#500： Let's Talk About Death Over Dinner
Episode Stats
Summary
When you invite people over for dinner party, you likely think of some delightful conversation topics to bring up to keep your guests engaged. Today, my guest argues that one of those topics should be death. His name is Michael Heb, and he s the founder of Let's Talk About Death Over Dinner, an organization that encourages folks to have dinner parties to talk about death, from the philosophical to practical matters like wills and funeral planning.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast today is actually
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the 500th episode of the aom podcast which is a cool milestone thanks to everyone who's been with
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us from the beginning for a long time now or if you just started listening thank you for joining
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us and if you just started you've got 500 episodes you could check out our podcast archives and you
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can check that out at art of manliness.com slash podcast so thanks a lot it's been a fun ride and
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here's to 500 more and let's get down to today's show when you invite people over for dinner party
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you likely think of some delightful conversation topics to bring up to keep your guests engaged
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my guest today argues that one of those topics should be death his name is michael heb and he's
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the founder of death over dinner an organization that encourages folks to have dinner parties to
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talk about death from the philosophical aspects to practical matters like wills and funeral planning
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today on the show we discuss why you should invite friends and family to your house to talk
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death over a plate of lasagna we begin our conversation discussing the downsides of not
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talking about death and how ill-prepared americans are for death both emotionally and financially also
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practically michael then shares the best ways to invite people to a death over dinner party and
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then we dig into questions you can use to get people talking about death in terms of both the
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practical and the philosophical and true story after i recorded this episode i had dinner with some
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friends and we discussed death and estate planning over some pizza pie it was a big success
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after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is slash death over dinner michael joins me now
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via clearcast.io all right michael heb welcome to the show thanks for having me so you wrote a book
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and you're the founder of a thing called let's talk about death over dinner so how do you come
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with this idea to host dinner parties where the topic of conversation is death it's kind of a long
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story so i'm glad we've got a little bit of time like it started actually with my interest in
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architecture which may seem like a bit of a departure to how we get to conversation about
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death over the dinner table but i went to architecture school was just about to graduate and
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ended up starting an architecture firm as you sometimes do right instead of going the standard
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process of finishing your degree putting all of your time in getting your stamp and becoming an
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official architect i decided to drop out of school and with another designer start a project called
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the city repair project and an architecture firm called communitexture and long story short what
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we started doing was look at the city it was portland oregon where we were living and we decided that we
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wanted to repair the city in the way that we saw fit not necessarily the way that city management and
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the bureaucracy thought it should be done and so we started doing things like building buildings without
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permits but also creating large community interventions that in many ways broke the law and
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that one kind of renowned intervention was to turn a residential intersection in the selwood
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neighborhood neighborhood in portland into a piazza into a public square or traditional gathering place
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and so we convinced all of the neighbors that lived in that neighborhood to come together and paint a
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500 foot anasazi symbol of life in the middle of the asphalt on an intersection in a residential
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neighborhood with the idea that we would essentially lay down this design this scheme and bring everyone
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together so that we could create the type of space that we felt like we needed in order to connect with
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each other i think our modern cities do a very good job of disconnecting us you know are the people
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that we live around the people that we work with where we shop where we eat all of these things have
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been pretty well separated in modern life and so we wanted to you know address that and start to create
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really powerful gathering spaces for people the city got really pissed off as you might be able to imagine
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and they didn't know who to blame necessarily because there had been about a hundred neighbors that came
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together and had had created this action this massive artwork almost like a piece like a banksy piece or
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something on the city street ultimately the mayor got really excited about the project and was kind of
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admonished the bureaucrats and said this is doing exactly what we want what i've asked you to do it's
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slowing down traffic it's bringing community together the cost of it was you know several buckets of
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paint yes they broke the law but they're going to probably cost the city less because they'll be
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relying on each other and communicating and reducing the cost of services and so you know here i was like
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21 and this was one of our first projects we were also getting paid gigs to design houses and public
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squares but the the intersection repair went from being just a single installation to now there's
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over 15 000 all over the world become a kind of you know urban design city planning archetype and it was
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really just you know it was me and my partner mark with this crazy idea and so how that relates to
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having dinners and talking about death is from that early i guess from my early career as a designer
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i saw very clearly that people are deeply yearning for meaning in their lives that we live in a culture
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that doesn't provide a lot of opportunity to gather in meaningful ways and that there's a deep desire
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and a deficit almost like a bankruptcy around meaning and that people will do extraordinary
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things in order to connect so i took that early experience and continued thinking like a designer
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and realized that the dinner table is the ultimate gathering place it always has been that's actually
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where we became human and if and we've forgotten how to eat together we've forgotten how to use these
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dinner tables that sit in most of our houses and so i combine this idea with crossing a boundary breaking
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a law breaking a taboo like talking about death and realizing that we have a great need for
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meaningful gathering at the dinner table after 20 years of using the dinner table and understanding it
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i'm in a bunch of really kind of crazy you know sometimes messed up sometimes really amazing ways
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i learned enough to be able to ask people come to the table and talk about what was arguably the
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most difficult thing to discuss right and it's also one of the most important things to discuss
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because it's a fact like i think you said in the book like we're we are all children of death
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right like we will all die one day but we don't talk about it and you begin the book talking about
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there are some like actual like practical consequences not just existential consequences we will talk about
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that but that's an important part but it's also like just brass tacks consequences of not talking
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about death what are some of those consequences yeah well the specific inspiration for this movement
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death over dinner and then the book let's talk about death was a response to one of those very
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practical issues that we face and it you know it was seven years ago when i started the project
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and it it was one of those it wasn't a eureka moment but it was one of those moments where you
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have a conversation with someone and you know that your life will be forever changed from that moment
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forward and you know you're lucky if you have one of those experiences you're incredibly lucky if you
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have many i've had many of those experiences where i i'm literally watching my life change as i'm having
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the experience knowing this and the impact all of my future days and so i'm on this train between
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seattle and portland and i sit down in the dining car and what i usually do in a dining car is in the
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train or in any of these you know different transits transportation modes that we use is i isolate
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myself right i find the chair where i can sit by myself and i grab a seat put on headphones possibly
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but for whatever reason that day i decided i think maybe it was a crowded dining car and there was
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only one seat available with two other people at the table and they both ended up being these doctors
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and they both left the you know kind of conventional medicine practices that they had to you know go on
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one of them was on a walkabout and just gotten back from haiti and the other one didn't know what
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they were going to do what they weren't going to do allopathic medicine and so we started talking and
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you know it's like so you had left the medical world and why have two random doctors decided to
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leave our medical system and of course they're like well it's broken so like you i like to ask questions
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and i said you know why what is the most broken thing in our medical system and their answer was
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the same even though they didn't know each other and they both literally at the same time say how we
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die and for me that was a striking response because seven years ago there wasn't front page news about
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end-of-life care advanced care palliative care hospice these things weren't even talked about in
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the d e or f sections of our newspapers very often there's been a total sea change and so you know and so
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inquired further and the statistic that came out of that conversation that stopped me cold was that
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75 and now i think it's actually in some cases 80 percent depending upon how you figure the statistics
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but essentially 75 percent of us want to die at home in in the united states and 20 only 25 percent of us do
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and so if you do the quick math on that that's half of america not getting what it wants at you know at
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the end not having access to or not deciding to or for some reason not getting their wishes granted
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at the end of their life and you know we live in a country that prides itself on rugged individualism
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and the freedom of choice and a number a list of freedoms and the fact that we're not getting what we want
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for the one thing that we all have in common for me was incredibly striking and i immediately saw that
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you know a conversation as i delved a little bit deeper with these doctors to understand that because
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we're not talking about death because we're not talking about our wishes they're not becoming they're
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not getting fulfilled and and that's and at that point i asked them so what if i get what if i get
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the whole country to talk about death you know my brother likes to tell me it's always an opera with me so
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it's not like well let's start small it's like how do we take on this issue at a global scale
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the first national and then global and so i said i'm going to start this project let's have dinner and
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talk about death and they're like great done we support you and i haven't seen those two doctors
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since but the the reality was we hit a nerve this project and even though when we first started
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people thought that we were insane combining these two things in the last five years since it launched
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by conservative count there's over a million people that have sat down and had this two to three hour
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experience and we've done that for literally no funding other than a small indiegogo so i mean you
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said okay 75 percent of americans want to die at home but only 25 percent do so it sounds like you
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have to have a plan and a very proactive plan so like if you don't have a plan what's the default
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in the medical field like why why do these guys think the way we die is broken is there a default
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that goes on there that causes people to end up dying in the hospital where they don't want to be
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yeah so it's it takes a great deal of strength and tenacity to stand up to a doctor or in an icu situation
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or even sometimes to get somebody into hospice care and there is a a default which is keep somebody
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alive at all costs treat every malady as it arises even if it's not going to prolong life or prolong
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a quality of life so that's where our medical system is set at default and it's not you know some
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people say it's because there's incredible greed in the system and certainly there's probably some of
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that there's also the hippocratic oath and there's also just the the way that our medical system is
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set up is to focus on beating curing getting people back to some level of you know of stasis or some
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level of well-being and so if you decide that you want to take a loved one or if you are in that
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situation and you want to actually stop fighting or die not in a hospital room surrounded by an array
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of machines and strangers it is difficult to stand up and say this is what i want especially when people
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aren't willing to talk about the fact that the end is near there's not a conversation of about reckoning
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like it's coming the likelihood of of of me getting out of here alive is low how do i want my final
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days to be how do i want my final moments to be you have individuals family members doctors nurses
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administrators all with a very low level of comfort and a low level of literacy around this conversation
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and so the conversations don't happen hardly at all and when they do happen when people actually
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talk about so as far as the practical quality of this conversation it's a little bit of a perfect
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perfect storm as you said there's existential there's spiritual reasons there's peace of mind reasons there's
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a lot of different elements to why we'd want to have this conversation why we'd want to face our
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mortality but the very practical ones come down to the fact that you you want to let your family know
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what you want at the end how you want to be treated where you want to be what you know what is the
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feeling that you want in the room like what kind of music do you want playing do you want to have
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yourself strapped to a bunch of machines do you want to fight at all costs if you don't tell them
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that they don't know how to advocate for you to make sure it happens and if you don't tell them
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what you want to have happen to your body or your things or your possessions a couple different things
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happen so one if we don't have wills and obviously we never know when we're going to die
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i have plenty of friends that have lost loved ones and spouses in the middle of their life and they
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weren't prepared and my friend chanel reynolds started this incredible project get your shit together
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because she lost her husband to a motorcycle accident and she didn't know where the life
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insurance papers were the bank account information was and she literally lost a whole year of her life
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just in logistics so knowing what happens to our stuff having our family know that you're doing
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them a great service the amount of litigation that happens around family law and trust law and when
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people die and wills it's just it's criminal and it's it's not necessary it's avoidable the other
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thing that i think is arguably more important than avoiding the litigious nature of of someone dying
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is that if we don't know what our loved ones want or we haven't told our loved ones what we want
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people don't know how to honor us they don't know if we don't they don't know exactly that we want
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to be cremated and what we want to have happen to our remains if we have a specific idea about that
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it's not going to happen but it also doesn't allow that person who's grieving us to have a clear
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grieving process because when our wishes are spoken and honored it's been proven in studies
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grieving process is actually shorter so there's and we can do practical layers like if you make
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decisions early about your wishes and advanced care and have a living will and some people go and
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negotiate a funeral you know plot and you know a coffin and all of these things there's money to
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be safe there and you know there's it's also the number one cause of bankruptcy end-of-life cost in
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the united states so again we have this perfect storm of the practical and and the existential yeah the uh
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the statistic about the the number one cause of bankruptcy being end-of-death or end-of-life
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costs like i worked at the trustee's office and that's we saw a lot of that it was really sad
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right because these people they didn't their their loved one didn't have a plan so they just tried to
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extend life as long as they could when they finally died they didn't have a plan on what to do so they
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ended up spending a lot more probably than maybe the person wanted on a funeral because they don't
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know it was just yeah it was really tough to see that and we don't want to make all those decisions
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when we're grieving or we're in crisis right i mean that's the the thing that we we really want
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to be able to be as present as possible for our loved ones when they're at the end or when they're
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in the icu and if we're having to think about these logistical details one we're going to make
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you know we don't make good decisions when we're flooded when we're in fight or flight you know that's
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our reptilian brain it's not coming from our heart and so the decisions they're not very wise
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and they definitely don't always resonate with with what we ultimately would want or the person
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that we're trying to make decisions for would want okay so those there's some big practical
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consequences of not talking about death and i think we'll get into the existential stuff here in
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a bit so let's let's talk about okay say someone's listening to this like that sounds kind of
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interesting to have you know death over dinner like how do you how do you invite someone do you just be
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like hey we're gonna have chicken a la keen and we're gonna talk about death you want to come
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like how does that work well one of the reasons why we created death over dinner is so that you would
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have a blameable third party right we decided that if you had an incredible toolkit almost like a board
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game that made it very clear how you would host and run and execute or be at make happen an experience
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like this you don't want to leave a lot to guesswork right because people are many people are already
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just naturally stressed out or triggered or uncomfortable with this conversation which really
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is not i mean there's some of it that's just the nature of the conversation and so much of it is
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cultural we haven't primed people for or created opportunities or permission for people to have these
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conversations so it's it's awkward and uncomfortable for a lot of people so the idea with death over
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dinner was to make it as simple as possible to make it as simple as the simplest board game
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it's almost like the opposite of cards against humanity right and you like you do and say
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extraordinary things and when you play cards against humanity that you wouldn't do or say in other
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situations right we could be completely inappropriate and so with death over dinner it's like let's
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create that level of clarity for people so they can be like don't blame me don't look at me i hosted
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you to this thing you know i invited you but it's a real thing like there's been a million people that
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have done it and the new york times and usa today and all of these people have written about it and
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you know it's a movement so i was very knowledge very clear in my thinking that we needed to have
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the media behind us this needed to be a project that was legible in the mainstream so that some
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when someone did invite their loved ones who were like you know what in the hell are you talking about
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they had some ammo i could be like well look over here like tim ferris has death dinners you know
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ariana huffington has death dinners whoever you you know you can pick somebody that you your family
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member idolizes and i can help you find out if they've had a death dinner but nonetheless that
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that is just one element of of it being you know out in the mainstream having it be helpful how you
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actually invite somebody is say that you're you found that this movement was really seemed really
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interesting or seems really powerful and that the people that you're inviting are the people that you
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really want to have this conversation with because they're the people that you care about most
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sometimes it's better to start with friends and sometimes you care about your friends more than
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either your family sometimes your friends are going to be more likely to be the people making
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decisions for you or more closer to you than at the end than your family but the the thing about
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inviting people is one you never surprise people it's never come over for you know chili or pizza
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and surprise we're gonna have this death dinner it's okay it's a national movement but you know
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that doesn't work so you give people the opportunity to select into an experience like this a dinner is
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not necessarily the best place for all people to have this conversation and so i mean the book that i
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wrote is much more about having the conversation anywhere and having access to the prompts and the
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conversational the conversation starters and the questions that you can ask people and answer yourself
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anywhere whether you're doing it via email skype walking in the woods drinking beers it's a group of
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people etc so i would say invite people thoughtfully and without the you know without an expected outcome
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gotcha and then be up front like you don't yeah you said don't don't spring it on them like uh
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you know people do with mlms like hey let's go have lunch do you want to enjoy my mlm like you know
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hey let's have dinner we're gonna talk about death when you're here don't do that don't do that it's a good
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way you wouldn't you wouldn't want somebody to do that to you right you know exactly we're gonna take
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a quick break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show all right so uh you you invite
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the person and and say they say yes and some people are gonna say no because there's like i'm not ready
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for that or just i'm not comfortable that that's okay like don't you don't have to make it weird
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nope um you get the people there who want to be there food's on the table like how do you kick
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off the conversation about death while you're munching on roasted lamb or whatever right well
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a note about food people are like what kind what do i cook for a death dinner do i do themed and it's
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like well what what you cook should be something that doesn't stress you out and this goes for any
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dinner party you're hosting or any kind of actual gathering you're hosting if you're the host and you're
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stressed out your guests are on some level also on alert they're you know we're social creatures we
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look to the people that are hosting an experience to understand what kind of experience that is and
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how the you know how we're meant to be in that experience and so a lot of people will cook elaborate
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dinners and and they're not necessarily good at cooking elaborate dinners without being stressed out
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and don't do it order some takeout if if that's what it if that's what it takes if that's what your
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comfort level is so we can really focus on the people that are there not on perfecting your
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chicken alla king as you mentioned so the you've got them there the beauty of the website and the
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toolkit you get from the websites the website leads you through a couple questions it's kind of like
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choose your own adventure it's the only thing to do on the website is answer a couple questions and
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then get a toolkit a script for your evening and the questions ask you you know who's coming and that's
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just kind of a engagement question doesn't affect any of the content and then the second question
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is pretty key it's what's your intention for having the dinner so perhaps you know you have found out or
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somebody in your life has found out that they have a terminal diagnosis anybody who's struggling with
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a serious terminal diagnosis death is in some way in the room they're thinking about it they might not
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be talking to you about it but it's it's a presence right and some people when they are struggling with
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a terminal diagnosis really want an opportunity to chat with their community to talk to their
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community openly so that'd be kind of an extreme situation where somebody wanted to have one of
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these dinners maybe you're a young family that just wants to get this planning done maybe your
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parents are getting a little bit older and you want to have the conversation with them or you're
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you're you know you're getting older and you want to have the conversation with your kids
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your grown you know adult kids or you think it's a philosophically interesting conversation you want
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to delve into it with your friends so when you select those are all the intentions are listed out
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and when you select them what it does is then create a customized script and it starts with a very
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simple ritual I guess you could call it where you acknowledge somebody who's no longer with us
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somebody who's died in your life and this can be somebody you knew well or some if you're younger
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and you haven't had many losses it might be somebody that you idolized or looked up to or an animal
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you know it could be you know death has many different shades so you acknowledge that person
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say something you the impact they had on your life and then there will be three or four questions
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that have been selected based upon your intention things like what song would you have you know
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performed at your funeral and who would sing it what would you what do you want your last meal to be
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so those are kind of the more icebreaker conversation prompts that don't necessarily read as
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we're having a death conversation they're a little bit more accepted in the in in our in our culture
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and then there's the more of deep end of the pool conversations as people warm up and those are
00:26:56.460
questions like you have 30 days left to live you just found out that you're only going to be here
00:27:01.940
for another month how do you feel what are you going to spend your next 30 days doing what is your last
00:27:07.200
hour like your last day like who's around you how do you feel close to the end and you learn a lot
00:27:12.880
about yourself when you when you answer that question you know a lot of these the beauty of these
00:27:19.000
dinners and the reason why I've been able to host so many personally is because
00:27:22.120
they're never they never get dull because people are always surprising themselves you hear people say
00:27:28.460
things that they've never said out loud or maybe they've never even thought or put together as a
00:27:33.760
combination of ideas and so people learn what it is they value most and you watch watching somebody
00:27:41.060
surprise and educate themselves about themselves is pretty extraordinary to watch it's maybe one of the
00:27:50.040
the most beautiful things and then spouses and partners and siblings and parents and kids also learn
00:27:57.960
about each other and old friends learn things that they never knew about each other from these
00:28:02.900
questions and that's I mean that kind of discovery or new information is what fuels intimacy intimacy in a
00:28:11.700
friendship intimacy in a love relationship intimacy in a parent-child relationship that kind of deep
00:28:19.360
human connection happens at every one of these dinners I've ever been at and everyone I've ever
00:28:24.760
heard somebody talk about yeah I always think that's interesting to learn about life you often have to talk
00:28:29.320
about death like that's some of the most profound insights about life is whenever you have that
00:28:33.200
conversation yeah I mean it's the great mirror right it is what defines this thing called life if we
00:28:39.140
didn't have death it would just be existence right life is by its very nature you know this uh this
00:28:47.580
temporary this finite thing and it's there's been incredible studies done where you know again this
00:28:55.680
is this death phobic culture these don't become front page news on these studies but it was at
00:29:01.500
Princeton I believe did a study where they determined that facing death and talking about death increased
00:29:09.140
your sense of humor and also made you funnier which is pretty phenomenal to see also there's a remarkable
00:29:16.560
psychologist psychologist clinical psychologist working in New York Jordana Jacobs and she's done
00:29:22.060
the first of a series of studies to see how facing our mortality and embracing the fact that we do die
00:29:30.740
leads to more intimacy and more connection and in our in our long-term relationships which is what
00:29:37.280
people want in their long-term relationships and you know and they do a lot of extraordinary things to
00:29:43.440
try to increase intimacy to increase the fire and and maintain it and sustain it and it's like
00:29:50.200
what you could also just talk about death maybe it translates into the bedroom so let's talk about
00:29:58.900
some of these prompts these questions that you have in your toolkit like the one of them is like why
00:30:03.380
don't we talk about death when you've brought that question up at your dinners like what are some of
00:30:08.120
the answers you've gotten over the years yeah I mean it's a it's a great question and it's funny it's
00:30:14.660
one of the questions that is a little bit more of a philosophical nature and I I'm very careful when
00:30:21.640
I when when we ask questions that don't result in I statements so it's maybe the only question in the
00:30:30.680
book and that we use in a dinner that doesn't directly have somebody talk about you know their
00:30:36.300
own experience it it's a place where people will talk about our culture and which is great to talk
00:30:42.880
about our culture death dinners are designed around people talking about their own experience
00:30:47.580
because there are no experts in death and you're the only person who's an expert in how you feel about
00:30:52.780
your own mortality but as far as why we don't talk I've learned a lot about from doctors and nurses
00:31:00.180
about how we've medicalized death in the same way that we medicalized birth it's very there's a lot
00:31:05.860
of parallels not surprisingly between the culture and the machine and the business of being born in
00:31:12.780
the and that of dying and we've taken birth in many ways from a very community family experience and
00:31:21.540
we've made it a very medical experience often at great cost to individuals and and there's been some
00:31:27.760
great improvements as well and a lot of people a lot of children that wouldn't be on this planet
00:31:33.800
and humans that wouldn't be on this planet without the medical medicalization of birth but we've done
00:31:39.620
it very effectively with death as well we've taken from a community act it was we're not we don't
00:31:45.500
encounter bodies anymore that are we don't see people dying very rarely are we at the bedside of
00:31:51.940
somebody dying very rarely are we confronted with a body and so you know it's it's left our daily
00:32:01.500
experience and and it's entered into this more professional realm and so instead of there being
00:32:08.240
some dark conspiracy conspiracy out there for why we don't have this conversation I think it's a little
00:32:16.000
bit more like the need to get back to growing our own food and cooking our own food and realizing that
00:32:23.220
there's incredible value and and the pendulum swing too far in the in the direction of modernization
00:32:32.100
and technology and away from human experience so that's true in food that's true in birth and that's
00:32:38.320
true in death another one of the prompts that I liked a lot was what is the most significant end of
00:32:43.880
life experience of which you've been a part are there any answers to that question that really
00:32:48.380
stood out to you over the years um yeah there's too many of them but I mean like what I mean like
00:32:53.260
do they all have something in common right you know what they do actually yeah because there's those that
00:32:58.900
talk about a horrific loss um or a devastating loss and then there's people when you bring up
00:33:05.840
this question or questions about you know death in general and you see this this almost light
00:33:13.600
come into their face into their eyes into their being and I don't mean to get you know religious
00:33:19.560
with it because it's not what I'm saying there's but there's this this kind of glow that comes over
00:33:24.980
people when they start telling stories about how they got very present to the passing of a loved
00:33:32.200
one instead of resisting it instead of suffering through it or fighting it but turn towards the
00:33:41.300
what was the opportunity of the moment how to really be with this person that I love as they die
00:33:47.740
you know like I got into bed you know into the even the hospital bed or the hospice bed
00:33:53.460
to be next to my mom when she gave her life when she had her last breath or the whole family was around
00:33:58.960
her and it's not that there was some incredible wisdom imparted at the last moment by my grandmother
00:34:04.680
but the fact that we were all there and and with her and present for her when she had her last breath
00:34:11.460
and she gave her last breath those stories where people turn towards it it's not always the case
00:34:17.400
sometimes you know you turn towards it and the person who's dying is having a really really hard time
00:34:22.800
and that's can be that can be a very difficult experience for everybody involved but when you hear about
00:34:29.120
you know an experience where people have really stopped everything made it their priority because
00:34:37.040
the thing is it's a terrible thing to regret and that's and I regret not being there when my father
00:34:41.500
died and not spending time with him during his last years and days and and I you don't want to carry that
00:34:47.940
regret around I've talked to a lot of people that didn't drop everything thought that work or some other
00:34:54.600
thing in their life was more of a priority for some reason maybe because they didn't want to face what
00:35:00.240
was actually happening and that's a terrible burden and regret to have to carry with you and you also
00:35:06.780
have encountered people that you know that whole experience of death like they experienced it firsthand
00:35:12.220
where they had like sort of like they almost died like they're on the doorstep and that experience
00:35:17.320
like changed them forever but like yet because we don't talk about death we never get to hear about those
00:35:21.560
type of things yeah these I mean I almost call them like ghost stories right the we will tell ghost
00:35:28.240
stories but we won't talk too often about our own strange connection with people that have died it can be
00:35:36.900
like well there was I saw a ghost once or somebody saw a ghost once in a house or the number of people
00:35:44.080
who feel like they're in some level of communication whether that's just a presence or a feeling or you know
00:35:50.720
people all the way to the level of mediums or people that have had near-death experiences and
00:35:56.880
you know medically speaking they have been dead and have come back to life and have had
00:36:02.820
experiences that are very similar there's an there's archetypal experiences that people have I don't have
00:36:08.440
an opinion on what is valid or what is true I know that those experiences are very true to the people
00:36:14.900
or very meaningful and very real for the people who've had them and because we don't talk about
00:36:21.620
this death because we don't talk about the connection between those that are living and those who are dead
00:36:27.580
with any kind of comfort or any kind of literacy we don't share a great deal of our experience most
00:36:35.520
people have something to say about this you know I've felt my father's presence not in an embodied form
00:36:41.440
but just as a kind of presence in my life it's hard for me to describe mostly because we don't talk
00:36:47.460
about these things I don't have words for it since he died and and it's a real part of my experience and
00:36:53.340
I bet that most of the people listening have some kind of encounter or relationship or have at least
00:37:00.960
have somebody in their life that wants to talk to them about this kind of connection with the people
00:37:05.940
who aren't here are there certain types of deaths that people even if they you get them talking
00:37:11.340
about death like in the abstract or you know maybe even talk about specific instances there are some
00:37:16.940
instances of death where they just like people just don't like want to go there at all yeah well
00:37:22.880
that's the thing is when you have a culture that denies death represses this conversation and represses
00:37:29.880
so much I mean we repress so much emotion this is you know your your work is around
00:37:35.220
the masculine and one of the reason I think very clearly one of the reasons why we are
00:37:41.360
in such a crisis in in this country around the masculine and men are having such a hard time
00:37:48.020
first time in what a hundred years that the suicide rate you know has increased to the level where
00:37:54.300
the mortality or you know the age expectancy of white men in America is actually being reduced
00:38:01.740
you know that's a that what is that trend and the trend is as a relationship to both suicide and an
00:38:10.020
overdose and you know opioid crisis and that's a painkiller suicide is also a painkiller so when we
00:38:18.360
talk about you know what deaths or what things are off the table are too painful to talk about
00:38:25.120
that's within the context of a society that represses so many things and the reality is repression leads
00:38:33.600
to disease repression also leads to isolation and depression and so I don't think that there I think
00:38:41.020
that we want to cultivate a culture cultivate a environment where we can talk about any kind of death
00:38:48.480
any kind of loss and have it not feel like it's a stigma and so we have a lot of work to do where
00:38:55.360
people can feel comfortable where combat troops coming back you know from serving time feel comfortable
00:39:02.300
talking about the traumatic experiences they've had or doctors feel comfortable talking about
00:39:07.840
and nurses the traumatic experiences they've had in the ICU currently there's very little opportunity
00:39:13.940
there's more opportunity for soldiers than there are for doctors to talk about these things and you
00:39:19.020
know we have the highest burnout rate in the medical profession of any other profession so you know to answer
00:39:25.900
your question I'm interested in a future where there isn't a type of death that feels unmentionable
00:39:34.060
right now suicide terribly isolates the survivors it's this one of these incredible tragedies where
00:39:43.680
isolation most likely led to the fact that somebody decided that they didn't want to be here a sense
00:39:50.420
of isolation and then when somebody does commit suicide the family members we isolate as a culture
00:39:58.240
we isolate family members and survivors by not openly talking to them about their loss because we're
00:40:04.760
uncomfortable with it we feel like they must be uncomfortable with it they're thinking about it have a
00:40:09.640
conversation with people who have lost people from suicide they want they want to know you're there and they want to
00:40:15.040
know that you're willing to meet them at that level because they don't want to be left alone in it when people
00:40:21.960
have lost children you know that is a very real there's a very alive thing for them
00:40:29.420
someone who has lost and I've spent a lot of time with people who have lost children that child never goes away
00:40:35.800
they don't want to have you you know some at some point and they'll let you know if they don't want to talk about it
00:40:42.160
but people don't want to feel like they can't connect with you around what is now the most real thing in their life
00:40:50.040
you know I just saw the film Roma I don't know if you've seen it but talk about a powerful
00:40:55.540
reminder of the potency of what it means to lose a child
00:40:59.760
I'm not going to give away any spoiler but there's that exists in that movie and I don't think
00:41:06.560
I've seen a more powerful movie in cinema maybe ever in my life so we we want to we want to have
00:41:13.800
these conversations and they're not for everybody there's a lot of work that needs to be done
00:41:18.860
you know on oneself to get to the point where we're we're comfortable talking about these difficult
00:41:24.560
things but it starts by taking a risk it starts by finding out where your edge is and stepping over it
00:41:29.760
and being vulnerable so I mean having that conversation going like about you know losing
00:41:34.200
a child or say someone in their family commits suicide like how do you bring that I mean to me
00:41:39.400
it seems like you wouldn't bring that up at a death over dinner that seems like something you do
00:41:43.060
I don't know when the time was right like how do you bring up how do you broach that topic so it
00:41:48.000
sounds like people want to talk about or maybe some people don't but some people do how do you how do
00:41:53.020
you as a person who wants to like mourn with those that mourn right do that I mean is it going to be I
00:41:58.120
guess is it going to be awkward like you just have to accept that and then just see where it goes after
00:42:02.280
you you broach that line yeah no it's the fact if you have the courage because it's really a courage
00:42:08.740
issue you're doing something that is uncomfortable something that is beyond your your the known areas
00:42:16.940
of your life to go up to somebody and and say hey I'm I've been thinking about you and I've been
00:42:23.900
thinking about your loss and if you want to talk about it I want to let you know that I'm here for
00:42:28.140
you I may not be the best person for it I feel a little bit uncomfortable right now but I don't
00:42:33.540
want you to feel alone right now you can say that you can say that when you're getting coffee when you're
00:42:40.500
on a break when you run into them in the hallway you can say that via email you can say that via voice
00:42:46.680
memo you can say that via facebook messenger there's any number of ways that you can say that thing
00:42:52.980
and that is never going to be I would say almost never going to be a met with like go away and how
00:42:59.340
dare you right and so if we're looking for the right moment to say something as simple and human
00:43:07.080
as what I just said it's now it's it's and then it's now and then it's now and it's now if you have
00:43:13.060
somebody in your life who's had one of these devastating losses there is nothing but good that
00:43:18.540
is going to come from saying hey I've been thinking about you and I want you to know you can
00:43:23.300
talk to me about this and just be honest about the fact I'm not a therapist obviously you know that I'm
00:43:28.600
not even good at these conversations I'm scared as hell to bring it up to you but I really don't want
00:43:33.340
you to feel alone it's more important to me that you don't feel alone right that that to me like
00:43:39.840
the person's going to be impacted pretty powerfully so we've been talking about uh speaking of kids
00:43:46.940
like how do you should you have these like dinner death over dinner conversations with your with
00:43:52.740
your kids and if so how do you how do you bring that up or do kids just bring it up yeah you've got
00:43:57.320
kids right I do have kids yeah yeah do they do they ask are they curious about death uh my oldest my
00:44:03.500
oldest is pretty existential yeah which is it's like he's like I don't know yeah he's like an
00:44:08.560
existential philosopher and he's eight yeah totally so a lot so here's the thing is every kid you know
00:44:15.000
they're all snowflakes right they all have their own personality from the moment they're born or way
00:44:20.480
before they're born who knows when they're imparted that but I've got a couple girls one is 18 one's 10
00:44:26.540
and it's very much like anybody with kids the if they're curious about it if they want to have this
00:44:35.460
conversation if they're asking questions then meet them there right the the thing that you don't want
00:44:40.660
to do with a kid is be like don't talk about that or we don't talk about that or repress or shame them
00:44:46.400
around that conversation you're starting a pattern where they you're telling them one that they can't
00:44:51.620
be their authentic self you know which and that they have to change the way that they're being in
00:44:56.940
order to get your love and you know that's it's one thing when they decide when they decided to do
00:45:02.440
something like run into the street like you want to shame them that's keeping them safe but when
00:45:08.760
someone or your kid wants to talk about something existential that maybe even makes you uncomfortable
00:45:13.660
tell them say hey it makes me uncomfortable but I hear that you're curious and so let's maybe explore
00:45:19.080
this together kids who have any some anxiety around it they're really reaching out and telling you that
00:45:24.940
they have some concern and worry you can tell them listen we're very much alive right now some kids you
00:45:31.880
know don't sleep because they think about death and nothingness and you can tell them hey we're very
00:45:37.280
much alive right now everybody in our life is very much alive let's breathe let's be in our body let's be
00:45:43.500
grateful for that and you know and maybe not in the middle of night think about things that are
00:45:47.700
existential but during the day let's do some exploration you know your kids are telling you
00:45:52.280
something very essential about themselves when they start asking these questions now if they're not
00:45:56.220
curious my 10 year old is like poor girl has to deal with being adjacent to or in whether she wants
00:46:04.140
to be or not conversations about death all the time she has zero interest in it zero and so and she
00:46:13.080
literally feel like headphones and I don't think she's even avoiding it she's just not it's not really
00:46:18.000
that it's not relevant to her right now and she doesn't want to make it relevant and so I don't ever
00:46:23.840
push the conversation on my 18 year old you know we delve into all types of realms of conversations
00:46:29.580
about this yeah what what does your 10 year old say when like people ask what did your dad do
00:46:33.960
um you you know that's a good question she will say well he writes you know he wrote wrote a book and
00:46:42.340
he does it probably dinners and what's the book about it's about death and she will roll her eyes a little
00:46:47.500
right i can see that that's a clear indication that don't don't further the conversation and I
00:46:55.240
imagine you can have multiple of these dinners like with the same people right this is like an
00:46:59.320
ongoing conversation this isn't like a one and done thing it's like all right check it off did my
00:47:03.900
talked about death like you could keep it going for months even years yeah this is this is a this is
00:47:10.060
the opening and you know you you don't necessarily need to once you've cracked open the conversation at a
00:47:16.480
death dinner I don't think you necessarily need to use the model again and again you might you might
00:47:22.440
want to use it with certain people different people but once you've cracked the seal on this
00:47:28.180
conversation with your family and friends um hopefully you you know you now just have some
00:47:34.460
access to delving into this level of discussion more readily and then there are other tools out
00:47:40.440
there you know there's death cafes and there's the conversation project and there's we croak and you
00:47:46.340
know there's a bunch of great resources we're just out there just doing one you know hitting one
00:47:51.720
kind of note in a whole kind of i guess symphony of stuff how do you uh end the death over dinner
00:47:57.780
party is it just like well all right see you see you tomorrow next week yeah so endings are really
00:48:05.520
important psychologically it's been proven that we remember right the the beginning and the ending of
00:48:11.140
an experience more so than you know anything that happened in the middle um first impressions are
00:48:18.200
really important so our last impressions and so the way that we have devised it is for is called an
00:48:24.380
appreciation in the round and we have everybody go around and say something they admire about the
00:48:30.320
person sitting on their left so that everybody gets appreciated or admired once and that actually
00:48:35.540
what that does kind of chemically it's almost like closing a wound is maybe too gruesome but it it
00:48:42.980
creates a a chemical change in your body that lets you know that you can enter back into the not
00:48:49.380
talking about death world and you know when you get appreciated or admire somebody you have oxytocin
00:48:56.680
you know and some other like very positive chemical outputs that your brain is creating and surging
00:49:04.420
through your body and and that lets you know lets you know you're no longer in the depths of of
00:49:10.240
triggering conversation potentially triggering i don't want to it's not like all of these some some of
00:49:15.360
these conversations are i'd say even the majority are just beautiful this isn't a morbid conversation
00:49:20.580
well michael this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the project
00:49:24.920
yeah well so death over dinner.org and we're part of a family of initiatives really extraordinary
00:49:32.120
global well-being movement and company called round glass so that is www dot round dot g-l-a-s-s
00:49:42.120
round glass all right well michael hebb thanks so much time it's been a pleasure absolutely thanks
00:49:45.580
for having me my guest today was michael hebb he's the founder of death over dinner you can find out
00:49:50.140
more information about that organization by going to death over dinner.org also check out his book
00:49:54.420
let's talk about death over dinner available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere basically a blueprint
00:49:59.120
for you on how to plan a death over dinner party and what to talk about also check out our show
00:50:03.560
notes at aom.is slash death over dinner where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper
00:50:09.320
well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our podcast archives at
00:50:20.720
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00:50:25.240
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