Death Doula Services

I spent my childhood with what I call MAX DEATH ANXIETY. Knowing what I know now about all of the information my brain/body were trying to process about spirit and my early trauma, I’m proud of myself for making it through my childhood and teen years. I recognize how lucky I am that I had all of my grandparents and parents still alive but one grandparent at the age of 33. The only experiences I had with death as a child was my “step-sister” losing her best friend as a teenager. When I was 18, my best friend overdosed accidentally. It was traumatic – I woke up from a sound sleep with a startle and a scream. I couldn’t find him for days, but I knew something was wrong. I had felt sick the entire week before – arguing with myself that I needed to change my train ticket to go to the city he was in, not the one I was planning to visit over reading week.

Similarly, a few years later when my estranged grandfather died, I still got really sick the week before. My mood was terrible, and I couldn’t figure out what was off. When he passed, I didn’t go to my family to see them – we weren’t on good terms. I didn’t know how to interact with my family and I didn’t know how to talk about the malaise I had experienced leading up to that.

My husband has a large extended family. I wasn’t a part of the family yet, so when he lost his grandparent in our teen years, I didn’t feel anything. As an adult, he lost two family members quickly at the end of 2017. I had the same kind of experience and I ended up crying excessively after they died. I was struggling to connect me feeling lethargic, tired, sick to my stomach leading up to their death and me processing grief that wasn’t mine after they were gone. I struggled being in the funeral services, and I remember my husband snapping at me because I was being too emotional and making it about me. I had to take my experience to the person I was accessing therapeutic services from. They had similar experiences and would become a mentor as time went on. I’m glad that I connected with this person because between 2018 and 2023 alone, I have had several of my grandparents, aunts, husband’s family, and even my mother go. If I hadn’t of reached out to figure myself out when I did, I would have crumbled.

We tell people that have experiences like I do that they are crazy. It’s coincidences and made up in our heads. I have done enough work in grounding and getting to know my body/mind/soul to know that I’m not delusional in my experiences. I have helped all kinds of souls pass unconsciously, unaware of what I was doing or the toll that it was taking on my mental and physical health. Learning from someone with similar experiences means that this process does not impact me the same way. By consciously processing what I’m experiencing, it no longer drains me down the same way.

This wasn’t an easy process going from someone that would shake if asked go into a cemetery; refused to go look at spooky places with then boyfriend in college when he really REALLY wanted to; and wouldn’t be able to sleep for weeks if I watched even a glimpse of a ghost movie to… wanting to help other people reduce their death anxiety. How does that happen? It was a slow shift. The more I opened up to spirit, the more I realized how much of the intergenerational conflict we experience comes from wounds and traumas not ending with the dead – them being carried forward. I want to do what I can with families to help resolve conflicts before people pass – and to help people who know they are going make sure they have better experiences with the dying process. I lost someone significant in 2020 and ended up taking a death doula certificate shortly after. I knew when I was ready to launch, this would be a part of what I offered. I feel very prepared to help people process their fears about death and to resolve issues that they don’t need to take with them when they die.

Anyone can go and take a death doula course. There are all kinds of wonderful people without the extra senses I’m describing that work empathetically to do the same work. What I’m describing above is some of what I bring to being a death doula – it’s not a part of me I would want to shut off anymore. Some of the ways I can support terminally ill people and their families are:

• Health assessing/coaching – I am able to blend aspects of my practice. Doing regular health check ins to help you navigate your treatment pathways and medical decline is available.

• End of Life Care wishes – I think it’s really important for where possible, people get to have a death that respects their wishes. There are a lot of treatment options. People are unique with their preferences, values, cultural practices, spiritual beliefs, and anxieties. Bringing respect and dignity to the end of life process is important to me. We will come up with a comprehensive care plan together. I will make sure they are upheld with your medical practitioners and family.

• Doing a life review – narrative sessions where we work together to put your life events down on paper. This could take a few forms:

1. You may be looking at this just from a therapeutic point of view – you want to talk through where you’ve been and resolve/let go of things that are weighing on you. We write out the things that were significant in your life and make a plan of what issues can be tackled and how.

2. You may not want to examine things. You may just be interested in putting the details of your life down on paper. We can do that as jot events. We can take it one step further and put your story down fluidly – if you aren’t a writer, I definitely am.

3. You may want to do some kind of creative project to commemorate the life you lived. The possibilities for this are endless. You might want to make something for your children/grandchildren to have of you. You may want to do a photobook with your story. Again – the potential here is endless.

• Identifying key interpersonal issues that need to be resolved. Individual and group narrative sessions to help person dying and their family to work though unresolved conflict. Support for family members to work through the stress of having someone close to them dying.

• Putting together a plan for what you want to happen after you die (see more below)

• Reiki sessions for the person dying – relieves anxiety, stress, helps process soul/emotional blocks, and reduces pain

• Reiki sessions for family/friends - similarly reduces anxiety/stress, helps process soul/emotional blocks, and helps process the impending loss

• Grief sessions (reiki or narrative) after death to help surviving family process feelings and conflict

Some death doula’s provide bedside vigil services for when the person transitioning is close to dying. I am not at a phase in my life where I can be on call the way that I would need to be to be able to provide this service reliably. When my children are more grown, I may consider adding this feature in.

That being said – timing works out for me a lot. If I really need to be with a family or they really need this support, and it works out that I can come to a family to be with them while they wait for their loved one to pass – I absolutely will. It’s just, not something that I’m willing to offer as a service regularly right now. I don’t want anyone to feel like they wouldn’t be supported by me. I do my best to make myself available to families when the person is close to death and after to support with the transition.

Finally, the service that I am excited to offer is helping people put together plans for after they die. This is a service I am happy to provide to anyone who is doing it for healthy reasons. If you want to sit down and put your wishes onto paper, so that you have something to give your family, I support that. It’s something I’ve been slowly making my family members do as their own death anxiety will allow them to. If you are experiencing big existential dread or extreme death anxiety and approach me about putting your wishes on paper, I am the type of person to tell you we need to address the anxiety before I will work with you on this.

If you’ve ever had to plan a funeral for a loved one that never talked about death because it as a bad omen/too anxiety provoking, it is an awful process. As someone who is grieving, you now have to sort through your own feelings and try to decide what someone would want. There is often conflict among surviving family members about what the person would want. Laying out your wishes on paper and putting together a will isn’t an unhealthy thing to do. Having your thoughts collected on paper make it a lot easier to approach the conversation with your loved ones. If they struggle with being given the information, you will have gentle conversations with them about not wanting them to ever be caught in the emotional storm of grieving and having to make these difficult choices.

My other reason for healthy, non-terminal people doing this is that if you have traditions that you want incorporated that would upset your family to know about – you need to make your wishes known in advance. Similarly, you may not align with the cultural or religious practices that your family will automatically put into place in the event of your death. I firmly believe we all have the right to live and to die on our terms. You making your wishes known on paper – make it more likely that they will be followed through with.

Whatever your reasons for wanting to work with a death doula - I am very excited to be working with people to help reduce some of the suffering that death causes.