Mind Body Health & Politics

If you want to have a happy evening sitting around with friends or family, you don't talk about religion, sex, money, and politics. Another topic, perhaps, is death and dying. Death is a part of all of our lives and something that we should feel normal discussing. What if we had someone to walk alongside us and make the prospect of the end of life something less scary? That is exactly the role an end-of-life doula takes. My Guest, Catherine Durkin Robinson, works as a death doula – offering her services to those with a terminal diagnosis and those who want to learn about the dying process alike. Talking about death and owning the process could very well be the key to breaking out of our fear and making it a sacred, almost joyful event.“We're talking about reducing fear, reducing anxiety, so that they can have a more joyful death.”Catherine Durkin Robinson is a death doula and educator. She graduated from the University of Vermont's End-of-Life Doula program and belongs to National End-of-Life Doula Alliance.