Transcript
Speaker: We're still serving people who are going through the worst day of our lives, so we constantly diminish our own mental health.
Speaker: We constantly diminish the importance of maintaining that so that we can stay and so that we can be the best that we can be to the families that we're serving.
Speaker: You know, so there's no one size fits all.
Speaker: And so I think that's what we're going to see is that unless funeral homes adapt to, there's no one size fits all.
Speaker: So we have to be open and we have to sit there and meet families where they're at, as opposed to where we want them to be at.
Speaker: You know, because, of course, is there an ideal scenario of every day I come to work?
Speaker: And so every funeral is going to be OK.
Speaker: So we're going to the local Father Joe in such and such a church and we're going to sell them the Sycamore casket and and the service is going to be 30 minutes long.
Speaker: And we're going to have, you know, such and such doing a song.
Speaker: And and that's yes, of course.
Speaker: Wouldn't that be nice if every day, you know, you showed up at work and there was this sort of monotony.
Speaker: So it just became a job that you just do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It was like an industrial factory.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: You know, but that's not life anymore.
Speaker: It's not because we're all just so different and we're able to express it now and we want different things.
Speaker: And it's it's not too.
Speaker: And I feel like the people who do go on the defense in the comments.
Speaker: And whether it's on your post or on some other, you know, innovators post or whatever it might be.
Speaker: It's kind of like I bring it back to I was raised Catholic in Ireland.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Most Irish people work.
Speaker: I am now a celebrant and I train celebrants and teach celebrants.
Speaker: My grandmother would be rolling in her grave for hours.
Speaker: I also feel like my grandmother was the type of person who I could explain.
Speaker: It's not that I am allergic to being Catholic or I'm not.
Speaker: I'm just providing options for other people.
Speaker: Like I'm just allowing people to bring a little bit of Catholic prayer in while also giving people the space to speak about the deceased, which is not provided in the churches anymore.
Speaker: You know, so again, it's just bringing it back down to that.
Speaker: Everyone just wants something different.
Speaker: Sorry, not everybody wants something different.
Speaker: People want options nowadays.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So anyway, I get off my TED box for a second.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I think the church, if I can interject, I think the church was a core part of community back before globalization and back before we were so transient where we'd move from place to place and we would never stay at one place too long.
Speaker: That wasn't the case.
Speaker: You'd stay in a community for generations and the church was a key part of people's social lives and their lives and
Speaker: They helped insulate the funeral industry to be what it is because the churches had a prescribed set of rituals and this is what you did and this is how you followed.
Speaker: And now with globalization, we realize that perhaps these religious traditions that we were raised with aren't as certain as we once thought they were.
Speaker: They aren't as rock solid and steadfast and the absolute truth that we once thought they were because, hey, this guy over here,
Speaker: who has a different religion than me, but is speaking something amazing, well, maybe he's right too.
Speaker: And so maybe the church isn't this castle of truth and righteousness and love.
Speaker: Maybe there's a bunch of little homes all over the world where truth, righteousness, and love exists.
Speaker: And so as we've had this disintegration or this pluralization of how we can
Speaker: have our spirituality and religion.
Speaker: I think that's one of the main reasons why the traditional funeral service is not going to survive.
Speaker: The traditional funeral is not going to survive because the church was an insulator.
Speaker: The church enabled this tradition and people are not as involved in local churches as they once were because they realize that, hey, my community doesn't have to be where I live.
Speaker: My community can be online.
Speaker: And hey, also, maybe we're not as right as we thought we were when we were growing up.
Speaker: And yeah, so I commend you for what you're doing, giving people space to reflect who they are instead of the traditions that they were given.
Speaker: Yeah, not.
Speaker: And, you know, a bit similar to yourself, Caleb.
Speaker: For me, it came from my own personal journey, you know, like going for me.
Speaker: And I'm always very clear for me, not for everybody, but for me, I don't need to go to mass to prove I'm Catholic.
Speaker: I don't need to go to mass to have some guy, I don't know, preach at me, you know, set of words on a book that don't resonate with me anymore, that don't make sense to me.
Speaker: And so I'll often go to St.
Speaker: Pathak's Cathedral here and pray and sort of light candles and talk to the...
Speaker: different saints that I like to talk to and, you know, talk to my grandparents and people who've passed.
Speaker: And that's just how I deal with it and how I meditate and seek solace and stuff like that.
Speaker: I mean, I always joke that my grandmother is like sitting on my shoulder.
Speaker: I make all these the right life decisions and stuff.
Speaker: But yeah, it came from my own experience and which makes me laugh.
Speaker: Although you're kind of a celebrity over here in the funeral space, but I'm like a celebrity.
Speaker: These words, the fact that these words come out of my mouth,
Speaker: hilarious to me.
Speaker: It always makes me cringe a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm a bit of a celebrity in the funeral space back home in Ireland, as in my nickname is the Glam Reaper.
Speaker: There's nobody else in Ireland who sort of talks about this the way I do.
Speaker: But so I often get sort of asked about questions.
Speaker: So the church were trying to get rid of the eulogy in the funeral.
Speaker: The priests were sort of saying we need this to be more about the mass and the ritual and the writings and all this sort of stuff.
Speaker: And they asked me my opinion.
Speaker: And I said, listen, will...
Speaker: this bring a more pure congregation.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The priest is going to have, you know, in the congregation sitting in front of him, he's probably going to have 20 to 30 people who are pure, here for the mass and that's it.
Speaker: And religiously, right?
Speaker: Religion, religiously.
Speaker: But is this going to deter even more of people like me?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Because already, and this is in the US as well as it's Ireland, already when it comes to the census, people are only selecting Catholic because, yes, I am Catholic.
Speaker: But honestly, I probably should be ticking the non-box that I don't believe in anything because I'm not going to church.
Speaker: I'm Catholic and I identify as that, but I'm not going to church.
Speaker: And so there's more people.
Speaker: I would say 90 percent of the people of my generation consider themselves Catholic, quote unquote, but they don't go to church or they don't enjoy church when they go and they go for weddings, funerals, Christmas, maybe confession once every decade.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They cleanse themselves.
Speaker: You know, that's.
Speaker: That's what's the norm, again, quote unquote, in Ireland right now.
Speaker: And so I said, look, if he wants a pure congregation when he's having a funeral, then go for it.
Speaker: You get to do you.
Speaker: You do you, babes.
Speaker: The brief.
Speaker: You do you and see what happens.
Speaker: But you're just going to push away more people like me who.
Speaker: are coming to the dark side coming to the celebrant side where like even when I designed my own funeral when I started in this 15 years ago when two friends of mine died and I sat down to do my own funeral I was like well what would I want I don't want it in a church don't want a priest to do it but I do want prayers said I very much want prayers said but I also want all these other gorgeous aspects because Jennifer Muldowney is not just a Catholic she's a million different other facets she's
Speaker: you know, dancing queen.
Speaker: She likes a martini.
Speaker: She's the glam reaper, you know.
Speaker: She's all these different facets.
Speaker: So why, when it comes to our funeral, would we just do one part of her life?
Speaker: There's a lot of similarities between death care in the United States and traditional religion.
Speaker: And just like the churches are not adapting very well, they're not adapting to globalization and neither is death care in the United States.
Speaker: So what's going to happen when you either adapt or you die?
Speaker: And I think
Speaker: There's many people, and this might be one of the more profound things that I say, and I think I've already said it, but there's many people who would rather be comfortable in what they know and not adapt and die than adapting, go through the discomfort of learning something new and thrive.
Speaker: Some people would rather die than adapt.
Speaker: And I do think that comes back to something you said earlier, which is narcissism.
Speaker: It comes back to ego, narcissism and stubbornness.
Speaker: Honestly, people will stick their heels in just to be proven.
Speaker: No, I'm I wasn't wrong.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Until the day they die actively.
Speaker: So can I ask on your journey and obviously stepping away from the family business was a massive turning point for you.
Speaker: How has that and feel free to not answer if you don't want to.
Speaker: But how has that left you your familial relations?
Speaker: Like how are you with your parents?
Speaker: Because obviously that I can imagine in my family if I was born into a funeral home and I told my dad sayonara that would not go down very well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Initially, it was hard, but I have a better relationship with my parents right now than I have had in 20 years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They see it now.
Speaker: They understand now.
Speaker: And they didn't have a space to understand before.
Speaker: So watching me go through the things that I've gone through and working with them and them seeing it firsthand, they get it.
Speaker: And I think I've
Speaker: help educate them enough to see the toxicity there as well.
Speaker: And my dad's ready to be done.
Speaker: So tell me, there was a post that you wrote.
Speaker: It was some time ago and I can't remember exactly when, but it really, I mean, it was shared by quite a number of my colleagues where you talked about sort of harassment in the funeral space.
Speaker: So just we're going to touch on toxicity for a second where you touched on female harassment, I guess.
Speaker: And because it is such a male dominated space, but we're seeing so many more females coming into it.
Speaker: Was this from experience in your own funeral home or was this sort of people writing to you or telling you their stories?
Speaker: Because I can imagine probably a lot of people did sort of just start to open up with you when they met you, maybe or however.
Speaker: So just maybe can you touch a little bit on that or?
Speaker: It was both.
Speaker: I knew from an early age that the funeral industry was misogynistic.
Speaker: But hearing stories throughout the years, just horrible, horrible stories.
Speaker: So the equality in current society is nowhere near where it should be.
Speaker: It was drastically worse.
Speaker: I was reading, what was it?
Speaker: In the United States, a woman was not allowed to open a bank account until the 1980s.
Speaker: Just these things that now we're like, what the...
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not allowed to get a credit card.
Speaker: And it was only, what, how many years ago that women weren't allowed to vote.
Speaker: So, again, because the leadership in this industry is in their 50s and 60s and 70s, these outpours.
Speaker: massively outdated views on females in the workplace on gender as a whole.
Speaker: I mean, let's, let's even broaden it more gender, but it's grossly horrific.
Speaker: And it's something that's even made worse because it's accepted.
Speaker: And that's the problem.
Speaker: Harassment happens all over the place, but it is seen as inappropriate and wrong and illegal, depending on the type and degree.
Speaker: Whereas in this industry, it's often not.
Speaker: And it's so difficult to speak out about it because it is a boys club.
Speaker: And if you leave one funeral home because you're being harassed,
Speaker: The possibility of being seen by all the other funeral homes because they all talk.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And not being able to get a job because they all talk and it's the boys club.
Speaker: Yeah, it is something that's insidious in this industry.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's very, it's interesting.
Speaker: I never even actually thought about it the way you've just said it.
Speaker: But like, yeah, if you're at a workplace, so if you're at a funeral home and you're harassed, and if it's a family-owned funeral home, usually management, it can be management that's harassing.
Speaker: And so reporting to managers is not an option.
Speaker: It usually is.
Speaker: It's not an option.
Speaker: So reporting it is not an option.
Speaker: There's no HR department.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so but then say I'd say you're somebody who's really passionate about the funeral space and you're brilliant in it.
Speaker: So you're like, OK, I can't report it.
Speaker: So let me move.
Speaker: But then if you're if it's a community family funeral home, often there's one for miles.
Speaker: So you're either having to move yourself miles out of your your own district.
Speaker: Or maybe even moving states, because as you said, there's sort of they all talk.
Speaker: And then when it comes to corporate, it's it's no easier because it's just sort of, you know, you've got somebody who's so far removed who doesn't know the situation and is just and you've got management maybe who's doing something and you want but they're doing the sales, they're getting the sales in.
Speaker: So you want to keep them happy.
Speaker: Yeah, so much of the harassment comes from management.
Speaker: There's no 20, 30-year-olds who are running a very successful funeral business.
Speaker: Most of them are 50, 60, 70 and have an, you know, you could say old school mentality, but that diminishes it.
Speaker: They are chauvinists and narcissists and deeply misogynistic to the point where they are entirely unaware of how misogynistic they are.
Speaker: So it is difficult.
Speaker: And women, female-led and female-run funeral homes, I think, stand the better chance of adapting than do the male run.
Speaker: Because while women are, females are coming into the funeral business, many of them are still not in leadership positions.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And or they're still in school, you know, we're seeing a rise in the numbers in school, but they're not going to sort of be in the workforce for another maybe decade, you know, where they have the experience and the licensure to to actually step into leadership.
Speaker: So it's going to be another while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's very, very interesting.
Speaker: While so I'm in New York nine years and Ireland is still very much when it comes to the funeral space is still very much in the past, very male dominated.
Speaker: And, you know, your your local funeral director back in Ireland was sort of the local barman.
Speaker: He maybe have been the post office, maybe even the grocer as well.
Speaker: So, you know, historically in the villages, he used to be all those things.
Speaker: Now, typically, they are just the funeral home now.
Speaker: They're just the funeral tractor.
Speaker: His population, obviously, in Ireland has grown and modernized and is so incredibly different to what most Irish Americans view Ireland as being.
Speaker: And there is still there.
Speaker: Sorry, there is a lot more females coming into the space there as well.
Speaker: But I definitely do see over here.
Speaker: There's a lot more racial profiling, gender profiling that goes on when it comes to hiring.
Speaker: certain areas can be quite racist, homophobic.
Speaker: And then, yeah, like you can have two, a male and a female funeral director, both with equal experience.
Speaker: And for some reason, the family are just drawn to, well, the man is the boss.
Speaker: He knows what he's talking about more than the female.
Speaker: Very interesting.
Speaker: When actually we all look at historically, it was women who were the
Speaker: the actual body caretakers, the people who technically they were the funeral directors.
Speaker: It was just when it was commercialized, then it sort of grew into.
Speaker: But we don't have a million hours to keep talking about all of this.
Speaker: So we do have to trim down.
Speaker: So Caleb, the so you've got all the book.
Speaker: You've got the archaic blog that you're going to bring back to life.
Speaker: What is OK?
Speaker: We talked about the future of the funeral space.
Speaker: What is the future for Caleb?
Speaker: So right now you're
Speaker: You're really dipping into the whole mental health in the profession.
Speaker: How's that working out for you?
Speaker: What's what's the plan?
Speaker: What's the what's the ask?
Speaker: Maybe, you know, do you want to be on stages?
Speaker: Do you want to do more interviews?
Speaker: Do you want to?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's the future?
Speaker: Yeah, I want to start the conversation and I feel as though I'm in a position where I can.
Speaker: So I'm addressing it on multiple levels and I'm still, I mean, I just launched the business a couple months ago or launched this thing that I'm doing, which I'm calling Life Coaching for Death Care.
Speaker: So I'm attempting to provide
Speaker: people who are burnt out or who have come to a place where they've lost themselves in this business and giving them somebody to talk to and somebody who can walk with them.
Speaker: through it.
Speaker: I am not a therapist and that's not what I'm doing.
Speaker: I'm coaching.
Speaker: I'm helping people get through these incredibly difficult situations.
Speaker: You know, coaching is kind of like the death doula for psychology where I'm not...
Speaker: attempting to therapize people.
Speaker: I am attempting to give people a space where they know that they're understood and helping them walk through the loss of themselves, the burnout, the compassion fatigue, the secondary trauma, the depression, anxiety, all of these things, the harassment.
Speaker: One of the people that I'm coaching right now, just to give an example, I'm physically beat.
Speaker: I'm
Speaker: and by the manager.
Speaker: And so there's so many different parts of this industry that are still held in secret.
Speaker: And the mental health aspect is what I'm focusing on right now and providing space.
Speaker: And I know there's other people who are doing it.
Speaker: I know that you just had, and I'm not going to be able to pronounce her last name, Kim, I believe.
Speaker: Yes, we need resources.
Speaker: We need people who have gone through it and know what it's like to help walk through it with other people, because it's incredibly difficult and the struggles are swept under the rug, just like everything else.
Speaker: Yeah, because no matter what we're dealing with today, we're still serving people who are going through the worst day of our lives.
Speaker: So we constantly diminish our own mental health.
Speaker: We constantly diminish the importance of maintaining that so that we can stay and so that we can be the best that we can be to the families that we're serving.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm helping to start this conversation.
Speaker: Well, congratulations.
Speaker: And we hope it goes really, really well.
Speaker: We're big advocates of taking care of your mental health here on the Clown Reaver.
Speaker: And yeah, the guys, the funeral peer support guys are great.
Speaker: And just anybody who it is, it's a tough business.
Speaker: And I don't think it's as simple as just you should be able to just get on with it because exactly as you said, you're meeting people.
Speaker: If you're meeting people where they're at, they're at the worst day of their lives.
Speaker: And
Speaker: So, of course, you having sort of a bit of anxiety or whatever it might be, isn't going to you're going to push that away in order to serve this family.
Speaker: So it's how do we make sure and keep a balance that we can show up for our families in the best way we we can.
Speaker: I mean, I've spoken a bit about sort of self-care and mental health myself and very much not a therapist, not a coach or not on anything.
Speaker: But I think it's just because I think
Speaker: love to talk and like to talk to me.
Speaker: So we end up talking.
Speaker: And I think that's what it all comes down to is just starting these conversations.
Speaker: And that's what's wonderful about all these death talk influencers and stuff is they're starting conversations that maybe around a dinner table, a kid will ask his mom, well, mom, do you want to be composted?
Speaker: And all of a sudden the conversation starts and I'm here for all of them.
Speaker: So, well, Caleb, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker: We are going to cut it off because we are
Speaker: We're on way over time.
Speaker: But it was such a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker: And I'm sure we'll have you on again and wish you the best of luck with everything.
Speaker: I appreciate what you're doing.
Speaker: You are the present and the future.
Speaker: So keep going.
Speaker: Thanks, Caleb.
