end-of-life coaching
For caregivers - I want to help you understand more about the dying process, what’s happening, what’s on the horizon, and offer tools that can help. My intention is to support you in moving beyond the worry, panic and what-ifs, so that in the midst of all the unknowns at end-of-life, you can be fully present to hard and tedious parts, as well as the wonder and mystery. It’s all there.
What if… in the messy, glorious, life-affirming, deeply ordinary and extraordinary holy space that is dying - even with the hard parts - you and your family could tap into…
…peacefulness?
…calm? …connection? …meaning?
Kinds of Questions
I can help you answer:
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?
Coaching Services
Confusion and fear come with difficult circumstances and the unknown. Let’s sort out some things, discover together what needs to be made known so everyone can settle.
I offer individual and family sessions, virtually or in-person. Family sessions can include coming to agreements, shared understanding of needs and a path forward, and/or bespoke group/family experiences that allow for profound connections, good-byes, and meaningful memories.
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Meeting over Zoom or Facetime, virtual sessions are offered to individuals and families.
Individual Sessions: $300, 90 minutes
Family Session: start @ $500 - 90 Minutes
These may look and feel like a family conference and can help get everyone on the same page as much as possible.
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 supervision for Licensed Professional Counselor Associates (LPC-A) and consultations for professionals working with clients at end-of-life.
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.
