End of Life Conversations: Normalizing Talk About Death, Dying, and Grief

What if we could normalize and destigmatize conversations about death and dying, grief, and the many types of loss in our lives?

In this podcast, we'll share people’s experiences with end-of-life. We have reached out to experts in the field, front-line workers, as well as friends, neighbors, and the community, to have conversations about their experiences with death, dying, grief, and loss.

Our goal is to provide you with information and resources that can help us all navigate and better understand this important subject.

Reverent Mother Annalouiza Armendariz and Reverend Wakil David Matthews have both worked for many years in hospice as chaplains and volunteers, and in funeral services and end-of-life planning and companionship. We offer classes on end-of-life planning, grief counseling, and interfaith (or no faith!) spiritual direction.

We would love to hear your feedback and stories. You can email us at endoflifeconvo@gmail.com.

Please subscribe to our Substack here: https://endoflifeconvos.substack.com

We want to thank Wakil and his wife's children for the wonderful song that begins our programs. And we want to thank our excellent editor, Sam Zemkee. We also acknowledge that we live and work on unceded indigenous peoples' lands. We thank them for their generations of stewardship, which continues to this day, and honor them by doing all we can to create a sustainable planet and support the flourishing of all life, both human and more-than-human.

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End of Life Conversations: Normalizing Talk About Death, Dying, and Grief

The Grief We Don’t Notice: Climate Loss, Anxiety, and Emotional Weight

February 09, 2026 • Rev Annalouiza Armendariz & Rev Wakil David Matthews & Sam Zemke • Season 6 • Episode 3

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Welcome to End-of-Life Conversations Current Events, where we tackle important topics like death and grief.
In this episode, we continue our discussion on noticing things we are grieving and experiencing loss, emphasizing the importance of awareness in our daily lives.
Many of us are carrying a low-level heaviness we can’t quite name.
We move through daily life seeing signs of loss, dead leaves, disappearing birds, climate headlines, and we tell ourselves it’s normal, or that we should be used to it by now. When anxiety shows up, we often assume it’s personal, a mental health issue, or something we need to manage better, instead of asking what we’re responding to.
What if this weight isn’t a failure to cope, but a sign that you’re paying attention? What if grief doesn’t only arrive after a major death, but quietly accumulates through everyday encounters with loss and ecological change?
In this episode, we'll discuss how climate change, environmental loss, and everyday signs of death affect us emotionally, even when we don’t consciously name them. How unacknowledged loss shows up in the body as tension, unease, or burnout rather than sadness.
We'll share somatic and emotional tools for grieving, including simple practices like breathwork, journaling, and shared rituals that help grief move rather than get stuck. We’ll share small, grounded practices you can actually use, not to get rid of grief, but to relate to it differently. These are tools meant for real life, moments you’re already living, not something you have to add on or fix later.

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You can find us on SubStack, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and BlueSky. You are also invited to subscribe to support us financially. Anyone who supports us at any level will have access to Premium content, special online meet-ups, and one on one time with Annalouiza or Wakil.

And we would love your feedback and want to hear your stories. You can email us at endoflifeconvo@gmail.com.