Not all shadows are dark. Some are quiet. Some are tender. Some ask us to slow down and sit with the one certainty we spend our lives trying to outrun.

In this episode of The Shadow Sessions, host Hiba Balfaqih speaks with Mikey, a death doula who supports people at the end of life—helping them die on their own terms, with dignity, presence, and meaning. After experiencing her own near-death moment, Mikey didn’t turn away from mortality. She moved closer to it.

This conversation explores how our culture avoids death by treating it as a distant event, when in reality it’s happening all the time. Friendships end. Identities fall away. Chapters close. And eventually, the people we love leave their bodies.

Mikey’s work invites a different relationship with dying—one rooted in softness rather than fear, choice rather than denial. She challenges the idea that death is a failure and reframes it as a rite of passage we were never taught how to prepare for.

This episode is about death, yes—but even more, it’s about how we live when we stop pretending we’re exempt from it. It’s for anyone curious about death doula work, end‑of‑life care, near‑death experiences, grief, meaning, and what becomes possible when we meet mortality with honesty instead of avoidance.