Legacy and life-scribing
One of the things death doulas help with is called life review and completion. Basically, this means reflecting on your life, figuring out what you want your legacy to be, and taking steps to complete or take care of anything needing attention before you go.
Reflecting on their life is a natural thing people do - when contemplating their own mortality or perhaps while watching someone they love die. We might consider what we have done, what we have learned, and what we are leaving behind. We may think of our legacy as our money or our stuff or our accomplishments. We also leave emotional and energetic and spiritual trails behind us when we leave - whether we are conscious of them or not. Sometimes regrets, damaged relationships, or past hurts surface in this process. Reconciliation, repair, forgiveness - these may start to take up space in our awareness. This can lead to actions and projects of many kinds – from repairing relationships, to artwork, musical or sewing projects, to planting trees. We call this legacy work. It’s emotional and existential work - heart-work. It can be hard. It can also be joyful and freeing and creative. And you don’t have to have a terminal diagnosis to do it.
The area of legacy work that I focus on is writing – using words and the writing process to help people navigate and work through big emotions, changes and griefs. And produce legacy pieces. I call it life-scribing.
I believe that we only have thoughts and feelings because we have words for them. Finding and expressing those words can ease our emotional and spiritual processing of those thoughts and feelings. Working with words can help as we contemplate our own death or navigate before or after someone else’s. These are vulnerable times. Big feelings, exhaustion and symptoms can scramble our thoughts and steal our voices. There are stories, thoughts, hopes, fears, and wisdom to express. Being heard matters.
As the life-scribe, I am a gentle listener with a skilled pen. My professional background has equipped me to listen, write, edit, facilitate conversations, organize written material, sort through complicated or fragmented stuff, sift out what’s important, and sit with things until they become clear. I can help someone bring order or intention to what they want to express. Holding space as people process and navigate, and asking gentle questions, can ease the process.
We can work collaboratively on something, or I can coach or edit you in your work, or we can talk about it and you proceed on your own, or you can direct me to draft things for you to review. Here are some of the things we could create together:
A life story – yours or someone else’s
A collection of stories, memories, anecdotes, poems, or wisdom fragments
Legacy letters or poems to loved ones or unborn descendants
Letters or poems to houses or gardens you have lived in or are leaving
Your obituary or someone else’s
A eulogy or message to be read at a memorial or shared after death
Creativity of many kinds helps us process what we are experiencing, move our emotions through our bodies and psyches. Like other legacy work, life-scribing can bring a sense of completion, peace and healing – and might even be fun!