What is a Good Life? What is a Good Life? #14 - What is a Good Death? with Charlotte Wiedemann
On the 14th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast I am joined by Charlotte Wiedemann, who is a Journalist and a Death Doula.
Through her journalism work, she is creating greater awareness of death, funeral, and grief issues, and at Ahorn Gruppe, where she currently works, she has helped to amass a following of almost 200k people on TikTok through discussing these themes.
In this episode we discuss our societal difficulties in talking about death, our repression of emotions, beautiful moments within suffering, how we can support people experiencing loss, the aliveness and gratitude for life Charlotte experiences through working with the dead, and how birth, life and death are so deeply intertwined.
Charlotte also shares some profound exercises and thoughts with regards contemplating death to create a better life.
Paradoxically, I found this discussion around death to be extremely enlivening, and it further enhances my perspective that the more we avoid acknowledging death, the more we fear fully living. This conversation left me with A LOT to contemplate, as I’m sure it will for you too.
Subscribe for weekly episodes, every Tuesday, and check out my YouTube channel (link below) for daily clips and weekly reflections.
Running Order:
01:23 Podcast Begins
02:16 Inquiry with death begins
04:46 Difficulties with talking about death
08:14 Repression of emotions
09:45 Picturing yourself on your own death bed
11:38 It’s ok to have regrets with the dying
16:21 Moments of beauty in sadness
20:23 You can’t fix death or make it better, just be there for people
22:55 There are many moments of loss in life
25:43 Prolonging of life
28:55 Magical moments in death
34:00 How the experience of birth led to deathcare
39:25 The effect of working with a dead body
42:07 Bringing the conservation around death to a wider audience
45:28 What is a good death?
48:42 What is a good life for Charlotte?
For further content and information check out the following:
- For the podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
- Charlotte's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte-wiedemann-71614b17/