Creating a sacred space and healing environment for spirit and soul.
Creating a sacred space and healing environment for spirit and soul.
As a Conscious Living and Dying Coach…
- Provide guidance to those who wish to create a meaningful life, mend strained relationships, have important conversations with family and friends, learn to love wholly, and live fully until the very last breath.
- Assist in guided conversation about your desires, wishes, and life priorities well before your time of death while there is time to consider, design, plan and receive what matters most.
- Provide tools and conversation to prepare you, and your family, for the end of life so you can relish every minute of your time here on earth. ”What I want and where I stand.”
- Offer guidance and discussion regarding advanced directives and why it is so important to have them.
As an End of Life Doula…
- Walk along beside the patient and their family offering non-medical, holistic, practical, and emotional support.
- Assist in creating a sacred space and healing environment for the spirit and soul to make its final earthly journey.
- Provide emotional and spiritual support and companionship to individuals who are dying and their families by increasing beauty and contentment in those last days and initiating conversations about the dying process to help ease fear about death.
- Accompany the patient at the bedside and sit vigil, so no one dies alone.
Meet Ann
Sacred End of Life Doula and Conscious Living and Dying Coach
Ann, a certified Sacred Passage End of Life Doula and Conscious Dying Coach, is devoted to providing emotional and spiritual support for those at the end of life and their families. Her personal experiences with loss, including the tragic death of her brother, have led her to strive for a deeper understanding of death's physical, psychological, and social aspects. She has trained as a hospice volunteer, studied under the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation, and completed Pediatric Death training through the Conscious Dying Institute. Based in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Ann's mission is to initiate conversations about the dying process, aiming to alleviate death-related fears and enhance beauty and contentment in life's final days.
Philosophy
We are born and we die, what lies between we call living. We should all strive to live well each moment until our very last breath, regardless of the days we are allotted on this earth; find beauty and contentment each day and consciously live our best life until our spirit and soul make their final earthly journey.
Work hard, don’t carry a grudge, be kind to all living creatures, live with urgency and love with all your heart without hesitation.
Services to Help You or a Loved One
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Best Three Months Life Care Planning
End-of-life conversations and guidance ensure you live your best life gracefully right up to the end.
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Coaching, educating, and advance care planning for individuals and families
Advanced directives, bedside vigils, life review and legacy work, and organizing of after-death planning.
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Before, during, and after life care and grief support
Emotional support, sacred space creation, on-site visits, liaison services for distant families, and care coordination for patients and their families.
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Respite care
Companion visits for both patients and their families.
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Sacred bedside vigil in the final days/hours
Creation of a serene and respectful presence during the final days or hours of a patient's life.
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Bereavement support
Support, emotional assistance, and resources to those dealing with the loss of a loved one.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Conscious Living & Dying Coach offers guided conversation about your desires, wishes and life priorities well before your time of death while there is time to consider, design, plan and receive what matters most. You will be given tools to create a meaningful life, mend strained relationships and initiate important conversations with family and friends.
An End of Life Doula is a non-medical professional that provides holistic support for the dying and their loved ones before, during and after death. Trained in the various End of Life stages, a Doula is able to assist the family with understanding the natural process while providing comfort and support.
Hospice provides comprehensive comfort care as well as support for the family, but, in hospice, attempts to cure the person’s illness are stopped. Hospice care brings together a team of people with special skills - among them nurses, doctors, social workers, spiritual advisors, and trained volunteers. Everyone works together with the person who is dying, the caregiver, and/or the family to provide medical, emotional and spiritual support needed.
Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness, such as cancer or heart failure. Patients in palliative care may receive medical care for their symptoms, or palliative care, along with treatment intended to cure their serious illness. Palliative care is meant to enhance a person’s current care by focusing on quality of life for them and their family.
Hospice care often involves a team of people, such as a social worker, a chaplain, and a nurse who checks a patient’s vitals, administers medication, and changes bandages. Doulas, have no required medical background and do not perform any clinical or medical tasks. Doulas are able to complement the support and care of the Hospice team.
Unlike hospice, the cost of a doula is not covered by Medicare. Private insurers do not reimburse for doulas, either. Doulas may charge an hourly rate or a flat fee depending on the number of visits, location, whether the doula is staying overnight, or other service requests.
Similar to a birth doula, an end-of-life doula tailors services to each client. They offer guidance and education to the patient and their family about the end of life. Many offer respite care, vigil services, companionship to the patient and family, assist with advanced directive and end of life planning.
They typically are not religiously based. Doula services are offered to people of all faiths and no faiths. End of life doulas respond to each client’s unique beliefs and wishes.
After receiving a life-ending medical prognosis, many people choose to contact an End of Life Doula. Other people wait until a few weeks or days prior to death. The earlier contact is made, the more time one has to tailor an end of life plan that is comfortable for the patient and their family.
Resources
Helpful links for individuals and families looking for more information about the following topics
End Of Life & Caregiving
Advanced Care Planning
Community Information
After Death Care
Grief
I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, “No. During the whole spring and summer I was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don’t worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, ‘I will see you again very soon’.” That day there was a wind blowing and, after a while, I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. I was so happy. I bowed my head, knowing that I have a lot to learn from the leaf.
(Thich Nhat Hanh)