Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: The destination is on your right. The Somerville Public Library
Speaker 2: in East Branch arrived.
Speaker 3: I'm headed to my local library, but not to check
Speaker 3: out a book. I'm on a quest, a quest that
Speaker 3: has obsessed philosophers, poets, and mystics for ages. I'm on
Speaker 3: a quest to confront death.
Speaker 4: Do you know the death cafe?
Speaker 3: I'm about to attend what's known as a death cafe.
Speaker 3: Deaf cafes are small community get togethers in which total
Speaker 3: strangers meet to talk candidly about their inevitable demise, usually
Speaker 3: over tea and cake. There are ten people at this
Speaker 3: particular death cafe, all first time attendees, just like me.
Speaker 3: We discussed how we'd like to spend our final seconds alive,
Speaker 3: what we wanted done with our bodies after we passed,
Speaker 3: and the fears we have about dying. It was intense.
Speaker 3: There were some laughs, but also tears.
Speaker 2: Were you scared before you came? I was scared?
Speaker 1: I was like, what was SCAREDY?
Speaker 4: I was more curious than scared, I was. I was
Speaker 4: actually very excited. I was thinking about this last night.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm humped for the death cafe. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: think I was. I just I like doing weird experiences.
Speaker 4: This is a weird thing I signed up for, and
Speaker 4: it was nice. I got a lot of good ideas
Speaker 4: on where I'd like to view when I die. I
Speaker 4: never thought about that same. Yeah, it was nice to
Speaker 4: get me able to talk about death in a very
Speaker 4: open environment. There's cake, and there was cake.
Speaker 2: That was a good cake.
Speaker 3: I left the death Cafe with the huge slights of
Speaker 3: red velvet cake and a lot to think about. You see,
Speaker 3: I really really hate talking about planning for, or even
Speaker 3: contemplating my own death, so I may as well come clean.
Speaker 3: I doctor Lorie Santo's, am a fanatophobe. What is theanatophobia?
Speaker 3: You ask, well? Fanatophobia, which I think I'm saying right,
Speaker 3: is the fear of death. I find the fact that
Speaker 3: I'm going to die not just a downer but deeply terrifying.
Speaker 3: The thought that I and all the people I love
Speaker 3: won't be around someday makes me feel literally nauseous. And
Speaker 3: this inability to confront death winds up being pretty bad
Speaker 3: for my happiness. First off, I'm super health anxious. I'm
Speaker 3: convinced that every bump and weird bodily sensation is some
Speaker 3: terminal illness just waiting to take me out, which is
Speaker 3: not a fun way to live. My fanatophobia causes other
Speaker 3: problems too. I'm scared to look at my retirement savings
Speaker 3: because inevitably this question comes up. So how long do
Speaker 3: you think this money needs to last?
Speaker 5: Aka?
Speaker 3: When do you think you're gonna die? Ah, And surveys
Speaker 3: show I'm not the only ones spooked by dying. On average,
Speaker 3: people report death as their number one terror, which beats
Speaker 3: out even public speaking. Our collective denial of death means
Speaker 3: that most of us don't do what we need to
Speaker 3: do to get ready for it. Only about half of
Speaker 3: people in the US today have life insurance and only
Speaker 3: a quarter have a living will. Now you might be thinking, well,
Speaker 3: death sucks. Is it so bad that we're a little
Speaker 3: bit sanatophobic. Unfortunately, it turns out that avoiding our mortality
Speaker 3: may be much worse for our happiness than we realize,
Speaker 3: because the science shows that facing up to the shortness
Speaker 3: of life may be the best way to make sure
Speaker 3: that your short life is one that you actually live well.
Speaker 3: Hence my quest to stop hiding and to finally meet
Speaker 3: death head on. Our minds are constantly telling us what
Speaker 3: to do to be happy. But what if our minds
Speaker 3: are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us,
Speaker 3: leading us away from what will really make us happy.
Speaker 3: The good news is that understanding the science of the
Speaker 3: mind points us all back in the right direction. You're
Speaker 3: listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie Santos. Hello, Well,
Speaker 3: good morning, good morning.
Speaker 2: Hello, and it's so good to meet you, Laurie. Hello.
Speaker 3: Psychologist Jodi Wellman does not share my all consuming fear
Speaker 3: of death? Is it the natophobia? Is that how you
Speaker 3: say it?
Speaker 1: Fanataphobia? I see thanataphobia, but thanatophobia. I have really terrible thanatophobia.
Speaker 1: I'm like, really spooked about death. It's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I was so excited.
Speaker 3: To get your book. Jody's book is called You Only
Speaker 3: Die Once, How to make it to the end with
Speaker 3: no regrets. You Only Die Once is a celebration of
Speaker 3: all things thanatophilia, embracing the fact that your time is limited.
Speaker 3: I enjoyed the book a lot, but reading it did
Speaker 3: make me feel a little queasy.
Speaker 6: Am I striving to make us barf in our mouths
Speaker 6: while we think about this? No, if I know that
Speaker 6: it's going to cause just enough existential like poking of
Speaker 6: the ribs.
Speaker 2: Oh, then I get so excited.
Speaker 3: Jody's path that thanatophilia began with a tragedy. Her mother
Speaker 3: died at only fifty eight years old, and Jody was
Speaker 3: stuck cleaning out her apartment.
Speaker 6: For me, it was like this, I don't know, a
Speaker 6: show and tell in a way of all of her
Speaker 6: dreams and hopes and plans and intentions that she didn't execute.
Speaker 6: So I kind of call it like the graveyard of
Speaker 6: hopes and dreams.
Speaker 3: Jody found unfinished drafts of books, business plan that had
Speaker 3: never been implemented, and long lists of cool stuff that
Speaker 3: her mother had wanted to do but never got around
Speaker 3: to doing. It all hit Jody like a ton of bricks.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, I don't want to get to the
Speaker 6: end and have all of these manuscripts not sent out,
Speaker 6: and plans and hopes that I didn't try. You know
Speaker 6: that felt more fearful to me than anything.
Speaker 3: Jody wasn't exactly enjoying her life at the time. She
Speaker 3: was very much in danger of repeating her mother's pattern.
Speaker 6: By this point, I was officially disenchanted at work, but
Speaker 6: I didn't really know what to do about it. So
Speaker 6: here I am day going about my work, and I
Speaker 6: stabled a couple pages together, and my stapler ran out,
Speaker 6: and so I went.
Speaker 2: To the storeroom.
Speaker 6: I loaded up the stapler, and this thought occurred to
Speaker 6: me as I was putting the.
Speaker 2: Row of staples into the stapler.
Speaker 6: I said, I'd better not be here by the time
Speaker 6: this row of staples runs out.
Speaker 3: So Jody had finally set a time limit for taking action.
Speaker 3: She was sure she'd be making some big changes, you
Speaker 3: know soon right. But then one fateful day, the stapler
Speaker 3: ran out again and Jody was still in her job
Speaker 3: with no plan B, and.
Speaker 2: I felt so dropkicked.
Speaker 3: That's when Jody had an epiphany.
Speaker 2: Wait a sec.
Speaker 6: You can't just expect stuff to happen to you, to
Speaker 6: be miraculously like helicoptered out of your average job into
Speaker 6: something that's going to inspire you.
Speaker 2: You need to do something about it.
Speaker 3: And do something Jody did. She quit her boring job
Speaker 3: and entered a master's program in positive psychology. During her studies,
Speaker 3: she became fascinated with one topic, in particular, the concept
Speaker 3: of death awareness, the act of intentionally thinking about your mortality.
Speaker 3: It's a practice that the ancient's called Memento maury.
Speaker 6: It's the Latin phrase that means remember that we must die.
Speaker 3: Memento mori has roots in religion and philosophy, but it
Speaker 3: was also expressed through art and fashion, and Jody has
Speaker 3: lovingly adopted these traditions. She wears black jewelry and draws
Speaker 3: cartoons of the grim Reaper. Jody's favorite possession is a
Speaker 3: tarnished gold coin engraved with the text of that Latin model.
Speaker 3: Whenever Jody stumbles across the coin in her purse, she
Speaker 3: ritualistically says, I AM going to die soon.
Speaker 2: It's just that little subtle reminder that says, oh, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: we're temporary.
Speaker 3: It may sound morbid, but the science suggests that Jody
Speaker 3: might be onto something. Researchers have studied what happens when
Speaker 3: people come dangerously close to the end, Folks with fatal
Speaker 3: cancers who suddenly got better, or survivors of terrible car accidents.
Speaker 6: It's like they put new glasses on and it can
Speaker 6: see things with clarity that we don't because we're just
Speaker 6: sweating the small stuff all frickin' day long. Whereas they
Speaker 6: have this ability to say that little email that I
Speaker 6: haven't answered yet.
Speaker 2: In the Kurian scheme of things, it's lucky to be alive.
Speaker 2: That doesn't matter. This does, And one.
Speaker 3: Thing that really matters to people who've nearly died are
Speaker 3: their friends and family. People who face death make time
Speaker 3: for those that matter and get more discerning about those
Speaker 3: that don't.
Speaker 6: You enliven me, I'm going to spend more time with you.
Speaker 6: You de energize me. I'm going to opt to spend
Speaker 6: less or no time with you. So there's that refinement
Speaker 6: of the way your time is spent.
Speaker 3: Brushes with mortality also cause us to help others more often,
Speaker 3: a practice that lots of research shows is a great
Speaker 3: way to improve your well being. It's twenty twenty one
Speaker 3: and Russell Lowe is lying in a California hospital bed.
Speaker 3: Russell was a physician, but this time he's the one
Speaker 3: in need of virgic care. Russell contracted an infection, a
Speaker 3: bad one. His medical team wasn't sure he would make him. Eventually,
Speaker 3: the doctors got the infection under control, but they told
Speaker 3: Russell just how close he'd come to checking out for good.
Speaker 3: Russell's near death experience shook him, but rather than turning inward,
Speaker 3: he connected with the nurses who'd been at his side
Speaker 3: throughout the entire ordeal. He began learning about the financial
Speaker 3: hardships they faced while training to help people just like him.
Speaker 3: This was my opportunity to live my life differently, to
Speaker 3: give back to the people who are helping me. So
Speaker 3: Russell set up a scholarship fund at cal State San
Speaker 3: Marcos to give students the resources they need to become nurses.
Speaker 3: His ordeal taught him to help pay it forward. Stories
Speaker 3: like this happen all the time, But it turns out
Speaker 3: you don't need an actual near death experience to change
Speaker 3: your life. Research shows you can use your imagination. In
Speaker 3: one study, psychologists told people to vividly imagine a near
Speaker 3: death scenario, like waking up in a smoke filled room
Speaker 3: and realizing your house is on fire. Subjects were then
Speaker 3: invited to play a game that involved keeping a stash
Speaker 3: of money for themselves or donating it to help other players.
Speaker 3: People who thought about scary moments before the game behaved
Speaker 3: more generously. They also experienced more gratitude than those that
Speaker 3: didn't engage in a morbid reflection. And you don't even
Speaker 3: need to get that morbid to start seeing some benefits.
Speaker 3: In another experiment, college seniors were reminded just how little
Speaker 3: time they had left at university. Afterwards, they reported higher
Speaker 3: levels of happiness all the way up to graduation. And
Speaker 3: why was that while seniors who got the college's short
Speaker 3: memo wind up packing more fun activities in during their
Speaker 3: final months than seniors who didn't get a reminder. When
Speaker 3: time is short, we force ourselves to finally get around
Speaker 3: to all the stuff we care about. We recognize we
Speaker 3: don't have forever to complete that business plan or screenplay,
Speaker 3: which motivates our brains to get over all the usual
Speaker 3: doubts and actually take action.
Speaker 2: We have nothing to lose, and life's too short to
Speaker 2: not do the thing that we might want to do.
Speaker 3: All this was sounding great in theory, but I mean,
Speaker 3: just speaking.
Speaker 1: For myself, death is like an absolute doubt or like
Speaker 1: it super freaks me out, Like I hate hate thinking
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: How is it literally talking about it right now?
Speaker 5: As together?
Speaker 1: It's no, Seriously, it kind of freaks me out.
Speaker 3: Like reading your book.
Speaker 1: The distinct sensation I experienced was that I'm about to vomit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel awesome. I'm really really avoiding of it. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: can I be fixed? Can I be fixed? I think
Speaker 1: you're fixable.
Speaker 3: JODI's fix begins with what she calls the life calculator exercise.
Speaker 3: The goal is to calculate just how many mondays you
Speaker 3: have left. You start with the average US life expectancy,
Speaker 3: just over eighty years for women and just under eighty
Speaker 3: for men. You then subtract your current age, take that
Speaker 3: number and multiply it by fifty two. And that's about
Speaker 3: the number of mondays you've got left. So if I
Speaker 3: did the math right, I think it is eighteen forty nine.
Speaker 2: Does that sound right? Yeah, eighteen forty nine. Please tell
Speaker 2: me how nauseous did you feel?
Speaker 4: Right? Hollar?
Speaker 5: Very nauseous?
Speaker 1: Like, eighteen forty nine is a big number, but it's
Speaker 1: a pretty fineite.
Speaker 3: What can I actually fit into one thousand, eight hundred
Speaker 3: and forty nine weeks? I mean, I love movies and
Speaker 3: try to watch at least one new one a week.
Speaker 3: Have I really got only one thousand, eight hundred and
Speaker 3: forty nine movies left before I die? I mean, there's
Speaker 3: probably not even enough time to get through that first
Speaker 3: scrolling page on Netflix. How many more times am I
Speaker 3: going to watch favorites like Casablanca or The Big Lebowski
Speaker 3: or Star Wars, and god, how many more novels do
Speaker 3: I have time left to read? Or restaurants to try out,
Speaker 3: or fireworks displays to watch, or vacations to go on? Ugh.
Speaker 3: The life Calculator exercise was giving me heart palpitations, but
Speaker 3: Jody says that's kind of the point.
Speaker 6: So yes, and yes, I feel really revolted by this,
Speaker 6: and I'm going to book a vacation. The dose is
Speaker 6: just right enough to take my breath away, but not
Speaker 6: enough to paralyze me.
Speaker 2: It's just enough to say, what am I doing? What's
Speaker 2: this all about? Am I making the best use of
Speaker 2: my time?
Speaker 6: And we have to reflectively keep coming back to that
Speaker 6: reminder because we will get swept up in the current
Speaker 6: of life.
Speaker 3: I get Jody's point here. I don't want to get
Speaker 3: swept up in the current of life. But sorry, death
Speaker 3: still terrifies me. I just hate letting it creep into
Speaker 3: my thoughts. What I need is someone who can help
Speaker 3: me think of death as a bit more.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Fun like if you're going on a trip someplace, most
Speaker 5: of us are like excited about it. You know, a
Speaker 5: vacation that you plan for a year or so, you
Speaker 5: like to throw to go. You know, we could do
Speaker 5: the same thing with our dying.
Speaker 3: The happiness lab will return in a moment. So lots
Speaker 3: of people.
Speaker 1: Maybe think about death once in a while. I try
Speaker 1: to avoid thinking about death. How often do you think
Speaker 1: about death?
Speaker 5: Every day? Multiple times a day.
Speaker 3: This is Ailia Arthur. Ailua is definitely not scared of death.
Speaker 5: Sometimes when I'm doing something ridiculous, like reaching when I'm
Speaker 5: in the shower for a towel, that's just like a
Speaker 5: little bit out of my grip, and I wonder what
Speaker 5: would happen if I slipped and hit my head on
Speaker 5: the edge of the think But often I'm thinking about
Speaker 5: death all the time.
Speaker 3: We tend to think of stuff associated with death as
Speaker 3: being creepy. Funeral homes are creepy. Cemeteries are creepy. Morticians
Speaker 3: are creepy. Aila switched careers to change that. She used
Speaker 3: to be a lawyer and hated it. I was confused
Speaker 3: and lost and hopeless. I had no sense of what
Speaker 3: I wanted out of my own life. I couldn't figure
Speaker 3: out what the point was. You know, you get up,
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 5: To work, you pay your bills, to pay your taxes,
Speaker 5: eat food. What is the point of all of this?
Speaker 3: Ailua finally took a medical leave and headed to Cuba.
Speaker 5: And along the way I met a fellow traveler named Jessica,
Speaker 5: a young German woman who had utin cancer and was
Speaker 5: traveling to see the top six places in the world
Speaker 5: she wanted to see before she died. It was kind
Speaker 5: of like her bucket list trip. I mean, there was
Speaker 5: like a little crack in the door, and I kicked
Speaker 5: it all the way open. I asked so many very
Speaker 5: very deep and personal questions, and she lit up in
Speaker 5: answering them. Before you know it, we're speaking deeply about
Speaker 5: her concerns about the afterlife of theirs one at all,
Speaker 5: about what she hadn't done in her life, about her
Speaker 5: sadness about her disease. And she shared with me that
Speaker 5: it was the first time that she had been able
Speaker 5: to have a real conversation about her mortality. People would
Speaker 5: hush her, people would say, oh, don't worry about that,
Speaker 5: You're going to get better, which is what we do.
Speaker 5: You have to have hope, but you have to have faith.
Speaker 5: She was like, all those things might also be true,
Speaker 5: but I am also very sick with the disease that
Speaker 5: might kill me. It was the first time that I
Speaker 5: had been involved in that deep of a conversation about
Speaker 5: the trajectory of one's life. But it also allowed me
Speaker 5: to see how disconnected I'd been from the idea of
Speaker 5: my own mortality. When I started thinking about my death,
Speaker 5: the lid kind of came off, Well, who am I?
Speaker 5: What do I want? What do I value? If the
Speaker 5: end of my life were at the end of this year,
Speaker 5: would I be okay to go? Would I be fighting
Speaker 5: it to the nail? What do I still want to do?
Speaker 5: It started to create a context that I never had before.
Speaker 5: I was now feeling fully aware that it would end
Speaker 5: at some point, So, knowing that it's going to end soon,
Speaker 5: how do I want to fill it? It started to
Speaker 5: shift the dial for me toward creating a life that
Speaker 5: I would have felt comfortable dying from. And that's a
Speaker 5: direction toward happiness for sure.
Speaker 3: But the direction Ailua took might surprise you. She didn't
Speaker 3: just lays around on Caribbean beaches all day. She decided
Speaker 3: to spend her days with people facing their final days.
Speaker 3: You see, Alua became a death doula.
Speaker 5: A death doula somebody who does all of the non
Speaker 5: medical care and support of the dying person through the
Speaker 5: entire process. And how we define dying person really depends,
Speaker 5: because anybody who's come into recognition or their mortality at
Speaker 5: some point must also reckon with the fact that they
Speaker 5: are currently dying. But overall, we're supporting folks when they
Speaker 5: have some awareness that death is approaching and want to
Speaker 5: plan and prepare.
Speaker 3: For Aileo describes her journey in a new book entitled
Speaker 3: Briefly Perfectly Human, making an authentic life by getting real
Speaker 3: about the end. Much of the impetus for taking on
Speaker 3: this new role came from watching her brother in law
Speaker 3: face terminal cancer.
Speaker 5: I remember very distinctly trying to keep track of all
Speaker 5: the questions that I had. You know, it was my
Speaker 5: sister's husband, and so she'd be with him in the hospital,
Speaker 5: and I'd be on the computer, click clock clock and
Speaker 5: trying to get some information, trying to answer these questions,
Speaker 5: and it was so tough. It was really tough to
Speaker 5: navigate that process. I wanted somebody to be there. I
Speaker 5: wanted somebody who cared, somebody who had enough resources, who
Speaker 5: had answers to my questions or at least would say,
Speaker 5: I don't know yet, but I'm going to find out
Speaker 5: for you.
Speaker 3: Death doula's are a lot like birth doula's, those professionals
Speaker 3: trained to support people having a baby.
Speaker 5: It just had a really good conversation with a friend
Speaker 5: of mine who was pregnant, and she was talking all
Speaker 5: about her birth plan, and she was talking about going
Speaker 5: to the birth thing center and what she's eating and
Speaker 5: what she likes to experience. Thinking through the plan helped
Speaker 5: her quell her anxiety about what it is that's going
Speaker 5: to be happening. Much like a birth dollah, death doulahs
Speaker 5: can support people along the way, help them get clear
Speaker 5: on their values so what they want it to look like,
Speaker 5: what kind of support that they need.
Speaker 3: And pregnancy isn't the only time we seek out outside support.
Speaker 3: We're all perfectly happy to have professionals guide us through
Speaker 3: other big life events. I mean, we have therapists who
Speaker 3: help us through tough times, math tutors to guide us
Speaker 3: through calculus, and personal trainers to get us into shape.
Speaker 5: And so to me, death dullah's are a very very
Speaker 5: natural and easy addition to that list of people that
Speaker 5: can support At the time when I think we probably
Speaker 5: need them the most.
Speaker 3: Ailua now has hundreds of clients, and while I wasn't
Speaker 3: ready to have her plan out my own death just yet,
Speaker 3: I did want to learn about the wisdom she'd gained
Speaker 3: from being so very close to death so very often.
Speaker 3: I mean, she's heard so many people reflect on their
Speaker 3: hopes and fears and regrets about the end. How has
Speaker 3: that changed her own views on life.
Speaker 5: I'm not a nihilist any means, but I wonder if
Speaker 5: we put so much focus on making meaning in order
Speaker 5: to contextualize life and make it make some type of
Speaker 5: sense where there is no sense to be made. And
Speaker 5: so rather than continuing to try to force things into
Speaker 5: some box to make it make sense, maybe we can
Speaker 5: just let go and experience it for what it is,
Speaker 5: which is a really wild ride. So the meaning can
Speaker 5: be made out of the little things that bring us joy,
Speaker 5: the things that make being alive feel like a gift
Speaker 5: in some capacity.
Speaker 3: As we continued chatting, I was struck by alu As
Speaker 3: constant gratitude. She just seems so appreciative of the things
Speaker 3: that I take for granted all the time.
Speaker 5: There is so much magic in the fact that we live,
Speaker 5: you know, the fact that we are human just to
Speaker 5: be alive, to be present for whatever our bodies capabilities are.
Speaker 5: That in and of itself is a miracle, which makes
Speaker 5: doing the dishes also feel like a miracle. To feel
Speaker 5: water on my hands, to feel heat, to feel soap,
Speaker 5: all of that grounding in my mortality means that at
Speaker 5: some point I won't have access to all these senses anymore,
Speaker 5: you know, And so how cool is it that I
Speaker 5: can feel cold on my hands? How cool is it
Speaker 5: that either have plates for me to eat off of?
Speaker 5: That all makes me feel so much more connected to
Speaker 5: this really strange experience of life.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you say it like that, facing your
Speaker 1: death doesn't sound so horrible things that are happening in
Speaker 1: the present moment, but.
Speaker 3: Right now it still feels a little terrifying.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: I mean, are you still skipped by it or is
Speaker 1: it like, like, what are the emotions that it brings
Speaker 1: up for you?
Speaker 5: Curiosity? Mostly, I'm really really curious because all of the
Speaker 5: questions around it remain a mystery. You know, I don't
Speaker 5: know when it'll be Maybe it is just a really
Speaker 5: fantastical ride through the universe and then there's no more
Speaker 5: consciousness or maybe the afterlife, if there is one, is
Speaker 5: like this really glorious place of existence. I have no idea,
Speaker 5: and so I'm curious about it.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, so you experienced that as curiosity,
Speaker 1: but I experience that as terror. So my usual move
Speaker 1: when I don't know something is to like check right.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to a restaurant and I'm thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they have a good cocktail menu.
Speaker 1: I pull out my phone and I like, check the
Speaker 1: cocktail menu. You know. I'm going to a new doctor,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how good he is, right Like,
Speaker 1: I look up and try to check on these things.
Speaker 1: But I think one of the scary things for me
Speaker 1: about death is like, seems like you can't do that
Speaker 1: with death.
Speaker 5: You stin't know, you can't you don't.
Speaker 3: Know, And so talk about how you can kind of
Speaker 3: sit and allow that uncertainty.
Speaker 5: Rather than imagine the worst possible scenario, I imagine one
Speaker 5: that brings me some comfort. I imagine something that makes
Speaker 5: me feel good about it. Because I don't know, and
Speaker 5: we can't know, and what we tend to do is
Speaker 5: flood the uncertainty with dread and fear and the opposite
Speaker 5: could also be true. Like if you're going on a
Speaker 5: trip someplace, most of us are like excited about it.
Speaker 5: You know, a vacation that you planned for a year
Speaker 5: or so, you're like thrill to go. You've never been
Speaker 5: there before. Maybe you've read some reviews, and I mean,
Speaker 5: I think a good review about death is that nobody
Speaker 5: has been there, has ever been back. They stayed there,
Speaker 5: must love it, they must love it, must be a
Speaker 5: good time. So you're going on a trip, research maybe
Speaker 5: like the food there, hotel, what you're going to do
Speaker 5: while you're there. You get on a plane, you have
Speaker 5: no idea what's to come when you land, Yet we
Speaker 5: anticipate that joyfully. We could do the same thing with
Speaker 5: our dying. Every day we don't know. I wake up
Speaker 5: not knowing if it's going to rain, whether or not
Speaker 5: I'll need to pee on my way to work. We
Speaker 5: don't know. We don't know anything about this life. So
Speaker 5: we already are really masterful at navigating the unknown. We
Speaker 5: keep navigating it. Plans change and we shift. We adapt,
Speaker 5: or we get divorced, we adapt, we get a new job,
Speaker 5: We adapt, over and over and over again.
Speaker 3: This remarkable capacity to adapt is what the psychologist Dan
Speaker 3: Gilbert has christened our psychological immune system. Just as we
Speaker 3: have a physical immune system to protect our bodies from
Speaker 3: physical threats, so too, do we have a psychological immune
Speaker 3: system designed to protect our mental health from psychological threats.
Speaker 3: When uncertain moments come up, like a divorce, or a
Speaker 3: scary diagnosis, or a struggle at work, our psychological immune
Speaker 3: system unconsciously takes over to help us adapt and thrive
Speaker 3: through the uncertainty. Alua was reminding me that when it
Speaker 3: finally comes time to face the scariness of my own death,
Speaker 3: my psychological immune system will be there to help me adapt,
Speaker 3: just like it always has.
Speaker 5: We know how to do it already, and so we
Speaker 5: could attach the same perspective that we use on living
Speaker 5: for our dying that when the time comes, I will adapt.
Speaker 3: Chatting with Aluo was reminding me that I'm stronger than
Speaker 3: I think even when it comes to facing death. So
Speaker 3: when we get back from the break, I'll get even
Speaker 3: more hardcore and my quest to embrace mortality. I'll go
Speaker 3: on a death safari right in my own neighborhood, and
Speaker 3: I'll attempt to stare my impermanence straight in the face.
Speaker 2: Okay, so heading.
Speaker 1: Over to the mirror. Yeah, uh, that's my aging forty
Speaker 1: something body.
Speaker 3: The Happiness Lab will be right back. Like I don't
Speaker 3: like anything that's finite, Like I don't like when a
Speaker 3: meal ends, I don't like when a vacation ends. I
Speaker 3: don't like what a really good television series ends. And
Speaker 3: so the idea that I my end is like really
Speaker 3: uncomfortable for me.
Speaker 5: It's difficult to think of myself as finite.
Speaker 3: Death do la Ailua Arthur is very gently helping me
Speaker 3: work through my fanta hiphobia.
Speaker 5: My drive for life is big, and that makes it
Speaker 5: hard to also release and to let it go when
Speaker 5: I love it so much. But I think about this
Speaker 5: all the time because when we say we love something,
Speaker 5: I can't love it and also not love the end
Speaker 5: of it. My end is a part of my life.
Speaker 5: If I'm going to love my life, I've got to
Speaker 5: love it all.
Speaker 3: This idea of loving it all is something we've talked
Speaker 3: about on this podcast before. We tend to pooh pooh experiences.
Speaker 3: We don't enjoy feelings like sadness, anxiety, and fear, but
Speaker 3: study after study shows we'd be better off embracing the
Speaker 3: tough stuff in life rather than pushing it away like death.
Speaker 3: Painful experiences are just part of what there is to love.
Speaker 5: They are part of the human experience whole. Humans feel
Speaker 5: a whole host of emotions, and none of them are
Speaker 5: bad or wrong. They're just maybe a little bit more difficult.
Speaker 5: So at least reframing to think of it as just
Speaker 5: a part of what it's like to be human that
Speaker 5: supports me a lot. Like even on my tougher days,
Speaker 5: when I'm feeling like I'm in the trenches, I often
Speaker 5: remember that this is just part of what it means,
Speaker 5: this is just how it goes.
Speaker 1: And I think another interesting thing about like recognizing the
Speaker 1: temporariness of these negative emotions temporary like because you're going
Speaker 1: to die, is it can actually make you enjoy them
Speaker 1: more in a weird way. Right after I finished your book,
Speaker 1: I kind of had this weird stomach thing.
Speaker 3: It had nothing to do with your book.
Speaker 1: By the way, It's a separate eating incident, but because
Speaker 1: I had just been thinking so much about my impermanence,
Speaker 1: I like readed what I would normally think of as
Speaker 1: a not good sensation very differently, where I thought, Huh,
Speaker 1: how curious that I'm experiencing something. I'm experiencing something that
Speaker 1: feels really intense, kind of brought with it a sort
Speaker 1: of kind of strange gratitude for something that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have had any gratitude for normally. Is this the kind
Speaker 1: of thing you see in some of the people you
Speaker 1: work with.
Speaker 5: I've been noticing that more and more.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 5: And also a way to hold like the difficult stuff
Speaker 5: very very gingerly, you know, because often when people are dying,
Speaker 5: there's a hole of things going on in the body.
Speaker 5: Hopefully the pain is well controlled, but the body's doing
Speaker 5: things that we're not familiar with, we can't control it
Speaker 5: at all, and holding it very very lightly today the
Speaker 5: optic nerve is not working or today this is what
Speaker 5: I'm experiencing. Does allow folks to move through the process,
Speaker 5: I think, with a little bit more grace for themselves
Speaker 5: and for their dying.
Speaker 3: I told Ailua that I do want all the benefits
Speaker 3: that come with accepting my mortality. The research suggests it'll
Speaker 3: make me more compassionate, it'll encourage me to be more mindful,
Speaker 3: and it'll push me to achieve stuff that I really
Speaker 3: want to achieve in life. But I explained, I really
Speaker 3: hate the idea that I'm going to die someday, and
Speaker 3: that is when Ailua hit me with a truth bomb.
Speaker 3: Death Is it some distant appointment oft in the future.
Speaker 3: I'm actually deep in the process of dying right now.
Speaker 3: Lewis says, I need to get used to that idea.
Speaker 5: Because if we can get more comfortable with the fact
Speaker 5: that living and dying is also happening, and which will
Speaker 5: be happening all the way up until we're actually dead,
Speaker 5: I think it maybe eases a bit of that fear
Speaker 5: like one day I'm going to be dying. No, You're
Speaker 5: dying right now. So noticing the living and dying things
Speaker 5: that are around our environment.
Speaker 3: Aila suggested an exercise to help with this, one that
Speaker 3: I tried out on my morning walk to my favorite
Speaker 3: coffee shop. I took my usual path, but this time
Speaker 3: I tried to notice all the signs of dying that
Speaker 3: I normally ignore. I saw the gorgeous irises in my
Speaker 3: neighbor's yard that had wilted and turned brown, that plaque
Speaker 3: commemorating a fallen soldier from World War Two, a banana
Speaker 3: appeal rotting on a compost heap. I was shocked to
Speaker 3: realize there were lots of signs of mortality all around me.
Speaker 3: Noticing these things helped me remember that in the grand
Speaker 3: scheme of things, I'm not so different from that rotting
Speaker 3: banana or dried out flower. And for the first time,
Speaker 3: this death awareness didn't make me nauseous. This time it
Speaker 3: felt more like awe or connectedness, reassuring sense that I'm
Speaker 3: just a small part of some larger hole. So when
Speaker 3: I guess what next.
Speaker 5: Another exercise that I sometimes encourage people to do, which
Speaker 5: can be tough for some, I'm just going to go
Speaker 5: ahead and say it, is to spend a little bit
Speaker 5: of time in the mirror, looking at yourself, looking at
Speaker 5: your body. I have a lot of mirrors in my house,
Speaker 5: and at first I thought I was just painfully vain,
Speaker 5: but I think that I really enjoy seeing myself and
Speaker 5: also noticing the aging that's occurring all the time. And
Speaker 5: I'm noticing the changes and approaching them without judgment as
Speaker 5: best as possible, but rather with some awe and some curiosity.
Speaker 5: My grades are popping off right now, and I find
Speaker 5: it fascinating, like, look at this body. All the changes
Speaker 5: has already been through, and death is going to be
Speaker 5: just another change that the body's going through, but all
Speaker 5: the changes it's already been through, like start start steeping ourselves,
Speaker 5: and the fact that these bodies are very temporary beings.
Speaker 5: They're fragile.
Speaker 3: Okay, heading over to the mirror.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my aging forty something body, getting some SAgs
Speaker 1: where there were not SAgs before.
Speaker 3: Definitely seeing that my skin is not what it used
Speaker 3: to be. The mirror exercise was much more uncomfortable than
Speaker 3: the death walk, but ultimately I was able to experience
Speaker 3: a sense of awe how the passage of time was
Speaker 3: changing my appearance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fascination, curiosity. I guess my grays are popping off too.
Speaker 1: So yeah, got through the mirror exercise without barfing. I'm
Speaker 1: going to call that another death awareness.
Speaker 5: When here's the additional step that I think might be
Speaker 5: a little resenting is to look at yourself in the
Speaker 5: eyeballs and repeat to yourself, I'm going to die, Oh God,
Speaker 5: a couple of times, two or three times, take deep
Speaker 5: breasts in between. Okay, I see you smile.
Speaker 1: If that's not a smile, it's like a fear, like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: here goes, I am going to can't if you look
Speaker 1: at myself in the eyes when I say this mirror
Speaker 1: exercise two point zero was way way tougher than just
Speaker 1: staring at some gray hair. Let's try some psychological distance, Laurie,
Speaker 1: you are going to die full disclosure. I found it
Speaker 1: existentially overwhelming at first, but after a few mornings trying
Speaker 1: it out, Okay, it helps. If I close my eyes,
Speaker 1: I am going to die. I am going to die.
Speaker 1: I am going to die.
Speaker 3: This exercise required a lot of bravery, but it also
Speaker 3: hit exactly the kind of death awareness dose that psychologist
Speaker 3: Jodie Wellman recommended earlier, a practice that does take your
Speaker 3: breath away, but at the same time helps to inspire
Speaker 3: a change.
Speaker 2: An astonishing life doesn't just happen to us. We have
Speaker 2: to take action towards it. But sometimes taking that bold
Speaker 2: step it does take courage.
Speaker 3: It's not exactly fun to remember that you're fine. Mortality
Speaker 3: is a bummer, and thinking about it does feel like
Speaker 3: a gut punch, But the science shows it's a gut
Speaker 3: punch with a whole host of psychological benefits, ones that
Speaker 3: I'm beginning to notice and appreciate. Reflecting on death has
Speaker 3: helped me realize that there are lots of spots where
Speaker 3: I'm just phoning in my life. My days are usually
Speaker 3: busy and productive, but I don't always feel like I'm
Speaker 3: really living. Thinking about my mortality has helped me remember
Speaker 3: the people and places that light me up, and realizing
Speaker 3: I have so few mondays left has made me start
Speaker 3: scheduling stuff I really value. I've shifted from passive to
Speaker 3: active mode. I bought a ring with that Latin phrase
Speaker 3: on it, and Jody kindly sent me a ceramic skull
Speaker 3: from her collection. It hasn't come easy, but I've learned
Speaker 3: that a little bravery facing the tough stuff in life
Speaker 3: and in death goes a long way, which reminds me
Speaker 3: We've now come to the end of this season of
Speaker 3: my grappling with the happiness challenges that I struggle with
Speaker 3: the most. I wish I could say that these episodes
Speaker 3: have turned me into some superwoman who's never stressed or
Speaker 3: overworked or self critical. Sadly, I'm still just human, but
Speaker 3: I think the strategies I've learned about over the last
Speaker 3: few weeks have made me a better human. Maybe, Brian,
Speaker 3: what do you think?
Speaker 2: Am I a better human? Are you about human? I've
Speaker 2: tried so hard during.
Speaker 3: These we should have planned this out. I began this
Speaker 3: season by confiding in my friend and producer Ryan Dilley.
Speaker 3: He's been along for this whole project, so now that
Speaker 3: we're at the end, I thought i'd see how he
Speaker 3: thought I did. I think you've been really brave.
Speaker 2: You've done a really good job. But some of these
Speaker 2: really quite tough things. I'm kind of proud of you.
Speaker 2: Oh you're proud of me. That's really sweet. I've earned
Speaker 2: a ton from making they shows with you, But what
Speaker 2: have you come away with?
Speaker 1: I mean, lots of things, but I guess the biggest
Speaker 1: thing is just that I can still change, but there's
Speaker 1: still a room for improvement.
Speaker 3: And it works if I give myself praise as your friend.
Speaker 4: That's such a lovely thing to hear im, And I'm
Speaker 4: so proud that you're able to make that progress.
Speaker 3: This particular season may be over, but we're not taking
Speaker 3: our summer break just yet. We'll have a longer justscussion
Speaker 3: about what I learned from all the shows you've just heard,
Speaker 3: and we've got some special Olympics themed shows too. I'll
Speaker 3: chat with the runner who fell out of love with
Speaker 3: the track, and we'll learn some happiness lessons from the
Speaker 3: coaches who coached the coaches who coached Team USA.
Speaker 2: This is such a special occasion for me.
Speaker 6: I have been a big fan and it resonated so
Speaker 6: much with me that we were sharing episodes of the
Speaker 6: Happiness Lab with the coaches we were working with.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of coaches, so do come back next
Speaker 3: time for the Happiness Lab with me. Doctor Laurie Santos