Dealing With Death, Grief & Loss (Advice from Death Doula Jessica Reis)

In this video interview with death doula Jessica Reis, aka the Death Empath, we talk about how to deal with death, loss & grief, whether it's the death of a loved one, the death of a pet, or one's own death. She explains her work as a death doula and how she supports people in the end of life process. We talk about helping children to cope with death as well as how to help other people in your life who may be dealing with death and loss.

MALLORY WHITFIELD:

Hi Jessica, thanks for joining us today.

JESSICA REIS:

Hi Mallory, this is awesome, I'm excited.

So you work as a death doula, a death empath? Can you explain what that means? Because I think that's a newer phrase, right? It's newer terminology around that?

Yes, so death doula - I'll start with that. And absolutely, these are new terms, new vocabulary and you know, one of my jobs is really to get people to understand what that is. So a death doula, if you're familiar with like a birthing doula, it's the same thing, your guide for that transition. We sit with people who are actively passing. We help facilitate end of life wishes like legacy work, medical & advanced directives, and also all things kind of end of life from helping with grief support, helping understand boundaries of the person who is actually passing. But yeah, pretty much we are death guides, to say it simply. And the death empath side is that I'm a death doula and I'm also an empath. So I just decided to combine those two things. And being an intuitive, being sensitive to emotions & energetic shifts in a room really helped me support the person. I'm actively there to help and also support the loved ones, family & friends. I allow my empathic abilities to create a really supportive, nurturing space for people.

I think that's really important and powerful to have somebody there. And so, you work one-on-one with people and then you do workshops for people who are dealing with death, learning how to cope with death and grief. For somebody who's going through that, what are some beginner, basic things that you would tell them to help them deal with coping with death?

I'm a big proponent of feeling all your feels. A lot of the time when it comes to death and grieving, we hold back. We hold back either because we don't want to be embarrassed or we don't want to inconvenience others. And then there's also the, "I don't want other people to feel bad." And so I'm like feel it all whatever comes out, whatever comes through. A lot of the stuff that I do on the basic level is let's get you to access all the emotions and all the feelings that come out, however they need to. You're yelling, throwing things, crying, doing nothing, running, you know, locking yourself in a bedroom, whatever it may be, whatever it looks like... I like to give permission to do that first because our emotions really are there to help guide us. And we have like a good cry and you feel better afterwards. It's the same thing... like all these emotions, purging them really helps to start processing.

Yeah, I know, I struggled for a long time about not wanting to, like, lean into my feelings... wanting to hold back. I think that's definitely something that many of us culturally have been sort of taught to, like, not be vulnerable, not lean into our feelings.

Yeah. And I almost feel like maybe at some point, we thought, or maybe people have used our feelings against us, you know, like the vulnerability of our feelings. But I think -- I don't know if you're feeling the same way -- I'm starting to, like sense the shift where people are a little more like, open and understanding. I'm a huge like, let's hold space for other people. Non judgment, no criticism, especially in grief and our sadness when we're experiencing a loss. I think that should be kind of like a free for all like, okay, go feel whatever you feel. You just went through something incredibly devastating and life changing, you know. I'm definitely sensing that shift, at least in my community, you know.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's true. And you know, we're recording in August 2020, right? And so we're like four or five months into this whole COVID-19 pandemic. And I know, people have been talking more openly about the grief around that. Like, obviously there are people dying because of this pandemic and sick because of it. But there's all these other types of grief too, right? We're mourning the grief of things that we thought would come to be, the grief of an old lifestyle that like, you know, who knows what things will look like on the other side of it?

Yeah. And I'm really glad you brought that up. Because it's so important for us to also acknowledge our losses, no matter how big or small we think they are. They're still losses, you know, and these are what I call "living deaths" or "energetic deaths." You can mourn the loss of not being able to take that dream vacation you always wanted to Switzerland, you know? Like, you get to mourn and grieve those things. Especially in my work. There's no, "You do or you don't get to." You just get to mourn, even simple things like you mentioned, like things that you thought were going to come to be. Some of us have been working really hard to start businesses or to get things off the ground or to transition into a different type of work. And that's a huge loss, you know? So yeah, I feel like we definitely need to have that space to be able to just feel it all and lean in like you said, and just be okay with the morning of it.

Yeah. Well, and you mentioned grief both sort of large and small. And I know one aspect that you work with too is people who are dealing with the loss of pets, right? I know we've talked about this, you and I. The loss of a dog or a cat or any other type of pet... How is dealing with that type of death different, if it is at all, than dealing with the loss of a person in your life?

I see more people holding back when it comes to pets, and that's why I love giving permission and that space, because for a lot of us, our pets are part of our family. They are a part of our routine, they are a part of our every day. We come home to them, you know, and there's an energy to them. And when that part of your life is missing, you know, and for me, like animals are very sacred, and I'm very connected to them. So the loss of one is like there's like a piece of my life missing. And so first for that I love giving permission for them to fully express again, like they would for a person, because to them that's like equivalent energetically.

Energetically, their pet is an equivalent to another human being. And so there's a lot of the allowing them to give them a rite of passage for end of life, like putting ceremony to it, just like you would a person. The burial or the memorial, I have them eulogize. I'm like yeah, definitely do a eulogy for them. Talk about all the beautiful things about them, what they brought to your life and how many times they made you laugh and how you're gonna miss them. But yeah, that part of my work I actually, really, really love. I mean, I love all of it. But there's like I said, I'm so connected to animals, and the sacredness and the bond that we have with them. I'm always like, "Man, these little furry cute things have accepted us." I don't see it the other way around. I feel like these things were once wild, out in the like... wherever they were, and they're now a part of our lives, like inside and bringing so much light and happiness. So yeah. That's one of the things I really enjoyed about being a death doula.

Yeah, and death tends to have this ripple effect, right? Like, even if we're not directly connected to the person or the animal or you know, whoever it is that passes... We still can be affected by that. So if somebody has someone else in their life who's dealing with death and the loss of a loved one, what advice would you give to them? In order to help cope, because I know that's one of those situations where sometimes people feel like they don't want to say the wrong thing, or maybe you know, they accidentally say the wrong thing meaning well, but it can create more harm. What advice would you have for people who have other people in their life who are dealing with death, to help them?

The first thing that generally tends to happen when we have these like, once removed kind of death situations -- like it's not necessarily in your immediate circle, but it's someone who you love who's experiencing the death -- it tends to give a perspective, like a shift, in how we see our own lives. So we tend to feel like grateful and guilty at the same time. Like, "I'm grateful I'm not experiencing that, but I'm also really guilty because this person passed away. And the person that I love is hurting because of it." I always tell people to kind of like, sit with what is coming up instead of trying to find the right thing to say. Just sit with what you're feeling. If you feel awkward or uncomfortable or scared or really bad, you can say that to them. Like, "I don't even know what to say to you. This seems like such a tragic incident. I'm with you, my heart is with you."

Be honest, be very forward with how you're really feeling because that's genuine and authentic versus if you (kind of like most of us) shy away from death in general. So we'll say something like, "I'm so sorry for your loss, my condolences," and we'll leave a little heart or a little broken heart or a crying face emoji. And when someone is grieving, I've heard this quite a bit, is they're reading through everything and everything just kind of looks the same and so they just kind of get desensitized to the well wishes. And then every once in a while, they'll read something like, "Everything happens for a reason," and that tends to throw people into a spiral. Most people who are grieving do get triggered by those well-meaning things. And again, we think by saying that... what we're really trying to do is we're trying to save them from their pain. We're thinking by saying these things we're solution-izing. And that's not the point, the point of being there for anyone who's grieving is just holding space for them to feel whatever it is that they need to feel and just let them know that you're there. Sometimes you don't even have to say anything. Just you showing up and just holding them, embracing them is enough.

Yeah, yeah. And so death is a natural part of life, right? We all know that. But I think some of us are more open to accepting that, but then a lot of people have a lot of fear around their own death, right? Their own mortality. I was listening to an audiobook recently by Pema Chödrön, the Buddhist nun and she was discussing the Tibetan Book of the Dead and sharing you know, kind of how you approach helping people, kind of the work that you do. For people that are deathly afraid, (pardon the pun) but like deathly afraid of their own death and mortality, what advice would you give to them to sort of embrace that fact of life?

There's a couple of things that happen with death that make it seem very scary. We're just not familiar with it. We've been kind of protected from it, you know, kind of like when you're a little kid, we're not really around it enough. We tend to fear things we really don't fully understand. That's just kind of our natural go-to, but like how you're reading books... The book of the dead and dying from, you know, Tibetan monks. It's really about educating yourself on end of life, and that's what doulas are trying to do. We're trying to make it a space that's more accessible. And so you realize at end of life, there's a gift in it. There's a gift of knowing, there's a gift of... I mentioned a rite of passage earlier where it's, you go through this whole life cycle, but we're so accustomed to not having the same sacredness or ceremony at end of life.

Your end of life is that moment where your loved ones get to come together and support and hold you through your transition. Imagine being a parent and you see your child at your bedside, walking you to the veil. And you as a parent are like, "Okay, I'm good to let go because look at my adult child. They're this fully formed human being that's able to sit with me in my dying and sit with me at my death." So there's the obvious like, the closer you are to death, the more you understand it. Do the research, like read books and articles. Get an end of life doula, a death doula for someone that you love that's actually passing, but I like to go a little bit further.

A lot of people that I've encountered who have this fear of death tend to have not yet actualized their dreams. They've tended to not actualize their purpose or their calling and they're kind of just living in this floating in-between space of just doing things every day, 9-5, and the routine of it all. But there's this like gnawing in their spirit. That's usually where this fear of death comes from. "I can't die yet. I haven't done all the things I want to do. I haven't traveled, I haven't seen the world. I haven't found the love of my life." And so that's really where people get caught up. In my experience when people come to me with this fear of death. It's typically they're not pursuing what really makes them happy and whole.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially if you listen to any of those, you know, things that people on their deathbed have regretted. It's that sort of stuff, right? Not pursuing your dreams. Not living fully.

Yeah. Listening to others. Working too hard. Working too much. Yeah. Yeah.

How did you get interested in this work?

So I've always been... really, I mean, I was weird kid. But I was always really fascinated by things when they were no longer animated. So kind of like the, the anatomy of things when they were dead, kind of like, "Whoa, at one point it had life and now it's just this like vessel." And so it starts with that kind of intrigue, but I also battled with depression from age 13 till about three years ago. I was always fascinated with death and dying, and I romanticized dying one day and what that would look like. "I can finally leave this place." You know, this whole like, "When do I get to leave this place, this is ridiculous?!" And I kind of put all that death stuff... I tried to stifle it and push it aside all the time, because people said I was weird and like who does that, you know?

So I went through my life and I was able to manage my high-functioning depression. I learned through therapy to really manage it. And then I did the normal route, I started my own business, and I did that whole thing, but I wasn't actually like, happy and whole. I was content and managing my depression. And I started getting this like calling to get back into death work or at least like reading up on it, educating myself on it, and then my husband's grandmother passes away. And culturally, my family we like, as soon as we hear someone's injured or in the hospital, we all get up and we just go. It's almost like we believe our energetic presence helps heal them. And I'm grabbing all my things and my mother & father-in-law are not really doing anything. They're just doing going around, doing their thing as usual. And it's Mother's Day, so it's like extra weird. I asked my husband, "What's going on? We're not going to go say goodbye to Grandma?" And he's like, "Well, my parents said they already said goodbye." It didn't register. I was like, "Wait what? What does that matter? Let's go, she's passing."

And that was like, kind of my first recognition and real acknowledgement of how some people just don't want to be in that space because they're either afraid of it or not accustomed to it. They were raised were like, "No, we say our goodbyes, and they kind of pass away on their own." And that was so disturbing to me. You know, I didn't know... I wasn't trying to judge it. But I was like, so moved, not in a good way by it, that I was like, "This doesn't feel right." So I started looking up, "How do you volunteer for people who are dying alone? How do you volunteer for hospice?" And then this group called INELDA popped up, the International End of Life Doula Association. I started reading all the resources and I just resonated with it so deeply that I looked up like, "Okay, when's their next training?" And it's like, in two weeks, but it's in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm in California, like, "Well, I've never been to Wisconsin, so might as well see how much flights are." And so I jumped on in two weeks on a flight and I was in training for it and it was life changing, because you become very intimate with end of life practices. You see the physical aspects of the body that change and also the spiritual side of it. They make you write your own last words and your vigil. Again, since I'd suffered with depression for so long, I was like, "What does my death look like then?" And I realized that it had changed. I remember just crying and crying and crying and going like, "Whoa, this is really impactful. And this is cathartic. And I'm now having this permission to go into this work that I've wanted to do since I was little." Like I was fascinated with death even then.

Three months later, my grandmother passes away. And I'm at her deathbed, and I was her guide. I was my grandmother's death guide, and she passed away my arms. She took her last breath as I was holding her. And in that moment, I realized how powerful and how much of a gift being in someone's transition really, really is.

I was a different person. I came out of that, like, for two weeks, I was like in this weird like, "Whoa!," like, spiral. And then afterwards, I was like, "This is incredible. My grandma gave me a gift." I'm like, "Can you show up as this death person, and really help people through this transition?" I almost feel like she guided me to it. You know, she's probably calling out for me to do this work, because then I also realized later -- this was four years ago -- that this is something that's in my culture. We have, they're not called death doulas, but there's always a family member that comes and does all the vigil and the praying and the candle lighting, and so it's a part of my bloodline anyway. And so it's almost like I kind of excavated it. The baton has been passed to me and like, "Okay, now you get to do this work and you get to like, share with everybody." That's really what it comes down to. Death work saved my life, because I haven't been depressed since that day. I may have some sad days, but I do not feel the heaviness and the weight of the depression I did for like 20+ years.

Yeah. It's interesting that you touched on something that I was wondering about... I was going to ask you about the cultural aspect because I know you're Mexican American and I know that there's the Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, right? I think most Americans are aware of that now, but I don't know how much deeper that sort of cultural aspect of death goes?

Yeah, I mean, we have a saint called Santa Muerte, which is the saint death. And, man, thank you, Coco for making the Day of the Dead such a big thing. Different parts of Mexico celebrate death differently. So the Day of the Dead wasn't something I really grew up with, but it's something that I fully embrace now. But what we were allowed is, children were allowed to be at the viewings, we were allowed to hold our loved ones while they were in their coffins. We saw our family members crying and like outpouring their grief, like jumping on coffins, and being completely distraught. I saw grief and death fully expressed growing up.

When I did my training with INELDA, I was the only one with that story of being allowed to see that, not being shielded from death. And I didn't know that. I mean, I'm in this room with like, 40 other people, and I'm the only one that has that story of being able to learn about death at an early age. Being a seven year old kid and being invited to like, touch their Grandpa who just died and you know, having his body for two, three days as a viewing. We're praying and I remember the room being dark with candles everywhere. Everyone's holding candles and praying, you'd hear all these... there's like 40-50 people in this one little tiny apartment house, and you just hear all these prayers and it felt so, so, so sacred, but it also felt so warm and comforting to have this feeling of community and love. And yeah, so culturally... I mean, that's what I love about different cultures express stuff differently. But as Western culture, we've really hidden from it, where if you just go back, maybe 100 years to Edwardian times, we had full embrace of death. We did death photos, we would make rings with teeth and hair lockets. We'd have bracelets with people's hair, and we embraced it differently. We realized it was a part of life, and we wanted to celebrate the people we loved. We used to dress in black for a whole year of mourning, you know, so it was interesting how we shifted out of that.

Yeah, I used to work at the Louisiana State Museum here in New Orleans and we had a lot of the hair jewelry from Victorian times, which is like, fascinating to me. I know a lot of people are kind of grossed out by it because it's literally jewelry and brooches and stuff made out of human hair. But I think it's really cool.

I think it's super cool. Like the teeth rings are the best. It's literally someone's molar on a ring. And now we're doing stuff like that with ashes. Now we're doing rings where they're embedding ashes into the stone. They're doing actual, like rocks and crystals where they're putting ashes into it, so it's kind of bringing that back without I guess being as gross.

Yeah, and I think it's cool to hear you talk about your own experience as a child, of having death be more like normalized. Whereas, I mean... I lost all four of my grandparents by the time I was like, in high school, they had passed away when I was fairly young. And I remember going, I think, to all or most of the funerals, but then I know other people, like my ex-partner, his mom died when he was really young, and he didn't go to the funeral. And I think he kind of lacked some closure that came up later in life. Do you ever advise people who have young kids on how to help the little ones deal with death?

You know, kids are actually naturally pretty good about it. They kind of just understand it in a different way. They're they're a little more like, open to it. It does take about six months for kids to fully process and you'll start seeing them grieve months later. You'll see them like curled up in a ball, just crying. Depending on the closeness or how they felt about the person that passed... Like a sibling, you usually see a child on the floor crying, holding a picture of their like lost brother. But kids are pretty good about it, you know, they bring their own like, spin and flavor to their experience... There's rawness to it. So like you know, any little kid when they start talking to you about things that they love or something's really meaningful to them, the way they're able to communicate... It is like, "You really love what you're talking about." And they do that with death.

I've heard some kids, five or six year old kids say some profound, profound things when I'm doing memorials for a cat they lost, or I remember this kid, he lost his grandmother. And he was holding her hand while she was in her coffin. And he's just like, "Grandmother..." He would call her grandmama or something... He had like, a really specific name for her. And he's like, "I know that you're not here anymore. But you're always here. Like, I feel you right now." And he's like, "And you look very peaceful. If you wanted to know, you look very peaceful right now." And I'm just like, looking at him. Like, you're that connected to your grandma. You can still see her.

You know, it is so exciting. I've seen kids like, just so fascinated by the dead body, by just the vessel of it... they want to hold it, they want to like, play with it... I see a lot of parents freaking out like, "You're being disrespectful. Why are you climbing all over Grandma?" Whatever it may be, the kids are just so drawn to it. And I tend to kind of help the parent be a little more at ease with the understanding of like, they're not meaning to be disrespectful. They're just incredibly curious about what they're seeing. And that's going to help them really fully processed and understand, so that it's not so traumatic for them later.

Yeah, if you never see a dead body, and you're like 25, imagine how weird that's going to be for you. Really? "Huh!! I've never seen a dead body and I'm 25 years old, like what's happening?" It's gonna be super freaky. Versus like, you grew up with it, so it just seems kind of like normal.

Yeah, yeah. I love all the work that you're doing. It's so important and it's good to hear that it's becoming more of a kind of commonplace thing that more people are reaching out to folks like you doing death doula work. So, starting to wrap up, what's one resource that really changed your life that you would recommend somebody else check out? It could be a person, a movie, a book... it doesn't have to be related to death, just something that you found to be life changing.

Oh man. Well, the INELDA training obviously was life changing. But the book is called Holding Space: On Loving, Dying, and Letting Go and is by Amy Wright Glenn. She has something called the Birth, Breath and Death Institute. And she is just this... how do I describe her...? She's like, if you were to describe like a warm, light of a human being and almost like a beacon. So it's just like constantly calling out to to death workers or people who want to be in this space. And so her book Holding Space, changed how I practiced my work, but also kind of just gave me a different perspective on who I am as a person and how to really like see other people in the same light.

If you could go back and give your younger self, like at 20 years old, a piece of advice what would you tell her?

I've done this practice before and I've actually just sat there with her and said like, "Man, you are so brave. You're so courageous, and I don't think you understand how proud I am of you because I got to become this version of myself. And we are awesome. We have everything we wanted." You know and I've done this practice with myself before. I'm like, "We have everything you ever wanted. We live in a beautiful house in a beautiful place. We want for nothing. You have had like three lifetimes of different work and jobs, and you've gone on adventures, you've traveled..."

And I just want to tell her she's incredibly courageous, because half the time younger me did not know what the hell I was doing, but I just kept moving forward and trying, especially trying to work through chronic depression and suicidal tendencies, you know? And the universe felt like it was against me when I was younger. And I realized that I was that dysfunctional because I was coming from a place of so much dysfunction, that that's what I was manifesting, you know? Because that's where my brain was wired to call out to. And then once I started shifting all that, everything changed. And now that I've been able to really do my purpose and what I'm meant to do, I feel like this is my calling. I'm like, so grateful for her. I'm like, "I love you so much younger version of me that didn't know what the hell she was doing." I was a mess. I was constantly self-doubting and insecure and didn't realize how much of a light she really was.

I'm so glad that the younger you made it to be the current you, because you are amazing.

Thank you, me too. Dang, cause that girl sure did try. She's like, "I need to not be here." But yeah.

If people want to connect with you and find out more about your work, how can they do that?

I primarily live on Instagram. I'm @the.death.empath. And my website is there... I mean, you can visit if you'd like. It's a very early version of what I was originally trying to do, but Instagram for sure.

Cool. Sounds good. Thank you so much, Jessica.

Thank you. This was awesome.