Our Greatest Teacher Death & Dying with Laurel L. Lewis

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health, and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have some fun. Hello and welcome. I'm Alexandra J. Johnson, and today we have a delightful guest, Laurel Lewis, and she received a degree in nursing, and she was married and widowed all by the age of 27, which radically shifted both her perspective on life, death, and her path. And she has been on a spiritual quest and is committed to being of deep service to others, whether through her RN training, massage, coaching, or creating workshops and wellness retreats around the world. And her passion is death and dying, which also means living, which I love. And she's the visionary that founded the Death and Dying Party, which she hosts monthly in la. She's also a hospice RN and has worked with Showtime, consulting on a documentary called Time of Death. And she spends time mentoring clients using her degree in spiritual psychology. And she's just awesome. She's gorgeous, and she's an amazing demonstration of what's possible, possible with death and dying and just, you know, recreating your life and living in possibility and love and joy and brilliance. So welcome, Laurel.

Thank you, Alexandra. That is quite the intro. I appreciate you connecting with me, and thank you for the opportunity to be here.

Wonderful. Well, thank you for being here.

Of course.

And I'd love to start off with, you know, widowed at 27. I mean, when I heard your story and I even read that, I mean, my heart just kind of drops. It's like, oh, what was that? So can you just tell us a little bit about your story and how that led you into the work that you do now?

Yeah, certainly. I think it's hard for anybody to imagine widowhood, really, at any age. And certainly when you hear or read about a young widow, it does strike maybe a different chord. Yeah. I graduated with my bachelor's in nursing in 94. I had met and married my husband Greg, that same year that I graduated. It was very romantic. He was an Air Force Academy graduate, a helicopter pilot. And I was this young rn, and we met in this little town in Columbus, Mississippi, and we got married and moved from Mississippi to Utah and then again to Nevada, where I was practicing nursing all along. And he was upgrading and learning how to fly different helicopters and had gotten trained in flying a Black Hawk helicopter, which a lot of people know what that is, and went off on a nighttime training mission September 3, 1998. We had said goodbye and good night and had this ritual where he had to wake me up so he didn't scare me in the middle of the night when he came home from a nighttime mission. So I went to bed expecting he would wake me up around two or three and I would welcome him home. But I woke up and it was morning time. It was really early, like 5:30 or 6:00 clock in the morning. And he hadn't woken me up. He wasn't in the bed. I looked through the house and I thought, well, maybe he's on the couch. That's really weird. But he wasn't. And just started. My brain just started doing what it was doing and everything inside me got really still. And I called the squadron and asked if Captain Lewis was available. And they said, standby, you know, he's not here right now. And they knew that he was already dead, but had knew also that somebody was on the way to the house to tell me. So I got off the phone and waited about five minutes, heard a car door slam out in front of my house and ran to the front of the house and saw a man in a flight suit and two of my best friends and got to the door and, you know, was saying to them, please tell me he's not dead. Please tell me he's not dead. Please tell me he's not dead. I said it three times. And they stood there in silence because they couldn't tell me anything else. And that event shattered me and my belief system and everything sort of came falling down and out of that event and that tragedy and that confusion and unexpected loss, I am where and who I am today, which I didn't think was possible. You know, I took some time off to grieve and to get my bearings and to get support and find community and learn how to stand on my own two feet and learn a lot about who I am as a woman and as a professional and as a person in the world, my way of being shifted radically. And we can talk more about that and talk more about what death has actually taught me and how I do relate to death as my ultimate teacher. But what it did for me professionally is it shifted the trajectory of my nursing career. And after two years of kind of floundering and figuring it out and recovering and taking care of my sweet little puppy and moving back to the South, I went back into the hospice. I went back into the RN profession as a hospice RN and have been doing that work, caring for people at end of Life for over 10 years now.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

And I mean, do you still, like, think about him all the time? I mean, he, like, still there with you?

I love that question. I felt him a lot in the first years of our physical separation. And I grew up in the Catholic tradition, so it was hard for me to have context for what my experiences were because they didn't all make sense in what the Catholic faith was sharing with me about life and death and afterlife and things like that. I felt very connected to him. I had dreams of him. I had impressions of him in my waking state. I had our favorite song would come on, like, the song we danced to at our wedding would come on at the most beautiful times where I needed reassurance or consoling. And I felt like he was a presence in my life for many years following the death. Now, that was 16 years ago, so I don't get a sense of him so much anymore, but I don't need him in that way as I did when I was a young, grieving widow. And I feel like whatever he's up to, he's on track. And whatever I'm up to, I'm on track. And I think we feel that way about one another. And I think I could call on him, but I don't feel the need to anymore. And I want to share on that line of thought about grief and how I knew that my grief work had shifted radically when I could think about Greg and think about our wedding, think about our life together, think about the accident and not be overcome with sadness or woe or isolation or. The big one for me was, what about me? Or why me? And when my grief shifted, it was when I had thoughts of him. And it brought into my energy smiles and appreciation and gratitude and just a deep respect for our entire journey. So I want to offer that to anybody who may be watching that maybe going through grief or loss or feeling pain or suffering, that it does shift, and it can shift. And for me, that was one of the telling signs of how I knew when my grief had shifted into a different way was that when I could reflect upon him. And it brought a smile to my face, which it always does.

Now, that's beautiful.

Yeah.

So I'm curious because I have these flashes of my loved ones potentially. You know, like, that's like the infamous, you know, the call in the middle of the night or whatever, your. Your loved one doesn't come home. Like, that's just. Like, that's heartbreaking. And just when I have, like, the flashes and I would imagine something would happen. Did you think about him in the plane all the time. Like, was that, like a thing for you of, like, you just thinking about him going down and what was his experience or not? I'm just curious because I personally, like, I think about what would happen. I'm like. And I've thought about friends who've just recently died. I'm like, what was their last moment like? What were they thinking? What were they feeling?

What was it like?

Did you think about that a lot?

I did. And I love your curiosity, too. You know, it's so ironic is I never thought about him dying in his helicopter when I envisioned it, and I did it a lot. And I hear of some widows who do have these kind of future negative fantasies, I guess we could call that, where you project into the future something negative happening. Like, you know, Brian not coming home or hearing that there's been a car accident or whatever it may be, and then you imagine your life without him or what that could feel like. I did do that with Greg, and I did it often, and I never did it with him in his helicopter. I always did it with him and his Jeep. I always imagined his jeep going off the road. And it's so silly not to think that it could have been in his helicopter. That doesn't make any sense at all. And I'm a smart girl, but, you know, I never imagined him going down in his helicopter. And I think part of that was because I knew how good of a pilot he was, and I knew that he was with other good pilots in that particular squadron. So I imagine him dying in his car, and I imagine being told, and I imagine like, oh, like the woe and the grief and the feelings I might have and what it would be like to be a widow. And I took this fantasy pretty far along in my. In my fantasy state. And what I have to say is that is not useful at all. Like, it didn't feel anything like that. There's no way to even comprehend that feeling. So it's just kind of an interesting fantasy, but it's not the truth. And I think, if you would ask any widow, that there's no preparing for that particular set of emotions when you do realize the truth of the matter, that you won't physically be with them again in a lively state. And I think that's pretty normal. And I think it's normal, too. I don't have children. I know you and Brian do. Like, maybe the idea of fantasizing about losing a child and what that brings up, I think that's a real natural thing. That we do in order to start to understand mortality or our connection with the other, or there's some deep fear or something maybe not expressed in that relationship. I know that's true for me, but I think it's so beautiful. And I love the question, and to be even more curious about, why am I fantasizing about that? Why did I fantasize about that? And how could we make that a useful thing, a useful fantasy? Yeah. But, yeah, I definitely had that.

I appreciate you showing that. And I was reading recently Brene Brown, and she was talking about that, you know, mothers, especially parents, have that feeling of, like, the thought of, like, your child going and not coming back. And, like, I. I mean, I've thought about death, but I have not thought about death more since my child was born two years ago. Like, totally. Like, you know, it's like it's imagining me leaving him and him not having a mother. You know, there's just a lot. Or me losing him or us losing Brian. Like, there's just so many that, yeah, it's been way more. Way more in my space since I've had a child, which is very interesting.

Well, I love that you're talking about it, because I think maybe it's not talked about that that is even in your mindset, and that you could be with a group of mothers of young children and maybe express that, and they'd be like, what? You know, like, is that taboo to even bring up? So I think it's brilliant that we're talking about it now to at least normalize some of these thoughts that come flashing through our minds. Not to judge them, but to understand it's us grappling with mortality or life or death, or, like I said, it's the interconnectedness that we experience with our primary family.

And I love this. I love that you're just bringing this out in the open. And I. I do find it fascinating. Like, why do you think we don't talk about death? Like, why is it not a part of our culture and part of, like, we just don't talk about it. We just don't want to talk about it. Like, for me, it's like, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about me dying. I don't want to talk about my son dying or my husband. Like, even my dog. I don't want to talk about my dog. I just don't want to talk about it. So what is it? Tell us.

You're talking about it. I love it. You're Doing it right now. Fantastic. And we're laughing and it's got a lot of good energy, right? And I think this is what's possible. I think part of why we don't is we're in an American society. You know, not all cultures view death this way. I mean, some view it entirely opposite, you know, that the person. I heard, I haven't found out if this is true or not, but I heard about it at one of the death and dying dinner parties. One of the participants shared it that there is a tribe in South Africa. Even if it's not true, it's beautiful that when a child is born into this tribe, the tribe mourns. There is like, there's grief and sadness and woe for being born into this human experience, which we all know can bring about and does bring about pain, oftentimes suffering and all this confusion, confusion and chaos and how to even be in the world. So there's mourning for the new soul coming into this human experience. And then when the soul, the person dies in this tribe, there's celebration like, ah, they're free, they've been released, you know, they've done their job here and they're on to something else that doesn't have maybe the heaviness or gravity of being in this reality. So not all cultures view death the way that we view it. In America, some talk about it. It's talked about at an early age, children aren't separated from a dead family member. A dead family member is brought into the parlor and viewed. You know, there's a wake that may last for several days. There's honoring the body. You know, in America, somebody dies and they separate the family from the body as quickly as possible. And that's a new, that is a new strategy that has just happened in the last maybe hundred, 150 years where death has become so sterile. In America now, there's a movement coming around. There's a home funeral movement and a green burial movement. But when I talk with people about it, like even imagining your loved one dying at home from an expected death and caring for their body or caring for them at home and washing their body after death, people start freaking out. And I'm like, no, this is the way it used to be. They act like I'm telling them something new, like I've made up some new information. I'm like, no, this is the way it used to be. This is a healthier way of dealing with death, you know, so that we can see it's a natural part of the Life cycle. We've just taken death and we've put it in the basement, we've locked it away. And that has created a lot of confusion around death in general.

Yeah. It's interesting as you're saying that I don't exactly remember and I don't know how old I was when my grandpa died, but. And this is only my memory and it could be totally off if we ask my parents, but he died of cancer. And I remember like seeing him in the hospital and then I remember there was a period of time that they went in and I had to stay out because they thought they wanted me to remember him the way he was and not see that. Yeah. And I obviously didn't think anything of it until you were saying that. But it's like to not see that and to not witness that this is what it looks like.

Yeah. And then I don't know. Have you seen death as an adult?

No, my grandma died. Well, that's not true. My grandma died, but she was very. I mean I wasn't there when she died, but she also pretended that she wasn't dying for a long time. So I didn't know she was dying and she was just a very. That was just her way of going about it. And I had a friend who died in high school from a car accident. So I didn't see him. But you know, I went through that with him. Yeah. And then just recently I had. We've had a couple people pass, just. They were more acquaintances for me.

Yeah.

But, yeah, so I've had it, but I haven't been there. I have not been right there.

And I think this is what's so interesting. Like that opportunity as a young girl could have planted a different seed in you and it. And I'm not sure how you relate to death now. I mean, I see the way we're talking about it and you're like, why don't. You know. But we are talking about it, which is amazing. But I think if we do, if we would allow our children or younger people to be exposed to it, then as an adult, as you are exposed to death, because you may not have a primary death that you're witness for a long time, maybe you're going to be a 60 or 70 year old woman, but you won't have had any sort of training, death training, you know, which some people may think that's a great thing. But. But for me it's sort of like, okay, if you're going to be 65 before you experience a primary death, then what are going to be your coping tools? What are going to be your strategies for successfully navigating your grief if you've not had to do that before? So I'm all about. I love education and I love educating children. And they're so amazing and resilient, and I think children are coming in, like, at a very high vibration way more than I came in at. And I think we don't give them enough of what they need, you know, they need to know the truth of this reality. And we shouldn't let our fears around mortality and death be projected onto those sweet little souls, because I think they can handle it. And I think we have a lot to learn from children in so many different ways.

I love that. I do remember, though, as you were saying about. I do remember laying in bed at night, I don't know how old I was, freaked out and scared to death of death.

Yeah.

Like, I was. I remember I was like, laying there, like, when I die, I die. Like, I'm dead, I'm gone. Like, I just. I saw this, like, no more. Never again. Like, gone. You know, it's just, like, freaked shit out of me. Like, I was just like. And like you said, if we would have had the education that, you know, my parents, I'm sure I didn't tell them that I was scared of death. I don't. I don't remember telling them. But, you know, we hold it in and you just don't tell. But. But there was an education. It was in our culture of like, oh, wow, okay, you had the place to talk about it and you witnessed it and it was just part of life. Because, lo, we're all on that path, right?

And I know some people use animals as a good way to teach children about death. And I think that's beautiful. I think that's probably a really beautiful, simple, and much easier way. It's sort of like side door. So kudos to the parents who are. Who have loving pets in their lives and can use their life cycle as teaching for the child. I think that's beautiful. And, you know, the next step is letting the child bear witness to, you know, the physical decline of somebody that you love. And what does that look like? What does that smell like? How are you responding to it? Can you be normal and natural and loving and open as you watch your mother or father decline? And can your son come along to be a witness to that? You know? Yeah.

That's amazing. So I'm curious, like, how do we allow death to inspire us and to help us Live more fully and to live our life fully. Like, how do we do that? How do we use death as the ultimate teacher?

Yeah, I did it through entheos, a class called how to Relate to Death as Ultimate Teacher. So after watching this, maybe people can hop over there and check that out for the top 10 big ideas. But I'll share a couple with you. The one that was primary for me that I think people can really understand is perspective. And, you know, beautiful movies, like, and it would be cool to watch it right now because Robin Williams has recently checked out, you know, the Carpe diem movie, what was the name of it? The Poet, the Dead.

The Dead Poet Society.

And this, the philosophy. The undertone in that movie is Carpe Diem sees the day. But death for me has taught me perspective of like, oh, right, when I wake up in the morning, what is my day about? What am I about? How do I want to be engaged in my own life and how fully or how flat am I going to show up and why? So for me, death kind of stripped away most everything in my life and I didn't really have the opportunity. Perspective was just given to me. But people that haven't experienced that kind of loss can choose the perspective. And maybe it's not as easy because you have to be more mindful. And a lot of us have conditioned patterning and ways of thinking that don't have us believe that we have choice day to day about what we're thinking about or what we're up to. So I hope people can watch this and really understand that you do have the power to choose what you're thinking about. And if you don't like the thought, you know, move on to the next one. Like, that's really empowering. And I just learned that maybe five years ago, a long way to go. But perspective meaning that how serious is this situation that's happening in my life? Whether that's I'm in la, so there's traffic all the time. There are people that are rude drivers around me all the time. They're honking at me. I'm not turning left fast enough. I'm not yielding. I'm not letting them come in. I'm following too closely. I get feedback all the time in the car. And I'm a really sweet driver. You know, I'm like, go ahead. No, I have time. I'm not in a rush. So I'm trying to, like, balance out the karma of driving in la. But still it's like, okay, do I have perspective around this or like, am I running late? Am I letting myself get worked up about it? And to prioritize, like, I'm in traffic, but I'm healthy, I'm happy, I'm living in la, you know, I. From the ocean. What is my perspective? You know, somebody's rude to me in a bank line, you know, am I going to get worked up about it or am I going to remember, like, what am I about in my life? So for me, death has given me that perspective, like, how serious is the situation and even if it's, you know, a broken arm. I have a friend who broke his elbow and it took him like three or four months to recover, and it changed a lot about his life and it helped put things in perspective for him, you know, and he's also sort of on the death and dying train with me. So he thinks about death all the time, but he was able to put his broken elbow in perspective probably a lot better in a healthier way than somebody else, because he does expose his ideology to death and dying on a regular basis. So when we can think about what's really important in our life, you know, what. What are our values and what are we prioritizing? And when we think about death as sort of like this ultimate thing, everything else can fall into place. That, for me, that's what happened.

Right? Yeah. Which I think is amazing. And I think to have that perspective is so great, right? To be able to say, and this has helped me, and especially in the last two years of just like, seriously, I'm gonna get pissed off about that, or I'm gonna be upset about that, or I'm gonna complain about that. Like, is that what I'm going to. Like, if today was the last day, that's what I'm gonna want to be bitching about. Like, come on, pull it together.

Right? Pull it together. But be sweet at the same time.

No, I mean, this is. It's kind of our, like, family joke. We're always like, pull it together. We tell our dog, pull it together.

You tell the dog to pull it together.

She mostly. Over here, she mostly gets, pull it together. It's loving. It's not like, you know, you're an idiot.

I get it. I totally get it. I would get it. Can I share another of these ideas about. Absolutely, yeah. Because I think this really goes along with what Entheos is up to. And I love it, you know, the Academy for Optimal Living. I love the word, you know, optimize. And it's just like living into the realm of what's possible for you in any given moment. And for me, death is really a lot about presence. And I mean, I'll speak more directly to actually being at the deathbed or seeing somebody in their last moment of life or days leading up to it, and having the honor and privilege of being there as somebody took their last breath. And what that can do to a witness or a watcher or what that has done for me, bringing me so fully into the present moment, it's almost like, and I'm enjoying this presence with you right now, like there's not much going on else in the world except for you and me. And that feels amazing and I love it. And I think what death has done for me is allowed me to understand how to navigate more of being fully present in whatever moment I'm in right now. That moment is with you. And later on it could be with a friend for dinner, but at the death bed, it's sort of like everything for me is stripped away. And feeling myself be free, fully involved right then and there in that moment. Having that experience over and over again of what it feels like to be simply present to what is happening has been a huge gift. And again, you don't necessarily have to witness a death to come into your present moment. And I think you guys maybe talk about this a lot on site. I've seen some of the other teachers talk about it. Breath will bring you into that space too. You know, I've seen you do it on some of your interviews, you know, like just taking a breath and how that just brings everything right here. And that's a beautiful way to do it. Nobody has to die in order to be present into your day to day moment. Yeah.

And is that like a practice that you have? Is this something that you work on just to be present and to be with it? Because there's so many distractions and they're so, you know, our minds are distracted and our brains are hot and we're over here and we're multitasking. And I mean, this has been coming up for me for a couple years now is like this thing of like, don't miss your life. Like don't miss your life in like busyness, you know, like really focus on the presence. And it's challenging. It's challenging to actually like be with the present moment.

Yeah.

Not all the time, but yeah.

And to answer your question, it is a practice. And this I've been practicing for a while, maybe eight years, have really been very mindful of having a meditation practice of my actual breath and what my breath can do. I didn't know that that was possible, and I didn't use that through all of. In my 10 years of hospice nursing. I probably wasn't breathing for the first five years of doing what I was doing. But, you know what's ironic is when I started to breathe and started to show up with my presence of loving and compassion and just being with somebody, I actually had to do less as a nurse. I had to say less as a nurse. And I could simply be present with my loving and my empathy and my open heart. And somehow that translated to the environment and things shifted. So it is a practice, and it is extremely challenging. But I say start where you are, you know, and work with the easiest person to be present, too. I wouldn't say go up to your nemesis and try to be really present. You know, set yourself up for success and work on it where you can have the benefit of some measurable success before you challenge yourself to be present with an experience or a person that may be more triggering for you.

And it's such a beautiful gift. Like, I think as women, this is important. I think that you're saying this because in our culture, which women can do so much, right, we can do. We can run businesses, we can have kids, we can do this, we can do that. And there's a lot of doing that. This is just a beautiful reminder that it's fine to do all that doing, but that it's actually okay to do less doing and just be in our essence and miracles happen. Like, it's true.

I know, I know. But I don't know if people are going to believe us, Alexandra. That's the thing. Like, you know it and I know it, but if somebody would have told me that this was possible, I'm not sure I would have believed them. So maybe if we can speak to the part of the people that have the openness to hear us, you know, like, just try it. Just experiment and see if you can be in your loving heart or be really conscious of how you are in any moment. Are you fully available to the person that you're with, or are you distracted? Is your mind somewhere else? And I found that people can actually feel into that. I mean, I think we really can. You can kind of tell when somebody's paying attention to you, even if their hands are off their phone. You can kind of tell when they check out and they start doing whatever their brain is doing.

I do it to my husband. I say to my husband, where'd you go? What are you Thinking about, like, I'm super sensitive to this. I like, like, full. I like, full presence. Like, I like that he's, like, on his phone, or he's, like, listening. I'm like, you're not listening. You can't listen and be on the phone. Like, you have to be listening to me. Or if he's like, oh, sorry, I wasn't. I was thinking about this. And he's like, how do you always know? I'm like, it's easy. It's easy to tell.

Yeah. So I think it's. And I think I love it. I mean, I think what you're pointing to is a level of respect and care and appreciation for the person that you are with. And if you don't have the time to give them your presence or attention, just step away. It's sort of. You're not really serving anybody by showing up halfway.

Yeah. Ooh, I love that. And I love that, too, that you just said that, because that's one of the parenting things that I learned, was that a lot of parents are with their kids all the time and giving them 50% of the attention, but 100% of the time. And this woman who I really love, Magda Gerber, she said, no, give your kids 100% of your attention 50% of the time. That's much better. And then 50% of the time, you go do your thing and you let them do their thing. And so you have the togetherness and separateness. I just love that you said that. It reminded me of that.

Yeah, perfect.

There's also Katherine Ingram, who's. She's in the series as well. And I love her. Do you know her?

Not yet.

The Passionate Presence is her book.

Oh, okay.

She's one of my mentors. She's amazing. You'll love her.

Okay.

She's literally. I mean, we're like soul mates. I love. She's incredible. But she was talking. I was talking about wanting to cultivate this presence, you know, and there's. I still feel like I should be doing more and things like that. And she was just saying, you know, giving your presence is literally the best gift that you can give anyone. There is no greater gift you could give anyone. There's no greater thing that you could give the world than your presence. And I was like, preach it. Preach it. I'm in.

Your to do list is gone.

Yeah, it's not gone, but I have it in the right place.

I love it, and I love the permission of that statement. And then I think about, okay, what's on My to do list. And what does that mean for living practically? Like, how can I take that beautiful philosophy and have it be practical in my life? What does that mean about my to do list? You know, it's interesting to consider that I was meeting with a friend just this weekend, and she was sharing a lot of drama and strife and upset. And I listened to her for a very long time, and I had a lot of ideas about how to help her process, and just a lot of ideas of how to move forward and help her maybe see something that she didn't see for herself. But I asked her, how do you want me to be with you right now? Do you want me to keep listening, or do you want me to share some perspective, or do you want any feedback? And she said, I'm really enjoying just talking with you. And so I continued to listen. And then after I listened, I gave her a big hug and there was emotion that was present. And then when I left her, I felt like I could have done so much more. Like, I could have. I could have listed these three or four things that would have changed everything about her experience and given her tools to whatever. And then I got a text from her. She was on her way back to where she lives now, and she was just getting ready to land. And she said, I was reflecting on my time in la and the most impactful time that I had was sitting on that towel with you at the beach and just talking with you. And I thought, whoa, that was great affirmation. This is what your mentor is saying. I was simply loving her, being open to her, not judging her, allowing her to express everything that she wanted to, and that's what she needed. And I hugged her and that was it. And that was her medicine. Yeah. Beautiful.

That's amazing. I love that because we do want to have the answers and we do want to help, but it's amazing. That's a beautiful story of, like, we are helping just by holding space and, like, being there for them. And most of us do want to talk, especially us ladies. Like, we just kind of want to talk it out.

Yeah.

And we know, like, I say it to my husband, we call it, like, you know, there's, like, times where it's okay for him to give me perspective and, like, I'll ask for his coaching, but most of the time I'm like, I just need to talk. Like, I just need to talk, and I just need you to listen there and let me process this and just be there for me. Just be the container. But I don't want your opinions. I don't need those right now. And I'll ask you if I do, you know, but it's, like, so great. And I just talk, talk. And then I'm like, oh, I got my answer. And he's like, awesome.

You're welcome. But it's so good that you know that. It's so good that you know that. And he has the respect for your process to be there and be listening to you and not push whatever he's thinking about into the process.

I will also do a little caveat or a little, like, note up here. That was a process that wasn't always. That's been a practice. It was very, you know, he's very super smart. Super smart with lots of things. So he, you know, and he wanted to coach and wanted to support, so we had to work on that. And I appreciate that, but there was, like. I always felt like I'm like, ah. I just feel like I'm getting gypped. Like, you're just jumping in, trying to complete my process, you know? And it's just. It's interesting that you're saying, I'm like, just letting your friend have her process. And it was medicine.

It was medicine. Why didn't anyone tell us this any sooner?

Right? Where was this optimal living stuff when we were in kindergarten? I know, first grade preschool.

Yeah. Yeah, right. And maybe it will get there, you know? Yeah. Well, you're doing it. You're doing it with Emerson. You're doing it with that generation. And he'll be like, telling his buddies, hey, man, this is the way to do it. Okay, that's probably not what he's gonna sound like.

I do call him dude sometimes, so he might say, dude, that is so cool. I love that. The presence of cool. So on that. Where do I want to go with that?

I have another one.

Give it to me.

Yeah. Again, it's sort of like, I love just to think about some of my deathbed experiences because they're so radical and so unique, and not everybody has that experience or will ever have that experience. But what I found, especially as a hospice nurse, when I had the. The privilege and the job of actually going to somebody's home that I'd never been to before, walking in and assessing the situation, whether that was them laid up in the living room or them at the back of the house, you know, in sort of a garden room, or sometimes I could meet people, and they were fully functional because they'd come into the hospice program early enough, meaning they had. They were Going to be with us for three or four or five months. So they were still ambulatory. They were still up walking around. It varies, you know, dramatically. But I was always and have always been surprised at the truth and the reality and the authenticity and the realness and the intimacy of being in the presence of somebody as they're dying. And I don't mean always, like in the last moment, but I mean, this is somebody who knows they're going to be dying because I've been educating them and telling them about the signs and preparing them and the family. You know, death is coming. I don't know when, but this is what's happening with your decline. And these are things you can do to help you feel better and to work it all out on a lot of different levels. But what happens is it strips away all the pretense, and it strips away all these distractions. You know, I don't see many people on the deathbed, on their cell phone. You know, they're just asking to be with their family. They're just asking to be with people they love. They're just asking to be surrounded by love. And their faces are so real. Like all the masks that we've been wearing all of our life, they just come off, you know, And I get to bear witness to the truth of somebody's being. And I don't know that that happens all the time. I yearn for that in my own life and being with people to allow them to see the truth of who I am. But it's extremely vulnerable to be exposed that way. But death has taught me how to do that more and more and more, to risk being transparent or to share the microscopic truth of my experience of any given situation and see how the other person responds to that. But somebody who's dying just doesn't have the energy to fake it anymore. And that's the beauty of what can happen when you bear witness to somebody in the dying process.

I love that.

Yeah.

I mean, what a beautiful thing for us to live our lives, which is what your work is, to live our lives without that, without the pretense, without all the drama, with all the. All the noise and just be real.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so. I don't understand. You know, I have the idea of, like, your life is like a house. So somebody gives you this key to your house on the day that you were born, right? And you have all these rooms, and it's whatever kind of house you want it to be. But I imagine, you know, it's Maybe two or three stories. There's an attic, lots of windows, beautiful kitchen, whatever it is. This is my house. But every house, your house too, has a basement. And for me the idea of this is that in the basement is your death and everything related to death and dying. And I can't figure out why people wouldn't explore the basement, you know, because I think there's so much richness in there, there's so many gifts in there. We just don't think about it that way. But all of them, this is what I found to be true. Like all of the power to live full out lives in the basement. And by us not looking in the basement or checking it out, we're gypping ourselves of some of this life energy that we could have to go on to fulfill our dreams and goals or be fully present or whatever it is that you value. I've experienced that, I've seen it happen. This is just kind of my philosophy about it. But that's why I'm so excited to help people explore the basement. Like, I just don't get why they don't because I think it's such a powerful like engine, you know, it's like where the furnace of the house is down there. You got to go stoke the fire and check it out so that you can have the life you're really dreaming of. Why would you ignore that?

Do you think that we are, we don't talk about it because we're afraid if we talk about it, it's going to happen and we're not going to be able to handle it.

Well, I've heard that, I mean people that come to that are brave enough to come and sit at my death and dying dinner party table, you know, are like. But oftentimes when I'm in the community and I introduce myself, people either lean in and they're like, oh. Or they're like immediately like they're just gone. They just almost can walk away. But I heard like, you know, the superstition around that and people, people that don't want to make their, their wills out or deal with advanced directives which are so important because they feel like if they spend the time and energy like law of attraction, it will bring it to them. Right. But I haven't seen that happen. And it's not as if by talking about it brought necessarily more death into my life. It's been quite the opposite. You know, my life has been blossoming and love and work and you know, it's been this beautiful unfolding. Certainly people do Talk to me about death. But the people that I've helped fill out, their advance directives, I haven't heard of anything creepy or weird like that happening. Oh, everybody that Laurel gives a living will to dies six months later. I mean, there's just no evidence for that ideology. So I think it's superstition, and I don't know where it comes from, but I think it's our job in this conversation to bring light to the idea that it's just an idea and that maybe that idea is not serving us anymore. And can we upgrade that thought and really just see what could happen?

I like that. Yeah, because it doesn't. But I was thinking about it. I'm like, why wouldn't we do that? Because I could think for me, like, not that I thought if I talked about it that it would happen, but more just like it is kind of the basement. You're like, oh, let's talk about this over here. Because this is really exciting and that sounds really scary and messy and holy shit, we're all gonna die. Okay, let's just focus on this.

But imagine if your parents had taken you into the basement when you were Emerson's age and started playing with you in the basement, started showing you things, and you had companions in the basement with. At the beginning of your life, when you started exploring your beautiful house. You know, so of course, at our age, we've never even unlocked the door to the basement. It's terrifying. So I completely understand what you're saying. It's true. People are scared. They have weird ideas about it. The way it's portrayed in Hollywood on TV is so unrealistic. We just see bad deaths happening all the time. We only hear basically horror stories. We hear about suicides. So our exposure, not only are we a death denying culture, but when we are exposed to death, it's not appropriate and it's not realistic. So, yeah, who would want to go in the basement?

Totally. And it's like, then like you were saying the news and just, you know, I. Look, I don't watch violent movies and like, I just don't. It's not part of. I just made a commitment to not do that. Yeah, but it's like you, in one, like one minute scene, somebody killed like 50 people or video games. And you're like, really? I mean, in real life, if somebody killed 50 people, that. That is on the news as the most horrific thing ever. But then we're watching it, we're totally disconnected, as you know.

Yeah, but things like this, this conversation will hopefully help people have a different idea about it. Maybe somebody will be curious to do more research to consider practical ideas around their own end of life or around the end of life of their aging parents. Do they have living will? Do they have advanced directives? Do they want to be buried or cremated? Where do they want to be? There are so many practical, measurable things we can do to help for those people who aren't spiritual or woo woo or whatever. You're talking to an agnostic or atheist, which I do all the time. It's like, okay, we don't have to. We don't even have to discuss that. There's so much here that we can talk about that's going to benefit you. So it's sort of like bringing light to all of this, I think can start to help at least the people that will be watching, which I think is beautiful. Even if it's one person at a time that we're helping, that person can then in turn help many more. Yeah.

And do you recommend, like, I feel like I read this on your site or something, Maybe in your top big ideas, maybe not, about a eulogy of just like, you know, kind of writing that. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, I think that's a beautiful idea. And I had the privilege of working with the Chopra. Well, and Deepak chopra has a YouTube channel and he did something called 30 Days of Intent. And I had the group of. I had the participants for two days, three sessions. So I was like the death and dying expert. So I got to expose them to anything that I wanted to. And I did a death and dying dinner party, which was amazing. And I took them and we went and sat in a cemetery and talked about advanced direction. And then I had them write their own eulogies and then had them go into the funeral home and there was an open casket and I had them. I really wish I could have put them in the casket, but that really wasn't appropriate for what we were doing. But I think that would be brilliant. I had them sit in a chair next to the casket and close their eyes and imagine that they were there for their own funeral and had the other participant read their words. And what I like about that is, and you don't have to do it, it doesn't have to be that elaborate. But what I like about the idea of writing your own eulogy is that you can write it from whatever perspective you want. So you could write it as if you were to die tomorrow or today, or you can write it as your future self, as the 90 year old version of you and you can really consider what you want your legacy to have been. And how would people describe you? What were the qualities of your life? Were you living your values and were you true to your mission and what did you contribute to? And it gives you an opportunity because we're hopefully writing like the best version. Hopefully you're going to be kind to yourself as you write your own eulogy and really consider what's possible for your life and personally, professionally. But as you do it, then when you feel complete with it and thinking about the relationships and the people that you want to address in the eulogy, you can take time to consider what's missing or take time to consider what it brought up for you. Oh, I have a lot of regret. I would really love for my sister to be, you know, at my funeral, but I haven't spoken to her for five years. I don't know that that's gonna be possible. Wow, this is something that has a lot of energy for me. Why haven't I talked to my sister for five years? So, you know, it's like. And that's not my story, by the way. I love my sisters, but I'm just, you know, Writing your own eulogy can bring forward things into your consciousness that may not have been there, that you may have tucked away for, for various reasons. Maybe you're coping with some hurt or some upset, but writing your own eulogy can really help you understand. Are you on the path that you want to be on? Are you living the life that you want to be living? Are you being true to yourself? It can help you start to understand some of the choices that you've made and give some energy to some of the choices that you want to be making. Are the people in your life right now. Can you imagine them at your funeral at 90? You're like, well, I don't really like those people. What are they doing in your life right now? Do you know what I mean? So it's a beautiful opportunity to take a deep assessment of a lot of different areas of your life.

I love that. Beautifully said.

Are you gonna do one?

Well, it reminded me, actually Brian had me do one. Like in our first dates. We did it together. It was part of our. I literally have not thought about this since we did it.

You're so advanced. You're so advanced.

Which is so awesome though, because I had the flash of like, I was, of course, in my 90s when I wanted to do it. When I did it, it was like 90s and I had A whole bunch of kids and grandchildren and everybody was around and I was swinging on a swing, drinking some tea, and he was next to me and whatever. I mean, it was awesome. And not whatever, but it was. It was amazing. I just was like, oh, wow. I totally don't know what I did with that, but I'm gonna do it again because it's super, super inspiring. And I just recently watched, which I'm sure you saw, faults in our Stars.

I cried and cried and cried.

Oh, my God. So good.

Don't give it away.

No, I won't give it away. But it was so good. I mean, just the. Just how they navigated the death, you know, I mean, it's just.

Yeah.

You know, I mean. Yeah, if you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. I didn't read the book, I just watched the movie. But it was just, you know, two children, kids struggling with cancer. But it was so good.

What I love about that, Alexandra, is that that movie beat out. What was his name? Cruise. Tom Cruise's movie that debuted that same weekend, the Edge of Tomorrow. And this movie with these pretty much unknown, unnamed actors about cancer and death got rave reviews. People went in droves to see it. And it beat out a Tom Cruise movie on its opening weekend. Excited to share that with you because it indicates, like, what. What we're up to. Like, this conversation is becoming more and more popular. Obviously you've heard about Death Cafe. That's a very popular movement. People having dinner parties and talking about death is a new popular movement. The movies and some of the series that are on TV or online about death and dying are becoming more popular. So the community is more receptive to. People are seeking it out, which I'm really excited about. So to me, that's just a beautiful indicator of what is possible in the realm of death and dying. And how. I mean, when you walked out of that movie, I felt light and I felt open. I felt connected, I felt happy. I felt like. I felt really alive.

Yeah, I mean, we watched it on our bed on a laptop, because that's what. We don't have, a tv. And that's what we do. My husband and I, because we don't have a TV and we have a two year old, so we don't go to movies.

But.

Yes, totally. I mean, it was just like. I mean, he was. Which I really loved. He was like super, super moved. Super moved. Which is just so sweet because he has such a big heart. And. Yeah, I just felt, you know, exactly that. It's like it's, it makes you. Which this conversation just brings it to the forefront of, seriously, we are going to die. And these, you know, these, these actors were just so brilliant and it was just so touching. And I just left like, yes, this is what it's about. Open heart living. Like, just live your life, love. It is all good. Even though we're gonna die and people die and people die of cancer and there's shitty things that happen.

Right. Go ahead and live anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is awesome. Okay, so I am curious, like, how do you. Well, I have two questions. We'll go with this one. First, how do you support somebody who is dying? I want to hear about that. And then I also want to hear just how you support them. And then where do you draw the line of like, okay, you're dying? Because for me, I lean towards, like, fight for life, like spontaneous healing, like prayer, you know, like do this. That's just where I kind of lean. But where is that line of like, okay, letting somebody die? And you know, do you know what I'm asking?

I do, I do. And I love the room for spontaneous healing miracles. I mean, I think they're documented around the world in different faith traditions. So. Yeah. And there's this philosophy. I don't know, I don't know if I'm going to get it right. It's sort of like, prepare for the worst, expect the best or something. Like, get yourself prepared for the worst case scenario, but live as if really beautiful things are going to be happening. And those are not opposing. You have the capacity, we have the capacity to do both, to be prepared and to be hopeful for the miracle. And I think you're bringing up something that's really important. And part of what the issue is around people not choosing in to end of life care services because they feel like they're giving up hope or they feel like if I sign on to hospice, then I'm not going to get treatment and I am going to die. Right. So it needs to be a very personal choice. And any hospice professional should be respecting the choice that is being presented to them. So I understand that idea about giving up and like, that it would be deflating. But I do see, and I have seen many, many times people in the hospice setting recover to the point where they're healthier. We actually have to kick them off hospice. So they graduate hospice and maybe we see them again, maybe we don't, you know, maybe they go on to live another two or three years because they've got enough love in their life. You know, it's very interesting. There can be. Failure to thrive is a diagnosis for an elderly person who's kind of imagine that there's this 90 year old woman we'll stay with this age, living alone, and she's not eating very well, she's not socializing, she's not really getting out. So she's like kind of like getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And as that happens, as she's not eating well or being socialized or being connected or getting love or hugs or attention, like her will to live is diminished, right? And so she may go see her doctor and he may be like, well. Or she may be like, well, let's get you signed on to hospice. But the beautiful thing that can happen, and this happens repeatedly, is that we meet these cute old people and we give them so much love and attention and support. Not only the nurses, but the social workers and pet therapy and musical therapy. And they start getting socialized, they start getting heart touch. And people are in their house like five days a week, they start eating more and somebody's monitoring their medications and before you know it, they've gained 20 pounds and they're like, hey. And the doctor's like, whoa, maybe I made a mistake. You know, this is happening all the time and this is a beautiful part. And point to what you're saying. The idea is to really be mindful of the assessment. Like, what is it that you're looking at? What is going on in this person's life? Are they dying or are they just depressed? Are they sad? Is it a disease process that has no corrective course of action? Is this an ALS situation? Is this a stage 4 cancer? Or is this, you know, heart disease that's progressed, but that there could be some benefit to having more eyeballs on the case? So it's not, it's not really a simple thing, but, you know, what I would suggest is really assessment first. And for the layperson, that could mean just watching or listening to what that person is telling you. And what is it that they're telling you that they need? Can you show up, be support and listen to what it is that they want from you? Like, you know what you said earlier about your conversations with Brian, sometimes you just need him to listen to you. So when you ask me the question, this is kind of jumping into the other part of it about how do you support somebody? It's really looking to see where they need support or asking them how can I support you? And if they're not expressing it, then simply showing up in a loving, beautiful way and bringing your open heart to them and doing that consistently. You know, sometimes people don't know what they need. But if you show up regularly without your own agenda, the need will reveal itself, and then you can meet it. So can you show up without an agenda for those people going through whatever it is they're going through? Can you do it without projecting your own stuff onto them? Can you, you know, put yourself in check and just be a loving presence? Which sometimes isn't easy to do because we think we got the fix for everybody. We hardly have the fix for ourselves. Right. But again, it's a very unique situation, and it's really honoring your unique story, you know, and what you want your story to be. Sometimes people sign on to hospice and they're ready to go. I mean, I'm sure you've heard a lot of old people, like, I'm ready to go. I don't know why I'm not dead yet. You know, we. You know, I have people ask me to help them die often, which isn't legal, but I understand that desire, you know, and what I. What I found to be true, too, is that we actually, you know, in somebody who has a prognosis or diagnosis that is at end of life, the end stage of life, it's sort of like they don't really die into until their. Their spirits, like their emotional body and their physical body are kind of in agreement to go. So it's sort of like somebody's body could be ready to go, but their spiritual self or emotional self isn't ready for them to go, or vice versa. You know, sometimes the mind is ready to go, but the body is young and strong. So there has to be some kind of agreement, some kind of alignment before the death can actually happen in some of the hospice situations that I've been in. So, you know, it can get kind of technical. And I think I moved into a bit of a technical explanation for some of your questions. But I think to bring it back to the point of that, it's very unique to the individual. As your life is unique, so your death is unique. So it's a matter of really assessing what that is and finding out what it is you need or what it is that your loved one might need by listening.

And do you have my last question, like, you know, as you supported these, you know, people passing. Are there, like, do they share their regrets with you? I mean, do they have, like, regrets and things? Is there, like, any common themes of, like, people that you've talked with as they're dying or just talked about death that like, I really wish I would have blank.

It hasn't been as romantic or exciting as that. But what I do, what I have found and what people use me for is sort of like the gateway to their family. Sometimes people will share secrets with me and then they'll say, can you tell my son? Because they haven't had the courage or bravery or can find the words to share what they want to share. Like they can't speak their truth. So to me, I take that as regret. So they're not consciously saying to me, I regret not telling my son that I loved him or being more of a, you know, a huggy or touchy feely kind of father because I see that he needs that. But people have confessed those kinds of things to me. So the assumption is, for me, the regret is that people have lived unexpressed lives and that's evidence through what they're sharing with me and then wanting me to tell their family. Can you go tell my family these things, like secrets that they've kept for years, their entire lives? You know, like they have a person coming in now that is loving them and being non judgmental and I'm trying to guide and be of assistance and so they feel safe and they unload this thing. But really what it indicates is that they maybe haven't felt safe up until that point or they haven't understood how to say what they wanted to say. So I think that is something that could be really meaningful for people that are watching really to live a more expressed life, to be true to yourself so that when you're on your deathbed, nothing will have been unexpressed. You know, allow life to continually flow through you.

Yeah, gorgeous. I love that. Unexpressed. Because we all have areas and that's part of life is evolving and expanding, blossoming and growing. But you know, I know I think about it, I'm like, oh, there's some areas that I would be a little bit bummed if I didn't fully open up to them, you know.

Yeah. And I think that goes in tandem with relationships. What I've witnessed as far as again, assuming some regrets from many of these hundreds of patients that I've seen is that they're looking for a particular child to show up at their deathbed in a particular way and it's not happening. So indicating that there's some tension in that relationship, there's something left unsaid or some forgiveness that hasn't been offered or extended from one or the other. And that happens all the time, that there's somebody dying on their deathbed that doesn't have the energy anymore to even have the conversation of forgiveness. But the. The regret is on their face, you know, so we do our best to offer self acceptance at that point, self forgiveness at that point, because they. They don't really have the energy to engage with the other person or the other person isn't going to engage with them for various reasons. So, you know, it's. It's about mending those relationships. And I see that that's a major regret that people haven't taken care of some other primary relationships.

Hmm. We can end on that. We should keep talking. But just the relationships too, like, ending on that of like, the importance of relationships. Right. Like, when we imagine, for most of us, when we imagine it's like creative work and all these things that we do are awesome, but at the end, it's like, it's the relationships, like that connection, that presence, like that for me, that. That's what I'm taking with. That is like, oh, that is where the juice is. And sometimes we can forget that in, you know, in life, but it's like that's where the magic in Mojo is.

That's right. Yeah. So take care of those relationships. Yeah. Fantastic.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for being so wonderful and opening up the conversation and having, like, our own little death and dying dinner party chat without the dinner. So share with us where people can find your website and learn more about your parties and your work and coaching and mentoring with you and all of that.

Yeah. Thank you. I'm@lurelllewis.com easy to find. Yeah. And I have monthly dinner parties, death and dying dinner parties here in the LA area. I've done one in New York, two in Santa Fe, one in San Francisco. So I do travel when I can travel to do the dinner party. And I do private coaching and I do see patient families here. But I'm certainly always open to educate anybody going through the process that needs just some real practical information, too.

Awesome. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today.

Thank you, Alexandra.

Lots of love. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess.com until next time. Keep rocking it and have an awesome day.