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Recovering the Lost Art of Dying and Grieving Well with Johanna Lunn
There are conversations we avoid, not because they are meaningless, but because they are too meaningful. Death is one of those conversations. And yet, as today’s guest so gently and powerfully reminds us, speaking of death is not morbid. It is liberating.
My guest is Johanna Lunn, a multi-award-winning filmmaker, producer, and the visionary behind the When You Die Project. Through her deeply moving trilogy of films, including In the Realm of Death & Dreaming, Saying Goodbye, and Architecture of Death, she has opened space for a cultural dialogue we desperately need, one that begins at the end, but does not end there.
In this episode, we speak of what it means to prepare for death, why Swedish Death Cleaning is not about minimalism, but about legacy, and how near-death experiences, deathbed visions, and liminal dreams might not be fantasy, but memory.
As someone who lost my father this year and as someone who lives at the intersection of healthspan, longevity, and the search for meaning, I feel this conversation in my bones. Because what we avoid holds power over us. But what we name, we can walk with.
So I invite you now into this sacred conversation: soft, subversive, and filled with grace.
Episode highlights:
07:45 Johanna’s early encounters with profound loss and the silence that followed
11:00 Grief as an untold story — how broken hearts can create art, movements, and meaning
14:00 A pivotal moment at the bedside: discovering that dying can be held in love
16:30 Storytelling as a bridge to “death literacy”
17:15 What it means to die consciously — from Swedish death cleaning to life review
23:15 How preparing for death can also deepen how we live
24:15 Near-death experiences and deathbed visions as memories, not fantasies
27:00 Why NDEs feel “realer than real” and what they reveal about consciousness
33:15 Signs, synchronicities, and the continued presence of loved ones
35:15 Opening family conversations about dying across generations
38:00 The “architecture of death” — the rooms, passageways, and mystery of the final months
42:30 Terminal lucidity, the “pickup team,” and traveling language of the dying
47:15 How families change as a loved one dies — why part of us also dies with them
49:00 If death had a message for our hyper-busy world: let go
Death is not the opposite of life, but part of its wholeness. In a culture that hurries past loss, this episode teaches us how to recover the forgotten language of dying and grieving — showing us how remembering death can teach us to live more fully.
Resources mentioned:
- When You Die Project — https://whenyoudie.org
- In the Realm of Death and Dreaming (Film by Johanna Lunn) — https://whenyoudie.org
- Saying Goodbye (Film by Johanna Lunn) — https://whenyoudie.org
- The Architecture of Death (Film by Johanna Lunn) — https://whenyoudie.org
- Barbara Karnes, RN — https://bkbooks.com
- Division of Perceptual Studies (University of Virginia) — https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies
- International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) — https://iands.org
- Dean Radin, PhD — Institute of Noetic Sciences — https://noetic.org
LinkedIn https://ca.linkedin.com/in/johannajlunn
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/whenyoudiecommunity
X https://x.com/whenyoudie_org
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