Sacred Soul Transitions LLC

01/22/2026

✨As death draws closer, something quiet shifts. The outer world starts to fade, and attention turns inward. Energy that once moved outward through conversation, connection, and activity begins to gather inside. This is not withdrawal in the way we often assume. It is preparation. It is preserving the energy for the final moments.

And yet, this is often when the space around a dying person becomes the busiest.

Loved ones arrive carrying stories, memories, prayers, fears, and their own grief. Much of it rooted in love. Much of it an attempt to hold on, or to say everything before time runs out.

What is rarely acknowledged is that dying does not erase a person’s right to choice.

I once sat with a client who had grown visibly exhausted by the constant emotional presence around her. People came with kind intentions, but each visit required something from her. A response. A smile. A reassurance. Even silence felt heavy because it was loaded with expectation.

One afternoon she looked at me and said quietly,
“my boundaries don’t disappear when I’m dying.”

There was no bitterness in her voice. Only truth.

She was not pushing people away. She was protecting what little energy she had left. Her body was doing what bodies naturally do as death approaches, turning inward, slowing, narrowing its focus. This is when we made a plan to limit all visitors.

At this stage, the nervous system becomes exquisitely sensitive. Sounds feel louder. Touch can feel overwhelming. Sensory sensitivity becomes very real.

Dying does not make someone available for every conversation, every visit, or every ritual. A person does not become property of their family simply because their life is ending.

When emotional consent is honoured, the atmosphere changes. The room softens. The body relaxes. The spirit feels safe enough to continue its journey without strain.

Because even at the very end, boundaries do not disappear.

They deserve to be respected, gently and without question.

- Death Doula Randi

✨Join Our Next Death Doula Start Date: March 9th 2026. $800 to register.✨

01/20/2026

In end of life situations, families are surrounded by information, appointments, updates, decisions. What they are not always surrounded by is space, space where the real questions can be said without judgement, without time pressure, and without fear.

Many families tell me they have questions they cannot ask. They feel the system prioritizes medical tasks. It moves quickly, documents what can be measured, answers what fits the chart, and leaves little room for the questions they want to ask.

Families do not want to seem difficult.
They do not want to appear ungrateful or like they are “wasting” the doctor’s time. Families fear the answers, truths can be diffict and they usually already know what they are about to ask. This leads to the worry that asking something out loud might make it true. They worry about causing conflict with other family members if they ask the wrong thing.
They are trying to protect the person who is dying, and they are trying to protect themselves.

Doctors and nurses are trained to care for the body to keep it alive. Many are compassionate, and many try to answer broader questions. But they are working within time limits, workload pressures, and clinical priorities. Families may also be asking questions that do not have clear, testable answers, questions about meaning, regret, family dynamics, fear, and love.

That does not mean those questions are unimportant. It means families need more support.

This is where Death Doulas come in.

We help families slow the moment down enough to hear themselves. We help them sort the urgent from the important. We help them prepare, not in a cold, procedural way, but in a human way.

When families give themselves permission to ask the hard questions, something shifts. They breathe again and stop guessing. They stop feeling like they are failing and are steadier at the bedside. They make decisions with less panic and more clarity. They feel less alone.

The goal is not to remove grief. The goal is to reduce unnecessary fear, confusion, and isolation, so families can show up with more presence.

Because at the end of life, the questions families are afraid to ask are often the very questions that make room for peace.

- Death Doula Randi

12/29/2025

🤍Psychology and palliative research is drawing attention to anticipatory grief, the emotional and psychological distress that begins before the final stages of dying. Once considered secondary to post death bereavement, anticipatory grief is now being recognized as the most destabilizing periods for families navigating serious illness and decline.

🩶Researchers state that grief begins at the moment certainty is lost, not at death. Diagnosis, cognitive changes, loss of independence, and shifting family roles all trigger profound emotional responses, even while the person is still alive.

🖤Anticipated grief unfolds alongside caregiving responsibilities. Families report feeling sadness, guilt, hope, love, and exhaustion simultaneously. Because the person is still living, this grief goes unacknowledged, leaving caregivers isolated and uncertain about how to process what they are experiencing.

🩶Clinicians are increasingly recognizing that this unresolved grief leads to anxiety, burnout, and complicated bereavement later on.

🤍Death doulas are now recognized for their role in supporting individuals and families before the dying phase begins. Unlike clinical providers, death doulas work centres on identity loss, role transitions, emotional processing, and relational preparation.

🩶By accompanying families through this liminal period, death doulas help normalize anticipatory grief and support emotional integration long before death occurs.

🖤Research from hospice and palliative care settings state that families who receive support during anticipatory grief report less shock, fewer regrets, and a much greater sense of emotional preparedness after death.

🩶Anticipated grief is now being viewed not as premature mourning, but as an essential part of humane, comprehensive end of life care.

12/18/2025

11/11/2025

08/16/2025

08/15/2025

07/12/2025

Over the years, I have given inservice trainings on a variety of hospice-related topics to various hospitals, Grand Rounds, or monthly physician’s meetings.

I talked about end of life care and the ways hospice does and does not fit into the medical model. It was always a hard sell. It seemed at every meeting a physician would state that the medical model is "never stop trying." By never admitting defeat we learn to help others, to cure disease. The medical model of always treating is how disease is conquered.”

I agree with that philosophy. We learn from each situation. We learn what to do and what not to do. What works, helps, and what doesn’t. What I don’t agree with is making it an across the board, "we never stop trying" policy.

Everyone dies. Death will not be conquered. It can be forestalled and that is where the medical model comes in. We learn through trying. The medical rounds physician is correct -- BUT (I knew you were waiting for the BUT) I think the patient has the right to make that decision, not the physician.

I think the patient has the right to be told the possibility of cure, the likely outcomes of a specific treatment. They have a right to be told their chances and really that we, the medical profession, are trying but may not succeed in curing.

There are many people that will try every possible treatment to forestall death. It feels like we are “giving up” if we don’t try.

Here is what I am trying to address: we have a right to be told our chances of a cure. Physicians have that responsibility. Palliative care and an early hospice referral is part of healing. A different kind of healing: a healing of the mind and of the emotions. It also provides the opportunity to heal relationships. By recognizing not every person or disease is an opportunity to advance medicine, we are caring for people, not just diseases.

If you or someone you love is facing a serious illness, I encourage you to ask the hard questions. What are the chances of cure? What are the goals of treatment?

Hospice isn’t about giving up. It’s about caring for the whole person with honesty and compassion.

I offer you support with Gone From My Sight and By Your Side, which gently guides patients and families through the final months, weeks, and days of life

06/20/2025

One doctors end of life journey that will impact and ripple far beyond his time on earth. A beautiful example of living and loving deeper despite (and sometimes because of) a diagnosis.

11/30/2024

11/18/2024

Universally, these are always at the top - regrets of the dying.

10/27/2024

Our grief journey is one that we do not choose.

It can begin even before a loss, we call that “anticipatory grief”.

It can be so dynamic and overwhelming that we can sometimes call it “complicated grief”. Complicated grief is like being in an ongoing, heightened state of mourning that keeps us from healing. Complicated grief often requires help from professionals to work through.

It’s important to understand that grief is on a continuum, it stays with us, and changes as we mourn and progress through the rest of our lives and our grief journey. There is no one size fits all remedy for the ways we experience grief.

Some days we may feel completely alone, numb, angry, anxious, have difficulty sleeping or eating, we may be in shock or have guilt.

It is helpful to acknowledge how we feel. To talk to others, and have hard conversations that we may have been avoiding. (This includes having conversations with our loved one who is at the end of their life journey.) Connect with your family, take time for yourself, and try to relax and find peace amid the chaos. Working on a legacy project with your loved one and family can be a meaningful healing exercise for everyone involved, and it also becomes a beautiful tangible memory of their life and legacy.

Everyone will experience loss and grief. It is like a familiar mountain that has been climbed many times before, but your path is unique, one of a kind. Your path has not been carved until you meet the mountain and begin. Equip yourself with the tools to navigate, and those tools may allow you to be able to stop and notice some beautiful things you otherwise would have trekked on by. There is beauty to be found, and it may be hiding under that rock you’ve been avoiding.