What Is End of Life Coaching?
End of Life Coaching is coaching support for those who are dying and those who are grieving.
Like birth, death is an intimate, profound process; it is humbling and sacred. Like a birth doula or midwife, a coach or death midwife bears witness to the experience of the dying person as she or he navigates a unique and final pathway.
The same thought-provoking and creative process applied in life coaching can be applied to grief and death. External goals and future results fade in importance, as the invitation to be present to one’s immediate experience comes to the fore.
Questions that may serve include:
What is happening? What is it like right now? What does it mean to me? What is asked of me in this process?
End of Life Coaching attends to exploration of the feelings, questions and decisions that arise as a person grieves and dies.
An end of life coach or death midwife can help with:
Support after a terminal diagnosis
Hospice – understanding hospice care, selecting a hospice provider
Creating a death plan (much like a birth plan) – record the dying person’s wishes so family and friends know what is wished for when communication may be difficult or impossible
Grief support for the dying person and his or her support network
Ritual support before death (farewell ceremonies, sacred singing)
Funeral planning, including care of the body, home funerals, vigils with the body of the deceased, and green burial.