Preserving Your Legacy, One Piece at a Time Podcast Episode Transcript

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Welcome to the Remembering a Life podcast. I'm your host, Holly Ignatowski, and today we're having a conversation with Katerina Blom, the host of Peacock's New hit show, “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning,” where she facilitates conversations on topics such as death, grief, love, and letting go between family members and friends who are facing death in different ways. The experts featured on the show also use humor to create a safe space in which individuals can open up about the objects they've collected over the years, inviting them to consider how sharing or otherwise giving away some of those items might help them not only clear away the clutter, but also establish a meaningful legacy. Katerina, welcome. and thank you so much for joining me today. I am very excited about this.

KATARINA BLOM:
Oh, same. Thank you for having me.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
So let's get right to it. What on earth is the Swedish method of death cleaning, and why is it called that?

KATARINA BLOM:
Yeah, I love that question. A lot of people raise their eyebrows like “You do what?” When I say that in Sweden, it's very common to do death cleaning. So this is actually just the idea that we need to take care of our things before we die, so we don't leave all the heaps of crap and memories to the next generation and to our friends who are probably heavy down in grief after we passed. So this is just this huge act of love, and actually they're being very responsible to take care about your home and your things before you die.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And it's really about a lot more than just getting rid of stuff, isn't it?

KATARINA BLOM:
Definitely. It's also about looking at your life and your legacy through the lens of your things. It's about how your home is a reflection of who you are and how you live your life. There's so many stories in our items and when we do a death cleaning, we'll get a chance to reconnect to those items and remember those stories and hopefully also share them with the people around us.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
I just want to mention that you've partnered with the National Funeral Directors Association and Remembering A Life for a new campaign called Preserving Your Legacy One Piece at a Time. Can you talk about that? What's that all about and why did you choose to get involved?

KATARINA BLOM:
Well, I think we can never do too much when it comes to breaking the stigma around death. It's so often that we go silent and we don't want to talk about the fact that we all will, one day die, and that's a missed opportunity for connection. I think if we don't talk about the fact that we're dying, we are going through it alone. And when we open up about what we love about life and what our great learnings are and what we're grateful for at the end of our life, we share that knowledge to the next generation or to our friends. And one way of starting that big conversation can actually be just about starting a small one by looking at your items at home and asking about the symbolism of them or how come you have this one? Or where does this come from or what does this mean to you? So I just love when the NFDA reached out because I think it's really often a missed opportunity to connect on a deeper level with the people we really love.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Now you live in Sweden, but you travel to the United States a lot to help people do their death cleaning. Do you find that there's more of a stigma in the United States about people wanting to deal with death, talk about death face grief than there is maybe in other parts of the world?

KATARINA BLOM:
Well, I know the US is such a big, big country, and of course it's hard to make assumptions based on a few people, but the people I met, the people I spoke to, I experienced a strong avoidance of pain and the pain, of course, death includes that, but it could also be just when we talk to each other saying, how are you? And even though you don't feel well, people told me how they just put a smile on and say everything is fine when they're actually not fine at all. Of course, this happens in Sweden as well, but not to that extent I would say. So, yes, there was definitely some resistance around talking about death and grieving, just allowing yourself to grieve.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
So Katerina, when should people do a death cleaning?

KATARINA BLOM:
Well, here's the surprise, we should all do a little death cleaning every day. It's so easy. We think that this is something for when you know you're about to die, but no one really knows when we're going to die. So it's never too early to start looking around and connecting to your items and just ask yourself, is this a reflection of who I am? Is this a reflection of my values, of my legacy that I am living right now? We can also ask ourselves, how would we like to be remembered once we go? And if someone would step into my home, is that a true reflection of how I would like to be remembered?

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And of course it's probably easier to do this before a person becomes ill. Do you find that more and more people are doing it at that point in their life? Is there kind of almost a panic situation when people maybe have a terminal diagnosis and they need to get their things in order?

KATARINA BLOM:
Yeah, I think way too many of us wait too long to start doing a death cleaning, and I think it's very understandable that this is the case. I think there's probably some evolutionary points to why we don't think of ourselves as mortals. We think often we have this sense that we will just keep living on forever, and that's probably great in some aspects, but not in all of them. I think it would be great if we could start befriending just the fact that life is a lot about loss, and of course we can lose people we love, but loss is also happening everywhere. Just losing a home when you move into another home or losing a job or losing someone you used to be in partnership with. Loss is happening all the time in life, but we never talk about it. We often talk about the importance of accumulating and gaining. We should gain more money, gain more social status, we should gain things and stuff, of course. And I think we're missing out on something here. So this is one part of why I'm so intrigued by death cleaning and meeting people doing death cleanings.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Katerina, how can going through this process inspire healthy conversations about life and death?

KATARINA BLOM:
I think it really normalizes death in the best way. Death can be so dramatic. I think it often is always however it happens, but doing a death cleaning can really normalize that death is a part of life and sometimes it can feel dramatic to start talking about these big life questions with a loved one, and it might be easier to just talk about the things in their house and getting to learn what these things mean to them. And through this, I think you can kind of ease into moving more to the emotional side, especially if you can have maybe that conversation around those 10 important items, discovering why are these important? What part of you is coming alive when you connect to these items? Because we want to get to know all the sides of the person in front of us and going through important items can really help us do that. And I think through that, it becomes an emotional bridge that we can also start sharing about the learnings in life, what's really important and what this other person really means for us. Just expressing gratitude for receiving some of these items can really show how much we care for a person.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And as in the case of someone like Godfrey with his grief pit downstairs, what's a more gentle way to kind of process that grief while we're holding on or more importantly, letting go of our loved ones things?

KATARINA BLOM:
Yeah, I do think that if you notice that you want to preserve a room, maybe you lost a child and you just want to preserve the room as it is almost like it becomes this museum, then I think you can very gently with yourself see that as a signal that maybe there are some emotions here that needs more tending to. So whenever we feel stuck in our grief process, I think it's wise to reach out for support. Some emotions are unbearable by ourselves, they are overwhelming, and we feel like we're drowning in pain. We shouldn't have to go through that alone. And I really wish for everyone to be able to connect to someone who can help and support you to process those emotions. And one way that's really kind and really gentle and can be completely on your own terms of beginning grief process is working with the Life Journey Cards from the Remembering a Life platform.

I have them myself, I love them. They are so creative and you can really choose what level you want to connect with your grief or your loss and love for someone. So it's like this card provides so many different entries to your love for this person and how you want to honor them and remember them. I think there's really no wrong way to hang out with your own grief. I just know that our grief wants to be hang out with, if that makes sense. So I talked to Godfrey about isolating the part of him that's grieving in the same way that he almost separated the basement from the rest of his home and his basement wanted to be integrated in his home. And grieving Godfrey wanted to be integrated in the rest of happy, delightful Godfrey. And I think these cards is really an easy, nice, gentle way of just leaning into honoring someone that we really love and that we've lost.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And as you go through the process with these people, you talk about the importance of asking if an item gives you something or takes something away from you. Can you talk about that? Tell us more, and how do our, help us preserve our legacy?

KATARINA BLOM:
Yeah, definitely. So I feel like basically we can own our things or our things can own us. And when we feel like we actually own our things that we're on top of things, it can give us a sense of strength and freedom and that I can look around and I know where to find things and the things I surround myself with reminds me of things I want to be reminded of. When we feel that other way around that our things are owning us, they are draining us of energy, they are reminding us of guilt. Maybe we kept a table that we never really liked, but it was an heirloom from our great great grandmother that the things are just taking energy from us. They are draining us. And just the idea of starting getting organized is daunting. Then we know that this is really a situation where things are taking from us.

I was just thinking about the other thing you said, how things can help us preserve our legacy. Again, I feel like this is often a missed opportunity. If I would just die and there was no time for me to do a death cleaning to share those stories, people around me would probably just like, what is this box? Let's just donate it or give it away. And it's such a shame because in those boxes there's often gems telling a story about who we are and where we came from, what were the values in our family. I know when we did some death cleaning in my family, we found a medallion and actually, what is this? And it was my great grandmother's, and it was actually the king of Sweden who had given that to her because she was this fierce single mom who was one of the first female dentists in Sweden. And hearing that story, I can really see how that was shown also in the way my grandmother led her life. And I like to believe that that kind of entrepreneurship, it's a hard word, runs in my veins as well. So in this world where everything can feel very overwhelming and uncertain considering all the different crisis that are happening, I think finding this lineage of legacy within the family through our things can be a source of comfort and a source of just feeling like you actually belong here.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And oftentimes that's the stumbling block, isn't it? Because so many of our things are connected to memories and sentimentality. And so you talk about reconnecting with those memories before you give an item away. What are some ways that we can do that?

KATARINA BLOM:
Yeah, so for example, if we look at the thing I just talked about with heirloom, it can be nice to just remember for a moment, why was this given to me? What do I think my great parents had in their heart when they gave this to me? What had it been giving them in their life and what was it that they wanted to pass on to me? And now that I am in this position where I can think about what I'm hoping that this item will provide to the next generation or to a dear friend, it could be so nice to just write that down on a note or in a little letter and attach it to the item so you're sure that this story will not be lost. It can also just happen if you walk around your house and just take a box, collect like 10 items that you find are important to you on an emotional level, and invite a friend or invite someone in your family and ask them to sit down, maybe have a traditional switch. We love to have a coffee break in Sweden and just have a chat about those memories and items. And also on the Remembering a Life platform, there's this great resource, a card deck that can help you post questions and create new memories together, which can be really nice and healing to have once a person is lost.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
I do love the coffee break section of the show, the fika. It's very entertaining with you and your co-hosts.

KATARINA BLOM:
Yeah, yeah. I love those as well. We were so giggly though, because I think shooting the show, you're focused and you talk to people and you do the work. And then when there are fika time, we just like, oh, let all the anxiety out or tension if you felt like you had to perform in some way. And we just really laughed our way through those moments.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
It's wonderful, a good way to let go. And in episode four, speaking of letting go, Sue the woman you're helping, she talks about loving something enough to let it go. Do you think sometimes we just need permission, we need someone else to tell us it's okay to let go?

KATARINA BLOM:
I do. I love when she said that, and several people have written to me and said that that line just hit them in the heart. This might not be true for everyone, and I want to be very respectful when I say this because we are all on different grief journeys. We have all lost someone and we are perfectly allowed to grieve them in our own time. One thing I noticed doing this work on the show was that when we lost a person, there's often this resistance towards leaning into the pain naturally. And I'm looking for the right words now. The less we want to lean into the pain, the more importance were placed on the things. And the more I got to process painful feelings together with the participants, the less important the items became and the more the people that we long for and that we lost, the more they came alive within the person.

And I think this was something that Sue and I talked about. She lost her partner Bev in Covid. She didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to her. Naturally, she has been holding on to a lot of things connected to Bev, her partner, but also just in life in general. And it's really, a kind of metamorphosis when you kiss things and give them away, it's a way of honoring the memory, but also remembering that this person lives within me. I will have a relationship to this person to the day I die. It doesn't end just because that person died. And having some few items that keeps that bond alive and that helps us remember them is wonderful. It's just that maybe we shouldn't have a whole room of things. It can actually be stronger memory and feeling and sentiment when there's only a few objects that we keep. That was my experience.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And you show you display those items rather than hiding them in a box somewhere. Just kind of convincing yourself, oh, I have it, I put away. But to be able to actually see it and touch it and feel it is much more valuable.

KATARINA BLOM:
Yes. Yes, exactly. And really trying to integrate these items in your daily life so it's easier for you to have those small conversations with a person or with these items and using them and not being afraid to use them so that you really feel how you get closer to your loved ones.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Earlier you talked about involving family members and friends in the process, so how involved should they be when a person is death cleaning, bringing family and friends into it, and can they be more help or can that sometimes hurt?

KATARINA BLOM:
I think as a rule of thumb, bring them in as much as possible. Doing a death cleaning is daunting and there is a huge risk that we just feel lost and stuck. So bringing other people in can also be seeing your things through a sobering perspective because the others don't have the same emotional attachment naturally as you do. And I think it can be good to have someone who actually asks you these questions and helps you decide, oh, you really shine up when you hold this item. I think you should keep it. Or it's like when we helped Godfrey who lost both of his parents and he really wanted to keep almost everything that was in his basement that used to belong to them. You can kind of tell when it was something that was really close to his heart and sometimes it was just like not.

And it did not really help him to keep every little nickel that his parents used to have. So I think it's good to get help, and it's good to have a clear vision from the outside on your things, but in the end, this is your home. These are your things. It's you who's going to live there. So ultimately, it's definitely up to you what you want to keep and doing a death cleaning, it doesn't have to be that you should live in this minimalist house. You can have a lot of things, but it's important that they are there with a purpose, that you feel that they are uplifting to you, that you're not keeping things out of gist or you're not keeping them. For Godfrey, he had this in his mind that his parents might come back one day and he wanted to keep everything for them, even though he on another level knew that they won't and he felt like he is betraying them or letting them down when he's getting rid of their things. So that's just unprocessed grief, hiding in those statements. So I think invite people for sure, you're going to need some help and support and some good along the way, but ultimately it's definitely your choice. And this is also something we were very clear on the show with everyone we met, that this might be a recommendation, but it's up to you.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
I loved the episode with Godfrey that you're referring to because first of all, he was just the sweetest person and he'd been through so much in his life and recently and all kind of in the same timeframe. And you walked into his house upstairs and it was like, well, there's nothing here to organize. It's all in order. But then you went downstairs and it was dubbed the grief pit. There was so much as you said, so much stuff from it was like he was holding his parents alive in the grief pit.

KATARINA BLOM:
Yeah, for sure. I'm having chills just hearing you say this. Yeah, it's like when my co-host Johan, the designer, he said, “But what is your father's wheelchair doing in your basement?” And Godfrey said, “Well, my father suffered a chronic illness,” and you want to just interrupt him and say, “Yes, but what is his wheelchair doing in your basement?” And then Godfrey quickly catches up and says, “Reminding me that my father struggled with chronic illness,” and this is really the point. What are the things that we want to keep? Because they remind us of things that we want to be reminded of and that we are not obliged in any way to keep things for someone else. This is your home, this is your life. And there is a freshness to that. Death cleaning can really be liberating at its core. I am thinking also about Lynn Safe who said that she was reversed, robbed because her whole family, different aunts and uncles, wanted to just dump their old antiques into her house, and she didn't really have the ability to say no. So she just kept accepting everything. But it turns out she didn't even like these things, but she was ridden with guilt and didn't really know how to move on. I think that can be really common.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
On the show, there's a team of three, including you as the psychologist. There's Ella, the organizer with her, what is it? Green and red dots. And then there is Johan, the designer. You all help walk people through the strategies for cleaning out a home, which is great for those of us who don't have a team there to help us. What are some simple strategies that we can use?

KATARINA BLOM:
So the method is really simple actually. So in the show we often brought out something we call a sorting station, but it's really just a big table. And here we can have one part of the table is designated for trash, for obvious trash, and this can be things that are broken, things that you don't use, things that you have no attachment to that goes there. Then we have another maybe bigger pile that is donating things, giving them away. So this is really important in death cleaning. Also, we wanted to upscale things if possible. So here you can look around in your house maybe for duplicates. I was on an interview with Ella just yesterday and she reminded me of this. Often if you just look in the kitchen, for example, you might have way too many, oh no, maybe you don't have this in the US cheese carvers, I don't know if that's a word. The thing that makes you really thin and nice slices of cheese. I don't know if that has a word.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Yes, we have a lot of cheese carvers in the U.S. (laughter)

KATARINA BLOM:
Okay, okay, great. So maybe you have seven of them in a house, but you only use two. So get really honest with yourself. What are my needs here? So try to sort out duplicate things that you don't really need because often you have a favorite and rather have two favorites than seven where you don't like all of them. And then we've also noticed in the U.S. there's a lot of seasonal things. Like Ella often talks about how she saw in the U.S. you have a cake stand for Halloween, a cake stand for Christmas, a cake stand for, I don't know, Easter. And in Sweden we would probably just have a white, what's it called, like a white cake stand, maybe we'll have a napkin or something that is more connected to the theme. So she was really hard on people going like, you don't need all these duplicates.
You don't need all these different versions of kind of the same function. So you can always start with those more easy things and to donate. Also looking for things that they're not broken, but you're not using them or you don't love them. You can also ask yourself, if I would lose this thing today, would I go out and buy exactly the same as a new one tomorrow as a way of knowing if this is really important to me? And this is also a tip from Ella. So then we have the hardest category. So first is the obvious trash, then what's going to be donated? Then it's the hard stuff and that's the important things. So these are the things that we have emotional attachments to. And this is where I often got into the picture to talk with people about these things, what they mean to them, why do they want to keep them, what will it add to their life by keeping them, what would they lose if they got rid of them? Just to explore what this stands for them.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Well, don't tell Ella, but I am going to bring out my autumn cake stand this weekend. I'm just saying. (laughter)

KATARINA BLOM:
I love that. (laughter)

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Once a home is actually cleaned out, what's the best way to make sure we don't clutter it up again? What should we be asking ourselves before we bring a new object into the house?

KATARINA BLOM:
So we often talk in the show about how death cleaning is for life. This is something we will never be finished with. Life is changing constantly and throughout life our needs change as well. So our home should keep up with that. And this is why we need to keep doing this death cleaning in our home a little bit every day. And I think it's a good idea to ask yourself that question. If you want to buy something, maybe ask yourself, if I didn't buy this today, would I go out and immediately buy it the day after? Is this how bad I need this? There's also the old trick with, if I'm going to bring this into the house, I need to get rid of the equivalent something else. But I think also in Sweden, we are very fond of sustainability and the environment and the climate.

So it's really about asking yourself, do I really need this? And what would this add to my life? Of course, it's not forbidden to treat yourself, but it's good to do that with a purpose that you are attentive with what you buy. So as a psychologist, it's also interesting to just get curious with yourself. So if I'm buying something, why am I buying this? Is it because I want to get rid of some kind of anxiety and just redirect my focus away from some kind of discomfort? Or am I buying something out of a practical need or because I really, really just love this? It just brings me so much happiness. So I think if we are curious enough, our things can really be a mirror or a reflection of our emotional state and what we long for, what we need, what we're dreaming of. We just need to pause and reflect and connect to these items and to these questions.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
You've said there's a lot of life in death. What do you mean by that?

KATARINA BLOM:
Yeah, I think of course death is so connected to often pain that's easy to understand. But yeah, I feel like this is of course a delicate subject to talk about because it carries so much emotion and it can be such a huge weight for us as humans. But if we think about the extreme, what would life be without death? It would be worth nothing. So in that sense, death is bringing us life. Death puts this sharpness to life. Death reminds us that we have to seize the day and what we have to be grateful about. And a less dramatic form of death is change. And change is the only constant in life. And in order for change to happen, something has to die and something new is being born all the time. And I think this is really what shapes us as humans to the core.

This prerequisite of living a life that is in constant change. And we are facing micro versions of death in the shape of loss. Coming back to what I said earlier about we lose a job, we lose a friend, we lose trust in a friend, or we lose a pet, or we actually lose people we love because they die. So I think we need to heavily shift the way we relate to death because death can really accentuate and guide us in how we want to live our life. And it helps us to come closer to what do I want my life to be about? But it's so many things. I could have a conversation with you just on this question. I think it's so layered.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
And Katerina, we ask all our guests this question, who are you remembering today?

KATARINA BLOM:
I love that question. I am remembering my grandmother, Maria, who's on my father's side. She felt like a sister to me. And we often said that it's strange that we are grandmother and grandchild because the way we connected and talked about sex and life questions and religion and everything was just amazing if you felt often more like a sibling. And I also remember my aunt, who was important for me.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Thank you so much, Katerina, for joining us today, for sharing your expertise and guiding us in beginning our own Swedish death cleaning practice and the role that it plays in preserving our legacies. One little piece at a time, and thank you for being entertaining, making something like death cleaning fun. I not only need you all in my life, but I would just love to sit down and have some fika with you.

KATARINA BLOM:
Oh, I love that. Thank you so much for those kind words. I do think this is a very important subject. We need to talk about death and the grieving so much more. And just looking through our items can be a great way to start that conversation, but also come closer to the people we love the most.

HOLLY IGNATOWSKI:
Beautiful. To learn more about Swedish death cleaning, tune into The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning on Peacock. And follow Katarina on Instagram. To learn more about remembering your loved ones after they die, visit RememberingALife.com.