In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Mary Telliano on the topics of transitioning from life to death and psychedelics, fear of death, death as a life coach and we even go though a death meditation.
Find more about Mary at http://www.connectanamcara.com
Death meditation
https://on.soundcloud.com/eEKK4u5VDrdop9wa9
Transcript
Sam Believ (00:02.119)
and welcome to ayah Today we’re joined by Mary Taliano. She’s an end of life coach and grief coach. She runs a non-profit and she is on a mission to rebrand death. Mary, welcome to the podcast.
Mary Telliano (00:20.526)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited and honored to be here. Thank you.
Sam Believ (00:27.779)
Mary, what drew you to this work that, you know, you could say most people avoid thinking about death and talking about death, but you’re drawn to this work and to help people in this. How did you end up in this position?
Mary Telliano (00:47.21)
Well, I think I became friends with death at a very young age. And if I think back, and I get this question a lot, when my first memory of death, what is my first understanding of it, would be when I died at four. And I truly began to see the world differently after that. And if I look back now at that version of myself and really witness the different things I was.
feeling and seeing after that experience, it changed me. Even at four, I could recognize a difference. And, you know, then began volunteering at End of Life and Senior Care Facilities from 12 to end of high school. And I loved being there. I really saw an authenticity. I saw so many people at the end of life that had so many stories to tell. And as a kid, I was just excited to sit and listen.
to those stories and had a lot of patience. And so I think witnessing that experience and witnessing more life at the end of life through the eyes of a child molded and shaped the way that I offer myself now and how I feel into this work.
Sam Believ (02:02.939)
The way you describe it makes it sound less negative than we normally envision it. Mary, what is death doula?
Mary Telliano (02:12.618)
A daddhula is a wide range of souls. So I get this question a lot. And so when I’m a daddhula, my service is sound healing. It is meditation. It is grief support. It’s reiki and somatic work. It’s legacy and vigil, and also working with plant medicines. But then you might have another daddhula who doesn’t do any of the things that I do, but they’re really great at estate planning contracts.
and a lot of like the logical work that goes into wills. And so I think this is by design, every death is different. So there’s a lot of need for a variety of what death doulas can do. And so a death doula is a wide range of resources and support and we come in and we really complement where hospice leaves off. We really are able to spend that time supporting a family and supporting somebody during transition
Hospice doesn’t have necessarily the time to do. They come in and they handle the medical part. So we really hold this other space with hospice and with other end of life care facilitators.
Sam Believ (03:23.931)
Yeah, before preparing for this podcast, I didn’t know Wardula. It’s a new word for me. So you work with a lot of people that are on their deathbeds. Where do you think psychedelics and plant medicines come in? What can they help with in that transition from life to death?
Mary Telliano (03:30.359)
Hmm.
Mary Telliano (03:47.05)
Yeah, well first I’ll say that it’s not for everybody. And so I support people at the end of life who have no idea that I serve plant medicine. And then I support people who have actively sought out my services for plant medicine facilitation. Yeah, so it’s a variety of how I support people, but the people who are actively looking for this experience.
they’re looking to support themselves during a very transformative time. And what psychedelics is, I truly believe is a death practice, right? When you say yes to a ceremony, diagnosis or not, all the things bubble to the surface, all of the work starts to arise and it’s the same thing for end of life. And this really supports, you know, also transcendence, allowing this person to step outside of themselves for a moment, step outside the physical.
experience and understand transcendence and trying to make meaning outside of the body definitely supports them during that time.
Sam Believ (04:54.299)
Do you think psychedelics can be used as a form of rehearsal for death? For example, here at our Ayahuasca retreat, a lot of people report that they have died or have even died several times. And in our instructions for people before the ceremony, I say if you feel like you’re dying just die because you will be reborn. And I believe in ancient Greeks that were drinking Kikion.
Mary Telliano (05:16.405)
Mm-hmm.
Sam Believ (05:22.555)
The LSD-based plant medicine, they had the phrase that if I would ever get a tattoo, I’d probably tattoo that, but the phrase says, if you die before you die, you don’t die when you die.
Mary Telliano (05:37.314)
Yes.
Sam Believ (05:38.799)
So yeah, I kind of like tried to answer your question all with my own question, but yeah. What do you think about that?
Mary Telliano (05:44.69)
Yeah, I fully resonate with that and believe that plant medicine is one way that we practice death before dying. Losing a relationship and a job, losing a certain way of understanding the world when that changes, there’s a death. So we are offered all of these opportunities to practice death our whole life and I’ll even say down to when we fall asleep at night. What do you do? You
Shavasana corpse pose and you at some point whether you decide it or not, whether you want it or not, you will fall asleep and you go into a non-dual state. You are disconnected but connected still and you’re practicing that surrender and then you explore whatever you explore in the mind and the subconscious and then you come back to life, come back to this place. So we’re even practicing going to another side, coming back.
going to another side, coming back. And I see this a lot with people who are very close to the end of life. So they’ve already entered what I call the eternal sleep. They’re not responsive. They’re just breathing. And the breathing is a little bit different and they’re in that state. I can sometimes witness and they’ll show me, I’m coming out of my body. I’m coming back in. I’m coming out of my body. I’m coming back in. So I’m even seeing that kind of practice, you know, in other people at the end of life. So I see how it all connects.
Sam Believ (07:14.191)
When you say you see that, is that by using medical equipment or something else?
Mary Telliano (07:21.434)
Well, actually, I’ve seen it on pictures. I’ve seen souls leaving bodies in pictures for a client that I was facilitating his death. And then I see it typically, that was only one time, and I see it typically just within my, I’ll close my eyes and I’ll put my hands over where I feel I’m being called or allowed to put my hands over and just going into that state where I’m just witnessing.
things as they arise and sometimes that image will come up where they’re showing me in and out in and out in and out and what it looks like to me in my mind. So this is interesting, you know, intuition speaks to us differently. So we have a different psychic glossary. Each one of us have our own unique ways of understanding symbols and intuitive information. And so when I see it, typically I’ll see an outline of a body.
and then I’ll see a light come out, like the same form of the body, but light and dark, and I’ll see it kind of oscillating between it. And that’s how I understand, oh, they’re practicing coming out of the body and coming back in, if that makes any sense.
Sam Believ (08:34.999)
I know you teach people to be death duelists, but does that require learning that spiritual side of it and seeing energies and feeling energies? Can you even learn something like that?
Mary Telliano (08:47.342)
Well, we all have it. There’s nothing that I can see or do or feel that no one else has. It’s just really getting in touch with those subtle energies and being intentional about going into those spaces and trying to understand it for yourself. So having that natural curiosity, I think awakens a lot of it already. And it’s not a requirement to be an end of life doula, but it’s what my whole school is based off of.
I believe our intuition is one of the sharper swords that we can hold for ourselves in this life and at the end of life.
Sam Believ (09:24.295)
Okay, well that begs the question, if you see souls leaving, can you see how they look like or is it just a feeling?
Mary Telliano (09:34.058)
It looks like light to me. That’s primarily what I’ve been shown a lot from the other side is a series of lights, some tunnels. I’ve gotten little glimpses of tunnels. There’s been parts of supporting people in the end of life process where I know I’m not allowed to see where they’re at and what they’re doing. It’s not that I’m blocked, it’s just.
It’s a space that’s preserved for that moment, for that person that no outsider can witness, especially one that’s attached in earthly form. I just don’t think I would even know how to compute what I’m seeing. So there’s those aspects with that. So I mostly see it as light. And one of Sol’s recently showed me as they were in transition, he was showing me Earth and he was showing me that the energy from
this dimension when it leaves, it’s a big light and it shoots up kind of like a triangle. And then he showed me what it looks like when souls come in and then it’s like the opposite. And there was like this highway going back and forth. And I thought that, and it was moving like a pulse. And that was really cool. And we’re talking at a half of a half of a half of a half of a second of an image.
But I understand it just like we do in medicine when you see that image and it just solidifies and it speaks on all forms of your knowing. It’s very much like that.
Sam Believ (10:55.313)
Mm-hmm.
Sam Believ (11:04.619)
I mean, probably six, seven years ago, before I started working with the medicine, I’d probably say, this lady’s crazy. But now I have to, I learned a lot and I accept a lot of things. So now the doubt has been replaced with curiosity. I don’t know if I can ask you that, but all kinds of questions coming up. In that case, what is a soul? Is it?
Mary Telliano (11:13.822)
I’m sorry.
Sam Believ (11:32.813)
personalities that yeah what is a soul Mary I don’t know if you can answer that
Mary Telliano (11:40.528)
I know it’s precious and I know that a soul has the ability to really comprehend the oneness. And I think it oscillates between, a soul can oscillate when you’re in that soul form, it knows how to experience somewhat of…
an individualistic perspective, but also is very connected to the whole. And I don’t know how that looks or why it comes through that way for me, but that’s my answer for what I think a soul is. Something a part of us that remembers all of it.
Sam Believ (12:25.184)
What are you most passionate about in that work? Like what makes you keep doing it?
Mary Telliano (12:33.27)
The authenticity. I worked in finance and insurance for 16 years and it was fun. It was at a motorcycle dealership. So it wasn’t like, you know, I could cuss at work and I can throw up my shoes on my desk and it was very casual. And so like it fit this little younger version of me that wanted to be successful in a playful environment. And so that’s why I stayed there. But as I moved into this work.
the truth of this work outweighed anything that I could ever imagine doing ever again. Like there’s no, I just remember my evolution of finding what I want to do in this life. And each step of like work and career and trying to figure it out, there was always like the next thing, right? Okay, I’m doing this as a vehicle to get to that. Or I know there’s something else and there’s like this curiosity, where am I going to end it? Where’s my career going to really?
sink in, that doesn’t exist anymore for me with this work. It is just something that nourishes me each time that I support somebody at the end of life just as much as I’m nourishing them. And I can’t deny that realness and that purity that can be exchanged.
Sam Believ (13:53.999)
This is a very necessary work that you’re doing. And I know you’re also on a mission to sort of rebrand death. And you teach a lot of other people how to do this work. So in the training you provide, can you, for people that are listening that maybe are interested in this field, how does this look like?
Mary Telliano (14:16.678)
Yeah, so it’s a 90-day program and what it is a program that one, you can become a datula and create a business. There’s those teachings in it as well. Or two, you can really take this curriculum and just get closer with death in your own way. So for example, the first two weeks of my curriculum, I’m not going over what a datula does or how to do it.
or anything else, what I’m doing is I kill my students through a variety of meditations and different breathworks and different prompts during our one-on-ones and our group calls, where I’m taking them through their death. And I think that’s important so that they can understand where death is teaching them, so that they can best support themselves while they’re supporting others. And it’s just illuminating any blind spots. And so the program is just to get closer with that peace with us. And then if…
By default, this information is shared or a business is created or another school is created from it or retreats or however, you know, the students take the information and alchemize it. It’s beautiful. I’ve been doing this school for many years now and what I see when I look at all the people who have come through this program is just a variety of different flowers in a field and they’re all sprouting in their own unique way. And so the school…
I didn’t realize was a mystery school. I never made this school to be, I guess that’s how you know it’s a mystery school when it’s a surprise to me too. But looking back now, I just started understanding that this is a mystery school because you don’t really know what you’re going to do sometimes with this information, but by the time the program’s over, you know.
Sam Believ (16:06.267)
When you work with people that do have interest in using plant medicines or psychedelics in their transition, how does that look like?
Mary Telliano (16:19.63)
Well, there’s a lot of different considerations to go into first and foremost. So a lot has to do with their intention, you know, making sure that their intention is realistic. You never want to tell somebody you’re going to take this medicine and it’s going to change it all and it’s going to make it better and you know, or, you know, so I’m really looking out as their
communicating their intention just to make sure everything is in their consent and they know what it is and what it’s not. And so that’s first. And then the second thing is medical. Although I do screen medically my non-diagnosis clients, typically at the end of life, there’s a lot of different medications to consider. And so we go really heavy into that.
My goal when I’m serving end of life patients is to have the whole care team if I can, the doctors, the family, everybody. If we can all be on the same page, that is my ideal situation. And then something else that I highly consider before serving somebody is who’s going to be around them during integration. Because if somebody is not on board, right, we got cousin Dan from Tennessee who’s like, what are you giving grandpa?
Hell no, I’m calling them, you know, whatever it is. People get, you know, have their own opinions and they’re fine to have it, but I need to consider who’s going to be caring for this person during integration because they’re gonna be very vulnerable. And they, unlike people who, you know, will go do Alaska and come home and be like, you know what, I don’t wanna be home right now. I’m gonna continue like stay here for another couple weeks and do a journey and go see a waterfall and integrate. Like they don’t have that option. So I have to make sure that the people
who are going to be supporting the afterwards are on board and just as much a support as this person needs for this space.
Sam Believ (18:21.307)
Well, this is why we’re recording this podcast. So that Dan from Tennessee, Dan, I hope you’re listening, gets educated. And when the time comes, is ready to accept that. It’s a beautiful work because if you work with plant medicines and let’s say you work with the entire, the person that is dying and also the people that are ready to be grieving, they can sort of work through the maybe conflicts and.
Mary Telliano (18:29.242)
Yeah, yeah!
Sam Believ (18:51.451)
take the masks off and get really connected and the person that is dying can sort of rehearse the process a little bit and then when the person dies as well you also then help the people to grieve. So the two questions are what medicines do you work with in that process and is there a follow up for the grieving people?
Mary Telliano (19:05.972)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Telliano (19:17.694)
Yeah, so during the grieving process, the grief is the medicine. So I’m not gonna serve somebody who is in immediate grief. This is a part of what I do is just support them through that heavy, dark place. And hopefully we can get to somewhere down the line eventually, preferably maybe like a year after the person has transitioned to maybe then consider.
a plant medicine experience if it’s something they’re actively wanting to do. Microdosing psilocybin can be great not immediately, but maybe in between that marker of a year, maybe at the six month marker maybe, a little bit further in the process. So the grieving process, the grief is the medicine and I love to support people in that place because there’s so much that gets activated.
in the grief process that people can sometimes overlook or miss. And so having somebody to reflect a little bit back what’s going on in that experience for them can be really impactful for how they hold this grief forever. So yeah, I like to set people up with a healthy foundation of grief right away. And then…
later on consider plant medicine. But it’s definitely not something that’s in my scope of practice to do immediately.
Sam Believ (20:48.731)
Um, we have a lot of people that come to the, to the retreat that have recently experienced the loss of a loved one and not always, but I would say 50% of times they somehow through ayahuasca managed to, to connect to the spirit and to maybe have the parting words and sometimes the…
Mary Telliano (20:57.614)
Thanks for watching!
Sam Believ (21:11.355)
people tell them, you know, there’s something I forgot to say, especially when they didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. What do you think about that? Is that a real thing or is it just in their heads or?
Mary Telliano (21:27.994)
Who am I to say? I know for me when I’ve connected to the other side, it’s very real, it’s very intimate, and there could be nobody that could say, oh, that’s not real or that didn’t happen or you know. So for me, it’s a very personal experience. And I would say when it feels the most real for me is when it feels embodied and not in my mind.
And so if that’s the feeling and that’s the frequency and that’s where I’m at, I really interpret that as truth. And there’s so much like, I don’t know, the other side of the veil has never been louder. It’s just wildly obvious to me that there is something on the other side that really supports us. And the message that I get quite often is
We need them as much as they need us. This is still a collaboration and this is still a connection if we can allow it to be.
Sam Believ (22:27.747)
I personally believe it and I’m a skeptic I try to sort of question everything but I believe it because sometimes people also get messages that they personally had no way to know about like you know tell your mom to go do this with that person and then they pass the messages along and people get surprised like how did you know that so yeah I do believe in as I’m saying as the longer I work in this line of work the more I can learn about
the invisible and stuff that, you know, Dan from Tennessee would not approve of. So, yeah. What do you think about the topic of fear before dying and if plant medicines can help with that?
Mary Telliano (23:05.094)
Hahaha
Mary Telliano (23:23.614)
Oh, would you like to hear a story? I tell this one often about a… Yeah, I think that might be nice. So I’ve told this one before, but for me it’s quite captivating each time I tell it. And so I was working with a woman and she was nearing the end of life. I would say…
Sam Believ (23:28.407)
Story is the best way to go.
Mary Telliano (23:50.794)
I served her she passed within a week and a half. So that’s how close she was. But she was able to walk when I was supporting her with a walker and support with her of her daughter. And what we were working with was very low doses of 5-MAO DMT. And so what I do is I serve them a very small amount of the isolated alkaloid and they go through the experience.
Boom, they complete, we have a conversation, we do a little integration, and they have an option to go again. And then we kind of rinse and repeat that as many times as they like, but staying within a very safe buffer so they can’t keep going and going, but allowing them to really experience that for as long as they need to. And so her main concern was that separating from her body would be really painful. That was her fear.
And that was the fear that continued to ruminate in our intake process and before I served the medicine. And this was a deep fear. And I could tell this was something she thought about in her most quiet moments. And so we go for the first round and she’s in the medicine and she goes, oh, and she’s kind of moaning and turning her head a little bit. And she takes a sigh and she goes, oh, separated.
separated and she’s like making different tonings with the word separated. I’m just holding space and I’m a facilitator that I call myself a facilitator. I’m not a shaman, I’m not healer, I’m just a medicine facilitator so I don’t really have like the indigenous tools to kind of shake or just allow and witness and support when they call me in. And so after this loop in this first round and we’re talking and I said can I ask you something?
And she goes, yes. And I said, you were in there and you kept saying separated. You kept saying it in different ways and you would turn your head. Do you remember or can you share a little bit about what was going on with you? And she goes, yes, I was separating from my body and it was beautiful and it was like this dark void but I was like falling into it and I was trying to understand it but it didn’t end. And she was describing this place she was going to.
Mary Telliano (26:13.806)
And after she was done describing it, I said, did it hurt? And right when I said that, she kind of like smiled from one side of her face and she goes, no, huh. And at that moment, I watched in live time the contract between the fear and suffering of separating from the body change.
And when I think about that, you know, you asked me earlier, like what inspires you with stories like that? Because I wonder, I always am wondering like, what would have been like if she hadn’t had that connection? If she continued to ruminate on that fear and fear until it got so big that was all she could pay attention to was that fear. And something else got ironed out in that moment for her. And a week later, she died very peacefully.
surrounded by the people that she loved the most, and it didn’t hurt.
Sam Believ (27:12.367)
Beautiful story.
Kinda makes me wanna ask for another story. Do you have more stories like this? Makes you feel nice and fuzzy.
Mary Telliano (27:22.21)
Yeah, I have a beautiful story about another client of mine who I worked with him for quite some time. I worked with him in diagnosis all the way to the end of life and supported his family in a very big and intimate way, I would say. And as we got closer from now palliative care to hospice, he wanted to, and this is a family by the way.
long before his illness. For many years, this family was sitting in ayahuasca and going here to this retreat. So they were very familiar with Platt Medicine. And towards the end, this is something that they wanted to experience as a family. And so, the setup was here’s the living room, and this is where his bed was, and then there’s a wall here, and there’s a fireplace in between the wall to the next bedroom.
And so my client, we all hold space, his children are there and we, you know, beautiful experience and so we get done with him. And so the family dynamic is his ex-wife and new husband is his caretaker, but the family gets along really well. There’s a lot of love here. But now there’s this other man, right, in this home who’s going to be the father of these children when this man passes.
There’s an awareness of this, but it hadn’t been spoken quite like this. So the stepfather now went into the room and we began to open up the space for him to experience the medicine. And as soon as he started to go into it, I got the message, go to the client in the living room. Now he was already asleep and tucked in and, you know, doing very silent and well out there. So I was like, OK, I’m just going to listen to where I’m being called to go.
There was a facilitator and the wife in the room, so I felt good about enough people in the room to hold space while I went and to support the other, the man who was transitioning. So I go out there and I hold his hand, and immediately he’s just giving me all these messages that were so powerful that I still carry to this day. But one thing that was incredible is I’m holding his hand and he’s just showing me so much, all of a sudden that fire.
Mary Telliano (29:44.066)
crack, pop, poop, poop. And like the flake, like the, you know, when a fire pops and stuff comes out, the ambers, it was like popping out. And I was like, well, okay, interesting. And so I go back and I’m holding the client’s hand and I’m like asking what this is. And I’m watching these two energies in the room start to do this. Like there’s a merging. And I don’t understand it, but I’m like, cool. This is nice.
The new father or the husband that’s going to be stepping in comes into the room after his experience and he sits down and he’s crying and he says, I was in my medicine journey and he was passing me the baton.
Mary Telliano (30:27.838)
and he said it was happening through the fire. And I was like, so it was like this fire, this was an energetic merger of these two energies, like through the fire, through the transformation, through the destruction, through the realness of this, something was being reborn. And Jim was, sorry, I shouldn’t say names, edit that out, he was literally passing that baton.
to the new father and so eat.
That’s another story that lives with me, and I think about it quite often.
Sam Believ (31:07.335)
It is very beautiful. Yeah I don’t think you should worry about the name. It’s just one name. You don’t have the whole story. Social Security number. It’s going to be okay. Talking about stories and when you work with people and what do they talk about in the last days of their lives? Especially what are the regrets people mention?
Mary Telliano (31:15.106)
Yeah, whoops, yeah. I don’t know the name.
Sam Believ (31:37.199)
when they’re dying.
Mary Telliano (31:37.922)
It’s all around where they spent their time. If it’s a regret, it’s how they spent their time and what they were spending their time doing. And if it was truly the most valuable place they should have been placing their energy or not. I truly believe we’re in the right place at the right time always. I don’t know if that will necessarily be my regret, but I do see that one come up quite often. Family dynamics, how things have been handled within the family.
all variety of different ways that shows up come, you know family That kind of comes all too ahead at the end of life as well. Um But you know, it’s great to explore these we call it as an end-of-life doula rugs regrets unfinished business guilt and shame and so this is a there’s different exercises and prompting questions we can support people with to
kind of help them understand themselves and see if they can support them a little bit more in different shadow work. But it’s also a part of the work to enliven and see what is your legacy? What have you left behind? What are you leaving behind? What are future generations going to be able to experience because you were here? And so that’s a big part of the work as well.
Sam Believ (33:00.975)
I have heard somewhere, probably another podcast, because I’m such a big fan of podcasts, but that people say that a lot of times that the tendency seems to be that people regret spending less time with their family and more time working.
Mary Telliano (33:18.474)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sam Believ (33:20.175)
So it’s like family, they want more family and they hope they focus less on the money. And I noticed that a lot of times it happens to people at the retreat through that rehearsal of death when they realize that a lot of times people come and with the big ego and like in the first word circle they always mention this and that and how.
how successful they are and how more successful they want to be, as in trying to see if ayahuasca can help them achieve that. And then around ceremony three, four, all of a sudden the tone shifts and they start talking about love and family and God. And a lot of times they never go back to the other worldview.
Sam Believ (34:07.475)
First of all, have you personally worked with ayahuasca before? And because you seem to try to not want to mention what medicines you work with, which is cool if you’re not allowed to.
Mary Telliano (34:16.254)
Oh, yeah, no, I mean, I’ve worked with ayahuasca myself personally as somebody who’s sitting with the medicine. The medicines that I serve people in diagnosis or at end of life is sometimes MDMA, psilocybin, microdosing psilocybin, or 5-Meo DMT. Yeah, but I’ve had my experiences with ayahuasca and it’s definitely informed.
Sam Believ (34:40.047)
But do you reckon?
Sam Believ (34:44.071)
Okay, now I was just worried that maybe, maybe because you’re in US, you were not allowed to talk about it and I’m kind of like pushing for it and I felt a little weird. So what do you think yourself as you work with ayahuasca, first of all, has it helped you in understanding your work better? And also what do you think if people that, you know, instead of only doing it closer to their death, they’ve done it many times and sort of…
Mary Telliano (34:46.026)
work.
Sam Believ (35:14.047)
are better versed in that other version of reality, if that can help.
Mary Telliano (35:19.918)
Yeah. So ayahuasca, when I sat with it, one of the most profound experiences was I was sitting up and I did my purge and I was just kind of like, ugh, just feeling a little heavy at the moment. And it was just like this beautiful whisper, lay down, this is going to be your death. I was like, okay. So I laid down and I went through the whole dying process, decomposing.
deconstructing, going into the earth, going down into the middle of earth, coming back, going up into the universe, exploring it all, and then coming back and fragmenting back into myself. And I really valued that experience to have a full death. And I’ve experienced death in other medicines as well, but ayahuasca showed me just this other part of it that I think just awoken something in me, right? Just like a cellular memory.
Like whatever frequency that was waking up in me is a part of the presence that I hold. It’s not necessarily telling people about my ayahuasca experience, but that medicines in me, that memories in me, and just by me being open and vulnerable and sharing myself, that medicine gets transferred to them and that whatever that is.
Yeah, that’s how Ayahuasca has showed me to share that experience with others. Just being there and having that already inside of me. And you too. And you,
Sam Believ (36:52.935)
And have you.
Sam Believ (36:56.983)
Yeah. And have you noticed that people that, let’s say, dedicated some part of their lives to spirituality, whether through plant medicines or other ways that they have easier time navigating the last days of their lives?
Mary Telliano (37:13.774)
I would say so. The more familiar you are with death, the more exposure you have to it, the less you’re afraid of some things towards the end because it’s already been demystified. I’ve seen enough death to know a little bit about my death. And for me, that brings me comfort and it shows me a little bit of what that platform looks like. And because I have that exposure…
There’s nothing in my nervous system that is like, turns away from it. Well, I’ll have my own fears and I’ll have my own sorrows and my own burdens at the end of life. I know I’ll always be a student to my last breath and no one knows what that really, I don’t know what it feels like to be dying. You don’t either yet, so I know the stakes change, but yeah, I do believe that these practices are informing us for the end of life.
it’s an important thing to serve to ourselves, is just getting closer with death and the end of life process.
Sam Believ (38:15.587)
You say we should make death our life coach.
Mary Telliano (38:19.51)
Mm-hmm. Death is my life coach. Yeah. It’s everybody’s life coach, whether you want it or not.
Sam Believ (38:21.796)
Why?
Tell us more.
Sam Believ (38:31.431)
So why should we do it and how? What should we focus on in that making death our life coach?
Mary Telliano (38:42.858)
Yeah, I would say if this is something that you’re new to, this is a new concept of making death your life coach, I would say maybe listen to a death meditation. And I can, Sam, I can send you one of my death meditations and maybe you can put a link in the bottom so that they can just click it if they want to. But listening to some kind of death meditation and then when you’re done and you come out of it.
evaluate what was the most important for you, you know, thought for you in that experience, who were the people there, who, what was the energy surrounding you, like just gather information from this meditation and write it all down and when you kind of put it in front of you, you can kind of see what is your value, what are you valuing today, what is your impact to yourself and others, are you doing the thing that you really want to do, are you not doing the thing you really want to do?
And so it’s kind of like a pendulum to kind of be, where are you at on this spectrum of life? And so if it was today, well, now you have a lot of information to kind of lean into how you want to experience right now, because it’s all we have. So using death meditation is a beautiful way to start to be guided by this process.
Sam Believ (40:01.159)
Is it kind of like asking yourself, what will people talk about me when I die? What will be written in my obituary?
Mary Telliano (40:07.158)
No, yeah, I mean, yeah, not wait, I don’t put emphasis on that because like, who cares? You know, like, as far as like, you know, I don’t really necessarily want people to really focus on like how people will, well, I mean, it’s important to know you’re going to be remembered, but I really like them to focus on like, what’s happening right now? What is important right now? Because that’s what brings them to the present moment. And I think kind of worrying about what people think.
or how they perceive you is kind of putting a little fear into the future. But I think if by consequence, if you can just be the best version of you now in this kind of spectrum of death meditation, by consequence, people are going to have wonderful things to say to you or about you at the end of life.
Sam Believ (40:55.863)
How long is the death meditation?
Mary Telliano (40:59.35)
Uh, this particular death meditation, I think it’s like, or I can tell you right now, uh, it is…
Mary Telliano (41:14.523)
Mm-mm-mm.
Mary Telliano (41:20.358)
Sorry, I’m pulling up my SoundCloud. So.
Sam Believ (41:26.055)
I’ll tell my videographer to cut this part out. Don’t worry. Take your time.
Mary Telliano (41:29.234)
Yeah, sorry. It’s, okay, I’ll start right here. So you just asked it. The death meditation is eight minutes and 55 seconds.
Sam Believ (41:40.519)
Okay, so it’s not that long. Can I ask you for a favor? Can you give us like a simplified version like a 3 minute one right now and then we’ll link to the full one.
Mary Telliano (41:42.862)
Mm-mm. Yo-
Mary Telliano (41:50.35)
Oh yeah, well I mean, I don’t know if this one will necessarily mirror that one. I’m just going to channel and see what comes through and then we’ll make that an option for them. So just go ahead wherever you’re at and… What?
Sam Believ (42:01.735)
sleep. Just one second. Please guys, if you’re driving, don’t drive while meditating. Okay? So just stop your car and then let’s go. Mary, thank you.
Mary Telliano (42:08.302)
I’m going to go to bed.
Mary Telliano (42:14.818)
This death meditation is not supposed to kill you, so please pull over or listen to it later. So go ahead and just close your eyes.
and soften any places in your body where you’re holding on to any tension, the space between your eyes, your jaw, your shoulders.
and softening your belly.
Mary Telliano (42:47.838)
And for a second here, just witness your breath. The breath is the first thing you do and the last thing you do.
Mary Telliano (43:00.29)
witnessing the rising and the falling.
Mary Telliano (43:10.118)
Now I want you to imagine yourself at the end of your life. You can be any age.
Mary Telliano (43:20.862)
and your transition can be whatever you would like to see for your death.
Mary Telliano (43:31.766)
And I want you to begin to notice the room with a place that you’re at. It could be any place on this planet, a place you’ve been or never been.
Mary Telliano (43:47.97)
It can be in nature or in a room.
Mary Telliano (43:54.902)
but just observe your surroundings.
Mary Telliano (44:05.026)
thinking of your life, how far you’ve come.
Mary Telliano (44:13.378)
What have been your triumphs? What have been your challenges?
Mary Telliano (44:21.89)
Can you see where your life has impacted others?
Mary Telliano (44:32.738)
taking it all in without trying to change anything, just witnessing your life story.
Mary Telliano (44:46.486)
And all of a sudden, as you’re in this space, you begin to witness people.
starting to enter wherever you’re at.
They can be souls who have transitioned, or people who are present in your life now.
Mary Telliano (45:08.77)
having those conversations with your loved ones, saying what you need to say.
Mary Telliano (45:19.166)
relaying your love and your gratitude in whatever way feels right for you.
Mary Telliano (45:29.298)
as the space you’re in becomes more crowded.
Mary Telliano (45:35.75)
Are people celebrating you? Are they mourning you? What is the nature of your relationships and your interactions?
Are there things that you need to say?
anything that you need to compassionately close.
Mary Telliano (46:00.034)
taking it all in.
as each person begins to fade away.
Mary Telliano (46:11.518)
leaving you and your number one ally in this life, your body.
Mary Telliano (46:21.718)
banking your body for what it’s done.
and for what it will do no longer.
It has served you well.
Mary Telliano (46:35.682)
thanking your body as you begin to see a white light flickering in the corner of the space.
The more awareness you bring to this light, the more that it engulfs your entire view.
It feels warm. It feels like home.
as you begin to dissolve into this infinite light, feeling weightless, buoyant, and free.
Mary Telliano (47:12.75)
taking a moment in this space.
Mary Telliano (47:22.042)
and bringing it back to your breath.
taking in a deep inhale.
exhaling it out.
another deep inhale just connecting you back into your body.
Mary Telliano (47:41.315)
And wiggling your fingers and wiggling your toes. Blinking your eyes open. And for your listeners, I will say take a moment if you need, write things down if you need. And just use all of that information as information for how you can be your best, most whole version of yourself.
today.
Sam Believ (48:12.231)
Thank you Mary, great meditation. I’ve learned something from it. Yeah, it’s important to think about it guys because there’s few things that are certain in this life and one of them is that we are going to die one day and better get ready and use that notion to propel us to…
Mary Telliano (48:14.722)
You’re welcome.
Sam Believ (48:41.891)
better decisions in life. But for most of us, I would say, probably who are listening, the death is not soon yet, but maybe if we do lose a loved one or family member, friend, you mentioned the concept of a healthy grief. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Mary Telliano (48:44.398)
Yeah.
Mary Telliano (49:06.47)
That’s such a good question. Healthy grief is just the kind of grief that doesn’t turn away.
Mary Telliano (49:15.466)
Well, healthy grief is just being in the full ecstatic and realness and somatic realness of that experience, allowing yourself to scream, allowing yourself the silence, allowing yourself the space, allowing yourself the right foods or whatever foods you desire. And it’s just about continuing to say yes to self-care and seeing somewhere.
Sam Believ (49:15.683)
What does that mean?
Mary Telliano (49:44.274)
in all of that if you can find the diamond in the ashes. And usually, well, not usually, but I’ll go ahead and make a very broad statement. Grief has always left us with something more for ourselves. It’s given us gifts every single time. And so if you can sit in the ashes long enough, you’ll find that.
Mary Telliano (50:10.434)
Grief is just one that is an allowance and one that has compassion for self. Because your whole nervous system is rewiring itself to understand a world without this person or thing or place or experience in it.
Sam Believ (50:29.691)
Thank you, that’s very wise. Mary Waters and Amkara.
Mary Telliano (50:36.734)
Anamkara is a Celtic, well the word itself is the Celtic phrase for soul friend. And I thought that, you know, as I was becoming a doula, I was like, that seems appropriate. That’s kind of what I’m doing. I’m a soul, seeing another soul, befriending it. And so the Anamkara Academy is my end-of-life school, but the word Anamkara directly is soul friend.
Sam Believ (51:00.615)
Okay, so Mary thank you so much for sharing. It’s been very, very profound. I’ve definitely learned a lot from it and I’m sure the listeners as well. We’ll definitely link to the full death meditation and the captions. You’ll send me that afterwards, please. For those who want to learn more about your work or…
Mary Telliano (51:21.878)
Yes, absolutely.
Sam Believ (51:28.599)
you know, learn how to become a death doula or maybe they’re dying themselves or a loved one is dying or they want to learn more about grief, where can they find more about you?
Mary Telliano (51:40.646)
You can visit my website at connectanamkara.com. So C-O- You can locate me on Instagram, Mary underscore Taliano T-E-L-L-I-A-N-O. Those are really good places to start. And send me an email, send me an Instagram message. Pretty open, however people come through.
Sam Believ (52:12.527)
Definitely do that guys and thank you Mary it was very interesting.
Mary Telliano (52:20.747)
Thank you. Have a beautiful day.
Sam Believ (52:24.707)
Guys you’ve been listening to ayahuascapodcast.com as always with you the host Sam Belyev. I hope you enjoyed that episode and I will see you in the next episode.