A Heartfelt Passage
End of Life Doula
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
What is an end of life doula or death doula?
An end of life doula, or death doula, offers non-medical emotional, physical, practical and spiritual support and comfort to people of all ages facing life-limiting illnesses or health conditions and the dying process. We offer compassionate holistic care at the end of life to individuals and their loved ones, education on the dying process, help with preparation for and navigating the end of life, and guidance during the early grieving process. End of life doulas help to alleviate fear, anxiety and isolation while fostering deeper connections and more peaceful transitions. Understanding the unique challenges and complexities that come with facing death, we respect each person’s individual journey and their right to make decisions for themselves. With empathy and understanding, end of life doulas encourage open and honest communication; we create opportunities for those nearing end of life and their loved ones to express their fears, hopes, desires and love and to create meaning through life review, legacy work and vigil planning. End of life doulas also collaborate with loved ones, families, other providers and professionals involved in the dying person’s support team to assure comprehensive care, comfort and guidance through the end of life experience and advocate on behalf of the dying person when differences arise. End of life planning is complex and can be overwhelming; end of life doulas help individuals traverse the process, creating personalized care plans that respect individual wishes, values and goals.
"We cannot, after all, judge a biography by the number of pages in it; we must judge the richness of the contents. Sometimes the 'unfinished' are among the most beautiful symphonies."
About Me
A native Californian, I grew up in Contra Costa and continue to make my home here, raising my daughter and a number of pugs over the years. With a master’s degree in clinical psychology and a specialization in grief therapy, I have been a licensed marriage and family therapist for over thirty years. I entered the field of death, dying and grief as a master’s level clinical intern in hospice care in San Francisco during the height of the AIDS epidemic and then moved to hospice work and bereavement program direction in the Bay Area, providing individual grief therapy, grief group counseling and end of life support to clients and their loved ones as well as for hospice and care facility staff. Over my years of professional service in various contexts, I have worked with clients and their families facing a range of end of life illnesses and issues as well as bereavement. I was also a lead instructor in the UC Berkeley Extension professional certificate program on death, dying and grief studies and have provided trainings and education across a wide span of issues in the field to a diverse range of audiences. I spent more than a decade in the crisis and suicide intervention field as both clinician and educator and another decade working in a major healthcare organization as a psychotherapist and case manager. I am currently volunteering at hospice providing end of life companionship and care. I have supported and said goodbye to multiple family members, friends and colleagues, as well as clients over the years, and have negotiated the complicated and oftentimes unpredictable path of grief and the changes a loved one’s death creates.
I am trained as an end of life doula with INELDA-The International End of Life Doula Association (2023) and am also a member of NEDA-The National End of Life Doula Association and have attained their proficiency badge. I have taken intensive trainings in doula work as well as trainings in rituals, guided imagery, sound meditation, working with patients with dementia, and mapping emotions to address unresolved issues. In the past, I have participated in trainings led by Sogyal Rinpoche, Stephen and Ondrea Levine and other notables in the field of living and dying.
Judi Hampshire
In my free time, I am an avid walker and hiker, enjoy tennis, baking, reading, going to see musicals and theatre and time spent with my adult daughter and with my friends. A relaxed early morning with a hot cup of coffee, a good book while reclining in a cozy chair with my pug cuddling in my lap is a treasured pastime.
Benefits Of Working With Me
When people are dying, they often feel alone and frightened. I offer warm, authentic presence and heartfelt, deep listening. I am responsible, dependable and honest with a sincere joy of and gratitude for life and the full spectrum of the life cycle. I bring my whole self to my work to nurture respect, dignity, curiosity, and loving-kindness to empower my clients and their loved ones I serve to identify their values, wishes, desires and needs through their end of life journey and to create meaningful legacy work, life review and vigil planning that align with those stated truths. I deeply trust the inner wisdom and strength of others and hold space for those resources to emerge.
I have worked with people as they were dying in my hospice work as well as in my psychotherapy practice and am well-equipped with the resources and skills to address difficult and upsetting circumstances and create thoughtful and meaningful coping strategies and resolutions. Through my personal and professional experiences, I have honed skills of compassionate, perceptive presence, active and discerning empathic listening, and facilitation of brave and difficult conversations.
My thirty years of experience working in healthcare helps me to effectively guide clients through the system and to advocate on their behalf when needed. I prioritize client needs and strive to ensure they receive the care and attention they require. I assist my clients to discover their definition of quality of life, quality of death and informed decisions in a safe environment that allows for more loving, peaceful transitions and healthy grieving.
I am an experienced psychotherapist with extensive training and well-developed skills and have worked with a wide variety of issues, situations and individuals. While I will not be providing therapy as an end of life doula, my skills and knowledge serve me well in this role. I understand and have wide experience working with clients and their loved ones to cope with the complex dynamics and emotions that accompany the often extended trajectory of illness, dying and death through multiple losses and changes, treatments, remissions, recurrences and the dying process and the toll this takes on each person and on each relationship.
I strive to be non-judgmental regarding religious beliefs, lifestyles, family and cultural traditions. I embrace social justice and open-hearted support for LGBTQIA2+, BIPOC and culturally-specific communities. I enter the homes and lives of those I serve with humility, integrity and respectful curiosity to understand and support.
Over the years, I have worked in hospice and with other multi-disciplinary teams; I participate skillfully and successfully collaborating and consulting to meet the needs of clients and their loved ones.
People who are dying often worry about their family and loved ones and how they will cope once they are gone. I have many decades of practical experience and education in grief work and its many facets and will assist families and loved ones on this very personal and profound journey after loss.
Services I Offer
Consult and Evaluation
Understanding, prioritizing and addressing your needs and concerns to create a personalized end of life plan congruent with your wishes, beliefs and values.
Support and Guidance
Providing reassurance, soothing and caring as well as facilitating deep conversations, relational healings and peaceful transitions for both you and your loved ones.
Choice Clarification
Generating together options for your care, environment and relationships; educating on choices for coping with changes, losses and the end of life process; pinpointing resources for advance directives and other financial and legal supports.
Legacy creation
Identifying and engaging in activities that facilitate meaning and purpose and create connection that will live on after your death. This might include activities such as written or video stories, photo collages, memory boxes, constructing an ethical will, establishing donations or scholarships meaningful to you.
Ritual Development
Creating thoughtful and individualized recognition practices to honor transitions in your dying process and end of life as well as to respect the grieving process throughout for both you and your loved ones
Vigil planning and vigil respite sitting
Outlining and planning for bedside presence as life ebbs including how you wish your bedside environment to look, feel, sound and smell and who you wish to attend you at this time.
Comfort Care
Supporting you and your loved ones and caregivers with physical, practical, emotional and spiritual care including guided imagery, meditation, music and other non-medical interventions to alleviate discomfort and provide respite.
Funeral and after death planning
Exploring options and assisting with arranging memorials and celebrations of life and loving final placement of your body.
Early grief support and grief processing
Helping your loved ones to review and process their experiences with you at the end of life and to prepare them for the grief journey ahead with compassionate support and guidance and grief education including referrals for longer term bereavement care as needed.
My Philosophy
Heartfelt caring, connection, companionship and comfort are vital gifts as we embark on our final passage. Well-intentioned but burdensome messages reinforce our culture’s death phobia, and at end of life tend to reduce our experience to the physical body and its needs when dying encompasses the wholeness of who we are and the events and people who have shared our story. How do we live through our dying time? I offer non-medical holistic emotional, psychological, spiritual and practical support at the end of life, when fear, silence, uncertainty and pain often pull people apart at the most intimate moments. I invite them to come together, listen and share, find joy and meaning, understanding and love, and say goodbye with nothing left unsaid. With gentle intention we meet at the edges of life’s journey and travel that space with heartfelt love and graciousness. I strive to nurture, promote and gently hold the ‘softness of each soul’ assisting to weave the threads at end of life to complete your tapestry story, the life quilt that says you mattered, you are loved and you will be remembered. My guiding belief is that life is sweetest when dying and death are integrated and honored as implicit to the human journey and open the door to grief that is affirming, clarifying and healing.
“What we have once enjoyed deeply, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”