Learn how The Death Deck helps people have important and necessary conversations about death and dying.
My guests today are the co-creators of The Death Deck, a card game to help inspire conversations about death, dying and grief. Lisa PahlLCSW is a Hospice Social Worker and ER Crisis Interventionist. Lori LoCicero is a writer and entrepreneur and runs a website to help others travel their paths through difficulty. Together they will share why they decided to create The Death Deck, how it can be used, and why conversations about death matter. Learn more about The Death Deck at the website:
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand 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!
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, and to all who have made donations through Paypal or Buy Me a Coffee! Your contributions make all the difference.
Learn about a free curriculum you can bring to your community to foster conversations about death.
My guest Rev. Karen Johnston is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and the founder of Date with Death Club. Her own spiritual practice centers on “befriending death” and she shares how this led her to create the curriculum for Date with Death Club. We discuss how to work on befriending death and why education about death is essential. Karen tells us how to join the Date with Death Club and register to use her curriculum for free. Learn more at her website:
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand 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!
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 patron Bob McInnis, and to Dawn Greene for making a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.
Learn some ideas for how you might teach others in your community about death and dying and why you should.
In today’s solo episode I’ll share with you my thoughts on why death education is so essential in our society today. No matter what type of work you do in the end-of-life field (estate attorney, hospice staff, death doula, home funeral guide, green burial practitioner, bereavement counselor) you need to help educate your community about death, dying and grief if you want people to utilize your services. Right now we ALL need to become death educators in our own special way and I’ll talk about why that’s true and how you might get involved.
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand 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!
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 patron Francesca Arnoldy, and to those who have bought me a coffee and made a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.
Learn how this man’s experience with grief led him to start a Death Café in Japan and become a death doula and Willow EOL educator.
My guest Masatoshi Shoji is a licensed acupuncturist, health communicator and medical translator in Sendai Japan. He started Death Café Sendai in his hometown in 2015 and since then has trained as a certified grief counselor, death doula and Willow EOL Educator. He shares why he first became interested in working with grief and death and his experiences with Death Café in Japan.
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand 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!
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 patron Merlin Murdock, and to those who have bought me a coffee and made a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.
Learn about a creative game to help foster conversations about death.
My guest Angela Fama is an artist and photographer who lives in Vancouver Canada and is also a recently trained death doula. She created the Death Conversation Game and facilitates online seasonal Let’s Talk About Death conversations. She will share how she became interested in exploring death as a subject and why she created the game. We will also play a few rounds of the game so you can see how it works! Learn more at her websites:
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand 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!
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 patron Martha Lundgren, and to those who have bought me a coffee and made a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.
Learn the benefits of having a personal practice to increase our death-awareness.
In this encore solo episode I’ll be sharing with you research that shows that the human brain has a primal mechanism to protect us from thinking about and acknowledging our own personal death. Even those of us who study death and teach others how to prepare for the end of life can be in denial about our own mortality. However, living with “death awareness” is the best way to grow spiritually and make the most of every moment of life. My book The Tao of Death (with a companion journal) can be used for daily contemplation and help you become more death aware in your own life. Let’s talk about why we need to maintain our death-awareness and how to do it!
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand 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!
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 and to those who have bought me a coffee (thank you Elisa Weger!) and made a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.
Learn how Terri Daniel and I used our experiences with loss and grief to motivate the work we do today.
In this episode I’m featuring a conversation I had with the Rev. Dr. Terri Daniel on the Ask Doctor Death Podcast, of which I am an occasional co-host. Terri is the creator of the former Afterlife Awareness Conference and now the Conference on Death, Grief and Belief, which will be held July 2022 in Portland OR. We share a wide-ranging discussion that includes our own personal stories and our spiritual journeys, which have brought us where we are today. Learn more about Terri and the conference:
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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 new patrons Monica Kaniewska and Katharina Mack! Your contributions make all the difference.
Learn the powerful lessons that come from a long career of service to others at the end of life.
My guest Zenith Virago is a respected pioneer and acknowledged expert in the fields of holistic death and dying. With over 20 years of experience she provides comfort, information and guidance to assist people through the natural and the sacred, the inner and outer journeying as they come to the transition at the end of life. She is the subject of the documentary film “Zen andthe Art of Dying” and the co-author of the book TheIntimacy of Death and Dying. Zen shares the lessons she has learned over the years from life and death and what it means to be a “Deathwalker.” Learn more at the website:
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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 supporters Elaine MacDonald and Bruce Wadd! Your contributions make all the difference.
Learn how an EOL doula and funeral director in the UK have teamed up to creatively shift the conversation around death and dying.
My guests Anna Lyons and Louise Winter are the creative team behind the popular Life.Death.Whatever initiative to redesign the dialogue around death and dying. Anna is an end-of-life doula and Louise is a progressive funeral director in the UK. They share how their partnership has allowed them to address the full spectrum of end-of-life issues from terminal diagnosis to the dying process to after-death care and bereavement–all of which are beautifully covered in their newly released book We All Know How This Ends: Lessons About Life and Living from Working with Death and Dying. Learn more at their website:
How Anna and Louise teamed up to create Life.Death.Whatever
The inspiration behind writing this book
How they developed two projects for public participation: Five Things and Unsaid
Why it is important to create links between end-of-life and after-death care
Sensitive or “taboo” topics covered in the book like sex during illness and at the end of life and what happens to the body during decomposition and cremation
Why they included COVID in their new book and the importance of acknowledging the pandemic when we talk about end-of-life issues
How to submit your own writing for Five Things or Unsaid
The most surprising things they’ve learned about life through working with death
Eat the gelato – especially if it’s salted caramel.”
from We All Know How this Ends by Anna Lyons and Louise Winter
Links mentioned in this episode:
Submit your Five Things or Unsaid writing to submissions@lifedeathwhatever.com
Sign up for the 2021 online reading group A Year of Reading Dangerously at this link
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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! Your contributions make all the difference!
Learn why and how to become an EOL Educator through a new program offered by WillowEOL.
My guests Michelle Pante and Reena Lazar are co-founders of Willow End of Life Education and Planning and co-authors of 7 Tools for Making Sense of Life & Death, the workbook and the self-study online program. They have also created the Willow EOL Educator™ Program, which we discuss in this interview. They share the importance of providing education to both the public and healthcare providers in order to change the way we manage the end of life and to find the greatest meaning in life. They are offering a $200 discount to their EOL Educator™ Program for listeners who sign up before the end of May 2021. Learn more and sign up with the coupon code EOLU200 at this link:
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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! Your contributions make all the difference!
Learn how an innovative company is contracting with insurers to educate patients about decision-making around advanced illnesses.
My guest Tracy Brubaker is the COO of Vital Decisions, a company founded by Dr. Jessica Zitter to focus on changing the way people with advanced illness receive care by encouraging advance care planning. She shares how Vital Decisions contracts with insurers to provide education and counseling to their clients and the impact they are having on end-of-life care. Learn more about Vital Decisions at the website:
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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! Your contributions make all the difference!
Learn the inside story of this groundbreaking tour across America to promote conversations about death and dying.
My guest Kimberly Paul last appeared on End-of-Life University 2 years ago as she was preparing to embark on a courageous adventure: traveling across the US in an RV and teaching and talking about death and dying with people she met along the way. Today she returns to the podcast to share her inside stories of the Live Well Die WellTour and the lessons she learned on her extraordinary journey. She is also the host of Death by Design Podcast and the author of the book Bridging the Gap: Life Lessons from the Dying. Learn more at her website:
Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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! Your contributions make all the difference!
Learn about current research into the experience of dying as a physical, emotional and spiritual process.
My guest Jennie Dear, who has been a journalist, English professor and hospice volunteer, was curious about the question “what does it feel like to die?” so she conducted her own research project. After interviewing doctors, nurses, psychologists, and other experts about the passage between diagnosis and death, she wrote a book (What Does it Feel Like to Die?) to share the hopeful insights she gained. She discusses what she learned from that project and what most people don’t know and need to know about the dying process. Learn more about her work at the website:
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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 Patron: Heather Capuano. Your contributions make all the difference!
Learn how death-denial may contribute to physician burnout and how to change it.
In this solo episode I share my thoughts on the inner reasons why physicians may burn out and how increased death awareness could be a solution. Now more than ever we need death-informed education for all physicians, which would transform medical practice in general and especially end-of-life care.
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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 Patron Donna Peizer. Your contributions make all the difference!
Learn how changes that began in the last decade foreshadow future growth in the death-positive movement.
In this final solo episode for 2019 I take a look back at some of the significant events of the past decade that helped to move forward the end-of-life movement. Then I share some tips and insights for continuing the momentum for positive change and increased death awareness in 2020. Find out how you can be part of the future as we move toward better care of the dying and the dead in our society.
Previous events that helped set the stage for the momentum of the past decade (e.g. Five Wishes, Green Burial Council, Suzanne O’Brien’s community training for doulas)
Major movements of the past decade that have helped shift the narrative on death and dying:
National Home Funeral Alliance
The Conversation Project
Death Cafe
Ask a Mortician with Caitlin Doughty
Confessions of a Funeral Director with Caleb Wilde
Death Over Dinner
Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal
Recompose (formerly the Urban Death Project)
Brittany Maynard’s quest for death with dignity
formation of the EOL Doula Council
What we have learned from the natural childbirth movement
Tips for continuing the momentum in 2020:
Don’t wait – the time is now
It will take all of us to create change – form coalitions and collaborations
Create a unified message for the cause
Education is critical
Tailor the message for specific groups
Be in it for the long haul (growth takes time)
Links mentioned in this episode:
Episode 145 and 146: What the EOL Movement Can Learn from the Natural Childbirth Movement
Episode 128: Why We Need Death Ed for Everyone Right Now
Interview with Deanna Cochran on EOL doula movement
Episode 186: How to Bring Death Doulas to the Hospice Team
Join the team atPatreon.com/eoluand get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
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 Patron Delana Schneider, your contributions make all the difference!
Learn about a popular new card game that helps people open up about death and have fun while they’re doing it.
My guests are hospice social worker Lisa Pahl and writer Lori LoCicero. They will share with us how they met and teamed up to create the fun new card game: The Death Deck. Learn all about the game and how you might start incorporating it into your work and family conversations. Learn more about the game at the website:
Join the team at Patreon.com/eoluand 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– your contributions mean everything to me!
Find out my insights and lessons learned after completing 200 episodes of this podcast.
I’m excited to have reached this milestone of 200 episodes of the podcast! Today I’ll look back at some of the interviews I’ve done and share my “take-aways” so far. Here’s hoping for 200 more episodes. Thank you for your support over the past 4 years.
Learn how a training program for end-of-life doulas is preparing a wide variety of students to care for their loved ones with compassion and heart.
My guest Francesca Arnoldy has trained as both a birth and death doula and continues to guide clients through these passages at the beginning and end of life. She is the developer and program director of the End-of-Life Doula Professional Certificate Program at the University of Vermont that provides training for not only doulas but also other medical providers and lay people in caring for the dying. She is the author of the book Cultivating the Doula Heart: The Essentials of Compassionate Care. Learn about her work at her website:
Learn how a death doula started a business coaching doctors to address end-of-life issues with their patients.
My guest Rachel Giger is a death doula and hospice volunteer who responded to a need in her community by offering to teach local doctors how to talk about death with their patients. She now has physician clients from around the country who are eager to learn how to help their patients deal with the end of life. Learn more at her website:
Learn about the best of EOLU in 2018 and how to catch up if you missed any of these events!
“Death Education for Everyone” was the theme for 2018 and we’ll review all the great educational content that was provided in the past year. It’s not too late to listen in on the best webinars and interviews of the year before we get started on a brand new season of EOLU! Check out the links for the events you’ve missed in the description below.
Happy New Year to each and every one of you!
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
BIG NEWS!! Starting in 2019 the EOLU Interview Series will merge with the EOLU Podcast – so all the great interviews you are used to hearing on the interview series will now be available as podcast episodes. This means you can subscribe to the podcast and listen to the interviews on your phone while you are on the go! In addition you’ll be able to hear the solo episodes (like this one) where I share my wisdom, inspiration, and ideas for embracing the end of life and living fully today.
You can subscribe to the podcast at one of the following links (whichever podcast app you use):
Thanks for all of your support in 2018! I appreciate you for listening in and encouraging me to keep going. And I’m especially grateful to those of you who have become patrons on my donation page at Patreon.com/eolu: you make my heart sing!
FEATURE PRESENTATION:
2018 has been a wonderful year for EOLU that began with a goal of supporting “Death Education for Everyone.” In support of that goal the following programs were created:
A Year of Reading Dangerously online reading group; we’ve read one book a month this year and held 9 live book discussions with authors of the books in attendance. Nearly 1,000 readers from around the world have joined together to read the same book at the same time. We’ve all learned a lot about death, dying and the afterlife and have had fun in the process!
Teaching Guidelines for a Death and Dying Class – this free pdf was made available to hundreds of people interested in teaching about end of life issues. You can still get the Guidelines here.
Workshop on How to Teach a Death and Dying Class successfully helped launch dozens of classes around the country and culminated in 5 students creating online webinars, which you can view here.
Promoted Cathy Zheutlin’s new film “Living While Dying” as an excellent tool for teaching community members about death and dying. Learn more about the film here.
Co-hosted 3 teaching webinars that were very well received. If you missed these there’s still time to watch:
“End-of-Life Doula Training for Caregivers and Volunteers” with Suzanne O’Brien of Doulagivers.com. View the webinar here.
“Bridge Time: The Consequences of Change” with Jane Barton of Cardinalife.com; she talks about how caregivers can become more resilient in the face of change. View the webinar here.
“Collaborative Care for Caregivers: How to Ask for Help” with Jane Barton. View the webinar here.
The “best” interviews of 2018 (though they were all fantastic!);
Hansa Bergwall talking about the WeCroak app he created for smart phones that reminds you of your mortality 5 times a day. Listen here.
Dr. Bob Uslander who has pioneered a new concierge model of end-of-life care, which could be a game-changer for the medical system and how we help patients navigate their last days. Listen here.
Alua Arthur of Going With Gracetalked about the legal issues that can occur after death and how to prepare for them in advance. Listen here.
Deanna Cochran RN and Suzanne O’Brien RN both talked about the creation of the End-of-Life Doula Council by the NHPCO and the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance, which now provides certification training for doulas. Listen to Deanna’s interview here. Listen to Suzanne’s interview here.
Jonathan Bartels RN discussed The Medical Pause which he initiated to show respect after the death of a patient at his hospital and has now spread around the world! Listen here.
