Afleveringen
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This caller doesn't come from a place of loss. They come from a place of curiosity, and a theory they've spent years quietly assembling.
It starts with reincarnation. But not the straightforward kind. Not a linear return to another body in the next moment. The caller imagines all points in time as equally available. Past, present, future. When you die, you pick a new life from any of them.
From there, the conversation moves into the one electron theory: the idea that a single electron might be tracing a path so vast and complex that, from our perspective, it looks like billions. And the caller's question: what if souls work the same way?
We also talk about non-duality, about the grief they're able to feel versus the grief they're expected to perform, about the Catholic upbringing that they've mostly moved away from, and the one part of it that still quietly unsettles them. And at the very end, after an hour of theory and philosophy, the conversation lands somewhere unexpected.
This is a good episode if you enjoy ideas. If you're comfortable sitting with a framework that's genuinely unusual and doesn't resolve neatly. The caller isn't here to convince. They're here to share what helps them.
In this conversation:
A theory of reincarnation that isn't tied to linear timeThe one electron theory, and what it might mean for the soulNon-duality, and why the caller thinks separation is something we inventedConsciousness as a gradient scale, with humans nowhere near the topThe grief they feel versus the grief they know how to showA Catholic upbringing, a mostly-abandoned belief system, and the one fear that stayedBook recommendations: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh and Morning, Noon, and Night by Spalding Gray
All Anonymous Book Recommendations: View the full list
Video Episode: If you'd like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This episode includes an open and personal conversation about suicide, suicidal ideation, and suicidality, including experiences from childhood. If you're in a tender place with any of these themes, please take care of yourself first. If you need support, Thrive Lifeline is a great resource.
This caller has spent most of their life in relationship with death, and they'll tell you that relationship started before they had words for it.
A first-generation Filipino American who grew up without a fixed sense of home, they found their way into community death care not through a course or a calling they could name, but through the accumulation of things they survived and the people they stayed for. What brought them to this work was loss. What keeps them in it is something harder to explain: a sense that being present for someone at the end of their life is less about training and more about showing up with your whole self.
This is a conversation about learning to live inside uncertainty, and finding that the mystery of death doesn't have to be something you solve.
In this conversation:
What it means to grow up without a fixed home, and how that shaped an early, complicated relationship with deathWitnessing a parent's suicide attempt as a child, and carrying that in relative silence for most of a lifetimeHow a family crisis became the unexpected doorway into community death careVolunteering to sit with people who are actively dying, and what that actually looks likeThe idea that suicidal ideation is more common than most people admit, and what changes when we stop treating it as unspeakableSettling into "I don't know" as an answer to what happens when we die, and why protecting the mystery might matter more than solving itBook recommendation: The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus
All Anonymous Book Recommendations: View the full list
Video Episode: If you'd like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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This week's caller grew up in a Roman Catholic household where death was treated as simply another part of life. Something to be at peace with rather than afraid of. But the conversation quickly turns to something that's shaped most of their adult life: being the one who shows up.
From early childhood spent in chemo waiting rooms to becoming, at 16, the family member who could see what others couldn't (or wouldn't) admit was happening to aging parents and grandparents, this caller has spent years as the person carrying the weight of decline that the rest of the family wasn't ready to face.
This is a conversation about what it means to be the one who's honest when honesty isn't welcome, what caregiving costs a person in the years they don't get back, and how someone holds onto curiosity and faith even while putting their own life on hold again and again.
In this conversation:
Growing up with memento mori as a normal part of family life, and what it's like to be raised Catholic in a way that felt welcoming rather than fear-basedWhat it's like to be the one who notices a parent or grandparent is declining — and the toll of being disbelieved by family members who aren't ready to see itBeing present for a peaceful death in early hospice care, and what it meant when pain relief wasn't yet standard practiceWhat it costs to keep putting your own health and education on hold for the people who need youFinding small ways to hold onto a life of your own while still being on call for everyone elseA different way of imagining what "nothing" might feel like after we dieBook Recommendation: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
All Anonymous Book Recommendations: View the full list
Video Episode: If you'd like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This week's caller is a retired physician who spent decades at the bedside of dying patients and now works at a funeral home. They have been present for death on both sides: as the person trying to slow it down, and as the person who shows up after. Somewhere in all of that, faith became the thing that held it all together.
This is a conversation about what it looks like to build an entire life around proximity to death and come out the other side more certain, not less.
We talk about the difference between the brain that perceives and the brain that just keeps the lights on, what it felt like to be airlifted off an island during a military coup at 22 years old, and why the anatomy lab might be one of the most quietly spiritual places a person can sit. We also get into what families get wrong about what their loved ones are experiencing near the end, why the body is so complicated it's hard not to believe something made it, and what it costs a person emotionally to keep showing up for other people's worst moments without breaking down.
In this conversation:
What the brainstem keeps doing after the upper brain goes quiet, and why families often mistake that for sufferingThis is the anatomy book mentioned during the call: Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab by Christine MontrossWhy promising to be there at the deathbed changed how this caller practiced medicineBeing airlifted out of Grenada in 1983 and what that moment did to how this caller decided to liveWhat burying your emotions to help other people actually does to you over timeWhy the caller can't understand choosing to believe there's nothing after deathBook Recommendations: The Bible
All Anonymous Book Recommendations: View the full list
Video Episode: If you'd like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This week's caller is 79 years old and has spent the last three years going down every rabbit hole death has to offer. All in service of a book that's about to come out.
They have lost a husband and a mother. They have survived breast cancer. And somewhere in all of that, they stopped being afraid of dying and started being afraid of being dead.
This is a conversation between two people who have ended up in surprisingly similar places on a topic most people won't touch.
We talk about what it means to sit with "I don't know" as an actual answer, why sadness might be easier to live with than fear, and what panpsychism and a pretty intense psychedelic experience have to do with any of this. We also get into ego, annihilation, the logistics of being a ghost, and why the idea of nothing before you were born is somehow less terrifying than the idea of nothing after you die.
In this conversation:
The difference between being afraid of dying and being afraid of being deadPanpsychism — the idea that everything, including rocks and plants, has some form of consciousness — and why it's making a quiet comeback5-MeO-DMT vs. DMT, and why machine elves are not the vibeRam Dass on ego dissolution and why releasing the self might be the only real antidote to the fear of deathWhy fear might just be sadness wearing a disguiseThe "nothing before you were born" reframe — and where it came from Annaka Harris' book Lights On (I mentioned this during the call but couldn't remember the title at the time)Book recommendations: The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This week's caller was diagnosed with a terminal illness at eight years old. They have never not known that death was part of their life.
They are an actor, a writer, a reader, a person who rescues snails and keeps a pet millipede and loves sharks because they understand what it feels like to be misunderstood. They are also someone who has spent their entire life figuring out how to live fully inside a body that makes that complicated.
This is a conversation about what it looks like to choose life, loudly, intentionally, and without apology, when death has always been in the room.
We talk about the guilt of knowing you're going to hurt everyone who loves you, the difference between being afraid of death and being afraid of dying, and why so much of how we portray terminally ill people in media gets it completely wrong. We also get into what they hope they can do once they're gone, why they want to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival even though their doctors would disagree, and the one thing they still want to experience before they die, which is not what you'd expect.
In this conversation:
The difference between fearing death and fearing the process of dyingWhy "you don't look sick" is something we should all agree to stop sayingThe guilt of knowing your death is going to hurt the people you love mostBook recommendations: Reverie by Ryan La Sala; I Fell in Love with Hope by Lancali
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
Nemosené: Your Life Story
A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This week's caller is a pediatric nurse who has been around death long enough to stop fearing it and start getting curious about it.
They lost their father to suicide as a teenager. A few months later, they were the one doing CPR on their childhood best friend after an accidental fentanyl overdose. They were sixteen. They didn't become a nurse because of those losses exactly, but those losses made them someone who couldn't look away.
This is a conversation about what it looks like when death becomes a daily presence instead of a distant fear, and what a person builds out of that.
We talk about what it's like to have a job where you see about two people die every week and what your mind does to keep moving. We get into reincarnation through a video game analogy that is really fascinating, the difference between what you believe and what you hope, and why this caller's fear isn't death itself. It's leaving people behind. We also hear the story of a man who died alone because he'd told his children he never wanted to see them again, and what he asked this caller to pass on.
Content note: This episode includes a brief mention of suicide and accidental overdose. Neither is dwelt on at length.
In this conversation:
What it actually feels like to watch someone die and how nurses keep moving afterThe three-lives theory: reincarnation, Mario, and why deja vu might mean somethingWhy their fear of death is really a fear of what they'd leave behindWhat a dying man asked this caller to tell people, and why she still hears his voiceBook recommendation: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
Referenced in the intro: Gift Economy — A Mission Statement on Donation-Based Teaching by David Sudar
Nemosené: Your Life Story
A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This one is different.
When We Die Talks is built around anonymous conversations — people calling in to talk about death, dying, and what they think comes next. No names, no faces, just honest conversation. This episode breaks that format entirely, and I think once you hear it you'll understand why it had to.
Don Sires was one of the very first guests on this podcast. Over a year ago he sat down with me, not anonymously, by his own choice, and talked about living with ALS, his Baha'i faith, and what he believed waited on the other side. That episode, Episode 8, became one of the most listened to conversations this show has ever had. It's still the one I get contacted about the most.
A few weeks ago Don texted me. His nurse had given him four to six weeks to live. And then he asked if I wanted to do a wrap-up interview.
That's very Don.
I went to his home and we sat down one more time. This conversation is quieter than the first one. Slower. The Don you met in Episode 8 is still very much there, the curiosity, the warmth, the willingness to go deep, but you'll notice the difference. He wanted to wrap things up, offer some final thoughts, and leave something behind.
If you haven't heard Episode 8, please start there. Get to know him first. Then come back.
I'm honored that Don trusted me with his story over a year ago. I'm even more honored that he trusted me with this.
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This week's caller has been living with grief long enough to become a student of it. They lost their mom at twenty-two. Then their cat. Then their soul dog thirteen months ago.
This is a conversation about grief that doesn't rank itself, animals as family, and what it means to believe your soul chose this life even when this life has been really hard.
We talk about losing a parent young and what it does when no one ever talked about death before it happened. We get into ecological grief, the mourning of a world as it used to be, and how a hottest summer on record in Greece sent this caller on a path toward becoming a grief recovery specialist. We talk about souls, reincarnation, the possibility that time doesn't exist where our animals go, and the very real question of whether you'll get to meet your dog again.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, we end up laughing about whether the old souls are just patiently waiting while the young souls keep coming back around to figure it out.
In this conversation:
Ecological grief and why grieving a changing world is not a disorder, it's a responseAnticipatory grief — the kind that starts before you've lost anyoneWhy they found it harder to lose their cat than their mother, and why that makes complete senseThe case for anti-speciesism in grief work — why every animal deserves to be mourned without shameA few lines from the call:
"Death is the only thing that is sure that's gonna happen to our body after we're born, and yet no one speaks about it.""I didn't even want to live anymore." What losing their soul dog did, said plainly."We don't overcome grief. We learn how to live with grief."Book recommendation: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
Nemosené: Your Life Story
A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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Note: This episode includes an open discussion of suicide and suicide loss. Please listen when you're in a good place to do so.
This week's caller has lived through a concentrated stretch of loss that would bring most people to their knees. A beloved grandmother who raised them. Another grandmother, expected but still hard. And then, in March of 2021, their husband — suddenly, traumatically, in a way that left no warning and no clean answers.
They came to this conversation not from a place of unresolved pain, but from one of hard-won peace. And they wanted to talk about how they got there.
At the center of it is a belief they've held since childhood and leaned on through every loss: that no one dies without a final chance. That in the last moments of any life, there is still an opening — for forgiveness, for grace, for something that doesn't close until it actually closes.
In this conversation:
Losing three significant people in three years and how each grief felt entirely differentWhat it means to find your grandmother on the floor and just know before you knowSurviving the death of a spouse by suicideWhy the caller believes their husband is in heaven and the theological reasoning that got them thereThe difference between religion and relationship, and why that distinction mattered most when the questions got hardestWhat it means to be a widow in your forties when you were expecting to grow old togetherA few lines from the call:
"I didn't know up from down. I was totally crushed.""He didn't commit suicide. He died by suicide.""In those last twinkling moments — every single person has that one last opportunity.""When it's my time, I'll be ready. And not fearful."Book mentioned in this episode: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube
Nemosené: Your Life Story
A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This week's caller has been sitting with death since childhood. They grew up deep inside Pentecostal religion, the shouting, the standards, the constant weight of what comes next, and instead of finding comfort there, they left with more questions than answers. They've been chasing those questions ever since.
This is a conversation about ego, identity, and why the thing afraid of dying might not even be you.
We talk about growing up in a religious household and what happens when you rebel your way into actually thinking for yourself, the idea that "authentic personality" is a contradiction because the word personality comes from persona, which means mask. We get into reincarnation, not the hopeful kind, but the honest kind: consciousness continues, the ego doesn't. And the caller makes a case that death isn't just okay. It's necessary. Without it, nothing means anything.
In this conversation:
Growing up Pentecostal and what that does to a kid who can't stop thinking about deathWhy the caller stopped calling themselves an atheist and what they believe insteadThe ego as the thing that panics and what's left when you start subtracting itTheir version of reincarnation: the consciousness returns, but you don't, and why that's actually fineWhy they believe death gives life its meaning and the thought experiment they used to make that case to a believerHow psychedelics and long stretches of solitude helped them stop fearing and start acceptingA few lines from the call:
"It sounds like you've been in an existential crisis since you were a child." What their therapist said, and why it tracked."I'm nobody and it's not a bad thing. It's a liberating thing.""On psychedelics, I'm more ready to die than at any other time."Book recommendations: The Book of Enoch
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
Nemosené: Your Life Story
A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This weeks caller lost their baby brother on Thanksgiving Day when they were five, and has spent their whole life with what they call "a little bird called death" on their shoulder. They're a death doula, a trauma-informed yoga instructor, a Reiki master, and an adventure motorcyclist, and they're still terrified of death.
But somehow, that's exactly what makes this conversation so good.
The caller is funny, self-aware, and refreshingly honest about the contradiction of doing death work while being afraid of death. We talk about watching grief reshape their entire family after their brother died, what it actually feels like to hold space for mass shooting survivors, and a late-night fight that ended their relationship with their father for good. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, they work out, out loud, a theory about death that involves dimensions, dreamlike transitions, and shedding the skin to see what's really there.
In this conversation:
What death anxiety actually feels like when you're wired for it, including the moments it just crushes you out of nowhereLosing their brother at five, and how that grief quietly shaped everything afterHolding space for trauma survivors, and what they get out of it that they didn't expectTheir working theory on what happens after we die: dimensions, metamorphosis, and coming into a new space without traumaA few lines from the call:
"I've been sitting with a little bird called death on my shoulder my entire life.""We're not actually dead until we're dead. We actually are alive all the way until we die.""Maybe when we die it's like having a dream. And when we wake from this dream of death, we come into being in a new space."Book recommendation: Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul by Stephen Jenkinson
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
Nemosené: Your Life Story
A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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This caller grew up without religion, lost their mom to suicide at 13, and spent years in a fear of death so overwhelming they couldn't be around skeletons or eat meat. Then they were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
But somehow, this is not a sad episode.
This week's caller is funny, sharp, and genuinely at peace — not because life got easier, but because they stopped waiting for it to. We talk about what it actually felt like to go from debilitating death anxiety to building a community, writing a book, and strapping roller skates back on at 46 after a hip replacement. We talk about what a Parkinson's diagnosis changed, and what it quietly gave them. And they say something near the end of the call that I've been thinking about since: that they're just glitter. That glitter sticks to everything and you can't get rid of it no matter how hard you try.
In this conversation:
What death anxiety actually felt like — before a diagnosis put it in perspectiveLosing their mom to suicide at 13, and how that fear lived inside them for decadesFinding purpose through Parkinson's — and why they call it a "terribly wonderful gift"Hope vs. belief: how they hold both, especially when it comes to their momBeing a single parent of four kids (two grown, two teenagers) while living with a progressive diseaseDark humor, living intentionally, and not caring who watches you dance in the rainWhat they still want to do before they're done — and why it's simpler than you'd expectA few lines from the call:
"I guess I'll have to embrace this. So I did.""Your hundred percent today looks different than your hundred percent yesterday.""We're all just meat and electric jelly when it breaks down to it."Book Recommendation: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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What would change if we treated death as a human event, not just a medical one?
This week’s anonymous caller is a death doula. And instead of going abstract, they get surprisingly specific about what the end can look like and what people wish they’d put in place sooner.
A lot of this episode lives in the gap between what we assume will happen and what actually happens when things move quickly: who makes decisions, what families scramble to figure out, and how easily someone’s wishes can get lost if nothing has been talked about ahead of time.
It’s also a reminder that this isn’t only an “old age” topic. The caller talks about working with people in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties. Which quietly changes the question from “someday” to “at some point, and we don’t get to choose when.”
And underneath all of that is one simple reframe that keeps showing up throughout the call: the medical side matters, but the human side is usually what people need most.
In this episode:
What a death doula actually does (and what they don’t)Why dying often needs more human support than medical supportWhy end-of-life planning is a form of careThe reality that terminal diagnoses don’t only happen “late in life”Why the timeline is the part none of us gets to knowWhat tends to help at the end — and what tends to complicate thingsA few moments from the call:
“Dying is much more of a human event than it is a medical event.”“You need more human support than you need medical support.”“We have no idea when death will come for us.”“I’m working with people who are in their twenties or thirties or forties or fifties, and they’ve received a terminal diagnosis…”Book Recommendation: Anonymous Caller Spoiler (preorder link)
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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What if death isn’t peaceful, or blank, or anything you can make sense of, but something you’re trapped inside?
This week’s anonymous caller doesn’t come in with a comforting belief or a story about loss. They come in with death anxiety. The kind that’s hard to explain even when you’re trying to explain it.
We talk through what the fear actually feels like when you get specific. Not just “I’m afraid to die,” but fear of being stuck, fear of losing control, fear of being alone in whatever comes next.
And toward the end, something shifts. Not because we solve anything, but because the caller says out loud what most people keep private and realizes that naming it helped.
In this episode:
A caller trying to describe death anxiety in real timeThe fear of “eternity” as being stuck, conscious, and aloneHow religious upbringing can leave fear residue, even after beliefs changeControl, spiraling, and what it feels like when the fear grabs holdWhat talking about death anxiety does (and doesn’t) changeWhy saying it out loud can soften the grip, even without answersA few moments from the call:
“I just have this crushing fear of what I don’t want it to be like.”“I am going to be stuck in eternity alone.”“Us talking about it, it helps me… it might not even be like that.”Book Recommendation: The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck); The Death Gate Cycle (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman)
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
Nemosené: Your Life Story
A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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What does death look like when it’s part of your job?
This week’s anonymous caller is an EMT who’s around emergencies and dying on a regular basis. And because of that, this conversation doesn’t stay in the abstract for long.
We talk about what CPR actually does to the body, the gap between what people think happens in a medical crisis versus what it really looks like, and why end-of-life wishes can get complicated the moment fear enters the room.
A big thread in this call is about clarity. Not in a cold way. More like the kind of clarity you get when you’ve seen the same situations play out again and again. Especially when it comes to DNRs, family dynamics, and what people ask for on paper versus what actually happens in the moment.
In this episode:
Seeing death up close as part of the jobWhat CPR really does to the bodyWhy “doing everything” can override someone’s wishesDNRs and how they can get complicated in real timeHow repeated exposure to death changes the way you think about itThe caller’s own near-death experience and what it did (and didn’t) changeA few moments from the call:
“Even if we bring you back… you’re gonna have broken ribs.”“Some estranged family member takes you off that DNR because you’re a fighter…”“Death happens to everyone… it could happen today, it could happen tomorrow.”Book Recommendation: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson)
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
Nemosené: guided story recordings to help people preserve their voice. Support this work by visiting nemosene.com
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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What happens when you’re 19 and you’re loving someone with a terminal illness?
This week’s anonymous caller is an anthropology student who’s been studying death, grief, and ritual. But that interest isn’t abstract. Their partner has a terminal illness, and it’s been sitting in the background of their life and relationship for a long time now.
A big part of this conversation is what it does to time. The way the future starts tapping you on the shoulder in normal moments. The way regret shows up early. The way even small arguments can feel “expensive” when you can’t stop doing the math in your head.
And somehow, even with all of that, this call stays surprisingly grounded. There’s love here. There’s fear. There’s humor. And there’s a level of care and perspective that’s hard to wrap your head around at that age.
In this episode:
Loving someone with a terminal illness at 19Studying death academically while living close to it personallyAnticipatory grief, and living with the awareness of what’s comingHow conflict changes when time feels shortRegret, presence, and the pressure to “do it right”The comfort of personifications of Death in literatureA few moments from the call:
“The life expectancy was 18… and then they turned 18, didn’t keel over.”“We just spent the last 30 minutes arguing… that’s now 30 minutes closer to the end.”“It’s like a metronome… you’re just swinging.”Book Recommendations: Hogfather and Reaper Man (Terry Pratchett)
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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What happens when your mind stops feeling like a safe place to live?
This week’s anonymous caller shares about experiencing a psychotic break in 2020, and what it changed about how they relate to death, reality, and their own sense of self. They do an unusually good job describing what psychosis can feel like from the inside, including a “movie logic” kind of certainty that’s hard to understand until you hear someone try to explain it.
A big part of this conversation is what came after. The caller talks about grounding themselves in logic and facts. Not as a debate, and not as a personality trait. More like a way to stay steady when everything had felt unreliable. From there we end up in some bigger questions too, like perception versus objective reality, how memory shifts when you revisit it, and what it can mean to believe “nothing happens” after death while still admitting how limited human comprehension is.
There’s tenderness here, and there’s also humor. At one point the caller drops the line: “this Barbie is going through it.” It’s strangely perfect.
In this episode:
A psychotic break in 2020, and what it was like to live on the other side of itThe feeling of being betrayed by your own mindGrounding in logic and facts as a way to feel steady againPsychosis, perception, and the gap between “my reality” and “objective reality”What “nothing happens” can mean, and why it might be beyond comprehensionIdentity, selfhood, and the weird edges of what we can explainBook Recommendations: Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer)
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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What if something big happens… and your life still mostly goes back to normal?
This week’s caller has had two heart attacks, starting when they were sixteen. On paper that sounds intense. But this conversation isn’t heavy. The caller brings a calm, laid-back energy that makes the whole episode feel surprisingly easy to sit with.
We talk about how they think about death, including a loose, pop-culture Buddhist view of reincarnation, and how they’ve learned to live with uncertainty without forcing certainty. There’s also real, grounded detail about their heart condition and what it’s like to move through life knowing your body can do unpredictable things.
One of my favorite moments is when I ask if the heart attacks changed their life, and they’re just honest: not in some permanent, movie-montage way. There was a burst of intensity, a period of “I should do everything,” and then life slowly drifted back toward normal. It’s not a lesson. It’s just true.
In this episode:
Having a heart attack at sixteen, and how it shaped their relationship with deathA relaxed, curiosity-forward relationship with mortalityReincarnation, Buddhism, and living with the unknownThe difference between fearing death vs fearing painPanic, hospitals, and what helped them stay calm in the momentLiving with a heart condition over the long termA past-life documentary the caller loves: The Boy Who Lived BeforeBook Recommendations: My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George); The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas)
More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list
If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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What do you say to a child who asks, “Am I going to die?”
This week's caller is a physician who works with children who have cancer and has training in pediatric palliative and hospice care. In this conversation, she shares what it’s like to talk honestly with families about death. Including a story about having to tell a seven-year-old patient that she is going to die.
This is a heavier episode. The subject matter is difficult, and the conversation doesn’t shy away from that. But it’s also thoughtful and full of compassion. The call stays with what these moments actually require: clarity, presence, and care.
We talk about how children understand death and why avoiding these conversations often makes things harder. It's a conversation I promise you won't forget if you are in the right headspace for it.
In this episode:
Talking with children about death and dyingWhat it means to tell a child the truthPediatric oncology and palliative careBeing on both sides of the hospital bedEnd-of-life conversations with children and familiesThe absence of language for parents who lose a childBook Recommendations: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams); American Gods (Neil Gaiman)
If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.
Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
✉️ Email: [email protected]Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.
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