If you want to have a happy evening sitting around with friends or family, you don't talk about religion, sex, money, and politics. Another topic, perhaps, is death and dying. Death is a part of all of our lives and something that we should feel normal discussing. What if we had someone to walk alongside us and make the prospect of the end of life something less scary? That is exactly the role an end-of-life doula takes. My Guest, Catherine Durkin Robinson, works as a death doula – offering her services to those with a terminal diagnosis and those who want to learn about the dying process alike. Talking about death and owning the process could very well be the key to breaking out of our fear and making it a sacred, almost joyful event.
“We're talking about reducing fear, reducing anxiety, so that they can have a more joyful death.”
Catherine Durkin Robinson is a death doula and educator. She graduated from the University of Vermont's End-of-Life Doula program and belongs to National End-of-Life Doula Alliance. She was also a longtime hospice-trained volunteer and registered pre-need counselor in the state of Florida before relocating to Chicago in July 2022. Her varied career includes 30 years as a political organizer, 10 years as an educator at the high school and college level, and 10 years as a newspaper columnist in Tampa.
Currently, she serves people at end of life and teaches classes at colleges and community organizations through her private practice, Anitya Doula Services, in Chicago. She also serves as a death doula with the Diaspora Psychedelic Society in Jamaica.
Show notes:
What is a doula?
Becoming an end of life doula
The people who seek out a death doula
Catherine’s goal is to normalize the conversation about end-of-life
“Doula for a Day” with Richard
What an advanced care directive is
Your familiarity with the dying process
End of life and psychedelics
More and more places are decriminalizing plant medicine
Dying joyfully, rather than consciously
Links and references:
Psychedelic Wisdom- PREORDER NOW
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Dying with Joy – Catherine Durkin Robinson