end-of-life consulting
Dying, and loving someone who is dying can be many things: messy, beautiful, terrifying, holy, and deeply human. Confusion and fear naturally rise up when the ground beneath us shifts.
For caregivers and companions, my work with you is to be a steady guide in uncertain terrain. I’ll help you understand what’s happening, what may be coming, and how to walk with more ease. Beyond panic and what-ifs, there can be space for presence, tenderness, even wonder. Your energy, groundedness and presence help create ease for the one taking their leave. They have things to teach you. You have help to offer they need. What a gift to be invited in to this most precious human experience.
For those nearing the end of your time here, I’ll come alongside if that suits you. This is your journey. I listen for what’s unspoken, help you find language, tools when you need them, and pathways of peace. The pathways are covered with all manner of things: contentment, dark humor, mourning, prayers sent out in cigarette smoke, or maybe burdens you no longer need to carry. There’s talking and companionable silence. Whatever kinds of medicine (family, friends, nature….) you need for your heart and spirit, we’ll sort that out together.
Kinds of Questions
The questions that wake you at 3am, the ones you’re not sure you’re even allowed to ask? You are. Let’s go there.
From family, friends, caregivers:
How will I really, really know when he’s dying?
How can I help him? Eat? Walk? Move?
How do we talk about what she wants as she dies and afterward?
When she can’t talk anymore, how will I know when she’s hurting?
How do I get my family on the same page?
He’s talking in riddles and making gestures; what do they mean?
I’m exhausted; this is all so much. How do I handle it?
She’s not eating. She’s not drinking. How much time is there? What is she waiting for? This is all so much.
How can we create rituals we’ll all find meaningful to guide the process?
From one at end of life:
They can’t treat this. They can’t cure it. I’m dying. What do I need to know?
I’ve never died before. How do I do this? What will it feel like? How do I need to prepare, both practically, mentally, and spiritually?
My dreams are changing. What do they mean?
I’m reaching for things in my sleep. I know I’m doing it. What’s happening?
My family wants me to keep fighting and I’m so tired. How can I help them understand?
Consulting Services
I offer individual and family consultations, virtually or in-person.
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I offer a limited number of consultations each month. If you are local, you come to my office, I can come to you, or we can meet virtually. Let me know what you prefer.
Individual Sessions: $400/90 minutes
Family Session: $750/120 Minutes
Contact me here to schedule.
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I come to where you are and stay for a day or awhile. This is intimate and powerful work. Please contact me for more information.
“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched by them.
How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give.
If I only carry grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering.
Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible.”
- Francis Ward Weller
The Ordinary and Extraordinary
Instead of feeling lost, fearful, anxious, and wondering, “Am I doing this right?”, imagine feeling a sense of calm and hope around dying that you didn’t know was possible.
I’m not pretending this time isn’t difficult. Even though it’s painful, there exists a place inside yourself that you can tap into, one that allows you to lean into what’s happening instead of pulling away, a place where it’s ok to drop resistance if you want to, so you can fully embrace everything that’s present.
For family and friends, this is a place where you can learn to lean on other people, to give and receive, to feel in ways you may never have before now. This time can be deepening and shifting in ways that inform how you’ll live moving forward.
For the one who’s leaving, dying is more than a physical experience. It’s a lot of good-byes and releasing what no longer serves. It’s separation of body and spirit, an unwinding, the practice of going and coming until gone. The body’s releasing of consciousness is nuanced and miraculous. Ordinary and extraordinary.
Lydia told me, “I’m not sure how to do this. I’ve never died before.” Turns out Lydia knew a lot more than she imagined. She hadn’t died before, but she’d lived deeply - she knew how to move forward into the unknown. Some days that was with fierceness. Others with tears. Others with a deep breath and one movement into the next, into the next. Always with love.
Wherever you are, having someone come alongside to notice things aloud, ask important questions in ways others may not know how to ask, offer your family and friends helpful ways to be with you as your body changes, and guide you, or get out of the way, can help make living into your ending a meaningful love-filled experience.
Glennon Doyle Melton uses the word “brutiful”—brutal and beautiful, both—and that can surely describe living into dying.
Supervision & Consultations
I offer consults…
for professionals working with clients at end-of-life
and those managing a personal loss experience in the midst of the important work you do
I’ve advised psychologists, social workers, professional counselors, hospice professionals, death doulas, medical professionals, chaplains, lawyers, care facility administrators, and others. Please contact me for more information.
