The WeCroak Podcast is back with an episode on Nihlism with our Guest Brittney Hartley. She is the nihilism expert and survivor behind the popular channel No Nonsense Spirituality. Find out how to make life meaningful when nothing you used to believe in matters anymore. Heads up, explicit language is used. WeCroak on YouTube Download […]

Season 6, Episode 3: Alex Ebert on writing songs after a crisis of faith This is our second conversation of Alex Ebert, famous for his hit songs from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. We talk about some new music that comes from his meditations on death, and what he’s spent the last few years […]

Season 5, Episode 8: Lauren Kennedy on Pets, Death, and Dignity I found Lauren Kennedy on TikTok doing breathtaking end-of-life photography sessions for beloved family pets, often taken just hours before a schedule vet appointment. It turns out she also founded The Tilly Project, a national resource for creating end-of-life memories for families and their pets. […]

Season 5, Episode 7: WeCroak Has A Baby: The Social Stomach App Hansa and Ian, the guys who brought the world WeCroak, announce their second app called Social Stomach. It’s an app for waking up to the power of social eating, one of the simplest lifestyle changes you can make, besides contemplating death often, to […]

Season 5, Episode 6: Katie Engelhart’s Dispatches on the Right to Die I’ve never been so uncomfortable reading a book about death or having a discussion. Katie Englehart’s book The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die is a master work of journalism about people who say they are not suicidal and believe they have […]

Season 5, Episode 5: Massimo Pigliucci on Choosing a Good Life Massimo Pigliucci was the first guest we ever had on the WeCroak Podcast. In that episode we talked about his adult decision to commit to Stoicism as a life philosophy. Today, we talk about his new book, “How to Live a Good Life,” about […]

Season 5, Episode 4: Clay Risen from the NYT Obit Pages This is a conversation about death, who gets remembered and how we write stories about the departed. We are joined by Clay Risen who writes for The New York Times Obituaries page so expect a lot of your host nerding out about obits and […]

Season 5, Episode 3: Emily Nagoski PHD on Burnout This is a conversation about how everything is connected. We speak with Emily Nagoski about burnout, that feeling of overwork and overwhelm and how it connects to things far outside of stressful jobs and schedules. It comes down to, she argues, how we buy into major […]

Season 5, Episode 2: Dr. René Najera on the History of Vaccines When we forget our history, we lose our context for the present and the future. The past year has been a return to humankind’s historic relationship with mass death caused by disease. Early vaccines were a breakthrough that picked winners in fights for […]

Season 5, Episode 1: Dr. Nikki Mirghafori on Death & Mindfulness Retreats Today we talk about Buddhism, Technology and why you might want to go to a seven day death and mindfulness retreat with meditation teacher Dr. Nikki Mirghafori.  Guest Website: NikkiMirghafori.com Guest Website: One Day Retreat: Jan 30, 2021 Guest Website: Five Day Retreat: […]

Season 4, Episode 5: Casper ter Kuile on The Power of Ritual Six years ago, Casper Ter Kuile started reading the Harry Potter series as a sacred text on his hit podcast downloaded over 22 million times. Now he has a whole lot more rituals inspired by practice that can be adapted to our more secular lives […]

Season 4, Episode 4: Heather Christle on Crying In this conversation we look at crying and tears in countless ways good and bad with poet Heather Christle. It’s about why we do it, what it feels like, and how tears bring out both the best and the worst in us.  Further Reading: The Crying Book Download […]

Season 4, Episode 3: Massimo Riva on The Decameron In 1348 the Black Death Plague took as a third of the population. In Florence Italy, Giovanni Boccaccio wrote The Decameron in response to the plague, a classic that has lasted down the ages. We have on Professor Massimo Riva to talk about this book which has so […]

Season 4, Episode 2: Long Litt Woon on Mushrooming and Mourning This is a conversation about grief and how Long Litt Woon found her way back to feeling alive by following forest paths looking for mushrooms. It’s about how only knowledge can protect you from a poisonous mushroom and how one needs all the senses […]

Season 4, Episode 1: Donald Robertson on How to Think Like a Roman Emperor You know who else thought about death often? Ancient Roman Stoics including the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. In this episode we chat about what practical philosophy meant to these powerful practitioners and why it feels so modern. A not to be missed […]

Season 3, Episode 8: Dr. Sunita Puri Talks That Good Night Dr. Sunita Puri is the Medical Director of the Palliative Medicine and Supportive Care Service at the Keck Hospital and Norris Cancer Center of the University of Southern California. We talk on this episode about her new book, “That Good Night: Life and Medicine in […]

Season 3, Episode 7: Alex Ebert Contemplating Zero Alex Ebert is the lead singer of the band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and an American singer songwriter and composer. The first rock star on the WeCroak Podcast, Alex Ebert talks about how important contemplating death has been to his creative process.  Download our app, […]

Season 3, Episode 6: Shoshana Ungerleider – The People Trying to Change How We Die Doctor Shoshana Ungerleider is the founder of the End Well Project, working to change how the medical profession treats the dying. We talk about her involvement in award winning Netflix documentaries and the End Well conference working to change the […]

Season 3, Episode 5: Rebecca Goldstein – Why Mattering Matters Rebecca Goldstein is an award-wining philosopher and novelist, an unexpected combination from an original thinker. We talk about her latest work on why mattering matters to us and how the search for a more meaningful life is essential to our mental health and well-being. We […]

Season 3, Episode 4: Jay Michaelson – Enlightenment by Trial and Error Jay Michaelson is a journalist, meditation teacher, and author of several books about the contemplative life. In this episode we talk about his latest book, “Enlightenment by Trial and Error” about the search for a meaningful life in a world that doesn’t always […]