death consciousness – End of Life University

Learn about a model for a non-medical home that is changing how we provide end-of-life care.

My guest Dr. Aditi Sethi is a hospice and palliative care physician and end-of-life doula. She is the founder and executive director of the Center for Conscious Living and Dying, a community supported end-of-life care home near Asheville NC. Aditi shares her journey toward working with death and dying and the creative inspiration that is bringing CCLD into existence. We discuss why the care home model may be the solution to many problems currently facing hospice and end-of-life care. Learn more at the website:

www.ccld.community

Watch on YouTube

Listen here:

This episode includes:

How intuition guided Aditi’s journey to becoming a hospice and palliative care physician and an EOL doula
What Aditi learned from her travels in India during childhood
What needs to change in the medical system to improve how people die
How conscious living and conscious dying are intertwined
Practices to become more awake and aware in life and in dying
What is the Center for Conscious Living and Dying
The benefits of community-supported end-of-life homes
How creativity can help us devise solve the problems we face around end-of-life care
Resources available from the Omega Home Network to help people start EOL care homes
How working with Ethan Sisser at his end of life inspired Aditi’s next steps to leap into the unknown

Links mentioned in this episode:

Aditi’s music website
Omega Home Network
Ethan Sisser Facebook page
Leave me a message by email: kwyattmd@comcast.net, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
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Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and receive free gifts like the “Mind if we talk about death?” mini-poster or Love Your Life sticker or coffee mug. PLUS get our regular bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, occasional movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest patrons Meghan Maher and Diane Santostefano and thank you Athena Berens and Barbara Nagy for making a donation through Paypal, and Patrycja W. for buying me a coffee! Your contributions make all the difference.

End of Life, EOLPodcast

Ep. 217 Living a Death-Aware Life: How to Practice What We Preach

October 21, 2019October 20, 2019 kwyattmd

Learn why and how to intentionally develop your personal death-awareness in order to live your best life.

If you are a death-worker in any field you probably feel that you are highly aware of death and its many facets. But did you know that the human brain has a primal mechanism to protect us from thinking about and acknowledging our own personal death? Yes it’s true. We can be advanced teachers of death for other people and still be in denial that we ourselves are going to die. In this solo episode I’ll talk about how and why we need to strengthen our own death-awareness for the betterment of our lives and our work.

Listen here:

This episode includes:

A study that shows the defenses against death-awareness that exist in the primitive human brain
Why personal death-awareness must be intentionally cultivated
How death-awareness can expand and transform our lives
Why daily death contemplation is essential to our growth
- Think about the fleeting nature of life
- Acknowledge fears of death and dying
- Recognize barriers to awareness
Benefits of increased death-awareness:
- Enjoy the present moment
- Find comfort in stillness
- Experience authentic gratitude for life
- Experience awe
- Become less attached to material things
- Be more inclusive and less exclusive
- See everything as sacred

Good night Wesley. Good work. Sleep well. I shall likely kill you in the morning.

-from The Princess Bride

Links mentioned in this episode:

FREE webinar (REPLAY provided if you can’t attend live):

The Loneliness Epidemic

Click here to register.

Article: Doubting Death: How our brains shield us from mortal truth
Film: The Princess Bride
Beautiful Dying Expo – November 2, 2019, San Diego CA
Before I Die Arizona – October 30 – November 3, Scottsdale AZ
Spiritual Journeys in Chronic Illness Course
Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it)

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest Patrons Kathryn Mattes, Kristy Lynn, and Astrid Raffinpeyloz, your contributions mean everything to me!

EOLPodcast, mortal wisdom, Spirituality

Ep. 195 Why Death is Life’s Best-Kept Secret

May 20, 2019June 1, 2019 kwyattmd

Learn how to live your best life by embracing your mortality.

In Part 8 of the Mortal Wisdom Series I’ll summarize the 7 lessons presented in the previous episodes and discuss the mindset we need to adopt in order to live fully and peacefully as mortal beings. Find out my tips and guideposts for living a death-aware life no matter what blessings or challenges we are given to navigate. Listen to Parts 1-6 first if you haven’t heard them yet!

Listen here:

This episode includes:

Why each day should be a “good day to die”
How to carry death with you at all times as your wise advisor
How all 7 lessons from mortality fit and flow together:
- Suffering
- Love
- Forgiveness
- Presence
- Purpose
- Surrender
- Impermanence
Why life is like an episode of “Chopped” cooking show: the “ingredients” life gives you are always a surprise and your task is to make something beautiful and delicious from them
5 tips for living a death-aware life each and every day

Nake nula waun: I am ready for whatever comes.

– Lakota Sioux battle cry

Links mentioned in this episode:

Mortal Wisdom Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7
Beautiful Dying Expo – Nov. 2-3, 2019 – San Diego CA
Spirituality and Chronic Illness Course – starts July 9th
Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it)!

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on Patreon.com/eolu, especially my new Patrons: Jennifer Turner, Laura Sodders and Tom Johnson-Medland!