When We Die Talks

This week's caller was diagnosed with a terminal illness at eight years old. They have never not known that death was part of their life.They are an actor, a writer, a reader, a person who rescues snails and keeps a pet millipede and loves sharks because they understand what it feels like to be misunderstood. They are also someone who has spent their entire life figuring out how to live fully inside a body that makes that complicated.This is a conversation about what it looks like to choose life, loudly, intentionally, and without apology, when death has always been in the room.We talk about the guilt of knowing you're going to hurt everyone who loves you, the difference between being afraid of death and being afraid of dying, and why so much of how we portray terminally ill people in media gets it completely wrong. We also get into what they hope they can do once they're gone, why they want to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival even though their doctors would disagree, and the one thing they still want to experience before they die, which is not what you'd expect.In this conversation:The difference between fearing death and fearing the process of dyingWhy "you don't look sick" is something we should all agree to stop sayingThe guilt of knowing your death is going to hurt the people you love mostBook recommendations: Reverie by Ryan La Sala; I Fell in Love with Hope by LancaliMore book recommendations from past episodes: View the full listVideo Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTubeNemosené: Your Life StoryA guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week's caller is a pediatric nurse who has been around death long enough to stop fearing it and start getting curious about it.They lost their father to suicide as a teenager. A few months later, they were the one doing CPR on their childhood best friend after an accidental fentanyl overdose. They were sixteen. They didn't become a nurse because of those losses exactly, but those losses made them someone who couldn't look away.This is a conversation about what it looks like when death becomes a daily presence instead of a distant fear, and what a person builds out of that.We talk about what it's like to have a job where you see about two people die every week and what your mind does to keep moving. We get into reincarnation through a video game analogy that is really fascinating, the difference between what you believe and what you hope, and why this caller's fear isn't death itself. It's leaving people behind. We also hear the story of a man who died alone because he'd told his children he never wanted to see them again, and what he asked this caller to pass on.Content note: This episode includes a brief mention of suicide and accidental overdose. Neither is dwelt on at length.In this conversation:What it actually feels like to watch someone die and how nurses keep moving afterThe three-lives theory: reincarnation, Mario, and why deja vu might mean somethingWhy their fear of death is really a fear of what they'd leave behindWhat a dying man asked this caller to tell people, and why she still hears his voiceBook recommendation: Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontëMore book recommendations from past episodes: View the full listVideo Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the Nemosené: Your Life StoryA guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This one is different.When We Die Talks is built around anonymous conversations — people calling in to talk about death, dying, and what they think comes next. No names, no faces, just honest conversation. This episode breaks that format entirely, and I think once you hear it you'll understand why it had to.Don Sires was one of the very first guests on this podcast. Over a year ago he sat down with me, not anonymously, by his own choice, and talked about living with ALS, his Baha'i faith, and what he believed waited on the other side. That episode, Episode 8, became one of the most listened to conversations this show has ever had. It's still the one I get contacted about the most.A few weeks ago Don texted me. His nurse had given him four to six weeks to live. And then he asked if I wanted to do a wrap-up interview.That's very Don.I went to his home and we sat down one more time. This conversation is quieter than the first one. Slower. The Don you met in Episode 8 is still very much there, the curiosity, the warmth, the willingness to go deep, but you'll notice the difference. He wanted to wrap things up, offer some final thoughts, and leave something behind.If you haven't heard Episode 8, please start there. Get to know him first. Then come back.I'm honored that Don trusted me with his story over a year ago. I'm even more honored that he trusted me with this.Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTubeSupport the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week's caller has been living with grief long enough to become a student of it. They lost their mom at twenty-two. Then their cat. Then their soul dog thirteen months ago. This is a conversation about grief that doesn't rank itself, animals as family, and what it means to believe your soul chose this life even when this life has been really hard.We talk about losing a parent young and what it does when no one ever talked about death before it happened. We get into ecological grief, the mourning of a world as it used to be, and how a hottest summer on record in Greece sent this caller on a path toward becoming a grief recovery specialist. We talk about souls, reincarnation, the possibility that time doesn't exist where our animals go, and the very real question of whether you'll get to meet your dog again.And somewhere in the middle of all of it, we end up laughing about whether the old souls are just patiently waiting while the young souls keep coming back around to figure it out.In this conversation:Ecological grief and why grieving a changing world is not a disorder, it's a responseAnticipatory grief — the kind that starts before you've lost anyoneWhy they found it harder to lose their cat than their mother, and why that makes complete senseThe case for anti-speciesism in grief work — why every animal deserves to be mourned without shameA few lines from the call:"Death is the only thing that is sure that's gonna happen to our body after we're born, and yet no one speaks about it.""I didn't even want to live anymore." What losing their soul dog did, said plainly."We don't overcome grief. We learn how to live with grief."Book recommendation: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis WellerMore book recommendations from past episodes: Nemosené: Your Life StoryA guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Note: This episode includes an open discussion of suicide and suicide loss. Please listen when you're in a good place to do so.This week's caller has lived through a concentrated stretch of loss that would bring most people to their knees. A beloved grandmother who raised them. Another grandmother, expected but still hard. And then, in March of 2021, their husband — suddenly, traumatically, in a way that left no warning and no clean answers.They came to this conversation not from a place of unresolved pain, but from one of hard-won peace. And they wanted to talk about how they got there.At the center of it is a belief they've held since childhood and leaned on through every loss: that no one dies without a final chance. That in the last moments of any life, there is still an opening — for forgiveness, for grace, for something that doesn't close until it actually closes.In this conversation:Losing three significant people in three years and how each grief felt entirely differentWhat it means to find your grandmother on the floor and just know before you knowSurviving the death of a spouse by suicideWhy the caller believes their husband is in heaven and the theological reasoning that got them thereThe difference between religion and relationship, and why that distinction mattered most when the questions got hardestWhat it means to be a widow in your forties when you were expecting to grow old togetherA few lines from the call:"I didn't know up from down. I was totally crushed.""He didn't commit suicide. He died by suicide.""In those last twinkling moments — every single person has that one last opportunity.""When it's my time, I'll be ready. And not fearful."Book mentioned in this episode: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth SteinMore book recommendations from past episodesNemosené: Your Life StoryA guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week's caller has been sitting with death since childhood. They grew up deep inside Pentecostal religion, the shouting, the standards, the constant weight of what comes next, and instead of finding comfort there, they left with more questions than answers. They've been chasing those questions ever since. This is a conversation about ego, identity, and why the thing afraid of dying might not even be you.We talk about growing up in a religious household and what happens when you rebel your way into actually thinking for yourself, the idea that "authentic personality" is a contradiction because the word personality comes from persona, which means mask. We get into reincarnation, not the hopeful kind, but the honest kind: consciousness continues, the ego doesn't. And the caller makes a case that death isn't just okay. It's necessary. Without it, nothing means anything.In this conversation:Growing up Pentecostal and what that does to a kid who can't stop thinking about deathWhy the caller stopped calling themselves an atheist and what they believe insteadThe ego as the thing that panics and what's left when you start subtracting itTheir version of reincarnation: the consciousness returns, but you don't, and why that's actually fineWhy they believe death gives life its meaning and the thought experiment they used to make that case to a believerHow psychedelics and long stretches of solitude helped them stop fearing and start acceptingA few lines from the call:"It sounds like you've been in an existential crisis since you were a child." What their therapist said, and why it tracked."I'm nobody and it's not a bad thing. It's a liberating thing.""On psychedelics, I'm more ready to die than at any other time."Book recommendations: The Book of Enoch More book recommendationsNemosené: Your Life StoryA guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This weeks caller lost their baby brother on Thanksgiving Day when they were five, and has spent their whole life with what they call "a little bird called death" on their shoulder. They're a death doula, a trauma-informed yoga instructor, a Reiki master, and an adventure motorcyclist, and they're still  terrified of death.But somehow, that's exactly what makes this conversation so good.The caller is funny, self-aware, and refreshingly honest about the contradiction of doing death work while being afraid of death. We talk about watching grief reshape their entire family after their brother died, what it actually feels like to hold space for mass shooting survivors, and a late-night fight that ended their relationship with their father for good. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, they work out, out loud, a theory about death that involves dimensions, dreamlike transitions, and shedding the skin to see what's really there.In this conversation:What death anxiety actually feels like when you're wired for it, including the moments it just crushes you out of nowhereLosing their brother at five, and how that grief quietly shaped everything afterHolding space for trauma survivors, and what they get out of it that they didn't expectTheir working theory on what happens after we die: dimensions, metamorphosis, and coming into a new space without traumaA few lines from the call:"I've been sitting with a little bird called death on my shoulder my entire life.""We're not actually dead until we're dead. We actually are alive all the way until we die.""Maybe when we die it's like having a dream. And when we wake from this dream of death, we come into being in a new space."Book recommendation: Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul by Stephen JenkinsonMore book recommendations from past episodes: Nemosené: Your Life StoryA guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This caller grew up without religion, lost their mom to suicide at 13, and spent years in a fear of death so overwhelming they couldn't be around skeletons or eat meat. Then they were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.But somehow, this is not a sad episode.This week's caller is funny, sharp, and genuinely at peace — not because life got easier, but because they stopped waiting for it to. We talk about what it actually felt like to go from debilitating death anxiety to building a community, writing a book, and strapping roller skates back on at 46 after a hip replacement. We talk about what a Parkinson's diagnosis changed, and what it quietly gave them. And they say something near the end of the call that I've been thinking about since: that they're just glitter. That glitter sticks to everything and you can't get rid of it no matter how hard you try.In this conversation:What death anxiety actually felt like — before a diagnosis put it in perspectiveLosing their mom to suicide at 13, and how that fear lived inside them for decadesFinding purpose through Parkinson's — and why they call it a "terribly wonderful gift"Hope vs. belief: how they hold both, especially when it comes to their momBeing a single parent of four kids (two grown, two teenagers) while living with a progressive diseaseDark humor, living intentionally, and not caring who watches you dance in the rainWhat they still want to do before they're done — and why it's simpler than you'd expectA few lines from the call:"I guess I'll have to embrace this. So I did.""Your hundred percent today looks different than your hundred percent yesterday.""We're all just meat and electric jelly when it breaks down to it."Book Recommendation: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch AlbomMore book recommendations from past episodes: View the full listVideo Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What would change if we treated death as a human event, not just a medical one?This week’s anonymous caller is a death doula. And instead of going abstract, they get surprisingly specific about what the end can look like and what people wish they’d put in place sooner.A lot of this episode lives in the gap between what we assume will happen and what actually happens when things move quickly: who makes decisions, what families scramble to figure out, and how easily someone’s wishes can get lost if nothing has been talked about ahead of time.It’s also a reminder that this isn’t only an “old age” topic. The caller talks about working with people in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties. Which quietly changes the question from “someday” to “at some point, and we don’t get to choose when.”And underneath all of that is one simple reframe that keeps showing up throughout the call: the medical side matters, but the human side is usually what people need most.In this episode:What a death doula actually does (and what they don’t)Why dying often needs more human support than medical supportWhy end-of-life planning is a form of careThe reality that terminal diagnoses don’t only happen “late in life”Why the timeline is the part none of us gets to knowWhat tends to help at the end — and what tends to complicate thingsA few moments from the call:“Dying is much more of a human event than it is a medical event.”“You need more human support than you need medical support.”“We have no idea when death will come for us.”“I’m working with people who are in their twenties or thirties or forties or fifties, and they’ve received a terminal diagnosis…”Book Recommendation: Anonymous Caller Spoiler (preorder link)More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full listVideo Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What if death isn’t peaceful, or blank, or anything you can make sense of, but something you’re trapped inside?This week’s anonymous caller doesn’t come in with a comforting belief or a story about loss. They come in with death anxiety. The kind that’s hard to explain even when you’re trying to explain it.We talk through what the fear actually feels like when you get specific. Not just “I’m afraid to die,” but fear of being stuck, fear of losing control, fear of being alone in whatever comes next.And toward the end, something shifts. Not because we solve anything, but because the caller says out loud what most people keep private and realizes that naming it helped.In this episode:A caller trying to describe death anxiety in real timeThe fear of “eternity” as being stuck, conscious, and aloneHow religious upbringing can leave fear residue, even after beliefs changeControl, spiraling, and what it feels like when the fear grabs holdWhat talking about death anxiety does (and doesn’t) changeWhy saying it out loud can soften the grip, even without answersA few moments from the call:“I just have this crushing fear of what I don’t want it to be like.”“I am going to be stuck in eternity alone.”“Us talking about it, it helps me… it might not even be like that.”Book Recommendation: The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck); The Death Gate Cycle (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman)More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full listVideo Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Nemosené: Your Life StoryA guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What does death look like when it’s part of your job?This week’s anonymous caller is an EMT who’s around emergencies and dying on a regular basis. And because of that, this conversation doesn’t stay in the abstract for long.We talk about what CPR actually does to the body, the gap between what people think happens in a medical crisis versus what it really looks like, and why end-of-life wishes can get complicated the moment fear enters the room.A big thread in this call is about clarity. Not in a cold way. More like the kind of clarity you get when you’ve seen the same situations play out again and again. Especially when it comes to DNRs, family dynamics, and what people ask for on paper versus what actually happens in the moment.In this episode:Seeing death up close as part of the jobWhat CPR really does to the bodyWhy “doing everything” can override someone’s wishesDNRs and how they can get complicated in real timeHow repeated exposure to death changes the way you think about itThe caller’s own near-death experience and what it did (and didn’t) changeA few moments from the call:“Even if we bring you back… you’re gonna have broken ribs.”“Some estranged family member takes you off that DNR because you’re a fighter…”“Death happens to everyone… it could happen today, it could happen tomorrow.”Book Recommendation: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson)More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full listVideo Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Nemosené: guided story recordings to help people preserve their voice. Support this work by visiting nemosene.comSupport the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What happens when you’re 19 and you’re loving someone with a terminal illness?This week’s anonymous caller is an anthropology student who’s been studying death, grief, and ritual. But that interest isn’t abstract. Their partner has a terminal illness, and it’s been sitting in the background of their life and relationship for a long time now.A big part of this conversation is what it does to time. The way the future starts tapping you on the shoulder in normal moments. The way regret shows up early. The way even small arguments can feel “expensive” when you can’t stop doing the math in your head.And somehow, even with all of that, this call stays surprisingly grounded. There’s love here. There’s fear. There’s humor. And there’s a level of care and perspective that’s hard to wrap your head around at that age.In this episode:Loving someone with a terminal illness at 19Studying death academically while living close to it personallyAnticipatory grief, and living with the awareness of what’s comingHow conflict changes when time feels shortRegret, presence, and the pressure to “do it right”The comfort of personifications of Death in literatureA few moments from the call:“The life expectancy was 18… and then they turned 18, didn’t keel over.”“We just spent the last 30 minutes arguing… that’s now 30 minutes closer to the end.”“It’s like a metronome… you’re just swinging.”Book Recommendations: Hogfather and Reaper Man (Terry Pratchett)More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full listVideo Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What happens when your mind stops feeling like a safe place to live?This week’s anonymous caller shares about experiencing a psychotic break in 2020, and what it changed about how they relate to death, reality, and their own sense of self. They do an unusually good job describing what psychosis can feel like from the inside, including a “movie logic” kind of certainty that’s hard to understand until you hear someone try to explain it.A big part of this conversation is what came after. The caller talks about grounding themselves in logic and facts. Not as a debate, and not as a personality trait. More like a way to stay steady when everything had felt unreliable. From there we end up in some bigger questions too, like perception versus objective reality, how memory shifts when you revisit it, and what it can mean to believe “nothing happens” after death while still admitting how limited human comprehension is.There’s tenderness here, and there’s also humor. At one point the caller drops the line: “this Barbie is going through it.” It’s strangely perfect.In this episode:A psychotic break in 2020, and what it was like to live on the other side of itThe feeling of being betrayed by your own mindGrounding in logic and facts as a way to feel steady againPsychosis, perception, and the gap between “my reality” and “objective reality”What “nothing happens” can mean, and why it might be beyond comprehensionIdentity, selfhood, and the weird edges of what we can explainBook Recommendations: Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer)More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full listVideo Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What if something big happens… and your life still mostly goes back to normal?This week’s caller has had two heart attacks, starting when they were sixteen. On paper that sounds intense. But this conversation isn’t heavy. The caller brings a calm, laid-back energy that makes the whole episode feel surprisingly easy to sit with.We talk about how they think about death, including a loose, pop-culture Buddhist view of reincarnation, and how they’ve learned to live with uncertainty without forcing certainty. There’s also real, grounded detail about their heart condition and what it’s like to move through life knowing your body can do unpredictable things.One of my favorite moments is when I ask if the heart attacks changed their life, and they’re just honest: not in some permanent, movie-montage way. There was a burst of intensity, a period of “I should do everything,” and then life slowly drifted back toward normal. It’s not a lesson. It’s just true.In this episode:Having a heart attack at sixteen, and how it shaped their relationship with deathA relaxed, curiosity-forward relationship with mortalityReincarnation, Buddhism, and living with the unknownThe difference between fearing death vs fearing painPanic, hospitals, and what helped them stay calm in the momentLiving with a heart condition over the long termA past-life documentary the caller loves: The Boy Who Lived BeforeBook Recommendations: My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George); The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas)More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full listIf you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What do you say to a child who asks, “Am I going to die?”This week's caller is a physician who works with children who have cancer and has training in pediatric palliative and hospice care. In this conversation, she shares what it’s like to talk honestly with families about death. Including a story about having to tell a seven-year-old patient that she is going to die.This is a heavier episode. The subject matter is difficult, and the conversation doesn’t shy away from that. But it’s also thoughtful and full of compassion. The call stays with what these moments actually require: clarity, presence, and care.We talk about how children understand death and why avoiding these conversations often makes things harder. It's a conversation I promise you won't forget if you are in the right headspace for it. In this episode:Talking with children about death and dyingWhat it means to tell a child the truthPediatric oncology and palliative careBeing on both sides of the hospital bedEnd-of-life conversations with children and familiesThe absence of language for parents who lose a childBook Recommendations: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams); American Gods (Neil Gaiman)If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Suicide touches more lives than we often realize. And yet, it’s still something many of us don’t know how to talk about.In this episode, an anonymous caller reflects on losing their brother to suicide and what it’s been like to live with the impact since. Rather than trying to explain what happened or search for answers, the conversation stays with the ripple effect. How loss lingers, how it reshapes relationships, and how it continues to move through the people left behind.This is a gentle conversation. There’s grief here, but there’s also care, thoughtfulness, and room to speak without being pushed toward certainty. It offers a way to listen to a conversation about suicide without panic or sensationalism, and to better understand how much our lives affect others, often in ways we never fully see.If conversations about suicide usually feel overwhelming, this episode offers a more approachable way in.In this episode:Living with the ripple effect of suicideHow loss continues to shape families and communitiesThe impact we leave through small, everyday interactionsImagining what happens when we die without needing certaintyThe Egg by Andy Weir and how stories evolve in memoryBook Recommendations: The Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan)If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Memorial Jewelry by Nia EmberlyTransform ashes into pendants and bracelets that carry love every day.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Many people are curious about conversations around death but hesitate to listen because they worry it will feel emotionally overwhelming.This episode challenges that assumption.In this anonymous call, the conversation begins with an expectation of tears. What unfolds instead is something more layered. Grief is present. Loss is real. And still, laughter, warmth, and unexpected lightness find their way into the room.If you’ve been curious about this podcast but unsure where to begin, this is a gentle place to start.In This Episode:Expecting to cry and discovering laughter insteadGrief that makes room for warmth, not just weightGreen Eggs and Ham goes completely off the railsWhy some laptops should be deleted immediately, no questions askedLetting uncertainty exist without needing answersBook Recommendations: Rebecca  (Daphne du Maurier); The Picture of Dorian Gray  (Oscar Wilde); Green Eggs and Ham  (Dr. Seuss)If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.A Note On The EndingInstead of a voicemail, this episode closes with a piece of writing shared by a caller from Episode 40. It’s a quiet, beautiful reflection that felt important to include here.--------------------The Death Deck: Talk About the FutureA Lively Party Game to Share Stories and BeliefsDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s Saturday Contemplation, A Year You’ll Never Get Back, sits with a simple truth: this year is over, regardless of how it went. Instead of turning toward regret or self-judgment, this reflection invites you to look back gently at how you spent the time you were given. What filled your days, what quietly shaped you, and what this past year reveals about the life you were actually living.This contemplation is also the final release from the project this year. As the year comes to a close, it offers a moment to pause before rushing ahead, to acknowledge what’s been carried, and to consider how you want to meet the year to come. Wherever you find yourself listening, I hope this creates a little space to reflect, to breathe, and to mark the passing of another year. Wishing you a restful holiday season and a gentle start to the new year.Starting in January, Saturday Contemplations will be fully moving to Substack to keep things cleaner and easier to follow. If you’d like to continue receiving these reflections, you can sign up at https://whenwedietalks.substack.com/Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What if your afterlife looks exactly like what you expect to find? That question sits at the center of this conversation with our caller who has died more than once and come back with stories that challenge the script many of us inherit about death. She begins with a fire-breathing accident that leads to severe burns, an awake surgery, and a coma where there is no tunnel of light—only darkness without walls, filled with taunting voices. She runs for days inside that void before turning to fight, and everything changes.What follows is survival without a roadmap. The medical system saves her life but offers little help for the trauma that comes after—the nightmares, the identity whiplash, the sense of not quite being back. Years later in Costa Rica, another threshold appears: the sun opens, her mother steps through it, and tells her it’s not time. More recently, a 911 dispatcher’s voice pulls her back from the tunnel once again, and the medical truth finally catches up—severe deficiencies, fibroids, numbers hanging by a thread.Threaded through all of this is a larger belief: that experience, even at the edge of life, is shaped by the mind we bring with us. Drawing from Buddhism, Taoism, and her own spiritual practice, she speaks about agency in death, the difference between organized religion and ways of life that protect free will, and the permission to borrow what works without forcing a label. And yes, there’s humor. Lots of it. It’s how fear loosens its grip. The conversation ends not in dread, but longing for ancient places, altered states, and a way of talking about death that makes life feel more livable.Book Recommendation: The Child Thief by BromIf you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube. New here or unsure where to begin? Woven Word PressCapture your memories, honor your journey, and create a legacy for the generations who follow.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s Saturday Contemplation turns toward the stories we inherit (from others and ourselves). The ones we pick up early, absorb quietly, and sometimes mistake for who we actually are. It invites you to notice what in your life feels genuinely yours, what feels borrowed, and what becomes possible when you begin setting down the stories that no longer fit.Saturday Contemplations are a simple way to pause, reconnect, and reflect on the parts of life we often rush past. They won’t appear every single week, but they’ll show up regularly alongside the podcast. And if you’d like to support the project, you can do that through the donation link below. Every bit helps keep this work going.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Death wasn’t an idea for her growing up—it was something that walked beside her. In this call, we trace a life shaped by early violence in South Africa, a strict Catholic upbringing that equated identity with sin, and a long stretch of years where death felt more like an exit than a fear. She talks about grooming, a marriage built on uneven power, the mental health system that kept missing the mark, and the small, steady voices that helped her stay alive long enough to want to keep living.From there, the conversation opens into what comes after leaving religion—not certainty, but curiosity. She describes finding a home in the space between belief and unbelief: agnostic, imaginative, drawn to science, and deeply connected to dreams. We talk about grief as something that keeps reshaping itself, why kindness has boundaries, and how repeated loss can change the way you weigh a single day. Discworld’s Death even makes an appearance, offering humor as the unlikely thread that carried her through some of the darkest places.One moment shifts the whole call: during a recent surgery, she stopped breathing under anesthesia and slipped into a dark, suspended stillness she’d met before in dreams. It didn’t give her answers, but it clarified what matters—write the will, tell people you love them, protect your empathy, and treat life like something you’re choosing, not something you’re surviving. Her belief now is simple and expansive: when we die, we return to a larger field of consciousness, and while we’re here, the only work that matters is how we show up for each other.Book Recommendation: Discworld Series by Terry PratchettIf you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s Saturday Contemplation sits with the truth that many parts of our lives don’t get the endings we hoped for. Conversations fade, relationships drift, and chapters close without warning. Instead of forcing closure, this contemplation explores what softens in us when we let some things remain unfinished.WWDT+ is being put on pause for now which means all Saturday Contemplations will be free moving forward (you can also listen to all of the old ones now too). They may not happen every single week, but the plan is to release one anytime there’s a new podcast episode.If you’d like to support the project, you can still do that through the donation link just below. Every bit helps keep this work going.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Mortality feels different when you’re sitting beside a parent and waiting for the breath that doesn’t return. In this call, we stay close to that moment—not with big theories or tidy comfort, but with the real stuff: complicated love, sudden anger, the guilt that shows up long after it’s “too late,” and the small rituals we use to get ourselves through the night.He talks about a fractured relationship, the final hours in the hospital, and the split-second when a kind nurse became the target of blame. From there, the conversation widens into the quieter parts of grief—how guilt can rewrite reality, why it hangs on longer than we expect, and how a little compassion for ourselves can change the shape of it.We also talk about the practical side of death that most people avoid: doctors bringing up end-of-life plans, families dodging hard conversations, and what it means to leave behind a simple manual so the people we love don’t have to untangle everything alone. (Yes, even down to the Costco casket.)Threaded through all of this is a deeper question: what does it mean to feel accomplished before our time runs out? For him, it's still unanswered—and maybe that’s the point. We build our worldview brick by brick: faith, science, memory, experience. Some bricks hold more weight than others, but together they’re what keep us standing.Book Recommendation: Children of Time by Adrian TchaikovskyIf you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.The Death Deck: Talk About the FutureA Lively Party Game to Share Stories and BeliefsDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s Saturday Contemplation turns toward a truth most of us struggle to look at: our time is limited, whether we see it clearly or not. Some people learn this through illness or loss. For the rest of us, the illusion of “later” makes it easy to forget.Instead of treating that reality as something bleak, this contemplation explores how it can clarify what matters. What becomes precious when we acknowledge we won’t live forever and what quietly falls away when we stop pretending we have endless time?The first contemplation of every month is free for everyone. All others are available exclusively to WWDT+ members — a weekly practice designed to help you slow down, reflect on your mortality, and reconnect with what gives your life meaning.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s caller has lived with death in the background for most of her life—first through migraines that began when she was six, and later through a brain tumor that went undiagnosed for more than twenty years. By the time doctors caught it, she had spent a full year in a migraine that never let up. Surgery changed everything: her mood lifted, her pain eased, and even her tastebuds shifted. But the possibility of recurrence remains, shaping how she moves through the world.What unfolds from there is part philosophy, part physics, part Wonderland. She talks about Alice in Wonderland Syndrome—the surreal way migraines can distort scale, shape, and the edges of the body—and how that lived strangeness pushed her toward math, spacetime, Flatland, and the comfort of unanswerable questions. Instead of trying to solve the mystery of death, she leans into the idea that some things can’t be known from this side of the line.We also talk about community, belonging, and the unexpected places spirituality can live. Her weekly gathering is a pagan group that meets—of all places—in a church basement, lighting candles, crafting together, playing D&D, and caring for one another in a way that feels more meaningful than dogma ever has. When strong emotions can trigger pain, moderation becomes a survival skill, but it doesn’t stop her from pursuing what she loves or finding wonder in the smallest things.The conversation circles around identity, too—how a person can wake up from brain surgery wondering if they’re still themselves, how preferences shift but the core stays intact, and how tiny we are in the universe without being insignificant. Her philosophy lands with a simple truth: sometimes the experience is worth the migraine. Even skydiving, if she can make it happen.Book Recommendation: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis CarrollIf you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Link to the Instagram Giveaway. Entry ends 11/21/2025 at 11:59PM PST.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s Saturday Contemplation looks at the heart of this entire project. Why we even choose to think about death in the first place.It’s not about fear or morbidity. It’s about presence. When we turn toward death instead of away from it, life starts to look and feel different. The ordinary becomes sacred. The temporary becomes meaningful. And we remember what it really means to be alive.Normally, this would be a bonus episode exclusively for WWDT+ members but it felt important to share the contemplation on “Why We Contemplate Death” with everyone. Honestly, it probably should’ve been the first one, but here we are.The first contemplation of every month is free for everyone. All others are available exclusively to WWDT+ members — a weekly practice designed to help you slow down, reflect on your mortality, and reconnect with what gives your life meaning.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s caller is a psychotherapist whose first brush with mortality came early—at just six years old, when her father was struck in the head by a baseball. He survived, but not as the same man. That experience became the quiet force behind a lifelong curiosity about loss, consciousness, and the fragile line between who we are and who we were.What begins as a conversation about death unfolds into an exploration of Buddhism, the bardos, psychedelics, and the ways grief lives in the body long after words run out. Together, we look at how facing death can soften the grip of perfectionism, reshape purpose, and turn the so-called “midlife crisis” into something closer to a midlife awakening.It’s an open, grounded look at how spiritual practice, somatic work, and self-inquiry can help loosen our attachment to certainty—and how doing so might just make life feel more vivid.If you’ve ever wondered how to live before it’s too late, this one’s worth the listen. Share it with a friend who needs a nudge, follow for more conversations like this, and leave a review to help others find the show.Book Recommendation: How We Live Is How We Die by Pema ChödrönIf you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.The Death Deck: Talk About the FutureA Lively Party Game to Share Stories and BeliefsDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s Saturday Contemplation explores the miracle of simply being here — the cosmic chain of events that led to this single moment. From the vastness of the universe to the smallest details of daily life, we reflect on how awareness transforms the ordinary into something extraordinary. Because when you really stop to notice, even breathing can feel like a miracle.In honor of the two-year anniversary of When We Die Talks, all Saturday Contemplations from October are available to everyone — a small thank-you for being part of this project and for helping it grow from a single voicemail into a larger conversation.Available exclusively to WWDT+ members. Saturday Contemplations are a weekly practice designed to help you slow down, reflect on your mortality, and reconnect with what gives your life meaning.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s caller, a father who lost his son to suicide eighteen months ago, speaks with rare clarity about grief, meaning, and why skepticism doesn’t have to harden into despair. The premise is simple and brave: if consciousness is a function of the brain and ends when the brain stops, how do we live with love and purpose anyway?We trace the moment death moved from abstract to intimate, and how that shift rewired his priorities. Together, we explore the boundaries between belief and evidence, the role of expertise in a world drowning in noise, and the difference between orthodoxy and honest inquiry. It’s a grounded look at life and death through the lens of neuroscience, traumatic brain injury, and the humility to say “I don’t know,” paired with the courage to keep asking.Along the way, fear of mortality gives way to something sturdier: presence. Not as a slogan, but as a practice that slows time and fills ordinary moments with weight—coffee with a friend, fresh air on a hard day, a laugh that lightens the room. He describes a pilgrimage to wild places, carrying a small portion of his son’s ashes to mountains and lakes his son hoped to see. No grand promises—just a vow to live fully, love fiercely, and make meaning in the world we can still touch.If you’re craving real talk about death, grief, science, and the fragile gift of being alive, press play. Then share this with someone you love, subscribe for more honest conversations, and leave a review to tell us what presence looks like in your life today.Book Recommendation: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Maybe the most emotional book recommendation we’ve had yet.)If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Memorial Jewelry by Nia EmberlyTransform ashes into pendants and bracelets that carry love every day.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s Saturday Contemplation invites you to notice what often goes unseen — the quiet moments that make up a life. From the hum of a familiar room to the light shifting across a wall, we explore how impermanence turns the ordinary into something sacred. Gratitude, after all, begins with paying attention.In honor of the two-year anniversary of When We Die Talks, all Saturday Contemplations from October are available to everyone — a small thank-you for being part of this project and for helping it grow from a single voicemail into a larger conversation.The first contemplation of every month will always be free. But if you want the full experience — every weekly Saturday Contemplation and early access to new podcast episodes — you’ll need to join WWDT+. It’s the best way to support the show, keep these conversations alive, and make sure you don’t miss out on the reflections reserved only for members.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What would it mean to release your grip on the things you can’t control? This week’s Saturday Contemplation explores the quiet art of letting go — of expectations, identities, and moments that have already passed. Through breath and awareness, we reflect on how surrender can open space for peace, acceptance, and renewal.Available exclusively to WWDT+ members. Saturday Contemplations are a weekly practice designed to help you slow down, reflect on your mortality, and reconnect with what gives your life meaning.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

In this week’s call, an anonymous caller from Perth, Australia — with deep family roots in Colombia — shares how culture, belief, and experience shape the way we face death.She describes an Australia where humor keeps things light, sometimes at the cost of connection, and a Colombia where grief is collective — marked by candles, stories, music, and the warmth of family gathered to mourn and celebrate together. Those contrasts reveal not just different customs, but different ways of healing. When we share laughter or song, we resist the isolation that so often shadows Western grief.Our conversation moves through faith and spirituality — from Catholicism to paganism to a blended, loving Christianity — and into a view of God and the universe rooted in compassion. She speaks of an afterlife that might meet each of us where we are: heaven, reincarnation, liminal spaces, or even the quiet possibility of nothingness. But more than any theory, it’s love that carries through — what we give, what we leave, what others hold on to.The image she leaves us with lingers: when we die, we return to the universe like stardust — scattered, but still ourselves in the people and patterns we’ve touched.Book Recommendations: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak; The Werewolf by Angela Carter (I believe “The Werewolf” is part of Angela Carter’s book of stories, The Bloody Chamber.)Existence Is Evidence of Immortality by Michael HuemerIf you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.The Death Deck: Talk About the FutureA Lively Party Game to Share Stories and BeliefsDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

You don’t need another reminder that time is limited. But you might need a reminder to act like it.This week’s Saturday Contemplation explores what it really means to live as if your time mattered. Not in a rushed or panicked way, but with presence and intention. What would change if you stopped waiting for the “right moment” and started treating this moment as enough?Available exclusively to WWDT+ members. Saturday Contemplations are a weekly practice designed to help you slow down, reflect on your mortality, and reconnect with what gives your life meaning.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

What if the clearest way to love life is to look directly at death?This week’s caller has lived with chronic illness, which has kept mortality close. But instead of fear, he’s found a deep sense of gratitude — for warmth, for connection, for the chance to still be here.We talk about the small joys that give life its texture, and the ways imagination can shape belief. He shares how, as a child, The Velveteen Rabbit made him believe that love could bring something to life — and how that same sense of magic continues to color how he sees the world.There’s also a story about a car accident in his twenties — the sudden thought, “Here I come, God,” flashing through his mind before impact. That moment opened a lifelong curiosity about what it really feels like to die, and what might happen in those final seconds of awareness.From there, we explore consciousness, spirit, and the idea that maybe God isn’t separate from us at all — but something that lives in the space between people, in our attempts to truly understand one another.It’s a conversation about illness, faith, imagination, and gratitude — and how even when we face death, there’s still beauty in simply being alive.Book Recommendations: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens; The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery WilliamsMovie Referenced: Before Sunset (dir. Richard Linklater)If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Memorial Jewelry by Nia EmberlyTransform ashes into pendants and bracelets that carry love every day.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

If you knew you only had one year left to live, what would you do differently? This week’s Saturday Contemplation invites you to sit with that question — not as a thought experiment, but as a mirror. What truly matters when time becomes finite? What would you let go of? And what would you finally make space for?Available exclusively to WWDT+ members. Saturday Contemplations are a weekly practice designed to help you slow down, reflect on your mortality, and reconnect with what gives your life meaning.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

A single question opens a door most of us avoid: what do you think happens when we die? For this caller, the answer comes not from theory but from experience. During a medical crisis, she finds herself floating above her body, greeted by family who had already died, and facing an ornate threshold she’s told not to cross.It’s a story that’s strange and tender, playful and grounded. Not a doctrine, but a report from the edge. Told by someone who has worked in hospice, studied death across cultures, and still didn’t expect the peace, or the humor, she found there.We follow her journey from childhood Mormon teachings to teenage nihilism, through her years in hospice care and anthropology studies, and finally into the operating room where sepsis and surgeries bend time. She describes the gallery-like theater, the clarity of hearing loved ones without words, and the message she was sent back with: tell people it’s okay to die.Along the way, we talk about why rituals matter in healthcare, how visibility reduces trauma, and how stories can soften fear. If you’ve ever carried questions about what comes next, or felt the weight of “nothingness” and wished for a crack of light, this conversation offers a new way of looking at it.Book Recommendation: The Red Tent by Anita DiamantHey Cool, I'm Dead.If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.The Death Deck: Talk About the FutureA Lively Party Game to Share Stories and BeliefsDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This first Saturday Contemplation centers on the reality that each breath brings us closer to death. Our lifespan is ever-decreasing, and while that can feel heavy, it’s also what makes each breath, each moment, so precious.The first contemplation of every month will always be free. But if you want the full experience — every weekly Saturday Contemplation and early access to new podcast episodes — you’ll need to join WWDT+. It’s the best way to support the show, keep these conversations alive, and make sure you don’t miss out on the reflections reserved only for members.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week (and episode) marks the one-year anniversary of When We Die Talks.Instead of an anonymous call, I’m taking time to pause and reflect. I share what this past year has taught me. About death, grief, connection, and even my own shifting beliefs. I talk about what I’ve learned from starting the podcast, the challenges and surprises along the way, and where things might be headed from here.I also introduce something new: Saturday Contemplations. These short weekly reflections are designed to give you a moment to sit with mortality in your own life. The first one each month will always be free, and the rest will be available through WWDT+.WWDT+ members not only get access to every Saturday Contemplation, but also early access to new episodes. It’s the best way to support the podcast and help me keep these conversations going.Finally, I just want to say thank you. Whether you’ve listened to one episode or all thirty, shared the podcast with a friend, left a voicemail, or simply sat with these conversations quietly on your own. It all matters and it’s all appreciated.The episode leaves off with a bit of uncertainty (maybe fittingly for a podcast about death). To be completely honest, I’m not sure where this is going to go this next year. Nothing is changing soon, but I’ve had the incredibly fortunate opportunity to spend a lot of time on this project the past couple of months. I’m not sure how long I’ll continue to be able to do that. So if you have any ideas about how to get sponsors, grow the community, or anything like that, please reach out: [email protected] you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.Memorial Jewelry by Nia EmberlyTransform ashes into pendants and bracelets that carry love every day.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week marks a few big milestones for the project. It’s Episode #30, the final full conversation of the podcast’s first year, and it’s also the very first international call.Our caller from Canada takes us through a wide-ranging conversation about death, culture, science, and what it means to see ourselves as part of something larger. From how the brain behaves in our final moments to how different cultures approach death, the discussion moves between the personal and the collective, the scientific and the spiritual.At the heart of it all is one powerful idea: that each of us is a universe in and of ourselves.NOTE: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.In this episode, we discuss:Book recommendations: Mostly Happy by Pam Buston and Speak by Louisa HallThe idea that when we die, our bodies return to nature and our energy to the cosmosHow the brain might create whole new realities at the moment of deathAn incredible story of a man in a coma who believed he had lived decades in another lifeGrowing up between cultures, and how Western and non-Western perspectives shape the way we see deathThe tension between science and spirituality — and the limits of what science can explainWhy collective well-being is inseparable from individual well-beingReflections on seeing death up close in today’s world, and what it teaches us about communityBrave New World by Aldous HuxleyAmori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s anonymous call begins with jokes about humidity, pets, and even what it would mean to be reincarnated as a cactus. But, like so many of these conversations, the laughter eventually gives way to something much more personal.The caller opens up about years of chronic illness, nearly dying from blood clots, and the disappointment of seeking comfort in a faith community that couldn’t support them. They share what it meant to step away from the church, to embrace their identity, and to find peace in the cycles of nature.What emerges is a vision of death not as an ending, but as energy recycled. Through plants, through animals, through us. It’s a conversation that mixes humor, honesty, and a surprisingly beautiful take on what might come next.If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.In this episode, we discuss:Book recommendations: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Giver by Lois LowryThe near-death experience of blood clots and how it changed their outlook on mortalityWhy humor became their way of coping with chronic pain and medical traumaLeaving the church, and what it means to find comfort outside of faithSeeing dogs and cats as “souls who’ve already learned the lessons”The idea of being reincarnated as a cactus (and what plants can teach us about energy, growth, and symbiosis)How conversations about death can swing from lighthearted to deeply personal in a matter of minutesAmori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

NOTE: If you would like to watch this episode, you can find the video version here. It is just the conversation and nothing else.This week’s anonymous call is with someone who’s actually a close friend of mine. We recorded together once before, but that was right when I decided to shift the podcast into anonymous calls. Because of that, the episode never aired. She was kind enough to come back and do it again, making this the first anonymous call where I know who I’m talking to.From the start, our conversation swings between the personal and the cosmic. We talk about her grandmother’s heart-shaped signs, her fears about eternity, and the way infinity, time, and nothingness can make your head spin. Along the way we touch on space, science, and spirituality.It’s an episode that balances humor, honesty, and a genuine curiosity about what lies beyond the life we know.In this episode, we discuss:Book recommendations: The Tools and Coming Alive by Phil Stutz & Barry Michaels, Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian WeissThe “Pillars of Creation” and what the scale of the universe does to our sense of timeWhy the idea of eternity can feel just as terrifying as it is comfortingHeart-shaped signs from her grandmother and how they continue to show up years laterDon’s book recommended to me: Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel SayingsHow conversations about death pull us between the intimate and the infiniteWhy dogs might be the cruelest reminder of mortalityA spoiler for the 1997 movie Contact (you’ve had almost 30 years to not have it ruined)Amori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s anonymous call begins with an unexpected laugh, “Don’t misgender God!”  But from there, we turn towards the questions and stories that formed my guest’s beliefs.She talks about witnessing her father’s peaceful passing, the strange signs that followed, and how those experiences restored her faith that something waits for us after death. We also dig into grief, how it lingers like a sudden pothole in the middle of an otherwise good day, and why she sees every person as an irreplaceable puzzle piece.The conversation stretches from religion to consciousness, from science to synchronicity, all woven together with honesty and humor.In this episode, we discuss:Book recommendation: The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne FrankGrief as a state of being, not just an emotionWhy death is like losing a puzzle piece that can never be duplicatedStories of signs and synchronicities after lossHow her father’s passing restored her faith in an afterlifeEgo, consciousness, and what might dissolve when we dieThe strange and beautiful ways nature reminds us of connectionAmori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This week’s anonymous call takes us in a direction I didn’t quite expect. My guest starts by admitting she isn’t sure she’ll ever die. Maybe she’s immortal. Maybe she’s destined to become a vampire. From there, the conversation winds through questions of heaven, purgatory, and what it might mean if there really were no end.It’s a mix of humor and honesty: she jokes about sexy vampires, “jammy jams,” and how every day feels like a slumber party. But, she also reflects on loneliness, the heartbreak of living forever, and what it means to “walk people home.” Along the way, she shares her thoughts on independence, the importance of focusing on life’s quality as much as its quantity, and how she’s learned to laugh at embarrassment.It’s a strange conversation in the best ways. Funny, offbeat, and surprisingly wise.In this episode, we discuss:Book recommendation: The Fountainhead by Ayn RandMovie references: The Man from Earth and The Age of Adaline“Walking each other home” and the wisdom of Ram DassThoughts on heaven, hell, and purgatoryGhosts, signs, and the possibility of living foreverEmbracing independence and finding joy in solitudeLetting go of embarrassment and owning our inner dorkMexican Day of the Dead traditions and marigoldsRemembering loved ones with some popcorn and champagneAmori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

In this anonymous call, our caller shares the story of losing her brother and what it meant to walk alongside him as both a sister and a death doula. From the surreal moments of him “dying three times” before it stuck, to jokes over morphine doses and freezer chicken, to the signs he promised would show up after he was gone, the conversation blends heartbreak with humor in ways only death seems to invite.She reflects on the importance of planning for death, the wisdom carried through ancestry, and the strange intimacy that comes with caring for someone at the end of life. And through it all, there’s laughter, ritual, and the reminder that even in grief, life keeps insisting on showing up.In this episode, we discuss:Book recommendations: Collected Poems by Charles Bukowski and The Poetry of Mary OliverGrowing up without space for grief and finding her way into death workCaring for her brother as he went through the dying processThe surreal experience of “dying three times” before his final deathMorphine jokes, banquet chicken, and finding levity in lossWhy she believes energy continues beyond the bodyThe importance of advanced care planning and making your wishes knownRituals, ancestry, and how our loved ones live on through usAmori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

In this anonymous call, our caller lost his wife in a sudden car accident. Just before they even made the first mortgage payment on their home. The timing was cruel, especially after years of saving and sacrificing for the life they planned to start “someday.”He describes himself as an optimistic nihilist. Someone who believes there’s nothing after death, and finds that reality liberating. For him, knowing this is the one shot we get makes every choice matter more. We talk about the tension between planning for the future and living for today, how grief reshapes your relationship with time, and the loneliness of carrying loss when the world has already moved on.And between the moments of pain, there are flashes of wit and unexpected laughter. A reminder that even in loss, life still shows up.In this episode, we discuss:Book recommendation: The Gunslinger by Stephen KingLosing his wife in a sudden car accident and the plans they never got to live outWhy he sees death as freeing through the lens of optimistic nihilismThe danger of saving everything for “someday”Dark humor as a coping mechanism for griefHow modern death practices have become impersonal—and why that mattersThe difference between offering someone a “blanket” or an “axe” in grief supportWhy he believes funerary rituals are for the living, not the deadAmori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

In this episode, we talk about the energy that connects us, the experiences that crack us open, and the quiet ways we start to make sense of death. The caller, a nurse and Reiki practitioner, shares how being in the room with people as they passed began to reshape everything she thought she knew.We talk about mystical experiences, dreams that feel like visitations, and why she believes consciousness doesn’t end when the body does. From a childhood fascination with mummies to a meditation where she briefly became a tree, this is a conversation about presence, transition, and the strange beauty of being alive.Mentioned in this episode:Favorite Books: The Diary of Anne Frank, The Bell Jar, and a childhood book on Egyptian MummiesEarly encounters with death and a fascination that never leftWorking as an ER nurse and the moment a patient came to her in a dreamLearning about psychopomps and guiding souls between worldsPracticing Reiki and connecting with her grandmother’s energy before she passedWhat it means to be part of a vast, infinite web, and how that might shape what comes nextAmori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Content Note: This episode includes discussion of suicide and mental health struggles. If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988. Free, confidential support is available 24/7.----------In this episode, we talk about grief that lingers, the stigma around mental illness, and why comparing depression to weakness misses the point. The caller shares what it was like to lose someone she loved to suicide, how that experience shaped her beliefs about death, and how, through dreams, he never fully left.We also talk about growing up in a religiously divided household, her belief in energy that never ends, and why she still feels surrounded by the people she’s lost. Don't worry there’s humor in this one too. Including a dog-run nightclub with David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. And a quiet but fierce commitment to speaking honestly about the things we’re taught to avoid.Mentioned in this episode:Favorite Book: Chasing the Scream by Johann HariMovies Mentioned: What Dreams May Come & The Ripple EffectLosing a friend to suicide at 22Growing up with both Jehovah’s Witness and Catholic influenceEnergy, memory, and what it means when the dead appear in dreamsA dog with attitude and a nightclub in the afterlifeWhy mental illness isn’t weaknessHoldingAmori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

This anonymous caller doesn’t claim to know what happens when we die and he’s completely at peace with that.In this episode, we talk about what it means to live without answers but still find meaning. From a childhood shaped by death anxiety to a life enriched by spiritual study, psychedelics, and profound loss, he shares how grief transformed his relationship with death. And how, despite not having a clear belief about what comes next, one message remains constant: Everything Will Be O.K.We also talk about growing up Mormon, the importance of animals, and the moment a mysterious song blaring from a stereo felt like a message from the other side. Whether you believe in the stars, the soul, or nothing at all, this conversation is a reminder that peace can still exist in uncertainty.Mentioned in this episode:Favorite Book: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering GeniusGrowing up with fear of death and learning to let it goLosing a beloved cat, dog, and parentBurning Man, acid trips, and a connected universeA mysterious stereo moment that felt like a message from his momWhat it means to love an animal who’s known lackEverything Will Be Ok Photo: Click HereAmori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Season 2 officially starts next week, but I wanted to take a minute to share a few thoughts before it does. In this short update, I talk about how the podcast has evolved, what’s shifting in Season 2, and what you can still expect from each episode moving forward.If you’ve been listening, thank you for being here. And if you’re just joining, I’m glad you found the show.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

Brynna Fish has spent much of her life exploring what it means to be a soul. What we’re made of, what we leave behind, and how we stay connected after we die.In this episode, she shares personal stories that helped shape her idea of the “Worldwide Soul Web”—a belief that our souls are composites, made up of pieces of those who came before us. From an unexpected moment beside a stranger’s body on a Cincinnati highway, to a message passed between two of her dogs in the great beyond, Brynna reflects on how connection, memory, and love transcend death.We also talk about her Jewish upbringing, how past life regressions and spiritualist churches shaped her worldview, and the moment at her mother’s funeral when the wind blew at just the right time. Whether or not you share her beliefs, this is a conversation about what lives on, and how we might carry those we love in more ways than we realize.Mentioned in this episode:The Jewish tradition of watching over the deadPast life regression and spiritualismThe power of naming and remembering those we’ve lostHer concept of the “Worldwide Soul Web”Dog stories that’ll probably make you crySpecial thanks to Holly Pruett for making this interview happen!Amori - Your Mortality CompanionVisit amori.life and use code WHENWEDIE50 to get 50% off your download.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showAbout When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.Stay Connected🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com📰 Substack: When We Die Talks📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations✉️ Email: [email protected] to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.