So how do we find meaning when it feels like everything is falling apart? When faced with profound loss, whether a home, a human, a pet, even just your sense of peace and stability, most of us we try to rush through or avoid the pain. But what if those moments of deep grief could actually open us to a richer, more meaningful way of living.

Today's episode brings together three remarkable guides who offer wisdom for life's most challenging transitions.

My guests are Death Dula, Alua Arthur, whose work explores how facing mortality can transform

our lives, grief therapist Claire Bidwell-Smith, who brings both professional expertise

and personal experience to help us understand grief's transformative potential, and speaker

and community builder Cindy Spiegel, who discovered profound wisdom about finding moments of

lightness and joy while facing devastating losses during the pandemic. You'll learn why avoiding grief may prevent deeper healing,

how to create meaningful rituals around loss and ways to hold both joy and sorrow as essential

parts of being human, even at times where it feels like they're not accessible.

Together, these three wisdom keepers offer a refreshing perspective on how we might

approach life's challenges with greater awareness, authenticity, and even glimpses of light in the

darkness. So excited to share this spotlight conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields,

and this is Good Life Project.

Our first guest today is Alua, Arthur, a death dula recovering attorney and founder of Going with Grace, an organization that trains death doulas and helps people navigate end-of-life planning.

Through her work, Alua supports people in finding peace with mortality so they can

live more presently. Her book, Briefly Perfectly Human, Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real

About the End, explores how confronting death can lead to a more meaningful life. Alua brings

deep wisdom and unexpected lightness to one of life's most challenging topics and offers a

fresh perspective on how getting comfortable with death can help us craft lives of greater purpose and joy.

Here's a luah.

As we have this conversation, the professional work that you do is as a death dola, and we'll go into

what that is.

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