Epilogue, Life Doula, and the ALchemy of grief

This week, I completed a process with a client. One year, 24 sessions — quite a journey.

We talked about his work, the role of the artist in stimulating and revealing collective shadows, the ability to transmute emotions, the pleasure of giving voice to our more hidden parts, the creative fire, the necessity of letting certain things die, of cycles.

He said to me, “The man I was when I first came to see you a year ago is dead.” And we celebrated.

“I didn’t think this session would be an epilogue,” he told me, realizing how far he’d come and that we were now looking back. “I’m at the beginning of a new cycle.”

These are words I often hear from my clients. In the final sessions, I’m always present with the sadness of seeing them go — and at the same time, I feel immense pride, joy, in watching them take flight. Seeing the growth, the autonomy, the confidence that radiates as we say, goodbye, and thank you.

~

Last week I had a clear vision of how to define my practice: Life Doula.
In group work, in one-on-one settings, my role is to accompany people in giving birth to themselves again.

To be reborn to oneself also means going through phases of death. Letting obsolete parts die off — old patterns, beliefs, attachments to who we were, to what we've always done, to our identities.

I myself am just emerging from a very intense cycle of death and rebirth.
Through the dissolution of a romantic relationship, I allowed myself to collapse. I touched spaces of raw pain, deep distress, loss of meaning, and a place of “I don’t know anything anymore.” In this necessary collapse, parts of me had to die, dissolve, and compost. I had no more landmarks. I couldn’t hold on to the past. Everything had to be redefined. Everything had to be transformed.

At first, I believed that this compost would allow the relationship to be reborn. That belief carried me for a time. But after the resistance, after the surrender, after weeks in the shadows accepting the end and digesting myself from the inside out — after battles and defeats, after spending the winter wrapped tight in a cocoon of friends and self-care… the transmutation happened.

In spring, what emerged was me.
A new version of me.
Stronger. Wiser. More grounded.
A more authentic, conscious, and affirmed version of myself.
A new joy for life. A love for myself that I had never known before.

It’s not the first time I’ve died and given birth to myself again. But it’s the first time I’ve lived through the process with so much presence, awareness, and support.

I’m coming out of the tunnel. I don’t know yet what lies ahead, but for the past two months, the light has been magnificent. Life is pushing and pulling through me. I laugh. I sing. I create. I reveal myself. I feel inspired. I am in abundance.

There’s still, deep within, the presence of grief and sorrow — offering contrast and adding consciousness to the rest. And there is so much love. So much gratitude. For all the aspects that allowed me to become who I am, here, now.

Death and rebirth. Contraction, expansion.
I know this is not a final destination — do we ever truly arrive?
But I’m savoring the space that’s been created.

One thing is certain: in this past year, I’ve learned to trust even more deeply.

As I walk this path, I feel inspired to accompany others through similar processes. Whether it’s a breakup, a career change, a life transition, or simply parts of yourself that need to die in order to move forward — I would be honored to support you, through ritual healing or longer-term guidance, in (re)birthing yourself.