Death, Dying, and Grief - Addressing Death Anxiety and Grief in a Holistic and Sacred way with Paul Miner

Paul Minor is a transpersonal and spiritual counselor and a Thanatologist. He shares his personal experiences with death and how they influenced his career path.

Paul's work involves transpersonal spiritual counseling and Thanatology, the study of death, dying, and bereavement. He emphasizes the importance of addressing death anxiety and grief in a holistic and sacred way.

Paul faces challenges in breaking through societal taboos and misconceptions around death and spirituality. He strives to be a companion and create space for the mystery of death in his work. In this conversation,

He discusses his work in end-of-life care and the importance of spiritual companionship. He emphasizes the need for community and supportive networks in this work and highlights the significance of closure and saying goodbye in the dying process.

Paul also shares his fears and concerns about the end of life, including the lack of closure and the possibility of pain. He explores various practices and resources that can support individuals in facing these fears, such as the Five Wishes document and the nightly hospice practice.

Additionally, Paul expresses his interest in working with end-of-life dreams and visions and their potential for healing and connection.

Links to things we mentioned:
Alan Wolfelt from the Center for Loss and Life Transition - https://www.centerforloss.com/about-the-center-for-loss/about-dr-alan-wolfelt/
The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller
Dr. Christopher Kerr from Hospice Buffalo - https://www.drchristopherkerr.com/tools
The Ignation Examen - https://www.jesuits.org/spirituality/the-ignatian-examen/

Transcript

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Annalouiza 
For our conversation today, we are blessed to spend time with Paul Minor. Paul is a transpersonal and spiritual counselor and a Thanatologist. He spent seven years in a Jesuit seminary where he had the opportunity to serve as a teacher, spiritual director, and chaplain in county jails. His calling to the Jesuits was inspired by a deep interest in contemplative spirituality, liberation theology, and a passion for social justice.

Wakil 
Soon after he departed the Jesuits in 2017, Paul read and was influenced by authors like Alan Watts, Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo and Paramsa Yogananda. In May, 2020, Paul began his year and a half study and learning how to meditate within the Kriya yoga tradition. Paul received a master's in East West psychology with certification in spiritual counseling at the California Institute of Integral Studies. C-I-I-S. After completing his MA in psychology, Paul began his studies in Thanatology, the study of death, dying, and bereavement, with the goal of being a companion for those wishing to cultivate a deeper relationship with death in their lives, especially around grief and death anxiety. Perfect person for us to have on.

Annalouiza 
Yes. Welcome to our end-of-life conversations, Paul.

Paul Miner 
Thank you, Annalouiza and Wakil. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here with you.

Annalouiza 
Let's get started. We always have the same question for all of our guests. And we begin with, tell us how death impacts your story.

Paul Miner 
Yeah, well, I was just having a conversation about this the other day with my parents. They reminded me of a story when I was about three years old at my grandfather's funeral. I was, I guess, a precocious little one and found my way going into the casket. And one of my aunts, who's also my godmother, had to pull me out of it.

I thought that was very interesting that there was some early signs there that I'd be interested in thanontology and death and dying. But more seriously, I would say my godfather, who was a Catholic priest, very inspirational figure in my life in a lot of ways. He had spent time in Recife, Brazil in the late 60s, early 70s.

There was a lot of liberation theology going on at that time. The Catholic Church was involved working with the marginalized, the oppressed that was going on. And a lot of conflict was going on because of the United States involvement in Latin American politics. And anyways, long story short, his life was all about working with people from all types of backgrounds, but giving his life to really others, especially those who have been marginalized or othered by society.
 
And at the end of his life before he passed, he was working on ecology and care for the for the earth. And he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2009 and passed away within four weeks. I experienced death from other family members, extended family members. But this one really moved me in a deeper way because not only was he 73, he'd lived a significant life, but he still felt called to do more.

He'd already done so much and I've seen the caring, there's a website called Caring Bridge. I think it's still around, but where people can send in their thoughts and memories exactly of their loved one. And he was just getting all these messages from people from across the world. And it was fascinating. I was working in corporate sales at the time in Chicago and that really moved something within me that I was like, I wanna give my life to something greater than myself. 

And yeah, his death really was kind of like the paschal mystery of like, you know, Jesus's death bringing new life. I really felt that personally for the first time in my life. So yeah, his death really has kind of brought me to where I am today.

Annalouiza 
It's so beautiful and amazing and so grateful that you shared that story with us.

Paul Miner 
Yeah.

Wakil 
Yeah, yeah, that's really sweet. That's wonderful. And so what is your current role right now? What is the work you're doing?

Paul Miner 
Yeah, my current work is transpersonal spiritual counselor as well as a Thanatologist. So with my background in psychology, I went to a program that was called East-West Psychology. So it's really studying not just modern psychology from a Western perspective, but studying wisdom traditions, spiritual traditions from the East, as well as from North America into the global North. So indigenous tribes within North America, the global South, shamanism out of Peru, the Amazon region.

So it's really an eclectic psychology program that is transpersonal. So what that means is that really taking psychology beyond just the ego, the cognitive aspect of our reality, but really the self or the soul, those things that transcend the personal consciousness. It also can involve non-ordinary consciousness so examples of psychedelics people have those experiences near-death experiences, the list goes on, meditation, really a multitude of experiences that people have had, these transcendental experiences. 

And then with the Thanatology, I bring in grief work. So Thanatology is a study of death, dying, and bereavement was mentioned. A lot of my coursework is going into the multifaceted aspects of grief. The grief is actually more than just a response to a death. It can include non-death losses, it can include grief around ecological loss and so forth. 

A lot of things. I'm sure we can get into that later. And then death anxiety, because I also have a story around death anxiety personally that I've struggled with and found healing through meditation. So I bring that into my practice with individuals who are experiencing death anxiety.

Wakil 
Wonderful. Yeah, that's really good work. I'm glad you're doing that. And we will post links to your website or whatever you'd like us to post to so that people can get in touch with you and hear more about that. I'd love to hear that story. I don't know when we should do that, but I'd love to hear that story if you want to do that now and then we could go on to the next thing after that. Does that sound good?

Paul Miner 
Yeah, yeah. 

So I was, this was in 2015. I was at the very tail end of my three years at St. Louis University. So in the Jesuit formation, it's an 11-year process to become a Jesuit priest. And so I had just finished the second stage, which is called philosophy studies. So you study philosophy and some theology at that stage.

I was in St. Louis and working in North St. Louis at a Jesuit parish, which was in the predominantly Black neighborhood of St. Louis, which is a very segregated city, like most cities in the United States. I was actually on my last night in St. Louis before I was being assigned to teach in our Jesuit high school in Detroit, Michigan. I was going to visit my sister and her family across the river, across the Mississippi in Illinois.

And as I was driving down the street turning left into a four-way stop intersection, a car hit me going about 90 miles per hour. It was in a high-speed police chase the night prior that the drivers were involved in the homicide. So they were fleeing the police. They were going so fast that I didn't even see the car hit me until it was right on me.

And miraculously, I spun around quite a few times. The only thing that happened physically was my glasses got knocked off. Didn't have a scratch on my body. Didn't, no blood, no broken bones, no whiplash, nothing, somehow, I don't know, but the rear tire wheel, the entire hub and everything connected to it, the undercarriage was ripped out and was like 100 yards away. And the first responders who came on the scene said, yeah, if you had been half second slower turning than that, you'd probably be dead or the vegetable, meaning I'd be in a coma probably, a paraplegic. 

So, was it a very impactful thing? Not in the moment. I kind of just, I remember going and actually still driving in a separate car to my sister's place. I don't know how I did that. But long story short, I go to Detroit, Michigan, and I'm teaching at the high school there and I started having these experiences of, anxiety and around death. It was either my death or the death of my father.

He had been going through some medical issues at that time. And so the anxiety I was feeling was the middle of the night. I would just be awoken out of nowhere.

And it would cause me to basically pace the hallways for hours, drink water, sit up in bed. Started impacting my life because, you know, teaching schedule, it's pretty demanding. Early mornings, late evenings. And this anxiety was just eating away at me. And it was, I would say on a regular basis, probably four nights a week.

But the anxiety was really, again, around my death and my father's death, and usually around an abrupt loss, so without being able to say goodbye. So there was a lot of fear about not being able to say goodbye or have any closure with family or loved ones. 

I left the Jesuits around that time, for other reasons, and when I went to California, I started learning how to meditate within the Kriya tradition and that meditation practice really did help me alleviate my death anxiety. I say that anxiety never goes away. I think that anxiety is something that is actually natural. And, but I think the issue is when it starts affecting one's lifestyle. We want to address that, but we also want to like approach it with respect in curiosity because death is sacred and it's a natural part of life. So I don't try to approach it as a way of like, we had to get rid of this, this is something bad. I tried to say, no, this can actually, in my own experience, it's opened up new life. It's made me appreciate life more deeply.

Wakil 
Yeah.
Yeah, that's so wonderful, so good way to look at it. And with any lesson that we get in life, the hardest ones are the best ones sometimes or the most important ones. So I really appreciate that respect for and kind of acceptance of what you were going through and then finding a way to heal it and then applying that to the work you do. That's really great. And yeah, it's interesting that that accident at the time, he's like, well, I got away with that, right? But then, you know, months later, your mind, your body is still working on it. 

Annalouiza
Processing...

Wakil
Yeah. Really great story. Thank you.

Paul Miner 
Yeah.

Annalouiza 
Yes. And Paul, just going back to this death anxiety, how would you characterize death anxiety versus normal everyday anxiety and then like the obsessive-compulsive anxiety? Because I feel like there's a couple different kinds of anxieties, right? So how does somebody who's like, I'm really anxious, but what is this death anxiety?

Paul Miner 
Yeah, great question. So yeah, I don't want to go into the OCD and all that stuff because I'm not qualified to talk about that, but there is a distinction. Yeah, you're right. There is explicitly just anxiety around death. So I have clients who come to me currently right now have a handful who just are working with death anxiety. 

So anxiety around death, we can call it Thanatophobia. And it can be, the interesting thing is, it's not always just with people at end of life. My clients and myself, my own experience, I was in my early thirties and my clients right now, they're all in kind of early thirties. So this death phobia, this death anxiety, Thanatophobia, what do you want to call it, it can be manifested at really any time in life. 

But... yeah, the anxiety itself is really just coming up. People will have thoughts around the anxiety of what's the unknown. So a lot of times it's like, I just don't know what's gonna come after this. A lot of times it's anxiety around, am I gonna get ill? Is there gonna be something that's gonna cause me to get really sick? 

Not necessarily the fear of pain, sometimes that can be it, but it's really just like this sense of loss of control. It can also be manifested in the fear of losing others. Well, also if you have kids, what's gonna happen to my child, this happens a lot with women who are mothers, it can happen with husbands too, but the mother kind of the maternal caretaker, especially if she has young children, sometimes that death anxiety can come up because it's like the anxiety around what's gonna happen to my child, my children, if I'm not there to take care of them. So yeah, it can be really manifest in a lot of different ways. And those are just a few examples.

I don't think that answers your question or...

Annalouiza 
Oh no, that's really good for a listener to be able to kind of identify if what they're feeling or sensing in themselves is a death anxiety, right? I mean, people have anxiety around having conversations about a loved one passing or, like you said, all those examples are very real. And I was just trying to make sure that people understand that it is a thing.

Paul Miner 
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza 
And it's okay. And, you know, Paul is here to support.

Paul Miner 
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Wakil 
And on some level, that's our, you know, on a macro level, that's kind of why we're here, you know, that there, I think this death anxiety is really almost cultural in many ways.

Paul Miner 
Hmm. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's a lot because we're just not given those spaces to have these conversations. There's not a space for grieving. There's not a space for holding death in a more nuanced and respectful way. And yeah, it's a lot of cultural influences for sure. And I also will say that thanatophobia and like death anxiety at the end of life with someone like with cancer or some terminal illness, that's going to look a little different too versus someone like in their early thirties. So you know, we have to make sure we're paying attention to the context to one's life and where they're at in their stage with that anxiety.

Annalouiza 
Yeah, I will say I do hear kids talking about, and I think it's gonna be a combination of death anxiety and climate anxiety. Because I hear a few times kids in the house have mentioned, I'm really scared of like burning up. Like, it's gonna get so hot that I don't like, it's so scary to think about how we're be able to take care of our bodies if the climate is just over the top.

Paul Miner 
Yes.

Annalouiza 
And in a way, that's definitely more climate anxiety, but it's also a little touch of death anxiety. I don't want to die X, Y, Z way, right? 

Paul Miner
Exactly, yeah...

Annalouiza
So it's interesting. I'm going to hold that little thought for a while.

Paul Miner 
Well, that's the intersectionality of that. There's so many, I love, that's kind of where I'm really interested is that the intersections of, you know,

That's why I studied psychology, thanatology, spirituality. I just, I think, cause all these things come together and what you're touching on is like, yeah, ecological grief and anxiety are real. And I just wrote a paper not too long ago about that. And there's actually a lot of, uh, rising anxiety around that. Therapists are seeing a lot of clients coming in. And I think there's a connection between grief and anxiety in some ways.

Annalouiza 
Right.

Wakil 
Yeah, I think you made that point early on that grief can come in many, many flavors of loss. Any flavor loss can come in, which is a loss of a relationship, a loss of a pet, a loss of a job or any kind of thing can create that level of grief and each of those can contribute. And as you said, there's an intersectionality to how they all combine to create who knows what the anxiety level is or what the anxiety specifically is, but they can all be helped by the work that you're doing. So that's really good.

Paul Miner 
Yeah, and I would just say this too, is that going off the same topic of ecological grief and anxiety is that I have a client right now, not seeing me for ecological grief, but ..her grief, I mean, her death anxiety has been really stimulated by some recent deaths in her life. So we've been connecting how death is actually part of the grief. The grief is actually kind of, in some ways, the foundational piece to the anxiety that's kind of stirring up in her life recently. And then also, connect us to the youth that Annalouiza just mentioned is that I think the anxiety that they're feeling is a lot of times that they haven't had the chance, they don't have the space to grieve it because they're seeing it unfold in real time. And there's no place for them to grieve.

Annalouiza 
Right. Because the grief isn't allowed because as adults, we always tell them it's not going to be that bad and you have to have hope. So it's, it's at this really knife edge difference between forcing hope and allowing grief. It's really a sensitive place to be and hold space for especially kids who really don't have enough language and experiences to fully embody this and share it in a safe place. But yet, you know, I just, I hear my daughter always saying, I'm so sick of every time I hope, like it sucks to be a kid right now. Like, you know, it's real.

Paul Miner 
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Annalouiza 
And here we are.

Paul Miner 
Yeah, it's, there's, yeah, it's, I think that's kind of like the approaching it from a place of sacredness. And that this is a holy thing, you know, and not that it's religious, you know, in the dogmatic sense, using holy more in a, you know, not just even secular, but just universal experience that the spirit and soul part of this. 

And I think that's lacking in a lot of our society. And I understand it because there's a lot of pushback from some of the toxic or negative influences of religion in the past. But I think we've also lost that connection to something greater than ourselves as well.

Annalouiza 
Mm-hmm. I agree, Paul. Thank you for speaking that out.

Well as that as a launching point for the next question so what are your biggest challenges in working in this these different arenas around death and dying?

Paul Miner 
Hmm. Well, yeah, I think the biggest challenge is, uh, breaking through kind of what we're talking about right now is it's, it's kind of like the uphill battle. I feel it's a lot of times. I feel like I can be on an island. It can be lonely in this field. Uh, Thanatology is not a very big field. 

I mean, there's a lot of chaplains and grief counselors and death dualas. So there's ways to create that community, but it's challenging because of the greater meta culture and narrative around death. 

So I trying to, yeah, break through that noise and also just offer a counter-narrative that's very different than what most people, it's almost like speaking a different language. I feel like sometimes, and sometimes it's hard to really get people to understand what this approach is. 

Because language I found like I had to be very careful because like I use spiritual language and psychological language, but a lot of these like any language word comes with connotations, biases and backgrounds. And so it's hard to not only just have a conversation around this, but then also try to bring it in a whole different narrative that's like a death positive narrative that's more of a holistic spiritual approach to this work without, you know, becoming coming across as like I'm religious or that I'm coming across as too woo woo. 

So it's hard to find that balance sometimes because we live in a society that doesn't really acknowledge not only death, but then did these different approaches that I'm bringing in that can be, you know, to be a more specific, like bringing in yoga or, and when I say yoga, I'm not talking about the asanas, I'm talking about the philosophy and the spirituality behind it in a Western-dominated society that, so again, I think that's my biggest challenge is just like the meta kind of challenge of being in a society that's still very death phobic, but also has lost that container for like holding spirituality, sacredness. 

I would say in the Western dominant society. There's obviously little pockets here and there. But it's trying to work with people who aren't in those pockets trying to reach the people the majority who might not have the have access to that or have life experience around the stuff that I'm trying to integrate and bring into the conversation, I guess.

Annalouiza 
I always laugh because if I tell people I'm a death midwife, it's like such a party pooper kind of thing to say. And it's like this provincial idea that, I mean, in a way we're still really superstitious even though we're like so enlightened here in this country, but  the words just scare people. Even uttering the word death makes people kind of like, oh, like what are you saying? Don't say that here. So it's ah, I understand that and I've been called, you know, I've been in a place where somebody was like, well, are you like Dr. Kavorkian? I'm like, no, I'm not like Dr. Kavorkian. But then it kind of like, it gets bandied around. I'm like, you don't understand.

Paul Miner 
Right. Yeah.

Wakil 
I think it's also true and I appreciate the fact that you're talking about how people relate to the word sacred. So as you said, all these words have a certain baggage attached to them for people. So many people have been wounded by the church and religion in various ways. Reclaiming the sacred is really a wonderful work that sounds like you're doing and a challenge I'm sure. I appreciate that very much.

Paul Miner 
Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, and I would say the other big challenge is going against the grain that most people come to like, even the word counseling, I, I use counseling coaching in my business name, but I don't really identify with either model, but that's the language that is kind of known. So I use it, but people still are in this mindset that, oh, the counselor heals you. I go there, you have the answers. You're going to give it to me and I'm going to be able to be okay, Ggood as gold. And I'm trying to really trying to break that cycle. It's like, no, like I'm not the guy sitting on this pedestal, like that knows everything. It's really trying to like be a companion. I really like Dr. Alan Wolflett's model of companion model, a companionship within the grief counseling field, so that we're just companions accompanying people on this mysterious journey, because there is a, allowing that space for mystery is also a challenge with people. Yeah.

Wakil 
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Miner 
Like having the rational mind and like, okay, this is what we're going to do. What's the empirical evidence behind this? You know, all this Western, again,  I think there's space for that. But I think what I'm trying to do is bring more space for the mystery as well.

Wakil 
I love that. So important.

Annalouiza 
Paul, you sound like, uh, well, Wakil and myself in our little conversations, we talk about all these same kind of topics.

Paul Miner 
Yeah, that's great.

Wakil 
Yeah, yeah, we both do spiritual direction, they call it that, right? And as you did as well, and both of us would prefer spiritual companion and I've actually had that conversation with both my people I work with as a spiritual director and with students that I have in my spiritual practice. And I said, you know, there's no hierarchy here, you know? I come to you in a 3-way connection with you and myself and the divine by whatever name, the ancestors or whatever. 

And together we will perhaps companion each other as what Ram Dass said, we're walking each other home. We're just gonna walk each other home. Let's see how that goes. So I love that, I really appreciate that. Yeah, it totally resonates with both of us, of course. The next question we have is, and this kind of goes to kind of speaking more to yourself. What do you need to feel supported in your work?

Paul Miner 
Mm-hmm.  I think for me, a big part is my spiritual practice of Kriya is big. So the daily practice. Being in touch with nature is huge for me. Even if I just get out for, I live by a park here nearby and just getting out into the park, being close to trees and walking on the grass.

Yeah, just going for a walk. Those things are important, but I would say community is really important too. Like I said earlier, it can be lonely path. So. Yeah, I think finding like-minded souls and people to build that community is really important. And then, yeah, having, you mentioned spiritual directors and spiritual companions, having someone to have as a companion or a director, whatever you want to call it, to, you know, continue to not only challenge myself, but check myself and my work with people, because not being a licensed practitioner, trying to bring credibility to this work is important, not just credibility, but also integrity. So finding those supportive networks and mentors, elders, who I can continue to learn from and with, I think is critical for me
and friendship. 

Annalouiza 
Well, I hope to be your friend.

Paul Miner
Yeah, likewise.

Annalouiza 
So what threatens you about the end of life?

Paul Miner 
Hmm.

Yeah, I think for me it is still this idea of not having closure. There's a big thing that's still as a little fearful is this idea that I won't be able to say goodbye. There's something really important there for me, even just having 30 minutes to have that closure, whatever it is, just having some sort of conversation with loved ones would be, I think, something that's really important to me. 

I'm not really afraid of like the afterlife because I have a very different view on that now than the Christian one that I grew up in. But yeah, I think for me, it's still around this idea of not having closure, having a quick death, or not a quick death, that's unexpected, I should say. It's unexpected. And then, yeah, there's, I think also the, there's fear of the pain, if there is gonna be pain. Cause every death is different. Some, you know, death can be messy. It's not always, I try not to romanticize it because I don't know if that really helps. And it's also doesn't like give the true picture like of what death is. So for me, I think those are like the two big things that still kind of frighten me about the end of life.

Wakil 
Are there things or ways that would help support you in that fear? I do a class called Before You Go, Preparation for End of Life. One of the parts of that is just writing out a message to your family. I thought of that as you were talking about not being able to speak to your family. Are there other things you can think of that would that would help support you regard those fears. And you've already talked a little bit about dealing with anxiety, but anything else you can think of?

Paul Miner 
Yeah. I really like the Five Wishes document.  I think that's something I've looked at. I don't actually have one right now. That's something I've been putting off. And yeah, so that I think having, I like it because it's so tangible gives you very precise kind of things to check out to make sure you're fulfilling.

I think that's a big part of it is just like being prepared. So that kind of brings up for me is the connection between life and death, that they're not polar opposites, that they are deeply intertwined. So within the yoga tradition, they talk about how a good death is really living a good life because they are so deeply intertwined. So I think that's a piece for me is like continuing to examine how what is a good life for me? And then we all have to ask that individually for ourselves. And there's different philosophers and thinkers spiritual traditions that can help you on that. But at the end of the day, it's kind of like I think it's always going to be an evolving thing because we're always in this constant change. We're never static. So I think that is helpful for me. And then yeah, the journaling, but also like end of life kind of review or something. So even before the end of life, so a lot of people will integrate this end of life review once they're on their deathbed, but it is a practice that we can actually do every night. So there's actually within the Ignation spiritual tradition, Jesuit spirituality is that you do a they call it the examine. It's twice a day. And you kind of just review your day. Where is God? There's like four or five steps to it. Takes about 10 to 15 minutes. And you do like in the middle of the day and you also do it at the end of the night. And I always liked that practice because it's kind of reviewing where was God operating my life today? But where did I not really fulfill my obligations or where did I not fully respond to God's love in my life is one of the areas that focus on. And I think you can kind of apply that to Swami Kriyananda, who was a direct disciple of Yogananda talked about, the nightly hospice. So what he said was like, yeah, it's kind of a nightly review of your life. So it's kind of like the exam and you're reviewing the day and your life. And also he says kind of giving away that day. So like, so you can move on. It's like, that's a death to that day, that night. And then you move into your next day. It's a new day. It's a new life in a sense. So, um, the nightly hospice work, um, I'm not always great at that. Um, I, I try to be.

But I think that's another, to get to your answer, is like another area that can be helpful for not just myself, but for others.

Annalouiza 
Thank you so much for that reminder. I feel like in the last, maybe you told me about this actually when I first talked to you. The, uh, the, what is it? The review, the examiner, the examine. Yes. So I'm like, Oh, I forgot. I wanted to do that. Uh, that is so beautiful.

Paul Miner 
Oh, the examine? Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. I think these practices can be just so, I mean, it's a very universal thing too, because you don't even have to like, you can change it to fit. That's what I love about a lot of Jesuit spirituality. It's not like the strictly Catholic dogmatic practice. It's, I mean, it was founded by a mystic, so there's a universal aspect to it.

Annalouiza 
That's so beautiful.

Wakil 
Yeah, we have a similar practice in Sufism as well. Similar, very similar that we've talked about. I think you and I have talked about it before Annalouiza. Sort of the check-in at the end of the night, yeah. I love that, it's perfect. I love that, it's a very good answer. We'll probably try to find that and include it in our podcast notes.

Annalouiza 
Yeah, absolutely. So that actually is kind of also, I think you've spoken to this, but how do you keep yourself resourced to do this work? It sounds like you already do a lot of the support work for it.

Paul Miner 
Yeah, I mean, I try to stay within my something's really important for me is to stay within my kind of lane. And so I'm really clear, like the work I'm doing is not mental health counseling, if I'm not addressing the mental health aspect. I mean, in a way it is, I mean, that could be a whole other conversation, but people aren't really there yet in our society. So I do respect mental health, like it's obviously an important part, but I think  I'll just say mental health for me is much bigger than just the cognitive. And yeah.

Anyways, I digress. And so for me is like, yeah, the meditation practice is huge, reading, I need to be careful with my budget from a book budget because it's pretty insane. So yeah, constantly reading new material, either books or academic articles. So Google scholars, you don't have to have like, I'm still in technically in school. 

I'll be finishing my capstone for thanotology this summer. So I still have access to an academic library, but you don't even need that. Google Scholar's pretty great. So there's great articles out there, peer-reviewed research on a lot of the topics I'm interested in. And then, yeah, just getting the training. So I'm seeking out, I mean, again, this, unfortunately, finances come into the picture. So a lot of these trainings cost money. So... I can't do everything I want to do at once, but finding those trainings, those people that are providing the way, the perspective that you want to work with people is really important. So like Alan Wolflett, he's based here in Colorado. He has trainings he provides on his companionship model. 

Then I'm also really interested in psychedelic end of life care right now but I just have an academic and personal experience with it. I don't have, I'm not qualified to work with people. So that's something else is like, really important for me is like, okay, I wanna do that work, I wanna get the training so that I can do that important work with people end of life, they're experiencing death anxiety and using psilocybin and entheogens to help, not just ease that anxiety, but also can help people in the individuation process. 

So that, you know, I'm really influenced by Carl Jung's work as well and that all of this stuff is really about individuation, so like becoming more whole, which is a paradox because from the Eastern perspective, we already are whole. So I hold both of those softly and loosely and kind of fluid between those, try to be, I'm neither a Jungian analyst nor yoga therapist. So I dance between all these modalities. So it's important for me to respect those but also be in conversation and learn as much as I can without, just bringing into my own stuff and without any, research, I guess, or informed knowledge, which again, that's a whole other conversation we'd have with what is knowledge, but...

Wakil 
Great, yeah, very good. Our last question is, is there anything you wish we had asked you that you haven't had a chance to talk about?

Paul Miner 
Yeah. End of life, dreams and visions. I know this podcast is called end-of-life conversations. So an area that I'm really interested in working at some point is with people who are in the life who have these end of life dreams and visions, ELDVs for short. Chris Kirk, Dr. Christopher Kerr out of, he's a hospice physician of New York Buffalo area. A lot of fascinating research around this with his team, um, that these end of life dreams and visions that people are having are really an area that I see overlap with Jungian psychology, dream work, active imagination to help people have these very powerful visions and dreams that are reported as either a deceased or living relative comes to visit them.

Or a deceased living pet, an animal, one of their pets, companions comes and visits them. They also can have a dream or vision of traveling to someplace unknown. Those are kind of the big aspects of these dreams. And they're also, they're not delirious because they've been reported to actually have a lot of clarity and give people a sense of comfort, not just for the individuals dying who had the dream revision, but also the family members who are present. 

So that's an interesting aspect too, is that these individuals who have had these experiences are recording that most of them are comforting, but the ones that do cause anxiety actually have led to more wholeness and integration because they then make amends with their loved ones before passing away, which is beautiful that these dreams and visions are creating this opportunity for people to really become more fully integrated in the whole before they pass. And yeah, have more connection with not just themselves, but what's gonna come next, but also a connection with their loved ones before they pass in a very meaningful way.

Wakil 
Wow, that's beautiful. That's very, very important.

Annalouiza 
Yeah, and Paul, did you notice that The New York Times had this article like two, three weeks ago? I read that whole piece too. So I was already like, oh, I know what this is.

Paul Miner 
Yeah, yeah, and there are natural experiences that happen. If you study different cultures, it happens everywhere. So in some like, I know in the yoga tradition, like the apparitions people have of like, when someone passes away, like they'll come visit them 
in that society or that culture tradition it's much more respected and not like dismissed like that's just hallucination.

Annalouiza 
Yeah, you know, it's just so funny. And I've said this before on this podcast, but my sister who passed away a few years ago seems very present in our hosts and with us. I have so many stories now that just kind of keep kind of coming. And it's hard to discuss this with anybody because it always seems like you're just a little wackadoo lady. But I believe this, I believe all these things. There's so many more aspects of of this embodiment that we're having that you can't tell me we don't. There are no more mysteries. It's just implausible. So, yeah, let's go play. I want to go talk to apparitions and an open space where people have had them. So.

Paul Miner 
I think it's the same, it's a credit to Pierre de Chardin, who was a Jesuit priest, mystic, scientist as well. Interesting dude, got suppressed, his writings got suppressed by the church. Typical Jesuit. 

Wakil 
Surprise...

Annalouiza 
Mm-hmm. I know, wasn't he shipped to Japan or something too? Like he got booted out of France.

Paul Miner 
I don't know if this, I mean, it gets attributed to him quite a bit. I haven't actually come across it, him saying it outright, but we're not human beings having a spiritual experience. We're spiritual beings having a human experience. I think that's kind of where this conversation is getting at too at this moment. Yeah.

Wakil 
Yeah, thank you. Well, that's the end of our questions and I really appreciate everything Paul that you brought. It's been a great conversation. Yeah, we're looking forward to, we'll let you know of course when it gets published and just say thank you so much.

Paul Miner 
Have you guys read this book? Okay. Yeah, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller, he's based out of Northern California, just a lot of workshops around grief and he's kind of trained in the Jungian circles as well, but brings in, yeah, a lot of interesting.

Wakil 
I've read other things by him and yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Paul Miner 
Mm-hmm. Yeah, he writes very poetically, which I like. I feel like he's a kindred spirit, so. So yeah, I'll just read a little brief passage from this, if you don't mind. This is just from his first chapter titled an Apprenticeship with Sorrow.

"I see this work as soul activism, a form of deep resistance to the disconnected way in which our society has conditioned us to live. Grief is subversive, undermining our society's quiet agreement that we will behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small.

There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviors of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life force. It is riddled with energy, acknowledgement of the erotic coupling with another soul, whether human, animal, plant, or ecosystem."

It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed. It cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still. We move in jangled, unsettled, and rightist ways when grief takes hold of us. It is truly an emotion that rises from soul."

Wakil 
Mm-hmm. Ha ha.

Annalouiza 
Wow.

Annalouiza 
I like that grief is feral. I'm like, oh, I know this and I love this.

Wakil 
Yeah, yeah. It's another book to add to the pile in my, I've got the same problem of gotta watch your book budget. And I like to read stuff that's just lets me relax too. So it's like, get, you know, I kind of go back and forth. Anyway, well, thank you again. It's been a really, really important and just really wonderful conversation. We really appreciate all the work you're doing and Any way we can be of support to you in the future, please keep in touch. And you got a neighbor now.

Paul Miner 
Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're right, I know. We gotta connect, so. Yeah, for sure, yes. Yeah, thank you so much both, and likewise, yeah. Love the work you guys are doing, and yeah. These conversations are so important, so yeah. Thank you again for having me on.