When We Die Talks

Zach Ancell
  • 5.0 (8)
  • PHILOSOPHY
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

When We Die Talks is a collection of real conversations with real people about death, meaning, and what it’s like to be human. Each week, host Zach Ancell speaks with an anonymous caller. It begins with one question: What do you think happens when we die? From there, the conversation goes wherever it goes. Belief. Doubt. Loss. Relief. Fear. Sometimes even laughter. These aren’t experts or public figures. Just everyday people saying the quiet parts out loud. The result is raw, unpredictable, and deeply human. New anonymous calls every Wednesday. Want to add your voice? Apply to be a caller at whenwedietalks.com. Leave a voicemail and share a belief, a question, or a moment you can’t shake about death: 971-328-0864.

  1. #46 - My Partner Has a Terminal Illness (Caregiving in College)

    1D AGO

    #46 - My Partner Has a Terminal Illness (Caregiving in College)

    What happens when you’re 19 and you’re loving someone with a terminal illness? This week’s anonymous caller is an anthropology student who’s been studying death, grief, and ritual. But that interest isn’t abstract. Their partner has a terminal illness, and it’s been sitting in the background of their life and relationship for a long time now. A big part of this conversation is what it does to time. The way the future starts tapping you on the shoulder in normal moments. The way regret shows up early. The way even small arguments can feel “expensive” when you can’t stop doing the math in your head. And somehow, even with all of that, this call stays surprisingly grounded. There’s love here. There’s fear. There’s humor. And there’s a level of care and perspective that’s hard to wrap your head around at that age. In this episode: Loving someone with a terminal illness at 19Studying death academically while living close to it personallyAnticipatory grief, and living with the awareness of what’s comingHow conflict changes when time feels shortRegret, presence, and the pressure to “do it right”The comfort of personifications of Death in literatureA few moments from the call: “The life expectancy was 18… and then they turned 18, didn’t keel over.”“We just spent the last 30 minutes arguing… that’s now 30 minutes closer to the end.”“It’s like a metronome… you’re just swinging.”Book Recommendations: Hogfather and Reaper Man (Terry Pratchett) More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube. Support the show About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness. Stay Connected 🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com 📰 Substack: When We Die Talks 📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks ▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks 📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations ✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

    41 min
  2. #45 - A Psychotic Break Changed What I Think About Death

    FEB 4

    #45 - A Psychotic Break Changed What I Think About Death

    What happens when your mind stops feeling like a safe place to live? This week’s anonymous caller shares about experiencing a psychotic break in 2020, and what it changed about how they relate to death, reality, and their own sense of self. They do an unusually good job describing what psychosis can feel like from the inside, including a “movie logic” kind of certainty that’s hard to understand until you hear someone try to explain it. A big part of this conversation is what came after. The caller talks about grounding themselves in logic and facts. Not as a debate, and not as a personality trait. More like a way to stay steady when everything had felt unreliable. From there we end up in some bigger questions too, like perception versus objective reality, how memory shifts when you revisit it, and what it can mean to believe “nothing happens” after death while still admitting how limited human comprehension is. There’s tenderness here, and there’s also humor. At one point the caller drops the line: “this Barbie is going through it.” It’s strangely perfect. In this episode: A psychotic break in 2020, and what it was like to live on the other side of itThe feeling of being betrayed by your own mindGrounding in logic and facts as a way to feel steady againPsychosis, perception, and the gap between “my reality” and “objective reality”What “nothing happens” can mean, and why it might be beyond comprehensionIdentity, selfhood, and the weird edges of what we can explainBook Recommendations: Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer) More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube. Support the show About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness. Stay Connected 🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com 📰 Substack: When We Die Talks 📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks ▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks 📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations ✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

    41 min
  3. #44 - Multiple Heart Attacks and a Surprisingly Calm Relationship With Death

    JAN 28

    #44 - Multiple Heart Attacks and a Surprisingly Calm Relationship With Death

    What if something big happens… and your life still mostly goes back to normal? This week’s caller has had two heart attacks, starting when they were sixteen. On paper that sounds intense. But this conversation isn’t heavy. The caller brings a calm, laid-back energy that makes the whole episode feel surprisingly easy to sit with. We talk about how they think about death, including a loose, pop-culture Buddhist view of reincarnation, and how they’ve learned to live with uncertainty without forcing certainty. There’s also real, grounded detail about their heart condition and what it’s like to move through life knowing your body can do unpredictable things. One of my favorite moments is when I ask if the heart attacks changed their life, and they’re just honest: not in some permanent, movie-montage way. There was a burst of intensity, a period of “I should do everything,” and then life slowly drifted back toward normal. It’s not a lesson. It’s just true. In this episode: Having a heart attack at sixteen, and how it shaped their relationship with deathA relaxed, curiosity-forward relationship with mortalityReincarnation, Buddhism, and living with the unknownThe difference between fearing death vs fearing painPanic, hospitals, and what helped them stay calm in the momentLiving with a heart condition over the long termA past-life documentary the caller loves: The Boy Who Lived BeforeBook Recommendations: My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George); The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas) More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube. Support the show About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness. Stay Connected 🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com 📰 Substack: When We Die Talks 📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks ▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks 📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations ✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

    38 min
  4. #43 - The Conversation No One Wants to Have With a Child

    JAN 21

    #43 - The Conversation No One Wants to Have With a Child

    What do you say to a child who asks, “Am I going to die?” This week's caller is a physician who works with children who have cancer and has training in pediatric palliative and hospice care. In this conversation, she shares what it’s like to talk honestly with families about death. Including a story about having to tell a seven-year-old patient that she is going to die. This is a heavier episode. The subject matter is difficult, and the conversation doesn’t shy away from that. But it’s also thoughtful and full of compassion. The call stays with what these moments actually require: clarity, presence, and care. We talk about how children understand death and why avoiding these conversations often makes things harder. It's a conversation I promise you won't forget if you are in the right headspace for it.  In this episode: Talking with children about death and dyingWhat it means to tell a child the truthPediatric oncology and palliative careBeing on both sides of the hospital bedEnd-of-life conversations with children and familiesThe absence of language for parents who lose a childBook Recommendations: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams); American Gods (Neil Gaiman) If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube. Support the show About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness. Stay Connected 🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com 📰 Substack: When We Die Talks 📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks ▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks 📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations ✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

    38 min
  5. #42 - The Ripple Effect: How Loss Continues to Shape the People Left Behind

    JAN 14

    #42 - The Ripple Effect: How Loss Continues to Shape the People Left Behind

    Suicide touches more lives than we often realize. And yet, it’s still something many of us don’t know how to talk about. In this episode, an anonymous caller reflects on losing their brother to suicide and what it’s been like to live with the impact since. Rather than trying to explain what happened or search for answers, the conversation stays with the ripple effect. How loss lingers, how it reshapes relationships, and how it continues to move through the people left behind. This is a gentle conversation. There’s grief here, but there’s also care, thoughtfulness, and room to speak without being pushed toward certainty. It offers a way to listen to a conversation about suicide without panic or sensationalism, and to better understand how much our lives affect others, often in ways we never fully see. If conversations about suicide usually feel overwhelming, this episode offers a more approachable way in. In this episode: Living with the ripple effect of suicideHow loss continues to shape families and communitiesThe impact we leave through small, everyday interactionsImagining what happens when we die without needing certaintyThe Egg by Andy Weir and how stories evolve in memoryBook Recommendations: The Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan) If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube. Memorial Jewelry by Nia EmberlyTransform ashes into pendants and bracelets that carry love every day.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness. Stay Connected 🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com 📰 Substack: When We Die Talks 📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks ▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks 📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations ✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

    39 min
  6. #41 - Talking About Death Without Falling Apart: Where Grief and Laughter Coexist

    JAN 7

    #41 - Talking About Death Without Falling Apart: Where Grief and Laughter Coexist

    Many people are curious about conversations around death but hesitate to listen because they worry it will feel emotionally overwhelming. This episode challenges that assumption. In this anonymous call, the conversation begins with an expectation of tears. What unfolds instead is something more layered. Grief is present. Loss is real. And still, laughter, warmth, and unexpected lightness find their way into the room. If you’ve been curious about this podcast but unsure where to begin, this is a gentle place to start. In This Episode: Expecting to cry and discovering laughter insteadGrief that makes room for warmth, not just weightGreen Eggs and Ham goes completely off the railsWhy some laptops should be deleted immediately, no questions askedLetting uncertainty exist without needing answersBook Recommendations: Rebecca  (Daphne du Maurier); The Picture of Dorian Gray  (Oscar Wilde); Green Eggs and Ham  (Dr. Seuss) If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube. A Note On The Ending Instead of a voicemail, this episode closes with a piece of writing shared by a caller from Episode 40. It’s a quiet, beautiful reflection that felt important to include here. -------------------- The Death Deck: Talk About the FutureA Lively Party Game to Share Stories and BeliefsDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness. Stay Connected 🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com 📰 Substack: When We Die Talks 📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks ▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks 📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations ✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

    44 min
  7. Saturday Contemplation - A Year You’ll Never Get Back

    12/20/2025 · BONUS

    Saturday Contemplation - A Year You’ll Never Get Back

    This week’s Saturday Contemplation, A Year You’ll Never Get Back, sits with a simple truth: this year is over, regardless of how it went. Instead of turning toward regret or self-judgment, this reflection invites you to look back gently at how you spent the time you were given. What filled your days, what quietly shaped you, and what this past year reveals about the life you were actually living. This contemplation is also the final release from the project this year. As the year comes to a close, it offers a moment to pause before rushing ahead, to acknowledge what’s been carried, and to consider how you want to meet the year to come. Wherever you find yourself listening, I hope this creates a little space to reflect, to breathe, and to mark the passing of another year. Wishing you a restful holiday season and a gentle start to the new year. Starting in January, Saturday Contemplations will be fully moving to Substack to keep things cleaner and easier to follow. If you’d like to continue receiving these reflections, you can sign up at https://whenwedietalks.substack.com/ Support the show About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness. Stay Connected 🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com 📰 Substack: When We Die Talks 📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks ▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks 📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations ✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

    9 min
  8. #40 - Four Deaths and a God Named George

    12/17/2025

    #40 - Four Deaths and a God Named George

    What if your afterlife looks exactly like what you expect to find? That question sits at the center of this conversation with our caller who has died more than once and come back with stories that challenge the script many of us inherit about death. She begins with a fire-breathing accident that leads to severe burns, an awake surgery, and a coma where there is no tunnel of light—only darkness without walls, filled with taunting voices. She runs for days inside that void before turning to fight, and everything changes. What follows is survival without a roadmap. The medical system saves her life but offers little help for the trauma that comes after—the nightmares, the identity whiplash, the sense of not quite being back. Years later in Costa Rica, another threshold appears: the sun opens, her mother steps through it, and tells her it’s not time. More recently, a 911 dispatcher’s voice pulls her back from the tunnel once again, and the medical truth finally catches up—severe deficiencies, fibroids, numbers hanging by a thread. Threaded through all of this is a larger belief: that experience, even at the edge of life, is shaped by the mind we bring with us. Drawing from Buddhism, Taoism, and her own spiritual practice, she speaks about agency in death, the difference between organized religion and ways of life that protect free will, and the permission to borrow what works without forcing a label. And yes, there’s humor. Lots of it. It’s how fear loosens its grip. The conversation ends not in dread, but longing for ancient places, altered states, and a way of talking about death that makes life feel more livable. Book Recommendation: The Child Thief by Brom If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube. New here or unsure where to begin? Woven Word PressCapture your memories, honor your journey, and create a legacy for the generations who follow.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness. Stay Connected 🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com 📰 Substack: When We Die Talks 📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks ▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks 🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks 📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations ✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

    44 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

When We Die Talks is a collection of real conversations with real people about death, meaning, and what it’s like to be human. Each week, host Zach Ancell speaks with an anonymous caller. It begins with one question: What do you think happens when we die? From there, the conversation goes wherever it goes. Belief. Doubt. Loss. Relief. Fear. Sometimes even laughter. These aren’t experts or public figures. Just everyday people saying the quiet parts out loud. The result is raw, unpredictable, and deeply human. New anonymous calls every Wednesday. Want to add your voice? Apply to be a caller at whenwedietalks.com. Leave a voicemail and share a belief, a question, or a moment you can’t shake about death: 971-328-0864.

Information

  • Creator
    Zach Ancell
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    61
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 When We Die Talks
  • Show Website
    When We Die Talks