Death & Disco

Death & Disco is the podcast where we explore how truly embracing death can lead to a more meaningful, magical and radically alive life. Host Emily brings together researchers, healers, mystics, scientists and everyday people with extraordinary perspectives on mortality — because the conversations society avoids most are often the ones we need most urgently. We go deep on physical death and grief, the metaphorical deaths of ego and identity, and the profound cost of our collective denial — how running from death keeps us hustling, dividing, and sleepwalking through the one life we have. We sit with the evidence from near-death experiences, psychedelic research, ancient philosophy and neuroscience that facing death doesn't diminish life. It explodes it open. Because no one gets out of here alive. So we might as well enjoy the ride. Death & Disco — dance 'til you die vibes.

Death & Disco is a education podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 30 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Death & Disco, a education show with 30 episodes published.

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  Episode #7

  Death, Love, and the Return to Community: Why We Grieve Better Together with Lauren Carroll

  Aug 12, 20261 hourS2

  Emily Bingham sits down with Lauren Carroll, a death educator, former funeral director, and co-founder of La Mort and the Death Wives, whose work weaves community and family back into the death space. What begins as one woman's terror of cemeteries becomes a lifelong devotion after a single, shattering assignment: at 21, working a typewriter in the back corner of a funeral home, Lauren was sent to collect a stillborn baby from a hospital. Shaking, nauseous, certain she could not do it, she instead felt an overwhelming wave of calm and love pour out of the child she cradled. In that moment her fear of death dissolved into a truth she has carried ever since: it's just love. This continuation of love. From that origin story, Emily and Lauren move into the heart of the conversation. They talk about why grief so often buries the love underneath it, why our culture's refusal to sit with the dead leaves us with what Lauren calls lingering, ghosty grief, and why community, not avoidance, is the thing that actually heals. Lauren makes the case that loneliness is an unspoken epidemic, that unprocessed grief curdles into the violence and division we see everywhere, and that our ancestors already knew how to tend their own dead, make bread for neighbors, and mark death with ritual. Along the way she introduces legacy work and the Jewish tradition of the ethical will, reframing the deathbed fear that our lives didn't matter. In the second half, Lauren shares her own diagnosis with a rare terminal disease and the ceremonial psilocybin journey that changed her, crying for six hours and emerging, as those around her put it, a different person. She and Emily explore psilocybin as a way to lower the defenses around dying, the deep prep and integration the medicine requires, and mushrooms as decomposers and ancestral communicators. They close with the ecological cost of our death practices, the greener options of water cremation and human composting, and a shared conviction that giving our bodies back to the earth is the last, most beautiful gift we have to offer. Key Takeaways ● Fear of death often masks love. Lauren's transformation came the moment she felt the love a stillborn baby carried, realizing death is a continuation of love, not its end. ● Grief is not low vibration to be avoided. Your body is built to grieve, and surrendering into it, even sobbing for hours, is what actually brings relief and integration. ● We are meant to grieve in community. Direct cremation and avoidance rob us of the funerals, vigils, and rituals that let people reconnect and heal loneliness. ● Small rituals matter. A blessing over the body, a gong or candle at the threshold, an ethical will passing down your beliefs, these bookmarks help the heart and mind catch up with each other. ● Psilocybin can lower the defenses around dying. Done with intention, prep, and integration (never heroic doses), it opens the heart and helps end-of-life workers process their own grief before holding space for others. ● Our death practices can heal or harm the planet. Fire cremation and conventional burial damage the earth, while water cremation and human composting let the body return as fertilizer and continued life. Resources Mentioned ● Terror management theory / Sheldon Solomon (previous Death and Disco guest) ● The Death Cafe ● The ethical will (Jewish legacy tradition) ● A blessing by Starhawk for tending the body after death ● Sage Warrior (book referenced in Lauren's classes) ● Hope Edelman on how the facts stay the same but the story changes ● The Mushroom and the Cross and The Secret Religion (on mushrooms and the origins of religion) Connect Host, Emily Bingham ● Podcast Website: https://iamemilybingham.com/ ● Emily on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemilybingham/ ● Join the YOLO Year Waitlist: https://iamemilybingham.com/yolo-waitlist ● Emily on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/i-am-emily-bingham/ Guest, Lauren Carroll (La Mort and the Death Wives) ● Website: https://lamort.org ● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deathwives/ , https://www.instagram.com/lamortcollective/ ● Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lauren.harrisoncarroll/ ● LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-carroll-deathwives/ #DeathAndDisco #DeathMedicine #NoOneGetsOutAlive #EmilyBingham #LoveAndGrief Mentioned in this episode: Sign up for Coaching! 1:1 coaching

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  Episode #6

  Widow in the City: Grief, Desire, and the Sensual Reawakening of Midlife with Amy Gabrielle

  Jul 22, 202652 minS2

  This week Emily welcomes her OG client and widow sister, Amy Gabrielle, an author, writer, and digital creator who has spent the last four years turning the wreckage of loss into a body of work that refuses to be sanitized. The two met shortly after Amy's husband, Steven, died in 2021, when Amy joined Emily's very first widow's retreat. Now, at the release of her memoir Widow in the City: A Memoir of Heartbreaks and Hookups, Amy returns to trace the whole arc: caretaking Steven through three years of terminal cancer, parenting her neurodivergent son alone, and stumbling into an unexpected sensual awakening that cracked her wide open. What follows is a hot, honest, and deeply human conversation about what grief actually does to a body and an identity. Amy talks about the year she gave herself permission to "be crazy," the $1,000 winter coat, the iPhone and tripod she used to photograph herself in lingerie, the double life she led behind a picture-perfect Columbia University finance job. She and Emily name the question that haunts so many widows: do I even exist anymore when the one person who truly saw me is gone? From dating apps and calculated risks to a situationship that ended in a grief tsunami, Amy found her way to the page, launching her Substack, Absolute Pleasure, and writing publications including The Memoirist and Slackjaw. In the second half, Amy, an advocate for authentic self-expression in midlife women, gets fierce about feminism, bodily autonomy, reframing sex work as work deserving of protection, and the difference between consent and trafficking. She makes the case for critical thinking over lazy judgment, for staying civil across disagreement, and for a definition of a life well lived that has nothing to do with doing it all and everything to do with being true to who you are. It is sacred and it is disco, and it is a permission slip for anyone moving through loss. Key Takeaways ● There is no right or wrong way to grieve. As Amy puts it, "grief shows up in different ways for different people," and the distance from a loss does not make it hurt less, it just makes it easier to hold. ● Loss can halve your capacity while doubling your workload, so self-compassion, not self-judgment, is the work. ● Creativity is grief medicine. Whether it is art, music, writing, or building a new life, creating something is how you move forward when you cannot see a foot in front of you. ● Being seen in your grief, even in ways that titillate or unsettle, is one of the most healing exercises there is, and it gives others permission to be seen in theirs. ● Sensuality and desire do not have to disappear in midlife or in partnership. You can reignite that part of yourself instead of vanishing into "mommy and daddy." ● A life well lived is not doing everything you ever wanted. It is being okay letting some things go and staying true to yourself in the present, the only time we actually have. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 04:00 Losing Steven: Diagnosis, COVID, and Widowhood 06:00 The Year to Go Crazy: Dating Apps and Desire 09:35 The iPhone, the Tripod, and Becoming an Artist 17:30 Creativity as Grief Medicine 24:00 The Situationship, the Grief Tsunami, and Finding Writing 32:12 Feminism, Bodily Autonomy, and Reframing Sex Work 40:00 What the Book Wants You to Take Away 46:56 A Life Well Lived: Truth Over FOMO Connect ● Podcast Website: https://iamemilybingham.com/ ● Emily on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemilybingham/ ● Join the YOLO Year Waitlist: https://iamemilybingham.com/yolo-waitlist ● Emily on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/i-am-emily-bingham/ ● Amy Gabrielle on Substack: https://substack.com/@amygabrielle ● Amy Gabrielle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amygabriellenyc/ ● Amy Gabrielle on LinkedIn: [LinkedIn TK] #DeathAndDisco #DeathMedicine #NoOneGetsOutAlive #EmilyBingham #LoveAndGrief #WidowInTheCity #AmyGabrielle #GriefAndDesire #MidlifeReawakening #Widowhood

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  Episode #5

  Alchemy, Ego Death, and the Sacred Art of Transformation with Dr. Eric Russell

  Jul 8, 202659 minS2

  This week on Death and Disco, Emily sits down with Dr. Eric Russell, a psychologist, plant medicine educator, and integration coach who helps purpose-driven leaders and seekers reconnect to themselves through intentional work with psilocybin and microdosing. The two met on a winter solstice pilgrimage through Egypt, and that shared soul-land becomes the throughline of a conversation about the deaths we survive while still breathing. Together they dive into alchemy, not the medieval-castle kind, but the ancient Egyptian art of transformation that turns the lead of our pain into the gold of our purpose. Eric walks through the seven stages of the alchemical process, from calcination (the moment life gets turned upside down) through dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation, and finally coagulation, mapping each one onto the shadow work, ego death, and rebirth we move through in real life. He shares his own catalyst, getting fired from a big-tech career, and how psilocybin became the medicine that helped him uncover the survival programming underneath his perfectionism. Emily brings her own alchemy: the death of her identity as a wife, the ego death that followed career success that no longer felt alive, and the fierce work of asking the ego to take a seat so the higher self can drive the bus. The conversation stretches from the deeply personal to the collective, touching terror management, narcissism, and the survival wiring that keeps humanity stuck in competition instead of communion. Eric closes with the wisdom of Isis and Osiris as a template for alchemical love, and a deathbed reflection that lands on the one truth underneath all of it: life is about how we love one another. Sacred meets disco. Shadow meets light. And, as Eric puts it, in order to heal, you have to feel. Join Eric's Alchemical Love Retreat Egypt! ● Use code EMILY1000 for $1000 off before end of July: https://drericrussell.com/egypt-retreat Key Takeaways ● Alchemy is the ancient Egyptian art of transformation, and spiritual alchemy turns emotional pain into purpose through the same multi-stage process that turns lead into gold. ● The seven stages (calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation, coagulation) each mirror a real inner death and rebirth on the path to wholeness. ● Most people stall at stage one, slipping into victim mode or numbing out, and never find the courage to move through the full process of change. ● Ego death is not about killing the ego but relinquishing its grip, asking the part that has been driving the bus to take a seat so the higher self can lead. ● Psilocybin and microdosing can act as their own catalyst, peeling back layers of survival programming to reveal innate self-worth that needs no external validation. ● True transformation requires feeling the full spectrum of human emotion, grief, anger, fear, and all, rather than spiritually bypassing them. Connect ● Podcast Website: https://iamemilybingham.com/ ● Emily on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemilybingham/ ● Join the YOLO Year Waitlist: https://iamemilybingham.com/yolo-waitlist ● Dr. Eric Russell: https://drericrussell.com/ ● Eric on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drericrussell/ #DeathAndDisco #DeathMedicine #NoOneGetsOutAlive #EmilyBingham #LoveAndGrief #Alchemy #EgoDeath #PlantMedicine #Psilocybin #ShadowWork #Transformation Mentioned in this episode: Sign up for Coaching! 1:1 coaching

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  Episode #4

  The Death of the Party Girl: Retreats, Awe, and the Medicine of Coming Home to Yourself

  Jun 24, 20261h 11mS2

  In this crossover episode, Emily Bingham sits down with Mary, a yoga teacher, retreat host, and recovery advocate based in Denver who leads retreats around the world. The two met at a Denver dinner party for soul-led entrepreneurs and felt an immediate kinship, both shaped by loss, both fiercely devoted to two tools the healing world tends to overlook: the power of retreats and the power of AWE. This conversation, shared across both their podcasts, is the result of that instant pull to collaborate. Mary traces her path from digital advertising and addiction in Chicago to getting sober, training as a yoga teacher, and falling in love with the retreat model in the jungles of Cambodia, where she locked her phone away and relearned the language of her own body. Emily revisits the loss of her 32-year-old husband Ian to terminal cancer in March 2019, the years of dissociation and hustle that followed, and the soul retrieval work she is doing now, seven years later, to finally thaw the grief her nervous system once froze to keep her alive. Together they get honest about work addiction, the lie of radical individualism, and why no one heals by being told to "calm down." At the heart of the episode is awe: those mind-cracking, ego-dissolving moments that reorder your understanding of life. Mary recounts trekking the Annapurna circuit in the Himalayas and laughing at how small her worries became against mountains millions of years old. Emily shares her experiences of dark awe watching Ian die and the quiet awe of a Colorado meadow that whispered, I'm going to be OK. They unpack the small self, collective effervescence, moral beauty, and why facing mortality and trauma can be the very things that crack us open to JOY, belonging, and a life that is not just functional but fully ALIVE. Key Takeaways ● Addiction, as Buddhist teacher Vimalasara puts it, is an unwillingness to meet life as it is, and recovery is the practice of opening to wonder without numbing or escaping. ● Grief is not linear; the nervous system can freeze trauma for years, and the protection that keeps you functioning is a form of love, not a failure to "feel it to heal it." ● You can't think or talk your way into safety. The nervous system is a show-not-tell system, which is why somatic, body-based, and movement practices reach what words can't. ● Retreats and peak experiences interrupt the go-go-go loop, then send you home with small, doable practices like phones out of the bedroom and daily contact with nature. ● Awe shrinks the small self in the best way, quieting rumination and reminding you that you are part of something far bigger and that you are not carrying it alone. ● Healing is rarely glamorous or rewarded; choosing to disappear, slow down, and grieve can cost visibility and income, and still be the most courageous, alive thing you do. Experience Awe Firsthand ● Learn more about Emily & Mary’s Wild Magic Madeira Retreat:https://iamemilybingham.com/wild-magic-retreat Connect ● Website: https://iamemilybingham.com/ ● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemilybingham/ ● Join the YOLO Year Waitlist: https://iamemilybingham.com/yolo-waitlist #DeathAndDisco #DeathMedicine #NoOneGetsOutAlive #EmilyBingham #LoveAndGrief Mentioned in this episode: Sign up for Coaching! 1:1 coaching

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  Episode #3

  Mortality, Wonder and the Practice of Noticing with Jasmine Wilder of The Tiny Joy Project

  Jun 3, 202644 minS2

  Some accounts you scroll past. Others stop you mid-doom-scroll and remind you that you are spinning on a space rock, getting to hear thunder and high-five someone for no reason! Jasmine Wilder, the writer behind the Tiny Joy Project, makes the second kind. In this episode, Emily sits down with the woman whose short reflections have reached millions of people across Threads and Instagram, and traces the heartbreak underneath the beauty. Spoiler: the woman writing about the magic of raspberries and moss got here through grief, health anxiety, and a series of mortality wake-up calls that refused to be ignored. Jasmine opens up about the years that broke her open. A move from the States back to Finland. COVID. Financial freefall. Her husband's young cousin diagnosed with cancer while pregnant, then losing that battle the same week Jasmine herself was rushed in for emergency surgery from sheer stress. A young woodcutter who walked across her yard one afternoon and was dead a week later. Each loss cracked her certainty that life was something you could plan around. Instead of looking away, she did the rarer thing: she read Atul Gawande's Being Mortal, watched Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about the absurd miracle of existing at all, and let her own mortality become the doorway into gratitude. Tiny Joy Project is what she built on the other side of that reckoning. Emily and Jasmine get tactical about the daily practice of staying alive to your life: no phone for the first hour, ruthless curation of what you consume, childlike curiosity as a discipline, and the radical act of choosing your reality every single morning. They talk about post-traumatic growth, why DEATH is the catalyst for noticing LIFE, the documentary Jasmine is already dreaming up, and the book she never thought she'd write. This conversation is medicine for anyone tired of the noise and quietly starving for permission to exhale. Key Takeaways ● Mortality is not the enemy of JOY, it is the doorway to it. Jasmine's anxiety about dying didn't lift until she stopped running from death and started studying it. ● You are statistically more likely to never exist than to exist. Sitting with that math is one of the fastest routes to gratitude that actually lands in the body. ● Curate your inputs like your nervous system depends on it, because it does. Mute, unfollow, and stop consuming content that whiplashes you between kittens and corpses every three seconds. ● The news is real and the suffering is real, AND it is never the whole story. There is always a comma, never just a period. ● Childlike wonder is a practice, not a personality trait. Asking "who decided clouds should be a thing" is a legitimate spiritual exercise. ● Making the most of LIFE looks less like a bucket list and more like noticing. Be here. Pay attention. Stop drifting. Guest Jasmine is a writer and the creator of The Tiny Joy Project. She writes for people carrying big feelings. Small reminders that beauty still exists, even when everything feels a little broken. Her work has reached millions who needed a reason to exhale. When she’s not noticing sunsets or talking to her dog, she’s probably getting distracted by something small and thinking about it longer than she needs to. Resources Mentioned ● Being Mortal by Atul Gawande: https://www.atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/ ● Neil deGrasse Tyson on the odds of existing: https://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/ ● Tiny Joy Project on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@tinyjoyproject ● Tiny Joy Project on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tinyjoyproject/ Connect with Jasmine ● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tinyjoyproject/ ● Threads: https://www.threads.net/@tinyjoyproject A Jar of Fireflies: https://tally.so/r/Bz1bRe Connect with Emily Join Emily’s mailing list: http://iamemilybingham.com/connect ● Book a Wake-Up Call: https://calendly.com/iamemilybingham/wake-up-call ● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemilybingham/ ● Join the YOLO Year Waitlist: https://iamemilybingham.com/yolo-waitlist #DeathAndDisco #DeathMedicine #NoOneGetsOutAlive #EmilyBingham #LoveAndGrief #TinyJoyProject #JasmineWilder #PostTraumaticGrowth #ChildlikeWonder #MortalityMedicine

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