Summary: How Are You Healing Podcast — Conversation with Catherine Shovlin on Death, Dying, and Sacred Presence

In this episode of the How Are You Healing podcast, host Elise Webster speaks with Catherine Shovlin, a death doula, spiritual practitioner, and former corporate consultant, about death, dying, grief, and the deeper spiritual dimensions of end-of-life care. The conversation challenges Western cultural taboos around death and reframes dying not as a medical failure but as a meaningful, relational, and often sacred process.

Catherine begins by explaining what a death doula is. Unlike medical professionals, a death doula offers non-clinical emotional, spiritual, and practical support to people who are dying and their families. Her role is not to impose beliefs or agendas, but to accompany someone through the final stage of life with compassion and presence. She emphasizes that the dying person is “the star of the show”—their wishes and needs take precedence, even when family dynamics become complicated. End-of-life often brings unresolved emotional issues, family tensions, and long-buried secrets to the surface, and part of her work is holding space for those realities without judgment.

Catherine describes how death is not simply the end of a physical body for many people, but a transition into another state of being. However, as a doula she remains neutral, supporting clients regardless of their beliefs about the afterlife. She outlines some common physical signs of natural dying—loss of appetite, cold extremities, agitation, or a final burst of energy—but stresses that every death is unique because it reflects the life that preceded it. Beyond the physical, dying is deeply emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual.

A major theme of the conversation is Catherine’s idea of “reclaiming death.” She explains that Western societies have largely outsourced dying to hospitals, legal systems, and institutions, which has distanced people from the reality of death and stripped it of intimacy and meaning. This separation has increased fear and discomfort. In contrast, many indigenous cultures and earlier European traditions kept death in the home, where children and families witnessed it as a natural part of life. Catherine believes that bringing death back into everyday awareness helps people live more consciously and fully.

One of the most powerful parts of the discussion centers on Catherine’s personal transformation. After spending decades in the oil and gas industry, she felt called into end-of-life and spiritual work. During her training, she was asked to design her “perfect death,” describing the environment, atmosphere, and emotional tone she would want at the end of her life. The exercise made her realize that she was waiting until death to allow herself peace and beauty—so she began reshaping her life to reflect those values now. For her, changing how we relate to death changes how we relate to living.

The conversation then moves into Catherine’s spiritual work, including what she calls “psychopomp” practices—helping lost or confused spirits move on. She describes entering a light trance state, receiving visual information, and working compassionately with energies that may be attached to people or places. While this aspect of her work is outside mainstream clinical frameworks, Catherine frames it as an extension of her broader commitment to healing, integration, and compassionate presence.

Another key topic is generational trauma. Catherine shares examples of how unresolved pain can be passed down through families and manifest in later generations as emotional or physical issues. Healing, in her view, is not just individual—it is ancestral and collective. Younger generations, she believes, are carrying and processing large amounts of inherited emotional material.

The discussion also addresses euthanasia. Catherine supports the idea that people should have agency over how and when they die, while also emphasizing that any such decisions must be rooted in compassion and personal autonomy, not convenience or pressure from others. She acknowledges the complexity of this issue, especially when weighed against spiritual beliefs about life lessons, reincarnation, and the soul’s journey. Ultimately, she returns to her core principle: compassionate presence, even when someone’s choices differ from our own.

Grief is another major focus. Catherine explains that grief is not just about the moment of death, but about living without someone who was part of your future. It affects identity, routines, finances, and emotional security. There is no “right” way to grieve and no timeline for healing. One of the most important things people can offer the grieving is not advice or platitudes, but simple, steady presence. Sitting in silence, listening, and offering practical support—like helping with daily tasks—can be far more meaningful than trying to say the “perfect” thing.

She also highlights how uncomfortable people often feel around grief because it confronts them with their own mortality. As a result, friends may withdraw or avoid someone who is grieving, not out of cruelty but fear. Catherine encourages normalizing grief as a shared human experience rather than something to be rushed through or hidden.

The episode concludes with Catherine discussing her “Sacred Death” course, which is designed not only for people who are grieving but for anyone who feels uneasy about death. The course helps participants explore their beliefs, fears, and expectations about dying so they can live more intentionally. The underlying philosophy is summed up in the name of the organization she trained with: Living Well, Dying Well.

Throughout the conversation, Catherine returns to one central idea: death is not separate from life. How we face death reflects how we live, how we love, and how we relate to one another. By bringing death out of the shadows and into honest, compassionate dialogue, we not only reduce fear—we deepen our humanity.