Proactively Preparing for End of Life; What Experience do You Want? With Valoria Walker, End of Life Doula

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In 2011, Valoria Walker’s mother was nearing her end of life. While Valoria’s sister was her primary caregiver, Valoria provided respite care when she could. There was a point when her mother’s health was in serious decline and she was moved from the hospital to hospice. She had chosen to end her dialysis treatments and did not want to be on a ventilator.

Valoria was there with her. Within a couple of hours, her mother was started on powerful anti-anxiety meds and soon slipped into unconsciousness. Hospice staff explained that “sometimes, they don’t awaken, again.”

While her actually passing wasn’t immediate, essentially, her mother was gone and Valoria and her sister would not have another chance to have those final, oh-so-important conversations with their mother. There was no closure. No goodbye. Valoria’s brother missed the whole experience!

Not surprisingly, this was a powerful turning point for Valoria; one that would change her life and the course of her work. She began working on Advance Planning Directives, to help others in similar situations have a different experience, to help those who were anticipating their own passing to have a say in what would happen and how the process would progress.

Eventually, she found “Doula” training, jumped in, and formed her practice: Doula by Destiny! Her mission is to ensure others don’t have the same kind of experience her family had.

Her time now is spent helping others plan for their transitions thoughtfully, so that the individual’s wishes are known and honored. She gets to know and support whole families. She is able to have potentially uncomfortable conversations that loved ones may avoid.She notes that while we seem to be getting better about talking about death – before it happens – there’s still a lot of fear and discomfort associated with it. She wants to reframe how we think about, talk about, and experience it.

Listen in as Valoria and host, Laura Prisc, share experiences, insights, and resources that may help you have a different experience when the time comes.

Valoria’s Bio:

Valoria Walker is an Advance Care Planning Trainer and End-of-Life Doula. She is the founder of her private practice called Doula by Destiny. As COVID-19 continued to spread, Valoria pivoted her business to serve patients and caregivers by providing companion calls and virtual meetings.

Valoria partners with organizations to promote the significance of advance care planning for medical emergencies and holistic care at the end of life. Serving as a speaking ambassador to bring awareness of The End-of-Life Doula Movement, her desire is for everyone to achieve comfort and peace at the end of life.

Her recent accomplishments include her interview, Parting Gift, published in the October edition of The Oprah Magazine. She is the reigning Grand Prize winner of the 2019 Boom Competition sponsored by AARP.

Her plans are to continue supporting individuals in various care settings to stay connected to her calling and the community. She sits as an Advisory Council Member, International End of Life Doula Association (INELDA), and End-of-Life Doula Advisory Council Member for NHPCO.

Valoria holds a Master’s in Management of Aging Services. She believes receiving a degree is an accomplishment, but having compassion is a gift.

Connect with Valoria + Resources: 

Oprah Magazine – Parting Gift 

What is a Doula? Article 

Let’s Talk Aging Article 

Human Composting? Article 

Recompose Life – Composting Service  

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When Your Body, Mind, and Spirit are Calling for Restoration and Healing, it’s Time to Reconnect with Nature, with Author Julia Plevin EP: 24

The Japanese practice of “shinrin-yoku” literally means ‘forest bathing.’ Essentially, it’s about reconnecting with nature in a deep, personal, primal, visceral way. It’s about re-engaging with nature as the living entity it is, as opposed to taking it for granted and using it for our purposes.

Julia started The Forest Bathing Club in the San Francisco Bay area after returning to California following design school in NYC. Having spent so much time in a big city, she realized her soul was calling out for it; she had lost her way of ‘being’ in nature and needed a reawakening. The mental and physical effects of being so disconnected were very real for her and had to be addressed.

As a designer, innovation strategist, and futurist, Julia experienced a sense of what Environmental Philosopher, Glenn Albrecht, called Solastalgia: Existential distress caused by environmental change… often embodied in a sense of powerlessness or uncertainty. Julia said what she had learned about who she was and the work she was doing didn’t feel true to her anymore.

“Nature is innovation,” she explains to Laura. “We need to remember it… remember it’s already here. The Original Instructions are hidden in plain sight… we simply have to tap into them.” They include asking for permission, engaging in reciprocity rather than ‘doing to…’

She encourages others to consider the Earth as a person we are in relationship with, and as with any healthy relationship, we need to spend time together, accept one another as each is, offer and receive gifts, and spend time in conversation… not just speaking, but also actively, deeply listening. We need to revisit and reclaim our individual relationships with nature.

“If you watch kids, they have a way of being in nature… they do it intuitively, inhabiting their animal body,” she explains. They experience awe and are energetic and appreciative of what they discover in nature; we need to experience that and allow it to seep into our bones, our bodies, our very being. This practice can help us uncover the limiting beliefs that keep us small and remind us of our true nature, our true power.

If we allow ourselves to be fully present in our world, we will notice that whatever is in bloom will grow to its fullest potential with no fear, insecurity, worry about what other flowers, trees, bushes, etc., are doing around them. It’s not a competition. There’s room for all of us to be in full bloom.

Julia shares some insight about the medicine wheel, in which each point on a compass is a phase or cycle of our growth, experience, wisdom, and engaging in the world in various roles. “Unfortunately,” she says, “we become ‘olders’ not elders. We need the full circle – youth brings energy and elders bring wisdom.” But to offer that wisdom we need to be open, connected, engaged, learning, growing, and understanding… not simply taking up space.

Laura and Julia wind down the conversation with a brief discussion of the transformation process as observed in butterflies – from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. In the chrysalis stage, the process is governed by “imaginal cells” which having the knowing of the new form coming into being. Perhaps the kindred spirits we meet along our journey are like imaginal cells in our lives, there for a reason to help us as we are becoming the next best version of ourselves.

To learn more about Julia’s work and the Forest Bathing Club, check out these links:

The Forest Bathing Club

Julia’s Work

The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing – Julia’s Book

Psychology of Place

 

About Julia 

Julia Plevin is a nature connection guide and author. As the founder of the Forest Bathing Club, she has more than a decade of experience guiding individuals and groups of people into the forest, where the practice of shinrin-yoku helps calm the mind and create space for wellness and prosperity.

Julia taps into the power of Nature to design transformative healing experiences. Through studies with Shamanic Reiki masters, Shugendo Buddhist monks, Mayan elders, Bhakti yogis, and Renewal rabbis, she has developed a unique program that both respects and transcends tradition and brings us back into direct connection with Source. Having healed herself from a decade-long saga of chronic illness through connection to Nature, Julia believes that true healing happens when we take our healing into our own hands and is passionate about empowering people to tap into Nature as a way to heal themselves. Whether you’re an urban dweller or a mountain resident, Julia’s practice aims to help improve our lives through deeper connection, alignment, and attunement with Nature.

Julia’s work has been covered widely in outlets such as CNN, Outside Magazine, Business Insider, The New Yorker, and Sierra Magazine, and the Forest Bathing Club has more than a thousand members from around the world. Her first book, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World, came out in 2019 (Ten Speed Press).

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The Road to Success is NOT Paved with ESP!

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Surely, you’ve had this experience: You have an expectation that someone will do something or something specific will happen… but it doesn’t. As a result, you may have become a little cranky, perhaps frustrated, or even angry.

I’m confident you said, “Yes,” because I’m confident it’s happened to all of us at least once in our life. More specifically, I’m contemplating those instances of it happening as an adult because we’re supposed to have grown wiser as we’ve aged (this is not always the case, however, based on my experience!). 

The Salon

I have a friend who is a hairstylist. She rents a space in a salon owned by another stylist. The salon owner recently decided to add a little retail shop in her salon. She is selling essential oils, journals, trendy t-shirts, and a few other items. To make space for this shop, she commandeered what used to be the client waiting room, and she changed the station spaces the other stylists rent from her. 

Here’s the catch: The shop was designed and set up by the owner. She didn’t ask the other stylists what they thought or if they wanted to be involved. She didn’t offer them any incentive or a percentage of any sales they might make from the shop. She did, however, “suggest” (vaguely, based on how the story was related to me by my friend) that they should encourage their clients to buy items from the shop. 

One Possible Hallucination

As we cannot see into the owner’s mind, nor have we engaged her in discussion about her vision for the shop or her expectations around what it might do for her business or how she imagines the other stylists might be involved, we can only imagine what she is thinking and what her expectations may be. This is why I refer to it as a possible “hallucination…” as it’s only in my mind, and my assumptions about what’s going on may be faulty! 

She has expressed her desire to supplement her normal income through sales from the shop. Because she has suggested her stylists should encourage their clients to buy things in the shop, I imagine (hallucinate = seeing something that isn’t actually there!) she’s hoping they are as excited about it as she is and will actively take part in promoting it and encouraging their clients to shop and purchase the wares on display. 

Increasing the Confusion

Another aspect of this story that has me even more confused is the fact that the owner is actually working fewer hours, now that the shop is “open” than she used to before she added it to the salon. If she wants to grow her revenue, working less doesn’t make sense. Nor does it make sense to create an add-on to your business, which will require active promotion, a live body in the shop to answer questions, encourage purchases, and handle the transactions, and then be there fewer hours. 

And based on the story, as related to me by my friend, the other stylists in the salon take no ownership for this new shop. They aren’t actively promoting it or encouraging their clients to shop in it. In fact, they are actively and openly questioning the salon owners’ thinking and expectations.

Compounding a less-than-ideal situation is the fact that this salon is a “destination” kind of location. You don’t wander by or into it because you’re strolling down the lane filled with other shops, café’s, or anything of the like. It’s situated in a little older house, next door to an auto-glass shop… on a street with a 45-mph speed limit. There is no random, walk-in traffic. 

Recipe for Disaster

This is just one story, one situation in which there appears to be some unspoken expectations. Yes, the stylists could simply come out and ask her what she’s thinking and what her expectations are, but they won’t. Besides continue to service their clients, they’re busy making assumptions that she’s expecting them to do more work on her behalf with no benefit to them. 

Based on experience, unless one of them is compelled to bring this up in conversation, the shop will not be a success, the owner will be frustrated and confused about why it failed and why no one helped her, and the stylists will feel justified in saying, “I told you…” 

It’s Painful for All Involved

While this specific situation may not be even remotely related to your business, it still has implications for you and your business. I would be willing to bet a months’ salary that someone in your organization – maybe even you – has unexpressed expectations about something. 

There’s some specific task you expect someone to take on and complete. There’s an expected outcome… or a specific path someone is expected to take to get a task completed. It may be about thinking or behavior or action, but there’s some unspoken expectation harbored in someone’s mind, and when what they expect doesn’t happen, it creates misunderstanding and frustration, perhaps regrettable communication, and may even undermine relationships. 

I know, because it’s happened to me when I was an employee. It’s happened to me when I was supervising others. And it’s happened in my personal life, with more than one person and on more than one occasion. And in the spirit of full transparency, I’ve been on both ends of this equation – as the person with the unspoken expectations and as the person who was expected to have active ESP and just know what the other person was thinking or wanted. 

Regardless of which end of the equation you are on the result is not fun. 

Implications for Your Business

Perhaps the more important thing to focus on, however, is “what does it mean for your business?” 

Here are some questions you might ask yourself, if things in your organization are not going as expected: 

  • What exactly am I expecting of my people? 
  • How have I communicated my expectations to them?
  • How did I check for understanding, after communicating my expectations? 
  • What did I do to refine my expectations in situations where it appears they were not clearly understood? 
  • What responsibility do I have in this situation (assuming something wasn’t completed due to lack of communication or a miscommunication)?
  • What could I have done differently, to ensure I articulated my expectations in a clear manner and that the person I shared them with understood and was ready to take responsibility to meet them? 
  • What could I do differently in the future to avoid a similar misunderstanding? 

What I Know for Sure

One thing I know for sure is that in any given interaction, at least two people own a piece of what happens. So, when a communication or interaction goes awry, and the outcome is not what I desired or expected, I am well served to first question what my personal role was, before looking to the other party to consider what went wrong. 

I also recognize that when I have unspoken expectations and things don’t go as I’d like them to, I’ve done the other person a disservice by not letting them in on what I’m thinking. Regardless of how long or how well I’ve known someone, it’s not fair to them to expect they can read my mind. Finally, I remind myself that allowing this to become an ongoing behavior can be damaging to the relationship over time. 

Let Me Hear from You

I’m curious to know how this expectation of the people in your life having ESP and just knowing what you want plays out in your life. Send me a note or leave a comment and share your story so we can all learn from it together. 

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Copyright 2019 Laura Prisc, Conscious Leadership Partners  www.consciousleadershippartners.com

Laura Prisc is The Most Trusted Authority on Conscious Leadership; she is a certified Gallup Strengths Coach, certified People Acuity Coach, Gallup-Trained Builder Profile Coach, and a member of the John Maxwell Team. 

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