The Impactful Work of a Death Doula w/ Chad Flores, CEOLS

Summary:

In this episode of CareLab, Brandy Archie and Emilia Bourland are joined by Chad Flores, a death doula with over 20 years of experience in hospice care. Chad shares deep insights into the role of death doulas, how they provide emotional, spiritual, and physical support to those transitioning through the end of life, and the importance of preparing for death in ways that honor the individual's wishes. The conversation also delves into the historical and cultural roots of the practice and why our society tends to shy away from discussions of mortality.

Key Takeaways:

• Role of Death Doulas: Death doulas provide emotional and spiritual support during the dying process, helping both patients and families navigate the transition.
• Cultural Resurgence: Though ancient in origin, the practice of death doulas is experiencing a cultural comeback, offering an alternative approach to traditional end-of-life care.
• Importance of Presence: A death doula helps families focus on meaningful connections during a patient’s final moments, reducing dysfunctional dynamics and stress.
• Beyond Clinical Care: Death doulas work in harmony with hospice but focus on the patient’s emotional and spiritual needs, beyond the clinical realm.
• Facing Mortality: Open discussions about death can alleviate fear and create space for families to process and honor life transitions meaningfully. 

Transcript:

Brandy Archie:
Welcome to CareLab.

Emilia Bourland:
Welcome to Care Lab. So we have a really wonderful guest here with us today. We have Chad Flores. We're very excited to have him. He is the director of spiritual services at Athena Wellness Consultants, and he is our guest today. Throughout the last 20 years, Chad's provided companionship, bereavement, support, vigil sessions, and ceremonial services to over 1 ,000 patients as a hospice volunteer.

Chad Flores:
Alright, this is exciting. Thank you for coming.

Brandy Archie:
Great, you.

Brandy Archie:
Okay.

Emilia Bourland:
and a death doula. And he's here to talk with us today about this very interesting subject of death doulas and what they do. But before that, you know, we've got to ask a silly question.

Brandy Archie:
We do and I'm not ready to answer it, but go ahead.

Emilia Bourland:
Okay, this one's not that bad. It's not that bad. Yeah, okay, it's not. No, this is a good one. So, this is kind of a throwback to caregivers dilemma actually when I used to always ask people for like their favorite song that they would recommend to caregivers. So what is your like go -to song that you listen to, that you've been listening to right now when you need either like a pick me up or to feel motivated or just like,

Chad Flores:
I'm on pins and needles come on

Brandy Archie:
Okay.

Emilia Bourland:
to change your mood and have a good time.

Chad Flores:
Man, you would ask this at a time when I've been audio booking it for so long. I spend over three hours in the car every day, it's like my second academy. So I audio book a lot.

Brandy Archie:
And I don't think she mentioned that you gotta go first, Chad.

Chad Flores:
But right now like EDM, I need like non -verbal based music just to help me move sort of emotion consciousness just Navigate through these different states that I occupy every day So like non -verbal based music is a great way for me to just obviously higher rate Get that sort of adrenaline going,

Emilia Bourland:
Yes, yes, I like it.

Brandy?

Brandy Archie:
Okay, I hate favorites questions, okay? So let's just preface it with that. But I'm gonna give you an answer because I'm a good sport. You said what?

Emilia Bourland:
Mmm, yeah.

Emilia Bourland:
Listen, when I asked it.

When I asked it, was like, I was like, wait, Amelia, you don't have one because there's like 20 ,000 of them. Yeah, so.

Chad Flores:
Correct.

Brandy Archie:
Because I use music to modulate my mood. And so my playlists are for the mood at the time, right? Or the mood I want to be in. So picking one is hard. But I'm going to pick Made Away by Travis Green, because no matter what is happening, when I listen to that, it gets to me emotional and grateful for all the things God has done for me in my life. And so it doesn't matter what kind of mood I'm in. That song always

makes me feel that. So I'm going to give that as my answer.

Chad Flores:
I love it.

Emilia Bourland:
That's a good one. same, music is how I modulate myself. So if I need to pick me up, I'll turn on a song. If I need to calm down, I'll turn on a specific kind of music. So I'll tell you, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole this morning with Spotify suggestions. So it started when I was exercising this morning.

And like the workout that I was doing, they played freedom by, gosh, it's not Beyonce. It's by, my gosh, I'm gonna have to go actually look at this. Michael, no, listen, there's a million songs called freedom too. So that's not helpful. It's the one from the guy from Wham.

Chad Flores:
Is it the Raise Against the Machine version? That's the Friedemeyer type of thing,

Chad Flores:
goodness, yeah, it's beyond my territory.

Brandy Archie:
Can't help you. Can't help you.

Emilia Bourland:
Okay, hold on. Google's gonna help me. Google's gonna help me.

wham, pop duo, George Michael. Thank you. Freedom by George Michael, which is such a throwback. but I was like, this is a great song. So then I added that to my playlist and then it took me down this other, like this whole different, tunnel of music. So I added like Kiss by Prince, which by the way, if you need to pick me up, just listen to anything Prince, I think.

Chad Flores:
you

Brandy Archie:
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Emilia Bourland:
Just turn on prints probably. I added, I don't know, I added a bunch of things, but I will, I should stop answering this question now, because I'm doing a terrible job. Actually, sorry everyone. I did give an answer. Listen, the sad thing about it is I'm the one who asked the dang question.

Chad Flores:
We're learning a lot.

Brandy Archie:
You gave us an answer.

Brandy Archie:
So you are new what you're supposed to do and you still continued. You should have gave yourself an out and said like, what are your top three songs?

Chad Flores:
Correct.

Emilia Bourland:
And I s

Emilia Bourland:
Ugh, I didn't get, yeah. Well, I think I would've screwed that one up too, but anyway.

Brandy Archie:
You

Emilia Bourland:
That's my final answer is just turn on anything Prince.

Brandy Archie:
Good answer. It's a good answer.

Emilia Bourland:
There you go. OK, let's dig into the topic at hand here. Though, Chad, thank you again for being here with us. Can you tell us what the heck is a death doula?

Chad Flores:
First off, I would just like to give a little praise your way. I've known you for quite some time. And so to see you go from trying to figure out how to set up marketing booths at events to having a podcast and a caregiver training service. I mean, the evolution is just been amazing to watch. So I'm super excited to share this space with you.

Emilia Bourland:
thank you so much. Can I say, Chad, do you remember when I couldn't figure out how to post on social media? Chad actually taught me. He was like, no, no, no, no, you have to go. You have to go here. And I'm like, what?

Brandy Archie:
like literally being able to create a post.

Emilia Bourland:
it would be a war like respond to one or.

Chad Flores:
Be fair to you, technology has, it's exponentially quick these days. So a matter of years is like forever in tech age. So yes, you know, we were trying to figure out how to make posts together when it was a new thing, but it is, it has definitely evolved so quickly at this point that it seems ridiculous, humble beginnings and look at your success. You know what saying?

Brandy Archie:
That's true.

Emilia Bourland:
Yes, very. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chad.

Chad Flores:
So to sort of snap back into the question, would first like if it's okay, one of the big things that we do as a doula is to honor the people that we work with. And this opportunity for me is built on a number of different synchronicities. And one of those is the founder of Athena Wellness. Her name is Sandra Fandoni. And the whole genesis of her company is to honor her mom and dad. So I thought it would be proper for me to at least spend just a brief moment to honor.

Carol and Chick Fendoni. Without them and without the opportunity that Sandra had to walk them through their end of life, she wouldn't have had the impetus to find me on LinkedIn and basically pluck me out and hire me professionally to do the death duel thing for her company. So I just wanted to honor her mom and dad, Carol and Chick Fendoni. My maternal grandmother, Beatrice Phillips, and my paternal grandmother,

Rosa Banda Flores, they are all very important to who I am and why I'm here in this moment with you. So I just wanted to honor them. So at the core of what a death doula does is to figure out the best way

to help a family and a person transitioning to honor their life and to advocate for their experience so that it can be as optimal as possible. You the term sort of that we're familiar with is like a good death, but what does that really mean, right? So a lot of what we start off doing is trying to explore, you know, where a family and where a patient is at.

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Chad Flores:
So it can be a variety of things. A death doula can be someone who sets up a sacred space. Like I have a friend that just does floral arrangements, you know, but she likes the term of being a doula, right? You you have people that will set up a space with like essential oils and just, you know, LED candles. How do we make something sacred? And then you have someone like me that kind of goes a little bit deeper, but that's because I've spent 20 years doing it.

And I think that one way to sort of contextualize it is to kind of figure out how I got started. It's kind of funny.

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Chad Flores:
that we're here in Collin County basically, and that's where I got my start. It was in community college, know, Collin County Community College for all those that are familiar. I took a death and dying psychology class. And as often as the case, they offer some sort of project to get away from writing a final exam or a final essay or taking a final exam. And I got that opportunity with hospice volunteer work. You know, I could do 12 hours of patient support volunteer work, keep a journal, and then get out of that final assignment. And so that's what I

did. And so eventually I ended up becoming a bereavement counselor and then ended up doing vigil support volunteer work, which is where you're sitting with someone that's imminent. And I was doing that for 20, 30 hours a week, you know, so I did that for roughly 10 years. And so that the bulk of this experience comes from that time.

where I'm just, you know, I'm not at the bars, you know, like there's a lot going on with my family. Like my mom is sick, so I'm taking care of her. And so like my creative outlet, oddly enough, is this volunteer world. And so I was doing 20, 30 hours a week, you you're just sitting in the moment, you know? And I think that that's really kind of where the doula education is so important right now. I think a lot of us don't have enough exposure to understand what to do, how to even to reflect.

Emilia Bourland:
Mm.

Chad Flores:
you know, on our own mortality. And so really what a doula is doing is trying to help someone and their family process real time, oftentimes within a very short frame of time, you know, what's going on. I could keep kind of going into that, but I wanted to see if maybe that sparked a question that way I'm not just sort of dominating the space here.

Brandy Archie:
you

Brandy Archie:
Listen, I have all kinds of questions and I thank you for taking us all the way to the beginning of like how this how you came to here because it wasn't just like a see a job posting and was like, I think I want to do that, you know, and so I have my question is I've been in health care for almost 20 years and I'm only just now hearing the term death doula in the past few years and because you've been volunteering and working in hospice and in the space for such a long time.

Is the term Death Dula new and a new kind of discipline or is it that it's just being repackaged that way or I just didn't ever hear about it? Tell us a little bit more about that.

Chad Flores:
Well, just yeah, I mean that's it is having a sort of cultural resurgence right now And I think that's because it's showing up in different pop culture television shows But the the practice itself has been around for time and memorial, right? an aboriginal or shamanic cultures They were called death walkers people that would literally walk you through your transition, you know And like the Tibetan book of the dead you have examples of Buddha of monks basically chanting

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Brandy Archie:
Mm.

Chad Flores:
you know, someone who's going through the dying process, through the different levels of the underworld and into, you know, the afterlife. You see the same in the Egyptian book of the dead. like thousands of years, you know, we've seen these practices evolve, you know, with the black plague, you know, we had like the Arz Moriendi, which was like the priesthood trying to figure out how to basically

take care of the dying and how to ceremonialize, you know, the process amidst just numberless deaths every day. So like, how do we approach this? You know, like you get the mask and you get all the, you know, so like, it really comes down to focusing on different cultural sort of time period or timeframes. But the practice itself has been around for so long. Death doula, I think we have this sort of direct parallel with like a birthing doula, someone who brings in life and then a death doula

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Chad Flores:
as someone who helps take or transition life from this to the next. And it can be, and this is kind of where the specialization of a doula is sort of at the forefront of the focus here, because like it can be a variety of different things. You know, like I have a specialization in actually being there with them and oftentimes walking them through either through prayer work

or through, if you're familiar with different sort of forms of energy work, some people like you to approach it energetically. So we're dealing with consciousness here, right? A lot of the times what we're dealing with in care, like hospice care, home health, et cetera, it's just the physical body. But there's so many different layers, you know? But it all comes down to energy and consciousness. And so someone can basically tune into that and help someone transition from that perspective. And so it can go pretty deep, really fast.

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Chad Flores:
but to kind of circle back without once again dominating, which is so easy to do because I'm so passionate about it. The term itself is just coming back. I think people are scared of the term because it has death in it. They're curious about it because of a doula and they know the birth side, but they don't understand how it could be tied into death. I think people are preferring end of life specialist as opposed to death anything because our culture is so caught up in being fearful and anxious of dying.

Brandy Archie:
love it.

Chad Flores:
that we don't think about it. And so if you say death, it just freaks you out, you know? So, yeah.

Emilia Bourland:
Why do you think that this is so important to help provide people as they are transitioning? Why do you, obviously you're so passionate about this. I love that. Honestly, I could just listen to you talk about it for a really long time. What do you think is so important and necessary about this kind of work for people?

Chad Flores:
So I've had three conversations just this week. And the core sort of theme was that, are you angry when you get into these situations about what you see in this space? And what this basically is sort of anchoring in is the reality that oftentimes patients are being sort of hooked up to all the machinery and their life is being prolonged way past its organic sort of.

viability, you know? And so like what that leads to is that the patient's sort of quote unquote good death is no longer being advocated for or even understood and really they're getting caught up in sort of you know the technology and the sort of miracle cures that we we always have hope for and oftentimes that's because the family isn't able to accept you know dying. They want to prolong the life of their loved one beyond

what the loved one actually wants, right? And so what we're dealing with is sort of the family dysfunction. Because we don't think about mortality in our culture, generally speaking, when we're approached with a hospice sort of three days or two weeks or six months, like it's such a small amount of time to do a life's work of processing that honestly what ends up coming out is all the fear and the anger, you know?

and what that looks like. And estate planners, they love what we do when we work together because they can bring me in early on to basically iron out all the dysfunction so that as we're approaching end of life, the family's not arguing about the TV or the house or trying to get into the will or the money.

Emilia Bourland:
Mm.

Chad Flores:
They're not focused on the possessions. And to kind of circle back to Sandra Fandoni, she was having a hard time at the beginning because she realized in her processing, her parents had basically, all their life had been sort of contextualized into possessions and material things. And not much honor or time had been spent processing their life and the meaning that they created.

And so what we end up having is families that haven't expressed what was meaningful about their loved one. They haven't said the things. They haven't even had time to process what it means. And so what that looks like post -death is the grieving process is that much more sort of intense for them because they have all the sort of regrets. If I could have had clarity of mind, I would have known to express this. I would have said or done this. And so the role of a death duel is to come in and basically facilitate that as early as possible.

you part of what I do is I'm also a death coach like a life coach right so like you bring me in and oftentimes we we can do this without a terminal illness like if you're keen to just think about this in your 20s let's do it you know I think the sooner the better because what we're trying to do is optimize the space for that when you are passing everyone is harmonious you know

One of the things you learn as a volunteer and obviously with your experience is that as the senses start to go in the dying process, hearing is one of the last ones to go. Right? So let's kind of have a harsh reality check here. If you have a patient that's dying and around them is dysfunctional family dynamics and you hear all the bickering and all the sort of, you know, toxic comments and the emotional sort of lashing out and that's all you're surrounded with, you know, that's not

Emilia Bourland:
Mm

Chad Flores:
quote unquote, the good death that we're striving for, you know? And families are so uneducated that they think that the family, even in cases of like Alzheimer's and dementia, they think that the family member no longer can hear them or understand them. And I can tell you that's not the case, you know?

Anyone that's intuitive in this space can know that the person involved is picking up on all this information and they're experiencing the anguish and the anxiety and the wish for other things. So like, I think that that's really where I'm being thrown in the most is just to help iron out these dysfunctional dynamics and to really be there for the patient. I'll kind of stop there because we probably have another question.

But that can continue on into other things, and I assume we will.

Brandy Archie:
You know, you brought up something interesting was that financial management or wealth management appreciates when you're involved. And so that made me think, first of all, it makes total sense. But the question I have really is, how do you see death duals being accessed? So like you work for Athena Health, and so I've seen it happen as part of hospice. That makes sense. You're at the bedside. But.

to be engaged at the wealth management stage or with a 20 -year -old who's not dying but thinking about death, tell me how are the ways people might access the death.

Chad Flores:
Well, through platforms and opportunities like this. I think that right now, with the resurgence, we are educating, having the conversations. You know, there are things like death cafes. I don't know if you've heard that before. You know, people will set up shop sometimes just like at a coffee shop or a lab, like a luxurious restaurant, and they'll invite people just to show up and just eat and have conversations about dying.

Brandy Archie:
Emilia Bourland:
That is all new to me.

Chad Flores:
You know, there are cool little tools like the end of life or death decks. I don't know if you've heard of those, but it's card decks that have been created that have topics. It's of like cards against humanity, right? Where you have these topics that are supposed to elicit responses and get a conversation going, but it's geared towards the end of life space. So you have tools like that. You know, you have little tool kits that help you understand what we even look like, like.

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Chad Flores:
essential oil wise, how do you set up a sacred space? Basically just ways to sort of go into the conversation and begin just thinking about it. I think ultimately you're seeing us being used as volunteers primarily, word of mouth. Obviously I was found on LinkedIn because I identify as the death doula as my occupation. And so that's how Sandra found me. I had another person reach out. They were having a presentation in Florida and the topic of death doulas came up.

and someone found me on a registry, a national list.

You know, so I think it just depends on who's looking for the information and where it's accessible, you know, the most. And I think right now what you're providing to the community is probably the best avenue at this point, because we're digesting information at a rapid rate and podcasts are the way to go, you know, audio books, et cetera, you know, but generally speaking before sort of all of this, it really was just word of mouth or showing up as a volunteer and not identifying like, Hey, I'm Chad, the death duel, and I'm here to support you. It really was just being in the space and

Brandy Archie:
Thank

Chad Flores:
and sort of you know operating as such you know.

Emilia Bourland:
Can you talk a little bit about what the differences may be between hospice care and having a death doula? Because I think that that can be like a confusing distinction.

Chad Flores:
Correct. The most simple way to look at it is that hospice care is going to be the clinical side of things, taking care of pain, trying to create comfort as optimally as possible. You're gonna have psychosocial support through the social worker and the chaplain. And so all these work in tandem to take care of the basic needs of the patient. I think the way that I approach the conversation when it comes to this topic is that

It's sort of like a battleground, right? Like I'm the one that will go through it with you. And not to say that a social worker, a chaplain or a loved one wouldn't or couldn't, but like I'm able to spend as much time as is necessary, you know, to go as deep as possible with you, you know, whereas if I'm being funded by, you know, insurance, I may only have a limited number of time, you know, and it's sort of hard to, like, if you think about like an IDG meeting, right?

it would be sort of hard to make what I do hyperclinical, you know, because we're dealing with things that sometimes can't be quantified. Like if I'm talking, if I'm helping a patient that is nonverbal and...

my body has been fine tuned enough to pick up on pain cues or to know emotional cues of what they're going through. It's going to sound like the most woo woo kind of stuff to someone who's a materialist sort of science person. Like they're dealing simply with the mechanics of the physical body and when it stops functioning, that's the moment of death. Consciousness no longer exists. know, like there's no more sort of spiritual component to it. It's just time of death. It's done. You know, whereas someone from my background,

that's working with energy and consciousness primarily, you understand that there's something that's transitioning and that still is lingering around that can be worked with post -death. Right? And so I think that if I've had the conversation with the patient and their family to know where their leanings are, then you know how to approach it, you know, from a spiritual perspective.

Chad Flores:
you know, if they're Christian and they had certain archangelic sort of, you know, beliefs and sort of leanings, then we know how to set up a sacred space to help guide their spirit or their soul into their next life based on that framework, you know? And that's something that's just deeper and a little bit more extended than what you might get in a hospice setting, you know? But I think that optimally that we work in tandem.

You know, I've had experiences where hospice volunteer coordinators or even hospice organizations are kind of scared about working with a doula. Or maybe they've had a death doula come in and just try to do too much. Just a little extra, right? It's sort of like the Reiki healer that wants to announce that I'm a Reiki healer in every context and can I do Reiki work on you? Sometimes you just need to be there and just operate as whatever you identify with without trying to interject it into a conversation because it's unknown.

You know, so like knowing how to operate, think is the best way to work with the hospice group. But I've also had instances where, you know, I've had hospice groups have to have emergency IDG meetings to figure out whether or not it's cool for me to come back because I've helped expedite, you know, a death and they were worried about census numbers. Like if Chad's coming around and we're losing patients because he's doing this death doula thing, which is freaky to us, you know, without understanding what's really going on.

Like, is it okay? You we gotta keep people in the beds, right? We gotta keep, you know, our operation funded. And so education is just so important right now because I think people think that a death doula is someone who has their finger on the pulse of life and death, you know? And that's why it's freaky to them. It's sort of like, you know, did you hear the story about the cat that would travel to all the different rooms and if the cat traveled to the room of a patient, that patient would die within 24 hours? Did y 'all ever hear that story?

Emilia Bourland:
Mm.

Emilia Bourland:
No.

Chad Flores:
So there's a number of these sorts of stories where there's an animal or some sort of an occurrence where if it shows up, well, people think that I'm like the cat.

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Emilia Bourland:
Are you saying you're the cat?

Chad Flores:
If I visit, then they're gonna pass, like, you know? And that can be possible, yes. If the sort of portal, so to speak, is open and the patient really is ready and everything is just aligning and you just need a little extra help, then sure, I can be of service there. But like, I'm not gonna walk in and just like, there they go, you know? And I think that's kind of the simplistic way that it's looked at because it creates so much fear and anxiety. Because once again, you're dealing with something that is a huge unknown.

You know, we are built to focus on life, you know? The birth of a baby, we're gonna create a whole room, we're gonna have the crib, the toys, we're gonna do all this stuff, but we never spend any time even thinking about death. It just freaks us out, you know? And so like anything associated with the term, it's just, it's a huge unknown and people don't know how to process. They don't even want to process. And so like, it's easy to project.

Brandy Archie:
Mm -hmm.

Chad Flores:
all that fear and anxiety onto someone who's doing this sort of work, even if you're offering it as volunteer time, you know, like it's still just as freaky to them.

Brandy Archie:
So you, the interesting thing about what you just said is that everybody does only two things the same. We all are born and we all die. And we spend all of our effort and energy on the birth because that's the fun part and it's bringing a new baby into the world. And so in juxtaposition with like a birth doula, I liked what you said a little bit ago in which you're there as essentially an advocate and the person who's gonna go through this with the least amount of

Chad Flores:
Correct.

Brandy Archie:
complications or ties with the person who's actually dying. And that's what a birth doula does, right? They're not delivering the baby. They're not cleaning the room. not doing any of the other stuff. have any of these other goals. The only goal is to help the mother be as comfortable as possible to do the best job she can to birth the baby. And so in a similar context, you're helping a person who is dying to

be able to go through whichever framework they want to go through, but go through it and get to this other side, whatever the other side is in their opinion. And so this is a big unknown because we don't do a lot of this. And it's OK if there's no answers to this. It's just an honest question, not pushing back on anything. But is there any research or any studies that talk about how people experience death or how soon they might die after

engaging with a deaf doula or somebody on this continuum. It's not a continuum. I mean, like, not the word deaf doula, like you were talking about. People have been doing this work since ever because we've been dying since ever. So, like, do we have any research or studies or just, like, information to know, like, how this impacts us?

Chad Flores:
Yeah.

Chad Flores:
Well, I think.

So there are huge rabbit holes on YouTube right now. And a lot of people are very sort of fixated on NDEs or near death experiences or even out of body experiences. And obviously we have a lot of literature coming out about people that say they've died or had moments of a sort of near death experience where they went to these like either hell or hell or heaven or hell and came back and basically tell you the landscapes. But like we have so much literature on, know, at least clinically speaking, research oriented literature on out of body experiences and near death experiences, you know, even with the

Brandy Archie:
Mm.

Chad Flores:
sort of, you know, the resurgence of like psychedelics right now, you know, like a lot of research has been done on DMT and what happens to people, you know, during those experiences and the sort of connecting point there is that, you know, the brain produces DMT organically and it's known to basically at the time of death, your brain basically just in a sense, shoots out all this DMT into your mind. And so it's basically like a psychedelic.

Brandy Archie:
What's DMT?

Chad Flores:
You know, so like it's basically helping in a sense, it's creating a landscape of sort of conscious awareness that exists outside of the body. And I'm trying to understand how to explain it simply for people that don't understand. I would look into that. So Rick Strassman is one of the primary researchers into that.

Brandy Archie:
Mm.

Chad Flores:
And basically it ties into the dying experience because we basically are flooded with all of this sort of information as we are going through the process of transitioning from our physical body into our sort of conscious oriented spiritual body, depending on your framework, right? And so like that sort of in between that limbo state is really what we're getting a lot of findings into right now with that sort of research. But once again, I mentioned like the Tibetan and the Egyptian book of the dead.

There's a lot of people that have spent time researching these sort of different modalities of what happens and how can we help navigate it. But the NDE research literature, I think, is the most interesting.

you know, because you're having these people that are experiencing being on like a surgeon, like a surgeon's table and you know, they're able to basically come out of their body and look down on the surgery itself as if like from a security camera in the corner of the room and coming back to conscious awareness of hyper like awareness of the specifics of their surgery that they wouldn't have known under anesthesia, right?

And so like, that's just a simple example of what it looks like, but like you have all this wild sort of like, how did they know this if they were under, or how did they know this if they were clinically dead for three minutes? You know, like what happened?

And so there's a huge body of just different anecdotal sort of evidence about what happens. And so you juxtapose that with all the research that like a Rick Strassman has done. You know, it just seems like there's so much that can be done in this space. You know, but from a death doula, like what we're doing is we're sitting in those moments. And that's why I think it's important for us to really focus on what we're experiencing. You know, like if you think about like a Venn diagram between life and death, you have that that middle ground, you know.

Chad Flores:
and what's going on when those two different forms of life expression are merging, that's what we're sitting in. We're basically downloading information in those moments. And so that's how you can fine tune your body to pick up on different cues and you can receive downloads about what is going on in the dying experience and come out and journal it or write it, or use it to inform the way that you approach it later on.

And I think that's ultimately what we're trying to do is create a presence. Can you sit in this moment without trying to consciously think about what to say to fix something, or without trying to be fearful or worried about where you're at in the will? How can we get everyone to be optimally present so that we can just be in this moment organically together and really just receive what we can receive?

I feel like I'm doing it again, so next question please.

Emilia Bourland:
No, no, I think that that's, that's great. I feel like what you're what you're saying, and I do have a question after this statement. I feel like what you're saying is really trying to facilitate that connection between everyone so that everyone can kind of feel what's going on together and, and, and be at peace. Is that sort of it in a simplified way?

Chad Flores:
in a simplified way, yes.

Emilia Bourland:
what draws you to do this work? And like, know how you, we know how you came to do this work, but like, what is it that draws you into doing this?

Chad Flores:
It's my way to creatively process and express through my anger about what it actually is. Like when you think about a life, it's already difficult enough, right? The soul already has to go through so much developing through this life that to think and to experience that it's more tragic and shocking during death,

it's, it angers me, right? It's very frustrating, you know, because no focus is given to the patient, typically speaking. And when I say this, I mean like outside of taking care of the physical pain and outside of the work of a social worker and chaplain, not much else has been given to the patient to process their own dying process. They've been thrown into this and there's so much unknown that they don't even...

have time to understand what it is they're about to go through. And it's like, if we are honoring the birth, why aren't we honoring the dying? And I think that most of us have a belief system in the West that gives us an afterlife experience, right? And I think that a lot of the time, and this is what we experience, that oftentimes we just believe something because it's a story that we've been told to believe.

And if we haven't had a spiritual experience that anchors us in the reality of that belief system, when we're thrown into this unknown, we are scared because like every story breaks down. If we've identified with our physical body and that starts to disintegrate in the dying process, and then we have unprocessed intellectual, emotional, spiritual content, and no one's there to really help walk us through that.

Like the dying experience is oftentimes just, it's not pleasant until the final moment where you see the peace, right? But like you think about all the suffering that's condensed into this very small frame of time of a dying process. Like you just watch someone unnecessarily suffer and it's because there's not been enough prep work for them and their own lives and not enough actual quality time and depth of work with them while they're going through it, you know?

Chad Flores:
And so like, this is kind of what I mean. Like when you think about a patient that has a family that is so caught up in arguing with each other.

And when they're sitting there in that space, that's what they're focused on. And that's what the patient is soaking up. We kind of go back to like, a baby will soak up what the parents do around it, right? And that's kind of how it picks up its cues. So like, let's apply that to dying. When you've gone nonverbal and you're basically just sitting there, your experience is being saturated with what's surrounding you. And if you're in a hospital setting, which is super sterile and clinical, and you're surrounded by family that's bickering,

Brandy Archie:
Right.

Brandy Archie:
Mm -hmm.

Chad Flores:
and arguing and they're just stressed. You're picking up on all that. It's not pleasant, you know, and you can't communicate what it is you want. Like, hey, I want you to tell me you love me again and tell me why this was meaningful. Hey, I wish I could tell you this, but I can't, you know, just I want you just to be here with me. They can't say that anymore, right? Or even when they are able to verbalize it, they can say that, but a family member can't necessarily be present to provide that because they're so caught up in their own processing.

know? So like that's why I'm angry because I know it can be different, you know? And this ties into personal experience obviously because I've had family members that I've been with where I just knew that it wasn't optimal. And when I first started volunteering I was in skilled nursing facilities where oftentimes no friends or family were coming because the patient was completely alone. And to even see the sort of abuse is a strong word.

Brandy Archie:
Mm -hmm.

Emilia Bourland:
Mm.

Brandy Archie:
Yeah.

Emilia Bourland:
Yeah.

Chad Flores:
but to see the way the patients were handled and neglected in their care by the nurses or aides at the facilities that were often underfunded, and the patients were just another person on the route, like the way they were handled, was just so.

Chad Flores:
unnerving and I was very angry that that would be the case and I never realized that those realities existed. You so I think that if I trace it back, the core of it was really just when I saw that the first time I made it my sort of core mission to try to do what I could to be there with the dying, to at least offer some form of comfort. Even if that's just sitting there holding their hand and just praying with them, just sitting there watching the prices right with them, you know, whatever it is.

you know, just offering my time and my presence, you know, and trying to sort of saturate a space with nurturing, compassion, love, all the stuff, right? And make that the environment as opposed to an environment that's filled with all the stuff that we kind of just went over, you know, which is actually more often the case, you know, even when the best wishes and intentions are there by a family or by a nursing team or whatever the case may be, oftentimes the patient is just left sit.

Brandy Archie:
Mm -hmm.

Chad Flores:
and these sorts of spaces.

Brandy Archie:
and it feels not right to you. And so you're using your time and energy to make that better, which makes total sense because everything else that we do in life that we must do, we make it as enjoyable as possible, right? Like we must eat. If we don't eat, we will die. And so therefore we cook food. We spend all this billion dollars industry of like recipes and like all the ways to cook, enjoy, engage with food because we have to do it. So we might as well make it more enjoyable experience.

Chad Flores:
Correct. It's not right. Yeah.

Brandy Archie:
but because we don't like to deal with death for obvious reasons, we've neglected to create an experience around that that is as pleasurable or as good as it can be, right? I mean, it's the same thing for like, it's almost the same thing for working out. I'm gonna use that example. So like, nobody really wants to get up and get working out. You know, the end result is gonna be beneficial to you and you do it, but the act of like,

working really hard and make your body work really hard is not necessarily pleasant, but we do all these other things around it in order to make it feel better and to make it enjoyable. You do it in a group, you get new clothes to do it. You do it on a beach because you think it's nice to watch and look and do, even though it's hard, but we have completely neglected to do that for death. Even though it's hard, we should still be managing it and trying to make it as pleasurable or as good of an experience as it can be.

for that person and by default, hopefully it's also making it little bit better to deal with for the family.

Chad Flores:
Correct. And I'm just curious, why are we scared of death? Like, where did that come from? You know, why, why? You know, and so I think that that's also the part of it, is that why are we scared of it? We say we have this belief system. Why are we scared?

Emilia Bourland:
Hmm.

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Emilia Bourland:
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I've wondered that often myself, honestly, Chad, like, you know, because we do have such a fearful and negative view of like death in our culture and society. really, you know, the focus is on living as long as possible, sometimes to the detriment of of someone's comfort or quality of life, actually. Right. Like we see

Brandy Archie:
Mm -hmm.

Emilia Bourland:
We see this all the time, unfortunately. The only thing that I can come up with in my attempt to answer the question is that at some point, death became so removed from the process of our regular lives. It moved out of homes and into hospitals, where it was sort of sterilized and made

Chad Flores:
It's a hard question.

Emilia Bourland:
more clinical or and again, like, listen, folks, I am not an expert on what I'm talking about here. I'm literally talking as just like another person who has thought about these things. Yeah, yeah, like I'm just a person who's thought about these things. But like at some point, I mean, there there was a for probably most of our history, like people passed in their homes with their loved ones. And it was a more

I'm guessing normalized experience because it was something that we saw, right? Now, when someone passes, you might go most of your life without actually being there when someone passes. And so not only is it not present in front of us in a more kind of normalized way, it makes it much, much more scary because the unknown is scary. And, you know, I think that

The unknown is like the number one fear of anyone. Why don't you want to ride the roller coaster? Because I don't know what's going to happen. Why don't you want to speak publicly? Because I'm afraid that it won't go well, right? I just don't know. Why are you nervous on your first day of school as a kid? Because you're not sure, right? And so when we have no exposure to it, I think it just becomes scarier for us.

Brandy Archie:
I think I agree with the second part of what you're saying the most. I think it's the unknown. okay, if you think about a baby, right? And you say, I'm not gonna argue in front of my kids or in front of my baby because that's probably not good for them even though they can't tell me that they don't like when mom and daddy are arguing, right? But what you can see is that they are happier and they babble more and they come around you more because you are doing other things, right? You do get some experience about like, I did this and this happened.

Emilia Bourland:
Mm.

Brandy Archie:
but we don't get that with death, right? So like we have a death doula there or we have argument there. What happened to that person? Like we don't get that backwards feedback of like, that was helpful. And so now I'm getting reinforced to continue doing it. And so we don't have that. And because there's so many different belief systems and it's just so unknown to us because nobody's coming back to tell us, okay, this was beneficial and this was not beneficial that it just puts us in this spate of like,

Emilia Bourland:
Mm

Brandy Archie:
I don't want to have to even deal with it. Plus, you're losing the person, right? We talk about how important connection is. And so even if what they experience on the other side, like I come from a Christian background and faith. And so I believe after we leave here, it's going to be better. But that is better for them. It's not better for me. I still lost my loved one, right? They're not here with me right now. And so because we don't want to lose that connection, that also makes it a thing that we don't want to have to deal with, I think. And then we push it away even further.

Emilia Bourland:
Mm

Emilia Bourland:
Mm

Brandy Archie:
clinicalized it and made it so that it's something that we want to be as disconnected from as we can be.

Chad Flores:
Yeah, it's hard to reorient our focus when we're so fixated on the physical. Like our whole identity typically is tied into our physicality. But oftentimes we say that we ascribe to belief that we have a soul and a spirit that is eternal. And when we die, we will go into this eternal sort of landscape where all of us are still together and connected. And so like, I think really it is having to come to terms with

disintegration of the physical identity. Like if I'm no longer physically embodied in this reality, do I still exist? You know? And so there's that sort of dissonance there between like, spiritually we believe, yes, we are eternal, we are connected infinitely through love and through our, you know, as you mentioned Christ, you know, we're connected through these different ways, you know, and so like the fear I think is just when the physical body, like we have to come to terms with that.

Like do we still exist if we're not physically, in a sense, embodied? Or, you know, and it's hard, you know? And I think that's really like, if you haven't, and that's kind of what I was meaning about the earlier comment, if you haven't had a spiritual experience that anchors you to give you a sense of certainty about what happens when you die, you know, like it's hard. And so like,

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Chad Flores:
The best way to prepare is to talk about it and to process it as soon as possible. Whenever you have time. Like it doesn't take a lot of time really, it can. But like oftentimes as a death coach, that's what we're providing. Physically speaking, how would you like to be cared for? Where would you like to be? Do you wanna be at home? Do you wanna be next to nature? Do you wanna be out in nature next to a spring or a pond? Where do you want your physical landscape and body to be cared for?

Brandy Archie:
Mm

Chad Flores:
You know, where do, what are your sort of emotional, like how do you process the emotions and the thoughts? What sort of legacies do you want to create? You know, like if you're a grandparent and you know, you have a grandchild that's going to be driving when you're not around, like, do you want to create like a time released video or letter or?

something to pass on wisdom so that you can give them what you would like to tell them when they get their driver's license or when they graduate from high school or college. You know, let's map it out, right? You know, and I think that that alleviates most of the fear -based, you know, processing.

because I think it comes down to, if I no longer exist, will I still be meaningful to those around me? Will I be remembered? know, like it's sort of like almost egoic in a sense. We wanna make sure that what we did in our life meant something and we wanna be able to be remembered. You know, but spiritually, soul, mind, like we're all connected still.

you know, but I think it just comes down to the sort of the incarnation that we're currently in. We want to make sure that it meant something, you know, and to be thrown into all that with three weeks to live and for your family to be thrown into that, you know, when they're like, they're still soccer mom, they're still going through this, they haven't had time to even process what they want to do for the weekend, more or less, you know, how to how to sort of encapsulate someone's life and communicate all that they wish they could communicate.

Brandy Archie:
Mm -hmm.

Chad Flores:
Like it's just, our life is so complicated and fast paced that it's almost like we don't have the ability to carve out just a space to process. You know, so that's why someone like me can come in and just help you. You know, it's like you provide that objective viewpoint. You can see everybody for where they're at and you can help facilitate, you know, what they can do and as much time as we have. Like I was like hospice groups oftentimes use me as an emergency visual support volunteer.

And I had an experience recently where I was asked to go be with the family. And in the house when I walk in, there's like 12, 14 people there. The patient is on a hospital bed in the middle of like the kitchen living room area. And no one is paying any attention to him.

Everyone's on their phones. There's two big screen TVs blaring movies that aren't even the same movie. So it's just like distraction upon distraction upon distraction. And nobody's even wanting to make funeral arrangements. They don't want to talk about it. You know, sort of like what's called like word magic. If I speak about death, it's going to make it happen. It's going to quicken it. So they weren't processing. They weren't talking, right? They weren't even saying meaningful things to the patient. They weren't.

Emilia Bourland:
Hmm.

Brandy Archie:
Mm -hmm.

Chad Flores:
nurturing physical touch, they weren't doing anything at all except just sort of occupying this awkward space where someone's actively dying and they're not really wanting to process or accept it. So I was brought in to basically rapidly provide a quickening process. So like...

How do I help them start reorienting their thought process to say what needs to be said, to process the reality of it so they can start, in a sense, having catharsis as a family? Let's process this. And I was able to do that in roughly two hours. You just have to come in and you have to know what to look for and you have to be able to have the hard conversations.

Brandy Archie:
Mmm.

Emilia Bourland:
Mm

Chad Flores:
So oftentimes doctors or like I mentioned, estate planners, they will utilize the death doula to do exactly that. It's like sort of like having the auditor come in, like, hey, you're going through this, but you're not taking care of any of these needs here. You're not even focused on the reality here. Let's figure out action items and let's do these things. Right. So I don't know how I got off on that tangent, but I'll stop there.

Brandy Archie:
I think that's really important though, that you brought that out because it makes a ton of sense. And then everybody in the room knows that you don't have no side here. Like you literally just walked in off the street, but you have these skills. And so like you can help them get started talking without all the baggage that usually comes with families and relationships and all that stuff and like make the thing happen. I'm actually pretty impressed that you could take that group of people in two hours and get them to a point in which they were dealing with it, you know?

Emilia Bourland:
Yeah.

Brandy Archie:
because they're actively doing everything not to deal with it, even though they dutifully showed up.

Chad Flores:
Well, that's

Chad Flores:
So this is just, so when I mentioned, so when you've done something for as long as I have, and you've sat in this space long enough, you like you've become finely tuned to pick up on all the cues, right? And so oftentimes what I do in my first moments is just sit there in silence and just observe and sort of intuitively, energetically pick up on all that's present in a given environment, right?

And so this obviously is combined with an avid meditation sort of practice. Like there's a lot that I do to keep myself sort of stable and able to handle all the emotions, right? So like I have a deep meditative practice, know, a deep prayer life. So I basically have trained myself over 20 years to be able to do this in silence and to know how to basically take action based on the information that I receive, right? A mother's intuition knows when their child has been hurt.

doesn't matter how much distance is between them. So as a death doula that spent so much time in this space, I can pick up on the cues of a patient and know how to take action.

Right? Even when a patient doesn't have any family and they can no longer verbalize, they can tell me what they need. You know, I've experimented, right? Like a lot of this is experimentation. It is completely like unknown, right? But you can ask a patient, you may have experienced, right? Like you can ask a patient what they need. And if you're intuitive and receptive enough, you can pick up on what they're telling you they need. Right? So like...

That's ultimately what we're doing is we're fine tuning a mechanism to receive information on how best to give someone what they need at end of life.

Emilia Bourland:
Well, I feel like we could continue talking about this for a long time because it's such a rich subject. And frankly, the end of life and death are topics that really deserve more time and more thought from all of us. We do need to probably wrap up here, though. I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you so much for being here today, Chad.

Brandy Archie:
Mm -hmm.

Emilia Bourland:
Would you tell people a little bit before we finish here, where can they find you? Where can they find information about death doulas that may be in their area? Maybe how can they get connected with services that if they're listening to this and thinking, my goodness, that would be really, really helpful. Like how can people access that?

Chad Flores:
Sure. Yes. Thank you both for having me. We could definitely keep going because as you can see, the conversation just it's multi -layered and there's so much. I mean, I still feel like I haven't even clarified anything. Like there's so much more we could talk about. But yes, no, you can find me on LinkedIn primarily. That's where I get most of my connection points.

Emilia Bourland:
I have at least five more questions, but we'll be here for three hours, so.

Brandy Archie:
You

Chad Flores:
People reach out for information. I'm happy to guide you on how to become a death doula, where to find doulas. I would go to the National End of Life Doula Association website where there is a list of everyone who is a national end of life doula, obviously throughout the United States. I would look into like the university, think it's Vermont has a university course on being a death doula. You have like the Conscious Dying Institute based out of Boulder, Colorado.

Brandy Archie:
you

Chad Flores:
You even have like the IAP career college that Mark Cuban helped fund or started I forget exactly the What happened there, but they have an end -of -life doula certification, which is honestly where I got one of my certifications Inexpensive, know, etc. A lot of the certifications are in -depth and they require thousands of dollars

But really what they're doing there is they're walking you through processing your own end of life process. So that you take on a terminal illness or like a diagnosis and you're like, I have this much time to live. Here's what I need to map out to make sure I have my good death. And you do that as a practicum. So typically that's what you're paying the thousands of dollars for. But if you just want the education, go to like an IAP college, there's a variety of other death doula sort of programs out there. But if you need any guidance at all, find me on LinkedIn, Chad Flores.

Emilia Bourland:
Mm.

Chad Flores:
I'll help guide you. If you need a volunteer, if you want someone to come sit with you, I'm there for that as well. But I just love being in the conversation, so thank you for having me. There's so much more that is not my specialty that could be talked about academically, clinically, but I'm happy to have shared at least what I have in my experience base. And I just appreciate that you've had me here.

Emilia Bourland:
Well, thank you again so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

Chad Flores:
Thank you. Let's do it again.

Brandy Archie:
Yeah, thanks for coming.

Emilia Bourland:
For sure. And dear listener and or viewer, if you enjoyed this episode, you made it all the way to the end, then please take a moment here to leave us a review, like, and subscribe. These are the best ways to make sure that other people who would benefit from hearing the information that we share right here on CareLab can get that information. Until then, we will see you next time right here on CareLab. Bye.

Brandy Archie:
Bye.

Chad Flores:
Thank you.

 
Do us a favor and subscribe to the CareLab podcast on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts! It will help others find our conversations and grow the community and you’ll stay updated with the latest insights and expert advice on elder care.