Big Picture. Let’s look at who I think I am in the world. Let’s look at what my body needs at this moment. Like what must I do? And sometimes it says […] rest girl. But sometimes it says go live it up, go celebrate, go have a few drinks and a nice dinner and put on a pretty dress. But it changes. And I think it’s important that we keep posing that question is questions of the similar sort to ourselves time and again, as we’re changing, and we’re growing like, a new version of me requires a new answer. And let’s stay graceful with ourselves also, as we add to that question time and again. But it’s built into my operating system now. Just refreshing in the background.
Claire
Yeah, it’s built in the mind, too. I think, you know, losing both of my parents so close together. So early on it just you know, there was no, going back from the idea that life is short, and we must make the most of it. You know, what do I want to do with my time here? So it’s, it’s been refreshing in my operating system for almost 20 years, you know, but for someone who hasn’t gone through a big loss, can you feel the urgency of that question? Can you feel the weight of it?
Alua Arthur
I think it’s hard to do. So when it’s just an intellectual exercise, because I also don’t want to romanticize the idea of thinking about death, you know, it’s not like, Oh, you do it, and everything’s gonna be amazing. You’re going to know your purpose, and you’re going to have a great partner, and you’re going to be a more present loving parent doesn’t quite work like that. But I think it does, incrementally in the small bit, at least invite us into that conversation, big picture. And so for somebody who hasn’t experienced that directly, I’d say it’s probably wildly important that you spend a little bit of time just considering your death. Think about yourself on your deathbed, if you can.
Claire 28:25
Yeah, I love your deathbed test. Tell us about that.
Alua Arthur
I love that one, too. So on my deathbed, is this decision I’m going to make will it matter in five minutes? If I were to die in five minutes with this decision, would it matter? If I was to die in five years, would it have mattered? On my deathbed, will it matter? Will it matter? Will I wish I did it? Will I wish I didn’t do it.
Claire
And just this range from everything from like, going on a date to taking a new job?
Alua Arthur
All of it, to wearing the sneakers versus the heels to go to a party and I’m more of a sneaker store party girl myself at this point. But at some point, I used to be heels girl. Now let me explain. Not how I got from sneakers to heels. I think that’s obvious in age.
Claire
We’re the same age. Yeah, I know.
Alua Arthur
Yeah, we’re not doing that anymore. But on my deathbed, a decision like this, like if I were to die tomorrow, am I gonna wish that I showed up with like, you know, the sparkly pink heels on or am I gonna wish I was comfortable at this party? I’m probably gonna wish I was comfortable. Okay, so let’s look five years from now if I meet the love of my life at this party, am I gonna wish I showed up in heels or as I am right now? Well, I’m probably gonna wish I showed up as I was right now. So you could find the true authentic me. On my deathbed, will it matter at all? Whether or not I wore heels to the party or sneakers? Not a bit so I can actually wear whatever I want and won’t make a difference. You know what I mean?
Claire
Yeah, I think that’s, that’s perfect. Are you ever afraid to die?
Alua Arthur
Yes.
Claire
Say more.
Alua Arthur
Okay, so I was in the shower a couple days ago, and had my body contorted in the shower, I was trying to shave, but I had my leg up on something that should not have been, my razor was like on the other end, rather than put my foot down and turn my body toward it, I just decided to like reach a little too far where I felt the foot that was stabilizing me on the ground start to slip. And I immediately was like, not now, I still got things to do I have this book to write, I’m not ready. I’m not ready. It comes up like that sometimes. Also, when I think about my niece and my nephew, not being able to see their futures, that really makes me very sad to die not as scared. And also, when I think about the work that I’ve set out to do, and wondering how close we’re getting, and not knowing how close we are to it, it makes me a little scared to die.
Claire 30:45
So you want to be here longer? Are you afraid of death itself? Like the actual act of dying? And are you? Do you ever? Like what do you think happens when we die?
Alua Arthur
I’m really curious about what death feels like. I’m really curious, because they’ve been feeding us all types of things through centuries. Yeah, I want to know which one was right.
Claire
All of the above, none of the above?
Alua Arthur
Well, we’ll find out something we can’t even conceive of right now with our little human brains, probably the latter, probably the latter. I am hoping that death feels like this beautiful, cosmic explosion of glitter and confetti in all different bits and pieces. Every emotion I ever felt every human I ever talked to, everything that ever made me laugh, I want to feel them all at the same time, and explode all those experiences out onto all humanity, and have it settled in the spirit of everybody else. And thus, I return as a part of all that ever was and all that ever will be. And I live on, as you all will live on in me after your death.
Claire 32:01
That’s beautiful. I think I become afraid of death when I think about there being nothing after this, which I thought for a long time. But the older I get, I don’t know, I like the idea now of death being a transition and a continuation and that we’re just bored into something new. Right?
Alua Arthur
Yeah. I’m really curious. I’m really curious. I also wonder if some of those theories and ideas that we have about it not being over are an inbred fear of death. You know, because it’s like, if there is more, that means that this doesn’t end. But death necessarily says this ends, this at least the way that I understand is going to end. I’m playing around with it. I don’t know. None of us know, that’s the point.
Claire
None of us know. But I think a lot of the work is with sitting with it, you know, which is what you do, which is what I do, which is what we help people do, but we’re not experts at it either. But it’s this whole idea of that we have to help people sit with all the uncertainty. I mean, it can be paralyzing sometimes to think about like, we’re all gonna die. And we don’t know when and we don’t know how. And we don’t know what happens when we do, like the fuck?
Alua Arthur
Yeah, it could I mean, it can be absolutely paralyzing. Like all the various scenarios under which I could meet my death because I make some interesting choices in my life. Some very interesting choices. So not knowing that it can like really drive one to madness. And to as you said paralyzed and the decision making and living life and going on planes even like taking flight. And people are so scared to do so because of the fear of death. Yeah, we could also use it so few of us and so motivated us and to remind us that death is one day coming. So I may as well make the very best out of this life that I can for whatever it means to me, when I’m asking the question of myself, because it might also mean sitting on the couch, eating potato chips, it does not mean to live your best life, although that is some version of my best life for sure.
Claire 34:00
I’m with you. Yeah, I think that shifting the perspective where instead of feeling paralyzed, we use that fear or that same fear that paralyzes us to instead celebrate life and just use it as a way to celebrate life. And I think that you and I do that and a lot of people that we know in this field do that. But it’s hard one, you know, it’s come from our a lot of our own losses, it’s come from a lot of our own fears, a lot of our own pain and constantly showing up to face this over and over.
Alua Arthur
Yeah, and I also want to say a lot of work. You know, it’s a lot of work. I think that sometimes we can overlook how much in tension and consistent awareness there has to be brought to it in order to start reaching some comfort with our death. You know, I’ve been talking about death and dying and how we do it for eight, nine years now. Whereas somebody who’s just newly into it might still even feel really pinchy at the idea that one day they’ll die and that’s okay. You know, that’s okay. As long as you were like starting to slowly creep into the conversation you were doing great. We’re doing great.
Claire
So what’s like, what are a couple small things that people can do to just make these little bite size moves into thinking about death facing death?
Alua Arthur
Well, really bite sized one. And I really enjoyed this exercise is from wherever you’re sitting right now, take a look around and look at how many things are dead or dying, or came from death. If there’s a piece of paper in front of you, that used to be a tree, that tree had to die. If there’s decaying spinach in the fridge, it’s dying. And also, don’t forget your natural body while you’re at it. Like, thinking about your cycling and your aging and your decay, because it’s happening all the time. If people want a little bit of an advanced exercise, I’d say go into the mirror and look at yourself in the mirror and your eyeballs like deep into the eyeballs, I will get that thing that intangible thing that exists behind the eyeballs. And repeat out loud, I am going to die three times. No ghosts, Bloody Mary’s.
Alua Arthur 36:16
Just don’t do it in a darkened bathroom during asleep over when you’re 13. But try it now. And lastly, have a death meditation series through going with grace called grace and dying, with a nine-part death meditation that you can do in your own home that walks people through the nine contemplations of dying, which are written by an 11th century Buddhist scholar named […] and developed for the modern age. And that is a useful tool for people who are starting to contemplate their own death, and want some support around at some journal prompts and exercises and contemplations.
Claire
Amazing. That’s on your website?
Alua Arthur
Yeah, very easily accessible.
Claire
And I think I just, you know, want to remind people, when you’re doing something like that, like looking in the mirror and saying those words to yourself, you don’t have to be good at this, like it can make you cry, it can make you angry, it can make you laugh, you know, whatever response you have, as you start to take these bite sized steps into facing this is the right response, you know, and, and it keeps shifting and growing, right?
Alua Arthur
Absolutely. There’s no death doula looking over your shoulder saying a plus or a minus. And we’re not judging people’s past and their relationship with it either. You know, people are like, I want mine to be really good. I say, well, what’s a bad relationship with that necessarily, it’s just a relationship. It’s just a relationship. And so let’s be with that, but we’ll also evolve with it. Let’s evolve with it. Who knows, if I ever have a child, I might change my relationship to death then, when my parents died, I might change my relationship with death then, we’ll see. Let’s give ourselves grace in the exploration as well. Nobody’s grading.
Claire
I love grace, you’re always bringing in that word. And I think that it is so important to this work. Thank you so much, Alua.
Claire 38:10
I can’t ever feel grateful for my friendship with Alua without thinking of that client that brought us together. I ended up working with her for over a year, we got to know each other and even saw each other at the elementary school a few times. Her death was really sad, and that affected our whole community and the whole school. But I have to say that she really faced the end of her life bravely. And she helped her fourth-grade son face it along with her. I also want to tell you that by the time she died, my daughter had actually become such good friends with her son, that it was my daughter who sat next to him at his mother’s Memorial. I think my client taught all of us a lot about being present in our lives. And it always felt like more than a coincidence that she came into my life when she did. Because in the end, I did get to face my fear. And I even got to hold my daughter’s hand as she faced it too. But trust me, I cried all kinds of tears through it. It was hard and it was scary. But it also left me astounded by life and connection and the human capacity for love.
Claire
Okay, deep breath. That was a lot. But it’s all lots of times right. So for this week’s lesson, I want you to think about a Louis main question, what must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully? It’s a big question. And when that may take you some time to answer. To start, let’s think about where Alua was before she answered this question by herself. Are you stuck in a job where you’re not fulfilled? Are their talents that you’re not using? Or as my mother-in-law says, are you hiding your light under a bushel? Are there complex you need to resolve or their relationships that need to go? Do you belong to something beyond your basic commitments like a writers group or volunteering in the community? Are there things you dream about doing but haven’t made any steps towards it? Okay, I just threw a lot at you. So maybe you need to think about it for a few days or weeks. Maybe you need to journal about it or talk to someone like a friend or therapist.
Claire
Maybe you already know the answer. If you want to dig a little deeper on all this, I really recommend following Alua on Instagram at @goingwithgrace, she poses really thoughtful questions every day. She also has this amazing online course with her mortician friend Caitlin Dodi called Mortal. It’s all about how your fears of death may be preventing you from being present in your life. Check it out at mortalcourse.com try one of these suggestions and let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear about your progress and your own questions about how to feel more satisfied with your life. You can call and leave a message at 8334-LEMONADA, that’s 833-453-6662 or email me at NewDay@LemonadaMedia.com. I really want to hear what you find. Oh, and you can actually join me in person in October for a retreat all about living and dying. Alua and my friend BJ Miller, who was a palliative care physician and a future guest on the show, and myself. We’ll all be together at the Art of Living retreat center in North Carolina for a two-day three-night retreat, called What Really Matters. You can find out more information at artoflivingretreatcenter.org. And lastly, this episode is dedicated to the memory of my client whose life and bravery the end continue to inspire me today.
CREDITS
NEW DAY is a Lemonada Original. Jackie Danziger is our supervising producer, our associate producers Erianna Jiles, […] our engineer, music is by Hannis Brown. Executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer, Lily Cornell Silver and Claire Bidwell Smith. NEW DAY is produced in partnership with the wellbeing trust the Jed Foundation, and Education Development Center. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow us at Lemonada Media across all social platforms or find me at ClaireBidwellSmith.com Join our Facebook group to connect with me and fellow NEW DAY listeners. Hear advice on how to live with more purpose and satisfaction and suggest tools that have helped you. You can join at facebook.com/groups/newdaypod. You can also get bonus content and behind the scenes material by subscribing to Lemonada premium. You can subscribe right now and the apple podcast app by clicking on our podcast logo and then the subscribe button. Alright, that’s it for us. Thanks for listening. See you next week.
