“With life as short as a half-taken breath, don’t plant anything but love”
Rumi
WHAT IS AN END-OF-LIFE DOULA?
End-of-life doulas provide companionship, comfort, and guidance to those facing a terminal illness or death. Our non-medical holistic support encompasses emotional, spiritual, and practical care. We offer resources to help the dying person, along with their family and loved ones, make informed decisions in a supportive environment.
A doula can become involved any time in a person’s life. We offer support when people are impacted by a life changing illness, after a terminal diagnosis, when death is imminent, or even after a death—to help with light grief support. Sometimes family members or loved ones of the person dying seek support and guidance from end-of-life doulas.
Doulas normalize deathcare by creating spaces to hold conversations leading to increased communication and increased spiritual and emotional well being. When individuals plan for death, they have autonomy over their decisions and are able to clearly define their end-of-life wishes with family and loved ones. While there are alternative names for end-of-life doulas like death doula, death midwife, death coach, end-of-life coach—we all seek to provide compassionate deathcare.
Definition provided by International End-of-Life Doula Association (INELDA)
How Doulas serve
Provide the opportunity to speak openly and frankly about dying
Talk about creating an advance care directive
Explore the meaning of the dying person’s life and legacy
Discuss and support end-of-life care planning
Develop a plan for how the space looks, feels and sounds
Incorporate traditions or create new rituals to mark special moments
Encourage appropriate ways of touching the dying person
Bring a focused and intuitive presence to the bedside
Assist with physical and practical care to ease the burden on caregivers
Provide respite for exhausted caregivers
Explain the signs and symptoms of the dying process
Process the emotions and experiences with loved ones
Support the spiritual practices of all involved
Guide people through the early stages of grieving
Doula Márcia
I have a strong commitment to bring peace and dignity to the dying process, to support the grieving and to care for our dead. I am interested in integrating death discussions at all layers of society, from family matters to medical procedures. We need to be fully present for people at end-of-life with our hearts fueled by compassion in order to be actively listening to the people involved in the process. I also believe that a meaningful transition and funeral brings alleviation of the pain of grief for loved ones. To further my pursuits, I completed a certificate program in Integrative Thanatology at New York Open Center in 2018, I have been facilitating the completion of Advance Care Directives in NY, I received a professional certificate of end-of-life doula by University of Vermont in 2021 and I completed the end-of-life doula program by Amara, Portugal in 2023. In addition to doula training, I have been guiding meditations in different settings for several years, encouraging people to reduce anxiety and stress through meditation practice and recognize that everyone’s true nature is peaceful finding their own source of happiness within.