Latest / Adventures in Adversity: an inspirational podcast / Ep. 78: What if we could face death, not fear it? 1:1 with Death Doula & Writer Niki DiGaetano

Transcript

Ep. 78: What if we could face death, not fear it? 1:1 with Death Doula & Writer Niki DiGaetano · Adventures in Adversity: an inspirational podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back episode 78. My mind is blown.
• 0:05
  I'm so happy that I get to sit down yet again with another
• 0:09
  guest. If you have never heard of this
• 0:12
  podcast and you're tuning in, welcome.
• 0:14
  Thank you so much If you are returning, thank you so much.
• 0:18
  Thank you to both of you, all our listeners.
• 0:22
  This is episode 78 of Adventures and adversity.
• 0:25
  This podcast is a podcast where we are lucky enough to feature
• 0:30
  real people who tell true stories about how they have
• 0:35
  overcome or are currently overcoming adversity in their
• 0:39
  own life. And I always say there's many,
• 0:41
  many forms of adversity. And I think there's probably no
• 0:45
  human or animal that is immune to adversity in life.
• 0:50
  So I'm gonna stop babbling and I would love to introduce my next
• 0:55
  guest, Nikki. And I'm gonna Nikki, I'm gonna
• 0:59
  tell. I'm gonna let you pronounce your
• 1:01
  last name 'cause I didn't want to say it wrong.
• 1:04
  Yeah, my name is Nikki Digitano. It's a really hard last name to.
• 1:07
  It's a great last name, though. It's Digitano.
• 1:10
  It's very, it rolls off the tongue.
• 1:12
  I just don't want to mess it up. Thank you so much for being
• 1:15
  here. Thank you for having me.
• 1:17
  I'm excited, Bree. Yeah, and so for those of you
• 1:20
  who don't know, I'm sure some of you listening do know Nikki,
• 1:24
  'cause I know that you've got fans and friends and family out
• 1:27
  there. You are Nikki.
• 1:30
  You are a death doula. By passion.
• 1:33
  Unfortunately it's not my full time day job, but it's what I do
• 1:38
  when I can do it, and it's work that keeps my soul alive.
• 1:43
  Wow, that's incredible. And and this is the part where I
• 1:46
  just want to I'm going to read off just some stuff about you
• 1:50
  and like what you do. So people get a little bit of a
• 1:53
  glimpse into you at right before we talk about your story.
• 1:56
  So in your Instagram, which will be in the show notes here, you
• 2:00
  offer grief support, you're a death doula, you're a writer,
• 2:05
  you're a backpacker. And I love your Instagram handle
• 2:09
  that numbered days dot doula. And I think we got connected if
• 2:15
  I'm via well, obviously via Instagram, right?
• 2:19
  But was it? Was it a few weeks ago that we
• 2:21
  connected? Yeah, I think, I guess you must
• 2:24
  have run an Instagram ad recently, 'cause I saw your
• 2:26
  podcast and I said Adventures in Adversity.
• 2:28
  What a title. Let's click on that and see what
• 2:29
  that is. Thank you.
• 2:31
  Ads are working. I was like, you know what, I
• 2:34
  gotta, I gotta, I gotta go fishing and see if this whole
• 2:36
  thing is working. And I was like.
• 2:37
  Instagram ads are great. Thank you, God.
• 2:40
  OK, so we connected via something on Instagram and I
• 2:44
  remember when I saw that either you had something, there was
• 2:48
  some interaction and then I was like, oh, 'cause I every time
• 2:52
  I'm like, oh, who's who, who's listening to my like I'm like
• 2:55
  every time. And it said numbered days.
• 3:00
  It was numbered days, numbered days dot doula.
• 3:03
  And I was like, honestly, I remember thinking, OK, I'm
• 3:07
  following her immediately and I have to talk to her.
• 3:12
  I just, I, I'm so I have so much respect for people who do what
• 3:19
  you do and for so many reasons. But before I get into just like
• 3:24
  throwing compliments and all that stuff, why don't you
• 3:27
  explain to people what, what you mean by that?
• 3:31
  And then we'll kind of just rewind and go into your story
• 3:35
  and, and go with the flow. What is a death doula?
• 3:38
  Yeah, so a death doula is A, and here's the formal definition, is
• 3:42
  a non medical trained companion who assists people at the end of
• 3:47
  life and they can assist at all stages of the end of life
• 3:50
  process. So it could be after someone
• 3:52
  dies, in which case there's grief support.
• 3:54
  It can be while someone's dying, it can be before someone dies,
• 3:57
  in the weeks before they're like holding their hand, they're
• 3:59
  sitting bedside, kind of the things you imagine a Hospice
• 4:02
  volunteer or Hospice chaplain doing.
• 4:05
  And then death doulas can also assist way before the end of
• 4:07
  life. So like someone my age or
• 4:09
  someone your age can hire a death doula to talk about fears
• 4:12
  around death, to plan out your funeral, to get your affairs in
• 4:16
  order. I love that phrase because
• 4:18
  everybody says it, but no one actually knows what the hell it
• 4:20
  means. And it's like, more importantly,
• 4:22
  nobody ever actually does it. So people say now people say
• 4:26
  they don't want to be a burden at the end of life.
• 4:28
  People say they don't want this, they don't want that.
• 4:30
  Just shoot me, take me outside. Well, one of the ways we quote,
• 4:34
  UN quote, aren't a burden if we have to use that horrific
• 4:37
  language is we get the affairs in order.
• 4:41
  We make these preparations so that people in the aftermath of
• 4:44
  your death aren't shattered by grief and trying to figure out
• 4:47
  what kind of funeral you wanted. It's already outlined.
• 4:50
  And so duos can help with that. Duos can help with the grief at
• 4:52
  the end. So they're just a very holistic
• 4:54
  companion at the end of life. And then just a caveat.
• 4:58
  I said non medical and that's because duos aren't Hospice
• 5:01
  nurses so they will never give medications.
• 5:04
  They'll never prescribe, they'll never diagnose.
• 5:07
  That's outside of the realm of what a death doula does.
• 5:10
  But short of that, we do a lot of things.
• 5:13
  Amazing, amazing. Hold on one second.
• 5:15
  My son just walked in one one second.
• 5:18
  I'm so sorry. Right in, right in.
• 5:19
  Hold on back. Sorry.
• 5:30
  It just says, you know, recording, right?
• 5:35
  Yeah, that's all right. OK.
• 5:39
  I'm so sorry. I I I told you, Yeah.
• 5:42
  No screw UPS. Like you said.
• 5:44
  You're right, no screw ups as I'm like frustrated.
• 5:46
  OK, so why don't why don't we just do that again?
• 5:51
  That part because I feel like I feel like I didn't give your
• 5:54
  your attention. I'm so sorry.
• 5:56
  Totally here. OK, so you had said, I had said
• 5:59
  like, what is a death doula? And I'm going to just make you
• 6:01
  say it again. I'm so sorry.
• 6:02
  Totally. OK.
• 6:03
  Yeah. So a death doula is the formal
• 6:05
  definition, is a non medical companion who is trained to help
• 6:09
  people at all different phases of the end of life process,
• 6:12
  whether that's before someone dies and that could be weeks
• 6:15
  before, days before, years before that could be during the
• 6:19
  death, that could be after the death, in which case the
• 6:21
  supportive death doula provides can be grief and managing that
• 6:24
  process. And like the after care
• 6:26
  preparations for the body. I also went down a whole long
• 6:30
  earlier. I was going down this whole long
• 6:32
  rabbit hole about death. Death tool is helping people
• 6:36
  getting their affairs in order because everybody talks about
• 6:39
  quote UN quote, being a burden at the end of life.
• 6:42
  And the way that we address that partly is to plan your funeral,
• 6:48
  document your wishes, document these medical wishes so that
• 6:52
  when your loved ones are shattered by grief and their
• 6:54
  emotions are all over the place, this stuff has already been
• 6:57
  outlined and they can be a little bit more comforted
• 6:59
  knowing that they did things according to our wishes.
• 7:03
  And then I think I was also saying that death doulas are non
• 7:06
  medical. And that just means that we are
• 7:08
  not Hospice nurses. So we do not give medications,
• 7:12
  we do not prescribe, we do not diagnose, we do not treat.
• 7:16
  Short of that, we do a lot of things.
• 7:18
  Lot of things it's in and I was reading a bit about it
• 7:22
  beforehand and and the only reason I have a a tiny window
• 7:26
  into this is one of my previous guests Ben, he wrote a musical
• 7:31
  called life review, the Hospice musical and he's a former
• 7:37
  Hospice chaplain. He's just hilarious turned
• 7:43
  music. He wants to be on Broadway and
• 7:45
  he's just a great guy. And so got a little insight into
• 7:49
  the whole team that and, and I guess it obviously depends on
• 7:53
  the person, the situation. Maybe they don't have people
• 7:57
  with them. Maybe they have a whole team of
• 7:59
  people at all. I I mean, you must, there's so
• 8:02
  many questions I have, but again, I'm getting, I think I'm
• 8:05
  just so intrigued. And so like I, I, I don't know
• 8:09
  if you get this a lot where people are just like, wow, like
• 8:12
  because it's such a, it's a, it's a the one guarantee in
• 8:16
  life, right? We are all going to pass on and
• 8:21
  I feel like it's one of those things that everybody's very
• 8:24
  scared of a lot of people, right?
• 8:27
  And when you said getting your fares in order, it actually
• 8:30
  makes perfect sense to do that stuff ahead of time because it's
• 8:35
  like that will ease the pain of, you know, that's one less thing
• 8:39
  they have to worry about. Right.
• 8:40
  It's a lot harder to do that when you're literally in the
• 8:43
  process of dying. It's a lot harder to do that
• 8:45
  when you're dead and you're and you're people are having to deal
• 8:48
  with this after you're dead. So yeah.
• 8:49
  It's it's yeah. OK, so let me ask you this,
• 8:53
  Nikki, and we'll go into your day-to-day of what you do.
• 8:57
  Was this something being a death doula?
• 9:00
  At what point in life did this cross your mind for the first
• 9:04
  time? This is kind of why it resonated
• 9:08
  with your podcast title is because I think I came to it
• 9:11
  through adversity. So the short answer is I came to
• 9:15
  death do a work in 2019 slowly. I was a Hospice volunteer first
• 9:21
  for about 9 months right before COVID hit.
• 9:25
  And what was happening is I had just graduated with my
• 9:30
  bachelor's degree in unrelated fields to advertising,
• 9:33
  marketing. That's my day job, still is.
• 9:36
  I've had that job for like 8 years now.
• 9:38
  I've been in this industry and I, I got like one year in, I got
• 9:42
  hired right out of college. It was like the dream situation
• 9:45
  for a fresh graduate being told the economy sucks and life is
• 9:47
  terrible and if you get a job, everything's great.
• 9:49
  And I did that. I did the job, everything was
• 9:50
  great until a year later and it wasn't.
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  And I realized that, Oh my gosh, I just started becoming obsessed
• 9:56
  with this imagery of like running on this hamster wheel
• 10:00
  every day doing this exact same thing until I died.
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  And I was like, I mean, then it's like conveyor belt that
• 10:06
  takes me to my casket. I'm just still going to be doing
• 10:08
  this thing. And I don't like it.
• 10:09
  And it's fine. I don't hate design.
• 10:12
  I don't hate advertising. But I've started to feel that it
• 10:15
  was very hollow and empty and just the idea of mass
• 10:18
  consumerism didn't feed my soul. It fed my belly.
• 10:23
  It fed, it paid the bills and it's a needed field for that
• 10:27
  because it supports me and I'm good at it.
• 10:29
  But I started to become very, very dissatisfied.
• 10:32
  I started careening back towards a lot of mental health struggles
• 10:36
  that I had wrestled with for a lot of my life.
• 10:41
  And it was starting to be back in that territory of like, let's
• 10:44
  kill myself. I don't, I wasn't actively
• 10:46
  suicidal at that point, but I had been there.
• 10:48
  And I can feel myself being like, if I don't figure
• 10:50
  something out, this is going to get bad really fast.
• 10:53
  And yeah, so I just started wildly searching for like self
• 10:59
  help articles and podcasts and books and I, I texted a friend
• 11:03
  who happened to just be like a similar person to me.
• 11:06
  Like we were both searching souls and that very unsatisfied
• 11:09
  the status quo. And I'm like, how's how's
• 11:11
  graphic design going for you, bud?
• 11:12
  We, we were like college classmates.
• 11:14
  And I'm like, I'm having a bit of a time here.
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  And his response was, you know what?
• 11:19
  My dad actually is a recruiter for this Hospice location near
• 11:22
  you. He's a little off kilter.
• 11:24
  Like, I know Hospice is kind of a weird thing, but if you're
• 11:26
  looking to volunteer or just get your get do something different,
• 11:29
  I could hook you up with my dad and that is kind of how I got
• 11:33
  involved in Hospice care. One conversation, but it's it's
• 11:37
  like AI thank you for first of all, thank you for sharing that.
• 11:43
  I always appreciate when a guest is vulnerable with like having
• 11:48
  had mental health stuff myself and I just, I really appreciate
• 11:52
  the vulnerability because I know you just saying that right now
• 11:56
  makes somebody out there feel heard.
• 11:59
  Like, OK, Like it's just a lot of us, not all of us have the
• 12:05
  human condition where sometimes you hit a point in life where
• 12:10
  adversity where you just those thoughts come and you and I just
• 12:14
  appreciate that you're being so candid about that.
• 12:18
  I'm a pretty candid person. You're going to find out pretty
• 12:20
  crazy. I think it's.
• 12:21
  Wonderful, I'm it's wonderful. It's great and and being that
• 12:25
  like that despair, right has LED you somewhere.
• 12:29
  I love how you said feed, feeding your belly, feeding your
• 12:33
  soul. Both are needed, right?
• 12:37
  You need your belly fed, but they're not the same.
• 12:41
  Not always. Yeah, like, I'm, I'm fine to do
• 12:44
  this work, but I also realize, like, and I've been chugging
• 12:47
  along in this industry just fine.
• 12:48
  My soul is good now because I figured out that I could do
• 12:50
  both. And I could nurture my inner
• 12:53
  world and I could also nurture the physicality and speak to the
• 12:55
  financial need of, you know, stability and safety.
• 12:59
  And it was possible to do both, but it took me a long time to
• 13:01
  figure that out. Yeah, so take me through and
• 13:05
  take me through. So you said yes, and kudos to
• 13:08
  your friend for what a beautiful suggestion.
• 13:12
  Like, yeah, that's it. Not only did it change your
• 13:15
  life, but like, that's a really he he it was it was a guy,
• 13:20
  right? He said he must be and and his
• 13:22
  dad must be cool people. Yeah, they they are you.
• 13:25
  Know what I mean? Like if you're working in a
• 13:28
  Hospice, I think you have some empathy and you're you've done a
• 13:31
  little soul searching. I would, I would think.
• 13:34
  Yeah. So you say yes to that.
• 13:36
  Did you really have any idea what you were saying yes to?
• 13:38
  Like volunteering like you kind of did?
• 13:40
  Right. I kind of did.
• 13:41
  My grandmother went through the Hospice process, so I kind of
• 13:45
  know what that entailed. I've been in nursing homes
• 13:50
  before a lot as a kid. I'd play like flute with my
• 13:53
  brothers. We had like a little band going
• 13:55
  and we'd go to visit the the elder care facilities and just
• 13:58
  hang out. So I knew what the conditions
• 13:59
  were like in there. I knew the Hospice wasn't always
• 14:01
  done in nursing homes. It was also done in people's
• 14:04
  actual homes. And right around the time that I
• 14:08
  started volunteering, that's kind of when I discovered Death
• 14:10
  Dual was and that was by accident.
• 14:13
  So I had been doing a lot of that reading online for self
• 14:15
  help articles and I think the algorithm started giving me just
• 14:19
  more of that. And once I dived into Hospice, I
• 14:23
  stopped searching for like self help articles and I stopped
• 14:25
  started looking for things like end of life jobs, Hospice jobs,
• 14:28
  end of life careers, like what, what, what, what is all of that.
• 14:32
  And through that process, I eventually came upon a death to
• 14:34
  a training through the University of Vermont held
• 14:38
  online. And I'm like, oh, I don't know
• 14:40
  what this is, but this sounds really cool.
• 14:42
  I read about it and I'm like, I'm, I'm in.
• 14:44
  It seems like he was very much complimentary to the Hospice
• 14:46
  work that I was doing. And a lot of death duo trainings
• 14:50
  very strongly suggest that you all, actually, some of them
• 14:53
  require that you get some Hospice volunteering before you,
• 14:55
  you know, hang your shingle and say I'm a duel now.
• 14:58
  So I thought it just kind of made sense.
• 15:01
  So you OK, So tell me what? Tell me what that experience, I
• 15:07
  mean for someone out there who might not know what, what is a
• 15:12
  Hospice setting typically like? And I actually, I have been in
• 15:18
  that Hospice setting as a visitor twice, once when I was
• 15:21
  very young. And but I don't I, I would like
• 15:24
  to understand a bit more too when you say Hospice.
• 15:28
  Yeah. So Hospice is like, it's like a
• 15:30
  mode of care. It's setting is kind of an
• 15:32
  interesting word, but it's like a type of care that you receive
• 15:35
  when a doctor tells you you have six months or less to live.
• 15:39
  And that care, again, like I was saying, can be offered in a
• 15:41
  hospital. It can be offered in a nursing
• 15:43
  home. So if you have like a grandma
• 15:45
  who's old and she's in a nursing home and she has dementia or
• 15:47
  whatever, it can be offered in the home.
• 15:49
  So if it's maybe grandma is is like sick and dying at home, or
• 15:53
  maybe maybe more tragically, there's like a person who's
• 15:55
  younger who's receiving care at home and they could receive the
• 15:58
  Hospice care there. And Hospice care is usually
• 16:00
  comprised of a Hospice nurse, a Hospice chaplain, a Hospice
• 16:05
  social worker and Hospice volunteers.
• 16:07
  And those four groups kind of make up the compendium of care.
• 16:11
  And it's usually some, it's usually it's some.
• 16:13
  So let me actually back up. For example, Hospice care,
• 16:16
  unlike the typical medical landscape, aims to provide
• 16:20
  comfort at the end of life. We're kind of accepting the fact
• 16:24
  that we're not going to do any more of those quote UN quote,
• 16:25
  heroic measures to save somebody.
• 16:28
  Not that cure, not that treatment and managing of a
• 16:31
  disease can't still be had because you can't.
• 16:33
  I've seen patients take like medications and stuff, but like
• 16:37
  invasive surgeries wouldn't be a thing in Hospice as much or
• 16:40
  invasive like tons of tons of chemo, for example.
• 16:43
  It's more of like here's pain management.
• 16:45
  You're not really feeling great. Instead of telling you you can't
• 16:48
  have this pain drug because you have to get ready for your
• 16:50
  surgery or whatever, you can actually have this pain Med and
• 16:53
  you can feel a lot better and you can be more present with
• 16:54
  your loved ones and you can feel like human again for a while.
• 16:59
  And so they, they'll have like a nurse that comes in every day or
• 17:03
  every couple days. It's not all, it depends on kind
• 17:05
  of the person, the patient. I believe we'll have a social
• 17:08
  worker come in like, again, it's kind of somewhere schedule like
• 17:10
  every couple days, once a week, whatever the schedule is.
• 17:13
  Same with the chaplain and the volunteers.
• 17:15
  And so as a Hospice patient, you're entitled to all of this
• 17:18
  and Medicare pays for it. It's like something that you get
• 17:20
  the government mostly does something right for a change.
• 17:23
  They. Interesting.
• 17:27
  So Yep, that makes sense. And I'm kind of picturing now my
• 17:31
  other guest Ben, like he would be on that team as like a
• 17:34
  Hospice chaplain and then OK. And then Yep, the visitors,
• 17:40
  'cause I remember I have a core memory of visiting a, a friend's
• 17:44
  mom and just being like, oh, what is this place?
• 17:47
  I think I was 15. And I'm like, oh, this isn't a
• 17:50
  hospital, but it's OK. This is like, and I think that
• 17:54
  was my first glimpse into OK, they're take like taking care of
• 17:59
  you as you transition out of life and it's such AI mean.
• 18:06
  I know death is very hard and tragic in a lot of ways,
• 18:10
  obviously, but it for me, it's the reason why I wanted to talk
• 18:15
  to you is because I think what you do is literally bringing in
• 18:19
  like light and love and comfort into the, a situation that is
• 18:25
  like, there's no worse adversity for me.
• 18:29
  You're dying, right, Even though it's your time and or maybe it's
• 18:34
  not your, it's, it's, I can't think of a tougher situation is
• 18:38
  what I'm trying to say that that you're assisting with.
• 18:43
  So I, it's, I commend you for that and I'll say it a few
• 18:49
  times. So.
• 18:53
  You mentioned something earlier that I actually want to veer off
• 18:54
  course and discuss. You said like in the very
• 18:57
  beginning of Recall your, you said like, oh, wow.
• 18:58
  I just keep like rambling or I keep saying like, oh, wow.
• 19:01
  Or do you get that all like, oh, wow.
• 19:02
  And when you said that, I thought to myself, yeah, people
• 19:04
  are kind of surprised by this work.
• 19:06
  And it's kind of interesting to me that they are because like
• 19:09
  then you also said, but death is the one guarantee, right?
• 19:13
  So if people are amazed by this work that I do, and yet we also
• 19:16
  know that it's the one guarantee.
• 19:17
  So like, why are we amazed when you're talking to a death doula?
• 19:19
  You know what I mean? It's totally because it's like
• 19:23
  we, you know what it is? I wonder, and I'm sure you have
• 19:25
  a few things to say about this. It's almost like we know it's
• 19:30
  guaranteed, but we we just don't really want to face it.
• 19:35
  That's why. And I saw one of your reels or
• 19:36
  even I think something just, or maybe we talked about it where
• 19:40
  you're like, I think we talked about it before we hit record
• 19:43
  it. Part of what you do is like help
• 19:45
  people get their affairs in order.
• 19:47
  And some people are like, it's like, why are we doing that?
• 19:50
  We're alive. Why are you being so dark?
• 19:52
  You know, like we're not dead here.
• 19:54
  Why are we planning? And it's like, but you will be
• 19:57
  for sure. That's the only thing we know in
• 20:00
  taxes, death and taxes. In taxes.
• 20:02
  Seriously. And you have an accountant, so
• 20:03
  why not have a death doula? Or you know what I'm saying.
• 20:06
  Yeah, I get that a lot. Like, people look at me and they
• 20:08
  say that I'm very young, and they joke and they tease and
• 20:12
  they giggle and they laugh and they say, Oh my gosh, are you
• 20:14
  planning to die soon? You're so morbid.
• 20:16
  And I'm like, no, but I know many people who are my age or
• 20:21
  younger who are dead through accidents, through violence,
• 20:24
  through suicide, through tragedy.
• 20:27
  And there are also old people who are dead.
• 20:29
  We're all gonna die. And it might not be as expected
• 20:32
  as grandma passing away in her sleep, which is what we all hope
• 20:35
  for, but not always what we get. And so like, if I die tomorrow,
• 20:39
  I I'm like naughty and I don't have my, my own.
• 20:42
  I'm working on my getting my own documents.
• 20:43
  I'm I'm like halfway done but. Because a lot of people, other
• 20:46
  people's in order, which is really.
• 20:48
  Nice for sure. And but it's like if I die, like
• 20:51
  my fiance doesn't know how to get into the bank account, like
• 20:54
  the passwords aren't documented, things like that.
• 20:55
  Like you wouldn't know where the power bill necessarily is.
• 20:59
  So it's like getting stuff like that just kind of documented and
• 21:04
  written down and like here's what I want done with this.
• 21:06
  Here's what I want you to do with that.
• 21:07
  Here's this, here's that, here's my wishes, here's all the
• 21:09
  logistical things that you need to function as a human after I
• 21:12
  died, because I handle some of these things on my own.
• 21:14
  So, you know, just, yeah, that was just kind of going off the
• 21:17
  route and speaking. But it's extremely practical and
• 21:21
  I think people don't want to look at death a lot.
• 21:26
  Maybe I mean, maybe I could be wrong and everyone listening
• 21:29
  could be like you're wrong. But I know I didn't want to look
• 21:32
  at death until very till till life and I just my whole I
• 21:39
  didn't I didn't want to accept the death.
• 21:41
  I was always afraid of it. Then I hit death.
• 21:44
  You know, adversity should hit the fan and you kind of start to
• 21:51
  look at everything. Once you once you hit a rock
• 21:54
  bottom, you're like, well, that was the worst.
• 21:57
  Let's face reality. Yeah.
• 22:00
  If I can face that, I can face reality.
• 22:03
  So and, and also the the one the other piece about this death
• 22:06
  conversation of like, yeah, it's uncomfortable and it's also
• 22:08
  practical to talk about it and uncomfortable and death is also
• 22:12
  very life affirming in the fact that it kind of sharpens the
• 22:15
  clarity and focus into like what matters Because like to, to make
• 22:19
  that woo woo like statement sound a little more relevant.
• 22:22
  I'll bring my fiance back into this.
• 22:24
  When he walks out the door, he he doesn't, he's not working
• 22:26
  right now. But when he walked out the door
• 22:27
  to his construction job, I would think to myself, what if he
• 22:30
  never came home? Like what if he had an accident
• 22:32
  on the job site? Do I want the last words to say
• 22:35
  to him to be some kind of nitpicky thing about the
• 22:36
  dishwasher? Maybe I'll just give him a hug
• 22:39
  and a kiss and say I love you and told him very, very tightly.
• 22:42
  And not that this would mitigate any grief if he died, but at
• 22:46
  least I wouldn't be kicking myself in the face saying, holy
• 22:49
  crap, the last thing you said to him was a nasty comment about
• 22:52
  the dishwasher. Do I still make nasty comments
• 22:54
  about the dishwasher? Absolutely.
• 22:56
  I do. I'm not perfect.
• 22:57
  But does just having that awareness make it so that I
• 23:00
  maybe do that just a little bit less?
• 23:01
  I think it does. So A. 100% it's the contract
• 23:06
  like it's seeing the the dark times in life and and looking at
• 23:12
  death and being aware of it when it makes the life more lively,
• 23:17
  more sharp, more it's it it provides a a great contrast.
• 23:23
  I think so. OK, so, and I'm gonna jump
• 23:28
  around here. So you your first, your first
• 23:32
  kind of entry into that world was through the Hospice
• 23:36
  volunteering after you were sort of disillusioned, like, and I
• 23:39
  totally understand that feeling of you don't want to be on the
• 23:43
  hamster wheel, right? Like you want to be.
• 23:45
  If you were to look at your life, you want to see this like
• 23:48
  person enjoying life and like going up down all around and
• 23:52
  falling, getting up versus I'd rather have it be messy in my
• 23:56
  own right. Like like at least you know it
• 24:00
  more alive, right. So you have that moment of
• 24:02
  realization, take me through like those first few experiences
• 24:08
  volunteering, if you can remember any, any experiences in
• 24:12
  that volunteer situation that come to mind for you.
• 24:16
  Yeah, I'd say so. I shadowed for a while and I
• 24:20
  don't know, I feel like there's some interesting commentary
• 24:22
  nowadays about the training that Hospice volunteers receive.
• 24:24
  It's not very standardized, so some programs will have really
• 24:27
  good training, some won't. I'd say mine was somewhere in
• 24:30
  the middle. Basically it was like, follow
• 24:32
  the chaplain for a day, follow the nurse, follow the social
• 24:34
  worker. Good luck, you're on your own
• 24:37
  now. Go visit people and it's fine.
• 24:39
  It's not like I'm expected to do much.
• 24:40
  I'm just supposed to sit there and chill.
• 24:44
  And so I followed around those three people.
• 24:48
  The chaplain was the last person I shouted and she introduced me
• 24:51
  to my first Hospice client. And it was a really sweet, sweet
• 24:56
  woman. And she actually did so well.
• 24:59
  I think I visited her for a few months and she did so well on
• 25:02
  Hospice that they discharged her, they kicked her off because
• 25:04
  she didn't die in six months. And that's actually kind of a,
• 25:07
  sometimes that's the thing that'll happen with Hospice
• 25:10
  care. They get, they almost start
• 25:11
  getting better because they're receiving like pain management,
• 25:14
  they're having their spiritual needs attended to, they're
• 25:16
  having their emotional needs attended to by just
• 25:18
  companionship with volunteers and the chaplain and the social
• 25:20
  worker. And that often it correlates
• 25:23
  with positive outcomes for Hospice.
• 25:24
  And so sometimes you'll see people get discharged.
• 25:27
  And that happened to her. She was super sweet.
• 25:29
  And then happened to another woman that I spoke with.
• 25:32
  And I loved that other woman so much that after she was
• 25:34
  discharged, I told my volunteer supervisor, I'm like, bro, I
• 25:38
  don't care. I'm going to keep visiting her.
• 25:39
  She doesn't. She's not in a nursing home.
• 25:42
  So there's no like, weird badges that I have to show.
• 25:43
  She lives in her house. So I can just, I can go.
• 25:46
  You told me I couldn't. You banned me from seeing the
• 25:48
  other woman after she was discharged because it's a very
• 25:50
  painful conversation to have with this old lady.
• 25:53
  And it was like a weird volunteer thing.
• 25:55
  And he's like, yeah, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have banned you from
• 25:57
  that. You can go go visit the other
• 25:59
  woman on your own time. Just don't log your hours.
• 26:02
  And she eventually did pass and that was very sad because I, I,
• 26:08
  I didn't know she, she got discharged with something she
• 26:10
  was doing so well that I was like, Oh my gosh, I forgot, I
• 26:12
  almost forgot for a minute that she was dying.
• 26:15
  So that was a lesson of like, you love people and they still,
• 26:18
  they tell you not to fall on all the patients, but it happens
• 26:20
  anyway. There were a handful of people
• 26:25
  that I visited that were later on in the dying process.
• 26:28
  And so they, they were non verbal, they were actively dying
• 26:32
  is what they call it. So they're, you know, within
• 26:34
  hours or days of death. That's just a natural thing.
• 26:36
  Humans just kind of get a little, we've kind of turned
• 26:39
  inward and we get sleepy and we get comatose and we don't talk.
• 26:42
  And that is when, in my opinion, you can still offer presents.
• 26:46
  And that is what I did. I just kind of sat quietly and
• 26:48
  read a book or hung out. But in my opinion, like I looked
• 26:53
  at Hospice and I loved what I did.
• 26:55
  And I also looked at Hospice and I saw that the workers were so
• 26:59
  overrun. And I saw that some of these
• 27:01
  clients were entering Hospice like way too late because
• 27:03
  everybody's afraid of Hospice, everybody's afraid of death.
• 27:06
  And so they, they, they show up to Hospice care like 2 days
• 27:08
  before they die. And then they don't get those
• 27:10
  like socio spiritual emotional benefits from like being able to
• 27:14
  talk to the chaplain and the volunteers and, but not because
• 27:18
  they're actively within days of death.
• 27:22
  And I looked at all that and I said to myself, I, I do want to
• 27:25
  keep doing this. And also, I'm in this death dual
• 27:28
  training and I'm learning the death duos can help way beyond
• 27:32
  just the bedside moments. They have that spectrum of care
• 27:36
  that comes far before death and far after death.
• 27:39
  And I was really attracted to both of those pieces.
• 27:42
  So yeah, that sounds like yeah, to to have an experience and
• 27:48
  then actually see gaps and then have that moment where you're
• 27:52
  like, wait, I can potentially fill those and like help people.
• 27:57
  That's really cool. And I, I was doing a little bit
• 28:01
  of research just about general about the process of dying and
• 28:04
  you mentioned that there are just a little bit of background,
• 28:07
  there are phases of dying and was it three or five phases?
• 28:12
  Is it like there's like active or it depends on the patient?
• 28:15
  Right. It kind of depends on the
• 28:16
  patient, at least in the at least what I was trained in or
• 28:19
  what I'm aware of. They just call it active dying.
• 28:22
  Sometimes the word is transitioning and that is it's
• 28:25
  hard to even put a time for Monica.
• 28:26
  It's different for every person. I've seen it take, I've seen it
• 28:29
  take like 2 weeks. Like after the person gets, he
• 28:32
  stops eating, they stop drinking, they fall comatose and
• 28:35
  they, they can linger for like a couple weeks.
• 28:37
  Normally it's not that long. Normally it's a couple days.
• 28:41
  And that's just the body's process of like the organs are
• 28:43
  shutting down. Everything's kind of, you know,
• 28:45
  coming offline. You you mentioned stages, almost
• 28:49
  wonderful thinking of stages of grief, which is a different,
• 28:51
  right? Yeah, and we can we can get into
• 28:53
  the grief part. So.
• 28:55
  OK, so you, I think it's interesting too.
• 28:59
  I literally never knew that people could potentially come
• 29:02
  out of Hospice. That is something new and
• 29:05
  amazing. That's really good to know.
• 29:09
  I want to get into, like I said, there's it's it's such an area
• 29:13
  where I think there's so many questions around death, right?
• 29:18
  The death within itself when you are sitting with a patient, can
• 29:25
  you kind of talk me through what is going through your mind and
• 29:31
  like what, what are you thinking about when you first are?
• 29:36
  Maybe, maybe we can start from like when you first are
• 29:38
  introduced to a patient that you know you're going to be with as
• 29:41
  a death doula, What it what goes through your mind?
• 29:44
  What's the process? So I'll, I'll back up here and
• 29:48
  explain my scope and the careers, my practice.
• 29:51
  And so right now while I do, while I am open to working with
• 29:55
  people who are dying. So that will be like the bedside
• 29:57
  care, like what you're saying. I haven't done that as a doula.
• 30:00
  I have done it in Hospice, but no one's actually hired me for
• 30:03
  that as a doula for a couple different reasons.
• 30:05
  And I'll explain why. Part of it's because I'm an
• 30:08
  advertised, part of it's because I had this really long gap
• 30:11
  between training and actually practicing part during which I
• 30:15
  went hiking for three months. And then also.
• 30:18
  Probably discovering life's. Yeah, there's a lot of in
• 30:22
  between that we haven't quite touched yet, but I'll, I'll
• 30:25
  answer your question in the sense of or sorry.
• 30:29
  So my scope is I mostly work with people who are grieving and
• 30:33
  I also work a lot of people who are writing their stories of
• 30:36
  their loved ones who are either already dead or they're still
• 30:40
  alive, but they're declining. They're probably on the way out
• 30:43
  and they're just trying to document the life stories.
• 30:45
  That's called legacy work. So that's primarily the two
• 30:47
  things I work in, but I definitely do want to work in
• 30:51
  the planning parts in the in the bedside care parts.
• 30:55
  It's just been difficult with like my job and everything else.
• 30:59
  But to go back to what you're saying and I'll just think about
• 31:02
  it from the Hospice point of view, you just kind of want to
• 31:07
  offer presents like it depends on where they are.
• 31:10
  But I'm going to guess if you were saying that they're like
• 31:11
  actively dying, they're not going to be able to really
• 31:13
  respond. However, the science says that
• 31:17
  hearing is one of the last things to go.
• 31:19
  So there is a chance that even if they cannot speak and they're
• 31:24
  not and their eyes are shut and they're not looking at you or
• 31:26
  blinking or anything, there is a chance they could hear you.
• 31:30
  So you could choose to maybe either speak softly, you could
• 31:33
  choose to read if if you if you know that this is something that
• 31:35
  they like because they've written it down or they said it,
• 31:38
  or that's your loved one. Like maybe they love reading
• 31:40
  like a particular book from the Bible.
• 31:43
  Maybe they love poetry. Maybe they like this particular
• 31:45
  song a lot. Maybe they've requested that you
• 31:48
  play this particular movie and just like listen to it in the
• 31:50
  background. Or if you don't know these
• 31:52
  things and like as a Hospice volunteer, I would go into these
• 31:54
  rooms not knowing anything about these people And I would just
• 31:57
  err on the side of, hi, my name is Nikki.
• 32:00
  I'm a Hospice volunteer. And this is kind of kind of kind
• 32:03
  of weird, but I'm here to just spend some time with you.
• 32:06
  If that's if that's OK. I'm going to sit here for a few
• 32:09
  minutes and they can't really say yes or no, but you, you, you
• 32:15
  do assume that if they're the kind of person who doesn't want
• 32:18
  that, that they've requested privacy before they've become
• 32:22
  and then like, and then at that point, like the Hospice nurse
• 32:24
  would tell you, hey, don't, don't go in there.
• 32:26
  They don't. They don't want anybody in
• 32:27
  there. Got it, got it.
• 32:29
  Which is helpful to have to know if the plan ahead of time,
• 32:32
  right, for sure you can just follow.
• 32:34
  That's such a beautiful. I actually, as you were
• 32:36
  explaining that or telling that story, I was imagining you
• 32:40
  walking in and like, whether they, whether they can hear you
• 32:46
  or not, and I'm sure a lot of the times they can.
• 32:49
  What a, it's incredible for someone to do that for somebody.
• 32:55
  Do you know what I mean? In their final hours And like it
• 32:58
  just, it's a, it's just a really great reminder of like presence
• 33:04
  is sometimes just enough like someone next to you, someone I
• 33:09
  just, it's just a really, I think it's so needed in in
• 33:13
  today's world, like just to sit with somebody, be like, I don't
• 33:16
  know you, but we're both human and I'm going to be dying one
• 33:20
  day. And so I'm going to sit with you
• 33:22
  and make this experience as as best as possible.
• 33:27
  And hopefully someone will do that for me.
• 33:29
  Yeah. And, and like, that's one reason
• 33:31
  I really again, like gravitate towards the dual work and like
• 33:33
  even end of life care work. That was before the person felt
• 33:37
  comatose and like was actively kind.
• 33:39
  Because then I would know if they had documented it or if I
• 33:42
  was the one who knew them personally.
• 33:44
  Like, oh, here's what I can do when they're actively dying.
• 33:47
  I'm not just sitting there perch like an awkward little, like
• 33:48
  it's not always awkward. It's I'm trivializing a little
• 33:51
  bit, but it's, it's nice to have that knowledge of like this is
• 33:55
  definitely what would bring them comfort.
• 33:57
  Because for me, I I've thought about my own death.
• 34:00
  I'm like, if I am dying and I'm still aware that I'm dying, but
• 34:03
  I want to be able to hear stuff. I want to listen to like the
• 34:05
  Lord of the Rings soundtrack. I love those.
• 34:07
  The film score is gorgeous. And now it come from me and
• 34:11
  inspire me. So yeah.
• 34:13
  And like a Hosta sponsor wouldn't know that unless they
• 34:17
  know. Exactly.
• 34:18
  Yeah, it's a beautiful. Honestly, I'm going to think
• 34:24
  when we are done talking, there's going to be so many
• 34:26
  things I'm thinking about, but logistically I'm going to be
• 34:28
  like, huh, I can write that down pretty quick.
• 34:31
  Like I, I kind of know I just have never really written it
• 34:34
  down, you know? Yeah.
• 34:36
  So thank you for reminding of that.
• 34:39
  And so it's it's a presence. And then when you were in the in
• 34:43
  Hospice and when you're working with people now too, just
• 34:47
  documenting all of that, how do you find like when you were in
• 34:51
  the Hospice specifically, you probably you met people, family
• 34:57
  members, friends of the person in all kinds of emotional
• 35:01
  states, right? Or was it?
• 35:03
  Was it? Honestly, I feel like I do that
• 35:05
  more now in my dual work in in my Hospice volunteer work.
• 35:08
  If I saw a family member in there, I often wouldn't go in
• 35:11
  the room because I'm like, I don't want to disturb their
• 35:14
  time. I don't remember if I was ever
• 35:16
  taught that. I might have been explicitly,
• 35:18
  but I also might just felt like, you know, I don't, I'm, I'm not
• 35:21
  their daughter. I'm not going to impose myself
• 35:24
  into their sacred time. So I would you should just be
• 35:27
  like, all right, I'll tell my volunteer supervisor, hey, I'm
• 35:29
  not doing this shift because the daughter or the family members
• 35:32
  there. So I left.
• 35:33
  Yeah, and you read energy and you probably are like, I'm sure
• 35:36
  you're like whether they're telling you or not.
• 35:39
  But have you encountered like now when the work you're doing,
• 35:43
  'cause you're people are, you know, writing memoirs, all that
• 35:46
  stuff, right. Like their their story.
• 35:49
  How do you see? I guess my, my, I'll be a little
• 35:52
  more clear with my question. What kinds of emotions do you
• 35:57
  see around death? Like if you've got a sense like
• 36:03
  how, how are people looking at death these days based on you,
• 36:05
  what you've experienced? Depends on the person, depends
• 36:10
  on the environment and what you ask.
• 36:11
  If you go ask a death duel on Instagram, you'll get some
• 36:14
  really hippie, progressive, beautiful answers, very holistic
• 36:19
  answers. If you go ask just the regular
• 36:20
  Joe on the street, it might be a little more difficult of like,
• 36:24
  kind of like what you were saying earlier, like, oh, I kind
• 36:26
  of just don't want to talk about this or this is really scary or
• 36:29
  this is just yucky. For clients who come to me to
• 36:34
  work on memoirs for their loved ones or just like they're not
• 36:37
  always memoirs. Sometimes they're smaller.
• 36:38
  They're like photo books. If the client can't, isn't
• 36:41
  capable of interviewing, which I've had that happen before,
• 36:44
  they come in like so members are very happy to work with me to
• 36:49
  document the story, to give their loved one voice.
• 36:51
  There's also often a lot heaviness.
• 36:54
  I, I did, I was very privileged to witness it like a
• 36:59
  transformation like within this family of a couple different
• 37:01
  siblings when they hired me to tell one of their parents
• 37:04
  stories and just being able to talk to them because I actually
• 37:08
  didn't interview the dying person because that person at
• 37:10
  that point was beyond interviewing.
• 37:12
  But I interviewed the siblings and I interviewed the spouse and
• 37:14
  I interviewed like the sibling of the person who was dying.
• 37:17
  And they told me after, like, this was good for us to do this,
• 37:21
  just to like, relive all these happy, happy memories of my
• 37:24
  parent or of a parent and remember that that this person
• 37:27
  is more than the person that they're, that they are now like
• 37:30
  this shell who is slowly diminishing and shutting down.
• 37:34
  And they they were hardened to remember that this person was
• 37:37
  once a vivacious, full of life, incredible caretaker, provider,
• 37:42
  nurturer. I remember thinking, like, that
• 37:45
  was really cool just to see that they came to me and, like, a lot
• 37:48
  of angst and stress and feeling like that person's voice wasn't
• 37:51
  honored. And then in the end of it, they
• 37:52
  were like, yeah, it was really healing for us just to be able
• 37:54
  to talk about these stories. That is that is cool, that feeds
• 37:59
  your soul when you're like, you were a part of not only creating
• 38:05
  the story that lives on forever, right?
• 38:07
  But I think it was just beautiful by the way that you're
• 38:10
  like as a writer, like so much respect for that.
• 38:12
  And then just to help a family, like through not only a death,
• 38:19
  but like, families are complicated, you know?
• 38:22
  Like. I don't care who you are, sorry
• 38:25
  if you if you say your family's not complicated.
• 38:27
  I'm like, how close are you if you're not a come on now.
• 38:31
  Yeah. And my, my family, we're all,
• 38:33
  I'm like crazy, but I, I just think it's because because the
• 38:39
  aspect like you, you handle obviously in the moment as a
• 38:43
  death doula, you will be handling like the actual process
• 38:47
  and comforting of that person. But I love that there's so many
• 38:51
  facets to your work that you're like, I can also help you with
• 38:56
  writing the story of your loved one.
• 38:58
  I can also help and you also help people in the death doula
• 39:03
  death like that industry create websites, right?
• 39:07
  Like what's cool is because you know all the the areas of it.
• 39:12
  I, I just have my interest just happened to intersect in some
• 39:15
  very beneficial ways. I mean, like I said, I'm a
• 39:17
  graphic designer. That's my day job.
• 39:19
  And I found out, oh, it's I, I, I very much can speak with this
• 39:21
  demographic because I don't need to research on a death duo as I
• 39:24
  already know. I know how to position us on the
• 39:26
  website because I do it myself. I know what good design looks
• 39:29
  like because that's what I do. And then for the writing and the
• 39:32
  memoirs and the books, I just have always loved writing and
• 39:37
  I've just always been creative. And I feel like doulas are
• 39:40
  inherently pretty people who wear many hats.
• 39:45
  I, I'm not an exception. There's a lot of the doulas I
• 39:47
  know do a million things some of them do like massage.
• 39:50
  They incorporate that into their practice.
• 39:52
  They incorporate Reiki or any kind of like energy going into
• 39:55
  their practice. They incorporate like Swedish
• 39:57
  death cleaning, like organizing the house after someone dies.
• 40:00
  And those are all things that I don't really do, but like I know
• 40:02
  I can list like fight for doulas who do all of those things.
• 40:06
  In addition to the oh, in addition to the just oh, we sit
• 40:08
  there while they die kind of thing, there is so.
• 40:10
  Many yeah, see, This is why it's cool.
• 40:13
  Like this is a whole world. And by the way, you even
• 40:17
  mentioning those things now, I'm like there's so there's I didn't
• 40:21
  know there's like support for you, for people that are dying
• 40:25
  and the people that are grieving and like, you know, our society
• 40:29
  like be tough. And obviously now mental health
• 40:32
  conversation, everyone's reaching out more, but there's a
• 40:36
  whole aspect of the when someone is dying or when you're
• 40:41
  grieving, that's a whole nother world, you know?
• 40:46
  And resources exist, but they're not they're not pushed upon us
• 40:50
  or spoken about as highly as other resources.
• 40:52
  And it's great that other resources are highlighted in our
• 40:54
  world. But I, I wish that there were,
• 40:56
  there was more care given to people who are grieving, who are
• 41:00
  grieving traumatic loss, who are grieving just regular like pet
• 41:03
  death, who are grieving the fact that grandma died just grief or
• 41:07
  death or any of it. And those resources, they exist,
• 41:09
  but they're like under a rock and you have to know how to find
• 41:11
  them. And it's hard.
• 41:12
  You don't know what you don't know.
• 41:14
  It's really interesting that you said pet death because and she
• 41:18
  will love that. I'm giving her a shout out.
• 41:20
  She's I'm interviewing a guest that is now following you since
• 41:24
  I posted. I posted a story about you and
• 41:28
  I'm connecting this. You'll be like, why are you?
• 41:29
  I'm going to bring it back in one second.
• 41:32
  The pet death reminded me of her because unfortunately she just
• 41:34
  lost her dog a few days ago and he's like cute is it?
• 41:38
  I'm interviewing her Friday because she has gone through
• 41:42
  some narcissistic stuff and all that.
• 41:44
  And then her and I was just looking at her stories like of
• 41:48
  her dog and you know, I love my dog and I'm like tearing up at
• 41:51
  the coffee shop and I'm like, I'm like, and then I saw she was
• 41:56
  following you and I thought to myself, I'm so glad she's
• 41:59
  following her because she's grieving.
• 42:01
  She's grieving this beautiful dog that has been her buddy
• 42:03
  through a lot of stuff. And then I thought about my.
• 42:08
  I think so because she I'm just like, thank you for bringing
• 42:11
  attention to like, I know I just took a pivot from people to to
• 42:15
  pets, but pets are a huge source of grief for people when you
• 42:20
  lose a pet. Mm hmm.
• 42:22
  They become. There's a lot of science in the
• 42:24
  grief world about like attachment figures.
• 42:27
  And so when parents die, everybody's like, oh, well, it's
• 42:29
  the, it's the natural state of the order that parents die.
• 42:32
  But then, and clients are going to be saying that and I'll
• 42:34
  remind them, excuse me. They're also a prime attachment
• 42:37
  figure that you've had for your entire life.
• 42:39
  And honestly, pets kind of not that they're our parents, but
• 42:42
  pets become that source of like an attachment figure in our
• 42:46
  brain cells, in our nervous system of like this little
• 42:50
  critter, this little soft fluffy love bug.
• 42:53
  I can hold on to him or her when I'm sad.
• 42:56
  And they like regulate me and they call me and they're part of
• 42:59
  my routines. Like I feed them, I walk them.
• 43:01
  And now all of a sudden, poof, they're gone.
• 43:03
  And if anyone thinks that's not a disregulating experience that
• 43:07
  brings up grief, then clearly they, they've never loved and
• 43:09
  lost a pet. I have, I still, I keep him, his
• 43:12
  little ashes on my shelf there. And I still can't read about the
• 43:15
  Rainbow Bridge without crying because I'm like my little cat.
• 43:17
  Oh, I know. I saw.
• 43:18
  When I saw she had posted a bunch of pictures and then that
• 43:21
  one I was like OK. OK.
• 43:23
  And my little guy's sitting right there and I, I have so
• 43:27
  attachment figure that is so interesting to me.
• 43:31
  So we all have attachment figures.
• 43:33
  Yeah, I'm not trying to say that pets are attachment figures.
• 43:35
  But I'm just trying to draw. It's mine.
• 43:39
  Yeah, well, I'm just like the the people have people are
• 43:42
  starting to agree that when parents die, like, yes, it's the
• 43:45
  natural order of life. And also it's still really
• 43:49
  friggin hard because of the fact that your brain has been wired
• 43:54
  to like look to them. I don't care if you're a grown
• 43:57
  up. I don't care if you're 50 years
• 43:58
  old when your mom dies, it's still a big deal.
• 44:01
  It's still a big deal to your body, to your nervous system, to
• 44:03
  your brain chemistry, to your to everything.
• 44:06
  And again, not the pets are that, but they can take up a
• 44:09
  similar role of like that attachment in your in your
• 44:12
  chemistry, in your body, in your cells.
• 44:14
  And so when they die, everybody minimizes always just a dog.
• 44:18
  And then that's when I, that's when I start talking about the
• 44:19
  grief Olympics, which is what happens when everybody's like,
• 44:24
  and this is kind of why I avoid grief groups.
• 44:26
  I, I'm sure that's something that some people love, but I, I
• 44:28
  personally prefer one-on-one care, but sometimes in grief
• 44:31
  groups, they can get away from productivity and it becomes the
• 44:35
  Greek Olympics where people are like, oh, well, your dog died.
• 44:39
  That's not as bad as my grandma dying.
• 44:40
  Oh, well, your grandma died. That's not as bad as my mom
• 44:42
  dying. Oh well, your mom died.
• 44:44
  That's not as bad as my child dying.
• 44:45
  And they just, it's just I people do that outside of grief
• 44:49
  support groups, that people do it to themselves.
• 44:51
  They invalidate their own stuff. And it's like, why don't we just
• 44:55
  say that everyone's grief is their grief.
• 44:57
  I'm not saying you go to someone who just had his child died by
• 44:59
  suicide and said that your pet is the same as that.
• 45:02
  I'm just saying that right now, in this moment for you, your
• 45:06
  grief of your pet is your grief of your pet.
• 45:08
  And you're allowed to feel sad about that.
• 45:11
  And you're allowed to cry your eyes out and feel horrible.
• 45:13
  Like there's no grief Olympics here.
• 45:15
  So. That's such a good term and I'm
• 45:18
  never going to forget that. Wow, it's not I can't.
• 45:21
  I can't claim credit. I've seen it in multiple places.
• 45:24
  I get a great Olympics. You're not like just feel the
• 45:28
  feeling because it's, it's real, because it's valid.
• 45:31
  Like it's just, yeah. You love the little critter,
• 45:35
  therefore it's valid. When you're in, the critter dies
• 45:37
  and you're really talking about it.
• 45:39
  We're human. We're human.
• 45:42
  Wow. OK, so you've got that's so
• 45:45
  interesting and cool that you've got that multifaceted aspect
• 45:50
  where you're doing design, you're you're helping out with
• 45:53
  like writing the the stories, you're counseling, you're
• 45:59
  supporting, you're helping people get their their ducks in
• 46:04
  a row. They're and tell me a little bit
• 46:07
  again, I'm jumping all over. Welcome to my brain.
• 46:10
  If somebody's listening and they're like, wait, I, I don't
• 46:13
  know if I'm ready to face Seth yet, but I do want to know what
• 46:16
  more of that get your ducks in a row thing.
• 46:18
  If I ever thought to do it, what would I have to do?
• 46:23
  Yeah, there's places where you can do that.
• 46:26
  You could go at fivewishes.org.com.
• 46:30
  You can check, I can check the link and give it to you.
• 46:33
  That's a pretty good resource. It's pretty thorough.
• 46:34
  It's like a little packet of things and it's the five wishes.
• 46:37
  The fact I can't remember what they exactly are, which is bad,
• 46:40
  but they're like, I wish to be like this.
• 46:43
  I wish I can't. I'll have to double check this.
• 46:45
  Cover all your bases. Yeah.
• 46:47
  And it's basically basically what it does is it outlines like
• 46:49
  preferences for medical care, like I wish to be free of pain
• 46:52
  or something like that, or I wish my medical preferences to
• 46:53
  look like this. And so there's a couple legal
• 46:56
  documents that you fill out in there of like, I don't know if
• 47:00
  you know what an advanced care directive is, but that's OK.
• 47:02
  Yeah, so that's part of it. There's it'll say like I'm
• 47:08
  trying to think about this. It can get really granular of
• 47:11
  like when when people are here's the people I want to visit me
• 47:14
  when I'm dying. Here's people who I maybe don't
• 47:16
  want to visit me when I'm dying. When you're visiting, here's
• 47:18
  what I'd like you to do. Maybe don't have your cell
• 47:20
  phones on or maybe don't take a phone call in the room.
• 47:23
  Or maybe like you can share happy memory if I can't talk or
• 47:27
  maybe leave politics at the door, you know, like little
• 47:31
  nitty Gritty's like that. And then more broadly, you could
• 47:34
  plan like a funeral. That's part of the end of life
• 47:36
  care planning process. I want to be cremated.
• 47:39
  I wanna be buried. I wanna explore green burial.
• 47:42
  Like, options that are not the typical.
• 47:46
  Yeah, try to think what else is there?
• 47:49
  Yeah, It can get pretty much as detailed as you want.
• 47:51
  Like, again, you can be like, here's the kind of soundtrack I
• 47:54
  wanna listen to. Here's the kind of music you
• 47:56
  should play when, like my mother has said that when I die, you're
• 48:00
  not allowed to wear black. You all got to wear yellow or
• 48:02
  something bright and you can carry flowers and no one's
• 48:04
  allowed to be sad. And I told her I'm like, well,
• 48:07
  OK, that's not. That's a very unreasonable.
• 48:09
  Request. I'm going to be messed up but I
• 48:12
  will do my best to wear pretty colors even though I'll be like
• 48:14
  deliriously sobbing the entire time but like things like that.
• 48:18
  And she hasn't really documented that, but I'm trying to poke her
• 48:21
  like, hey, we should probably maybe write these down because
• 48:23
  I'm not going to remember it when you're dead, so.
• 48:26
  She's like, honey, I know you'll take care of me.
• 48:28
  You're like, but you still got to write it down.
• 48:29
  Mom, I need. You.
• 48:30
  Yeah. And like they and they've also
• 48:34
  verbally told me things about like their finances and their
• 48:37
  assets and where they want that to go.
• 48:38
  And I've told her point blank. I've said do not tell me that.
• 48:41
  Put that in a will you need to go talk to someone because I'm
• 48:44
  not going to remember when that happens.
• 48:46
  I also don't want to be on the hook when that happens.
• 48:48
  Like my word against my dead mother's words.
• 48:51
  This seems to be documented. She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 48:52
  I'll do it. So yeah, for sure.
• 48:55
  It's so it's the, if you want to go as, hey, I just want the,
• 48:58
  the, the five bases covered. You can do a go check that out
• 49:03
  or you could get as detailed as you want.
• 49:05
  But I think the the take away for me of what you're saying is,
• 49:09
  is if you're somebody who's a planner, even if you're not, or
• 49:14
  if you're somebody who would like to make it easier on the
• 49:17
  people around you should anything happen And when
• 49:20
  something happens, not should when it does, why not plan that?
• 49:25
  If you're planning all your vacations and you're planning
• 49:27
  your stocks and your, your meals and your getaways, why not just
• 49:33
  plan one more thing real quick? You only have to do it once.
• 49:36
  For sure. And then like a quick caveat, I
• 49:39
  don't know if I mentioned it yet, but dualists are not
• 49:40
  attorneys. So for things like, for things
• 49:43
  like the will, like a state that would be like go hire an estate
• 49:46
  attorney. But what the tools would do is
• 49:48
  they could facilitate like, hey, you should probably go hire an
• 49:50
  estate attorney. They're the ones who tell you
• 49:52
  there's connections of like if you want me to research someone
• 49:55
  near you, I can do that. It's up to you to go to the
• 49:57
  appointment. But like we're the ones who tell
• 50:00
  you, oh, this is what needs to happen next.
• 50:01
  And it's like a step by step chart as opposed to we don't
• 50:03
  always do all of it. There are certain things like
• 50:06
  I'm saying like the medical and the legal, they're out of our
• 50:07
  realm, but we can be like, here's what you need to go do.
• 50:11
  It's a checklist. Well, and it's like, I, I've had
• 50:14
  two kids and the first time I heard the word doula was about
• 50:17
  10 years ago. Maybe maybe I'd heard it, but I
• 50:19
  didn't really know what it was. And then when I was pregnant
• 50:22
  with my son doing classes and stuff, they're like, oh, you can
• 50:25
  get a doula. And I'm like, oh, what's a
• 50:28
  doula? And then like, oh, you, that's
• 50:31
  really cool. Like someone to be there,
• 50:33
  they're not medical, they're not legal, but they're going to your
• 50:37
  baby coach, your baby, your, I'm sure I'm saying all the wrong
• 50:41
  things, but it's makes sense that why not have support when
• 50:47
  you're having the baby and then why not have support when you're
• 50:51
  grieving or when we know we're all going to go through that.
• 50:57
  Like that's my biggest qualm is that we have birth doulas and
• 51:00
  people do know about them. Not, not, not as much as I would
• 51:03
  think, but people we have birth doulas, but we don't have death
• 51:07
  doulas. And if we do sometimes work,
• 51:08
  sometimes they're like end of life doulas.
• 51:10
  And I'm like, no, no, no, no. We don't call birth doulas
• 51:12
  beginning of life doulas. We call them birth doulas.
• 51:15
  I am a death doula. Yeah, different strokes,
• 51:18
  different folks. Some people have their reasons.
• 51:19
  I'm not here to judge, but I feel very strongly about that.
• 51:22
  Yeah. Myself anyway the.
• 51:24
  Two most important, well, not maybe not most important, but
• 51:28
  the the entry point to life and the exit or the transition,
• 51:32
  whatever, whatever you want to call that, that just so
• 51:38
  important. And I know after this
• 51:40
  conversation too, like I'm not going to think about things the
• 51:43
  same way. I'm already like, I'm already
• 51:45
  like this is this happens every week.
• 51:47
  I'm like, I have to change a lot of things.
• 51:49
  Like I just I learned so much from every guest.
• 51:52
  So we've talked a bit about what you do.
• 51:56
  And again, if anyone listening would is intrigued and would
• 51:59
  like to know more than we can cover because we can't cover
• 52:02
  everything you do in one episode.
• 52:04
  But please check the show notes because there's all kinds of
• 52:08
  information and I've loved watching your reels too.
• 52:11
  And just you answer questions. You kind of talk through like
• 52:16
  misconceptions or things where I'm like, oh, you really give
• 52:20
  people insight into things surrounding death, grief, how
• 52:27
  society views it, how to cope. You just like open the door for
• 52:31
  conversation about this really scary topic for a lot of people
• 52:37
  that paralyzing for a lot of people, right?
• 52:41
  What are your, and again, I know as a death doula, you respect
• 52:45
  everybody's thoughts on death, I'm sure.
• 52:46
  And like what whatever their beliefs are spiritually like,
• 52:50
  how would you describe your view of life and death?
• 52:53
  Like how do you look at life? How do you look at that like?
• 52:57
  And again, there's no I hope that's not too invasive of a
• 53:01
  question. I look at it with curiosity and
• 53:04
  with a sense of it's OK to not know because I just won't know.
• 53:08
  I I am Christian. I'm also questioning things and
• 53:19
  I think I've come to the conclusion that I don't have to
• 53:22
  know all I have to do it all I'm called to do.
• 53:25
  As someone who like loves Jesus and tries to be a Christian
• 53:29
  who's not, one of the horrible ones is I think I'm called to
• 53:34
  not know the answers to all these things and not necessarily
• 53:36
  know what happens to me after I die.
• 53:37
  But I just am called to love people and serve as best as I
• 53:41
  possibly can. I definitely, this is kind of
• 53:45
  off track, but I definitely love that phrase.
• 53:47
  The serenity prayer. What was it?
• 53:49
  Give me the courage to change what I can.
• 53:52
  The wisdom or the gosh, I've messed it up, it's OK, except,
• 53:57
  yeah, it's right. It's trying to accept the things
• 53:59
  I can't change and the wisdom to know the difference exactly,
• 54:03
  totally. I do resonate with that a lot.
• 54:05
  Yeah, And you know, I too, I, I was raised Catholic and again,
• 54:09
  like I've had people of all faiths on this podcast and I
• 54:13
  love that. I love, you know, I myself was
• 54:17
  raised Catholic and then just kind of like traditional, kind
• 54:21
  of like, you know, East Coast and then we went to church, but
• 54:23
  it was very cultural kind of. And I would always look at Jesus
• 54:27
  with like this big thing and being awe, but not really
• 54:30
  connecting. Like and then I've gone through
• 54:33
  a big, big spiritual transformation where I've had
• 54:37
  some amazing experiences. But I love hearing about
• 54:40
  everybody's views because we all like, I think we're all like,
• 54:46
  wake up at some point in your life and we're like, wow, I'm
• 54:48
  here like today, like, what is all this like, what are we doing
• 54:53
  right? Like, And I personally feel a
• 54:56
  connection in the last year to Jesus and such.
• 55:01
  Curiosity though, like that is such the word where I'm like,
• 55:05
  I'm just beginning to get to know this guy Jesus and like
• 55:09
  just curiosity about what other people think, what they've
• 55:13
  experienced, curiosity about the Bible, curiosity about different
• 55:17
  religions. Like so it sounds like, yeah, I
• 55:21
  mean you, it's not something that death obviously is is on
• 55:27
  your mind and and you're helping people through it.
• 55:31
  But I always just like to kind of get to know how people view
• 55:35
  it because the truth is we all, we all have to have that faith
• 55:39
  of some sort, right? I think there's faith in
• 55:43
  something. Maybe it's faith in not knowing,
• 55:44
  faith in in connections with humans, like whatever that is
• 55:49
  for you, you know. Oh.
• 55:50
  Yeah, I definitely describe myself as a person of faith for
• 55:52
  sure. It's just sometimes that
• 55:54
  definition shifts. Sometimes the definition doesn't
• 55:56
  mean what maybe a, you know, an an evangelical Baptist who's
• 56:00
  very entrenched you might think it means, and that's fine.
• 56:02
  That's not that's not necessary. There's to know it's mine to
• 56:05
  carry and mine to hold. And I I one of the biggest digs
• 56:09
  against Christianity or faith in general is when when people
• 56:13
  fixate on the people bypass the whole death conversation because
• 56:17
  they're like, oh, well, heaven's a thing.
• 56:19
  And OK, you know, I'm not going to debate whether or not it's a
• 56:24
  thing, but people will be like, it's fine.
• 56:27
  This, this, this sucks. And then there's heaven or like,
• 56:29
  it's fine. I don't know.
• 56:31
  Like they'll just use it as a way to avoid the stickier
• 56:33
  conversations around death, around impermanence, around
• 56:37
  being a good person and living your life here now.
• 56:40
  Because it's like, oh, I got a life better that's coming up.
• 56:42
  And I'm like, OK, and you're also here.
• 56:46
  What are you going to do with that?
• 56:47
  I don't know if I think you're missing the point of what Jesus
• 56:50
  and God and all of them said. If you're just looking to get
• 56:53
  out, get out of earth and go to heaven, and I'm like, you're
• 56:57
  kind of missing the point. But that's just my thoughts.
• 57:00
  I just find it's a bit. It can get a little bit
• 57:03
  interesting. At that point, yeah, that's a
• 57:05
  great point. And why not?
• 57:07
  Like if you do believe that you're going to go to heaven,
• 57:11
  why not make the the road there is beautiful as possible and as
• 57:16
  painless as possible, Not only for you, but I think just had a
• 57:21
  realization. If you are making plans and and
• 57:24
  they know everyone around you knows what your plans are, they
• 57:27
  can maybe exhale a little bit knowing that, hey, I know this
• 57:31
  is awful, but her plans are definitely being like, I'm
• 57:35
  seeing them unfold and this is right on track.
• 57:38
  At least we have that. A lot of grief that I see with
• 57:41
  clients after, you know, someone's died, like a good
• 57:44
  amount of it is guilt and shame that has nothing to do with the
• 57:46
  death. But it's it's like, oh, well,
• 57:48
  this didn't happen the way like what what if, Like what if this
• 57:51
  wasn't what they wanted or I did this wrong or I don't know if I
• 57:54
  did this right. And it's just like the second
• 57:56
  guessing and the swirling around of brains that happens is not,
• 57:59
  not that that's going to be completely ameliorated if people
• 58:02
  document their wishes, but it could be reduced a little bit.
• 58:06
  I've seen. Why not one less 1 less thing,
• 58:12
  right to have to, to grieve or or have shame about whatever
• 58:17
  that whatever that feelings might be.
• 58:20
  Gosh, I, I mean again, it, it's I'm just really glad that I
• 58:26
  already even. I think the more we talk about
• 58:29
  it too, like the more you talk about something.
• 58:32
  And on this podcast, I'm not one to shy away from topics that are
• 58:36
  not, you know, in the daily vocabulary.
• 58:39
  I think in fact, I welcome that even more because I think if
• 58:44
  people are avoiding talking about it, there's there's a
• 58:47
  resistance and a fear that obviously needs to be addressed.
• 58:52
  You can still feel fear and talk about it as a doula.
• 58:56
  People are often like, Oh well you've got all your death shit
• 58:58
  figured out, you've got all your grief shit figured out.
• 59:00
  No, I cry a lot because of grief or I'm scared because of death.
• 59:06
  And I'm still trying to face those things in the ways that I
• 59:09
  face them. And I, I feel like my education
• 59:12
  and my training gives me a bit more of a heads up on how to do
• 59:15
  it. But I still don't know the
• 59:17
  answers. And I'm still human and the
• 59:18
  feelings are still there and I'm still sad.
• 59:20
  So yeah, for sure. Talk to me about.
• 59:24
  That's such a good point because it's like just because you have
• 59:28
  studied and you have been in situations around death and you
• 59:33
  talk about it to people does not mean that you're immune to the
• 59:37
  anxiety around it that comes or the, you know, those feelings.
• 59:41
  Talk to me about grief. Like I know there's many stages
• 59:47
  of grief. I'm just going to let you talk
• 59:50
  to me about grief and how you think about grief.
• 59:55
  You feel grief when you've loved a lot.
• 59:58
  Obviously that goes to that saying.
• 1:00:00
  It's almost impossible to avoid grief, I think because of that
• 1:00:03
  fact, whether it's pets or seasons of life that you're
• 1:00:07
  grieving or old identities that have died.
• 1:00:09
  I've grieved those things. I've grieved people who have
• 1:00:12
  died. I there's also anticipatory
• 1:00:14
  grief, which is when you know that someone is going to die.
• 1:00:18
  Usually it's like an old, an older parent who's declining and
• 1:00:21
  you're getting ready, Oh, this is it.
• 1:00:22
  Maybe a year. Then this isn't going to last I
• 1:00:27
  feel like. I am steeped in that kind of
• 1:00:29
  constantly just anticipatory grief with my loved ones who I
• 1:00:33
  know are older. And it can get very difficult,
• 1:00:39
  especially when I talk to clients who poke at that thing
• 1:00:41
  because they are wrestling with something similar or because
• 1:00:44
  they're talking about like parent death.
• 1:00:47
  And I'm like, this feels like how I'm going to I don't want to
• 1:00:51
  cry in my client session. I'll just do that afterwards.
• 1:00:55
  So yeah, it's a very broad question with, I guess a very
• 1:00:58
  broad answer. I mean, I've grieved the fact
• 1:00:59
  that I'm adopted. Like I'm Chinese and my last
• 1:01:03
  name, my Italian last name that's hard to pronounce is my
• 1:01:05
  dad's, who's a good old Italian boy from Jersey.
• 1:01:09
  And my mother is a southern gulf in Florida.
• 1:01:11
  And they couldn't have kids and they adopted back when China had
• 1:01:15
  the one child policy 30 years ago.
• 1:01:19
  And so sometimes I, the other day I was sad because I'm like,
• 1:01:21
  I'm never going to have the same face as my mother.
• 1:01:24
  I won't get the gift of getting older and seeing her smile on my
• 1:01:30
  face. So when she dies, I won't be
• 1:01:32
  able to like my friends will have that.
• 1:01:35
  My fiance will have that with his family.
• 1:01:37
  And that it's like little things that people don't even think
• 1:01:39
  about because they're just used to looking like their parent.
• 1:01:43
  And they complain that, oh, my mom, I have my mom's buck teeth
• 1:01:45
  or have my mom's stupid fat thighs or something nasty about
• 1:01:48
  themselves. And I'm like, it's kind of a
• 1:01:51
  gift. I don't have that.
• 1:01:52
  And I'm kind of sad about it. You know, there's like little
• 1:01:56
  things like that come up again, like anticipatory grief, just
• 1:02:01
  random things. And you just kind of sit with it
• 1:02:03
  and go with it. There's really no way to
• 1:02:05
  sometimes you're just like, yeah, I'm having a griefy day.
• 1:02:08
  It's not debilitating me. I, I haven't lost someone that
• 1:02:13
  it's not like I lost my partner. I walked with my grandfather
• 1:02:16
  through his death. I saw him pass.
• 1:02:18
  That was very sad. I feel like, I feel like I've
• 1:02:20
  had a lot of grief that stems from regret actually.
• 1:02:24
  Again, the older I've gotten, the more I miss him and the more
• 1:02:28
  I wish that I wasn't a bratty teenager when he died and I was
• 1:02:31
  and he was here now so I can tell him about the work that I'm
• 1:02:33
  doing cuz he'd be so into it. I'm so I grieve him and I feel
• 1:02:37
  like that grief has gotten sharper as I've gotten older and
• 1:02:39
  further away from his death. It's like the 10 year
• 1:02:41
  anniversary was this year or last year and instead of it
• 1:02:46
  fading or forgetting, it's gotten worse.
• 1:02:49
  And it's like, you know what, that's just how it is.
• 1:02:50
  It's it's not something I'm upset about, it just is.
• 1:02:55
  And if I have to cry about it, I'll cry about it.
• 1:02:57
  And I do. And I cry about a bunch of
• 1:03:00
  random griefy things. Does that answer your question?
• 1:03:05
  Very long thank. You no, and I know it was a very
• 1:03:08
  broad question, but I again want to thank you.
• 1:03:11
  I always thank my guests when thank you for sharing the fact
• 1:03:15
  that you're adopted. I've, I've had, I have a now a
• 1:03:20
  beautiful connection to the adoptee community because I've
• 1:03:26
  had, let's see, Julie Brumley, Wilson Munsterman, Jim Serrano,
• 1:03:32
  and I'm missing. Oh, let's see, gosh, if I'm
• 1:03:39
  missing, I've had at least three adoptees on the podcast and I
• 1:03:46
  just, I have learned so much about what what someone who has
• 1:03:53
  adopted goes through and grieves just from hearing their stories.
• 1:03:58
  And so you, you talked about your Italian dad and I think it
• 1:04:04
  must be that that is adversity even regardless that that's
• 1:04:11
  something that's very challenging.
• 1:04:14
  And, and I, I actually, I wasn't aware of that.
• 1:04:19
  And so thank you for sharing that.
• 1:04:20
  I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  Speaking of adversity, I feel like we still haven't talked
• 1:04:25
  about one of the main adversity reasons that I like that kind of
• 1:04:31
  true. And so like that the hike that
• 1:04:33
  kind of is connected to this death work in a weird way.
• 1:04:35
  I don't know if we even got into that yet.
• 1:04:37
  No, please, let's Well, no, I just there, we're going to like
• 1:04:42
  every one of my guests, like we're going to have a Part 2 and
• 1:04:44
  a Part 3 because you're going to have to come back, but talk to
• 1:04:47
  me. OK, So like you, oh gosh, so
• 1:04:50
  talk to me. You're a hiker as well.
• 1:04:53
  And so I'm I feel like that's a spiritual, a spiritual passion.
• 1:04:59
  Most hikers it was. One of the reasons that I didn't
• 1:05:01
  get the experience as a doula back in 2019, what part of it
• 1:05:05
  was because from 2019 to 2022, I just was crippled by imposter
• 1:05:11
  syndrome and I didn't feel like I could practice.
• 1:05:15
  So I just didn't. I read a lot of books.
• 1:05:18
  I did the trainings, and it was great.
• 1:05:19
  And I had all this knowledge, but I wasn't sure what to do
• 1:05:21
  with it. And I had quit Hospice
• 1:05:23
  volunteering at the time. And I was living in Baltimore
• 1:05:25
  with a guy who wasn't the best. And at some point he was like,
• 1:05:33
  hey, I need a break. This is kind of random, but get
• 1:05:36
  out. We're we're, we're going to take
• 1:05:38
  some time. And I'm like, oh, I mean, I knew
• 1:05:41
  we had some issues. I knew we fought a lot, but why
• 1:05:43
  didn't you dump me when we were fighting and not like when
• 1:05:45
  actually things are pretty OK. And during that break I was
• 1:05:49
  like, well, I'm homeless for a month.
• 1:05:51
  This sucks. But you know, if I'm going to be
• 1:05:55
  homeless, I might as well be homeless in the woods.
• 1:05:57
  So I'm going to go to the Appalachian Trail, which is
• 1:05:59
  something I wanted to do since I was a kid.
• 1:06:02
  I grew up next to it in in Pennsylvania of Jersey border.
• 1:06:06
  And so I'm like, I'm just going to go be homeless in the woods.
• 1:06:08
  That sounds like way more fun than being homeless in the
• 1:06:10
  office, being homeless on my brother's couch.
• 1:06:13
  I didn't want to go to my parents because I felt like
• 1:06:17
  ashamed of all that. It was just a big dumpster fire.
• 1:06:20
  And I said, the woods, that's where I'm going.
• 1:06:24
  And I figured I actually just got a break in my job where I we
• 1:06:28
  had hired someone else who was able to take over my duties
• 1:06:30
  while I was away. And I said, hey, listen, boss,
• 1:06:33
  I'm going to leave for three months.
• 1:06:34
  The Appalachian Trail takes six months.
• 1:06:36
  So I'm not going to try to do the whole thing, but I'm going
• 1:06:38
  to do half. See ya.
• 1:06:40
  Hopefully I'll have a job. Right.
• 1:06:41
  And he's like, yeah, you'll have a job.
• 1:06:43
  Just come back in three months. So I figured I would go from
• 1:06:47
  West Virginia to Maine, which is 900 miles.
• 1:06:51
  Oh, no, wait, no, that's West Virginia to the end of the
• 1:06:54
  Appalachian Trail. In the middle of Maine is 1100
• 1:06:57
  miles. I ended up not doing the full
• 1:06:59
  thing. I did 900 miles.
• 1:07:00
  I quit a little bit earlier than I planned, but it was enough.
• 1:07:05
  It was enough for me to honestly gain a lot of courage and to
• 1:07:09
  gain the strength and the guts, frankly, to 1 leave my
• 1:07:14
  relationship. And I found out he was cheating
• 1:07:17
  on me the whole time anyway. And to move across the country,
• 1:07:21
  because I decided that once I was in the mountains, I couldn't
• 1:07:23
  go back to Baltimore and see all the cement.
• 1:07:26
  I wanted to go be somewhere with big mountains, which is why I'm
• 1:07:28
  now in Salt Lake City, UT. And three, it actually gave me
• 1:07:32
  the courage to practice as a doula.
• 1:07:34
  I didn't practice until I got off the trail.
• 1:07:36
  Then I finally realized I can do hard stuff.
• 1:07:39
  I survived all these things. I walked from West Virginia to
• 1:07:42
  Maine. I think I can be a death doula.
• 1:07:44
  I have all the training. I just have to start.
• 1:07:46
  I just have to begin. I have to volunteer, do this for
• 1:07:48
  free for a while or something. And that's the truncated version
• 1:07:52
  of it. But yeah, it was it was the best
• 1:07:54
  summer of my life. That's so badass, actually great
• 1:08:01
  idea. Why not?
• 1:08:02
  If you're like, why not just do this now?
• 1:08:05
  And literally what a great place to clear your mind, right,
• 1:08:10
  right. And it's and it's funny you
• 1:08:13
  mentioned what sounds like it was a not a great relationship
• 1:08:18
  as far as like ultimately, right.
• 1:08:20
  Like did you have any realizations when you were out
• 1:08:25
  there hiking? Any moments when you were like.
• 1:08:28
  No, I was a big fat dumbass and I didn't and I was very clingy
• 1:08:32
  to him the whole time. And like honestly, the app was
• 1:08:35
  char, but I think it's really remote.
• 1:08:36
  But you do have cell service for a lot of it.
• 1:08:38
  But then we hit Vermont and that's actually a pretty rugged
• 1:08:41
  state. I didn't know it was going to be
• 1:08:42
  so empty. There's nothing in Vermont and
• 1:08:44
  the cell signal just evaporated. And not being able to call my
• 1:08:47
  partner at the time, like freaked me out.
• 1:08:48
  And I almost, I was like so close to just quitting and being
• 1:08:51
  like, I'm going home. I hate this.
• 1:08:52
  I miss my partner. It actually, I didn't realize
• 1:08:55
  things were bad until I came home from the trail and he was
• 1:08:58
  acting kind of weird and kind of controlling.
• 1:09:00
  And I thought, oh, maybe this is just my fault because I'm just
• 1:09:02
  used to being in the woods for three months.
• 1:09:04
  No one told me what to do. I get to decide when they sleep.
• 1:09:07
  I get to decide when to pee in the woods.
• 1:09:09
  Like no one is controlling anything.
• 1:09:11
  I didn't have a job at that time.
• 1:09:13
  And now I'm back and I can't handle deadlines.
• 1:09:14
  I can't handle my partner asking for reasonable things.
• 1:09:17
  But he wasn't asking for reasonable things.
• 1:09:19
  He was just getting weird. And I realized it was because he
• 1:09:21
  was dating another woman while he was dating me and neither of
• 1:09:24
  us knew each other, like knew about each other.
• 1:09:26
  So that's kind of why he was getting squirrelly.
• 1:09:28
  I'm like, Oh my gosh, once I found that out it made so much
• 1:09:31
  sense. I'm not just crazy.
• 1:09:33
  So no, unfortunately. I wish.
• 1:09:36
  I wish I knew on trail that this was a bad idea, but I had to
• 1:09:40
  come home and figure it out. No, the hindsight, right?
• 1:09:43
  The hindsight is 2020. I can definitely relate to that.
• 1:09:47
  Yeah, I'm now engaged to a guy I've met on the trail though,
• 1:09:50
  so. So that was the best decision
• 1:09:55
  ever. It was Yeah, we we've been
• 1:09:57
  dating for three years now and we're going to get married in
• 1:10:00
  2028. We're planning a wedding.
• 1:10:03
  So when you were on the trail, were you just like, did he like
• 1:10:06
  how did, was there a moment? How did you was it like hey need
• 1:10:11
  some water or like. No, he, he, he showed up.
• 1:10:17
  He showed up on the day that I, I, I hit 300 miles.
• 1:10:22
  So I was pretty seasoned. I was pretty strong at that
• 1:10:24
  point. And here comes this dude who had
• 1:10:26
  never really hiked. He was kind of out of shape.
• 1:10:29
  He hiked 20 miles on his first day with a pack that was like 60
• 1:10:31
  lbs, which is way too heavy. And he was not doing well.
• 1:10:38
  I was still with my partner. Technically.
• 1:10:40
  We were like, oh, OK, well, you're going to go on this hike
• 1:10:42
  and we'll come back and fix it. So I, I told this guy on the
• 1:10:45
  trail, I'm like, you know, you're really cool.
• 1:10:48
  No, it's just not. I kind of like you a little bit,
• 1:10:51
  but no. And we didn't do anything about
• 1:10:56
  that until we, until I came back and figured out I tried with the
• 1:10:59
  ex. And then I'm like, yeah, this
• 1:11:03
  there's something wrong here and I'm done.
• 1:11:05
  And then I'm like, oh, hey, I'm free.
• 1:11:07
  You want to. Hey.
• 1:11:09
  You want to get married one day? She's like, yes, yes, I.
• 1:11:12
  Do pretty much. That is awesome.
• 1:11:15
  I mean, that's poetic. That is beautiful.
• 1:11:18
  I got very lucky. Oh, that is cool.
• 1:11:22
  Well, from the way your face is and you're smiling right now, it
• 1:11:25
  it looks like he is bringing you some good energy, which is what
• 1:11:31
  you need and deserve in life, right?
• 1:11:34
  Like sometimes I say that I wouldn't be a doula without the
• 1:11:37
  trail and without him, because I with him, I found a safe place
• 1:11:40
  to try and to mess up because dual work is kind of scary.
• 1:11:45
  You know, like you're, you're, you're holding people's hearts
• 1:11:47
  in your hands and if you fuck up, you feel really bad.
• 1:11:50
  And, and I had a few bad experiences even in death dual
• 1:11:54
  work. And I was so scared to try and
• 1:11:56
  with him and just again, like this at the trail kind of helped
• 1:11:59
  me get ballsier. I'm like, yeah, I, I could have
• 1:12:03
  done this without that or him. And I'm like, thank you.
• 1:12:07
  So. It's, it's amazing to have
• 1:12:09
  somebody like I feel the same way with my husband that like
• 1:12:13
  I'll come out after this and he'll be like, how'd it go?
• 1:12:15
  And I'm like, great, He's like cool, you know, and then he's
• 1:12:17
  like doing something else or I'll be like, Hey, I'm, I'm
• 1:12:19
  recording. He's like, all right, cool, see
• 1:12:21
  ya. Or like guys, you know, and I'm
• 1:12:23
  like, cool it. It's nice to have that this
• 1:12:28
  place where you can exhale. A drama free support, especially
• 1:12:31
  after a bad relationship. It's like we both get that one.
• 1:12:38
  That is very true. Gosh, so cleared your head in
• 1:12:43
  the mountains and then kind of changed your life.
• 1:12:47
  And what I love is that what you said reminded me, like anyone
• 1:12:52
  who wants to start something like that conversation you had
• 1:12:55
  with yourself where you're like, listen, you just hiked.
• 1:12:58
  You just did all this. You kind of just like kept it
• 1:13:01
  real with yourself where you're like, you just got to do this
• 1:13:03
  and then you do this and then you do this.
• 1:13:05
  Like you break it down. This is what you're gonna have
• 1:13:07
  to do for a while and then this. And it's like you kind of just
• 1:13:11
  attack it. You know what you're like.
• 1:13:13
  If this is what I want, go get it right.
• 1:13:15
  The trail really helped me with that because I, I like a lot of
• 1:13:20
  the source and mental health stuff and just my biggest
• 1:13:23
  struggle in life, I think was the fact that I would always be
• 1:13:26
  the person who tried to live for tomorrow and tomorrow's plans.
• 1:13:30
  And I never ever could figure out how to just sink into the
• 1:13:32
  moment. Every week.
• 1:13:34
  It was like, oh, next Friday I could see my friends.
• 1:13:36
  Oh, in a month I'll be done with college.
• 1:13:39
  In a year, I'll be done with college.
• 1:13:41
  Don't do this, don't be happy. Don't oh, wait, you have to get
• 1:13:45
  a job first. Like don't, like I, I did not
• 1:13:48
  understand how to do a thing in the future and also not just
• 1:13:53
  completely obsessively go towards the thing.
• 1:13:56
  But then I figured out like when I was hiking, because that's a
• 1:13:58
  huge thing about hiking. I knew that this is the end
• 1:14:02
  goal. And there was a time in Vermont
• 1:14:04
  when I was hiking where I was like, Oh my gosh, obsessed with
• 1:14:06
  the goal. And I was so upset and furious
• 1:14:08
  and like having a hard time because I was going back from
• 1:14:11
  the stupid patterns that I had off trail and I brought them
• 1:14:15
  into the woods with me. I brought society's rules into
• 1:14:19
  the woods with me. And I realized, wait a second,
• 1:14:22
  if I just chill out. And the second I chilled out,
• 1:14:25
  man, the rest of my hike was amazing.
• 1:14:28
  It was like, wow, I know that I'm going towards the end.
• 1:14:30
  I know that it's coming, which is very similar to death work
• 1:14:33
  when you think of it. But I was able to be like, Oh my
• 1:14:36
  gosh, I'm so happy in these mountains.
• 1:14:38
  This is a really hard day today, but wow, it's so pretty and Oh
• 1:14:40
  my gosh, it's so awesome and this and that and this.
• 1:14:43
  And I got better at that when I, when I like, I took that lesson
• 1:14:47
  with me when I got off the trail.
• 1:14:49
  I'm like, OK, well, you can become a duo and you can choose
• 1:14:52
  to obsess about this again, or you can slowly purposefully chip
• 1:14:58
  away at these tasks like you were saying.
• 1:15:00
  But also you can't tie yourself forth into this.
• 1:15:03
  You can't, you can't only live when you become a death duo like
• 1:15:08
  and you're practicing death duo. You have to enjoy the process
• 1:15:11
  along the way or else you're just going to never live.
• 1:15:14
  You'll just be in the future and then you'll die and then you
• 1:15:17
  never, you just live for tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow
• 1:15:21
  moves. That's the whole point.
• 1:15:22
  It's called tomorrow for a reason.
• 1:15:24
  So yeah, when you said like attacking the stuff like that
• 1:15:26
  just reminded me of, Oh yeah, this is what I learned.
• 1:15:30
  It is it is so like you, you know, the end point, like it's a
• 1:15:36
  really good metaphor because I think whether you're trying to
• 1:15:40
  become something, whatever you're doing and like even with
• 1:15:43
  this podcast too, you know, like you, I have these goals in mind
• 1:15:48
  too. And then I'm like Bree, but like
• 1:15:51
  you're, you're, you're this is the beautiful part.
• 1:15:54
  Like, and you know, you, you even no matter what you're
• 1:15:58
  doing, you get or you're like, OK, well, must do.
• 1:16:01
  And you're like, yes, that's a great goal.
• 1:16:04
  But like every step and everything towards that goal is
• 1:16:07
  like, that's good too. It's really good.
• 1:16:10
  You're going to have realizations on the way to the
• 1:16:13
  thing, whatever The thing is. But like, what is the thing?
• 1:16:16
  Because when that thing's done, there's another thing.
• 1:16:18
  Yeah, right. It's it's the road leading
• 1:16:21
  there. Yeah, Who are you becoming when
• 1:16:23
  you're walking towards the thing that you're trying to get?
• 1:16:25
  That's that's what I took from it.
• 1:16:28
  That's what the that's what the hike taught me.
• 1:16:30
  That's what I think life has taught me.
• 1:16:31
  That's what I think death work is teaching me.
• 1:16:32
  And it's just helped me like be better at slowing down.
• 1:16:36
  And also the depression has never come back because I think,
• 1:16:39
  I think it was really connected to that problem I had of just
• 1:16:41
  always looking for tomorrow. And then when tomorrow came and
• 1:16:43
  it wasn't what I thought, I was just so upset and I just didn't
• 1:16:48
  know how to be happy. And so depression's like, hey,
• 1:16:51
  life sucks, you want to die? So yeah.
• 1:16:55
  Yeah, and and it's chasing a moment instead of or chasing
• 1:17:00
  some, some goal, right. But like, if you don't ground
• 1:17:04
  yourself in the moment, like you end up getting very depressed,
• 1:17:10
  you're either living back or forward, right?
• 1:17:13
  Like. It's it's so easy.
• 1:17:14
  I feel like everyone talks about like, oh, hustle culture sucks,
• 1:17:17
  Don't hustle. That's so bad.
• 1:17:19
  But but but then they also say things like, oh, well, you can
• 1:17:21
  just drift along and float around and everything's fine.
• 1:17:24
  Like, no, it's not. If you, if you just fool around
• 1:17:26
  with no goals, that kind of sucks.
• 1:17:27
  If you just obsessively pursue your goals, that also kind of
• 1:17:30
  sucks. So where's, where's the middle
• 1:17:33
  and all of that? Yeah.
• 1:17:36
  It's, it's like that balance, the quest for balance, right,
• 1:17:40
  the quest for balance in life. And then hopefully having like
• 1:17:45
  being prepared for and not dreading or fearing getting to a
• 1:17:50
  place where you can manage your fears around death like.
• 1:17:54
  But and they're all connected, right?
• 1:17:55
  So like 11 phrase that I love. I don't know if you studied, you
• 1:17:58
  mentioned religions and stuff, but Buddhism, they have this
• 1:18:01
  phrase. Yeah.
• 1:18:02
  Impermanence. Have you heard of that one?
• 1:18:03
  Yes. Everything you love you will
• 1:18:06
  lose. Everything you want you.
• 1:18:09
  Will lose, right? And that's a really depressing
• 1:18:12
  phrase. But one day I woke up and I'm
• 1:18:14
  like, oh, my gosh, The other half of that phrase, it's
• 1:18:17
  everything you love, you will lose.
• 1:18:19
  So what will you do right now? And that has helped unlock a lot
• 1:18:23
  of, like, the connection between death, work and life, work and
• 1:18:25
  like, living because, like, again, bringing it back to like,
• 1:18:28
  my fiance, he's going to die one day.
• 1:18:30
  Hopefully not anytime soon. Please God, no, But like what
• 1:18:34
  can I do right now to make the most of my time with him?
• 1:18:37
  And not saying like we're in a season of my 4.
• 1:18:39
  He's really busy. He just went back to school, so
• 1:18:40
  I don't see him that much. But when I do see him, can I
• 1:18:43
  choose to intentionally bring myself into the present with him
• 1:18:46
  instead of having my phone in my hand or thinking about the To Do
• 1:18:50
  List? Like no, I allocate my To Do
• 1:18:52
  List over here. And then when I'm here with him,
• 1:18:54
  I'm here with him. And that's like that
• 1:18:58
  impermanence piece. And also what will you do about
• 1:19:00
  it now piece? Yeah.
• 1:19:02
  It's that's rather empowering when you think of it.
• 1:19:04
  It's the acknowledgement and acceptance of that.
• 1:19:06
  But then you, you have a choice to like, actually make that
• 1:19:13
  moment something that you won't like, regret when it is actually
• 1:19:18
  gone, right? I'll still, I'll still, you
• 1:19:21
  know, your brains still do that. Like I've talked to clients
• 1:19:23
  who've had deaths of loved ones who have been quote UN quote,
• 1:19:26
  perfect deaths. They've been gentle.
• 1:19:27
  They've been lovely. And they still have regrets
• 1:19:29
  because the brain is still like, Oh my gosh, if I could have just
• 1:19:32
  controlled this one little piece.
• 1:19:33
  So I'm under no illusions that just because I have this high
• 1:19:35
  flute and philosophy that's going to make any of this any
• 1:19:37
  easier, it's still going to suck.
• 1:19:39
  When my fiance dies, when my mom dies, it's going to suck.
• 1:19:41
  Nothing I do is going to make that any better.
• 1:19:43
  And yet, can I still choose purposefully to try to make most
• 1:19:49
  of my time knowing that it's not going to really help when I'm
• 1:19:53
  deep in grief? But.
• 1:19:55
  You know that is like. It's nothing you do is going to
• 1:20:02
  like lessen, maybe lessen the pain, but it's like I like how
• 1:20:08
  you're highlighting that that the the way to it is feeling it.
• 1:20:14
  You got to feel it. You got to feel it.
• 1:20:16
  You can prepare. You can get the ducks in a row
• 1:20:19
  and then when it comes time, even even for a death doula,
• 1:20:23
  death is hard, even if you know everything about death and
• 1:20:28
  you're a human. For humans, that's hard, yeah.
• 1:20:31
  Human. Yes, for humans.
• 1:20:34
  But there are different ways we could think of it that can be
• 1:20:38
  different perspectives. It doesn't necessarily make it
• 1:20:40
  less hard, but it invites a different conversation to the
• 1:20:44
  mix Besides, oh, it's just hard. It's just hard and.
• 1:20:48
  Yes. And even if like, even if you,
• 1:20:52
  you know, have lived a lovely life and like you said that
• 1:20:56
  you're, you're most likely an important attachment figure for
• 1:20:59
  somebody, whether you believe it about yourself or not, right?
• 1:21:03
  Like I think all of us hold a place for somebody that we might
• 1:21:07
  not even like, feel worthy of, but like they're going to miss
• 1:21:10
  us when we're gone. And it's like, really beautiful
• 1:21:15
  to know that there are death doulas and there are grief,
• 1:21:19
  grief support, and there are people who will help you write
• 1:21:23
  someone's story. Like, that's so cool that like,
• 1:21:28
  death is getting death should get the same attention that life
• 1:21:31
  gets, you know? Yeah, especially since
• 1:21:34
  especially since to me, and the longer I study it, to me,
• 1:21:37
  they're very intertwined. To me, I think studying death
• 1:21:40
  helps me live better in my life. And I wish that that part, if
• 1:21:44
  nothing else, was highlighted about death.
• 1:21:46
  But. Studying, yeah, it doesn't make
• 1:21:49
  you like, like it. The more you learn about it,
• 1:21:52
  probably the sweeter things taste and the more beautiful the
• 1:21:56
  sunset might be at times when you're like, huh, this is
• 1:21:59
  impermanent, this is impermanent, This is passing at
• 1:22:03
  some point. Yeah.
• 1:22:06
  Nikki, I could talk to you forever.
• 1:22:08
  I'm looking up here. We're at an hour and 22 minutes.
• 1:22:11
  You're. As a.
• 1:22:12
  Rock start. No, it's a I guess there's and
• 1:22:16
  there's even there's so much more I don't wanna.
• 1:22:18
  We've barely scratched the surface.
• 1:22:21
  But the good news is is that anyone hearing this around the
• 1:22:24
  world, 'cause we are global, maybe anyone hearing this can
• 1:22:29
  reach out to. You can look at your Instagram,
• 1:22:32
  the links in the show notes, how they can contact you website for
• 1:22:37
  the variety of really, really necessary and just I think it's
• 1:22:45
  incredible the services you offer because it's such a taboo
• 1:22:49
  topic. I think it's really brave and
• 1:22:52
  and and oh, go on, go on Bubba, this.
• 1:22:56
  I need a studio. I'm doggy but.
• 1:22:58
  Like, I swear, I'm like, I'm like, it's gonna be fine at
• 1:23:01
  2:00. And then I'm like, there is a
• 1:23:03
  circus going on outside. It's fine.
• 1:23:11
  OK. Where was I?
• 1:23:12
  Sorry, I got totally distracted. I just, I just think it's very
• 1:23:15
  necessary and very admirable that you are accompanying people
• 1:23:20
  in a very difficult time. And I just think this episode, I
• 1:23:24
  think is going to put a ton of light on the support that is
• 1:23:28
  available for people. Yeah, there is support.
• 1:23:32
  It's just hard to just hard to find it.
• 1:23:34
  Hard to find now. I'm going to let you have the
• 1:23:37
  mic for the last minute here. Is there anything else in
• 1:23:41
  between my, you know, sporadic questioning, anything that you'd
• 1:23:45
  like to kind of leave the audience with before we we sign
• 1:23:49
  off here? I.
• 1:23:51
  Think these last two minutes have been really illuminating
• 1:23:54
  and just highlight at least on the piece that I most like to
• 1:23:58
  focus on, which is that aspect of, you know, death is hard and
• 1:24:03
  grief is hard. And no one is saying no one's
• 1:24:05
  minimizing those things. No one is toxic positivity, and
• 1:24:08
  those things we're just trying to say, or I'm just trying to
• 1:24:12
  say my whole shindig, is that we can hold space for that
• 1:24:16
  horrible, painful, difficult reality.
• 1:24:18
  And we can also welcome in the reality that because our lives
• 1:24:22
  are impermanent, because we die, because our loved ones die,
• 1:24:24
  because there is tragedy and it sucks, there is also a way to
• 1:24:31
  sweeten life and to sink deeply into the texture of life because
• 1:24:35
  you know it's not going to be here forever.
• 1:24:38
  You know your loved ones aren't going to be here forever.
• 1:24:40
  So go give somebody a hug. I think I don't know if you saw
• 1:24:43
  my Instagram real Bri I the the one about call your mom I.
• 1:24:47
  Saw that today. Call your.
• 1:24:48
  Mom Yeah. So everybody should go listen to
• 1:24:50
  that song. That was my comfort song for the
• 1:24:51
  entirety of last year. And I called my mom a few times
• 1:24:55
  and I texted her and I wrote her letters and I, you know, not
• 1:25:00
  getting down the rabbit hole of difficult relationships, but
• 1:25:02
  when able, we should say those things.
• 1:25:05
  Now I think that's a big lesson the death has taught me as well
• 1:25:09
  is just say them now because you don't know.
• 1:25:11
  I've talked to clients who they've received one phone call
• 1:25:15
  and that's it. Like their person is dead.
• 1:25:17
  And it was unexpected. It was an accident.
• 1:25:19
  It was violence. It was something something that
• 1:25:22
  they did not think, you know, I'll see you tomorrow.
• 1:25:25
  No, they won't see him tomorrow because they're gone.
• 1:25:27
  And it's a pretty frightening reality.
• 1:25:31
  It's one that can certainly induce anxiety, which it does in
• 1:25:34
  me occasionally. I've had to sit with that too.
• 1:25:38
  And so it's like, well, are we going to let it paralyze us into
• 1:25:40
  inaction and anxiety or are we going to let it make us do
• 1:25:44
  something with it while still being a little anxious?
• 1:25:47
  Because I'm still a little anxious of my fiance not coming
• 1:25:50
  home. So, you know, things like that.
• 1:25:52
  Because we love him. Yeah, and you never know, it's
• 1:25:55
  like, it could be everyone's like when I went on the
• 1:25:57
  Appalachian trailer. But it's like, oh, are you going
• 1:25:59
  to bring a gun? What about bears?
• 1:26:00
  Are you going to die? And I'm like thinking to myself,
• 1:26:02
  statistically, it's so much more likely to be to be killed
• 1:26:05
  driving to the grocery store 5 minutes away from my house and
• 1:26:08
  walking 900 miles to Maine because that's I, I, I drive
• 1:26:12
  through intersections and see some pretty horrific accidents
• 1:26:15
  and I'm like, oh, someone died. There's an ambulance there.
• 1:26:17
  There's a, there's a, there's a stretcher there.
• 1:26:18
  Someone probably is dead. Oh boy, that could have been me
• 1:26:21
  if I came here 5 minutes earlier.
• 1:26:22
  So just notice in those reminders and not letting them
• 1:26:26
  paralyze you but instead wondering where is the
• 1:26:28
  invitation in this? I love that.
• 1:26:31
  Where is the invitation in this well?
• 1:26:34
  The answer is probably going to be different for everybody, by
• 1:26:36
  the way. It might not look the same for
• 1:26:37
  you As for me or, you know, just depending on your circumstances,
• 1:26:39
  that's OK. Well, I Speaking of invitation,
• 1:26:43
  I invite all of you listeners to check out Nikki's page, check
• 1:26:49
  out the services she has to offer.
• 1:26:51
  If you're grieving anybody, right?
• 1:26:54
  Any, all grief, if, if you're griefing is I'm going to think
• 1:26:58
  of you. If, if today you're just grief,
• 1:27:00
  grief is griefing, then that is valid.
• 1:27:03
  And people like Nikki can, can help you through that.
• 1:27:07
  So you might, you might be getting a knock on your door
• 1:27:11
  from me actually to just plan some stuff.
• 1:27:14
  I mean, this is I'm just going to look at life differently now.
• 1:27:19
  We should get on zoom and talk in a non podcast form and just
• 1:27:21
  chat and see if we could like work together or like just chat.
• 1:27:25
  This has been really fun. I see.
• 1:27:27
  I think it's gonna be, I see some collaborations.
• 1:27:31
  My little brain, my hyper disorganized brain is like you
• 1:27:37
  could do so many. Things we should talk about
• 1:27:38
  podcast SEO at some point that's something that I know like for
• 1:27:41
  like marketing and that's the way to get your podcast like
• 1:27:43
  those goals you're talking about so we could we could chat about
• 1:27:45
  that too. I.
• 1:27:47
  Think you're going to be getting a message from me on that one,
• 1:27:49
  that's for sure. All right, well, with that, I am
• 1:27:53
  going to gratefully close episode 78 again.
• 1:27:59
  Nikki, thank you so much. I am so grateful to God, to
• 1:28:04
  everything, all the Instagram powers that somehow connected
• 1:28:07
  us. And you have such a calm energy
• 1:28:13
  about you that I just, I feel very at ease talking to you.
• 1:28:18
  And I think, not that I know anything about anything, but I
• 1:28:22
  can see why you're doing what you're doing because of just
• 1:28:25
  your whole, your whole energy. It's just a beautiful thing.
• 1:28:30
  So thank you. Yeah, This has been great,
• 1:28:32
  Brian. It's been so fun.
• 1:28:33
  I love talking about this stuff. And you're such a, like,
• 1:28:36
  vivacious, lively host with such good questions.
• 1:28:39
  Yeah, this is great. Hey, I'm learning I got some
• 1:28:42
  imposter syndrome up in here so thank you for that one.
• 1:28:45
  Oh gosh, no, no I wouldn't. We all struggle, right?
• 1:28:51
  All right, guys. Well, I am.
• 1:28:52
  I'm signing us off here and thank you so much for being
• 1:28:55
  here. Until next time.