Death Doula
Sacred TransitionsWhat is a Death Doula?
A death doula, also known as an end-of-life doula or death midwife, is a trained professional who provides emotional, spiritual, and practical support to individuals nearing the end of their lives. They help individuals and their families navigate the dying process with compassion, dignity, and comfort, offering assistance with planning, emotional companionship, and facilitating meaningful rituals. Their role is to ensure that individuals have the support they need to have a peaceful and meaningful transition.
Joanna Wiley completed her Death Doula Training from Sacred Crossings. She has also been trained in the Peruvian Dying Consciously ~ End of Life Rites (Death Rites) in the “Dying Gracefully” and “Return to the Stars” training.
Death Doula Support
Our death doula Support services provide compassionate and personalized guidance for individuals and families navigating the end-of-life journey. We offer emotional, spiritual, and practical support, ensuring that each person’s final days are filled with dignity, peace, and profound connection.
Our death doula practices are dedicated to creating a supportive environment, addressing fears and anxieties, and honoring the unique wishes and needs of each client and their loved ones. Through our holistic approach, we help individuals embrace the natural process of dying with acceptance and grace.
Embracing the Final Transition
Our transformative death and dying support offers transformative approach to end-of-life care, helping clients navigate the journey with peace, acceptance, and awareness. We provide guidance on addressing fears and beliefs about death, transforming anxiety into open-hearted acceptance through somatic movement and connecting to the source. Clients learn about understanding energy fields and the luminous body, releasing past traumas, and healing ancestral wounds. The support includes family constellation work, exploring the journey of the soul, and incorporating various spiritual and religious perspectives on death and dying. Clients also engage in life reviews and death rehearsals, preparing for their final moments with intention and clarity. Our compassionate approach ensures that clients and their families experience a supportive environment, embracing the end-of-life journey with dignity, love, and profound awareness.
Sacred Passage Guidance and Support
We provide guidance and support for the death journeyer and their family from terminal diagnosis to the last breath, as well as holding space for families through sudden death. Clients learn to complete advance directives, hold the container for fear and sorrow, and avoid death in the I.C.U. The service covers what to say to the dying, the differences between pain and suffering, organ donation, physician aid in dying, and VSED (Voluntarily Stopping Eating & Drinking). Additionally, clients explore the spiritual process of dying, being a healing presence at the deathbed, creating legacy projects, healing relationships and saying goodbye, meditations and practices for relieving death anxiety, and rituals at the deathbed.
End-of-Life Care
Our support provide clients with dedicated support from the final breath through a ceremony, funeral, and final disposition. Our services include support for unexpected deaths, guidance on after-death rites and rituals and compassionate preparation of the body. Additionally, we emphasize self-care for caregivers to prevent burnout. Our holistic approach ensures that clients and their families experience a dignified and respectful end-of-life journey, supported by knowledgeable and compassionate care.
Celebration of Life
Our support honors the unique contributions of individuals and play a vital role in the healing process for loved ones. We guide clients in creating personal and deeply moving funeral and memorial ceremonies. This service includes designing and producing funeral and memorial services, creating sacred spaces, and writing heartfelt eulogies. Clients learn how to channel grief, perform meaningful rituals and tributes, and deliver opening and closing remarks, prayers, and poems. We also offer support for virtual memorial services, graveside services, ashes scattering ceremonies, pet funerals, and writing obituaries. Our interactive approach encourages clients to think creatively, ensuring each ceremony powerfully honors the deceased and provides comfort to those left behind.
Death Doula Services
We offer crucial emotional and psychological support, providing a compassionate presence to help the dying person and their loved ones cope with the emotional aspects of death. We create a safe space for individuals and families to express their fears, concerns, and emotions, offering active listening, companionship, and non-judgmental support. By facilitating conversations about fears and wishes, we ensure that the emotional needs of both the dying person and their loved ones are met, fostering a sense of calm and understanding during this challenging time.
Emotional and Psychological Support:
We offer crucial emotional and psychological support, providing a compassionate presence to help the dying person and their loved ones cope with the emotional aspects of death. We create a safe space for individuals and families to express their fears, concerns, and emotions, offering active listening, companionship, and non-judgmental support. By facilitating conversations about fears and wishes, we ensure that the emotional needs of both the dying person and their loved ones are met, fostering a sense of calm and understanding during this challenging time.
Emotional and Psychological Support:
We offer crucial emotional and psychological support, providing a compassionate presence to help the dying person and their loved ones cope with the emotional aspects of death. We create a safe space for individuals and families to express their fears, concerns, and emotions, offering active listening, companionship, and non-judgmental support. By facilitating conversations about fears and wishes, we ensure that the emotional needs of both the dying person and their loved ones are met, fostering a sense of calm and understanding during this challenging time.
Spiritual Support
We offer spiritual support tailored to the dying person’s beliefs, which may include prayer, rituals, or other spiritual practices to provide comfort and a sense of peace. We respect and honor the spiritual or religious beliefs of the individual, facilitating practices such as meditations, ceremonies, or other meaningful rituals. By providing or coordinating these spiritual services, we help ensure that the dying person finds comfort, meaning, and tranquility during their final days.
Caretaker Support
We provide support for caretakers, offering them the guidance, resources, and respite they need. We assist caretakers in managing the emotional and physical demands of their role, providing practical advice, stress-relief techniques, and access to support networks. Our goal is to ensure that caretakers feel supported and empowered, allowing them to provide the best care possible while maintaining their own well-being.
Practical Assistance
We offer practical assistance by helping with non-medical tasks related to end-of-life planning, such as organizing documents, facilitating advance care planning, assisting with legacy projects, and coordinating with hospice and palliative care teams. We ensure that the dying person’s wishes are documented and respected, and we help make arrangements for home care or hospice. Additionally, we coordinate communication between healthcare providers and family members to ensure that the person’s preferences for their final arrangements are known and honored.
Peaceful Environment
Assisting in creating a calm, comforting, and dignified environment for the dying person. This can involve setting up the space with meaningful objects, music, and scents that bring peace. We provide non-medical comfort measures, such as creating a peaceful environment, offering guided relaxation, meditation or journey practices to alleviate anxiety and discomfort.
Legacy Projects
Our service includes assisting individuals in creating legacy projects, such as memory books, letters, recordings, and other personal mementos to leave behind for loved ones. These projects capture their stories, wisdom, and heartfelt messages, ensuring their legacy and memories live on. By helping to create these meaningful keepsakes, we provide a way for individuals to share their love and leave a lasting impact on their families and friends.
Grief Support
We offer ongoing support to families and loved ones after the passing of their dear one. Our services include facilitating the grieving process by providing valuable resources, connecting them with support groups or therapists, and offering continuous emotional support. We are dedicated to helping families navigate their grief, ensuring they have the necessary tools and compassion to heal during this difficult time.
Planning and Education
We offer planning and education to assist individuals in understanding their end-of-life options, such as advance care planning, creating advance directives, and exploring various end-of-life choices. We help individuals articulate their wishes and goals for their final days, providing information about different medical procedures, hospice care, and other relevant topics. Additionally, we educate families about the dying process, what to expect physically and emotionally, and the available options for care. We advocate for the dying person’s wishes, ensuring they are respected, and help families navigate the healthcare system and hospice services.
Companioning and Support for Loved Ones
Our service includes compassionate companioning, where we offer presence and companionship to the dying person, ensuring they do not feel alone during their final moments. Additionally, we provide support for loved ones by offering guidance, helping them cope with grief, and providing resources for bereavement support. Our goal is to create a comforting and supportive environment for both the dying person and their family, ensuring that everyone feels cared for and supported during this challenging time.
Rituals and Ceremonies
We specialize in creating meaningful rituals and ceremonies to honor and celebrate a person’s life. Our team works closely with you to design personalized ceremonies that reflect the individual’s beliefs, values, and cultural practices. Whether it’s a memorial service, a life celebration, or a sacred ritual, we ensure that every aspect is thoughtfully crafted to pay tribute to the uniqueness of the person being honored.
Offerings
Death Doula CeremoniesDespachos
A despacho is a ceremonial offering in the tradition of Andean shamanism, primarily practiced by the Q’ero people of Peru. Together, we will carefully arrange flowers, seeds, grains, sweets, and other symbolic items into a vibrant mandala, each element representing our gratitude, prayers, and intentions for balance and harmony. This ritual is a way of expressing gratitude, making prayers, and seeking balance and harmony with the natural world. The despacho ceremony involves creating a mandala-like arrangement of various natural elements and symbolic items, each representing different aspects of life and the cosmos.
Aya Despacho
This ceremony is a way in which we can lovingly assist our cherished one to die consciously. It is a deep celebration of the life of the person who is dying (or who has died) that brings energetic closure.
Kuti Despacho
A Kuti Despacho is an Andean ceremonial offering, designed to reverse or transform negative energies, situations, or imbalances. The word “Kuti” means “return” or “turning back” in Quechua, symbolizing the act of sending back or neutralizing negative influences.
Anyi Despacho
An Ayni despacho is a ceremonial offering specifically designed to honor and embody the principle of “Ayni,” which means reciprocity and sacred exchange. This ritual is a powerful way to express gratitude, seek blessings, and maintain balance and harmony with the natural world and the spiritual realm.
Intentional Ceremonies
Creating intentional death and grief ceremonies are essential for honoring the transition of a loved one and providing a structured space for healing. These rituals offer a profound way to connect with the deceased, celebrate their life, and support the emotional and spiritual well-being of those left behind. By engaging in these ceremonies, individuals and families can find solace, express their grief, and foster a sense of peace and continuity during a challenging time.
Apuchetta
An Apuchetta is a sacred stone cairn used in Andean traditions to honor and remember deceased loved ones, facilitating a deep spiritual connection to their memory and presence. Constructing an apuchetta involves gathering stones from meaningful locations, each stone representing a prayer, memory, or offering for the departed.
Custom Flower Essence
In a sacred ceremony, I will create a custom grief flower essence specifically for you or your loved ones, guided by the wisdom of the shamanic tradition. This personalized essence will be crafted with deep intention and reverence, incorporating the healing properties of carefully selected flowers to aid your healing in the end-of-life and grieving process.
Cacao Ceremony
Cacao is known for its heart-opening properties, thanks to compounds like theobromine, which can promote feelings of love, warmth, and connection. During a cacao ceremony, this gentle heart opener can help soften the emotional barriers that often accompany grief, allowing individuals to access and express their feelings more freely.
Death Doula 20 Minute Call
✨ Book your free 20-minute call to discuss your end-of-life plans and your family’s needs.
✨ Uncover and understand key areas of personal energy that need nurturing, empowering you to focus on healing and revitalizing your overall well-being with the guidance and support of a compassionate Death Doula.