the gentle art of swedish death cleaning by margareta magnusson

When asked if they would try their hand at one of the others' jobs, Blom and Svenson said they'd totally trade places with Engström. Old costumes.Īnd the death cleaners laugh plenty throughout their work on the show. Rummaging through heirlooms brings up happy memories too. Remember that death cleaning can – and should – also be fun. So just look through your stuff and see what serves me here and now.' And you change during lifetime, and so do your needs. 'If you look at your life, it's like a timeline. 'It's an ongoing process,' Engström says.

And it's not always tied to a morose life event. While the show features many different types of people across eight episodes – a man who lost both his parents back-to-back, a woman dying of terminal cancer, empty nesters who want their kids to go through their childhood items – not everyone has to do a major death cleaning like this all at once. 'But just even the process of going through one's things is actually a loving act for your family.' 'It's an ongoing process' 'In general, we have a difficult time thinking about death and thinking about our own mortality,' says Loree Johnson, licensed marriage and family therapist. Swedish culture is more open about it – everyone will die, after all. In American culture, we don't talk about death much. 'And that's why this is such a life-affirming show, even though it carries the word death in the title.' 'You really want your home as well as your bigger life to be a reflection of your purpose, of what you value or how you want to treasure life,' Blom says. Death cleaning is 'life-affirming'ĭon't think of death cleaning as the same as minimalism. 'It's a very deeply rooted way of handling your life in Sweden to not burden other people and also not live excessively,' Svenson says. (The familiar voice Amy Poehler narrates, and she serves as executive producer.) It follows three Swedish death cleaners – Ella Engström, an organizer Johan Svenson, a designer and Katarina Blom, a psychologist – as they assist Americans in Kansas City trying to tidy up their lives, materially and emotionally. 'The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning' is now a TV series streaming on Peacock. But death cleaning isn't just for those near death anyone can do it at anytime: before or after a big life change, or if they're simply sick of all the clutter around them.

The longstanding in Swedish practice – further popularized with the book ' The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning' by Margareta Magnusson – involves a person going through their things so they don't burden their loved ones with too much junk when they die. But it's actually all about living in the present. ' Swedish death cleaning' may sound like a funeral ritual.

The gentle art of swedish death cleaning by margareta magnusson