When and why did you decide to become an end-of-life doula?  

Death has always felt close at hand. My dad was diagnosed with a rare cancer the summer after I graduated from high school. He lived with his diagnosis for 23 years, so I was always aware of his looming mortality. In freshman year of college, a friend was hit by a car while horseback riding and subsequently died; I was able to say goodbye to her in the hospital just before they removed her life support. Hers was the first death that felt truly close at hand. Then, I had a stroke at 25, which connected me to my own mortality and reinforced early on that we get one shot at life.

I discovered death doulas in 2013 while designing human-centered experiences around aging, palliative care, and oncology. While I immediately saw that doulas fill an important need that families and our health care systems aren’t equipped to support, I hadn’t yet considered the role for myself.

In late 2022, I had a flashbulb moment when a dear friend shared that he had taken the INELDA training; I instantly realized, “Oh! I could be an end-of-life doula!” Until then, my impact on the world had come from leading large teams through human-centered design projects. I had been craving a different kind of impact and connection, and when I saw the opportunity for that in both doula work and coaching, I more intentionally began my transition.

After training, I wasn’t sure what form doula work would take for me. I work for myself, which gives me a ton of flexibility, so I haven’t felt the need to rush things. This has allowed me to stay open and pay attention to what aspects of this work resonate with me. So far, I most enjoy making space for people to reflect inward, have hard conversations, and take action that’s meaningful to them.

How long have you been doing this type of work?

I was INELDA-trained in January of 2023 by Wilka Roig, but I’ve been making my way here for 30 years! I’ve worked in design for health and well-being for the last two decades, and my work has been adjacent to death for a while. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve more explicitly focused on supporting death in this way.

My background is in innovation, and product and service design. Throughout my career I’ve focused on identifying opportunities that only seem obvious in retrospect. Specifically, I worked as a design strategist, researcher, and educator in a field called human-centered design, which is a problem-solving methodology that is grounded in empathy. I applied methods inspired by anthropology to understand what the world looks like for different people. I immersed myself in hospitals, care teams, tech startups, governments, and foundations. Through experts, patients, frontline workers, and hands-on experiences, I’d get to know a given domain intimately, and I’d use what I uncovered to design better products, services, and experiences in and across the health and wellness landscape.

Throughout my career, I’ve designed interactions that uncovered answers to questions people didn’t know to ask, which allowed us spot opportunities that seem obvious only in retrospect. The skill set I’ve developed can be applied to many industries, topics, and roles. Along the way, I realized that I had a capacity for supporting people through complex, taboo, and awkward topics. This discovery gave me the confidence to dip my toe into doula work.

What type of environment do you work in?

I work with people in all stages of life. My one-on-one and group coaching largely takes place online, and I also give educational talks and host events and workshops in-person. I’m in the middle of teaching a six-week, in-person course in the Stanford Continuing Studies program called Creatively Engaging With End-of-Life Planning. The course has two functions: guiding people through a design-led exploration of engaging with death and death planning, and giving me a forum in which I can try different approaches to see what resonates with people.

As I evolve my business and do more things like hosting Death Cafés and putting death education out into the world, I’m also cultivating opportunities to get more exposure to the bedside. I’m a hospice volunteer and I’ve joined the Threshold Choir, so even if I’m not always attending to a doula client when I’m at the bedside, I’m still in the rooms I want to be in, and I still get to show up as a calming presence in those sacred moments.

What do you do before you meet with a new client?

I have two kinds of clients: life and death coaching clients, and end-of-life doulas. With my life and death coaching clients, I send them questions to assess their goals and their starting point, and we have an initial session where I get to know them, their values, and how we will work together. When it comes to coaching doulas, I take them through a process where we look at who they are as a person, what drew them to this work, and the environments and factors that ignite them.

Before meeting with any client, I review my notes about their goals and what came up last time. Just before we chat, I pause and get centered, and I remind myself that the conversation isn’t about me. I have a Post-it Note on my monitor that encourages me with, “You don’t have to fix or to solve, you just have to listen and be.” If I’m really amped up, I’ll either take a walk, or I’ll play my go-to “calm down” song, “Paula” by KSHMR—it works every time!

Can you share a short anecdote or insight that changed you?

I was in Canada, visiting Banff, Alberta, in 2017, when my dad went to the hospital for the last time. My mom had called and told me to come straight home, and I remember sobbing that entire flight, knowing that this trip home was going to be the trip home that I had been dreading for years. I spent Dad’s last week by his side, first in the hospital, and then at home in hospice. My mom, brother, and I were lucky enough to hold his hand as he took his last breaths. Less than a month later, our family home was flooded by Hurricane Irma and I spent the next six months flying between San Francisco and Miami to help Mom.

Experiencing these very different kinds of grief all at once was such a raw and untethered feeling. And although I had anticipated Dad’s death for decades, and as much as I had studied and been around death prior to it, it was as if my brain would not allow me to fully imagine the reality of Dad being gone until it had happened. It’s only now with some distance that I have come to accept that it’s impossible to anticipate how any given loss might affect me, whether it’s a person, a home, a job, etc., and that’s been paradoxically freeing.

Who has been one of your teachers or mentors?

I learn from the many end-of-life doulas on social media, and I devour podcasts and death-related books, so it’s hard to credit just one person. Megan Devine’s tone and approach to speaking about grief has most resonated with my own experiences. I am also a huge fangirl of Dr. Karen Wyatt’s End of Life University podcast.

I also can’t say enough about how helpful the monthly INELDA peer calls have been. They are a tremendous source of vicarious experience that has furthered my education and deepened my confidence. They’ve allowed me to maintain a tether to this work as I build the foundation of my business and create new opportunities to engage with people around death.

What do you wish you had known when you started as a doula?

First, it takes time to gain traction, because doulas are still so new. I knew this at the outset, but I hadn’t realized just how slow the process would be. People don’t know that we exist, what we do, and why we’re valuable. Unless you’re aiming to work on a hospice team or in another health care setting and you have an entry point to do so immediately, you’re signing up to be an entrepreneur in an emerging space.

Second, there’s more than one way to be a doula. After several months of getting to know other doulas and learning about their paths, I started seeing all the nuances in what we do, and I realized that there are many versions of being a death doula. That gave me a starting point and has informed how I’m structuring my own learning. It’s also given me the confidence to design my own flavor of what it looks like to be a doula.

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow doulas?

Death touches almost every aspect of life; there are endless ways for us to be of service. This might sound overwhelming, but I see it as an opportunity. As individuals, we don’t have to support ALL aspects of death and dying. The people we touch are best served by each of us being in tune with our unique flavor of doula-ness, and it makes the process easier for us, too.

The future is wide open. We get to play a role in creating what it looks like to be an end-of-life doula. Take time to figure out what kind of end-of-life doula you want to be. This role is new and requires you to be a bit of an entrepreneur. Identifying your sweet spot and staying flexible will give you the momentum, confidence, and fuel you’ll need to push past challenges along the way.

I’m giving my own doula flavor time and space to emerge naturally. In making my own process transparent, I hope to inspire other doulas to be confident about prototyping their way to their own flavor.

What is your dream for your practice or doulas in general?

People are drawn to this space out of a compassionate impulse, but right now, the path toward being a practicing doula is foggy and full of gaps.

My dream is for there to be a kaleidoscope of end-of-life doulas who feel seen, confident, focused, and of service to people in a variety of ways in and around death.

In addition to my own doula work, I also want to use my design and coaching skills, personal insight, and creative resources to support end-of-life doulas to confidently navigate the landscape, clarify their focus, and find their way to their dream clients.