Observing Impermanence

In this episode of 20 Minutes of Darkness, Death Doula and Occupational Therapist Erika Lim talks about embracing change and how that influences one's relationship with death.

Website - www.erikalim.com

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Music by: Eric Mayleek

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Erica's Work as a Death Doula
• 7:10 Embracing Impermanence and Detaching from Identity
• 14:11 Understanding the Fear of Impermanence

Transcript

0:17

Hi, I'm Aya. And I'm Eric. And welcome to 20 minutes of darkness. We have a wonderful guest here today. And as you know, we are here to talk about the stuff no one wants to talk about openly. That's correct. So today, our guest is Erica Lim, a deaf doula and occupational therapist. I think those occupations are pretty interesting. So I'm very interested in what she has to say. How you doing Erica? The floor is yours. Hey guys, it's nice to be here. It's nice to meet you, be here with you. I'm excited. So as a death doula, I walk with people and their families through end of life. So that could be when people are healthy and they want to prepare early and plan ahead. A lot of times people will come in and be like, you know, I experienced a really difficult passing of my mom. She had nothing planned. None of her wishes were written down. So we had to just guess, guess, guess as we're, you know, grieving already, like anticipatory grieving. And so I'll work with people to like help plan and organize their wishes. And then all the way through like getting the diagnosis, working with that around death contemplation, understanding impermanence. And then working towards the end and being with the family at the end and making sure we create kind of a very, a womb, right? And we come in through a womb, we go out through a womb. How do we create that space for people to feel safe to go when they're ready to go? So that's kind of it in a nutshell. I'm curious. Like I've never heard of a Depth Dula ever, never even Google did or heard anything about it. So I'm just curious of what made you want to make that an occupation of yours? Like. What made you go into that field? Just want to help people through that. Yeah. I had like a past life in advertising and that kind of like twisted my soul up and I was like, oh, we need to untwist this soul. And so I actually went back to school for occupational therapy and I was like, we're going to go be in healthcare, be with people. And I worked as an OT for about a year until the pandemic hit. And so I actually took a break and was like, all right. And honestly, being in the healthcare industry and insurance, like it was pretty heart wrenching. Like it kind of twisted my soul again a little bit being under a lot of those kind of limitations of our healthcare system. So I knew I kind of wanted to get out of the system, do something different and end of life always just kind of called to me. like hospice work, end of life, there's something really powerful there. I like to say that like, you know, throughout life, we can like repress a lot of stuff or we can kind of put down emotions or, you know, keep relationships as they are. But at the end of life, there's something that makes people want to start expressing, opening up, letting that stuff get unearthed. I find it fascinating to be at that time where that breaking point can happen and then help facilitate that for them, right? Who do you want to reconcile with? Is there anything you want to talk to someone about before you go? Do you want to kind of, you know, show your love in a deeper way that you haven't been able to show before? So I find like that period of time just very special. Also very heart wrenching, right? Very like there's a lot of sadness during that time too. And no one really has a blueprint on how to do it. Not that I am the expert, but I can at least help facilitate and be there as a companion. as we walk into the unknown together, right? So that was the journey. It was a lot of like unto a thing of soul, twisting of soul coming out, but it feels really good being in this work now. And I feel it feels more right. Feels like doing things on my own terms as well, like allowing myself to help people in ways that my heart can be really big in it versus when I was in the healthcare system, like there was so many limitations and like red tape around how much I can help. And so. This feels a lot more freeing, a little bit more part of what I'm supposed to do. So it feels good. I was putting myself in your position, like, cause I do think just that the word death do it is different for me. But also, um, just like me, I'm a, I'm a father, I have kids and I'm a nurturer. I take care, you know, but if my kids have problems or my companion has problems, I take their weight. So. being a deaf doula, like how can you do a job without feeling that hurt, that pain, trying to help people get through it? Because I couldn't do it, because I would be in the same boat with the individuals I'm trying to help. So that makes you a strong person. I'm interested, how do you manipulate that? I mean, how do you do it? Like we all just kind of learn, right? Especially nurturers and companions, like you tell me what you do, you know, because it's the same thing. It's like. Yeah. And it's not about not feeling things. We can't help but feel it, right? We hold it and we feel it. And then, um, I think it's like the action of giving it back and you're like, okay, this is not mine to hold. Like I'm here as a companion. I can hold your hand, but like giving back what's not mine, but still be able to like function as a partner in this, but I'm learning right? Like meditation. I was telling I, I came back from a 10 day silent meditation course. That meditation really helps me to be able to be very present, but then also be able to detach from what's not mine and be able to be in still a compassionate space. Really good family and friends that I know like can really listen to what's going on and reflect back like, hey, that doesn't sound like that's your stuff, you know, and really be able to offer that. and sleep. Like after I work with people, I need to sleep for like a day, two days at least and like give myself permission to like, you don't have to get out of bed for for a day. Yeah, it's for real though. It's like it really, you know what people say is right. It does take a lot of energy. So just really like learning what is what it is that really rejuvenates me brings me back. What have you noticed about people's relationships with pain and darkness and going through something that they can't even avoid going through. Have you noticed anything that you think would be helpful or interesting to talk about here? What I wanted to talk about actually was coming back from, there's a point on my meditation course where it's like something came up, I was like, oh, that's what I'm going to talk about in 20 minutes of darkness. There it is. You guys popped up. And so I got inspired. And so I'm going to say it kind of briefly because, you know, it's kind of the main lesson of like the 10 days. So I'm going to try to compress it. But like this practice, it's called the Pasannam. And the idea of it is to like purify the mind that is the purpose of it. The way you do it is through observing impermanence of the body, which creates kind of a dissolution of self. Like, So for example, and this is like, you know, shout out to the teacher. This is not my lesson. Shout out to Gwankaji, the teacher. But he talks about how like, if you think about a light bulb, right? The light that's in your room by our eyes, you know, it looks like a solid stream of light just sort of there, not really moving, but in reality it's moving. at a rapid, rapid pace, right? Arising and leaving electricity. That's why people get electricity bills at the end of the month, right? Because electricity is moving at the speed of light, literally. And so there's so much change happening constantly. But to our eyes, it doesn't look like anything's moving. Or if you take like a river, right? A river is always flowing, always flowing. But if you're looking at it, it looks like the same river. If you put your foot in it, one second and you put your foot in and in the second second, it's a whole nother river completely, right? Because it is constantly moving, constantly moving. And so, like if we think about that in within our bodies, while it looks like a solid self, everything's changing moment to moment to moment, right? Our hair is growing, turning gray. Our heart is beating. Our fingernails are growing, like every single moment of the day, every millisecond. our bodies changing. If we think about that, if we get away from the illusion that we are permanent and really see that we're constantly impermanent, then can we understand and accept change better? Right? Can we kind of take away our understanding of our ego, of ourself as being the most important thing, but really see like we're just masses of bubbles just moving constantly like arising and passing and arising and passing. And so I like to kind of put that in the context of like aging, right? Or let's talk about like children as they grow, as they change. We celebrate kids when they grow. We're like, wow, they learned something new. They learned, you know, like they fell asleep and the next day they can talk. Like how amazing is that? And that, that understanding of change is celebrated. Um, but when we think about like aging, even though we know that the laws of nature show us that like change is inevitable. We grieve so much when our parents start forgetting things, or we grieve so much when our parents' mobility changes. But it's just the same law of nature that children, as they grow, parents, they age, right? It's just a cycle of life. And so I think getting away from the illusion that we're permanent or we're staying like this forever, just seeing and really understanding that we're in constant change. And then humans and you and me, like, you know, the moment we started this, we're going to be completely different people, like biologically. And so isn't that amazing? Is that constant understanding that we're changing. Maybe it's not so we can see our parents or we can see our uncles and our aunties as they change and be like, oh, curious, like, oh, your body's changing now in this way. Interesting. Oh, your mind is changing in this way. Interesting. Just as we see children change and be like, interesting, curious, huh? because it's just a lot of nature doing its thing. I guess for me that all definitely makes sense. But I'm curious as far as how do you reestablish that relationship when the person has passed already? Yeah. To me, I don't necessarily try to put a handle like I understand the afterlife or what happens after. But what I do know is that the energy moves. It goes somewhere. whether, you know, that's the Buddhist understanding of reincarnating into another body, or whether Christian understanding of like a heaven. But I like to really kind of ask the person I'm working with, like, what is it that they believe? Because their intuition knows, right? Their intuition knows and feels something around death and dying and what happens. The energy that the person has continues on in the generations, right? Like, the energy, like your mother's energy is through you and also every single person that she is affected, like that trickles down, it continues in this way. And we see that with our eyes, we experience it in ourselves, right? You can still feel your mother in different people, I'm sure, or in different moments, like her imprint is still very much there. And so that feels very true to me. Energy never dies in that way. And the influence of these people. continues to always live and we can always access them in a different way, but still be able to access them whenever we want to because they still live in that way. Is that into your question? Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. I like what you're saying too about being conscious of your body and kind of celebrating the change and the people around you celebrating the fact that it's constantly moving. I like that idea. You just got that literally from the sort of the 10 day silent retreat. Um, you know, the celebration of baddies a bit of like my spin on it. Like they'll talk about like, cause they're, they're meditative kind of instruction is to like, you know, understand change that happens in the body, continue to observe, but always be equanimous. Like don't crave pleasant sensations. Don't have aversion towards unpleasant sensations. And you just kind of stay in the middle path, um, so that you don't create more suffering for yourself. that makes sense. Yeah, but my spin on it is a little bit of like, I think, you know, to be able to cope with change, like curiosity is helpful. Curiosity of the change. And in both ways, aging or in like childhood and whatever way change happens, I think curiosity helps us cope a little bit. I'm like, Oh, where's this going? I never noticed that yesterday. Now it's here. without going too far freak out around like, oh no, it's Alzheimer's or something like that, but really come back and you're like, what's changing? What changes are happening right now? And really be able to let that person experience for themselves in their bodies and explore it together. Why do you think people are so scared of impermanence? Like, what is it about impermanence that that frightens people? I think it's. ego, I think we use this life to build up ourselves, right? Our identities, our understanding of ourselves as part of a family, as part of as a father, as a daughter, as a we, the point of life is to experience it and create roles and understand ourselves as part of a collective experience, like foods and simulations. And, and then it creates like an identity and that's still part of life. But then what happens when the identity is broken down, right? It's scary. Right? It's like, you know, when we, we start losing our taste or we start losing, you know, a loved one, um, our identity starts to go away and that's scary. And so that's the natural fear is that like our understanding of ourselves is the thing that's going to like actually make us scared of dying. Right? It's the identity we build of ourselves. And so I think the purpose of my work too is how do we start detaching from our. identity in a way that feels like you can accept it. I can't even fathom what that means to detach. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. I'll do some like, like that contemplation of really kind of understanding, like, let's talk about your attachments and what, you know, what you want to do in this life and what you enjoy and love about living. And then kind of goes through kind of reflection exercises around like, what if that, what if you had three months left and you couldn't do that anymore? What if you had three months left and what would you want to do with those three months? Right. And like that'll start like helping people understand what are the priorities they have, but then also those, we can identify the attachments from those and then start working from there of how to like, okay, what happens if that starts to go? What happens if that starts to go? That makes sense. I think that. you don't realize how short things go. And if you kind of plan things so you know they're shorter, it's easier to be like, okay, this clearly is not important to me. And this is very important. Let me do that. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And then sort of like pulling at the threads around like, why is that, that one's so important? Right? What is it about that activity or that person or that experience that you feel attached to and so close to? kind of work from there and not like, you know, condemning their attachments because attachments are the most natural part of this life. Like we're supposed to be in relationship with people, right? With each other. We're supposed to be, we're supposed to experience these things about life, that rare experiences of sunsets and sunrises and mountains and beautiful experiences. Just observing the attachment around it allows you to be able to start accepting that. okay, that's not going to last forever. Right. And how and that practice itself is, I think really valuable, because we don't think about the impermanence like, oh, we think we're always going to see it sunset or sunrise, but then there's going to be a point when you don't. What I'm taking away from this is that, you know, when you're going through sort of the hardest of times, you're actually learning about yourself more deeply than you learn in regular life when you're living, and you don't have any problems. You're forced to understand yourself a little bit deeper and that's the beauty of it. Yeah. No, you got it. That's insight right there. Yeah. Is there anything you'd like to share with the audience? Any sort of thoughts? One exercise I've done and this might be helpful to just start observing impermanence is like what I've kind of done is when I do see people or spend time with people. Sometimes I'll just take a moment and look at them and imagine like, oh, this might be the last time I ever see you and just observe what kind of comes up. A lot of times, you know, what comes up for me is actually real sweetness. And I think that that says a lot about your own relationship with this person. And so I kind of invite people to do that exercise. You know, when you see or spend time with people, just to have a moment to yourself and look at them and be like, oh, what if this was the last moment I ever saw you? and just sit with that moment for a bit and see what it feels like. Yeah. This was really, really lovely. And I really appreciate you coming in and talking to us. I just want to say to the audience out there, if you're going through something, if you know that a loved one is dying, definitely get a Deaf Dua. I wish I got one, you know, because I definitely see the value in it. Now, you know they exist. Erica's living proof, so. Right. Thank you. This is really good. I really enjoyed you guys' company and you know, just that you do this work. This is a really beautiful podcast and I really love that you talk about the things that people don't want to talk about because it brings so much insight. It brings so much insight. So thank you. Well, thank you so much. And this is 20 minutes of dark.