My guest this week is Olivia Bareham.
Olivia is a death midwife, interfaith minister, master teacher, and founder of Sacred Crossings: the Institute for Conscious Dying and Alternative Funeral Home in Los Angeles.
For over 30 years, Olivia has been guiding individuals toward a conscious dying experience and empowering families to care for their loved ones after death with a vigil and funeral at home. She has published the Death Care Directive, which is a planning booklet for one’s funeral and final disposition.
Olivia is now internationally renowned for her transformative death Doula and Death Midwife training programs.
In this episode Olivia and I discuss topics such as:
- Why one might consider embarking on a Death Midwifery Training
- the larger umbrella of death midwifery, and finding your unique gift as a death worker
- Midwifing death in the culture, so people can embrace the gifts of death
- People typically die in the manner of their living
- Embracing death, so we can embrace our lives
- How being present to our discomfort can help us to die consciously
- the importance of a presence practice
- conscious living often equals conscious dying
- similarities and differences between the birth and death experiences
- the importance of befriending the unknown
- choosing our thoughts wisely
- the healing power of sitting vigil for three days
- Making sudden or traumatic deaths sacred to through ritual practices that helped to move our grief
- “Bridging Heaven and Earth” (a deep dive retreat for Olivia’s training graduates
- and so much more!
You can find Olivia at:
https://sacredcrossings.com/