How to Become a Death Doula - Premium Episode

Subscriber-only episode

An edited video version of this episode is available here: https://youtu.be/9bLisrm7q4w

In this podcast episode, the hosts engage with experienced death doulas to explore the journey of becoming a death doula, the personal inspirations behind their work, and the training involved. The conversation highlights the importance of community support, the calling to serve the dying, and the unique philosophy guiding their practice, including recognizing their work as a form of ministry. This conversation delves into the multifaceted role of end-of-life doulas, exploring their training, the importance of community education, and the business aspects of their work. The speakers discuss the evolution of death care practices, the significance of supporting families, and the need for a comprehensive curriculum that addresses both practical and emotional aspects of dying. They emphasize the importance of finding a personal path in this field and educating the community about the value of doula services. This conversation delves into the multifaceted role of death doulas, exploring the challenges and rewards of providing end-of-life care. The speakers discuss the importance of transparency in pricing, the emotional complexities of discussing fees, and the necessity of promoting doula services within the community. Personal stories highlight the profound impact of compassionate care and the significance of medical aid in dying. The conversation emphasizes the need for humility, support, and love in navigating the sensitive terrain of death and dying.

- From Corey for Doorway Into Light: Info about the upcoming 7-week online course "Facing Death Nourishing Life" - The first class is on Feb. 17th
- Our viewers can use the code DISCOUNT2025 to receive $200 off Standard Tuition. Registration link 

Doorway Into Light website

LiElla's Leaving Well website

Jerrigrace's Final Passages website

You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and BlueSky. You are also invited to subscribe to support us financially. Anyone who supports us at any level will have access to Premium content, special online meet-ups, and one on one time with Annalouiza or Wakil.

And we would love your feedback and want to hear your stories. You can email us at endoflifeconvo@gmail.com.

Transcript

Wakil David Matthews (00:06.102)
Hello, friends. We are so glad to be doing this podcast today with our friends, all of whom are death doulas, two of whom are teachers, because we wanted to talk to you all about the way you can work on becoming a death doula if you're interested. So if you've listened to our podcast before, you've heard from death doulas, some of these folks. We thought it would be valuable to those of you who are supporting us so wonderfully to offer this premium video episode talking with these teachers and a couple of doulas just to see what it takes. What does it take to become a doula?

Annalouiza (00:52.743)
Yes, and if you have listened enough, you're curious, some doulas do it different and some trainings are very different. So we really wanted to invite some folks to share with us what it is that they do as doulas and maybe how you can find what you need if you're ready for a doula. We are so delighted to have Jerry Grace Lyons, LiElla Kelly and Corey Westbury joining us today. Thank you so much for being here with us.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (01:26.702)
Thank you for having us.

LiElla Kelly (01:27.273)
Thank you.

Annalouiza (01:27.847)
I'm like, yes. So let's just start by introducing ourselves or yourselves, excuse me, and tell us where you are and your preferred or primary area of practice. And let's get started with Corey.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (01:44.178)
Thank you so much. It's so awesome to be here with you all. Yeah, I'm Corey. I live on Maui on the North Shore in a little community called Haiku. And I work at two nonprofits out here. One is Doorway in Delight, which is the one that offers the doula trainings that we'll dive into later. And then I also work at Hospice Maui as a community aide, so providing hands-on personal care for people that are on the hospice services. I always like to say I'm kind of like an undercover doula in that role. mean, I'm very transparent with the work I do at both nonprofits and just in the spirit of supporting community with my gifts. That's where I know I'm meant to be right now. 

So right now, most of my practice as a doula is really being with dying people, whether that's educating them and their people providing the care for them and their people. And then over the last year or so really stepping into this role as a teacher under the really beautiful mentorship and support of Reverend Bodhi Be. Still seems surreal, but I'm talking with you all right now. So it's happening, which is beautiful. So that's a little bit about me and where my focuses are right now.

Wakil David Matthews (03:05.774)
Great, thank you.

Annalouiza (03:06.063)
Thank you, Corey. Jerry Grace, would you share with us a little bit about yourself?

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (03:12.152)
I'm a death midwife and slash doula educator and a celebrant, medical aid and dying support doula and now final exit network support doula. And I started a nonprofit 30 years ago called Final Passages. I'm the executive director and it takes a lot of my time to run our programs. I created a certificate program teaching people about how to become an end of life doula, preparing for end of life, home funeral guidance, and some about grief.

And so that takes time, plus we run some free programs monthly and bimonthly on embracing end of life, topics on dying death and grief. And that's, we have educate or communicate community about all kinds of topics on end of life. So that's me full practice and also do a lot of guiding families.

Wakil David Matthews (04:30.052)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow.
Yeah, sounds like a full life. Where are you in? Where do you live?

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (04:41.272)
I live in Sebastopol, California. That's about north of San Francisco.

Wakil David Matthews (04:46.208)
Okay. Yeah.

Annalouiza (04:47.398)
Okay.

Annalouiza (04:52.504)
Thank you, Jerry. LiElla, share with us.

LiElla Kelly (04:57.247)
I live in Helena, Montana, and I became a doula about four years ago. I kind of came from personal experiences where deciding that, boy, that could have been done better if only there was this or there was that. that just kind of kept replaying over and over again. And so I started thinking like, there's got to be a way to help people at the end of life when everything gets so chaotic and I did not know what a death doula was, what an end of life doula was, but I kept coming up with this idea that this should exist and then I found out that it did in fact exist. I think what I saw was a TED talk with Elua Arthur and I was just like that's it, that's exactly what I've been trying to figure out how to do. So that's how I got into it.

And now my biggest passions are helping people to pre-plan whether they're completely healthy. Just, I'm a big fan of organizing. Just absolutely love it. It's my favorite thing to do. So I like to help people, you know, whether they're completely healthy or unfortunately, usually people don't really come to that step until they have some kind of crisis, but that's fine. We can just, we just take what we got, start there.

Wakil David Matthews (06:24.279)
Yeah.

LiElla Kelly (06:26.437)
And then I do regular doula work. And the other thing that I'm super passionate about is after-death care, just helping families to connect with their loved one in the hours immediately following a death that I think is such a game changer. And so that's what I'm trying to educate on and make more normal in our community, the way I live.

Annalouiza (06:53.595)
Mmm.

Wakil David Matthews (06:55.262)
Great, so important. Yeah. I'm so in love with all three of you already. So great to meet you. Why don't we go around again and just have you tell us a little bit about what inspired you. You kind of spoke to this, so maybe we'll start with you, LiElla. So LiElla, why don't you tell us a little bit more about what inspired you and you said you saw a podcast and, is there anything else that was just like touched you and made you feel like this is really where I want to be?

LiElla Kelly (08:01.695)
What I had noticed about myself personally is that when crises happened for people, so many people shy away from that, they don't know what to do. I am a super introverted person. I don't want to be in social situations. And yet these hard things would come up and that was the thing that I always ran to. That was when I decided.

Annalouiza (08:15.397)
Mm-hmm.

LiElla Kelly (08:30.235)
Suddenly I had all these skills and I could talk to whoever I needed to. That was, it was an interesting, just recognition in myself of like, why is that the thing? Why can I show up there when I can't show up in like a normal setting? And then, you know, as you go throughout life, I, it's not, I guess I had the privilege of knowing people at the end of their life and just you know, finding ways where I could show up and because that was a natural part for me when I found out that I could do this, it just, it was obvious that's where I needed to be.

Annalouiza (09:10.447)
Mm-hmm. Mm. So affirming, too. Like, about who you are, right? So, it's lovely.

Wakil David Matthews (09:11.48)
Yeah, yeah, understood. That's great. Yeah.

LiElla Kelly (09:15.923)
Yes.

Wakil David Matthews (09:21.774)
So Jerrigrace, can you tell us about, can you remember 30 years ago? I know I would have trouble with that.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (09:25.944)
I do though, because it was such a life changer for me. And it started because of a friend's sudden death. She went to work one morning and feeling fine and then she wasn't feeling well and they called the paramedics and they weren't able to keep her alive. So, at 56, she died and she was a nurse herself caring for an older woman. So in any case, she, she was the inspiration, because she left instructions asking all of us to care for her body at home. And we didn't know that was even legal. 

And we found out that it was in fact legal and we brought her home from the hospital and we took care of her body. And that experience of those next few days was so profound for me, so life-changing that I realized that most everyone was unaware that we could take care of our own loved ones at home. I just wanted to share it with everyone I met, everyone I knew, tell the world, by the way, we can have a different approach to death. And that's what inspired me eventually to start Final Passages. And that was like a year and a half after her death, but many things happened to nudge me along because I did not, I didn't want to be the leader. just wanted to share this with people. I didn't want to start anything myself, but it kept coming back to me. It kept being thrown back at me. I tried to give it away to other people to lead and everybody just said, no, you have to do it. 

But one by one every family that I went out to talk to and help and I always took someone with me, started teaching me about all kinds of things. I was then hungry to learn about dying and death and everything about it. so I started with no map and was pretty scared in the beginning. I was really, you know, pretty stressed. But then I gained experience one by one. And here I am today...

Wakil David Matthews (11:53.539)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (11:54.108)
Mm-hmm.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (12:14.37)
... having guided about 500 home funerals and helped many other people prepare for death and create the certificate program I did with our nonprofit.

Wakil David Matthews (12:26.2)
Beautiful. such great stories. Corey, what did yours look like? What's your birth story?

Annalouiza (12:31.174)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (12:33.632)
Yeah. Happy to share and Jerrigrace, you're an inspiration because I'm in the phase of being nervous and anxious and like, I doing, but I know that with time that shall pass. So owning where I am and loving it. But I love that you sent us some of this to noodle on before we came on because it was such a great opportunity to reflect on the constellation that when I kind of was tracing it.

Annalouiza (12:36.923)
Mm.

Wakil David Matthews (12:44.323)
Yeah.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (13:03.17)
It really goes all the way back to my childhood, but I did, again, no map. I remember this really, it was like my first experience of true heartbreak as a kid. I was raised in the Catholic church and part of going through the first communion process from what I recall was doing a bunch of different things, like checklists. And one of them was to go to a nursing home and just like hang out with the people that lived there. 

So I just remember like walking into the nursing home, I must've been like seven or something and just didn't have the vocabulary to describe what I was feeling and just had like a sob tantrum. I had the leave. It was just such an intense, emotionally charged thing. And I just remember feeling really sad and like hearing people like calling out for people that weren't there. And just, it was really intense and it-

Annalouiza (13:50.343)
Mm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (14:01.11)
It was scary at the time, but I mean, I think that was like opened something in me without even realizing it. And then just following this path of that deep longing to serve my community in a way that really allows all aspects of my being to show up fully and making a lot of stumbles along the way. I went through like the traditional education system, have a master's degree in higher education, like all these things that didn't work really fulfilling, but I wasn't really sure what to do. 

And then I was at a meditation workshop at Ram Dass's place, the Hanuman Maui Loving Awareness Sanctuary and had this serendipitous encounter with Mike Krall, who was a close friend of Ram Dass and was baring my heart to him in a little in between meditation break and crying about how my sensitivity was such a liability in the jobs I've had. And he helped me shift the perspective around, hey, have you thought, he just planted a seed. Have you thought about volunteering with hospice? I was like, no, but I know what I'm familiar with hospice. 

Annalouiza (15:04.506)
Mmm. Wow.

Wakil David Matthews (15:14.199)
Yeah.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (15:25.294)
So he planted that seed and it took me about a year and a half to actually apply to be a volunteer through hospice just to, you know see what that would be like. And at the time I was working within the psychedelic therapy education space with MAPS, which is the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. So definitely comfortable living in these nonlinear spaces and helping train people around how to hold space for people that are having these non-ordinary state experiences in the spirit of healing some pretty intense mental health issues. yeah, just kind of weaving around all of that. 

And then right after I completed my hospice volunteer training, I flew back to the mainland to spend a week with my grandmother who is living with my parents. And no one used the word dementia. They're like, yeah, grandma's old, she's living with us now. And like, as soon as I stepped in, I thought there's more going on here. So then I had a crash course and being a full-time caregiver for someone whose brain was definitely changing and seeing the family's reaction or lack thereof of like what's actually happening. So just really being in a lot of these experiences. 

Wakil David Matthews (16:28.452)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (16:30.085)
Hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (16:51.052)
And shortly after that, I came back to Maui, went back to work, which was on the computer, told MAPS that I was resigning because I'm going to go back to school and figure out how to work at hospice full time. I don't know what that's going to look like, but a long story short, I did that. And then right around the same time I was training to become a nursing assistant, I also enrolled in the death doula training that doorway and delight offers. 

And that whole experience. was like this initiation that led to seismic life changes within a very consolidated period of time. Like I got divorced, started a new career and moved to a new part of Maui all within a month. It was intense, like, and I'm still like, right in that wave. I mean, that was about a year and change ago...

Wakil David Matthews (17:18.02)
Thanks

Annalouiza (17:19.661)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (17:45.014)
... and just really dove head first into all these spaces, super porous, open to learning and through experience where as before, I feel like I was like reading a lot of books.in an ivory tower and not really being out with what's actually happening in the world. So really grateful that this is just kind of like what you were saying, Laiela. It just feels natural. People think I've been doing this a lot longer than I have, like linear time-wise, which I take as a compliment, I guess, but not being cocky, just being very humble. And I really, we really don't know anything. That's what's so beautiful about this work. Like the more we, we deepened into it, it's like, there's so much joy in not knowing, you know, but yeah, thanks for letting me expand on that a bit. Yeah.

Annalouiza (18:15.855)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (18:19.652)
Exactly, Yeah, exactly. Beautiful.

Annalouiza (18:24.311)
Yeah, I just love that there's this thread of the calling to work with the dying is a calling. And when you realize that you're right there, like it's happening, you feel a sense of like, this is restful. This is where I'm happy to be. This is where I can shine like LiElla was like, I'm an introvert everywhere else. But in this moment, I, I can imagine you just like blossoming and just being like, I am holding this space. And I think that oftentimes when people ask us about the kind of work we do, their first thought is like, God, isn't it depressing? Don't you like get so stressed out? And generally, 100 % of the time I hear from everybody that we interview, it makes me feel very like at ease. I am in my element. And I think that that's such a beautiful awareness that we have when we step into these spaces. My gosh, thank you. And we still have to hear from LiElla.

LiElla Kelly (19:32.862)
I already told you my story.

Annalouiza (19:35.481)
Okay, good. I was like, tell me more.

Well, OK, well, here we are for the next question is specifically to the teachers. What does it take to become a death doula? What is kind of like it just in a nutshell, the overview for the curriculum that you think would be pertinent to somebody listening to who might be interested in pursuing this?

Corey Westbury (she/her) (20:04.174)
That's a really good question. I think at a macro level, before diving into how Doorway and Delight approaches this work, just naming that there really is no federal regulating body that's overseeing this. someone who's looking for a training, doing lots of research ahead of time and ensuring that the, the philosophy of the training organization aligns with your goals. Super, super important. And just wanted to name that. Yeah. 

And I think that if you're curious about like, is this something I want to do volunteering with hospice or somehow having access to dying people, that sounds weird saying out loud, something to think about and just to yeah, and I think having that hands-on experiential training is quite important. And just reminding ourselves that no matter what path we've taken, because there's so many different prisms to this work, there's so many transferable skill sets from what you were doing to taking a leap like this, even if it's not as apparent at the surface level, there's a lot of things you can sit with there. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (21:23.054)
Yeah.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (21:25.784)
But if we're looking at the Doorway Into Light curriculum, I think what makes us a bit unique in this space is we really recognize the work of death doulas as ministry. And that's something that we've been naming a lot more explicitly within the last year. I don't think we were really talking about the ministry aspect, Wakil, when we went through the online course together, but I've noticed a shift in the language that we're using. In spirit of, like you mentioned, Annalouiza, many of us say we feel called to this work.

Wakil David Matthews (21:45.539)
Yeah.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (21:54.712)
So what we dive into in our curriculum, what does having a calling mean? And what does that ask of us? And really ministry being the work of listening to the call and bringing that forth into community life and breathing into that. And that's really asking us as human beings to deepen into that relationship with what's calling us. And then that connection, and that's what wants to move through us. So really, that's where we're focused. 

So we have in-person and online options for that initial piece. The online course is called Facing Death, Nourishing Life. It's seven weeks long. We meet twice a week for two hours at a time on Zoom. And then we also have, and that's offered one or two times a year, I think. 

And then we have the in-person International Death Doula training that I know Jerrigrace, thank you for coming to support that she's just such like the OG and after death body care ritual and she does help support that piece of our training, is really, really beautiful. And both of those options are about 40 hours of time commitment. And really the focus of that is learning how to show up for community, for your community, I should say as a resource for families and professionals. 

So really starting with Okay, I need to be able to prepare for my own death and my own dying. And we spend a lot of time there through different lenses. We call it the three hearts, the physical heart, the spiritual heart, and the psychological emotional heart, kind of like a holographic structure almost, where we're preparing for our own death, so that therefore we can provide compassionate care for those that are dying. And then if we take it even a step further, how do we...

Annalouiza (23:24.709)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (23:49.282)
How do we meet what's dying in the world, a changing world? So we kind of look at it from a lot of different angles, which is really, really beautiful. and then for those that want to, we have a certification program for death doula training, but again, like I mentioned earlier, there's no regulating body. 

So when we say certification, it's really to show your dedication and your professionalism in this space and also does require, I think 12 or 15 hours a month of bedside sitting with a dying submitting forms that our team reviews. We bring those submissions. We kind of use them as case studies in the certification piece when we meet online and discuss as a group. Yeah, so that's a little bit about our approach. And I know, again, every training is a bit different. So it's cool that you all are having us on here to talk about our philosophy and see if there's people out there that want to learn more from us about how we do things and train with us. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (24:51.008)
Yeah, wonderful. Yeah, we'll hear from Jerrigrace. We also want to hear from LiElla at some point. We'll get to you more about kind of from the student's perspective. But Jerrigrace, can you tell us more?

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (25:03.65)
Well, Corey, you just captured so much of becoming an end of a Doula. It, of course, starts mostly with a calling. But we get students in our course that are brand new to the world of death and dying and all the way to hospice nurses and other professionals that just want to take the deeper dive, explore further what an end of life doula involves and how it's different from caregiving and hospice work and such. 

Wakil David Matthews (25:56.334)
Mm-hmm.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (26:01.036)
And we do explore what is conscious dying and how is that related to conscious living and what kind of practice do people have because that's so important in developing your inner world as well as the ability to assist others. we talk about people's relationship to death because without a healthy relationship, it's pretty hard to help anyone else. 

And that means like going back to the beginning, where did you first hear about death, when did death first appear in your life? And what did people tell you about that, if anything? And so going back into where did our beliefs around death come from and exploring what that might look like if that changed and how it has changed through the years.

We try to have our students look at their personal fears, concerns, regrets in life. Until we've explored these things for ourselves, it's hard to go and sit at the bedside and talk to someone else. 

Annalouiza (27:23.216)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (27:27.797)
All right.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (27:31.052)
They can tell if you're just reading a piece of paper or if you've really looked deeply inside to see what's in there. And we cover, of course, practical things too. I do cover business aspects. We give them paperwork to meet with people, talking about what are all the things end of life do list cover. And many people think it's only working with the person who's dying. And we feel it's just as important to work with their families...

Wakil David Matthews (28:00.292)
Yeah.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (28:00.702)
... and their whole team of caregivers. And not just learn to listen more and speak less, but also listen for what's not being spoken into the room. What are the things not being said? So it's really broad, as Corey mentioned, it's very broad, all the spectrum of hats that we wear with may not be a professional grief counselor, but yet we're around people who are deeply grieving. So that's why we bring grief into our curriculum as well. 

And just all the practical talking about advanced directives and pulse and the business aspect as far as how do you do this and survive in our world. And here, End of Life Doulas, we do charge for our services here in the Bay Area. People have sliding scales. Some people do it by donation. Some people have a sliding scale work with whatever people can afford. But we feel the work is very important to offer our community.

Annalouiza (29:01.627)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (29:30.412)
We do work with that. And we cover so many things, tools for transformation. mean, how to work with a person. Our courses, we have three separate courses right now, though we're in the process of even expanding that. But our end of life doula practices three days, and then the home funeral after death, post death care, natural death care, those are all words we use for after home funeral and all the choices that we have in end of life are the second part and the third part. We go deeper with all of them. We bring in grief and other things, medical aid and dying and final exit network and many other aspects. So that's kind of our broad view of curriculum and so.

Annalouiza (30:24.155)
Thank you.

Wakil David Matthews (30:24.772)
Thank you.

Annalouiza (30:27.151)
Yeah, I just want to point out too, because I did... go ahead.

Wakil David Matthews (30:31.37)
I was going to say what I found interesting is that's kind of the list of questions we ask everybody on our podcast. know, what did you how did you first get connected to death and all those things that you just said? So go ahead, Annalouiza.

Annalouiza (30:41.927)
Yeah. Well, and you know, before we had our panel, I did a quick search to see what did curriculums offer. And there's such a large array of offerings to become a death doula in this day and age. I remember when I started, the search was like 10 years ago, 13 years ago. So it has changed even since then.

But what I do want to just share with anybody who's watching and listening is that I liked how Corey mentioned finding somebody who resonates with your values, right? Like there's all ways to this. Some people come through it from the psychologist, you know, like they were in psychology or they're in a nurse or they've been a volunteer for hospice, but there will be somebody there will be a training offered for everybody. And because we have these two folks, doesn't mean that that's the only way to go through this. 

There are many ways to get to become a death doula. And honestly, I feel like everybody should be curious about doula-ing because we live in community and we should be practicing these and not having to like, you know, like we should share this collectively with each other. So anyhow, that's my two cents.

Wakil David Matthews (31:57.644)
Yeah. Yeah, as Rumi says, there's a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. So good. Yeah, I really appreciate all of you. And that's really helpful. Thank you, Jerrigrace and Corey. I did want to just check in with LiElla about when you took the classes, were you in either the Maui group or the Jerrigrace group or some other group? And how was it from the student's perspective?

Annalouiza (32:07.471)
Yeah, so that's beautiful.

LiElla Kelly (32:28.253)
That is what I wanted to speak to as I was listening to these two, and especially what Corey had said that Annalouiza, finding what works for you.

Wakil David Matthews (32:33.346)
Yeah.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (32:40.459)
Okay.

LiElla Kelly (32:56.517)
So the program that I ended up going with, what I found was that the teacher had actually in her prior life been a lawyer and she's very analytical and was coming from that. And I was like, that makes sense. That, that's kind of where I am coming from on this. 

And so I had looked at a variety of programs and I was like, but that's what I kept coming back to was just that kind of like, that's, that's where my brain.
works end with this. And so that was the base of my training. And that training also went through, you know, they all go through the same things, but in different ways. And so I started with that. And then as there were pieces that showed up that I was like, Ooh, that one, that one's really interesting. I started branching off. And so I would do trainings through like redesigning the end.

Annalouiza (33:37.884)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (33:38.306)
Yeah.

LiElla Kelly (33:54.815)
And there had just been a little bit in my training about after death care, but I was like, I need to know way, way more about that. So then I went to redesigning the end and I did a class with Marilyn Rush, which is where I first heard about Jerrigrace. And I ordered some of her materials and started incorporating all of that information into my work. so now my education is constant.

Annalouiza (34:02.151)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (34:11.981)
Mm-hmm.

LiElla Kelly (34:24.381)
So whether I'm enrolling in little programs here and there, the vast majority now is just reading everything. There's so much reading and then you have an experience and you're like, now I gotta read another book. I'm gonna need more information. And so, yeah, I think your education, there's your little itty bitty tiny little base jewel that you're gonna start with. And then...

Wakil David Matthews (34:24.717)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (34:24.962)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (34:44.984)
Yes.

LiElla Kelly (34:53.331)
... you're just going to keep grabbing from all these areas. And that's what's really cool about what we do because like they've mentioned, there's not necessarily a big governing body that's telling us this is exactly who you're going to be and you need to fall into line. You get to pick which things resonate with you and which things you can really help people with...

Annalouiza (34:56.635)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (34:59.095)
Yeah.

LiElla Kelly (35:21.913)
... and you get to doula however you want to. And that's a really special aspect of this kind of work.

Annalouiza (35:22.726)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (35:32.556)
Yeah, do Doula you.

Annalouiza (35:35.582)
Hahaha

Corey Westbury (she/her) (35:36.01)
Hehehehehe

Wakil David Matthews (35:38.52)
Yeah, I think one of the other pieces and actually met some of you folks was at a conference over here in Seattle. There was a speaking about funeral services, funeral offerings, really good conference. And there's another one coming up here in Seattle, TerraCon, which I don't know if any of you are going, but I'm going to be going there, which is just kind of, which happens the second year, which is just a way for everybody to get together and talk about the alternatives for disposition of the body. So.

Annalouiza (36:04.23)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (36:08.13)
When they started last year, couldn't believe they could make a whole conference out of it, but they had, I think they had like 500 people show up for the first one. So I expect it'll be another big, and it was really great. It was a wonderful conference. Thank you again, everybody. where are we? yeah, we did. 

I think Jerrigrace, you mentioned this a little bit and I'd like to hear perspectives from the others as to the business side of things. Cause one of the things we hear when we talk to doulas and we talk to people about being a doula is how do you possibly make a living doing this? And so Jerrigrace said that they do talk about that as part of their classes. I'm wondering, LiElla, if you got that kind of training or if you figured it out yourself with books or Corey, if there's training like that in the, in the start with Corey, where in Doorway Into Light talk about the business side of things.

Annalouiza (36:40.849)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (36:57.41)
Yeah. Good question. So, we are also a nonprofit funeral home. So in addition to the trainings that we offer, we also run, I think the only nonprofit funeral home in Hawaii. I'm not sure how many exist in the United States, but I don't think there's that many.

Wakil David Matthews (37:08.492)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (37:24.155)
There isn't yet.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (37:24.45)
And we're very transparent. It's very difficult to make this work your primary source of income. And like myself, Michelle, Mayana, Bodhi, we all have other streams of income that we're working on in order to be humans out here on Maui. So I would say in full transparency, the business side isn't necessarily the primary focus of our training. Really, we're honing in on as a doula, how are we deepening our connection with ourselves so that like Jerrigrace mentioned, we can hear or sense what's not being spoken in the room, or maybe from the family that we're really listening from the heart. 

And that's really where we're coming at it from. But again, we do have these panel discussions at the end of our trainings where students can ask us anything and that does come up. really, yeah, like we do sliding scale for like the tuition and things too. So there's like a standard rate, pay what you can, or maybe if you want to pay it forward a little bit. And then I know just what we'll talk about is depending on what services you want to offer, it might make more sense to have an hourly rate if there's specific projects or things that you know that would fit within or someone that I know, she's a little more like on retainer. However, she offers a I mean, that costs more money. 

They, she charges a monthly rate and she's a little more in an on-call capacity. So again, as you're kind of figuring out, do I want this to be my sole source of income? Do I want to do this more from a volunteer perspective? mean, everyone's so different, which is really cool because we're kind of co-creating this field together. 

Wakil David Matthews (38:52.42)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.

Annalouiza (39:19.302)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (39:20.632)
And there's room for all of us here, which I think is really cool. But, yeah, I wish we had more of that in our training and hopefully we will one day, but not so much right now. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (39:27.628)
Okay. LiElla, do you remember any talk about that when you were in school or how have you...

LiElla Kelly (39:34.815)
We did talk about it a bit in school and all the ways that she talked about, know, that people are going to structure their business in whatever way, you know, they feel compelled to do that. I specifically remember a comment of my teacher saying, yeah, I got all this training and I was gonna hang up my shingle and I know about death and everyone's gonna come to me. No, that is not going to happen.

So even though I fully believe that what I do is super, super important and worth every penny that you could ever possibly pay somebody to do it, that's simply not how it's gonna work. So, but I do believe that this, well, I want this to ultimately become my full-time business. Just like Corey said I make a living doing something else right now. And this is the thing that I get to be devoted to when I'm not. So I treat it as a business. It is a heart-centered business, but it is still a business. And therefore, I'm going to need to market it. I'm going to need to be building relationships and networking throughout my community.

Wakil David Matthews (40:39.918)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (40:40.249)
Mm-hmm.

LiElla Kelly (40:56.319)
So right now I'm spending a lot of time on just community education of first of all, what is a death doula? How can we help you? I really love all of the disposition options that we have, know, just educating people on all of the disposition options and all of the options because I think there's a shocking lack of education around end of life things. And so I love to bring that in.

Wakil David Matthews (41:04.985)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (41:12.667)
Mm-hmm.

LiElla Kelly (41:23.667)
I've had some super interesting developments on that front. Recently, an independently owned hospice has started contracting with me in my massage therapy capacity to work with some of their hospice clients. So, you know, beginning to see how hospice might be able to bring other elements in. 

Annalouiza (41:46.437)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

LiElla Kelly (41:51.913)
And then we were talking about, what other ways can we kind of combine? There's so many regulations in their industry. So, you how can we begin to blend those things together? How can we begin to work better with those in the funeral industry so that we're not so standalone? So there's just, from the business standpoint, there's a lot of work to do, but it will get there. 

Even when I started in massage therapy 20 some years ago, I had to educate people that so many people had the wrong view of massage. People thinking that it was something strictly for relaxation or worse, that it was something of a sexual nature and explaining that no, I am a therapist and I have value. 25 years later, I do not have to explain that to anybody anymore.

Wakil David Matthews (42:30.766)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (42:46.631)
Yeah.

LiElla Kelly (42:47.827)
But that's kind of how I feel in the doula world right now is, yes, I have value. It's going to take a while for you to understand what it is. So now I have a lot of work to do in the outreach and the education. And so that's where I'm going with the business part of it.

Annalouiza (42:49.82)
Great.

Wakil David Matthews (43:02.648)
Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I think that's true of all of us in this world is to really make sure people understand which is why we're doing this. But also, I heard to me when you're talking about that is my wife is a music therapist. And that has never well, at least on the West Coast, not really been recognized as a career. And she had the same kind of issues, you know, saying I do this therapy, I've been trained, I got a master's degree, I put in many, many hours, Im certified and it just, you know, people are still like, I don't even know what that is. So I don't think I can pay you, you know, and insurance never would pay for it. Just recently, after many, many years, the state of Washington anyway, created a state certification that, that are licensed state licensing process so that they could be licensed in the state as with music therapy. 

So, you know, that may be the kind of path, path we have in front of us to try to introduce this idea of doulaing, doulaing, if that's a word, it's new word I just made up, to the world, you know, to figure out how that would work. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you, LiElla. That's a very, very good point. Jerrigrace, spoke to already, sorry, Annalouiza, do have anything?

Annalouiza (44:31.015)
Oh, no, I was just going to say that the educational piece for just about everything is needed around, especially on death and dying. And it begins with having conversations with everybody. And then the conversations have to be so rich because we are so many in this field who are supportive of death. yeah, it's education is key.

Wakil David Matthews (44:57.944)
Yeah, yeah, all of our jobs. yeah, Jerrigrace, was there anything more you wanted to say about the curriculum part?

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (45:04.394)
I just, I can relate to some of the things that are being spoken when I first, well, way back when I was starting to take Reiki courses in the 80s, 1980s, nobody hardly knew what Reiki was. And today, if in a room I asked who's heard of Reiki or do you have a sense of what it is, most people will raise their hand which gave me some hope that when I first started out talking to people about home funerals and in caring for their loved one, their deceased loved one in their home, they'd look at me like I was completely out of my mind and why would I have someone remain in home for three days? 

And now, now today that movement has really spread and end of life doulas weren't that term wasn't even existing when I started this. And so that's why we were using the term death midwife. I still do and I still like it and I still created midwifing, death midwifing. And many other things actually home funerals.

Annalouiza (46:20.987)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (46:24.676)
Hehehehe.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (46:31.144)
It was a term that my friend and I coined when we wrote our guidebook. That was never a term used. And the National Home Funeral Alliance, which I helped start, I was one of the founders, they tossed that word around a lot, deciding if that was a good term to use for describing post-death care or after-death care. And they came up with a lot of thoughtful conversation about it. But in the end, they chose to stay with home funerals. And I always like the term because it's the reverse of funeral home. so I thought, it doesn't always mean people are at home when they care for somebody, but they could be in a hospital washing their body or in a skilled nursing facility or someplace else.

Wakil David Matthews (47:12.099)
haha

Corey Westbury (she/her) (47:13.176)
yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (47:27.47)
Mm-hmm.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (47:29.8)
It's bringing it home to the family and putting it back in the hands and care of the family. That's what's really important. And as far as, yeah, of the business end of things, I think it's very important. I feel it's important. 

Annalouiza (47:36.037)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (47:37.102)
Right.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (47:59.384)
We give people forms on taking telephone calls, first calls, in-person consultations and things to ask and you know, ways you can support people and having a death care plan or dying care plan. So people have structure and ways to begin. And of course, from there, once they feel more comfortable doing this, they'll, it just, there's something from their heart that just takes over and they just start to feel into what needs to be asked what needs to be spoken, like anything, like starting with a food recipe. The first time we might follow the cookbook and then the next time we add a few things we like and don't like, we take out and so forth. It's like that in life. 

Wakil David Matthews (48:37.134)
Yeah.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (48:58.654)
Mainly just finding a way to relax into who we are when we're with the person and looking at who they are and how our values match or don't, but not bringing our own agendas in seeing if we can just be there.

Wakil David Matthews (49:11.428)
Yeah, good.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (49:14.617)
That's business stuff. But it needs to be there. It needs to be there because, know, I wish somebody had left me a big trust, but they didn't. And I had to make a living doing this. you know, that's what I found is it's like, this is the way we do exchange in our culture. And people tend to value more what what they pay for somebody if you ask for something in exchange, something at least. People tend to value that.

Wakil David Matthews (49:53.54)
Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Yeah, agreed.

Annalouiza (49:55.172)
Mm-hmm.
So I guess just really, I mean, we've talked about compensation and my question was just how, if you're comfortable sharing how your compensated for the work. Is it, does anybody go through insurance? Anybody have, like do you just say this is my cost and people will just pay that price? Like just quickly I guess.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (50:24.854)
I like to say, if I can just quickly say, I like to say to people, this is my usual request. And, you know, I can, we can talk about it if that doesn't fit your ability to pay, you know, we can negotiate some on that and so forth. Just because, you know, I understand that a lot of people don't.

Annalouiza (50:42.693)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (50:45.06)
Yeah.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (50:54.712)
to pay a lot.

Wakil David Matthews (50:55.16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Annalouiza (50:58.373)
Yeah.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (50:59.828)
There is also IHSS and I think that's all throughout the country, the in-home support services. A lot of people, at least where I am, and I think it's national to qualify and you can get paid to give some support service to the person and that's, that can be a little, it's not necessarily you're trained as a caregiver to get that either. And you can say what you can do and not do. You don't have to transfer people if you're not strong enough and so forth. But that's a way of getting paid for helping people.

Wakil David Matthews (51:48.268)
Right? Yeah, yeah. Another certification. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (51:52.534)
Yeah, it's not hard. Well, it's paperwork. A lot of paperwork. But yeah, most people, even family members can get qualified.

Annalouiza (51:56.924)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (52:03.972)
Yeah, I know we do have that in Washington and we've used it here and it is covered by insurance. That's maybe kind of an interesting idea of a way to kind of sneak in the back door with your doula work, right?

Annalouiza (52:05.509)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (52:22.338)
So there you are.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (52:22.38)
That's super interesting. I wasn't familiar with that.

Annalouiza (52:25.999)
Yeah.

LiElla Kelly (52:27.571)
Mm-hmm.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (52:27.704)
I'm currently doing that. So I know, I mean, just for a friend, but you can also sign up on their registry and make yourself available to other people if you want. don't have to. You don't have to. can just do it for somebody you know that can't pay. If they have to qualify in California, they have to qualify for Medi-Cal. So if they do, you can get it.

Annalouiza (52:32.241)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (52:53.026)
Okay.

Annalouiza (52:57.253)
LiElla, what's your experience?

LiElla Kelly (52:58.775)
So as I was kind of mentioning, one of my focuses is making people, not making people, helping people to know who we are and what we do and kind of just normalizing this as part of our culture. 

Annalouiza (53:13.559)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (53:18.137)
Yeah.

LiElla Kelly (53:22.887)
And so I feel pretty strongly that we need to show up just like everybody else would in promoting a business. So I have a website, I have transparency in the pricing on there, which, I have packages or I have hourly rates so people can just kind of pick and choose. It's of course a discussion always, but I try and just make it so that just in our consumer culture where we look for instant information, if somebody is gonna Google a death doula, I want them to have that information popping up right there. 

And so that's part of what I'm doing is just making sure that these are my services. This is what I can give you. Here's what you can kind of expect the cost to be. Because I also feel very much that like funeral homes should always have that information available, like the prices, because when we're experiencing some kind of a stressful event, which is probably when the end of life doula is going to enter the picture is because there's been some kind of a stressful trigger. I don't want to make it any harder for people. I don't want them to have to jump through hoops and, oh, now I got to call this girl and I don't even know what she does. So I'm kind of a believer that I need to be putting this information out just as clearly as I can.

Wakil David Matthews (54:19.512)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (54:47.781)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (54:48.878)
Yeah.

LiElla Kelly (54:49.247)
Just so I can help people, I think that's a way to help people in a sensitive time is to just make it as easy and accessible as possible.

Annalouiza (54:56.851)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It is it's always so difficult, though, that the times that I've gone out to do this work, I I've learned now to always like this is a conversation we're having now that phone call, which makes me feel so horrible. I'm just going to like it's like, by the way, this is my hourly rate. This is my you know, these are the services I'm going to give you. 

Wakil David Matthews (55:02.541)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (55:25.059)
Are you on board with that, is this a price that we can talk about? I do have a sliding scale, and everybody always chooses sliding scale, which I also find really interesting. They're like, yeah, I'll pick the bottom number. But I noticed that I have reframed it too. All of us here in this conversation have spent so much time and energy and money, currency, to be trained to be the most potent, you know, death worker that possibly we can hold. And when we ask for this price, I feel like I'm not, I'm not charging you just cause right? Like I have put in time and money for this. So I noticed that now it's shifted because I always, I phrase it as like, now I'm ready to talk about the energetic exchange. Like for me showing up for me as you know, your death midwife, chaplain, whatever it is that I'm called to.

Wakil David Matthews (55:58.18)
Thanks.

Annalouiza (56:21.551)
And this is my this is this. And when we finally come to an agreement, I've also now decided like I need that check or money in an envelope ready to go because the other piece is like ending our time there. And then nobody wants to like go towards like that piece. And it's so it's harrowing. It is so hard for me. And I don't you know, I've had people be like, I had a person who didn't pay me for like six months because they're like, we just don't have enough money. 

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (56:39.906)
Thank you.

Annalouiza (56:51.591)
And I'm like, but you're in Mexico now, like, I don't understand, you know, like what's happening. So I wanted to say this to people who are listening, who also want to learn about how to choose a doula, what we do, you know, all these things under the fact that this is a service. This is, you know, a therapist, a massage therapist, somebody who has spent time and energy cultivating their learning. And, you know, what we're offering is not done in a vacuum for us to just donate. Like I'd love to, but you know, that's not how we can do it. Just wanted to put that out there.

Wakil David Matthews (57:23.972)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Very well said, very well said, yeah.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (57:32.502)
No, that's absolutely true. That's what we're like as a nonprofit at Doorway Into Light have been operating and I hope it's okay that I'm saying this like from that like donation basis and on the business side, we're not doing that great but from like a loving open hearted support community people love us. 

Annalouiza (57:48.157)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (57:51.716)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (58:02.542)
So I see that and I'm pretty sure I showed up when I did like, you know, no question to to help shift some of that because we do have a price list on our website, but again, it's always up for conversation with the individuals and meeting people where they're at. And I know for myself, I've dabbled with doing the whole hourly rate thing and then realized I was underselling myself, you know? 

Annalouiza (58:04.9)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (58:10.116)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (58:29.91)
And so I... I kind of put a pin in that for a while and I'm still kind of figuring that out. But again, I also work at Hospice Maui and that's combined with my little monthly thing from Doorway is enough for me to get by and spread my ministry here and just trust a lot of trust. Part of our mission at Doorway is to provide free and low cost care and services to the dying and their families.

Annalouiza (58:40.091)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (58:59.726)
Especially those that are financially challenged. So we're looking into writing grants and getting more into that. And I mean, just getting our affairs in order. So yeah, everything's shifting, but I really appreciate that, that we're moving away from like that post capitalist language of like, got to pay up now, but it is more of that energetic exchange and kind of the why behind the what and, and that can be educating in and of itself too, because we're so trained as consumers to just get sticker shock when we see the cost of something, but there's, we don't need to go into that now. 

Annalouiza (59:42.808)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (59:42.818)
Yeah, yeah.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (59:44.896)
There's so much more, but behind that, you know, so, and we, and it's delicate because of the people that we're working with either. Yeah, I think this was mentioned earlier. I can't remember who, if I'm someone that wants to partner or hire a death doula, maybe I'm the person dying or maybe I'm the loved one of someone who's dying because, or maybe you're supporting both. It really depends. yeah, such tender, tender times and we're all sensitive to that and yeah, making it work for everyone's definitely a challenge.

Annalouiza (01:00:01.179)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (01:00:14.232)
Yeah, yeah. I love that emphasis on kind of local energy exchange and I think that's so important and kind of the way be different than the exploitive capitalist way of doing things, is we're doing things with our community as education and as support. And there needs to be an energy exchange, but to be really straight up front about that. And I've also just wanted to note that in the podcast notes, you'll have a way to get in touch with any one of these people and see what they're doing. So we will have that in there.

Annalouiza (01:00:47.815)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (01:00:52.91)
So we're getting there. We've got a little more time now. And I wanted to ask if you have any stories that you'd like to share about working with someone that would be a good example of how you've learned, what's applied to the work you're doing. Anybody can start.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (01:01:14.248)
I'll start. I worked with a woman who was considering she had a long-term illness and did get into hospice at a certain point. And I'm talking about years of this illness. And then she started looking at options because the kind of illness she had, she knew could go on for more years. And it was quite a strain on her and her husband. And he was the sole caregiver. And so she began to consider medical aid in dying, which is legal in the state of California. somebody referred her to me, somebody in Canada who she had been following.

And so we began a conversation by phone and she lived about an hour away from me. So we started by having phone and email conversations and she was delightful. I fell in love with it right away. And she would send me poetry and I would send her, you know, something, some writings I knew about. And, as things progressed, she got more serious about wanting to do this and she began to handpick a team of people she wanted to help her. At the end, she found a hospice nurse she really loved. She had worked with a spiritual teacher for 20 years, then she wanted to be there. had her husband to be there, she wanted him.

And she wanted me to be there because I also offer some, I'm sorry about that. I also offer some shamanic rituals and clearing when people have passed. I do some unwinding of the chakras and various things that that I offer and she loved that. And so we, the team was, we all were, became connected because she called us to her home thinking that this was gonna be the day she was gonna take the medicine. But before that, she kept writing to me and saying, I'm not sure I can do this. And I said, you can decide up to the last second that you don't want to do this. This is purely up to you. There's nobody going to pressure you. 

And she finally picked a date. She picked a couple dates and canceled them. Then she picked a date and we all showed up. And I said to her ahead of time, just think of it as a dress rehearsal if you can't go through with it. And she loved that. And then we all did arrive and she spoke to all of us and then decided she couldn't do it.

So we all left and some of us came for say an hour away or more, but no one had bad feelings about it and no one put anything on her about it. And then she made another date and we all showed up again. And this time she did go through with it, but she felt she had explored every aspect of her values and herself and her with her husband and everything. And I so deeply appreciated her process, that she had to get completely clear that it was her time and she was in charge. And it was so beautiful and so peaceful. 

And the amazing thing is I had gotten a list of all of her spiritual teachers that in life, know, through whether she had met them in person or she followed them in some other way. And I had written them all down. And her spiritual teacher who is in the room she had worked with for about 20 years, I had told her what I did, why this person was calling me to be at the bedside.

And so while we were all meditating after she and she did used a rectal port for administering the medicine, she had to push the plunger and she fell asleep almost immediately, which most people do that use that medicine. And then we were all in the room. There was five of us and we were all, she was laying next to her husband in the bed and his arm was around her and we were all meditating quietly, just waiting for the medicine to take effect and her last breath to come. And her spiritual teacher called out to me very quietly and said, Jerrigrace, can you come over and do what you do? And I usually do it after people die, but I said, well, I guess so, I can't, she was still breathing. 

And so I came over and I did a ritual and I called in all of her all the spiritual teachers she had worked with that I had on the paper and I asked them to help and assist in her leaving. And so I did this prayer. It probably only lasted a few minutes and I looked down and she had stopped breathing. 

Wakil David Matthews (01:07:27.894)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (01:07:33.024)
I mean, it was like on cue. The doctor, her doctor was also in the room and she was the one who had administered the port. She had put the port in into this woman so she could hit the plunger with the medicine. And the doctor just looked at her and she came over and she listened to her heart and she said, yeah, she's not breathing, you And she said, well, let's give it another minute or two. And we waited and she said, wow, I've never seen anything like that before.

Wakil David Matthews (01:08:01.631)
Mm-hmm.

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (01:08:02.808)
And it just was so peaceful and beautiful. And it didn't matter to me whether she had died right at that moment. It was just, it surprised me as well as the doctor, but it just felt that it captured the depth of conscious dying that this woman had spent a lot of time really looking at death and.

Annalouiza (01:08:21.639)
Yeah

Jerrigrace Lyons3 (01:08:31.16)
her relationship to it and having all the people around her that she really wanted there and created that whole thing. And we can all do that. It was this example that we can all create the beauty around us, the people that we want around us, the... And it doesn't always work out that perfectly, of course, but it's something that, it was a model, a model for me. It taught me. It always deepens my learning to be at the bedside with whoever I'm helping. And so that's my story.

Wakil David Matthews (01:09:15.588)
Yeah. Beautiful. I love that. So, Corey or LiElla, do you have a story you'd like to share?

Corey Westbury (she/her) (01:09:26.882)
Yeah, as Jerrigrace was sharing, one became illuminated also related to medical aid and dying, which is available in the state of Hawaii, not available in every state quite yet. I think 11. But it was interesting because this and it doesn't happen that often. But sometimes the patient on hospice ends up choosing doorway into light as their funeral home.

I went on this journey of, was visiting this woman three times a week and something I learned a lot on the job through my hospice hat was wound care. She, and again, I'm green here, I'm pretty new. I haven't done wound care before. And this was like one of the first wounds that I was caring for with love, of course. 

And then sidebar when I was debriefing with a nurse and she'd been a nurse for a long time. She's like, that's some of the most intense wound care I've ever done. And I was like, really? I just didn't have the frame of reference, you know, we're just all learning. But I got a call one day. Because I mean, I knew they were having conversations about maid and that will she or won't she will she or won't she and then I get a call from my clinical director one day and they're like, okay, Mrs. N, she's taking the meds today. Like, okay. They're like, they want you there for the post-mortem care. And I was like, okay. 

Wakil David Matthews (01:11:03.556)
Yeah.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (01:11:18.338)
And then just kind of wearing the doula hat and just like being open and receptive, no agenda really leading into our guiding principle of what does love look like now? I'm like, all right, I guess I'm going there for post-mortem care and I get there and I'm just like energetically ushered into the room. So I ended up being like at the bedside with her.

Wakil David Matthews (01:11:23.556)
Mm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (01:11:46.734)
Like it was, it shifted way beyond post-mortem care. Like I was in the room with her family, like.because I guess they wanted me there and I felt very honored. But then I was like, wow, this is happening. It was just, caught me kind of off guard. But again, just kind of leaning into the teachings and embodying the learnings and holding the space for whatever was happening to happen. 

Wakil David Matthews (01:11:55.446)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Westbury (she/her) (01:12:16.428)
I mean, seeing also up close the way the law is written, at least in Hawaii, you have to be able to self administer this drink and you mix it up and it I haven't tasted it but apparently it tastes awful and then you have to drink enough of it to to work so it just I saw that up close she had a really hard time drinking it and then there's I mean we were all just kind of like encouraging her from the side you know like you have to drink it because you can't like administer it for them you know it's just this.

It almost seemed barbaric in a way, honestly, just spilling my heart with you all. But that's how it is, you know? So that was a whole experience. And then you could kind of sense, I could kind of sense the people in the room, different expectations of how long it would take for her to fall asleep and die. It clearly took a little bit longer than some of them anticipated. holding space for for that as well. And it was just quite, quite potent. And then another part of that story is that, again, because I was doing her wound care, she had rectal cancer and had a fistula in her, there was basically a big hole in her back and she had an ileostomy and a colostomy and she she was a Ashtanga yoga teacher and relied on her meditation and her breath work to work with that pain in a way that I don't know if it was transformative or not, but I probably would have taken the meds a lot sooner than she did. I mean, I'm just saying like, wow. 

So being intimate with her body and how to work with it, when she came to Doorway in Delight, I was able to teach Bodhi and Mayanna and Michelle, and they kind of invited me to guide them through caring for her because of this experience and that was just it was really like full circle in this really beautiful way and I just feel really grateful and honored that I'm yeah welcome in these spaces without the ego and just maintaining this sense of humble love of this is what this is what love looks like right now and it, it was really, really unique case, I would say, and they're all different, but that's really one that was just really shining bright as Jerrigrace was sharing. 

So thank you for, for letting me share that. And then I did bring a visual aid for people who are watching the video. This is a picture of me and my grandma. I spoke with her earlier. She's really one of the catalysts. We did a photo shoot when I went home. My friend's a photographer and this is when she was still living with my mom and dad. Yeah, I just, I feel like there's the light. It just captures a lot of why I'm here, I think, unspoken, but she's awesome. Shirley, yeah. Thank you.

Wakil David Matthews (01:15:20.172)
Yeah, beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Beautiful.

Yeah, yeah, we'll keep going and we're almost we're close to done, but we'll finish up. Thank you so much. Thanks for all you do. LiElla do you have a story for us?

LiElla Kelly (01:16:09.223)
Yeah, mine is not about being at the end or the very end of life, but rather I feel like there can be a lot of imposter syndrome, especially when you start into this, just like, do I really know what I'm doing here? And late last summer, was called in, two sisters, the family's made up of two sisters and their mom, the sisters are right about my age, and I had been recommended from anotherclient and so they called me in and I and first I was meeting just with the sisters and mom is the one who is had the diagnosis and and the girls begin to tell me what their concerns are and why they've brought me in and the big concern is we have no idea what mom's finances are we know she's weighing over her head we have a lot of concerns about her shopping in her just and I was just like, I don't know that this is my purview. 

Wakil David Matthews (01:17:14.509)
Haha.
Mm-hmm.

LiElla Kelly (01:17:23.315)
But I just listened and I was just thinking like, wow, I may just be so out of my depth on this one. But I listened and then I went over and I got to meet mom and I got to ask her, know, so what are your concerns around your diagnosis and everything? And she told me her concerns and I said, well, you know, let me go home and think about this and I'm gonna, get back to you. 

And so what I decided was that I could do some very practical things to try and ease the concerns around the financial situation. you know, I'm not, I don't know anything about finances, but I do know that there are conversations that you can have to kind of, and so I started thinking like, what do I practically know that could help? 

Wakil David Matthews (01:18:08.419)
Mm-hmm.

LiElla Kelly (01:18:16.477)
And so I came up with a plan, assigned little jobs based on what I could kind of see about the girl's personality of like, you seem like you would be good at this kind of thing. And they agreed. And you seem like you would be good at this. Mom, are you good with that? And yes. yes. And then I'm going to work with mom about just tying up loose ends in her life. We're going to go through this, you some paperwork that I've worked out and we're just going to work on that. And everyone was like, yeah, we all have a job. so that's what we did. 

Wakil David Matthews (01:18:41.966)
Mm-hmm.

LiElla Kelly (01:18:46.367)
And then I came back for another session with mom and I said, you know,
we really dove in just kind of headfirst last time. Did that, you know, how did you feel after I was gone? Was that too much? Was that, and she said, I have not felt that good since I got my diagnosis. Um, you know, she just, and it was just like, it helped me to understand that I don't have to know everything.

Wakil David Matthews (01:19:00.738)
Hmm. Hmm. Wow.

LiElla Kelly (01:19:14.813)
I, and I got to, I certainly don't know everything, but you know, what I had been trained was just take the tools that you have, listen to people, and just come up with ways that you can support them. That is my job, is just to support them. And those lessons were, those were really big lessons. And it wasn't, it's not what people think about in dueling. They think about, you know, like, you're hands on. and, this was a completely different thing, but it was like, no, I think I pretty much can handle.

Wakil David Matthews (01:19:27.214)
Perfect.

LiElla Kelly (01:19:43.443)
Whatever topic gets thrown up, but just be humble and take your time. You don't have to come up with an answer. You're not going to fix, you're not fixing any of this for anybody. That's not your job. Your job is to support. And I was really reminded of that, with that. And things from my training were just like, yeah, I was told that. And so the application.

Wakil David Matthews (01:20:12.452)
Wonderful, Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much, everybody. It's been a beautiful conversation and I really value the fact that, you know, hopefully people are listening to this will get a lot more knowledge about, you know, what this is, what it takes to become a Doula and, you know, all the great answers you gave and all the total honor and blessing to all of you for the work you've done.

So I want to read something, because we usually like to end with a poem or some saying, and I've got a poem I'll read. And then we'll turn it off, and we'll have a little bit of time just to talk at the end. But this is a poem written by Jeff Foster. 

And it says, 

You will lose everything, your money, your power, your fame, your success, perhaps even your memory. Your looks will go. Loved ones will die, your own body will eventually fall apart. Everything that seems permanent is absolutely impermanent and will be smashed. Experience will gradually or not so gradually strip away everything that it can strip away. Waking up, but eyes and no longer turning away. Right now we stand on sacred and holy ground. For that which will be lost has not yet been lost and realizing this is the key to unspeakable joy. Whoever or whatever is in your life right now has not yet been taken away from you. This may sound obvious, but really, knowing it is the key to everything, the why and how and wherefore of existence. Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heartbreaking gratitude. Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar. Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar. 

Yeah, that's what we're here for, right? To remind everybody and to be a part of that remembrance. So again, thank you so much and I will let you know when this is ready to go.