Can dying be a joyous experience?

Dear friends and neighbors,

Catherine Durkin Robinson introduced me to the Doula, a person who helps families during transitions of being born – and now – of dying. Through our conversation I realized how important it is to not only have the tough conversations around death and dying, but also to embrace the dying process, as it is truly a universally shared experience.

Catherine is also our country’s first psychedelic Doula and she utilizes psychedelics for reducing fear and anxiety in people who are going through end of life transitions. Her mission is to offer people, and their loved ones, a joyous dying experience. And isn’t joy something we all could use more of?

Please watch, read, or listen to the interview, and let me know what you think in the comments.

Dying with Joy – Catherine Durkin Robinson

On a related note, I am currently embarking on a new series featuring healing stories from those who have benefitted from psychedelics at the end of life, or in the face of a terminal diagnosis. I hope to interview those with direct personal experience, as well as relatives, friends, and clinicians with stories to share. Please email my producer if you would like to be interviewed on my program, and featured in a future book on this topic.

Wishing you Golden Light,

Dr. Richard Louis Miller

---

This podcast will always remain available at no cost. However, I’d like to offer my most loyal listeners additional options for enjoying my interviews – both as videos and transcripts.

Further Reading:

• Psychedelic Wisdom- PREORDER NOW

• Psychedelic Medicine

• Diaspora Psychedelic Society

• The National End-of-Life Doula Alliance “NEDA”

• Compassion and Choices

Transcript

Richard Louis Miller: The following program Mind Body Health & Politics is brought to you by our Mind Body Health & Politics team that consists of our producer, Charlie Deist; our sound engineer, David Springer; our social media person and programmer, Alison Kelly; and our editor, Florian Furin. Together, we bring you this internet broadcast and we also produce books, such as the one that came out recently called Psychedelic Wisdom. 

We would like you to go to our archive for Mind Body Health & Politics, listen to some of our programs, and maybe subscribe and become part of our Mind Body Health & Politics community. 

Welcome to Mind Body Health & Politics. The mission of this program is to enhance physical and mental wellbeing and encourage community. 

What I mean when I say “encourage community” is that I believe that human beings are basically friendly tribal animals. When we live together in small enough groups—where we know each other by name, or at least by face—we tend to be very cooperative. We like to hang out together, collaborate, and make life pleasant. 

However, a small percentage of us are avaricious, greedy, dangerous predators. If they had their way, they would turn us into subjects instead of the citizens that we are. Therefore, it's our job to be ever mindful, to stay awake and aware, and protect our democracy and our republic. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. 

Our guest today on Mind Body Health & Politics is Catherine Durkin Robinson. She's going to be talking to us about something that is so new that I'm not even sure I know how to pronounce the word. Welcome, Catherine. The word that I'm not sure I know how to pronounce, is it do-ela?

Catherine Durkin Robinson: It's doo-la.