Speaker 1 (00:02):

Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of Ask a Death Doula. I am excited to bring you something very special. My guest today is Kris Carr. I’m going to tell you a little bit about her. If you don’t know already, Kris Carr is a multiple New York Times bestselling author, wellness activist, and cancer thriver. She’s been called a force of nature by Oprah Magazine and was named the New Role Model by the New York Times. Kris is also a member of Oprah’s Super Soul 100, which recognizes the most influential thought leaders today. She’s been in major media all over. She’s a game changer. I just want to say thank you so much, Kris, for being here. This is a very special episode.

Speaker 2 (00:48):

Suzanne, thank you for having me, my friend. I love your work. You are so dear to me. So it is an honor to be with you and with all of your community.

Speaker 1 (00:58):

Well, we are thrilled to talk about this and so I first want to start off by saying I want to thank you so much for writing this book, and I mean that from my heart and why, I mean that is because, and we’re going to talk a little bit about, I want to give a little backstory about how I found you and what you’ve been doing, but I want to tell you how much I appreciate you stepping into this space. And I don’t think it was an easy decision to do so, which you can clarify in our podcast. But it brings about the awareness that no matter who we are, where we are in our world, what work we do, we are all touched by this subject. And so opening up this on a larger platform for the world is something that again, I’m so grateful for. So thank you for doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:42):

Thank you. I appreciate

Speaker 1 (01:44):

That. I know, I know my love. Alright, so first I want to give a little bit of backstory because people know you as this. And it’s so interesting, Chris, when I was thinking about our podcast and I think about all the times that we exchange, I absolutely forget that you have a cancer that you were, it doesn’t even strike my mind because you were like this pillar of joy and health and happiness, which is so wonderful. And so I found you a very long time ago through Hay House, through positivity and events. And then of course, I’m a former oncology and hospice nurse, so that caught my attention. But really what caught my attention is your love of life and your love of sharing what you’ve learned to help other people learn how to live daily their best lives. And I want everyone to know this, and I’m not sure you fully know this, but really following you and just your energy, you really helped me to create the platform that I have today with doula givers because entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship and building a platform, and it’s not easy. And I really credit you with just that tenacity and the positivity and just keep focusing for that star. So I want to thank you for that. And also, again, you are known as the wellness person, the advocate, the girl. So tell me about this book. Why this book? Why now, and why is it so important that we talk about this?

Speaker 2 (03:16):

Oh, honey, thank you so much. Well, why this book? I got the idea for this book probably about five years ago, not the title, just the idea. And it had been a while since I had written a book. And in publishing there’s this idea that that’s death. And I have written seven books, no

Speaker 1 (03:38):

Pun intended. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (03:39):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It’s like the end of your career. And I was starting to feel the pressure. I need to write another book, I need to write another book. And my first book was for cancer patients. As you said, I’ve been living with cancer for 20 years now. And then I wrote a few books about plant-based living, anti-inflammatory lifestyle and whatnot. And 20 years into my experience of not only being a wellness coach, a wellness advocate, but also a patient myself, I as my practice shifts and what the people that come to me are needing. Now, what I find is the beginning of my journey was really about addressing what people are eating and how they’re taking care of themselves. And where I am right now, 20 years into this is really starting to address what’s eating you, what’s eating, what’s keeping you up at night, what are the things that are holding you back from that vibrant health and wellbeing, sense of joy and purpose, that flow that you want for your life.

(04:40):

So obviously the next step to me was more of a personal development style book. So I could get into mindset more. But at the time I was approaching my 20 year, my father was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. My business was faltering. We were in the middle of the pandemic. And as much as I wanted to write a book that was like, you’ve got this, you go, girl, that is not where I was. And it felt like it just felt devoid of meaning for me. And there was something deeper that I was feeling called to write about. There was something much deeper that I was experiencing, including a lot of anxiety, depression. And what I didn’t really understand, Suzanne, was I was experiencing an enormous amount of grief, old grief, new grief, and all the stuff that comes with it. And I was like, if I’m going to spend any of my time prepping a book, writing a book, researching a book, and having a book grow me, then this is the work that I want to do. And so that’s how it started. And of course, selling a book about grief is a challenge too.

Speaker 1 (05:51):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (05:52):

And so I don’t know if you want me to touch on that really quickly because I think

Speaker 1 (05:56):

Yes, you can. Absolutely. It

Speaker 2 (05:57):

Speaks to our collective consciousness about this in a very big way, which is, oh wow, that’s a tough topic. That’s a hard sell, that’s a dark topic. You have anything else that’s a little more, you’ve got this. You go, girl. And what I realized was especially as we were all living through loss as a result of specifically the pandemic, I was like, we’re all in this collective grief right now, whether we know it or not. We just don’t have language for it. And so this is the work I need to do. And thankfully I found a publisher where it was like, we’re on board. Yes, please. And then that’s the journey that I started with this book. I’m not a morning person, which because Suzanne, at the beginning I absolutely wasn’t.

Speaker 1 (06:50):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:51):

I didn’t want to be a morning person. This was an emotion I wanted to run from.

Speaker 1 (06:55):

That’s right. Okay. So much that I want to say here, because when you were talking about rah rah, you’ve got this girl, I got to tell you something that when you step into the realness of what’s happening, you are saying you’ve got this. It’s just in a different way. And I love that. And you say that we don’t have language for grief, we don’t have containers for it. We don’t even allow this space in until now. We’re starting to shift the conversation, which is totally brilliant. And so let’s talk about everything happening at once. And I think the pandemic really woke us up to, wow, we don’t want to think about end of life or death, which by the way, we’re breaking this open because the spoiler alert when we talk about end of life, we’re talking about life and we can also learn how to live truly live.

(07:52):

And that’s like a win-win because we’re all going to get there for something guaranteed. So I love that you have this on many levels and are saying that we have grief in many levels because I think the pandemic thrusts us all into multiple layers of grief and awareness of death. But our lives changed. Our lives changed sometimes. I mean, I think I moved three or four times during the pandemic because I was in New York City and a year into it I had to move somewhere, but I had to do it strategically. And then I had, there was grief that went along with that. I wasn’t expecting it, but then just the suffering that was happening. So I love that you brought this. Let’s talk about, I really want to talk about chapter two if I can, and the rupture, because I think this goes along with what we’re going to talk about for a minute. First of all, I love your dad. I have not met him, but I love the way you speak of him. You can feel his life and aliveness and just what the magic that he brought to you and to the world. But I want to talk to you about the rupture. Can you explain what the rupture and we can dive into that a little

Speaker 2 (08:56):

Bit more? Yeah, absolutely. So in the book, I break down the chapters as experiences that we’ll probably have when the rug gets pulled out from under us. So it goes through my stories and my research and my tips and my teachings, but each of the chapters is dedicated to something that we may encounter so that we’re more capable of navigating it. And so the rupture is really about that moment when life changes, when you get the diagnosis, when your partner says, I’m leaving, when the miscarriage happens, when you lose your job, it is that moment where the life as you know it has now changed. And there’s probably a part of you that thinks I might not survive this. And it is in understanding how to navigate these times, which as you so beautifully said, they’re going to happen to all of us. We live in a very binary black or white world where we’re either winning or we’re losing, where life is perfect or it’s a disaster.

(10:02):

There has to be room for the magnificent gray. There’s good times, there’s difficult times. It’s all about how we’re going to manage those times. And so the rupture is literally when that happens. And what I feel is for some it could be a very traumatic experience, and I love how Gabor Mate talks about it, which is trauma isn’t something that happened to you, it’s what happens inside of you. So when we go through rupture, there’s a lot of things that happen inside of us. We are likely filled with fear and anxiety, and all of our stress hormones are flooding through our system and so forth. And so what I like to do, especially in this book, is give people tools to navigate something like a rupture. So before we move on, I want to just say that ruptures though, they’re very, very difficult, can also bring some clarity. And you always bring this up in the work that you do, which is so powerful, which is it’s not just about death because death teaches us how we want to live. The ruptures to me, help us realign our values, realign our priorities, maybe even resuscitate as a desire that you’ve long buried because you start to realize that time is finite

(11:18):

And there’s nothing that teaches us that more than ruptures.

Speaker 1 (11:25):

Yes. Alright, ruptures. When I was reading your book, and I heard these ruptures, I heard the promises of life, what life promises you, because what we want to be aware of is that life happens for you, but in a beautiful way, but also it has the ups and down the peaks and valleys. And we all will have these experiences of loss and of things in our lives. And one of the things back to the work that you do for wellness is that when you are caring for yourself and when you are present and when you are at your best version, you’re able to respond to the ruptures or the promises that life brings, not react to them. And they’re going to happen guaranteed. But if you’re in a place where you’re like, okay, I can see it in a different perspective, and that’s what, and life is promising you that.

(12:19):

And I really think that these are gifts. I know that it’s hard to picture that when we say a gift, but like you say, the rupture is a moment in the life journey that gives you the opportunity to reevaluate, to reconnect, to reprioritize. And that is a gift that can change your trajectory. So the actual illness or loss may not, and it’s not diminishing the pain that it is, but it is really an opportunity to go to a higher level if we so choose and look where we are. And like you said, time is the most important question I think that people need to answer for themselves how they’re spending it and who they’re spending it with because that’s the greatest commodity we have. So you’re right, you’re right on target with that. And I love the rupture and I think that it’s really important for us to understand that we all have ruptures, we all have ’em, and have compassion, and just knowing that we’re in this together and that that’s part of the deal, what we can do to make that a positive moving forward situation.

(13:23):

Alright, one of my favorites, chapter seven, rest in Love. And I really want to talk about this because I really want you to speak to our audience if you’d be so kind from the perception of the caregiver. Now, I also want to share with you that before the pandemic in 2020, I was literally in Denver at Oprah’s her tour and she was on stage and literally I had to get back to New York as we were shutting down. And she actually said, I can’t believe we got the last one in. Like, okay, but this is what she said on stage. She was talking about when her mother was dying, she wasn’t close with her mother, and she was talking about how she went there and she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to say. And I’m like, well, Oprah doesn’t know what to say.

(14:09):

None of us really know what to say. But that’s what I just want to share again, is that we all are connected to this and the more that we can, my whole platform and purpose in life really is to bring back the awareness that death is a sacred, natural experience and how we can do it really well with the right kindness and support in education. And so one of the things I’ll share, what she said is that finally she said, I wish you peace. I wish you only peace and love, and there’s things that we can do at the end of life to support and educate that can really help. But we’re not talking about any of this. So I want to hear from you as a caregiver what that was like. And you wrote a beautiful chapter, rest in love, which of course is just speaking to my heart because I’m all about that love energy. But you talk about hospice and you talk about the bedside of your dying father. So I want you to share a little bit about, if you could, about what it was like being in that space as a caregiver, supporting your dad and your mom, and what made it better and what we can do to actually open this conversation up the wall. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (15:19):

Thank you for asking. So as I said a moment ago, the book is really about what happens when life falls apart. All of, not all of them, but a lot of the common experiences that we’re going to have from fear and anxiety. For me, I had no idea there would be some unbridled anger and different emotions that I was shocked would also accompany grief because I was not familiar with the language of grief, the texture of grief and how none of our emotions are bad. It’s all information. And so the through line is not only my own diagnosis and living with cancer, but also my dad’s diagnosis through his death and beyond. And so in the chapter of rest in love, we spent a lot of time already with my dad and with the journey and with all those emotions that I was talking about and more giving some tools and tips and really teaching through story because I think our stories connect us.

(16:22):

And in this chapter is the chapter where I talk about my dad passing. And I think one of the most powerful parts of this chapter is exactly what you referenced with Oprah saying, I didn’t know what to say and thankfully I have a wonderful therapist. And when it got closer to the end, I realized that I needed to have a language and needed to start to understand how to communicate about the inevitable, especially because my dad wanted to. And so it’s very uncomfortable though because we think we’re going to get it wrong. We think we’re terrified that we’ll fall apart. And so I think there’s another chapter called Awkward times, awkward People, and it’s all the unintentional crazy shit that we do and say, because we don’t know what to do and say, right, we

Speaker 1 (17:17):

Feel like we need to fill the space. Yes.

Speaker 2 (17:19):

And we say things that aren’t supposed to go together. But in this chapter she said to me, I said, I’m so afraid to get it wrong, Carol. I’m so afraid to fall apart. She said, why don’t you start by talking about about it? So you’re not having the conversation just yet, but you’re going to approach your dad and say, I’d like to talk to you about talking about dying. Start there. And that’s exactly what I did. And so I was like, dad, I want to talk to you about talking about dying. I don’t know if I’m going to get it right. I’m probably going to get very tearful. I’m really afraid to have this conversation, but I’m available to have it if that’s something that would be appealing to you. And his response was, oh yes, please. And he went on to say that he felt very lonely because he knew that it was happening. Everybody knew it was happening and it was coming up closer and he just felt like there’s nobody he could talk to. And then that’s how we started. And that was enough for that day, Suzanne. It was like we did the talking about it and then a few days later we actually talked about it. It made it easier for me and easier for him because it’s almost like a little dress rehearsal that we had.

Speaker 1 (18:50):

Well, yes. So this whole thing is about dress rehearsal, this whole thing about dress rehearsal. When I think about how do we shift the culture of end of life and grief and all of it, it’s by bringing the awareness as early as possible, healthy truth into the journey so that it’s not at these moments. And I really want people to sit with what you just said about that your dad wanted to talk about it. Yes, I feel alone. People are like, everyone’s around. We know what’s happening, but nobody’s talking to me about it. And it’s actually my journey. This is so much of what my patients have shared with me. Now, I want to take this even once because we want to give tools to families to be able to have these conversations. I want to tell you funny little stories that I’ve had multiple hospice patients duly give our patients where I’ve come in and the family says, don’t tell them they’re dying.

(19:37):

And I said, why not? And they said, well, they can’t handle it. And I go to the patient and they say, don’t tell my family I’m dying. I say, why not? They go, they can’t handle it. So let’s go to your fear and anxiety. I think this is really important in chapter three, you have fear and anxiety, and I think that we have an overwhelming amount of fear, anxiety, depression in this world right now. We’re running on that ego, we’re running on that human. And so let’s break it down. What do you think the fear of death actually is, if you have thought about that?

Speaker 2 (20:12):

Yeah, fear in the world.

(20:14):

Yeah, that’s a big one. I would say that wells, the fear of uncertainty. At the end of the day, it’s a fear of uncertainty. And let’s talk about how our brains, our brains are designed to keep us safe. And so our brains are constantly running risk assessments. And when we don’t know what’s next and we don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s very easy to be in a fearful state. And I would say that more often, many of us who identify as fearful are actually potentially dealing with more anxiety than they realize. And so what I try to do in the book is break down the difference between fear and anxiety and also give people useful tools to surf them. And what I have found about anxiety is it can become almost habitual like a hotspot because fear comes on, it has a beginning and middle and an end. It has a timeframe around it. But anxiety is something that, it’s a fear of what may or may not happen. It’s not just a fear of what just like, oh, a deer jumped across the road when we were driving. We have this initial response and we have a little hangover afterwards. It takes a while for our adrenaline to flush out of our body,

Speaker 1 (21:40):

Whereas

Speaker 2 (21:41):

Anxiety is us ruminating. And so I think one of the things that happens for us, especially when we’re facing the death of a loved one or maybe we’re facing our own death, is we start to tell ourselves stories. And again, this is what our brains are designed to do to sort of minimize the risk. If this then that. And we tell ourselves these stories, we don’t tell ourselves positive stories. That’s not what our brain is designed to do. Your brain doesn’t care if you’re happy, your brain cares if you’re safe. And so this is where the habitual behavior can come in, where we are actually future tripping to some of the deepest, darkest, most difficult places. And what I find, especially in what I found exactly in that end stage of life, and also as somebody who lives with stage four cancer, is when I’m in that place to just recognize it to just first and foremost, recognize it, name it, say This is what my brain does, this is normal. Then come back to the present moment. It could be as simple as literally inserting a gap, inserting breath, feeling my butt against the chair. These are very simple things, tracing my fingers, just getting back into my body, moving, changing the channel because I need to get my brain from where it is to where it needs to be, which is in the here and now. And I think so much of what happens, especially around end of life, is that we’re not in the here and now because we’re terrified.

Speaker 1 (23:31):

Why are we terrified? See, this is where I have to come in. So I love your techniques are spot on. It’s almost like how pain works. And I want to share that emotional pain is presents as physical pain at the end of life, and everyone’s stuff bubbles up to the top. But as pain, and this is an analogy for us and for the fear and anxiety, as pain is starting to go up, you’ve got to cut it off. If it gets too far, it’s impossible to burn down. It’s the same thing as what you’re describing. So you’re cutting off those electrical impulses that can run away with you. Now, this is so great because those tools are critically important for people to recognize and to break that pattern, to bring it back down. I feel Chris, that our minds go to fear right now with ends of life because it’s this black hole that no one knows about.

(24:21):

And if we shared and you said again, yes, I understand that we don’t have positive stories because most of them are not positive that we talk about end of life. Everyone is saying to run from it. Everyone is saying it’s a battle. Death is the ultimate enemy. And we’re really taught almost in this culture right now that if somebody dies, it’s a failure. And that is a really terrible thing. So if we brought back again the truth about what end of life is the positive things that can happen, and I just want to share with you something that’s very common that people say at the end of life now, I’ve been with a lot of people at the end of life, so I have a big pool to pick from. One of the things that changed my whole world is when they share about that a loved one who’s already died has come back and is in the room with them or was here last night or is saying that, yeah, we’re going to come get you tomorrow.

(25:14):

Now physics has really validated energy and the differences, and there’s one point in the end of life journey that people, in my opinion, so we’re holistic beings, this is your work. The physical body is diminishing, the spiritual body’s growing, and there’s one place in that journey. They have one foot in this world and one foot the next. And I call that they get their spiritual eyes or wisdom, and all of a sudden they have these aha moments and they understand why all those ruptures happened in their lives. They’re like, I get it now. It was all kind of designed. And then when they speak of, and we’re not going to know until we get there, but I have to say what people have shared has completely wiped out not only fear, but just given a whole different perspective to this whole life’s journey. And if I think we shared more of that just in conversation, maybe we can implement some of these stories instead of just the scary ones and diminish fear a bit.

Speaker 2 (26:09):

These are very powerful, as you said, conversations to have. And I think one of the things that comes up for me is the idea of living with less regrets. And so to stay in the here and now, I made an intention for myself that I would do the best that I could with the time that I had left with my dad.

Speaker 1 (26:36):

And

Speaker 2 (26:39):

Setting that intention I think is so important for us as individuals because I have to say that his passing was one of the most devastating things that I’ve been through, but I have so little regret around it. I’m so proud of how I showed up. I’m so proud of the tools that I cultivated and the time that I intentionally put aside to do it. I feel blessed that I was able to do it, but it taught me more about, as you say, living than I’ve taught a lot of workshops. I’ve taken a lot of workshops. I’ve doing this for 20 years. But this is really the rubber meets the road for us as individuals, as spiritual beings, as anybody who’s out there interested in growth and growth mindset. At the top of our interview, we talked about this idea that I wanted to write a personal development book that was very empowering and I thought it was going to look a specific way.

(27:43):

The you go, girl, you’ve got this type of book. And what I realized is that this work clears the way for creating that life that you want. This work is really plugs you in to not only learning more about yourself, but also learning more about others. One of the things that, there’s also a lot of wisdom in the book that my dad imparted and it’s all such beautiful stuff. And one of the things that he said that he wanted for himself was to know himself more before he died. This was the work that got him there. This was the work that got me there. One of the things that he mentioned to me towards the end was, make your golden years now. Because for him it was like, well, I’m going to sell my business. I’m going to retire now. I’ve got all these golden years left and now I’m going to really live.

(28:40):

Because before then I was raising children and I was building my business and I was working really hard and I was the provider and all of the things that so many of us juggle. And then right as he’s selling his business, he gets this diagnosis and then within a few years he passes. And so what it reminded me of, and though that was so hard to hear, it reminded me of when I was newly diagnosed and I was like, Hey, there’s a lot of things in my life I’m not happy about. And if I only have a certain amount of time left, I want to make sure I’m very intentional about how I’m using it. And then 20 years later, seeing him go through that and I have a stage four cancer that’s slow growing and it’s been pretty stable. And so I have a very strange rare thing inside of me that is not what his experience was. His is a stage four cancer that was very aggressive. So to see him make the most of his golden years, which were a fraction of what I had and have knock on wood, but to make the most of his golden years literally were of them.

Speaker 1 (29:43):

And

Speaker 2 (29:43):

He made the most of them. And imparted that wisdom to me is something I’ll never ever forget. It’s how honestly, I wake up every day with that, what’s my more like this? What does this looks like? What does my golden years now look like? And some of it’s really simple stuff. It’s not like I’m going to go to Paris next week. I can’t go to Paris next week, but Paris loops inside my heart. How do I want my energy to flow? Where do I want to put my attention? What is something that I can truly let go of that’s just holding me back energetically or blocking me from the love that I want to experience? That to me is part of this golden years now experience that only death I think can teach us.

Speaker 1 (30:33):

Love that. So when we’re at the end of life, for me, I have seen forgiveness be the most transformative tool because this is it, right? So everyone’s stuff bubbles up to the top, not just for the person, but for the family as well. So it’s a communal experience, but forgiveness and knowing that we have all done things that we need forgiveness for and we all need to give forgiveness to certain things, but this is the moment, and forgiveness is the catalyst that I’ve seen that removes that energetic heaviness and block for people to have the most beautiful end of lives like beautiful, but also the power of bringing that into our lives now. So when you’re with somebody and you see how precious our time is and you see wanting to get to know myself and my goals, and I think forgiveness, I think every path leads to forgiveness, guilt, shame, regret.

(31:28):

It’s all about that. And so getting to that so that you can have the future be the way that you want it, I think is critically important to understand. And the other thing that I took away, it was very funny. I never started living as fully as when I started to work with those at the end of life. And one of the things was, it’s not that I have to go to the gym, it’s that I get to go to the gym. It’s not that I have to go to the grocery, I get to go. It took a whole level of gratitude that I’ve never experienced before. And living each life one little day, like you said, your golden years, but what about this golden day? If we approach in that space, then surely we will have minimal regret, hopefully at the very end with that awareness. And that’s exactly what you just said. It just changes things.

Speaker 2 (32:17):

Yeah. I agree with you. And I think I talk about this towards the end of the book. There’s a section called Both End. And so let’s talk about where the resistance is and let’s talk about how difficult it can be to forgive and let’s kind of talk about gratitude and give it some work boots. Because sometimes when we’re in this place, it’s easy to hear that stuff and feel like, yeah, but I’m really stuck. So how do I get there? And one of the things about what my experience has been is what the both end is. You can be grieving and have gratitude. I can have stage four cancer and be healthy. I can be a life loving person and have a lot of anxiety. I can be energized and completely devastated by grief and loss.

(33:07):

And so I think as we normalize this conversation, part of that process is to help people understand that there isn’t a bow, that we wrap around things, that life is messier than that. And it’s in that messiness that our humanity lies. And when it comes to forgiveness, for some people listening, it can be, it’s easy or it’s easier. Or maybe we even set an intention that one day we’ll be open to forgiving if we feel that resistance for other people, depending on what the issue is. And even people at end of life, depending on what the issue is, it still may be difficult. And I think what’s important there is that no matter what, we let ourselves off the hook. We let ourselves off the hook. It is about being hooked. It is about that energy. It is about that spark of tension that we want to put our energy on for our physical body’s wellbeings. That’s right. I have people in my life and even people in and around this experience that I will be honest with you right now, Suzanne, I don’t forgive, but I wish well, but I have no malice, but I don’t feel hooked.

Speaker 1 (34:30):

That’s the key that to me, I

Speaker 2 (34:32):

Don’t feel hooked.

Speaker 1 (34:34):

That to me is forgiveness, my love. I really do think it. I, and people don’t understand. It’s for you. It’s not for them. It’s not condoning, excusing, and just what you said, cutting that energetic cord to that that’s continuously so you can then fly the way that you want to be. Yeah. And I think

Speaker 2 (34:50):

That that’s, so that can be very helpful for anybody out there who, let’s say the 10 to 20% of people who are like, yeah, but you don’t know what happened to me. Or, yeah, but you don’t know what that person did. And so finding these ways to reframe it, as you said, that energetic connection, that energetic hook, to me, it’s like whatever it takes to preserve this body, this

Speaker 1 (35:16):

Spirit. Yes, yes. I love that. Perfect. And I think we have to know that because part of this whole human experience is all of that that we pick up along the way. And the key is to release it so that you can be that energetic level of creativity and love and joy that you want to be. And health. And health as well. Alright. What is one thing that you want to share that’s really amazing about your dad that he wanted everyone to know? Because I know he has so many, this book is so rich and we’ll tell people how to get in a minute, but what is something that you want to share? His wisdom?

Speaker 2 (35:54):

Yeah. I would say that one of the most precious things about my mentor, who is my father, is that such a great listener. And what I think we all need more of now in this time is people who are willing to give their full presence. I don’t think there’s a greater gift that you can give somebody than your full attention. And more often than not, especially in this beautiful age of AI and all of the advancements in technology, is that we are a very distracted world. And so how many of you out there listening to this right now have ever had an experience where somebody’s talking and you’re thinking about what it is that you’re going to say as opposed to being fully present with that person? Because when we’re fully present with somebody, we hear what they’re saying and we hear what they’re not saying. It’s really where our intuition comes in and also where the deepest connections can come in because we’re genuinely interested in the person. And I think that each and every one of us can train ourselves to be more present, to be less distracted, to literally override the impulse, to grab your phone, to change the subject, to move on to the next thing, to step on somebody in conversation. Because truly, you asked me that question and I can say so many wonderful things, but I’d say that was the biggest thing that I want to emulate.

Speaker 1 (37:28):

Absolutely. And that’s an invaluable lesson and tool. And I want to say that I’ve seen better work in the last six months sometimes of life because of just that. People put down the phone, they got present with their loved one, and it was like the richness in those exchanges was priceless. But we want to bring that in now. So this book is so full of just wonderful tools and tips and the journey, and I just love your stories. How can people get it?

Speaker 2 (37:56):

Oh, Suzanne, thank you so much for that. This book is available where everywhere where books are sold, you can get an Amazon, you can get it at your favorite indie bookstore, b n n. You can get in anywhere you want.

Speaker 1 (38:09):

Okay, well just, it’s all over our social. So you guys, the links are below. And I am not a Morning Person by Chris Carr. Thank you so much, Chris, for writing this book, for being in this world, and for being a guest on ASCO Death Doula. Thanks

Speaker 2 (38:22):

For having me, honey.

Speaker 1 (38:24):

Thanks. Alright, everyone, again, an amazing podcast interview and thank you so much to Chris Carr. Get her book and we’ll see you in the next episode.