What if everything you’ve been taught about death is wrong?
I was nineteen when I watched my father dying of cancer. His nickname had been Buff Bob, and now he looked like a child. Half the weight I was used to seeing, struggling to sip peach nectar from a can with a straw. I sat there watching this man who had been so strong become so fragile, and I had zero tools to process what was happening.
My religious upbringing talked about heaven and hell, but it was full of holes and doubts that provided no comfort when I needed it most. So I just didn’t know. And that not knowing made everything harder.
That experience shaped me in ways I didn’t understand for years. It wasn’t just the grief. It was the complete lack of preparation, the feeling that we were all just fumbling through this massive moment without any roadmap or wisdom to guide us.
We live in a culture that has made death the ultimate taboo. We push it into the shadows while desperately clinging to youth and pretending like our own mortality is somehow optional.
Today our guest is Suzanne O’Brien, a former hospice and oncology nurse who has been with over a thousand people at the end of life. She’s the founder of the Doula Givers Institute and author of “The Good Death,” and she’s dedicated her life to bringing back the sacredness of dying well.
We Will Learn
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How to shift from viewing death as a medical emergency to understanding it as a sacred human experience that can teach us everything about how to live fully
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The practical wisdom that people at the end of life consistently share about what truly matters and how to apply these insights before it’s too late
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Why developing your own end-of-life plan isn’t morbid but actually the most life-affirming thing you can do for yourself and your loved ones
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