What is a Good Life? #104
Awareness Of Life's Fragility with Karen Maurice-O’Leary
Special Announcement 🎉
Late last year, I announced the first two cohorts of my 5-week Silent Conversations course, and I’m excited to share that two new groups are starting this March.
These sessions are a blend of silence, reflection, and emergent conversation—a space to slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with yourself and others. They offer an antidote to the distracted and surface-level nature of modern conversations, revealing something more real, meaningful, and alive.
If this resonates, you can read more or book your place here
The Podcast
On the 104th episode of What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, Karen (Kaz) Maurice-O’Leary. Kaz is a highly awarded brand storyteller and wellbeing leadership speaker, recognised for promoting human-first environments and their impact on innovation. A New Zealander living in California, she has had an international career in advertising and creative technology with major brands and Fortune 500 companies.
Her roles have included Creative Product Lead at Meta LA, Creative Director at TBWA and a co-founder of a successful agency that was acquired. A pivotal moment was inspired by almost, unknowingly missing the last meal of her husband's homemade Bolognese, leading her to create The Bolognese Philosophy, a workplace wellbeing initiative.
In this incredibly life-affirming conversation, Kaz shares her journey of processing the grief following her husband's death. She reflects on her realisations from almost missing their last meal together, to the significance of recognising the small moments, being present, and appreciating the privilege of intimately knowing those in our lives. Kaz underscores the importance of embracing life's fragility, not taking anything for granted, and how whole life can feel when we can hold both its beauty and grief simultaneously.
This conversation felt like a profound gift, and I believe it will leave you with a deeper awareness of life's uncertainties, along with an invitation to focus on what is here, right now.
The weekly clip from the podcast (6 mins), my weekly reflection (3 mins), the full podcast (64 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
2. My weekly reflection
There is a film called Arrival, which is one of my favourites.
In this film, a woman is attempting to learn or decode a language from an alien species.
There is a beautiful sentiment in it that most people learning a new language can appreciate: we often think differently depending on the language we are speaking.
In this case, the language she is learning is not a linear one but is displayed in circles with various distinctions. The consequence of this is that you can remember your future just as naturally as we might remember our past.
The woman knows her daughter is going to die, and yet she chooses to have the child with her partner anyway. Her partner is deeply disturbed by this when he realises she knew what would befall them.
Since becoming a father, this film has popped into my head a number of times. I have often thought, in the first 16 months of my daughter’s life, that if she were to leave us earlier than I’d hope or expect, for the moments of heaven I have experienced, I could not possibly wish to have avoided the scenario.
I consider death quite frequently, truth be told. Not as part of a process, routine, or timetable, but simply as the part of life that it is. It’s hard not to view the fallen and decaying leaves all around me this season and not consider it.
It doesn’t lead me to dark places. Paradoxically, in a culture often uneasy with death, it brings me a greater appreciation for life and the present moment. I cherish what is here.
A few weeks ago, with death somewhat in the air (I had attended the funeral of my wife’s uncle), while spending time with my daughter one evening, I played a beautiful composition by Max Richter on repeat. It was part of Arrival’s soundtrack.
This may sound strange to some. As I sat with her, I found myself contemplating a future where she might not be with me, much like in the film.
As I was feeling all sorts of things in my body, I was left with a very clear inclination. It wasn’t to wish to do something out of the ordinary with her or to promise myself that I would pack this life with her with various trips in an attempt to create “memorable” experiences.
I realised all I could do was to really pay attention to her now – to see her smiling face with such clarity that it would remain etched in my being forever. To embrace her so fully in the next hug that it might linger timelessly, not as a memory to cling to, but as a moment truly lived.
These reflections on life and loss came to mind again during my conversation with Kaz. She shared a stunningly beautiful expression when describing the last time she saw her husband:
“Every time I go to the airport, I look so fondly at that one spot. That was the last moment I ever saw him. And it was so sweet. And so him. And I feel like I've just dropped this little portal of love in that one spot in Auckland airport.”
The sense of someone’s passing and then this “portal of love” from a moment remaining points to both a feeling I have of our finiteness and, in some ways, our infinite nature.
Just as this conversation, primarily around grief, shared so much beauty within the experience.
There is a sentiment that won’t leave me on my path, one beautifully captured by Carl Jung:
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”
Instead of a pursuit of happiness, if I am seeking anything, it is a whole, or a full, life. Paying attention to whatever is here. Whether that leads to moments where my heart feels like it is breaking with sorrow or expanding with an overflowing of love, it feels like an opening for something all the same.
I was recently in the presence of someone whose illness will not improve. My daughter was there too. Sitting in that room, my heart felt like it was simultaneously breaking from the signs of the illness and overflowing from the laughter my daughter was generating. She clapped her hands with a beaming smile, and laughed ecstatically when we all followed suit. At times, it was overwhelming, but there was something incredibly whole about it.
In moments when neither were resisted nor clung onto, the moments could feel divinely full.
Neither cancelled the other out. Just sitting with them both. No mental reframing of the experience, just there. Neither feeling making sense of or justifying the other.
Wherever any of my inquiries go, all I am ever left with is:
Pay attention to this moment.
It doesn’t solve any riddles, make me impervious to pain, or provide me with concrete answers or lifelong plans. However...
Whatever life has in store for me, I can’t imagine a scenario where I would regret paying attention to what is here, right now.
Are there moments in your life that feel divinely full, even amidst sorrow or pain? Is there an equivalent of a “portal of love” that remains from a situation you would never have wished for?
3. Full Episode - Awareness Of Life’s Fragility with Karen Maurice-O’Leary - What is a Good Life? #104
4. This week’s Questions
Is there a relationship in your life that is really in need of greater presence and attention?
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about what you are taking for granted in life?
About Me
I am a coach, podcast host, and writer, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 250 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.
If you’re interested in exploring your own self-inquiry through one-on-one coaching, joining my 5-week Silent Conversations group courses, or fostering greater trust, communication, and connection within your leadership teams, or simply reaching out, feel free to contact me via email or LinkedIn.