A Radical, Counterintuitive Stress Reliever with Alua Arthur | Staff Picks

0:04This is the 10 % Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

0:18Hey, hey, happy Friday, everybody. Many of us, myself included, spent a lot of time caught up in our neuroses and hangups and workaday problems. So today, we're going to talk about a radical, deeply counterintuitive stress reliever. I'll tell you what it is in a moment, but first, let me give you some context. All this month on Fridays, we're highlighting some of our favorite moments from past episodes, golden nuggets from our vast archive, actually is pretty vast at this point. And these nuggets are selected by members of the team right here at 10 % Happier. So over the past few weeks, we've played you key moments from my interview with the comedian Bill Hader, and also the Buddhist scholar Bhikkhu Bodhi.

0:59And this week, you're going to hear from Elua Arthur, who's an author and a death doula, which means that her job is to help people as they're dying. And it is Elua who has the aforementioned radical and counterintuitive anti-stress advice. It was actually several years ago right here on the show that Elua gave this advice, but over time, it has really stuck in the mind of our managing producer, Lauren Smith. So you will hear briefly from Lauren, and then we will play the key moment from Elua. But first, just to quickly remind you of this cool new thing we're doing over at danharris.com. If you become a paid subscriber, you'll get a companion bespoke meditation to go along with every full-length Monday, Wednesday episode.

1:42Today's a Friday, so there's no meditation today. But if you sign up today, you'll be ready for Monday's new companion meditation led by our amazing teacher of the month, Don Mauricio. Okay. Right after the break, you'll hear from Lauren and then Elua Arthur. Hey, it's Dan. I just want to tell you about something I'm really proud of, the new community we are building over on my new app, which is called 10 % with Dan Harris. Here's something I believe with no reservation. Taking care of your own mind is not selfish. It's actually essential if you want to show up for the world, if you want to deal with the various emergencies on the planet right now.

2:19There is, in fact, a geopolitical case for you to get your shit together. In other words, taking care of your own mind is good citizenship. I think about it like an upward spiral. You train your mind, that makes you happier and less reactive. Because you're steadier, that improves your relationships with everybody around you. And because relationships are crucial to human happiness, you get even happier, then your relationships get even better and up you go. Our mission over at this new app is to guide you through this process with a growing library of meditations from world-class teachers like Seven A.

2:51Selassie and Joseph Goldstein and on and on. Also, add free access to our full podcast archive, exclusive live stream events where we guide meditations and take your questions. We do those every week and much more. Head on over to danharris.com. You can try it for two weeks free. And if you cannot afford a subscription, we'll give you one, no questions asked. If you're a loyal listener to this show, you know that I am an avid worker outer. And if you are going to exercise on the regular, one thing you need, it's a non-negotiable, at least in my opinion, you need quality socks. You can't skimp on your socks.

3:25And one of the sponsors of this show is Bombas. And they've been sending me these socks that I use when I work out. Not only when I work out, but also when I'm out in the world just wearing sneakers and I want some good looking socks. I go to my Bombas on those occasions as well. It's become a little bit of a source of marital discord because my wife and I compete for the Bombas socks. So that's reminding me I need to go order some more. Long way of saying they make high quality socks, but that's not all they make. They also make footwear. Do you know what EVA stands for? Neither did I, but Bombas makes their sandals and slides from this super lightweight, cushy, waterproof EVA foam.

4:05It's like walking on marshmallows. They also make underwear and T-shirts, the best base layers you'll ever own. Head over to Bombas.com slash happier and use the code happier for 20 % off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash happier, code happier at checkout. Hey, everybody. My name is Lauren Smith, and I am the managing producer here at the 10 % Happier podcast. The episode that I'm highlighting today is with Elua Arthur, who is a death doula. And I worked on this episode back in 2023 and just found it incredibly moving on many, many levels. As a death doula, a Lua helps individuals who are dying plan for their deaths and approach and face their mortality in a way that we don't usually see or experience in our culture.

5:06Her interview is just so wonderful and chock full of tools and meaningful insights, but there was one part of her interview in particular that really struck me and stuck with me. it's an exercise where she encourages people to imagine their own death on a very granular level the rationale behind this is to help folks look at their deaths in a very specific and ideal way in order to elicit a sense of peace around their deaths it's almost like an exposure therapy So if we start to think about our deaths in this granular way, it could start to feel less scary and possibly serve as a helpful tool not only for ourselves, but for the people around us at the time of our deaths.

6:09So thank you to Elua for this tool, and I hope it serves you all today. Thank you, Lauren. That advice stuck in my head as well. So now let's hear the key part of the interview with Elua Arthur. Just for context, Elua and I spoke right after she was on stage delivering her bravura TED Talk at a TED conference in Vancouver, Canada. So here we go. So you're living your life now, employing and deploying a bunch of practices to prepare you. Yes. So what are the practices you personally engage in that you would recommend to us in terms of getting ready for this, which I'm deeply in support of this?

6:51Because I think not only will it prepare you for the inevitable, but it will revivify your life right now. That's a great word, revivify. I like to show off. It's like an SAT word, revivify. I'm going to look that up afterwards. Thank you for accentuating what an asshole I am. You got it. I don't know how many of the practices are conscious, but I will tell you some of the ones that sometimes I use. Occasionally, when trying to make a decision in my life, I'll look at it from my deathbed. With this decision that I have to make right now, looking forward to my deathbed, will I be happy I did it?

7:31Will I be sad I didn't do it? Or will it matter at all? Most of them fall in that it won't matter. Then it doesn't matter what I do. I can just figure out how I'm feeling that day and decide what direction I want to take it in. But if it has some other bigger implication, like moving or breaking up with somebody, then looking at it through the perspective of my death, I can see a little bit more clearly who I want to be and how I want to show up for my life. So that's one that I use. But I use it sometimes for silly things, like trying to figure out whether or not I want to take a nap. And the answer is always yes, take a nap.

8:01I'm always going to take a nap when I think about it from the perspective of my death. which I think some people would think that you'd rather not nap and just do the thing because there's that old adage you can sleep when you're dead but that's not sleep at all it's dead but I like rest I want to feel rested in my life and so when I'm looking at it from the perspective of my death I'll take a nap another thing that people can do that sometimes I suggest is to look in the mirror in the eyeballs in your own eyeballs like deep not searching your face but looking in the eyeballs and repeating, I'm going to die a couple times and see what it brings up and be present with whatever it brings up.

8:39It could be scary, but I find that people often feel a little bit more peace. It's a little bit of a stress reliever to be aware of the fact that you're going to die consistently. Is it a stress reliever because it gets you out of worrying about demonstrably stupid shit, or is it a stress reliever because you're taking this fear that's lurking in the corners of your consciousness and dealing with it forthrightly or both? Both. Both. I think in the immediate, it makes microscopic the thing that you're worrying about. But in the longer picture, it gives greater perspective on life itself and has you look at the things that scare you and then be with the things that scare you and then take the sting out of them tiny to tiny.

9:24I have more questions about these practices and I've got a list of some of them I want to ask you about. But just on this question of fear at the end, I have, you know, no experience compared to you, but I did volunteer in a hospice for a few years. Wow. And made a lot of really good friends there and had some powerful experiences. And I, with one exception, didn't see a lot of fear toward the end. Did I just get lucky? Or is there something about the human organism that, I don't know, some sort of equanimity kicks in around the end? I think the latter. I think that folks at some point start to reconcile their lives with their deaths and say, all right, we're here.

10:03It's part of why as a death doula, it's really important for me to work with somebody who's already come into some recognition of the fact that they're going to die. Because otherwise, I am just working with their fear. Not to say that there isn't any when the reconciliation is being made, but it's a much more pliable, fertile ground to work with. As a death doula, you don't necessarily want to come in and work with somebody who's still quote unquote fighting. Right. Unless they can also hold that they're dying. People often think that my work is about helping people get over their fear of death, but it's not.

10:37I mean, have you ever tried to have like a friend break up with a bad boyfriend or something like that? It's so hard. People just have to be ready to step into it when they're ready. So I don't do that necessarily. I can just sit with people and their fear and their discomfort. But I'm not trying to get them from point A to point B. I'm just being with them where they are. So when people say to you, I'm terrified, I'm terrified, I'm just freaking out, you don't have something you say that's comforting, you just sit in the dark with them? Yeah, what are you scared of? You know, we start there. What is the fear?

11:07What's the root of it? Help them tease it out. And often, like we were saying before, when we're looking at it directly, it starts to numb it. It's like exposure therapy in a weird way. Like you just start slowly numbing it. You take the sting out of the scary thing. And oftentimes it's things that we can do something about. Like if one of the big fears is the process of the body, which is a big one. What happens when we're dying? What does that feel like? We can start making plans to make sure that your pain is well managed, that you can have clues for thirst. We can talk about how thirst is actually supportive at the end of life because it acts as an analgesic.

11:41It will numb the pain. there's things that we can discuss to take a little bit of the fear away. Thirst acts as a pain reliever or getting your thirst quenched? Dehydration. So dehydration is good. At the end of life, yeah. It serves as an analgesic effect. Interesting. Yeah. Do you have any, having been around the end of so many lives, have you developed some sort of suspicion about what's on the other side? No. I know I wish I did. But what I notice is how often it looks like peace on people's faces as they're dying. Even if the mouth is open, because people do often die with their mouths open, it doesn't look scary.

12:27That's what I walked away with. Oddly, I haven't done it in a couple of years. This was pre-pandemic, but I walked away from my time in the hospice feeling much less scared. It's come back because I haven't been exposed recently, but it was not a scary place. And people weren't screaming in pain. Modern medicine is quite powerful. And as we established, there's something about the human organism that seems to ease into this transition. But I remember quite powerfully feeling like it was a relief to have that experience. Sounds like it's time for you to go back to the hospice. Yeah. And yes, absolutely.

13:00I find that people are more peaceful and they're ready on some level. to die because likely, particularly in a hospice or so, it's coming at the end of a disease process. I was just tired of being sick. Yeah, that's true. Like, I get the flu and after three days, I'm ready to be over it, you know? Particularly when you are in a disease process that's likely going to kill you. Man, at some point you're just like, all right, enough already. My father used to have this joke about when you get the stomach flu, that you switch back and forth between thinking you're going to die and fearing that you won't.

13:36Oh, that's good. Yeah, it's good. So one of the other practices, if memory serves, that you recommend for people is to really get pretty granular in thinking about how you want to die. I love that one. Why? Why do you love that one? Because it creates an ideal that can serve to create peace around it. So much of the fear around death is like, what's going to happen? What's it going to feel like? What's it going to be like? This is a scary thing. I can't even think about it. So if I can think about it in a way that feels peaceful to me, my nervous system will be soothed by the idea. And so I suggest that people fill it with as much sensory detail as possible.

14:15What does it feel like? What does it smell like? Who's there? Who's not there? What are you wearing? What are you seeing? What are you smelling? What time of day is it? Where are you? What's the lighting like? Make it really tangible. Because I think once we can land it in the sensory experience, then we can ground it in the body. And then it doesn't feel so scary. Because this is my ideal death. This is something that feels comfortable or comforting to me. And oftentimes what I hear is it's like people Sunday afternoon or when they're with the people that they love or when they're in their comfortable clothes or a place that they're already familiar with.

14:47So if I think, well, if I can die in a way that I'm comfortable living, then maybe the process of dying won't be so bad. Maybe. You do this in your talk, but can you paint a picture of what your vision is? Yeah. Sunset. Sun's going down. The sky is changing. the colors are really vivid that day it's not one of these days with all the clouds so I can't see the sky but everything's changing it's really pretty I can see it ideally I'm outside on a deck or something like that in my own bed or a bed that can be wheeled outside there's no machines I can hear the wind and the leaves I can smell some Nag Champa amber my people are around but they're not just like hovering over me looking at me because I don't like being the center of attention it would make me really uncomfortable You don't like being the center of the day?

15:34No, I don't. You just came off stage in front of 2 ,000 people. And then wearing bright orange. But I don't like it. She's wearing bright orange and it's pretty fetching. Thank you. But I want them to be like over there talking amongst themselves and comforting each other. I want soft things. I want to feel soft things. I would love it if there were sunflowers nearby. I want like a mustard yellow blanket or something. I just want to feel cozy and warm and safe. and like people care, but I'm not going to totally fuck up their lives by the fact that I'm dying. What about pain relief? Do you have some desire to avoid that so you can be maximally conscious?

16:13Yes, I would like to be as conscious as possible, but with my pain managed. So middle path between obliteration through morphine and being as awake as you can tolerate. Absolutely. Although I know some people that want to be as awake as they can. One guy who I supported doing his end-of-life plan, didn't want any pain medication at all. That's what he said. Did he change his mind? I don't know. He's still living. Oh, great. Yeah.

16:45Thank you to Alua Arthur. She's amazing. And thank you to Lauren Smith for honing in on said amazingness. We'll put a link to the full episode in the show notes if you want to go check it out. Also, Alua wrote a beautiful book called Briefly Perfectly Human. And you can learn more about her at goingwithgrace.com. Another quick reminder before you go, scoot on over to danharris.com to become a paying subscriber, and you'll get access to a bunch of perks, including bespoke companion meditations that come with every full-length episode, plus live video guided meditation sessions, ad-free versions of this podcast, and much more.

17:20Check it out, danharris.com. Finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.