How many deaths have you survived?

Last Sunday, I facilitated a Death Over Coffee salon—our monthly virtual gathering for Hello Mortal paid members—where we converse about life, death, impermanence, and everything in between. I’m always delighted to be greeted by a mix of new and familiar faces. Together, we share stories, reflect on mortality, and explore the deeper questions that help us live more meaningful lives. If you’re looking for a space to connect with like-minded mortals and engage in thought-provoking discussions that remind us of what truly matters, consider upgrading your membership today.

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In this particular session, one of our members mentioned they’d been keeping a running journal of every person they know who has died. This reminded me of an exercise I did during my death doula training with Alua Arthur through her Going With Grace program.

Death doula training is as much about facing your own mortality as it is about helping others face theirs. Before you can help guide and support someone else’s dying journey, you have to reckon with the deaths that have already taken place in your own life—from the losses you’ve carried to the ones you have been avoiding.

The course I trained in put self-awareness first and taught me that unless you’re constantly bringing your own subconscious beliefs about death into the light, you risk projecting your fears and beliefs onto the people you’re there to serve.

One of the first exercises we did—the one that reminded me of the death journal entry—was to answer the question: “What was your most impactful death?“ My mind went immediately to my mother, Maureen. Then to all my grandparents, and other relatives like uncles and cousins, and friends. Eventually, though, as I let my mind wander, I realized that I had also experienced the death of identities, former versions of myself, as well as places and things. I thought about how we carry far more grief than we give ourselves credit for, because we’ve been trained only to count the deaths that come with a funeral. This exercise also made me realize that I had already survived more endings than I thought, and that death isn’t something waiting for me at the end of my life—it’s been with and always will be with me.

Jewish communities dating back to 13th-century Europe maintained the memorbuch—a communal record of every name lost to persecution and martyrdom, read aloud at memorial services throughout the year. These lists of the dead, the tradition held, were meant as inspiration for the living.

In Chinese households for over two millennia, wooden spirit tablets inscribed with the names and stories of deceased ancestors sat in a dedicated room in the home, providing physical proof that the dead still belonged to the family. In America, before states kept official records, families wrote their dead (generation after generation) into the margins of Bibles—inserting themselves into what one historian called “an immortal narrative.“

And it’s not just a historical practice. I recently finished HBO’s Season 3 of Euphoria (and, just to warn you, if you watch the show and know the characters, there’s a spoiler ahead in this paragraph). After finishing Season 3, I was surprised to see that a character named Ali, a former addict in recovery, kept a similar practice. In what I can only describe as his “book of the dead,” a small personal notebook, he wrote down the name of every person he sponsored who died as a result of relapse or overdose. It was his way of remembering them and making sure they weren’t forgotten.

You don’t need a sacred space, teacher, or death doula training to participate in this type of practice. All you need is a pen and some quiet time.

Listing out all the deaths you’ve experienced is a powerful death-contemplation exercise that can rewire your brain and provide a valuable shift in perspective. Maybe you’ll finally give yourself credit for how much you’ve already survived. Whatever the outcome, there’s no right or wrong way to approach this, or a specific goal or result that needs to occur.

So grab a pen and paper. Find a quiet spot—outside if you can, or somewhere that feels grounded and settled for you. Light a candle, if that helps. Put on some soft music in the background. Then write down every death that has happened in your life.

Perhaps, like most, you’ll start with the people. A parent. A grandparent. A friend. Then move on to pets, places, and things. Let your mind do what it naturally wants to do, which is wander.

Pretty soon, you realize the list is longer than you thought. You’ve grieved versions of yourself —the person you were before a diagnosis, a breakup, a marriage, a move, a child. You’ve lost identities, relationships, and places that mattered. Jobs you thought would define you, and futures you’d already fantasized about in detail.

If you want to go deeper, once you have the list, try mapping it horizontally. Create a visual timeline to give those deaths shape, rather than keeping them abstract in your head. You might notice patterns—losses that clustered around a particular season of life or deaths you never fully processed. Or you might notice grief you minimized because it didn’t feel “legitimate” enough to count.

When you’re done, you have two choices: keep the list and let it grow, or give it its own death—burn it, bury it, release it in whatever way feels right.

I’m curious: have you done anything like this before? Does the thought of partaking in the exercise sound healing or morbid? If you do partake, I’d love to know what comes up for you when you make the list. Share in the comments.

— Maura