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Up-Level Your Life with Mindy
Up-Level Your Life with Mindy
Shaping the Final Chapter: Death Doula Rae Farer's Insights on Facing Mortality
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Imagine facing the inevitable end with grace, compassion, and a caring presence by your side. Wouldn't it make the journey a little less daunting? Our guest for today, Rae Farrer, a death doula, helps us understand exactly how this can be possible. Rae unveils the world of doulas, who provide specialized care and comfort during the dying process, and how they stand apart from hospice care in offering personalized attention.
Rae enlightens us about the significance of having a trusted individual to voice your end-of-life decisions, and how to initiate these crucial conversations. She shares her journey into this unique profession and how childhood experiences shaped her perception of death. We delve into the various services offered by death doulas, including consulting on advance directives and assisting with funeral arrangements. Rae emphasizes the importance of quality of life and discusses the three phases of the dying process, giving tips for caregivers and loved ones.
Finally, we delve into the concept of 'death positivity'. Rae shares her insights on how to make the dying process smoother for everyone involved, emphasizing the importance of planning and preparation. Join us in this enlightening episode as we learn to navigate death with kindness, compassion, and preparation. It's not just about coming to terms with death, it's about embracing it as another vital part of life's journey.
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Exploring the Role of Death Doulas
Speaker 1Hey friends , this is your host , mindy Duff , and you're listening to Uplevel your Life with Mindy , your number one personal growth podcast that will bring you closer to uncovering your greatest self . As a certified holistic health and nutrition coach , I created this podcast for anyone who desires to improve physically , emotionally and spiritually . I'll be interviewing experts and sharing tips and tricks that have helped not only my clients , but that have guided me on my own transformational journey . I believe that we all have a greatness that lies within . We just need to uncover it . Are you ready to level up ? Let's begin . Hi everyone and welcome back to Uplevel your Life with Mindy . I am your host , mindy Duff , and I have a guest with me .
Speaker 1Today I'm going to be speaking with Rae Farer , and she is a death doula not a topic that you run into on the street every day , not a topic a lot of people want to talk about , but I think it's an important topic that I wanted to again shed some light on . This is part of a series that I'm doing . It doesn't sound very uplifting , but I think that it is . The more you hear from some of these people that I've been interviewing , the more uplifting I think people will realize that this topic of dying really is . If you have missed it , the previous two episodes I had featured Maggie Callanan , who is the author of Final Journeys and Final Gifts . She had wonderful things to say about hospice . But , rae , you are a little bit different than hospice . Being a death doula , I'm really curious to hear your perspective on things here today . Thank you for being here with me tonight . Absolutely Thank you for having me . Before we get going on all of this , why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself ?
Speaker 2My name is Rae Leen . I'm 36 years old . I'm currently 37 weeks pregnant . Expecting our first baby . Being induced on Friday actually is so exciting . I've been around death my whole entire life . I've always felt gravitated towards it . I went to my first funeral at five years old . I lost my first friend in kindergarten and I actually didn't know where he went . I've been around death a lot . For me it's just comfortable to talk about , and not a lot of people have that comfort to talk about it .
Speaker 1I would agree with that 100% . I'm curious your experience as a child ? It must have been somewhat positive . I think sometimes we have experiences as kids that around death and dying that are scary and adults don't talk about it with us and we just make up these horrible stories in our heads and then we turn into adults that have this fear of death and dying . You do not have that fear of death or dying . I'm curious to know what that experience was like for you as a five-year-old .
Speaker 2It was different because I have the intuitive ability to know when someone's going across , originally as a kid . You know how your mouth just flows and you say everything you want to say . I found out a lot of people didn't like hearing what I had to tell them . I actually retreated back onto the sideburner . It wasn't until my late 20s , early mid-30s that I actually came back out with my abilities and growing them . Then I came across and had for a doula and it wasn't on purpose , obviously . I felt the need to strengthen it further and it's been a fun ride ever since . Let's say , it's opening doors , it's talking to people , it's letting them know some information that they didn't know before . It's making them talk about death . People like I said they want to , they're curious , they want to talk about it . Maybe not necessarily know how . That's where the doula may come in .
Speaker 1Yeah , you and I mentioned earlier , right before we got recording , that none of us get out of this alive . Everyone's going to die . We might as well make it a part of just normal everyday conversation and make it a little bit more comfortable . It doesn't have to be such a scary thing .
Speaker 2End of life holds steady at 100% . From telling you One way or the other , you're not alive , right .
Speaker 1You might as well put that for it . I'm curious to know what led you specifically to doing this work . You have these intuitive abilities able to tell when people are going to cross and whatnot . What was it in your late 20s or late 30s that made you go ? Hmm , I should be a death doula .
Speaker 2Honestly , if you ask people why they're so uncomfortable about talking about death , usually it's the fear of it . With me becoming a doula , it was to reduce that fear by having those conversations . A lot of people don't know that there can be different types of doulas . There's the actual end of life doula , where you're at the visual , but there's also elder care doula . If your client's older and has safety issues , they can be more of a caregiver that way , whereas hospice will only come in once a week for an hour , the doula can focus their time solely on that one patient . We have more of what I'm drawn to being the cure consultant and getting those advance directives , personal directives , wills and stuff in line , or at least answering questions .
Speaker 1That leads me to my next question what is your role as a death doula ? You're saying there's different types , but specifically , if somebody calls you up , what are the things that you're going to do to help them ?
Speaker 2I right now gravitate towards the consulting side , so I will sit down with you and actually go over your advance directive of what you want . Say , if , god forbid , you were in an accident and couldn't talk , I would want to know who you would like to represent you as your voice . Do you want to do not resuscitate ? Do you want a feeding tube , for instance ? So then your family members would know and they wouldn't have to guess that what you want . And then on the flip side , there's the funeral aspect . So you can actually start writing down what you want and again your family will have to guess and have that burden on them when they're trying to grieve .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , that's something that I actually have been trying to get my parents to do for a while and I know they're not listening , but if you are listening and you know my mom and dad , you might ask them about this Because they're not very there . I don't know that they're afraid of it , but it's just unpleasant . And who wants to talk about it ? But me , I want to talk about it and I I know too many funeral directors who have said it is when people come in healthy and people come in with their family members to plan these , it is . It's a lighthearted , fun time . They are telling stories , they are laughing and sharing jokes and they're , you know , planning out what they want .
Speaker 1When it's not planned out ahead of time and the families comes in and has to start from scratch , they're obvious . They said it takes more than twice as long to get it done because the family is , you know , they're grieving , they're upset , they don't know it's hard to make decisions because what if they didn't want this or this ? Half of the family thinks it should be this , but the other half of the family thinks it should be that . So when you have it all planned out and written down , that's really such a gift to your loved ones that you're leaving behind . So this sounds very similar to that .
Speaker 2Yeah , and that's what I was looking for , because I , even within my family , have seen that family tension on one of the daughters thought she wanted this and the other ones thought she wanted that , and they don't talk over it . So it's really sad and I have actually read about other families that have gone to court because of it too . So , yeah , the more we can prep a person for what they want and get it out there to their family what they want , the more time they will have with them when that time comes to actually reminisce and think about all the memories they had together and then sort through their grief instead of wondering what they wanted and choosing this and choosing that .
Speaker 2You know and I was very forward with that , and that's what drew me to that consulting type of work .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , I think that's . It's just such important work that you're doing . So I have a question now and again , recognizing the fact that you're saying there's different types of death doulas that are going to do different things , but when is the best time for somebody to call in a death doula ?
Speaker 2It really depends on the situation and the service that you need . So somebody like us who's perfectly healthy or , I assume , perfectly healthy you may want to start your consulting work . So , okay , here's what I want . If this happens to me , here's who's going to be my voice . This is what I wanted to . I need a feeding tube or not ?
Speaker 2Here's what my funeral is going to look like , and you can change it at any time , like through through the years , but at least you have that set up , whereas you might get a totally different patient that just got diagnosed with a totally ill disease .
Speaker 2Then you might be working with a . Okay , maybe they have some of their consulting stuff done or want to work on it , ace the upright , but you have to meet them where they are , because typically with those types , the shock is just so unreal that you could have denial , you could have withdrawal , and there's those types . And then you may just have the older elders that maybe just lost their spouse and they're now living alone , which in itself is a safety hazard if they're older , right , so they might need that check and care . So , for instance , where I'm from , in Edmonton , alberta , canada lots of snow in the winter , so God forbid . They're out shoveling and they fall . Well , some of this role of the doula could be shoveling , doing their dishes , helping them with their day-to-day tasks so that they minimize hurting themselves , and even having conversations if they don't have any family or friends , because they knew that .
Speaker 1Yeah , absolutely yeah , such great , great . It's a very wide scope of things that . I mean you think of a death doula as someone that's just going to come in and just hold your hand until you die , I guess is kind of the image you know , just like there's birth doulas that are there to help the mom during labor . But it's really . It's so much more than that , more than we can be there for the vigil period , absolutely .
Speaker 2But there's just such a wide scope of what the doula can do for an elder or even like healthy people to prepare , and it's just what drew me to the work was helping people and getting stuff and minimizing that trauma that's going to be escalated if nothing's prepared . You know yeah absolutely .
Speaker 1Now you've mentioned this a little bit and I'm just curious on your perspective here . If you have an opinion , I feel like you will . So you mentioned for someone like me or I who was relatively healthy and we could set up our kind of our directives right now if we wanted to , and setting up that person that's going to be the spokesperson for you Now . Is there a certain person or type of person that you recommend for this ? Because I will tell you right now that I think a lot of people think , oh well , I'll just have my husband be the one in charge that can say whether to pull the plug or not , but is that always the best idea ?
Speaker 2Not necessarily .
Death Doula's Role in End-of-Life Care
Speaker 2It honestly depends on the comfort level of your spouse or loved one . If they're not comfortable with it , I wouldn't really recommend them being it . You can absolutely have like a close friend , do it for you , but you want to make sure before choosing someone that you have that conversation with them and make sure that if the doctor is saying one thing , that they advocate for you , that you wanted something else , keep in mind that the doctor probably has the last day because they can override your wishes if they feel that medically it's best for you to do what they want . Right , but yeah , if the person isn't comfortable doing it , it's not a high chance that they're going to want to advocate for you and be your voice when you need it .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , you would need to have a person that was going to be very strong and not emotional about the decision . I mean , they're going to , obviously , if they're close to you , be emotional about the situation . But to be able to carry forth those wishes and I don't know for my very closest loved ones I don't think I could do it , depending on who they are and what their wishes were . But then other people I'm a little bit more removed from , if that's what they wanted , sure I can step in and say that . So yeah , I just wanted to bring that up because I think that's not something that we just think , oh , you're very most closest loved one , that's the one that's going to make the decisions , and sometimes it probably can work that way . But , boy , not always .
Speaker 2No one knows at all . There's a lot of people that aren't comfortable with it and , honestly , that's not really who you want to be your voice either . Yeah , you'll definitely want to have some conversations just to feel out who your people are .
Speaker 1Yeah , so now I'm curious to hear your perspective on the difference between your role versus , like , a traditional hospice . Now , obviously , hospice nurses are going to come in and do things on the medical side , which I'm sure you're not doing . You're not giving drugs and things like that , necessarily . But what is different between your role as a death doula and hospice care ?
Speaker 2Well at home . Specifically , you're absolutely right , a doula cannot be a medical person , but they care for the person and their family on a holistic level , so that means physically , emotionally and spiritually . You can also recommend suggestions for optimum comfort as the body is declining . And the biggest difference between the two is the doula can focus on that one client for multiple hours in a day , whereas hospice might only be able to come in , say , an hour a week .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I will for those of you that have listened to the previous two podcasts with Maggie Kellenan . Again , she won't let me say retired , because she says hospice nurses never retire , but she was there when hospice got started and it was very personalized and I don't think this came through on those podcast episodes . But now hospice has become more privatized , is my understanding . Maggie and I have had this conversation , I think privately , and you're not necessarily back in the day hospice you would get maybe here's your hospice nurse and that is your one nurse and she's the one that's going to be there all the time . And now that's not always the case . It's just going to depend on where you are in the world , where you are in the world and what company is closest to you that's providing that hospice care , and they might be limited , like you say , on their hours . You might only get them once for an hour a week or maybe you get them more often .
Speaker 1It definitely depends on where you're geographically located in that particular business , because hospice has become a business now , like it or not , and I know that in Maggie's words . She said if that's what it takes to keep hospice surviving , that it had to become privatized , then I guess . Good , at least it's still a thing , but that , I think , is so . One of the nice things about this having a death doula is you're having that's your person . You're not having 20 different people in and out of your room or house constantly . This is your raise , your person . She's your person . That's going to come in , she's going to be familiar with you , she's going to get to know , you get to know your family and you're going to feel like she's part of your team and looking out for your best interests . So I think that is such an asset .
Speaker 2And it is because , unfortunately , as a society we have actually taken the death and dying process to more of a medical state of mind anyway . So with the doula and the more holistic approaches we're actually starting to go back to focusing on our elderly and our dying Not necessarily just elderly but our dying and making that transition process as peaceful as possible for them .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , which is wonderful because death is so . It's as natural as birth and I think we've tend to medicalize birth a lot as well , and I can see both sides of the coin on that with birth . Because you're getting ready to do this yourself not too long from now , just a few days . I wish you the best of luck with that . But being in a medical facility , in a hospital or whatnot , when you're having a baby maybe not a bad idea , because if something were to go wrong , people are there right away to help fix that . But that's pretty recent in human history that we've had that capability to even have this medical technology . And I will say , being a person that has birthed two in a hospital and one accidentally not in a hospital , that's a story for another day . There actually is a podcast episode about that , If you're curious . It's not on my podcast , it's on the Golden Birth Hour , but where I share that story .
Speaker 1But it is so natural and that took me , having a completely natural birth , to realize . Oh well , I guess I'm not doing anything here . My body is just kind of taking over because it knows what to do and death is the same . We didn't know how to be born . We don't necessarily know how to die , but it's not a conscious thing that you have to try to do it right . Your body is just , you're just going to do that . So it's very natural and I like that you're kind of bringing that natural aspect back to the dying and not such a medically it's not a problem , it's just is .
Quality of Life Versus Quantity
Speaker 2Really nothing against hospitals or being medically treated , because there are those that have those issues that do need medical attention , but at the end of the day , it does come down to quality of life versus quantity , right ? So if you have a cancer patient , for example , who's terminally ill and in the higher stages , I guarantee you that they'd rather stay home and live out the rest of their days with their family happily , instead of going through chemo and maybe a tiny chance meeting it . But then what if they go through it and it doesn't do anything anyway ? So then I know me personally , I would rather stay at home , enjoy the last times with my family , friends , make all the memories , do the things I want to do , instead of going to the hospital like three times a week for chemo or I'm not sure how many times , but you get the picture .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , absolutely yeah . I'm right there with you . Make the most of the time that you have , rather than fighting against everything . So what are some things that you wish that everyone knew about dying ?
Speaker 2I'm a big advocate for planning , and the one reason why is because of unfinished business . Because we see a lot of people who are in that transition phase going from their body outside and they're hanging on because they have unfinished business and it's usually about forgiveness and situations with close family or loved ones and because that unfinished business is an unsettled or remains unsettled , they stay and it's unfortunate because maybe it's they're waiting for that person to forgive them , or maybe they're waiting to say that they forgive them in return . It could be as little as them waiting for a date to pass as well . So like , say , if their birthday is two days away and they're baffling healthcare professionals at this point , why are they still alive , right and consciously they know their birthday is two days away ? They may wait . They may wait to talk to a certain someone that they haven't seen in a while .
Speaker 1I've heard of also , almost like they don't want to ruin like a holiday , so they don't want to die on Christmas . So they kind of hang on so that the family doesn't always remember that , oh , christmas days the day grandma died . Well , they'll remember that time , but then grandma didn't actually die until you know , three days later . She hung on so she'd miss it .
Speaker 2That too , and another big one is we tend to overwhelm the dying by always being in the room with them and in essence , the person dying doesn't want you to remember them how they look on their death bed . So that's why a lot of time they will actually wait till everyone leaves the room so that they can pass , because then you don't have that picture of them passing if it looks bad it doesn't always look bad , but there are signs and then you can just remember them how they were .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , just to give the family that one last gift of like . Maybe you don't need to notice the very second that I go Right .
Speaker 2And death is the leading cause of fear in the world . But it's such a natural process , yeah , and like prepping for it and just having those conversations even makes it so much more at peace that they can transition so much easier .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , absolutely so , Ray . What is one actually ? Before I ask you that , do you have any tips for caregivers or terminally ill loved ones ? I know it's not something that anyone plans on going through , but statistically , many of us will have to become caregivers of loved ones with terminal illness , and it's not always an easy thing . But I'm curious to hear what your tips are .
Speaker 2So there's actually three phases in the dying process . One is the shock phase and with terminally ill . That shock is very high , because you're just being told that you no longer have control of your life . In essence , right .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2So a lot of people forget that this shock can lead into depression , denial , withdrawal , anger . Even so , it's important to be a strong presence and supportive and a good listener . So even as little as asking them what can I do for you , so it gives them that control back , to feel that they're in control of at least something right now . And that's when they need it most to feel in control , because when they get that diagnosis , they're going to feel like their whole world came upside down . The other thing would be looking for immediate issues that would need to be addressed , so safety , pain , exhaustion from their disease . I would also probably recommend looking up their specific disease . Everyone's different as to how they go through the disease , but the way the body shuts down is fairly similar . Everyone goes through the same type of steps , but not everyone goes through the exact steps . Just being there as a mental support and someone to talk to and talk out how they're feeling , I think is the biggest thing that we can actually do for the terminally ill , especially when they just find out .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's a tough thing to hear , but really can be a gift if you can . I wouldn't expect everyone receiving a terminal illness to immediately see it as a gift because you want to keep on living , but in terms of dying , the terminal illness really is the gift because you're given that gift of time , the gift to say goodbyes and the gift to do things on your own terms . So yeah , but still tough for everybody all around for sure . So , ray , what is one final takeaway that you hope everyone listening to this gains ?
Speaker 2Prep , prep , prep . The more you can prep and have those conversations , the better off you're going to be and give that gift to your loved one . I'm starting my own business shortly and it's soaring souls that my mantra is going to be getting comfortable with the uncomfortable , because 100% have those uncomfortable conversations because you may not like doing it , but in the long run it'll be way easier to optimize and have your loved one go in a peaceful frame of mind that they're leaving their loved ones in a state that is best , and not knowing like they'll know what they want .
Speaker 2So they're not guessing . Yeah , and there's a little smell unfinished business left behind .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , it really . It really is such a gift and I know it's so tempting to think , oh , I'll do that later or I'll do that when I'm old , or old you know . But even if you're , if you're over 18 , even if you're under 18 and listening , you can still like express your wishes to your parents or caregivers . Everyone can . If you're alive and can listen to this , you can . You have opinions on what you would like and what you wouldn't like . And maybe maybe you don't jot every single thing down , maybe you don't plan out the entire funeral and pick all the songs and who's gonna speak or do all that , but at least you know the important things or tell somebody that this , this is what's important to me .
Speaker 1I don't care about the rest of it . You can do whatever you want . You can sing whatever songs you want . I don't care , I won't be here , that's for you . You pick that . But if it's up to me , I want you know , I wanna , I wanna do not resuscitate . I want you know whatever , whatever it is that you want , I wanna be an organ donor , if I can , or all those things , but do it now . It's not . It's just like nobody wants to go sit down with their insurance agent and talk about life insurance either , but that's something that we just all go do because it's a good idea to go do it . Well , this is something that's also just kind of part of being a responsible adult and just kind of planning ahead , because , again , it's such a gift for the loved ones .
Speaker 2The other thing about planning too is to minimize that hump , I guess , is passwords . Like nobody thinks about internet passwords or banking information , and I just see a lot of people just go through hardship trying to get all this stuff sorted out , whereas if we were left the passwords and maybe even having our name on that bank account at the end of the day , it would be so much easier to just sort out .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2And like the more prep equals the more positive depth experience , and that's what I'm all about . Yeah , and just opening the eyes of people to be accepted , about even having the conversation , because as a society we're actually growing on the options that are available out there for us . Like you , talk to people and a lot of especially the older kind of religious people think that their body disposition is just burial or cremation . Well , there's a lot more choices out there and not a lot of them know that .
Speaker 1So , yeah , yeah , I remember seeing something once about how you could be , I don't know , like buried with a tree or part of a tree , the roots so that like as that tree grows , like your body essentially kind of is fertilizing it , and so you in essence quasi become the tree . I mean , what a cool yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , there's actually in the States . They have a place called recompose and they put your body in a vessel and , with wood chips and a little bit of heat , and it actually turns your body into soil . Oh wow . So your loved one can take you home a soil and plant you as a flower bed or flower garden or visit you every day , yeah , and you can go and life that . But there's others that would be drawn to them right , yeah ?
Speaker 1absolutely . I think that the moral of the story is there are a lot of choices out there , because , I mean , there's so many different types of people out there , so of course we've got all kinds of different choices . There's no reason why the dying process is any different than everything else in terms of choices and how the experience could go . But if we keep it in the closet and we don't talk about it , you know , you're never gonna know . So I think that , having people like you on Ray , I'm appreciative of the work that you're doing and helping kind of spread this word of you know the dying process . We're all gonna go through it one way or another , and why not talk about it ? Let's talk about it , let's plan about it , just like you plan anything else and make it what you want .
Speaker 2And if you're having any trouble talking about it , there's actually decks you can buy , and there's one that I have . It's actually called a death deck and it'll have questions on there that instigate the conversation . So you don't have to and it gives you choices , like , if you were dying right now , what smell would you want in the room ? A , candles , b , essential oils or C , I don't know nothing . Or maybe your favorite baked good or food . It's just something like that that not everyone is thinking about . Yeah , yeah , but it's great to do that . Yeah , and it's like a card game .
Speaker 2Essentially , I was gonna say A little bit morbid on the morbid side , but it helps you to divulge that information that may not have been divulged otherwise .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , just to kind of get that conversation started . Yeah , oh , I like that , of course , there's a deck for it . There's a deck for it . There's a deck for everything . Well , ray , thank you so much for being on today . If people wanna know a little bit more about you , is there a place where they can go and find more about you or about being a Death Dula ?
Speaker 2There's . The course that I took is Dula Givers International . There's some other great resources . That is the Death Dula network of BC , which has Dulas from all over Canada . My personal Facebook is Ray O'Farrer . I am kind of going to be on that leave soon . So I'm setting up a Facebook group called Soaring Souls . That's where I'll be , but bear with me because I'll have a little one here soon . That's gonna be taking some of my time . But any questions you may have , shoot me a message and I'll get back to you when I can .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I will of course , put those links in the show notes so that everybody can find you easily . Ray , best of luck at the end of this week with Baby that's Coming . Super excited to see how that whole process unfolds for you . I know it's gonna go wonderfully . You'll be blessed with your little bundle so excited . I'm actually just excited to see the pictures , but that's okay . Love the new baby pictures and again , thank you for being on today .
Exploring Death Positivity and Future Episodes
Speaker 2Thank you so much for having me and just getting the chance to voice what people need to hear more and about the prep work so that they can make their lives a little bit easier and let's make this world a little more death positive .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , absolutely so . Everyone that's listening today . I hope that you gained a little bit from this conversation . If nothing else , I hope it got some wheels turning in your own brain in terms of prep work and your own death process . Again , nobody's getting out alive , so we might as well think about it a little bit . And , wherever you are at , I hope you were having a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next one , ["the Future Episodes"] . That's it for today . Friends , if you enjoyed this episode , don't forget to subscribe or , even better , leave a review and let me know what resonated with you the most . The more you tell me what you love , the better I'm able to create future episodes with even better content . I'm sending you so much love and light . I'll see you in the next episode .