Cancel Your Fear of Dying: How to Live Fully by Facing Death | Elena Brower
The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
4.6 • 911 Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2025
⏱️ 92 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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We have all heard the sayings and clichés, but what is the truth behind being afraid of dying? In this episode, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon sits down with Elena Brower, a best-selling author, meditation teacher, and hospice volunteer, to discuss the profound topics of impermanence, living intentionally, and preparing for the end of life.
Drawing from her own experience with the loss of her mother, Elena shares her journey into hospice work and Buddhist chaplaincy, revealing how embracing the reality of death has become her most sacred practice. This conversation is not about morbidity but about using the awareness of death to live a more vibrant, present, and meaningful life.
Discover Elena Brower’s powerful new book, Hold Nothing, available now at https://elenabrower.com/holdnothing
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:24 - The Five Remembrances
3:16 - Living with Impermanence
5:11 - The Two Kinds of Physicians
6:14 - Elena's Journey as a Hospice Volunteer
9:22 - Why Not Just Wait to be Afraid?
10:05 - The Power of Day-by-Day Awareness
13:34 - The Practice of Letting Go of Your Personality
15:40 - Making the Room Sacred
17:06 - Why Our Culture Turns Away from Death
23:02 - Do We Need Rituals?
26:39 - Talking to Children about Death
28:27 - Trauma, Grief, and Meeting Death Differently
30:20 - Zen Meditation vs. Other Modalities
38:54 - The Power of Friendship
45:45 - The Lightning Speed of Letting Go
46:33 - Cultivated Things
47:07 - Redefining Success
48:10 - Emptying Self-Doubt
49:30 - The Purpose of Self-Doubt
53:16 - Navigating Too Much Information
54:23 - Sitting Still and Weight Training
56:49 - Intergenerational Healing
59:09 - The Grandmother's Passing
1:01:36 - How Does Someone Become So Capable?
1:07:39 - The Most Powerful Form of Action
1:10:38 - Boundary Setting as an Act of Love
1:17:45 - The Altar of the Heart
1:19:22 - What to Say to Someone Who is Afraid of Dying
1:21:18 - A Quick Story
1:23:58 - Five Remembrances
1:25:01 - Meditation
1:31:16 - Closing Remarks
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What would you say to someone who is afraid of dying? |
| 0:04.0 | Not much. |
| 0:07.0 | I saw my mom. |
| 0:09.0 | Her eyes were so afraid. |
| 0:12.0 | So I decided when I saw her eyes in the end of her life, |
| 0:17.0 | that I was not going to be afraid of that. |
| 0:20.0 | My guest is Elena Brower, best bestselling author, poet, meditation teacher, hospice volunteer, |
| 0:27.0 | and now a candidate for Buddhist chaplaincy. |
| 0:30.3 | The letting go is the whole practice, letting go of the body, letting go of the mind, |
| 0:35.0 | letting go of the attachments to the people that you love. |
| 0:38.1 | It's so hard. |
| 0:39.3 | I see how hard it is. |
| 0:40.9 | Her new book, Hold Nothing, |
| 0:43.6 | is a guide to living fully as a practice |
| 0:46.5 | with clarity and respect. |
| 0:48.9 | Very few people would actively go to seek out |
| 0:53.3 | helping someone die well. |
| 0:55.0 | And so many people are dying alone. |
| 1:02.0 | I am speechless that you are here. In my life, I have learned so much from you and to have you on the |
| 1:20.0 | show to share your experience with the world. In a world where we are spending billions of dollars trying to live longer |
| 1:32.4 | and escape death, which it's something nobody gets out of. Yeah. We spend very little time and very |
| 1:39.8 | little energy thinking about the end. I've only just become more comfortable with it since my mom died. |
... |
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