Content note: One voicemail near the end describes being shot and a near-death experience, with some strong language. The episode also talks about pet loss and euthanasia.
I started When We Die Talks because I’ve been afraid of death for as long as I can remember. Three years and more than a hundred conversations later, one of the early callers texted me a simple question: has anything changed?
This bonus episode is my answer, as much as I have one. I’ve read books on near-death experiences, talked with mediums, and heard so many ideas about the afterlife from strangers on the phone, and I still lean toward nothing. What’s changed is how hard I try to control it. I talk about death anxiety, grief you can’t plan for, and how traffic lights and seatbelts make the drive to work feel guaranteed when it never is.
I also get into the question that’s taken over my meditation, my reading, and my psilocybin therapy: who am I? If I can’t say what I am, I can’t say whether that thing goes on to heaven, gets reincarnated, or becomes nothing at all.
At the end, I share a handful of listener voicemails, including two people who describe dying and being brought back. Then there’s a short piece I recorded after a six-day mindfulness of death retreat, where Frank Ostaseski was one of the teachers. My death could be today, tomorrow, or years from now. Life is what’s happening right now.
Topics covered (sidebar under the image)
Fear of death and death anxiety
Accepting the unknown
“Who am I?” and what happens when we die
Rumi’s “I died as mineral”
Near-death experiences from listener voicemails
Mindfulness of death and Frank Ostaseski
Related episodes
Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
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