S1 EP24: Making friends with death

Death is one of the few certainties in life, yet most of us spend our lives avoiding it.

In this episode of Walking Between Worlds, Giada explores death not only as a physical ending, but as an essential part of transformation. From the loss of relationships and identities to spiritual initiation and ego death, discover why every meaningful change requires something old to fall away.

Together we'll look at grief as a sacred process, the lessons hidden within endings, and how learning to surrender to life's inevitable cycles can deepen your spiritual path.

Death is not the opposite of life. It is part of life itself.

Connect with Giada Gaslini:

• Website: www.schoolofshamanism.co.uk
• Instagram: @‌schoolofshamanism
• Facebook: School of Shamanism
• Youtube: School of Shamanism

About the Host

Originally hailing from the vibrant city of Milan, I’ve spent the past two decades traversing the globe in a quest for spiritual and personal growth and combined with 25 years of international corporate work experience. From navigating the vast landscapes of Australia in a campervan to finding tranquility living in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, my journey is nothing short of extraordinary. Along the way, I’ve delved deep into Buddhist teachings, yoga, and shamanism, becoming Shamanic Teacher,  Forest Therapy Guide, Esoteric Numerologist, Shamanic and Integral Yoga Teacher and Ikigai Coach. In 2013 I settled in Edinburgh, where  I founded the Art and Spirituality Centre, a social enterprise and the School of Shamanism, where I passionately help others on their own transformative journeys.

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Transcript

Giada 0:00

The caterpillar dies to become the butterfly, the seed dies to become the trees, and you can't become who you are meant to be without letting go of who you were. Last time we explored dreams, that doorway to the invisible world that opens every night, and how to start working with that comes true. And today I want to talk about something most people avoid all the time because it's a scary topic: death, which is one of the only two things certain in life, death and birth. Not just physical deaths, but the deaths we experience while we're still alive. The endings, the losses, the moments when something we thought was essential to who we are falls away and we are left standing in the rubble, wondering who we are now. Because if you are walking between worlds, you will meet death many times. And learning to move through it rather than running from it is one of the most important skills of this past in life shamanically also. We avoid death because it terrifies us. We live in a culture that's obsessed with youth, growth, and more. And we don't want to think about endings. We don't want to face the reality that everything, including us, will one day cease to exist in its current form. So we push it away, we sanitize it, we hide the dying in hospitals and care homes, we use euphemisms, passed away, lost, no longer with us, because even the word death feels too heavy. And this avoidance doesn't just apply to physical deaths. We avoid all kinds of endings. We stay in relationships that have already died because we can't face the grief of letting go. We cling to jobs, identities, beliefs that no longer serve us because the alternative, the unknown, feels unbearable. And we keep seeing some life support long after they have stopped basing. But shamanic traditions understand that death is not the opposite of life, is part of life. It's moving through everything. And when we resist it, we resist the natural flow of existence itself. So in shamanic understanding, we don't die just once. We die many times, and every major transition is a death. Every transformation requires something to end before something new can begin. So when you leave a relationship, something dies, not just the relationship, but the version of you that existed inside it. And when you leave a job, a career, a calling that once defined you, that identity dies. When you move to a new place or leave your family of origin, you enter a new chapter of life, death is part of that. And even growth is a kind of death. The caterpillar dies to become the butterfly, the seed dies to become the tree. And you can't become who you are meant to be without letting go of who you were. And this is why walking between walls isn't comfortable. It asks you to die repeatedly, to release, to surrender, to let part of yourself fall away. And if you are resisting those deaths, you are resisting your own evolution. So in shamanic traditions, death is central to initiation. Many shamans across different cultures describe a death experience as part of their calling. Sometimes it's a literally a near-death experience. If you think of Sandra Ingerman, for example, illnesses, accident, crisis. Sometimes it's a visionary death during a ceremony or a journey where the initiate is dismembered, destroyed, and then put back together by the spirits, of course, symbolically. This is just not a metaphor, but actually something dies. And what returns is different, changed, reborn with new capacity, new vision, new power. So you don't choose this kind of death, it chooses you. And it's rarely pleasant. The shamanic call often comes through suffering. So the dark night of the soul that breaks you open. But on the other side of that, breaking is something extraordinary. And that you couldn't have reached any other way. A connection to the invisible world that only opens when the ego has been shattered. And if you have experienced something like this, breakdown, the Kaisers, a period where everything fell apart, you might be carrying shamanic initiation without knowing it. And that thus wasn't meaningless, it was a preparation. The ego is your sense of separate self, your identity, the story you tell about who you are, your name, your history, your roles, your preferences, your beliefs. And it's not bad. You need an ego to function in the world. But the ego tends to think it's the whole picture. It clings, it defends, it resists anything that threatens its existence. And on the spiritual path, ego death is inevitable. Not because you destroy the ego that's neither possible nor wishable, but because you start to see through it, you realize it's not the totality of who you are. You glean something larger, something that exists beyond your individual story. And for the ego, that's terrifying. It feels like an annihilation. Ego deaths can happen gradually through years of practice, or it can happen suddenly in a moment of crisis or revelation. Either way, it's disorientation. Who am I if I'm not who I thought I was? What's left when the story falls apart? What's left is something more essential. Something that doesn't depend on identity, something deathless. Through you, only you discover that by going through death you can really understand who you really are. We can't talk about death without talking about grief. Grief is the natural response to loss. And in a culture that avoids death, we also avoid grief. We rush through it, we medicate it, we are given a few days of work and then expected to be fine. But grief doesn't work on a schedule. An unexpressed grief doesn't disappear. It goes underground, it becomes depression, anxiety, uh, illness. It waits until you are ready to meet it. And in shamanic traditions, grief is sacred, it's honored. There are rituals for it. The tears are understood as medicine, not weakness. And when we allow ourselves to fully grieve something completes, the death becomes real. And only then can new life begin. If you are carrying grief, and most of us are, for losses that can be large or small, I want to invite you to let it move. Don't hold it in it. Don't rush past it. Find a safe place and let it come. Cry for what you have lost. Cry for who you used to be. Cry for the deaths you never properly mourned. And this isn't self-indulgence, it's a completion. It's necessary for your transformation. So death comes as a teacher. It teaches us in permanence, nothing less, not the good, not the bad, not you, not me. And this can sound uh bleak, but actually it's liberating. When you really understand impermanence, you stop clinging so hard. You appreciate what's here while it's here. You hold things more lightly. It teaches us priorities. When you are aware that time is limited, you stop wasting it on things that don't matter. You ask bigger questions, you make choices aligned with your soul, not your fear. And it teaches us presence. In this moment is all you have. If there is no guarantee of tomorrow, then this moment becomes infinitely precious. Thus wakes you up to life and it teaches us to surrender. There are forces larger than your will, larger than your plans, larger than your ego. This reminds you that you are not in control and learning to surrender to that, not with defeat, but with grace, is one of the deepest spiritual practices that there is. So you don't have to wait for a big crisis to practice death. There are little deaths available every day. Letting go of being right in an argument, that's a small death. Releasing an expectation, that's death too. Forgiving someone death of the grievance, admitting you don't know that's of the ego certainty. And even the breath is a practice of death. Every exhale is a letting go, and every inhale is a reverse. So you are dying and being reborn dozens of times in a minute. So start noticing the little deaths. Start practicing surrender in small ways. Build a muscle for the bigger deaths that will inevitably come. Because they will come. That's not pessimism, it's just reality. And if you have practiced, if you have made friends with deaths, you'll meet those moments with more grace.