Episode 29 - Resham Mantri: The Importance of Death Work

Resham Mantri (she/they) is a first generation Indian American writer and death worker. In this episode, Josie and Resham discuss the importance of decolonizing death, the intersection of trying to conceive and the fragile nature of life, and divorce as reproductive loss. Resham also offers wisdom and comfort to those who have experienced loss on their fertility journey.

Content warning: This episode discusses death and reproductive loss.

[ID: A beige background and orange semi-circle. Text reads: The Intersectional Fertility Podcast Episode 29: Resham Mantri @reshamgram and Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier @intersectionalfertility.]

Follow Resham on Instagram, and check out their website and Substack.

Episode transcript:

Disclaimer: This is an automatically generated transcript edited to be more readable. It may not be 100% accurate.

[00:00:00] Josie: I am Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and this is the Intersectional Fertility Podcast, where ideas and identities intersect to deepen our understanding of fertility and ultimately our Whole Selves.

[00:00:32] Resham Mantri is a queer, first generation Indian American writer, death worker, and single co-parent seeking liberation and pleasure through practicing vulnerability, exploring lineage, dismantling socialized notions of self and work. They explore these ideas across mediums, including essays, photo, video interviews, vintage Indian textiles, and hosting death cafes.

[00:01:08] All right. Hello Resham. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Welcome. 

[00:01:14] Resham: Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:16] Josie: Absolutely. So will you share with us your pronouns and where you're joining us from today? 

[00:01:22] Resham: Sure. I use she they pronouns and I am located in Brooklyn, New York. 

[00:01:28] Josie: Nice. So I would love to know what a death worker is. I don't really know the definition. And then also what led you to become a death worker? 

[00:01:37] Resham: Sure. I guess I'll start with what led me to become a death worker, because that answers the other question. I guess the simplest answer before I go into it is just because I am really angry and hurt by how I witnessed my father's death in the hospital in New York City in 2019. There was some beauty in it. I'm sitting with all of it, the whole experience, but ultimately I'm here because I think it should not be that way. Is a simple answer, but I started consciously doing death work, I guess in the 2019.

[00:02:22] I went to India with my mother to support my grandmother who was dying, with a community of mostly female family members. And that was in Mumbai, India. And we were doing things like washing her body, changing the, you know, adult diapers she wore. And, there was, I just arrived with my mom and I was no longer the, you know, American cousin or anything.

[00:02:51] I was just doing it. I was suddenly in. So that, that was one experience. I came back my grandmother passed, actually not when I was there. I had to come back, but, and then my mother came back later, and then my father was diagnosed brain cancer. 

[00:03:08] Josie: I'm so sorry. 

[00:03:08] Resham: And he died. Yeah. Thank you. And he died two months later. And so both, but before these, which, before these physical deaths of family members that I was very present for, I was also processing another kind of death at around the same time, which was the end of my marriage. And a separation. And so I entered already kind of grieving this, this other kind of death.

[00:03:35] Which weirdly, because I then didn't have kids as much as I normally would have allowed me to be present in a way that I probably wouldn't have for the physical deaths of my grandmother and my father. But yeah, the story, it's, I have to like pause, and because it gets all, it takes different forms every time I tell it.

[00:03:56] Right. But I had a birth doula, a friend of mine one week before my father would ultimately pass, said the word death doula to me. I had never heard that term before put a name and a number into my hand, I immediately called this person because I recognize now that I had just felt very unsupported.

[00:04:19] You know, me, my mom and my sister were just kind of, you know, we had some hospice help by the time we finally got my father at home. I just needed, I realized that I needed something more. So this person ended up just coming really only one day before my father would pass. 

[00:04:36] But what she did in that one day, this death worker, Jay, was something that nobody in the previous two months of being sort of enmeshed in the medical community and hospice had done, like for my family, for me, my mom and my sister. So the last day that I had with my dad was informed by this person's support and care for us. 

[00:05:03] And my father would pass very shortly afterwards, and I do think about what happened that day before he passed, and then the fact that he passed so soon after. I mean, you, we just don't understand these things. But I know that in the day before he passed, I allowed myself to finally touch him. 

[00:05:23] Like massage his feet with oil and, and things that I think. No one had said that you could touch your person's body because there's so many things that separate you from them. Then they supported me with the funeral director, my family, the death doula, and the funeral director afterwards in such a loving and patient way.

[00:05:50] So that was how I started doing death work and learned of this thing called a death doula. And then last year, About a year ago I took a course with going with Grace, and I got certified. I became a part of this lovely community of death workers. 

[00:06:11] And part of the reason I wanted to do that was because all I had been doing from the time that my father passed and my grandmother passed and I had, had this experience was almost all these conversations I had had, I was like, you need to know this with friends of mine. You need to ask for palliative care when you go to the hospital, they're not gonna necessarily tell you about it. So I, you know, things like that, you, you need to be aware of this, you need to be aware of that.

[00:06:36] So I had been sort of having these conversations already with my community and certification program. And just leaning into the community and the work allowed me to just think about how I could make this into a career. Because to be honest, I wasn't quite sure I could. If this was something that I was passionate about, but whether or not it could be a career, in any traditional sense, I was still unsure.

[00:07:04] Right. So that's how I came to the work. I would say there's so many ways to define what a death worker is. Because there are just so many ways to do this work. To me, A death worker is someone who allows for the dying process to occur.

[00:07:27] Supports the dying and their caretakers, however is necessary for the dying process to occur in the way that is desired by them. There's many different ways for that work to take shape. I think death doulas, death workers this work is really necessary right now because most dying does not take place in the home.

[00:07:57] It takes place in hospitals and medical facilities. Dying is taken away, has been taken away from us in this current form of society that we live in. It's been medicalized. It's being managed for us. And from that our agency is taken from us both the dying persons and the, the caretakers or loved ones.

[00:08:26] Yeah. There's more to say about that. Another thing is I think that a death worker can help the dying and their loved ones through this transition. In which. It's not really possible to know anything, but we can support people in all the things to allow for this mystery of death to unfold.

[00:08:48] And some of the things that a death worker can do for people our end of life planning around the documents and financial things that are really helpful to do before a person dies. Supportive one-on-one sessions where we can talk about what the dying process brings up for us in the relationships that we have, buying groceries, cleaning someone's room helping to talk through questions to ask of a doctor.

[00:09:19] Because oftentimes when you're in a room with a doctor, there is a power imbalance at play. So you can sort of forget the questions that you might want to ask. And talking about medical terms like palliative care, which a Dr. May not even mention to family creating ceremony after a loved one has died, helping to plan a funeral service.

[00:09:42] So these are just some of the actual tasks that a death worker can do. And for me, I think being a death worker is all of these things and more. But I also believe in in calling myself a death worker, I have a responsibility to also call out, I would say, larger systemic deaths to talk about these deaths. 

[00:10:05] To also advocate for what I learn when, as I'm learning about the way people die to like inform people of the things that I'm learning. And to write and I'm also a writer, so I think I bring the death work. It just informs the writing. And it goes both ways. That's kind of how I would start to define the work.

[00:10:28] Josie: Okay, yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That is painting such a clear picture for me and I'm seeing how needed that is, that that type of support and how much that really exists in the shadows in our culture. Where it's like, you know, an American Northern American culture, it's just like not talked about.

[00:10:47] It's not out in the open. It's like this thing that everyone deals with but it's like there's no dialogue, there's no discourse about it. There's no nothing. And I loved that beautiful story you shared about your father. And I just thought as you were talking how it, it seems to me like that might have helped him pass.

[00:11:09] Resham: Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm hesitant to say , something led to that, but I was there when he took his final breath and I know, I've, I've heard many people also talk about the final moments of a loved ones life, and I don't know. I just, I do think that there's something to that, to when something important has been transmitted.

[00:11:36] Like some love or feeling or just some knowing that perhaps, you know, perhaps there is a letting go. It just, it was so close in time and what happened on that last day with my dad was so different. Even that was the first night that I slept next to him because the death doula, had said he was in a hospital bed, so he, he could never be, it was just hard to sleep next to him. 

[00:12:03] But she gave me this just simple idea, like, you could also sleep next to your father, like you can put something on the floor next to him. And so that was the first night that I slept next to him and I just kind of held his hand for most of the night. I really didn't sleep most of that night. And something about that. 

[00:12:22] I don't know why I didn't think about doing that earlier, but you're just so overwhelmed with like the medications and so many like practical things you're also just worried about all the things that the medical team is talking about all of the time. And people aren't really bringing to you these other sorts of concerns. I don't know what you would call them, it's just you're so overwhelmed with like getting the medical information straight in your mind that it's sometimes like, you don't think about other other things. 

[00:12:58] Josie: Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. Just to, I love that. To have someone there to just even give you permission to touch him, to just like cross that invisible barrier. It's such, it is such a separateness that we're experiencing there. Ugh, that is such a beau beautiful, powerful story. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that with us.

[00:13:19] Resham: Mm. You're welcome. 

[00:13:20] Josie: And I'm wondering too, and you kind of, I think, started to kind of speak about this a little, I'm wondering if we could speak about it a little bit more about what are some ways that you are decolonizing death? I love that. That concept, and why do you think death needs to be decolonized?

[00:13:36] Resham: Yeah. Well, I'll start with just my father was a dark Brown skinned Indian man. Who had an accent his whole life. He had an accent in the hospital. And one thing that I definitely saw was that a not enough time was given to, people who speak with accents, right? Right. The amount of time you need to give to allow for other forms of communication, not just the way I'm talking, for example, in very like a certain type of English, right?

[00:14:12] The way people from other cultures take time to answer a question or the way you might need to give more time to someone for whom English is not their first language. You know, that's one example I would say, of decolonizing it from just like a english speaking kind of mindset. 

[00:14:30] But why I think death needs to be decolonized is like from my own personal experience, I saw the power and the beauty and being surrounded by family who were doing the death work themselves and what it meant to my family and what it meant to my grandmother and then I came back and I just had this experience of seeing this whole other way of how death work is done.

[00:14:59] I think that definitely culturally in this country, there is a culture around death work in this country. It's, I think America would like to have you believe that there is no, like, you know, we're doing things in sort of an objectively correct way, but there is a culture around how America does death work, and I think it's like a dominant white supremacist sort of informed by capitalism, cultural practice of how we do death here.

[00:15:31] Yeah. And I, so I think part of decolonizing death work is just allowing for way more than just like cremation and burial, for example. The fact that you, it's just so hard to put your loved one in like a simple shroud and bury them in the ground. And you know, I understand in New York City there's not much ground, but you could certainly drive two hours out of the city and find like, whatever it is.

[00:16:06] In our minds we only think that there are these two ways of doing, like the post death practices. Decolonizing death work for me is for all of us to reclaim our own ancestral death practices. And death practices, for me it's not so simple to be like, this is what we do around death. The death practices actually are cultural practices that are relevant to living life.

[00:16:39] I don't know if that makes sense. Part of it is just allowing seeing what your own cultural practices around how you care for sick and dying people are in your own culture. I think that that's really important. And we don't, we don't really talk about death that much because death has been, basically, I think Atul Gawande's book said it.

[00:17:05] Had some statistics, which I think I'm gonna get wrong, but it's a very good book. I'm gonna send it to you afterwards, but as you know, I think around around the 1940s or fifties, most deaths, maybe 70% to 80% of deaths in America occurred in the home and now, the majority of deaths happen in hospital spaces.

[00:17:30] Or in medical spaces, so if you just think about that shift, I think if you just start asking why that is occurring within those whys, you would find the, the reason we need to decolonize. Because it's the what we are sort of losing is huge. It's in my mind, it's really huge.

[00:17:57] And I guess the second, I think you asked like some of the ways that I'm decolonizing death. I'm in a constant practice of that. I think I'm trying to devote my life to that work. So I, I think I'm just like in it every day trying to figure out how to do that. But it, I think it starts with myself primarily with the ancestral work that I have found that I needed to do. 

[00:18:22] So that's why this work is really perfect for me because I have wanted to do, This work for myself anyway. I hosted a series of conversations called Decolonizing Death Work within the Going with Grace community. And I did that with the fellow death worker named Eliana Yoneda.

[00:18:42] And within there, we created a container in which we felt safe being in as two queer Asian femme death workers to host conversations in a mixed space. And I have to say we're learning a lot about how to do that. So it's a continual like learning process, but some things that we do is in that space is we explicitly state we're not there to teach anything.

[00:19:10] We're here to bring forth questions and prompts that we're talking about anyway. Between to the space so that we can learn from each other. So I think part of decolonizing death for me is to really think about how we're all taught to think about who has the knowledge in society.

[00:19:28] And within death work. It's really all of us. It's actually all of us. We all have stories that inform us around death. We've all actually been, even though death has been taken away from us, we all actually have death stories that we've grown up with. Whether it's like a very impactful like family member or.

[00:19:51] Culturally how we've been witnessing death in like movies or books or even a poem like we actually have this. it's just creating containers to safely bring forth all of our collective knowledge. I think part of that felt like decolonizing death work to me. 

[00:20:07] The main thing is that decolonizing death work for me is to. The work that I do is to give back to people that innate knowing in themselves that they know how to do this work for themselves and their loved ones. That you do not need to have the answers that are asked of you in a hospital setting. You can simply say, I don't know, and you can sit with that. 

[00:20:34] And also giving them the support to understand that some of the questions asked of you in the medical setting may not even be relevant to what you are doing around death and dying. And to just support them in that and just supporting people in taking as much time as they need and supporting people in that you can even die in the not knowing. 

[00:21:05] Just in, that, so something about that feels a bit like decolonizing in this culture in which we prize sort of a certain kind of knowledge above all else. And that, and that really does impact you. even in your death. 

[00:21:20] Josie: Wow. I love what you just said yeah. Oh yeah, go ahead.

[00:21:25] Resham: I just have to talk about the capitalism. For me, I mean, decolonizing death work is also about separating it from capitalism. Right now, if you have the right insurance, and you go to the hospital, what you will be offered for your end of life will be really different than someone who doesn't have the right insurance or any insurance.

[00:21:54] And in that way, our deaths are just intricately linked in the society to capitalism and there's no getting around that. Hospitals are run as businesses that need to either make money or have a certain kind of like end of year financial health and health and so I just can't end without talking about the capitalism part of it.

[00:22:22] That you, we need support and doctors for like really do try, I think their very best to endeavor within that capitalism to provide care that is, you know, good and not linked to the money. But some things are just structural, like my father's brain surgeon at NYU Hospital like gets paid per brain surgery.

[00:22:46] So that simple fact means that there's a financial incentive to do this highly risky surgery. And now some hospitals are actually just paying surgeons a salary and they're finding that when you do that, you don't get as many brain surgeries performed. So things like that. We just, the people don't know. And so part of it is just letting people know about the capitalism in death. 

[00:23:15] Josie: Right, oh my gosh. Hospitals are absolutely run like businesses. That's such a good point. Ugh. And I loved what you said earlier too, that you can even die in the not knowing. I love that. That's so beautiful. And profound. And like you and I were talking earlier, before we hit record, that that our culture is so like, bound up in facts and information and in our heads and knowing the right answer and all of that. So to kind of take that away from the dying journey. 

[00:23:51] Yeah. That's so interesting. Ugh. Thank you for bringing all this to light. This is so important. So I would love to shift gears a little bit and talk about the intersection of death and conceiving. I have found that in my 14 years of supporting folks with wombs who are trying to conceive, that there's such a close connection between conceiving and death. I find that it brings up a lot of fear for folks who are suddenly face-to-face with this fragile nature of life. 

[00:24:22] You know, they're trying to kind of coax this life into being, and then we're just so faced with how that can take a turn at any moment. So I'm curious. I mean, I feel like I'm always kind of, you know, coaching people through this process of like, don't worry too much cuz it's, life is so strong, if life wants to be here, it'll be here.

[00:24:44] But then at the same time, it's also so fragile. Cuz it's like we have this ability to create it and then in a second it could be gone. So what is your view on that? Do you feel like, do you have a sense of you know, how strong or how fragile life is? 

[00:24:59] Resham: I love that question. I would, I guess I would start by saying I'm not sure that I think about life in either of those terms or what I think about it. But I do at this point in my life, I think any life, like any life at all, no matter what the length of time it has touched us or it exists has the capacity to be really full. To like change everything for us. 

[00:25:30] Any relationship, you know, whether it's like a chance meeting with someone at the dog park one time, can change your whole everything. And every life can be precious if we make it so, and also on the flip side of that is that many lives can be made not meaningful if we don't make them. So, if we don't pay attention. For me, I think also every ending can also have meaning.

[00:26:00] And part of being a human and thinking about life and how I think about it is, I think part of being a human is like always endeavoring to find meaning or something. Even if we don't understand what that meaning is, it's this ongoing like curiosity around like what is the meaning? And that path I think has.

[00:26:24] at this point in my life where I'm like accepting I'm not gonna have answers. I think I'm finding that path to be really interesting for me, more than the result. So that's part of what I would say about life being strong or fragile. But I do think that in terms of supporting folks, I mean, my feeling is that you can grieve anything you want to grieve.

[00:26:54] I think of that in terms of, I didn't personally, I have two children and I didn't have Any particular problems conceiving, so that's not my, like, reality. So I just wanna make that clear. I do have like friends, and actually in the last year I've been talking more openly with my mother about her three miscarriages. 

[00:27:16] Which I never really talked to her about, and she never really talked about. But I've seen some of my dear friends grieve each and every miscarriage with all of the time that they have needed to take. And from the outside it can look really you know, like, oh, they're still in their like grief.

[00:27:39] You know, we might judge, society might judge how much time they take, but that's what I think of in terms of, that's part of how I think about it, is that we can take as, as much time as we want grieving any kind of ending, whether it's like the ending of, of something that just didn't quite start.

[00:28:00] Like the pregnancy didn't quite take, if it's like the ending of the family that you thought that you would have sort of the end of like an idea or notion around one kind of family. Which has been sort of my grief story is like grieving, not just the relationship that ended, but like a sort of version of a family that I thought I would have.

[00:28:25] And part of my offering is actually which I'm building, is like providing death services around ending of families, like ending of one version of family to transitioning to another. So I, I guess I would say I don't prioritize, like finding answers in these questions, but in feeling things as much as possible, I've found my own sense of like relief, while sitting in not knowing about what, what, what even is in, in these questions and, and rest. Because if you're gonna grieve, you need to have a lot of rest.

[00:29:07] Josie: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. And I love, there's a term that keeps coming to mind that I learned from king yaa called Disenfranchised Grief. It's like the kind of grief that's not recognized or validated in our culture. And it's like there's all sorts of loss and especially when it comes to reproductive losses, there's just such a variety. And different points along the way that you can feel loss and grief.

[00:29:37] And it's like people only recognize maybe one or two of those. Or our culture does. So I love what you said about, you know, any length of time that you have a relationship with anybody, no matter how long they've been on the earth. Or if they even got to the earth. That, that can still be hugely, hugely important in your life, and you can carry that with you. 

[00:30:04] Resham: Yeah. I love that. I mean, you could even see in sort of the ways that companies will like, give you time for losses that they deem to be acceptable and how much time they will give you.

[00:30:16] That's one way to see what society thinks is like a proper loss. I think about the way I have come to terms with like my grief, you, you can have like one kind of grief around death or a certain kind of loss of a relationship. But in my experience, one grief can touch on so many other griefs that I've been holding.

[00:30:42] That I didn't even know that I was holding. And I've also been tapping into more my ancestral grief. You realize once you commit to grieving, which is not, I mean, it sounds like it could be terrible, but for me it's also been my portal to pleasure. And all these other amazing things.

[00:31:07] But once you commit to really a life of grieving giving yourself time to grieve, you'll realize that there's all these like interconnected grief. So I could see just like something over here about, like a friendship will just make me feel something about my dad. Or just the way that I will be moved to remember my dad I could never have imagined that seeing this one thing will make, bring me here. 

[00:31:39] So it just makes me think of how. In this, and speaking about disenfranchised grief too, like in certain bodies, like how much we are grieving that we were never allowed to really grieve.

[00:31:54] Josie: Yeah, absolutely. I can relate to so much of this. I also grieved the loss of the family that I thought I would have after my divorce, and I have two kids as well. And that was a major loss and grief that I didn't realize that I should be grieving. Because I thought, this isn't really a quote unquote "loss."

[00:32:18] And especially because I chose the divorce. So it felt like it really took me by surprise. That that became a big source of grief for me. Because it was like, well, but I chose this. And it had to do with, you know, me being queer in the world. 

[00:32:36] And so it was like, you know, choosing me and choosing this, you know, full self of mine. And but yeah, the loss of that, that family that I thought I would have was huge. And I felt like talk about like, Touching different parts of your life because I started to recognize my divorce as a reproductive loss.

[00:32:55] Because of how it impacted my relationship with my kids so profoundly. That I was like, wow, it opened up my mind of what a reproductive loss could mean. 

[00:33:04] Resham: Yeah. I wanna know know so much more about that. Like how you did, like that's what I'm wondering more about that, like how you did think about it as a reproductive loss because that's, That feels right, yeah. 

[00:33:20] Josie: Totally, yeah. I was just like, I felt like I suddenly lost my kids for half of their lives, so it was like, I felt like I felt so silly for grieving the loss of them because they're not dead. They're still alive. But I was like, but I feel like they died. And I kept having feelings of, as if I had really lost them.

[00:33:46] You know, permanently. So it was just like, oh my gosh, this feels so, I couldn't make it make sense in my mind. Because I was like, why am I having like all these feelings that they're dead or like intrusive thoughts of them dying? And it became so big, you know, in my mind and in my life that it was really like interrupting my day-to-day functioning.

[00:34:10] As if I had been through, a tremendous death loss. It was so strange. And so when I finally kind of came to realize what was happening, I was like, oh, I am grieving. I didn't like, and I didn't really recognize that because no one else recognizes that. So, yeah. I am going to keep an eye on your offering.

[00:34:35] Resham: Oh, that would, it would be great. Yeah, and that's the thing too, I wouldn't even see, and I'm thinking about when you were speaking, that you can grieve things that even end up being really beautiful, fortunate things for your own life. You can still grieve.

[00:34:50] Like I wouldn't be here having any offering really, if I hadn't had this separation, which truly for me, more than I thought, their dad equalized childcare time. So that I am able to do things that I've always sort of wanted to do. And now I can't. I have nothing to blame, but just like, I mean, I still have to work through my own fears and on other things about doing this work.

[00:35:18] But you can also, I just relate to that, that you can, you can grieve things that are like truly beneficial for your own life and liberation. But still you can grieve them. And actually for me, in doing so, I don't do other weird shit, which, which then plays out in the relationship with my kids.

[00:35:38] But also for me, the separation where I just, I can't control what their lives look like when they're not with me. Having kids that are now getting older, has allowed me, has just helped in the letting go process of just kids getting older and you having to realize they're completely separate from you.

[00:36:01] Sentient, like beings, really have something to do with you, but have prob perhaps a whole lot more that doesn't have anything to do with you. So this has really helped with. ongoing process, but I hear you. I hear you. 

[00:36:17] Josie: Yeah, I know. I was just talking about that this morning with my partner. I was like, I mean, I think about it a lot. I talk about it a lot where I, there's no way in hell I'd be able to do the work that I'm doing if I didn't have that. More equalized childcare now. From the divorce. It's like, I know there's no way. 

[00:36:37] I would have no resources to put into a podcast much less an online program or, you know, I would just be able to just be more in survival mode. Which is what? More full-time parents are, especially with younger kiddos. So, yeah, absolutely. I feel like I could chat with you all day about this. 

[00:36:58] Resham: Yeah. That's a whole other yeah. It's a whole thing. I really could. That's why I wanna do this too, because I think that's just, it's just like a particular area that we, you deal with the divorce logistics around it. You deal for a certain period of time, you're like working on it.

[00:37:18] And then you kind of stop. But me and my, me and my kids' dad are, are in restorative justice circle together because we have to be, there's ongoing, there's like a still, we still have a relationship together. I don't want it to be therapy. We still have to learn how to make decisions together.

[00:37:39] And so there's just a need to Come at this, this specific type of relationship, which is like the co-parenting. I think I don't know, a different way that I've seen.

[00:37:51] Josie: Yeah. You're still in that relationship. Even though the other relationship ended. It's like, welcome to the new one. This person is not going anywhere. 

[00:38:03] So let me, let me see. I'm gonna bring us back a little bit to mm-hmm. What we were talking about before with this death and conceiving. There was a quote that I read from a book called The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd. I don't know if you've heard of that book or read it.

[00:38:17] It was pretty interesting. Anyway, one of the main characters was about to miscarry. And I think the character that was with her that said this quote, I think was a midwife or a midwife type character or person role. And she said, "let life be life and let death be death." and that quote has really stuck with me.

[00:38:38] Just because it's such a true, like a pure kind of stance of acceptance. On what is gonna happen. Rather than trying to resist it. Or trying to hold on to, like, making, you know, trying to control it. So I'm just, I would love to hear your thoughts on your own relationship with death as the result of being a death worker and going through the experiences you have gone through.

[00:39:05] Do you feel like you have that more accepting relationship to death, or do you feel like you also feel that resistance? 

[00:39:13] Resham: Yeah. It's, it's a beautiful quote and it's, it's such a big question. I know I do this death work and, yet when it's, when the questions are like, turned towards me. I feel like I could spend in some way, like a whole day answering that question.

[00:39:36] Yeah. That's my problem is that, I can take any question and unravel it to its abstract parts. And then you're like, wait, what were we talking about? But it's kind of how my brain works. But I guess, yeah, I would say some things that I was thinking about, I think I'm learning to let things die.

[00:40:01] I'm in that process. I'm not, I don't know how good, or whatever I am at it, but that's sort of where I am and that's, yeah. That doesn't mean that I look away or don't turn back, or that I sort of close a door and then I'm never, I'm just, I'm in that process. So that means, you know, people I love have died.

[00:40:25] That means relationships, certain versions of them have died and in within relationships. I think it really allows for like a new one to emerge, whether it's with that person or with another person. But it is important to know when things have ended. I find that too in my, like dating world.

[00:40:47] To know when a thing has ended. And the ways, another thing that I'm learning to let die is, are the ways that I've learned to survive my whole life. As like, first gen, eldest Indian daughter. There were certain ways that I had to survive in this country, and I'm also, in order to fully like come into myself, I'm learning, I can let those things also die.

[00:41:20] So I think that work is sort of lifelong for me. So just I find peace knowing that I'm on a journey. And not in where I'll end up, but just that every day I like Endeavor and that's pretty much it. I would also say that really accepting death. All these different types of death has allowed me to prioritize my own pleasure.

[00:41:46] Josie: Mm. Oh my gosh. I love that. 

[00:41:48] Resham: And that's something I never truly did until I became intimately aware of my own mortality and really mortality of everyone I love around me. That it sort of puts things in perspective too, that you realize like they're just, this is the time. Like we, we do it now.

[00:42:09] But also learning that prioritizing my own pleasure is also a practice that if I don't pay attention to it also can get overlooked. So this relationship with death and things dying, it's not, I just okay. I have done it. I've become aware that things die. It's, I've realized it's sort of a practice that I have to remember in different ways constantly, but through that practice, fear can kind of get pushed. Like I can deal with my fears more productively, I would say.

[00:42:43] And that other things like my pleasure practice, it becomes, Prioritized. Just beautiful things come from me being in practice around this question, I would say. 

[00:42:57] Josie: Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. Yeah. I was gonna ask you too about like how folks can start to become more accepting of death on their fertility journey. So that seems like a good place to start, would be to prioritize pleasure or to what, what, what do you think? What would be the, how can folks start sort of nurturing that that feeling of acceptance around death? Especially when they're trying to conceive, 

[00:43:26] Resham: Right? It's such a big question. And you know, I think the theme of this interview is that I'm really comfortable being like, I don't know.

[00:43:35] Because I, and I like saying that because I think one thing that is probably true, A person's fertility journey or, and medical process within that is that not a lot of people will say that to you. That people will like try to give you answers to things because that makes us feel better.

[00:43:55] But, so I'll start with just saying that I just don't know, I don't know what every person needs on their fertility journey. Some things that come to mind around thinking about that question that we've also sort of briefly touched on is that you can grieve on your fertility journey, you can grieve everything.

[00:44:16] And you can take it as much time as you want and you can take more time than what a doctor or a medical team might offer you. And, if your fertility journey does not produce a life, whatever that means to you, you can grieve the loss of a life you had hoped for. You can grieve the loss of the pregnancy journey you hoped for, and grieving doesn't mean that you won't try again.

[00:44:53] I think it just means that you remain connected to your desires, to your feelings, to your body. So I guess I would just offer that allowing to your listeners, you know. And I think because the medical process may not allow you time for your grief, which you may need to ask for the time you require to be inconvenient in that process.

[00:45:21] To prioritize yourself. And you can for sure get assistance. It's so good to ask for help in this process. You don't have to do it alone. You can get assistance through people in your community, family or friends through doulas, all sorts of doulas who can support you in this process. Either whether it's in the process or grieving after.

[00:45:44] Those are some of the things that that come up. I also talked about how grief in one area of your life can be triggered by new deaths. So I would also just offer that you may be surprised when the length and quality of your grief is longer or deeper than you may have thought. And for me, I know it was.

[00:46:07] It was because I was tapping into these like interconnected griefs and ancestral grief was one of the grief that I was tapping into. So just offering that. That fertility journey can just bring up a lot of grief that you, you may just be starting to scratch the surface of. 

[00:46:27] Josie: Right, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I have definitely witnessed that with folks that I've supported for sure.

[00:46:33] And kind of a final thought on this, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or ideas on how folks can feel differently or reframe their experience of not conceiving as quickly as they would like or experiencing a miscarriage or any other type of reproductive loss that we've talked about to make it easier to live with?

[00:46:55] Resham: Hmm. Yeah. Thank you for that question. So I'll just say, I don't know how easy it is supposed to be for anyone. I do think however hard it feels for someone that can inform us on what types of care we need. And I think we all deserve the care that our loss requires. 

[00:47:24] And that our loss tells us it requires so, being in it informs you, our grief, informs us of the beautiful care that we need to take of ourselves. And then we need to be just as good about asking for help, right. Like letting our people take care of us or finding the people that can take care of us. So finding a doula to help guide you in the process might help finding community to support you in your loss may help.

[00:48:01] Just taking space from everything. Just going, you know, turning everything off is really helpful sometimes. And I just, I do think that, For me, just knowing that you're not alone was really comforting in my grief process. So try to find community it exists for you. And that finding that community reminds us.

[00:48:29] It has reminded me that our stories will not end no matter the deaths that we witness or we go through. Because how could our stories end if we are in beautiful community, even in our deepest grief? So, that's one thing that's become really clear. Just the mere fact of like being in community around your grief just allows you to know that it's not just one thing.

[00:49:00] I guess I would also offer you, if you're able to grieve, you are very much alive. And this reminder has brought me comfort many, many a times. So just that knowing that to be alive is to also be able to grieve. 

[00:49:17] Josie: Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's such a beautiful answer. Yeah, it's so true. It's just like that's what makes us human.

[00:49:25] Yeah, absolutely. Ugh. Beautiful, beautiful. So I love to ask every guest that comes on the podcast this question of in Chinese medicine, our fertility is referred to as our essence. And so the more we're able to get in touch with who we really are, or our essence, or what I call our Whole Self, then the more access we have to our fertile potential or our creative power.

[00:49:49] So I'm wondering, do you have any personal practices or rituals in place that allow you to connect with your essence or your whole self? 

[00:49:57] Resham: I am really bad with any kind of consistent ritual or practice. I will say that I think what I do. Is I write, I feel, I grieve. I, like I said, I've moved through life without much ritual actually.

[00:50:17] And that's probably a conscious choice. Trying different things is kind of a ritual or practice for me. It's a way for me to remember. What I don't know. And to continually kind of be in touch with my preconceived notions, which are usually wrong, and historic. Because historically when I think that for myself, when I think that I know too much, I get to be a bit of an asshole.

[00:50:46] So as a practice of mine, I like we've talked about, of just sitting more comfortably in the unknowing. And I do that by putting myself in unexpected places is like one way. My relationships help me. Paying attention to them help me a lot. I also step into discomfort to test weird fucked up voices in my head.

[00:51:14] Sorry. I don't know if you allow cursing. 

[00:51:16] Josie: Yeah, you can curse. 

[00:51:16] Resham: Okay. Yeah, that's a lot of, I think what I do on social media. I have some like, pretty negative voices in my head that try to make me live. I think in a small way, smaller, so many of my personal practices are to create experiences or memories that prove this one voice in my head wrong.

[00:51:39] But also I would say what I, in terms of ritual and practice that I do, my femme ancestors, Like did not have the freedoms and choices that I take. In many ways, I'm like the first of my lineage to be able to live as freely as I do. 

[00:51:57] And I am trying to just keep that at the forefront, always, because you know, as a divorced, queer, non-monogamous, single co-parent, like my work is just to embody, is to embody as much of my liberated self as I can each day. And to take responsibility for the fact that I can do all these things. 

[00:52:24] So even if it's like I just cook. A very decadent meal just for myself and eat it. If that means something sexual, if that means like painting with my child, if that means choosing a career for myself that looks unlike anything I have seen.

[00:52:42] Or choosing work that allows me to be with my children. Like, I think all of these choices are also responsibilities for me. And I try to, a sort of connectedness with my ancestors makes me do everything with that sense of responsibility, even pleasure. Interesting. So I don't know if that answers that question, but.

[00:53:09] It's not like really for me, like a yoga or like what I eat or anything but it's like just that I have to remember certain things constantly. Otherwise I start doing things that are not in alignment with me being in my fullest power, I guess. And self so that my practice is just remembering some things that allow me to show up in my best self. 

[00:53:40] Josie: Right, right. It sounds like a constant checking in process. 

[00:53:44] Resham: I think so. I think so. Yeah. And sitting with, you know what, okay. I'm feeling really, you know, weird about this interaction, and like, what is that about? And I am a person who will like, do that work.

[00:53:59] So the people who are in relationship with me who, who know this pretty well, is like, I will sit there with you and figure out what is going on with us. So, I'll take that time for myself, but also with the relationships that I'm in. 

[00:54:19] Josie: That's beautiful. I love that. Well, how can folks find you and sign up for all your offerings and get to know you?

[00:54:27] Resham: Well, one easy way is, I do some weird shit on Instagram, and I'm on my main account is @reshamgram on Instagram, and through that you can get to my death account, which is @liberationanddeath. I have a website also, which I believe is reshammantri.com. Yeah, I think Instagram if you're on there. But I have a website that's just my first and last name. And yeah. 

[00:54:55] Josie: Okay, perfect. And I love everything that you do on Instagram, . I don't think it's, I don't think it's weird shit at all. I think it's delightful. 

[00:55:02] Resham: Thank you. Thank you. 

[00:55:06] Josie: Cool. And I'll include all of those links in the show notes so people can access them easily. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here. I loved having this conversation with you. 

[00:55:16] Resham: This was such a great conversation. Thank you for having me. 

[00:55:20] Josie: Absolutely.

[00:55:24] Y'all, I'm so excited to let you know that Fertile registration is open. Fertile is a queer, trans, and non-binary centered five week online program for folks with wombs to reclaim power over their fertility journey and conceive using my Whole Self Fertility Method. 

[00:55:43] Healthcare practitioners and community workers, you are welcome to join us and become certified in the Whole Self Fertility Method. Head over to intersectionalfertility.com/fertile to check out all the program details and register now. Sliding Scale is available for all, and scholarships are available for black, indigenous, and people of the global majority. 

[00:56:05] Join us, it's gonna be so much fun. I'll see you there.

[00:56:11] Thanks for listening to the Intersectional Fertility Podcast. To get customized fertility recommendations based on your Whole Self Fertility Method element, join my mailing list at intersectionalfertility.com and get immediate access to my two minute quiz. 

[00:56:28] If you like the show and wanna hear more, tap subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and please leave us a review. It really truly helps. The Intersectional Fertility podcast is hosted by me, Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and produced by Rozarie Productions with original music by Jen Korte.

All content offered through The Intersectional Fertility Podcast is created for informational purposes only, it is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.