Integrating the End of Life
I believe that when our bodies die, it is not as much an ending, but a threshold we experience leading us somewhere we won’t know until we arrive.
A great mystery. Our soul’s next adventure.
I approach end of life work as an initiation into conscious reflection, legacy, and presence to the preciousness of human life.
My aim as a Death Doula is to foster healing and integration through meaningful end of life transitions. By offering practical preparation, grounded emotional companionship, legacy design, and guidance in approaching deaths and griefs of all kinds with conscious clarity.
If you are visiting this page, and you are losing or have lost someone in your life – you are not alone.
Take a breath. Feel the ground beneath you.
It’s OK that you are not OK. I see you.
It won’t always feel this way. You deserve support.
What is a Death Doula?
Death/End of Life Doulas work directly with individuals and families in both private and community settings.
In a variety of supportive roles, they accompany you well before, during, and in the wake of a death, dying transition, and grief.
Anyone can hire or work with a Death Doula. You may be within the circle of support around an active death, or you may be the dying person yourself. You may be experiencing some form of identity or relationship death, or you are simply aware of death’s inevitable presence and wish to plan the remainder of your years with foresight and knowledge.
When supporting clients, Death Doulas draw from a wide range of tools and skills, resources, and lived experience to offer within the scope of our role.
And at the heart of Death Doula service – like in all care-centered roles – is the practice of holding compassionate space for the emotional experiences that arise as individuals and families begin or deepen their relationship with mortality.
Why It Matters
When integrated within an existing multi-disciplinary team–including hospital staff, hospice providers, palliative care specialists, and nursing or home care–Death Doulas can make a meaningful difference helping clients feel emotionally supported and respected throughout a death and dying experience.
In the case of physiological dying, part of our role on someone’s team is to encourage their understanding of care options, promote shared and informed decision-making with their care providers, and more peacefully and compassionately approach death.
Because Death Doulas typically work in the communities they also live in, they are able to help families navigate how to honor their loved one’s wishes within the realities of financial circumstances, legal limitations, and access to community resources.
After a death occurs and the grieving process begins to unfold, Death Doulas can also serve to create space for families and loved ones to process, heal, and integrate their loss.
Grief, while often spoken of as an isolating and overwhelming experience, carries much wisdom. Being heard and seen in your personal grief journey can alleviate stress and loneliness, making space for new truths to surface.
Death Doula Services
Care is customized to you – choose services a la carte or a package(s) for the stage you are in or approaching.
Rates vary widely amongst hourly services and packages of care. Schedule a free consultation to discuss your needs and decide what kind of care is right for you.
Conscious Preparation
There is no time like the present to plan for the inevitable. Just because we don’t think or talk about Death, doesn’t mean it won’t happen to all of us. We will begin wherever you are in your journey with mortality. Accepting that we will die one day alters our relationship with death, and is key to how we plan for it.
I will help you outline and execute your planning through ongoing meetings together to discuss any concerns or questions along the way, and refer to trusted financial, legal, and funeral professionals if needed. You will leave with each aspect of your end of life plan completed, pre-paid (when applicable), and documented digitally and in a personalized binder to keep and share with your loved ones.
What’s Included
- Advanced planning documentation
- Consultation and support around personal belongings
- Identifying your preferences
- Understanding care options
- Designing/defining your end-of-life legacy
Honoring Life
Caring for our loved ones through their dying process was once the role of families, friends, and communities. Death used to happen in our homes, and the wisdom of the dying experience was seen, felt, and passed down through generations.
Today with modern medical advancements, the dying process looks very different. Both for the person dying and their circle of support. There are options at the time of Death, just as there are leading up. Managing an active illness and decline can be exhausting, confusing, and downright existential for all involved, and you can die with dignity, agency, and peace when you feel informed and supported through your experience.
These services are meant to help the dying person and their loved ones to reclaim the unfolding of Death as a sacred rite of passage and offer deep opportunity for healing, both individually and collectively.
What’s Included
- Preparation and education of the dying process
- Sitting vigil and respite care
- Processing fears, regrets or after-life beliefs
- Emotional, spiritual and practical companionship during and after death
- After-death care and in-home ritual support
Carrying Grief & Legacy
Being with the bigness of Death and what comes after is a unique journey for each of us. After someone in your life dies, you experience or anticipate a loss of some kind, or you are learning how to be with someone through their grief – the journey is the destination. Sometimes the person we are grieving is ourselves, or a friend, partner, career, opportunity, place, dream. There are many forms of grief, and all of them deserve to be felt. I believe we won’t ever be “done” grieving because we won’t ever be done loving.
I hold the perspective that you are exactly where you need to be, even if where you are is deeply unpleasant. This doesn’t mean suffering is necessary, it means that grief is necessary – to feel and experience along the way to your eventual healing and integration of the loss. I will support you however your grief needs – in exploring and processing your emotional experience through holding space sessions, offering after-death logistical support, and collaborating on or carrying out legacy or memorial projects to honor the lives and identities we have known and loved.
What’s Included
- Support navigating the emotional landscape of grief
- Logistical task support with estate settlement and end-of-life affairs
- Care and organization of personal belongings
- Active listening and processing a death or dying experience
- Creating and celebrating legacy or memorial projects
Let’s Meet You Where You Are…
If you feel unsure whether or not a Death Doula is right for you and the transition you’re in or approaching, reach out and schedule a free consultation. Opening yourself up to someone outside your immediate family or circle of support during such an intimate experience can feel vulnerable. My goal is always just to meet you where you are in service of where you’re going.
