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

I was a birth doula in my 20s, and when my dad died in 2022, my strongest reflections in the immediate aftermath of his death were that:

It was magical to witness his death.

Birth and death are basically the same thing, just different.

And there has to be a better way to “do death.”

A few months after he passed, I was sharing these reflections with a retired hospice doctor and I said, “There should be death doulas.” When she said, “There are! That’s a thing!” I knew instantly that I needed to be one. I felt it as deeply and as clearly as when I learned of the existence of birth doulas.

What is your pathway to practicing as a doula?

At the time I learned that death doulas are “a thing,” I already had around 10 years of professional experience in personal finance. When I heard the calling to do death work, I knew that I didn’t want to end my work as a certified financial planner, so initially I wasn’t sure where this new passion would take me.

My dad’s death was a very disruptive event in my life, and I ended up taking about a yearlong sabbatical after he passed to regroup and reorient. It was during this time that I had the epiphany that I wanted to be a certified financial planner and death doula. I had no idea what that meant, or how to do it, but knew I needed to figure it out.

I took my initial training with INELDA in 2023 and began the process of building a model for offering financial planning to individuals facing mortality. Or, said another way, of being a death doula who can also support a client through the maze of financial changes and decisions that come with a diagnosis. I am currently in INELDA’s certification program.

What type of environment do you work in?

I work exclusively virtually via Zoom, primarily with clients in Colorado, though I can technically work with clients in almost any state; it just hinders my capacity to provide vetted referrals. My preference is to work with clients who are relatively close to their time of diagnosis and are likely to have enough time to do thoughtful planning work without the duress of imminent death. I am unlikely to be the doula that sees them all the way through the time of death; rather, I will refer them to another doula who can walk them the rest of the way home.

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

Before I meet with any client—new or existing—I like to take a few minutes before the session starts to ground myself and clear my mind. That usually looks like a few deep breaths, a little stretching or wiggling around, a prayer or intention, and often lighting a candle or burning incense. If there’s something distracting me (grocery list, bill coming due, misunderstanding with a loved one, etc.), I write it down so I don’t have to try to hold it in my mind while I’m with the client. That really helps.

Sometimes I’ll pull an Oracle card after requesting wisdom for how I can best show up for the client, or what subtle energies I could be attuned to within the client that perhaps even they are not yet attuned to. I have had some pretty profound experiences when I do this.

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

When I was just getting started in personal finance, I read an article called “Every Day Should Be a Good Day to Die.” It was written by an insurance agent who was in a nearly fatal car crash, and he wrote about his experience of time slowing as the cars collided, and the wash of clarity, calm, and peace that came over him in that split second.

He remembered thinking, “I’m going to die. I don’t want to die. But if I do, I guess it’s OK. My wife and I kissed and had loving eye contact when we said good-bye this morning. I’m on good terms with both my kids, and their education will be taken care of. My business partner has the resources he needs to take over for me. The life insurance will support my wife through her grief. The will is up to date. I don’t want to die, but everyone I love knows that I love them, and they will be taken care of.” This gave him immeasurable peace and allowed him to accept a situation he could not control.

I have since tried to live every day as if it’s a good day to die. That manifests both in terms of having all my practical matters planned for, reviewed, and updated regularly, and in terms of purposefully working towards harmonious relationships, expressing love and gratitude regularly, pursuing my dreams, and releasing grudges, regrets, and shame. It truly does give me tremendous peace of mind to know that if I died suddenly, there would be very few practical messes left behind, and that the people I love the most will never doubt how deeply I cared about them.

My deepest desire with my work is to effectively support others as they journey towards their own clarity, calm, and peace, however far along that path they get with the time they have.

Who has been one of your teachers or mentors?

I have been deeply inspired and guided by so many generous and wise individuals, personally and professionally. I wouldn’t be where I am now without a massive credit reel to hundreds of people.

But the two who stand out the most in this moment are my mom and dad.

My parents’ very different end-of-life journeys—one marked by avoidance, denial, and unfinished business, the other by courage, grace, and intentionality—showed me how profoundly our relationship to money and mortality shapes not only our final chapter but also the legacy we leave behind. It informs my work deeply.

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

Ugh, I wish I had already had a more highly developed capacity to shut up! I considered myself a good listener, but the drive and conditioning to offer resources, reframes, encouragement, etc. was strong, and is still in an ever-evolving deconditioning process.

I hear myself talking now and I think “WAIT!”—Why Am I Talking? Sometimes I still find myself speaking more for my own benefit than my clients’. I am improving, but it’s a lifetime of unlearning.

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow doulas?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the literal and metaphorical deaths surrounding us today at a large scale—deaths at the hands of law enforcement, a U.S. democracy that’s in the ICU on life support, injustices that disproportionately impact those with fewer resources, wars and their inherent horrors and deaths, and so much more.

As death doulas, I think about the role we have to play in helping the collective be with the changes we are all witnessing, that underlie the immediate and personal losses of illness and death our clients are also facing.

We are no less immune to grief from these collective changes and losses, and it feels more imperative than ever to secure our own oxygen masks—to do the deep personal inner work, to take time off, to hold boundaries, to do less, but do less better, to relish the things that give us connection to beauty, awe, and joy, to say what needs to be said. To scream, to cry, to laugh, to sing, to dance, to engage in ritual. To rest.

If we are the ones who know how to sit with others through loss, we have so much work to do. So let’s anchor, connect with each other, pace ourselves, refuel regularly, and prepare to be with what comes.

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

Aside from the impact I can have one-on-one with my clients by intentionally working at the intersection of death and money, I hope to bring a doula influence to the personal financial planning industry. I don’t know what this looks like yet, but because financial planners deal with illness and death regularly, there is much opportunity to improve death and grief literacy among this group of professionals who absolutely mean well but who are just as prone to unhelpful platitudes as any person who hasn’t learned how to meet loss differently.

Perhaps this influence results in financial planners holding the death doula in equal regard and necessity to the planning process as an attorney or accountant. Perhaps that looks like more planners becoming death doulas and working intentionally at the intersection of death and money, like I do. Maybe it’s helping them deconstruct their instinct for planning urgency, and instead increase their capacity to hold space without agenda.

I can’t see clearly what might be possible here, but my sense is that the industry is ripe and ready for a shift, and I would like to be at the leading edge of that change.