Caregiver Guilt Is Normal: Why Feeling Like You’re Doing It Wrong Might Mean You’re Doing It Right

If you’re caring for someone who is dying or seriously ill, there’s a good chance you’ve had this thought at least once a day:

I’m doing this wrong.

Maybe it shows up when you lose your patience.
Or when you Google symptoms at 2 a.m. and convince yourself you missed something important.
Or when someone asks, “How are things going?” and your brain immediately replies, Terribly. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Welcome to caregiving.

Here’s the truth no one says: most caregivers feel like they’re doing it wrong. And strangely enough, that feeling is often a sign you’re doing it exactly right.

Let me explain.

Caregiving Doesn’t Come With a Manual

Most caregivers are thrown into the role without training. One day you’re a daughter, partner, friend, or spouse… and suddenly you’re also a medication manager, appointment scheduler, emotional support human, medical translator, and part-time detective trying to interpret symptoms.

It’s a lot.

And because the stakes feel incredibly high (this is someone you love, after all) every decision can feel loaded with pressure.

Did I give the medication at the right time?
Should I have pushed harder at that doctor’s appointment?
Am I being patient enough?
Am I missing something?

Your brain is scanning for mistakes because you care deeply about the outcome.  Does that sound like failure?  I hope not!

Doubt Is Often a Sign of Deep Care

People who truly don’t care rarely question themselves.

The caregivers who lie awake worrying they’re doing it wrong are usually the ones who are showing up day after day despite exhaustion, uncertainty, and grief that started long before the death itself.

You’re learning as you go. You’re adapting to changes you didn’t ask for. You’re making decisions in situations where there are rarely clear “right” answers. Of course you feel unsure!

The Myth of the Perfect Caregiver

Somewhere along the way, many caregivers absorb this invisible expectation that they should be endlessly patient, emotionally steady, medically knowledgeable, and available 24/7.

Let’s be honest: that person does not exist.

Real caregivers:

• Get frustrated

• Forget things occasionally

• Need breaks

• Feel resentful sometimes

• Cry in the car

• Laugh at inappropriate moments

• And occasionally hide in the pantry just to breathe for five minutes

None of that means you’re failing. It means you’re human.

The goal was never perfection. 

What Your Loved One Actually Needs

When people imagine “doing caregiving right,” they often picture flawless care. Perfect timing, perfect words, perfect emotional responses.

But most people who are seriously ill aren’t looking for perfection.

They’re looking for:

• Someone who shows up

• Someone who tries

• Someone who stays

They need someone willing to sit in uncertainty with them.

And that’s exactly what caregivers do every day.

You might feel clumsy in the role. You might second-guess yourself constantly. But if you keep showing up with care and compassion, you’re already giving something incredibly meaningful.

The Quiet Reality of Caregiving

Caregiving is a strange mix of love, logistics, grief, and improvisation.

Some days you feel strong.
Some days you feel like a walking to-do list with a pulse.
Some days you feel like you’re barely holding things together with duct tape and caffeine.

That’s normal.

No one but you will care whether you handled every moment perfectly. You’re there, navigating something incredibly hard alongside someone you love.

If You’re Worried You’re Doing It Wrong…

Let me offer you this gentle reframe:

If you’re questioning yourself, it probably means you care deeply about getting it right.

And caring that much? That’s the heart of caregiving.

So if today you feel unsure… overwhelmed… or like you’re fumbling through the role…

Take a breath.

You’re showing up.
You’re trying.
You’re loving someone through one of the hardest chapters of life.

That counts more than you realize.

And odds are, you’re doing a whole lot more right than you think.

The In-Between Season of Grief

March has a strange personality.

One day the sun feels warm on your face and you think, maybe we’re turning a corner. The next day you’re scraping ice off your windshield again, wondering who you trusted enough to put the snow boots away.  It’s not winter anymore. But it’s not spring either.

Grief has a season like that too.

In the beginning, everything is very…..loud. The shock. The phone calls. The casseroles. The way time feels warped and unreal. There is structure in those early days. There are rituals to follow. There is permission to fall apart in public.  People expect you to be a mess. And you are.

But then the calendar keeps moving.

The meals stop arriving. The sympathy cards taper off. The world gently, then not so gently, returns to normal. You go back to work. You answer emails. You attend appointments. You figure out how to function.  And somewhere in that process, you enter the in-between season of grief.

You’re no longer in the acute stage. You are not in crisis every minute. You might even laugh again. You can carry on a conversation without your voice cracking. You can get through a whole afternoon without crying.  But you are not fine.

The pain has changed shape. It is less sharp, but more woven into your everyday life. It shows up in ordinary moments. In the grocery store when you reach for their favorite brand. In the quiet at night when there is no one to debrief your day with. In the sudden realization that you are becoming someone new, and you did not ask for this transformation.

This middle space can be deeply confusing.  You may look “better” from the outside. You are functioning. You are productive. You are handling things. People tell you how strong you are.

What they do not see is the low, steady ache beneath the surface. The background hum of missing. The mental math of firsts and anniversaries quietly approaching. The effort it takes to move through a world that feels both the same and completely altered.

This in-between season is often lonelier than the beginning.

In the early days, support surrounds you. Later, the assumption creeps in that you have processed it. That you are on the other side. That grief is something you move through quickly and neatly.  But grief does not follow a tidy timeline. It does not respond to pressure. It does not pack up because other people are uncomfortable.  This middle phase is where the deeper integration begins.

It is where you start asking harder questions. Who am I now? What does my life look like without them physically here? How do I carry this love forward?  It is also where guilt can sneak in. Guilt for laughing. Guilt for having a good day. Guilt for feeling relief if the caregiving was long and exhausting. Guilt for still hurting months or years later.

Let me say this clearly: THIS IS NORMAL AND YOU ARE OK.

You are not grieving too long. You are not weak for still having waves of sadness. You are not dramatic because a change in seasons hits you harder than you expected.  You are adjusting to a reality that altered you, and that takes time.

The in-between season of grief is not about “getting over” the loss. It is about learning how to live alongside it. It is about discovering that you can hold sorrow in one hand and a decent Tuesday in the other. That you can feel gratitude and longing in the same breath.  This is not betrayal. It is not forgetting.  It is growth that does not erase love.

March eventually gives way to spring, not because we forced it, but because seasons move at their own pace. The ground softens slowly. The light stretches a little further each evening. You do not notice the shift all at once. You notice it in inches.

Grief moves like that too.

If you find yourself in this middle ground, be gentle with yourself. Lower expectations where you can. Tell the truth about how you are actually doing, at least to one safe person. Let yourself be both functioning and fragile.  You do not have to rush this season and you do not have to navigate it alone.

This is exactly why I created the Good Grief Society. It is a space for people who are past the casseroles but still very much in it. A place where you do not have to explain why it still hurts. A place where the messy middle is understood, not fixed.  If you are in the in-between, you are welcome there.

You are not behind.

You are in a season.

And seasons change, even when they take their sweet time.

Top 5 Ways Grief Changes You and Why That’s Not a Failure

Grief has a way of rearranging the furniture of your life without asking permission. One day you recognize yourself. The next day you’ve tripped over the coffee table for the 3rd time wondering when this all got so damn HEAVY.

People often tell me that they just want to “get back to who I was before.” I understand that longing. But grief is not a detour you circle around and exit unchanged. It marks you. And being marked by love and loss is not a personal shortcoming. It is evidence that something mattered.

Here are five ways grief changes you, and why those changes are not signs you are doing it wrong.

1. Your energy shifts

You may feel bone-deep exhaustion, even months later. Tasks that once took an hour now take an afternoon. Decisions feel harder. Socializing can feel like hiking in flip-flops.  (Dude seriously, I’ve seen people do this.  Please no)

This does not mean you have become lazy or unmotivated. Grief consumes energy because your nervous system is working overtime underneath it all. You are adjusting to a world that no longer includes someone you love. Your body and brain are recalibrating. That takes fuel.

When your capacity changes, it is not a character flaw. It is your system asking for care. Think of it as healing work happening beneath the surface. You cannot see it, but it is real.

2. Your priorities rearrange themselves

After a significant loss, what once felt urgent may lose its shine. Career goals, social obligations, even long-held plans can feel less compelling. At the same time, smaller moments may suddenly feel sacred. A quiet morning. A real conversation. Time with the people who remain.

This shift can be disorienting. You may question your ambition or wonder why you no longer care about things that used to drive you. Grief often clarifies what truly matters. When death enters the room, illusions tend to leave.

Letting your priorities evolve is not drifting. It is growth under pressure. You are living with a deeper awareness of time and fragility. That perspective can reshape everything.

3. Your relationships change

Some people show up in ways that surprise you. Others disappear. Conversations can feel strained. You might find yourself less tolerant of surface-level interactions and more drawn to honesty.

This can be painful. It can also be clarifying. Loss tends to reveal who can sit in discomfort and who needs to rush you toward “better.” As your inner world changes, your relational world may shift too.

Outgrowing certain dynamics does not make you ungrateful. Wanting deeper connection does not make you demanding. Grief often teaches you to value authenticity. That lesson can refine your circle.

4. Your emotional landscape becomes more intense

You may cry at commercials. Or feel sudden waves of anger. Or experience joy that is sharper and more bittersweet than before. Grief can heighten everything. It cracks you open.

Some people worry that they are too emotional now. That they have become fragile. In truth, you are more aware. When you have loved deeply and lost deeply, your emotional range expands.

There is courage in staying open. It would be easier to numb out. Remaining connected to your feelings, even the messy ones, is a sign of resilience. Your heart has stretched. Stretched hearts feel more.

5. Your identity evolves

Perhaps you now carry a new title. Widow. Bereaved parent. Adult child without parents. Or maybe the change is quieter. You feel older somehow. More reflective. Less certain about simple answers.

You might not fully recognize the person you are becoming. That can be unsettling. We like continuity. We like the illusion that we stay the same.

Grief disrupts that illusion. It asks you to integrate love, loss, memory, and meaning into your sense of self. Over time, you may notice new strengths. Greater empathy. A deeper ability to sit with others in pain. A clearer understanding of what you stand for.

Becoming someone new in the aftermath of loss is not betrayal of who you were. It is an adaptation to reality. You are still you. Just with more layers.

If you are in the thick of grief, you might worry that you are handling it poorly because you feel different. Because your capacity has shifted. Because your worldview has changed.

Change is the natural companion of loss. You cannot lose something that mattered and remain untouched. The goal is not to preserve your old self in a glass case. The goal is to learn how to carry your love forward in a changed body, a changed mind, a changed life.

Grief will alter you. It may soften you in some places and strengthen you in others. It may slow you down. It may sharpen your clarity. None of that is failure.

It is the human response to loving deeply in a world where goodbye is part of the deal.

And if you are changing, it means you cared. That is something to honor, not hide.

If you need a soft place to land and be supported in your grief, come join us at the Good Grief Society!

Things Grief Took From Me and What It Gave Me Instead

Things Grief Took From Me and What It Gave Me Instead

Grief is a thief.  (I love a good rhyme)
It does not ask permission to come in.  It shows up, rearranges your life, and leaves you standing there holding pieces you do not recognize.

People talk a lot about what grief teaches us, how it makes us stronger or wiser. That might be true eventually. But first, grief takes. Quietly, aggressively, and without apology.

Here are some of the things grief took from me. And, over time, what it gave me instead.

It took my sense of safety

Before grief, I believed in a certain order to life. If you did the right things, loved the right way, planned carefully enough, you would be mostly protected.

Grief shattered that illusion. It taught me that life can change in a single phone call.  (A phone call forever etched in my brain) That control is mostly a story we tell ourselves to sleep at night.

What grief gave me instead was presence. I stopped postponing joy and connection. I learned to say the thing, take the trip, hold the hand longer. When you stop assuming tomorrow is guaranteed, today gets louder and more precious.

It took my old identity

Grief does not just take people. It takes versions of you.

I was no longer who I was before the loss. I could not go back, no matter how badly I wanted to. The world kept asking me to be my old self, while grief quietly erased that blueprint.

What it gave me instead was permission to become someone new. Someone softer in some places and sharper in others. Someone who no longer apologizes for being changed by loss. Reinvention was not a choice. It was survival.

It took my tolerance for nonsense

Small talk became unbearable. Performative busyness lost its appeal. I no longer had the patience for things that drained me just to keep the peace.

Grief stripped away the illusion that everything deserves my energy.

What it gave me instead was clarity. I learned where my yes truly lives and how sacred my no can be. I stopped explaining myself so much. Life is too short to spend it pretending.

It took my relationship with time

Grief warped time in strange ways. Days dragged. Months disappeared. Anniversaries felt both far away and impossibly close.

I stopped trusting the calendar to tell the truth about how I was doing.

What grief gave me instead was rhythm instead of deadlines. I learned that healing is not linear and cannot be scheduled. Some days are heavy for no obvious reason. Others are light and surprising. Both are allowed.

It took my illusions about strength

I thought strength meant holding it together. Being composed. Not falling apart.

Grief laughed at that idea.

It dropped me to my knees. It made me sob in grocery stores and forget words mid sentence. It humbled me in ways I never anticipated.

What it gave me instead was a deeper, quieter strength. The kind that lets you ask for help. The kind that sits with pain without rushing to fix it. The kind that survives.

It took some relationships

Not everyone stayed. Some people disappeared when grief got uncomfortable. Others expected me to grieve on a timeline that felt polite and tidy.

That loss hurt almost as much as the original one.

What grief gave me instead was discernment. I learned who could hold my truth and who could not. I found deeper connections with people who understood that grief is not something you get over, but something you learn to carry.

It took my innocence about pain

I will never again be naive about how deeply loss can cut.

That part of me is gone.

But what grief gave me instead was compassion. Real compassion. Not the kind that rushes in with platitudes, but the kind that sits quietly beside suffering. The kind that does not flinch when things get messy.

Grief took a lot from me. I will never pretend otherwise.

But it also gave me depth, honesty, and a fierce tenderness for what matters. It changed the way I love, the way I listen, and the way I show up in the world.

I would never choose grief.
But I honor who I became because of it.

What to Expect During the Dying Process: What Families Wish They’d Known

We plan funerals. We argue about paperwork. We Google symptoms at 2 a.m. But the day to day reality of the dying process often arrives with zero warning and a whole lot of what the hell is happening.

No one really talks about what dying actually looks like until you are already in it.

After walking alongside many families at the end of life, I’ve seen many different dying experiences but almost all of them end with someone saying, “I did not expect….”  Because it’s not like the movies.  And since we never talk about death and dying, we don’t often share our experiences with anyone else so we don’t know what to expect!

So let’s just get it out there, shall we?  Here are some of the things I’ve heard people tell me they wish they’d known.

1. Dying is usually slower than you expect

Movies make it look dramatic and sudden. Real life tends to be quieter and much longer.

People are often shocked by how much waiting there is. Days blur together. There are long stretches where nothing seems to change, followed by moments where everything shifts at once. That slowness can feel excruciating when you are emotionally exhausted and desperate for clarity.

Knowing this ahead of time does not make it easy, but it can keep you from constantly thinking you are missing something or doing something wrong.

2. Appetite changes are normal and not a personal rejection

One of the most painful moments for caregivers is when food stops being welcomed.

The dying body gradually needs less fuel. Hunger fades. Swallowing becomes difficult. Favorite foods suddenly taste wrong or are refused altogether. Families often panic or feel hurt, especially if feeding has always been a way of showing love.

This is not your loved one giving up or pushing you away. It is the body doing exactly what it is designed to do at the end of life. Offering food gently and without pressure is usually far more loving than insisting they eat.

(Check out this widely known book on the matter)

3. Sleep increases and it can feel like you are losing them early

People nearing the end of life often sleep more. Sometimes much more.

They may drift in and out of consciousness. Conversations become shorter. Eye contact fades. Families often worry that their loved one is withdrawing or that they have already missed their chance to connect.

Even when someone appears asleep, hearing is often one of the last senses to go. Talking, reading, holding a hand, or simply being present still matters. Love does not require a response to be real.

4. The body does strange things that are normal and unsettling

There are physical changes that no one prepares you for.

Breathing patterns change. Skin color shifts. Hands and feet cool. Sounds may come from the chest that are scary if you do not know what they are. None of this necessarily means pain.

Most of these changes are part of the natural shutting down process. Hospice and palliative teams see them every day. Asking questions is not bothersome. It is responsible caregiving.

5. Emotional and spiritual moments can be surprising

Some people talk to people who are not physically present. Some reach for something unseen. Some say things that feel symbolic or out of character.

This can be deeply comforting or deeply confusing, depending on your beliefs and expectations. Many families wish they had known that these moments are common and not signs of distress or confusion that need fixing.

Often, the best response is simply to listen and stay grounded.

6. You can do everything right and still feel like it is not enough

This is the one that hits hardest.

Caregivers often replay every decision after the death. Did I say the right thing? Did I stay too long or not long enough? Should I have pushed for something different?

There is no perfect script for dying. Being present, imperfect, tired, loving, and human is already enough. Guilt loves hindsight, but hindsight is not wisdom. It is just pain looking for meaning.

7. The end does not always look how you imagined

Some deaths are peaceful. Some are messy. Some are quiet. Some are loud with emotion.

Families often expect a final profound moment with clear closure. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes the end is subtle and anticlimactic. Both are normal. Neither means you did anything wrong or missed something sacred.

8. You are allowed to need support too

Many people believe caregiving means being strong at all costs.

In reality, the dying process can hollow you out. It is exhausting, heartbreaking, and disorienting. Wanting help does not mean you are failing. It means you are human.

Support groups, hospice teams, death doulas, and trusted friends exist because no one should do this alone.  (Psst, I host a completely free support group for caregivers twice a month on zoom!)

If there is one thing people consistently wish they had known, it is this:  You are not broken for feeling lost during death. Death is unfamiliar territory, and most of us are learning it in real time.

Gentleness goes a long way here. With them. With yourself.

As always, if you need help or just some calming presence while caregiving please do not hesitate to reach out.

Caregivers Are Not Just Tired, You’re Soul-Tired: How to Honor That

Caregiver tired hits different.

This is not the kind of tired a nap fixes. It does not respond to a weekend off or a stronger cup of coffee. It settles into your bones, your breath, your sense of self. It shows up as forgetfulness, irritability, numbness, grief, resentment, and love all tangled together. You can sleep eight hours and still wake up exhausted. That’s because what you are carrying goes far deeper than physical fatigue.

Caregiving asks you to be constantly alert, emotionally available, and quietly resilient. You are witnessing loss in slow motion. You are holding worry that never fully turns off. You are making a thousand micro-decisions every day while pretending you are fine. Over time, that kind of vigilance reshapes your nervous system. Of course you are depleted. Of course your spirit feels worn thin.

This is soul-tired.

Soul-tired shows up when your inner resources have been stretched too far for too long. It comes from loving someone through decline. From showing up even when your own needs are waiting patiently in the corner. From being strong so others do not have to be. It is grief layered on responsibility layered on love.

And here’s the part caregivers struggle with the most: soul-tired deserves to be honored, not pushed through.

Honoring soul-tired starts with telling the truth

The first way to honor soul-tired is to stop minimizing it. Caregivers are masters at self-dismissal. Others have it worse. I chose this. I should be grateful. I just need to toughen up. None of those thoughts create relief. They create isolation.

Tell the truth to yourself first. This is hard. This is heavy. This is costing me something. Naming the weight does not make you weak. It makes you honest. Honesty is the doorway to care.

Let your exhaustion be what it is. You do not need a better attitude. You need acknowledgment.

Create space where you do not have to perform

Caregivers are often surrounded by people yet feel deeply alone. Conversations become logistical. Updates replace connection. You may feel pressure to stay upbeat or reassuring so others feel less uncomfortable.

Soul-tired needs spaces where you do not have to explain, educate, or protect anyone else’s feelings. This might be a support group, a trusted friend, a therapist, or a death doula. What matters is that there is somewhere you can exhale without being fixed or redirected.

You deserve places where your grief can be spoken out loud. Silence may look like strength, but it quietly drains the spirit.

Shift the idea of rest

Traditional self-care advice often misses the mark for caregivers. Baths, walks, and yoga are fine, but soul-tired requires something deeper. Rest becomes about relief, not productivity.

Relief might look like letting yourself cry without apologizing. It might look like sitting in your car after an appointment and doing absolutely nothing. It might look like asking someone else to make a decision for once. It might look like laughter that feels slightly inappropriate and exactly necessary.

Honor rest that nourishes your inner world, not just your body.

Allow grief to exist alongside love

Many caregivers feel guilt for grieving while the person they care for is still alive. There is grief for what has already changed and for what is coming. That grief does not cancel out love or devotion. It exists because of it.

Soul-tired often comes from carrying grief alone. When grief is acknowledged, it softens. When it is suppressed, it weighs more.

Give yourself permission to grieve in real time. You do not need to wait for a loss to mourn.

Ask for help before you are empty

Caregivers often wait until they are past their limit before asking for support. By then, everything feels urgent and overwhelming. Soul-tired is a signal, not a failure.

Help can be practical, emotional, or relational. Meals. Breaks. Someone to sit with your loved one. Someone to sit with you. Support is not a sign you are doing caregiving wrong. It is how caregiving becomes survivable.

You were never meant to do this alone.

Remember that you matter too

Caregiving can slowly shrink your sense of self. Your needs get postponed. Your identity narrows. Your inner life goes quiet.

You are still here. Your body. Your heart. Your future. Honoring soul-tired includes remembering that your life has value beyond what you provide for others.

You are allowed to care for yourself with the same tenderness you offer so freely.

Soul-tired does not mean you are failing. It means you are human in an inhumane situation. Treat that truth gently.

When Everything Changes: The Role of a Death Doula

A terminal diagnosis has a way of stopping time while the rest of the world keeps going on like nothing happened. One moment you’re worrying about deadlines, and what’s for dinner. The next, you’re staring at a future that feels foggy,and wildly unfair. It’s disorienting. It’s terrifying. And it’s deeply human to think, “OMG hang on.  What just happened?”

People often assume the hardest part is the idea of dying. But what hits first (and hardest) is everything else: the grief for the life you thought you’d have, the fear of what’s coming, the awkward conversations, the silence from people who don’t know what to say, and the exhaustion of holding it all together. A terminal diagnosis changes how you move through the world.

This is where a death doula can make a meaningful difference.

First things first: what is a death doula? (I hope you know this by now!)

A death doula (or end-of-life doula) is a non-medical support person trained to walk alongside individuals and families facing serious illness, dying, and death. We don’t replace doctors, nurses, hospice, or therapy. Think of us as the steady companion in the middle of the chaos.  The person who isn’t rushing, isn’t afraid of hard conversations, and isn’t going to disappear when things get uncomfortable.

We support emotionally, practically, and spiritually (if that’s your thing). We help you process what’s happening, make sense of what comes next, and figure out how you want to live now and not just how you’ll die later.

We have presence.

Holding space when everything feels like too much

After a terminal diagnosis, emotions rarely arrive one at a time. They come in waves.  Sometimes all at once, sometimes sneaking up on you in the cereal aisle. Fear. Anger. Sadness. Relief. Guilt. Numbness. Even moments of joy that feel confusing or “wrong.”

A death doula doesn’t try to tidy any of this up.

We don’t tell you to be brave. We don’t push positivity. And we definitely don’t say things like “everything happens for a reason.” (Hard pass.)

Instead, we listen. Fully. Honestly. Without flinching.

You can say the things you’re scared to say out loud. You can repeat yourself.  (I’ve heard someone tell me the same stories a dozen or so times, and everyone I treat as brand new) You can cry, swear, joke, rage, or sit in silence. Many people tell me they don’t want to “burden” their loved ones with how heavy things feel. With a doula, you don’t have to edit yourself. You’re allowed to be exactly where you are.

The practical stuff no one prepares you for

Let’s talk about the mountain of logistics.  They are not fun but they are important

A terminal diagnosis often comes with decisions about advance directives, medical wishes, hospice care, legacy planning, funerals, conversations with family, and yes… who gets what when you’re gone. Trying to handle all of that while emotionally reeling is a lot. Like, too much a lot.

A death doula helps break it down.

We help you understand your options, clarify your values, and make decisions at your own pace. There’s no “right” way to do this, but your way deserves to be honored and upheld. Whether that means writing letters, recording stories, planning a celebration of life, or deciding what comfort and dignity look like for you at the end, we walk through it together. One step at a time.

No pressure. No agenda. Just support.

Seeing you as a whole person and not just a diagnosis

Medical systems are great at treating illness. They’re not always great at tending to the person living inside that illness.

Death doulas focus on you.

Your story. Your relationships. Your fears and hopes. Your sense of meaning. Your unfinished business (emotional or otherwise). Your loved ones may begin to see you as a patient, but you’re still someone who loves deeply, remembers vividly, laughs loudly, and matters immensely.

We might help you create memory projects, facilitate meaningful conversations, explore spiritual questions, or simply sit with you while you reflect on your life. Sometimes the most powerful support looks like quiet presence. Sometimes it looks like laughter. Sometimes it’s both in the same hour.

Supporting the people who love you, too

A terminal diagnosis sends shockwaves through families and chosen families alike. Caregivers often feel overwhelmed, helpless, exhausted, and unsure if they’re “doing enough” or “doing it right.”

A death doula supports them as well.

We offer guidance, education, emotional support, and sometimes just a calm presence in the room. We help with communication, family dynamics, and those conversations no one wants to start but everyone’s thinking about. And yes, sometimes that support happens over a cup of tea, or a strong drink, while someone finally lets themselves fall apart.

Making room for what truly matters

Here’s the truth: a death doula can’t change a diagnosis. We can’t fix what’s broken or make this fair.  But we can help you live with intention, honesty, and connection in the time you have. We can help you reclaim a sense of agency when so much feels out of control. We can help you shape this chapter in a way that reflects who you are and what you value.

Even now (especially now) there is room for meaning. For love. For laughter. For hard truths and tender moments and memories that matter.

If you or someone you love is facing a terminal diagnosis, you don’t have to walk this path alone. Death doulas aren’t afraid of the hard stuff. We’ll meet you exactly where you are and walk with you, heart first, all the way through.

Top 5 Grief Experiences No One Prepares You For

We talk about grief like it’s one thing. A feeling. A season. Something you move through and eventually “close.”

That’s… not how it works.

Grief is sneakier than that. It shows up sideways. It rewires your body, your brain, and your expectations of yourself. And a lot of the hardest parts aren’t the ones people warn you about. No one pulls you aside and says, “Hey, this part might really mess with you!.”

So let’s talk about the parts no one prepares you for.

1. It’s a Full-Body Experience

Most people expect grief to feel like crying. What they don’t expect is exhaustion so deep it feels cellular. Brain fog that makes simple decisions feel impossible. A body that aches for no clear reason. A nervous system that’s suddenly jumpy, numb, or both.

Grief lives in the body long before the mind catches up. You might feel short of breath, heavy in your chest, or like you’re walking through wet cement. You may sleep too much, or not at all. Food might lose its taste, or suddenly become the only thing that feels grounding.

This isn't a weakness!!  Your body is responding to loss the same way it responds to threat. Once you know that, you can stop asking yourself why you “should be handling this better” and start listening to what your body is asking for instead.

2. The Loneliness.  (Even When You’re Not Alone)

In the early days, support often pours in. Texts. Meals. Check-ins. And then… it thins out. Life resumes for everyone else while yours feels permanently altered.

Even surrounded by people, grief can feel isolating. You might feel like no one really understands what you’re carrying. Conversations feel shallow. Laughter feels foreign. You may stop bringing up your loss because you don’t want to make others uncomfortable, or because you’re tired of hearing the same well-meaning but hollow responses.

This kind of loneliness doesn’t feel like the typical “I’m all by myself” alone.  You’ve changed in a way the world doesn’t quite know how to meet. And that disconnect can hurt just as much as the loss itself.

3. Grief Can Show Up as Anger, Guilt, or Even Nothing at All

Not everyone cries. Not everyone falls apart. Some people even feel rage.  At doctors, family members, God, the universe, or the person who died. Others feel guilt over things said, not said, done, or imagined. And some feel… strangely fine. Or numb. Or emotionally blank.

Here’s the truth no one says out loud enough: there is no correct emotional response to loss.

If ou’re numb, you’re not in denial. If you’re angry, you’re not an a-hole.  And if you feel relief it does NOT mean you didn’t love them!  Grief is complex, and it often comes wrapped in emotions that feel confusing or even uncomfortable to admit.

If your grief doesn’t look like what you expected, or what you think it should look like, that doesn’t make it less real. It just means it’s yours.

4. It Can Get Harder After Everyone Thinks You Should Be “Better”

There’s an unspoken timeline for grief in our culture. You get a few weeks of grace. Maybe a few months. And then the expectation quietly shifts toward productivity, normalcy, and resilience.

But for many people, grief intensifies after the initial shock wears off. When the logistics are done. When the casseroles stop coming. When you’re left alone with the permanence of the loss.

This is often when grief sinks deeper. You’re not “stuck.”  Your nervous system just finally has space to process what happened. Unfortunately, this is also when support tends to fade, leaving people feeling like they’re failing at something invisible.

You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re just grieving in a world that doesn’t give grief enough room.

5. Grief Doesn’t End.  But It Does Change

One of the most unhelpful things people are told is that grief is something to “get over.” As if love has an expiration date.

Grief doesn’t disappear. It evolves. It softens, sharpens, resurfaces, and settles again. Some days it’s a quiet ache. Other days it blindsides you in the grocery store over a song or a smell or a memory you didn’t see coming.

Over time, you don’t stop grieving, you simply learn how to carry it. Grief becomes part of life, woven in with joy, meaning, and connection. Not in spite of it, but alongside it.

And no one prepares you for the fact that healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It means learning how to live while still loving someone who isn’t here.

If you’re in the middle of any of this, especially the parts that feel confusing, isolating, or “wrong”, you’re not failing at grief. You’re experiencing it.

And you don’t have to do it alone.

If you need support that meets you where you are, I’m here. Sometimes the most healing thing isn’t fixing grief, but having someone walk beside you while you carry it.

Creating a Calm End of Life Experience

Here’s the truth: the end of life can be tender and chaotic at the same time. Medical equipment beeps. People whisper like they’re in a library. Someone’s asking where the chapstick is while another person is Googling “what does active dying look like” at 2 a.m.

Creating a calming end-of-life environment should NEVER be turning the moment into some Instagram-worthy candlelit montage. OMG please do not.  We want to create a space for the person who is dying (and the people who love them) so that everyone can breathe a little easier.  And not just the physical space but the emotional too.

Cool, Nikki but how do we do this in real, doable ways?  Glad you asked!  Because, you know, this is what I do.

Start With What “Calm” Means to Them

This is the most important part, and it’s the one people skip.

Calm is personal.

For some people, calm is silence and dim lights. For others, it’s baseball on the TV, a dog snoring at their feet, and their favorite people telling stories that make them laugh. One person’s peaceful sanctuary is another person’s sensory nightmare.  I’ve seen both!

If the person can still communicate, ask simple questions:

• What helps you feel relaxed?

• What feels annoying or overwhelming right now?

• Do you want quiet, music, or conversation?

If they can’t communicate anymore, think about who they’ve always been. How did they rest? What brought them comfort when they were stressed or sick in the past? You can also look for non-verbal cues that they’re stressed.  Furrowed brow, sour face, restlessness.

Soften the Sensory Overload

End-of-life spaces often become unintentionally loud, bright, and overstimulating. A few gentle tweaks can make a big difference.

Lighting:
Overhead lights are the enemy of calm. Use lamps, salt lights, or natural daylight when possible. Think “soft glow,” not “interrogation room.”  (Of all the times to give off that vibe…)

Sound:
Silence can be soothing, but it can also feel heavy. Music can help regulate breathing, ease anxiety, and provide emotional grounding. Choose music intentionally: favorite songs, instrumental pieces, nature sounds, or spiritual music if that fits. And yes, volume matters. This is not the time for surround sound.

Smell:
Scent is powerful. Familiar smells can be deeply comforting. A favorite lotion, clean sheets, a hint of lavender.  But subtle is the key word here. Skip anything strong or new that might be overwhelming or nauseating.

Make the Space Feel Human, Not Clinical

Whether someone is at home, in hospice, or in a facility, the goal is the same: remind them they are a person, not a patient.

Bring in:

• Favorite blankets or pillows

• Photos of people, places, or pets they love

• Meaningful objects (a rosary, a book, a quilt, a piece of art)

If medical equipment is necessary (and often it is), you can still soften the space around it. Cover what you can safely cover. Create visual warmth in the corners of the room. Small touches matter more than you think.

Create Emotional Calm, Not Just Physical Calm

Here’s the part no one prepares caregivers for: your nervous system affects theirs.  Yup.  They know when you’re anxious and that can make them anxious too.

If the room is full of tension, whispered panic, unresolved conflict, or people hovering anxiously, the dying person often feels it.

This doesn’t mean you have to be perfectly peaceful. (Spoiler: no one is.) It means being mindful of the emotional tone in the room.

Some ways to help:

• Step out to have hard conversations elsewhere

• Give people permission to take breaks

• Let silence be okay

• Speak honestly, gently, and directly

• HIRE A DEATH DOULA!!

This also means saying what needs to be said. Love. Gratitude. Forgiveness. Permission to rest. Those words can bring profound calm, even when nothing else does.

Establish Gentle Rhythms

Chaos often comes from uncertainty. Gentle routines can create a sense of safety.

This might look like:

• Playing the same music in the evenings

• Dimming lights at the same time each night

• Reading aloud for a few minutes each day

• Having a familiar person present during certain times

Ritual doesn’t have to be religious or formal. It just has to be consistent enough to signal, You are safe. You are not alone.

Don’t Forget the Caregivers (Yes, That’s You)

A calm environment isn’t just for the person who is dying. It’s for the people who are witnessing it.

If you’re running on fumes, your body tense, your jaw clenched, your breath shallow.  You’re doing the hardest job there is. And you deserve support too.

Drink water. Eat something with actual nutritional value. Step outside. Sit down. Cry in the bathroom if you need to. Ask for help and accept it when it’s offered.

Calm is contagious, but so is burnout.

There Is No “Perfect” Way to Do This

Let me say this clearly: if the space feels imperfect, emotional, messy, and deeply human, you’re probably doing it right.

Creating a calming end-of-life environment isn’t about control. It’s about presence. It’s about reducing unnecessary stress so love, connection, and dignity have room to exist.

You don’t need to get it all right.
You just need to show up with care.

And that, truly, is enough.

When You Don’t Feel Grief Because the Relationship Was Hard

I was chatting with a dear friend awhile ago about “Grief that isn’t there.”  And it’s stuck with me.  I’ve seen this before but didn’t give it a lot of thought.  I’ve been thinking about this one for awhile now and thought it deserved some space too.

There’s a kind of loss no one really talks about.  The one where someone dies and you don’t feel the thing everyone told you you’d feel.

No gut‑punch sadness. No constant tears. No sense that the world stopped spinning.

Instead, there’s quiet. Or relief. Or a confusing emotional shrug that leaves you wondering what’s wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you.

If your relationship with the person who died was strained, painful, distant, or complicated, your grief may not show up the way grief is “supposed to.”

Sometimes You Did the Grieving While They Were Still Alive

When a relationship is hard, the grief often starts long before death.

You grieve the parent who couldn’t be who you needed. The partner who caused more harm than safety. The family member who never showed up, never changed, or never took responsibility.

That kind of grief is slow and quiet. It happens in moments of disappointment or abandonment, boundary‑setting, and emotional survival.

So when death comes, your body may simply register that the struggle is over. Not because you didn’t care, but because you already carried the weight for years.

Not Feeling Grief Doesn’t Mean You Didn’t Love

We tend to equate grief with sadness. But complicated relationships don’t produce clean emotions.

You might feel relief that the tension is gone, guilt for feeling that relief, anger that resurfaces unexpectedly, or sadness that isn’t about missing them at all, but about what never was.

You may feel neutral. Or numb. Or oddly calm.

None of that makes you cold or broken. It means your emotional response is shaped by the truth of the relationship, not the fantasy version people prefer after someone dies.

You Don’t Have to Rewrite the Relationship Because They Died

Death has a way of polishing rough edges and erasing harm. Suddenly people expect you to remember only the good parts, speak kindly, forgive quickly, and grieve deeply.

You’re allowed to opt out.  Hit that Unsubscribe button!!

You can acknowledge that someone mattered without pretending they were safe. You can respect the fact of their death without romanticizing the relationship. You can feel nothing at all and still be a compassionate human.

Honesty is not disrespect.

What If the Grief Never Comes?

This is the question. The honest answer? Sometimes it doesn’t.

Not every death creates devastation. Some create space. Some create relief. Some create a sense of finally being able to exhale.

That doesn’t mean grief was skipped over. It means your system may finally feel done bracing.

And sometimes (not always) grief does arrive later, months or even years down the road. It often shows up not as missing the person, but as mourning the loss of closure, answers, or the possibility that the relationship might one day have been different.

That grief counts too.

Caring for Yourself When the Relationship Was Complicated

The most important thing you can do is stop judging your response. There is no emotional requirement after a death.

Pay attention to what is present instead of what you think should be. Relief, anger, neutrality, sadness for your younger self; all of these deserve space.

Be mindful about who you talk to. Not everyone can hold complicated grief without trying to fix it or clean it up. You don’t owe anyone clarity, forgiveness, or tears.

And let go of the word should. It has no place here.

Relief Is Not a Moral Failure.  FULL STOP.

This deserves to be said plainly.  

Feeling relief when someone dies does not mean you wished them harm. It often means the relationship carried stress, unpredictability, or emotional danger.

You can feel sad they’re gone and relieved they can no longer hurt you. You can feel nothing at all and still be a good person.

A Gentle Truth to Hold

Grief is not proof of love.

Sometimes boundaries were the love that was never given. Sometimes surviving the relationship was the work. Sometimes the grief happened quietly, over years, instead of loudly at the end.

If your grief is absent or barely there, trust that your heart is responding honestly to the life you lived, not the story others expect.

That honesty doesn’t need fixing.  It needs compassion.

How Creating a Death Plan Protects the People You Love

Most of us are excellent planners. We plan vacations, weddings, retirements, and what’s for dinner three weeks from now. But when it comes to the one thing we are all guaranteed to experience? Suddenly we go quiet. “I’ll deal with that later.” *shifty eyes*

Well, sometimes later has a way of becoming now.  Ask me how I know. (*cough cough* two very sudden and unexpected deaths in now *cough cough*)

Planning for the end of your life isn’t morbid. It’s merciful. It’s one of the most loving acts you can offer the people you care about, and one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself.

Because here’s the truth no one loves to say out loud: when there is no plan, someone else is forced to make decisions in the middle of shock, fear, and grief. Decisions about medical care. About comfort. About money. About what you would have wanted if you were able to speak for yourself. That’s a heavy burden to drop into someone’s lap while they’re already drowning.

A death plan is about taking ownership. It’s saying, I’ve thought about this. I’ve made choices. I’ve left instructions. It allows your loved ones to focus on loving you, not scrambling through paperwork or arguing over what you “would have wanted.”

And let’s be clear, planning doesn’t mean you have to predict every detail of how or when you’ll die. Life doesn’t work that way. A death plan is about values, preferences, boundaries, and clarity. It’s about answering questions like:

What matters most to me at the end of my life?
What does comfort look like for me?
Who do I trust to speak for me if I can’t speak for myself?
How do I want my body treated after I die?
What do I want my people to know?

These are deeply human questions. And they deserve more than a rushed conversation in a hospital hallway.

There’s also a quiet gift in doing this work while you’re healthy: it often changes how you live now. When you get honest about what matters at the end, you tend to get clearer about what matters today. Boundaries sharpen. Relationships shift. Priorities get rearranged. Suddenly you’re less interested in living on autopilot and more interested in living on purpose.

I’ve sat with countless families at the bedside, some with a plan, many without. I can tell you with certainty: the difference is profound. Planning doesn’t erase grief, but it softens the edges. It brings steadiness into chaos. It turns “I don’t know” into “I know exactly what they wanted.”

And if you’re thinking, I don’t even know where to start, you’re completely normal. Most people were never taught how to have these conversations, let alone write things down in a way that feels accessible and human (not like a cold legal document written in another language).

That’s exactly why I created my Writing Your Death Plan workshop.

This isn’t about fear-mongering or doom-and-gloom. It’s a guided, supportive space where we walk through the essentials together, at your pace, with room for humor, emotion, questions, and real-life complexity. You’ll leave with clarity, confidence, and something tangible your loved ones will one day be grateful for.

If you’ve been waiting for “the right time” to do this, consider this your nudge. Planning for the end of your life doesn’t make it happen sooner, I PROMISE.  But it will help you embrace the  life you’re living now and care for the people you love most.

Come do this important, meaningful work now, before it becomes urgent.

The workshop is in person in Columbus Ohio on January 14th at 6:30PM. Click here to reserve your spot now, before it’s full! I WILL be hosting this online in the coming months.  Please sign up for my newsletter to keep informed of that and any other workshops or events I have upcoming! 

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Imagining a Future That Still Holds Light

This ghost gets a bad rap. The dark cloak, the ominous finger pointing, the whole dramatic entrance. I mean…. In most versions of the Dickens Classic, they make it look like the Grim Reaper.  But maybe the future is not a monster in the corner. Maybe it is an invitation. A quiet one, sure, but still an invitation.

Grief can make the future feel like a blank page you are terrified to write on. It can feel like every sentence might come out wrong, or like you no longer recognize the main character. You might wonder who you will be without them, or whether joy has any room left to land in your life. But healing is not a betrayal of your grief. It is not “moving on.” It is moving with. It is carrying the love forward in new ways, some you have not even imagined yet.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come asks a gentler question than you might expect. What do you want to grow toward? Not resolutions that you will forget by January tenth. Not reinventions that require you to pretend you are someone brand new. It asks for quiet intentions. The kind that honor where you have been and still make space for where you hope to go.

Try this: write a note to your future self. Maybe the you who will be sitting in next December, maybe the you who needs a reminder that growth can be slow and still be real. What would you want to say? What small light would you want to carry forward so you do not forget it? It does not need to be profound. It just needs to be honest.

You do not need a five year plan. You do not need a map with every mile marked. One flicker of hope is enough to begin again. One moment of willingness to imagine something beyond the ache is enough to shift the horizon a little.

Because even in grief, there is always something ahead. A sunrise that did not ask your permission to rise. A song that catches you off guard in the best way. A story still unfolding with you in it. The future is not waiting for you to be over it. The future is waiting to meet you exactly as you are, carrying what you carry, building what comes next one breath at a time.

If you’ve followed along through the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future,  thank you for walking through this with me.

Grief doesn’t take holidays off. It doesn’t respect calendars or dinner plans. But like Scrooge learned, even the hardest nights can hold unexpected light. The ghosts didn’t come to torment him, they came to wake him up. Maybe grief does the same for us.

So if your holidays feel quieter, heavier, or different this year, that’s okay. You’re not behind. You’re becoming.

Here’s to carrying love through time.  Past, present, and yet to come.

The Ghost of Christmas Present: Living Through the Season You’re In

The Ghost of Christmas Present isn’t exactly subtle. It shows up like Buddy the Elf, loud and colorful, full of “be merry!” energy while you’re just trying to remember how to breathe. Grief has a funny way of making the world look too bright and too dim at the same time. Everywhere you turn, there’s tinsel, cheer, and one more reminder that life does not look the way it used to.

If you’re grieving, the holidays can feel like walking through a snow globe version of your own life. Everything glittering on the outside, everything swirling on the inside, and none of it quite settling. People may expect you to jump back into tradition or enthusiasm, but here’s the truth no one puts on a greeting card: presence does not require perfection. You don’t have to be festive to be present. You don’t even have to enjoy any of this. You just have to keep showing up as you are.

Maybe “being here” this year looks like saying no to things that drain you, even if that disappoints someone. Maybe it’s eating pie on the couch while watching a movie you’ve already seen ten times. Maybe it’s letting yourself cry through a song that used to make you smile, letting the memories come as they want to come. All of that counts as presence. All of that is valid.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is always asking one simple question: What is real right now? Not what should be, not what once was, not what everyone else expects. What is here in this breath, in this body, in this moment? Grief lives in the gaps between what was and what is, and that can make the present feel wobbly, but it is still yours to inhabit.

Try this little practice: jot down three truths about how you’re honestly doing this season. No filter. No performance. Just truth, even if it feels messy or small. Then ask yourself, What would compassion look like for me today? Maybe it’s rest. Maybe it’s calling a friend. Maybe it’s loosening your grip on the idea that you have to be “okay” right now.

Grief doesn’t erase the present. It reshapes it. And even in a season that demands sparkle, softness, and celebration, you are allowed to show up in the exact shape your heart is taking today.

The Ghosts of Our Past: How Old Grief Still Shapes Us

The holidays have a way of stirring things up. Joy and sorrow start mingling like relatives who don’t quite get along. And both showing up whether you invited them or not.

This season, I’m exploring grief through a familiar old story: A Christmas Carol. Dickens gave us three ghosts: past, present, and future, each holding a mirror to the parts of ourselves we’d rather avoid. But for those of us grieving, these ghosts feel a little too real.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll visit each one.
The Ghost of Christmas Past, who reminds us of what we’ve lost.
The Ghost of Christmas Present, who asks us to face what is.
And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who whispers about what might still be possible.

You don’t need to be merry to be part of this. Just honest. Just human.

The Ghost of Christmas Past: When Memories Won’t Stay Quiet

The holidays have a way of summoning ghosts. Maybe not literal ones, but the quieter, more haunting ones that live in our memories. The smell of a certain candle. The sound of a favorite song. The sight of ornaments you can’t bring yourself to hang.  (Oh boy do we have a few of those)

Grief in December often feels like time travel. One moment you’re here, making coffee, and the next you’re back in a kitchen from ten years ago, standing beside someone who isn’t here anymore. The Ghost of Christmas Past just shows up without a courtesy call ahead.  Jerk.

But maybe we shouldn’t shut the door on those memories. Maybe we listen to them.

When the past visits, let it tell its story. Write about the traditions that meant something, the laughter that still echoes, and the moments that now ache to remember. Memory is love’s way of saying, “They mattered. You still matter.”

Try this: light a candle and journal about one holiday memory that feels alive this year. What does it bring up in you? What does it still want you to know?

You don’t have to live in the past, but you also don’t have to exile it. Sometimes revisiting what was helps us see how far we’ve come and how deeply we’ve loved.  After all, grief is love with nowhere to go.

Winter Rituals for Emotional Healing: Small Steps for a Softer Season

Winter has always been a season with a bit of an attitude. It rolls in with its long nights and cold mornings like, “Hey, remember sunlight? Yeah… about that.” And for folks moving through grief, that darkness can feel less like a backdrop and more like a weight. But winter also has this quiet, ancient wisdom tucked into its frost: when things slow down, we can actually hear ourselves. And that’s where healing rituals come in.  Not the woo-woo kind (unless that’s your jam), but the grounding, human ones that help us soften into the season rather than fight it.

Here are a few rituals that can help hold you through the cold months, especially if you’re grieving, overwhelmed, or just feeling a little frayed at the edges.

1. The “Light a Candle and Breathe” Ritual

Look, I know: lighting a candle isn’t exactly groundbreaking. But winter asks us to honor small things, and this is one of the smallest, easiest rituals you can do that still packs a punch.

Pick a time; morning, evening, whenever your brain isn’t sprinting, and light a single candle. Sit with it for a minute or two. Let your breath match the flicker. Say their name if you want. Say your own name if you need to be called back to yourself.

It doesn’t solve grief (nothing does), but it gives you a small anchor in a season that can feel unmoored. It’s also a ritual you can grow with: add a journal, a photograph, a prayer or a song.  Whatever feels right.

2. A Winter Walk to Nowhere in Particular

I LOVE a good winter hike.  Winter asks us to slow down, which is deeply annoying… until you realize it’s also kind of a gift. One healing ritual is the intentional “walk to nowhere.” Bundle up like a slightly disgruntled marshmallow and step outside.

No destination. No agenda. No step count. Just walk.

Notice the crunch of snow or the sting of the air on your cheeks. Notice the way winter quiets everything down a little.  The birds, trees, and maybe even your own internal narrator for once. This ritual grounds your nervous system and reminds you that your body is still here, still moving, still yours.

Bonus: it’s free, it’s simple, and you don’t have to talk to anyone. Win-win-win.

3. The “Name the Season You’re In” Practice

Grief can make time weird. Days blur. Emotions ricochet. Winter, with its early sunsets and long nights, can amplify that sense of disorientation.

So try this ritual: sit down once a week and name what season you are in, separate from the weather outside.

It could be:

• a season of longing

• a season of exhaustion

• a season of rebuilding

• a season of “barely hanging in, thanks for asking”
  

There’s no wrong answer. This ritual gives shape to the formlessness. It helps you understand your needs before you burn out or shut down.

And yes, you’re allowed to be in multiple seasons at once. Humans are complicated like that.

4. A Warm Drink, Made Slowly

Most of us make our coffee or tea like we’re trying to win a timed competition on a cooking show. But slowing down the process just a little can turn an everyday act into a ritual.

As you boil the water, or grind the beans, or pick your tea leaves, keep your breath steady. Think of it as a micro-meditation. You don’t have to chant or sit cross-legged or ascend to a higher plane. Just… do it slowly.

Then take the first sip with intention. Notice what it feels like to have warmth enter a body that’s been carrying cold, emotional or otherwise.  Enjoying the first sip is something I have done for YEARS.  I  always take a beat to just inhale and savor that first little hit of caffeine in the day.

Winter healing doesn’t have to be dramatic. Sometimes it’s just a mug you didn’t rush.

5. A Weekly “Let Something Go” Ritual

Winter invites release.  Trees shed everything, animals burrow down, the whole world quiets. You’re allowed to do the same.

Each week, write down one thing you want to let go of: guilt, a thought spiral, a “should,” a memory that’s stabbing instead of supporting you.

Burn it (in a safe way, please), bury it under a plant, or shred it with great theatrical flair. The goal isn’t to magically erase the feeling. The goal is to signal to your mind and body: I don’t have to carry everything into spring.

Grief already weighs enough.

6. The Gathering Ritual (even if it’s just you and one other human)

Winter is notorious for making people isolate, especially when they’re grieving. A simple seasonal ritual is to gather intentionally.  Once a week, or even once a month meet up with someone who gets you.

Share a meal, a story, or just sit in mutual silence like two exhausted woodland creatures who don’t feel like talking. Connection doesn’t fix grief, but it keeps us tethered.

And if you don’t have a person right now, gather with yourself. Have a solo night where you do something comforting for no higher purpose than because you deserve to feel held.

Winter isn’t here to punish you, even if it feels like it sometimes. It’s a season built on rest, reflection, and the sacred art of starting again. These rituals aren’t the only ones and you don’t have to do any of these. They are some gentle ways to make space for both your pain and your hope, without forcing yourself to choose between them.

And if winter feels heavy this year, that’s not a moral failure. It’s just a season. One you don’t have to survive alone.

Blog Interrupted

I strive to give you useful content as a death doula.  Words that can help you learn, feel comforted, and maybe sometimes make you giggle a little.  But today I am at a loss for words.  

As you may already know my mother died quite unexpectedly on November 20th, the day before my 48th birthday.  Every word I’ve written or spoken on death, loss, and grief has been rolling around in my head since then and not one makes any of this make sense.  

I am grateful for a lot of things, which may sound odd but hear me out.  I’m grateful my dad and I were at her side (My husband too) as she left this world and moved on to the next.  I’m so grateful she wasn’t alone.  I’m grateful for the enormous outpouring of support and understanding from everyone.  I’m so grateful I got to have her as a mom.  Mom was….a living embodiment of the very word “mom”.  So warm and loving.  Always making people comfortable and happy.  Always letting people in, and filling their hearts and bellies.  (Although, I’m telling her secret now; she HATED cooking)  I’m grateful for the 48 years I had with her.

I’m pissed off too.  I’m mad she didn’t get to see Christmas.  I’m mad she won’t see her great grand daughters get to the fun toddler ages.  I’m mad I can’t text her to let her know I got home safely.  AND WHO THE HELL IS GOING TO TELL ME TO WEAR MY SEATBELT AND WATCH FOR DEER?! I’m mad as hell my dad has to cook for one and I can’t ever have another true mom hug.

Nikki, is there a point to this?  Good lord I’m not even sure.  I guess I’ve never been shy using myself as an example for things I try to explain.  So here I am sharing my own grief as authentically as I can.  

My eyes and throat hurt from crying so much, my stomach hurts from all the snot, I’m so tired I can barely function, and for some reason my foot hurts.  Maybe that one is just that I’m middle aged. I laughed yesterday and it felt weird.  I can’t get the images of mom’s final hours at the hospital out  of my head.  I’m so grateful every time someone messages me to say their sorry or check in on me but I’m also so sick of hearing it at the same time.  

I’m doing my best not to apologize to anyone for my feelings.  I know they’re valid and real and mine.  I’m doing my best to take my own advice and heed my own words.

I’ll be back with my usual content next week, I hope.  I’d already started some great posts for the end of the year so things should roll on as normal.  A new normal for me.  

Be well and never EVER miss an opportunity to tell someone you love them.  I’m grateful the last thing I said to my mom was “I love you” and that the last time I saw her she was SO happy.

Just one week before she left us

When Gratitude Feels Heavy: Navigating Grief at Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is supposed to be the season of gratitude. (*gag*) The big family meal, the clinking of glasses, the forced smiles in matching sweaters. But when you’re grieving, all that thankfulness talk can hit like grandma’s “special juice”. Gratitude feels like a language you used to speak fluently, but now sounds like drunk uncles.  (Alright Nikki enough with the booze)

Grief during the holidays is hard when you’re missing someone as well as missing who you were when they were still here. It’s being in those rooms where their laugh used to echo, or setting one less plate at the table. It’s trying to be present in a season that constantly drags you back into the past.

If you’re sitting in that space this year, I see you.  And you’re ok.

The Myth of “Should”

There’s a cruel little word that shows up this time of year: should.
I should feel grateful.
I should be stronger by now.
I should go to the family dinner.

But “should” is just shame dressed up in a holiday sweater. It assumes there’s a right way to grieve, and guess what?  THERE ISN’T!. You don’t have to be thankful for the pain, or find meaning in your loss before dessert is served. Gratitude and grief can coexist, but they don’t arrive on schedule.

So if your gratitude list this year looks like “I got out of bed” and “Hey, coffee exists!” That's cool. Gratitude doesn’t have to be profound to be real.

The Empty Chair

Every grieving person knows the chair. The one that used to belong to them.  The parent, partner, sibling, child, friend. It’s not just furniture. It’s a visual reminder of what’s missing.

Some families avoid it. Some set a place in their honor. Some can’t even sit down to the table without tears. There’s no right answer here, but there’s something powerful about acknowledging the empty chair instead of pretending it’s not there.

Maybe you light a candle. Maybe you share a memory. Maybe you pour their favorite drink and raise a quiet toast. The point isn’t to make it easier, because it isn’t easy, you guys.  The point is to make space for what’s true.

Grief doesn’t ruin the holidays. Denying it does.

Permission to Redefine Tradition

Holidays run on autopilot. We repeat rituals year after year.  (Lord knows we have to do everything the same or certain family members get upset)  The same recipes, the same order of events, the same jokes about that year my grandma forgot to turn the oven on. But after a loss, the familiar can feel unbearable. The old traditions might not fit your new reality.

I give you permission to rewrite the script.
Order takeout instead of cooking. “WHAT?  Nikki, I could NEVER!!’  Yes.  You can.  I ate stuffing out of a plastic bag in a hotel in Chattanooga, you can get a pizza.

Skip the big gathering and watch movies in pajamas. Volunteer somewhere. Create a small ritual that honors the person you’re missing.  

Grief is a kind of love story, and love changes us. It’s okay for your holidays to change, too.

Gratitude Reimagined

It’s easy to confuse gratitude with forced positivity. But real gratitude isn’t about pretending everything’s fine and you’re thankful for it. It’s about noticing the tiny, stubborn sparks of life that still show up.  Even when things are crappy.

Maybe it’s the way the air smells like pine.
Maybe it’s a memory that makes you laugh.
Maybe it’s realizing that, somehow, you’re still here.

You don’t have to be grateful for the loss, but you might find gratitude within the loss. For the love that still lingers, the lessons you didn’t ask for but now carry, the connection that refuses to die just because someone did.

A Quiet Kind of Thanks

This Thanksgiving, it’s okay to pass on the big speeches and just whisper your thanks in private. It might sound something like this:

“Thank you for the time we had.”
“Thank you for the people who get it.”
“Thank you for another breath, even when it hurts.”

Grief changes how we see gratitude, but that’s not a loss; it’s a transformation. Because the kind of gratitude that survives grief? That’s the kind that sticks around for the rest of your life.

So if your heart feels heavy this Thanksgiving, remember: You don’t have to perform gratitude. You can simply be. And that, in itself, is enough.  And there’s always grandmas “special juice”.

The Hardest Days: Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Other Grief Landmines

My birthday is this week and it got me thinking about all the birthdays my brother did not get to see.  The weddings and births and Thanksgivings and Christmases and….

If you’ve lost someone you love, you know how craptastic these days can be. The calendar flips to that date and suddenly you’re ambushed by time itself. Maybe it’s your birthday without them. Maybe it’s theirs. Maybe it’s the anniversary of the day everything changed.

Whatever the occasion, these “special” days have a way of sitting on your head and farting or giving you a noogie. (Ok time to move on from the older brother jokes)

The Weight of Remembering

Grief warps time. Some days, it feels like decades since they were here. Other days, you swear you just heard their voice in the next room. Anniversaries and birthdays collapse those distances. They pull the past right up to the surface, raw and alive all over again.

People mean well when they say, “They’d want you to be happy today.” And maybe they would. But that doesn’t mean happiness is possible on command. Sometimes, remembrance is the most honest thing you can offer. Sometimes the best you can do is whisper, I miss you. I wish you were here.

And that counts as honoring them.

The Myth of “Milestones”

Milestones make sense when life is moving forward.  Birthdays, anniversaries, achievements. But after loss, those same milestones can sting. Each year marks another lap around the sun without them, another candle on the cake they don’t get to see.

It’s not just grief for the person, it’s grief for the future you were supposed to share.

There’s no right way to handle these dates. Some people throw themselves into rituals like lighting candles, visiting graves, cooking favorite meals, etc. Others avoid them entirely, treating them like any other day. Both are valid. What matters is what feels kind to your nervous system, not what looks “appropriate” to anyone else.

If you wake up on your birthday and want to celebrate, do it. If you want to hide under a blanket, that’s fine too. You don’t owe anyone cheer.

The “Second Birthday”

There’s a saying in the grief world: after a major loss, you’re born again. You become someone new.  Someone who understands fragility, depth, compassion, and pain in a way you didn’t before.

So maybe these days, the birthdays, the anniversaries,  are a kind of second birth. A chance to pause and ask: Who am I becoming through this grief? Not despite it, not around it, but through it.

That question isn’t comfortable, but it’s powerful. Grief doesn’t destroy you.  It rebuilds you. Every year you survive another lap through loss, you grow roots in places you didn’t know existed.

How to Survive the “Big Days”

Here are a few gentle ideas for navigating them:

• Plan ahead, even if your plan is “do nothing.” These dates have emotional gravity; they pull on you whether you want them to or not. Name the day, choose what you need, and protect it.

• Create a ritual that feels true. Light a candle. Write them a letter. Eat their favorite dessert. Tell a story about them out loud. It doesn’t have to be all gloomy, it just has to be real.

• Give yourself permission to change your mind. You might wake up wanting company and end the day craving solitude. Let the day unfold without judgment.

• Mark your growth. Take a moment to notice what’s shifted since the last time this date came around. You’re still here. You’ve made it through so many “firsts.” That’s not small.
  

A Birthday Reflection

So, here’s to another year. In the quiet and humble sense of I’m still here.

If today happens to be your birthday (then you’re an awesome Scorpio like me!), maybe you’re torn between gratitude and grief. You’re allowed to hold both. You can celebrate the life you’re still living while mourning the people who can’t join the party. You can cry while cutting the cake. You can laugh through tears. You’re still doing it right.

Birthdays after loss are not just about counting years. They’re about honoring survival, love, and the sacred mess of being human.

So light your candle.  For them, for you, for all the versions of yourself that didn’t think you’d make it this far.

That flame isn’t just a reminder of what’s gone. It’s proof that something still burns.

How Death Doulas Can Help Ease Family Conflict

If you’ve ever seen a family trying to make end-of-life decisions together, you know it can get… um….messy. Even the most loving families can find themselves bickering over medical choices, funeral plans, or what Mom “would have wanted.” (OMG this one kills me) Grief has a way of bringing old wounds to the surface and when emotions are high, logic tends to take a backseat

That’s where a death doula can quietly step in and bring a little calm to the chaos.

The Family Battlefield

End-of-life care isn’t just about death and dying.  It’s also about the living part leading up to it.  And trying to make sense of it all.

Something I see a lot; One sibling wants to “do everything possible.” Another insists on comfort care only. Someone’s trying to find the will. Someone else is crying in the hallway. Everyone’s tired, scared, and trying to do the right thing.  They just have different definitions of what that means.

Add in years of family dynamics (like that fight from 1998 that never really ended) and you’ve got a recipe for emotional wildfire.

When conflict flares during an already sacred and vulnerable time, it can rob families of the chance to truly be present.

Enter the Death Doula (picture me in a flowy cape here)

A death doula isn’t there to take sides. We’re there to hold space.  For everyone. Think of us as neutral guides who help bring clarity, compassion, and grounding to a situation that often feels like quicksand.  

Here’s how we help ease family conflict in real, practical ways:

1. Creating a Safe Space for Conversations.  For Everyone.

Many families avoid talking about death until they have no choice, which means the conversations usually happen in crisis mode.  No bueno.
A doula can facilitate those talks early, helping loved ones express fears, wishes, and values before a medical emergency forces the issue.

We set up the room for honesty. We ask open questions like, “What does comfort mean to you?” or “What would feel most peaceful for your loved one?” When people feel heard, they stop shouting to be understood.

Let me repeat that: When people feel heard, they stop shouting to be understood.

2. Translating Between Love Languages

Not everyone shows love the same way. One person’s “fighting for every treatment” might come from the same love as another’s “let them rest.”  A doula helps reframe those differences, so instead of seeing opposition, families see shared care expressed in different forms.

Sometimes it’s as simple as saying, “You both want what’s best for Mom but you just have different visions of what that looks like.” That one sentence can change the whole temperature in the room.

3. Grounding Through Education

Fear breeds conflict.  And most fear around death comes from not knowing what to expect. When a doula explains the dying process, what’s normal, and what choices are available, the mystery shrinks and the panic softens. Understanding replaces assumption. And when families understand what’s happening, they fight less about what they can’t control.

4. Supporting Each Person Individually

A good death doula sees the whole family ecosystem. We notice the daughter who’s taking charge but hasn’t slept in three days. The son who’s angry because he feels helpless. The partner who can’t bring themselves to talk about “after.”

We offer support tailored to each person!  A listening ear, grounding tools, a compassionate presence.  Whatever it takes so everyone has somewhere to put their pain other than at each other.

5. Centering the Dying Person’s Voice

When families start pulling in different directions, a doula gently brings the focus back to the person at the center of it all. “What did they want?” becomes the guiding question.  (Hopefully, we got to know them enough that we already know what they wanted)

Even if those wishes were never formally written down, we help uncover them through stories, values, and shared memories. This re-centering can dissolve a lot of tension. It reminds everyone that love is the reason they’re there.

I’ve seen many defenses let down after a good session of sharing memories.

6. After the Death: Helping Heal the Fractures

Conflict doesn’t always die with the person. Sometimes the hardest part comes after, when grief exposes everything that’s unresolved. A death doula can help families process guilt, resentment, or regret so those feelings don’t calcify into lifelong rifts.

Grief is heavy enough without adding family fallout to the load.

The Doula Difference

Death doulas don’t have magic wands (Man, I wish I did though). What we have is time, presence, and neutrality.  Three things that most families desperately need at the end of life.

We’re not there to fix the pain, but to make sure it doesn’t swallow people whole. We help families breathe, pause, and remember: you’re all on the same side here.

Because when the noise quiets down, love is usually what’s left.

The Myth of the Perfect Death: What Hollywood Gets All Wrong

Movies have taught me a lot about death growing up.  At least, they’ve tried to. The camera pans in, soft music swells, and our dying hero whispers something poetic before peacefully closing their eyes. Everyone looks impossibly clean. The lighting is beautiful. Their loved ones are perfectly positioned around the bed, hands clasped, tears glistening at just the right angle.(I’m looking at you Beaches)

It’s moving. It’s cinematic.  And it’s almost always B.S.

Because here’s the thing: there is no such thing as a “perfect death.”  *steps down off soapbox *  (Actually, lemme hop back up there for this)

Hollywood’s Favorite Lie

We’ve been sold a script about how death is supposed to look. The gentle goodbye. The tidy last words. The deep exhale that signals closure. But in real life, death is rarely that neat and tidy. It’s wildly unpredictable, often messy, sometimes awkward, but always deeply human.  (And if humans are nothing else, we are unpredictable beasts, are we not?)

People don’t usually get to choose the soundtrack or the lighting. They might not say profound final words.  Sometimes, they’re confused, or silent, or cracking jokes about hospital food. Bodies change in ways that aren’t camera-ready. Breathing becomes irregular. Emotions swing wildly between tenderness and frustration.  And sometimes…..icky things occur.

And yet, because of what we’ve been shown on screen, so many people end up feeling like they’ve failed when reality doesn’t match the movie version.

“She didn’t get her moment.”

I’ve heard this from families before. Someone will say, “I thought she’d say something beautiful,” or “I wish it had been more peaceful.” It’s so hard to hear.  And I try to warn folks ahead of time, but they don’t always want to hear me.  But there’s a disappointment that the ending wasn’t what they expected.

Death isn’t a performance. There’s no director calling “Cut!” and asking for another take. It’s raw, unfiltered life happening in its most honest form. Sometimes it’s gentle. Sometimes it’s chaotic. Sometimes it’s both in the same ten minutes.  (I mean is birth as pretty as hollywood makes it out to be?)

When we strip away the Hollywood myth, we make room for something far more real: authenticity.

What a “Real” Death Looks Like

A real death might look like a family crowded around a hospice bed, exhausted but still holding hands. It might sound like laughter mixed with tears. It might mean someone slips away in the middle of the night, when no one’s watching.  (Honestly, this is usually the case)

Real death isn’t always graceful. There may be moments of fear or agitation. There are last-minute reconciliations and words left unsaid. There are nurses and caregivers doing sacred, unglamorous work with cleaning, comforting, sitting in the silence.  (And yes I’ve heard utterances of “why aren’t they gone yet?!” or “why are they hanging on?”)

And yet, within all that imperfection, there’s profound beauty. Because it’s real.

There is love in showing up even when it’s uncomfortable, and family choosing presence over perfection. It takes courage to witness the end without needing it to look “right.”

Why This Myth Hurts Us

When people expect a cinematic death, they can feel guilt or shame when things don’t go “as planned.”

They might think:

• I should have been there when they took their last breath.  (OMG I hear this ALL.  THE.  TIME)

• We didn’t get to say goodbye properly.

• They seemed restless, does that mean they were suffering?  (Likely, no)
  

Those thoughts come from love but also from cultural conditioning. Hollywood rarely shows what death actually looks like. It romanticizes it and wraps it up in a neat emotional bow.  Usually in under 2 hours.

The truth is, death is a transition, a labor.  It’s not a scene. 

Rewriting the Script

So how do we unlearn the myth of the perfect death?

We start by talking about it.  And no, talking about death does not make it happen!!!  We normalize the messiness, the unpredictability, the humanness of dying. We remind people that gasping or fidgeting near the end isn’t a sign of suffering, it’s biology. That silence doesn’t mean fear. That peace can exist even in imperfection.

As a death doula, I see the sacredness in all of it. The awkward moments, the laughter, the unexpected timing, the…erm…. Gaseous emissions.  It’s all part of the story. Sometimes the most beautiful deaths are the ones that look nothing like a movie, but everything like real life.

And maybe that’s the better ending after all.  Not one written by a screenwriter, or god forbid AI, but by the people who loved and lived it.

The Takeaway

Hollywood may give us the myth of the perfect death, but real life gives us something deeper: connection.  When we stop chasing the movie version, we can start being fully present for the human version.

Because the truth is death doesn’t have to be pretty to be meaningful. It just has to be real.