Ask a Mortician - Caitlin Doughty #146

Caitlin Doughty — mortician, author and death acceptance advocate — joins us for a candid and humorous exploration of our mortality. Caitlin is on a mission to help our death-phobic society overcome anxieties about death and make death a part of life. She sheds light on all areas of death and the dying process in her popular Youtube channel “Ask a Mortician” and New York Times best-selling book Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. She founded the death acceptance collective The Order of the Good Death and co-founded Death Salon. She also runs Undertaking LA, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit progressive funeral home that empowers families to have a closer relationship with their loved one’s death.

In this episode, Caitlin guides us through our rights — post mortem — and encourages us to consider a question not many are prepared to face: How would you like to die? Throughout our human history, families were responsible for the care of their own dead; the practice of transferring death care to a funeral home is a relatively new custom. Caitlin illuminates the non-funeral home & natural death care options that are available to us — at-home funerals, embracing decay, death doulas, natural burials and conservation cemeteries. Empower yourself to embrace the natural process of death and meaningfully interact with the dying process.

Episode Breakdown: Show Introduction: SurThrival Pine Pollen Sale, upcoming product teaser & I'd Rather Hunt + Gather t-Shirts Hunt + Gather updates: Eating groundhog, roadkill deer and more! Q&A: The sustainability of hunting for 7.5 billion people Introducing Caitlin Doughty How Caitlin become enamored with the post mortem aspect of anatomy Theory and practice What is the common response to humor about death? The civilizing of civilization — what’s contributed to our fear and avoidance of death Caitlin’s exploration into the death rituals of cultures around the world Conservation cemeteries Death doulas, the non-funeral home experience and death acceptance The legalities of handling a dead body  Immaturity about death Elders vs orders How Caitlin would like to die Caitlin’s prognosis for the future of the human species