Dying Your Way

In this powerful episode of the Dying Your Way Podcast, Rev. Cress Darwin returns to reflect on faith, forgiveness, aging, and dying with grace. He shares deeply personal stories—from sitting with the dying, to ministering after the Mother Emanuel AME Church shooting, to finding divine love in the middle of crisis. Claire and Cress explore what it means to surrender, to forgive without forgetting, and why the end of life is not the end—but simply a change of zip code.

 

Dying Your Way is an online platform dedicated to helping people around the world prepare for a conscious and peaceful death. Through education, planning tools, and End of Life Doula services, DYW supports individuals, caregivers, and communities with grace and compassion.

📬 Connect with Us:

• 💻 Website: https://dyingyourway.com

• 📧 Contact: [email protected]

• 📱 Instagram: @dyingyourway

• 🗣️ Leave a comment, submit a topic, or tell us your story!

🙏 Support the Podcast:

• ✅ Subscribe — It’s free!

• 💬 Leave a review or comment

• 🔗 Share this episode with someone who needs it

• 👍 Hit that like button to help others find this space

Take a deep breath, hold your loved ones close, and remember: You can die your way.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Dying Your Way, Claire O’Berry explores two essential tools—mindfulness and mind-mapping—to help bring clarity, peace, and intentionality to end-of-life planning. Learn how to navigate overwhelm, prioritize what matters most, and make empowered decisions well before a crisis hits. A practical and heart-centered guide for living—and dying—on your terms.

 

Dying Your Way is an online platform dedicated to helping people around the world prepare for a conscious and peaceful death. Through education, planning tools, and End of Life Doula services, DYW supports individuals, caregivers, and communities with grace and compassion.

📬 Connect with Us:

• 💻 Website: https://dyingyourway.com

• 📧 Contact: [email protected]

• 📱 Instagram: @dyingyourway

• 🗣️ Leave a comment, submit a topic, or tell us your story!

🙏 Support the Podcast:

• ✅ Subscribe — It’s free!

• 💬 Leave a review or comment

• 🔗 Share this episode with someone who needs it

• 👍 Hit that like button to help others find this space

Take a deep breath, hold your loved ones close, and remember: You can die your way.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our latest Dying Your Way podcast episode, I’m joined by the luminous Dr. Toni Reilly—renowned psychotherapist, past-life specialist, and now author of the soul-stirring book Grief is Not the Death of You.

It’s been five years since I last interviewed Toni, and what a journey she’s been on since then. In this intimate and honest conversation, we explore how grief—whether from death, divorce, identity loss, or even the breakdown of belief systems—is not something to avoid or push through, but a transformative teacher.

We go deep into:

• Why grief is one of the three great pinnacles of human experience: birth, grief, and death
  
  

• How grief strips us of control and awakens empathy
  
  

• The importance of witnessing and holding space, without trying to fix anything
  
  

• Why letting someone cry uninterrupted is a gift—and why hugging too soon might stop a breakthrough
  
  

• How Toni’s groundbreaking recall therapy (including past-life and afterlife encounters) helps people shift perspectives during profound loss
  
  

• Why society fails at supporting the grieving—and how we can all do better
  
  

Toni’s insights are both mystical and deeply practical. Whether you are in grief, supporting someone who is, or simply seeking a more soulful understanding of life’s hardest moments—this conversation will stay with you.

💬 One takeaway? “You don’t choose grief. It chooses you. But through it, you will never be the same—and that’s the gift.”

We also touch on her upcoming appearance at the Afterlife Convention in Sydney (June 28–29), where science meets spirituality in powerful new ways. Toni is helping shift the global conversation around grief, death, and the soul’s journey—and I couldn’t be more grateful to have her voice on this platform.

Dying Your Way is an online platform dedicated to helping people around the world prepare for a conscious and peaceful death. Through education, planning tools, and End of Life Doula services, DYW supports individuals, caregivers, and communities with grace and compassion.

📬 Connect with Us:

• 💻 Website: https://dyingyourway.com

• 📧 Contact: [email protected]

• 📱 Instagram: @dyingyourway

• 🗣️ Leave a comment, submit a topic, or tell us your story!

🙏 Support the Podcast:

• ✅ Subscribe — It’s free!

• 💬 Leave a review or comment

• 🔗 Share this episode with someone who needs it

• 👍 Hit that like button to help others find this space

Take a deep breath, hold your loved ones close, and remember: You can die your way.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a brand-new season of the Dying Your Way podcast! In this kickoff episode, host Claire O’Berry shares a heartfelt reflection on the evolution of end-of-life conversations in our ever-changing world. She offers insights into what’s ahead for Season 4 and reintroduces the mission that started it all.

Whether you’re facing a life-threatening illness, supporting a loved one, or walking your own path toward deeper death literacy, this podcast is a space for support, education, and sacred conversation.

📝 In This Episode:

• Why time away between seasons is essential in end-of-life work

• How rapid societal and technological changes are impacting death conversations

• Surprising growth in listener numbers—even during breaks

• Claire’s personal story as a caregiver for both parents

• The origin of Dying Your Way and the role of End of Life Doulas

• DYW’s vision for conscious, sacred death free of fear, pain, and anxiety

• Season 4 themes:

  • The shifting healthcare landscape

  • Holistic tools for dying well

  • The grief and bereavement journey

  • Powerful guest interviews

• How to get involved: share your topic ideas and engage with the community

🌿 About Dying Your Way:

Dying Your Way is an online platform dedicated to helping people around the world prepare for a conscious and peaceful death. Through education, planning tools, and End of Life Doula services, DYW supports individuals, caregivers, and communities with grace and compassion.

📬 Connect with Us:

• 💻 Website: https://dyingyourway.com

• 📧 Contact: [email protected]

• 📱 Instagram: @dyingyourway

• 🗣️ Leave a comment, submit a topic, or tell us your story!

🙏 Support the Podcast:

• ✅ Subscribe — It’s free!

• 💬 Leave a review or comment

• 🔗 Share this episode with someone who needs it

• 👍 Hit that like button to help others find this space

Take a deep breath, hold your loved ones close, and remember: You can die your way.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sean Cunningham is best known as a producer and director of horror movies, like Friday the 13th, but it is his documentary, The Nurse with the Purple Hair, that is changing how we look at death and dying. In this documentary he curiously lifts the curtain on the reality of hospice care. It is a documentary of love at the end of life. Grab a tissue!

Claire and Sean during the interview will have you considering the conversations you need to have with your own loved ones.

Click here for more information about the movie - https://www.thenursewiththepurplehair.com/

Join the Dying Your Way conversation on our FaceBook group, search for Dying your Way. Or to learn more or contact us go to www.dyingyourway.com.

Other links:

https://dyingyourway.com/

https://www.dyingyourway.com/eol-training

https://www.dyingyourway.com/endoflife-organization

https://www.facebook.com/dyingyourway/

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, listeners meet Co-Founder, Terry Mepham, who is the behind the scenes force behind Dying Your Way; an innovative concept to teach death literacy globally to anyone, anywhere and anytime.

Core to the curriculum is the concept that death is a sacred event and feelings of fear, pain and anxiety can be diminished through proper planning and early palliative care, allowing better quality of life at the end of life.

Join the Dying Your Way conversation on our FaceBook group, search for Dying your Way. Or to learn more or contact us go to www.dyingyourway.com.

Other links:

https://dyingyourway.com/

https://www.dyingyourway.com/eol-training

https://www.dyingyourway.com/endoflife-organization

https://www.facebook.com/dyingyourway/

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Great teachers through the ages have taught the importance of facing death as a conscious and sacred event. Reverend Bodhi Be has carried this torch as an end of life leader and innovator globally, as well as for his local Hawaiian community.

He is an ordained interfaith minister and teacher in the Sufi lineage. As Founder and Executive Director of Doorway Into Light, his life and teachings encourage us all to “do death better”.

Inspired by Ram Dass, a mentor, neighbor and friend; Bodhi Be has turned the business of dying into a sacred and sustainable event.

Doorway Into Light is a non-profit organization based in Maui that provides conscious and compassionate care for the dying and their families.

For more information about Reverend Bodhi Be please visit:

Website - https://www.doorwayintolight.org/

Or - https://www.ipuka.org/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Thedeathstore/

Join the Dying Your Way conversation on our FaceBook group, search for Dying your Way. Or to learn more or contact us go to www.dyingyourway.com.

Other links:

https://www.dyingyourway.com/facing-death-ebook?r_done=1

https://www.dyingyourway.com/eol-training

https://dyingyourway.com/book-a-consultation/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More and more we see the funeral industry turn to eco options. No one does this better than Kotuku Funerals in Cromwell, New Zealand. Leigh-Anne Fox is a funeral home owner and director of Maori descent who blends the best of traditional burials with the culturally rich “tangi”. The tangihanga is the enduring 3 day Maori ceremony for mourning someone who has died. 

Learn more about choices at the end of life that are environmentally friendly and meaningful no matter your background or traditions. Consider your preferences, budget and share your thoughts with your loved ones.  They will thank you for it while honoring your life!

For more information about Leigh-Anne Fox please visit:

Website - https://kotukufunerals.co.nz/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/kotukufunerals.co.nz/

Join the Dying Your Way conversation on our FaceBook group, search for Dying your Way. Or to learn more or contact us go to www.dyingyourway.com.

Other links:

https://www.dyingyourway.com/facing-death-ebook?r_done=1

https://www.dyingyourway.com/eol-training

https://dyingyourway.com/book-a-consultation/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is end of life and the opportunity to change our perspective?

Death is a kind of initiation that involves ceremony.

It is a right of passage and training for others to be able to face the deaths we all must suffer, large and small.

There is a new "you" being born at many life junctures. Ritual provides comfort and support to meet those moments and better understand the soul's journey.

Some areas we discuss: 

• End of care rituals
• Rituals and initiation
• Death as an initiation

For more information about Sarah Kerr please visit:

Website - https://sacreddeathcare.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Sacred.Deathcare/

Join the Dying Your Way conversation on our FaceBook group, search for Dying your Way. Or to learn more or contact us go to www.dyingyourway.com.

Other links:

https://www.dyingyourway.com/facing-death-ebook?r_done=1

https://www.dyingyourway.com/eol-training

https://dyingyourway.com/book-a-consultation/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

VSED - Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking at the end of life, is a legal but controversial topic in many states and countries. Judith Schwarz PhD, RN and Clinical Director with End of Life Choices New York, explains what VSED is and isn’t. Who are the most likely candidates, and who would choose this option? Judith is a researcher, lecturer and author on this topic, and supported many suffering patients and their families to know if this is a viable option at the end of life. This is not to be confused with Medically Assisted Dying and not death by suicide*. 

*Please note if this episode prompts thoughts of self-harm, dial 988 in the US or 13 11 14 in Australia for immediate crisis counseling, or your country’s equivalent.

Connect with Judith here:

Website - https://endoflifechoicesny.org/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/EndofLifeChoicesNewYork/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/end-of-life-choices-new-york/

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2fU9ouCTf8

By Judith's Book here - Click Here

Join the Dying Your Way conversation on our FaceBook group, search for Dying your Way. Or to learn more or contact us go to www.dyingyourway.com.

Other links:

https://www.dyingyourway.com/facing-death-ebook?r_done=1

https://www.dyingyourway.com/eol-training

https://dyingyourway.com/book-a-consultation/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.