Understanding Death Doula Work: Compassion, Grief, and End-of-Life Support with Tolley Casper's

In this episode of Seeing Death Clearly, Jill McClennen sits down with Tolley Casparis, a death doula from Southern California, to explore the realities of supporting people at the end of life. They discuss the emotional challenges of caregiving, the importance of community, and how conscious preparation can create healing for both the dying and their loved ones. This conversation offers insight into the compassionate, yet often misunderstood, work of death doulas.

Tolley shares what it truly means to guide someone through their final days, addressing emotions that often go unnamed, such as anger, fear, and frustration. She emphasizes the power of holding space consistently and quietly, and how these small acts can profoundly impact both the person dying and their families. The discussion also covers the accessibility of quality end-of-life care, navigating medical aid in dying, and the delicate balance between volunteer and paid work in the field.

They explore the challenges around certification, the influence of social media on death doula work, and why ongoing learning and genuine community are essential for anyone supporting the dying. This episode provides an honest, grounded look at death doula work, conscious living, and supporting others with compassion and clarity.

https://deathprofesh.com/

Insta @tolleycasparis and @yourdeathprofessional

00:00 Introduction and Purpose

00:10 Welcome to Seeing Death

00:35 Guest Introduction: Tolley Casparis

01:01 The Realities of Death Doula Work

01:12 Challenges and Certifications

01:47 Personal Background of Tali Caspar

03:19 Balancing Paid and Volunteer Work

03:21 End of Life Care Plans

03:43 Dealing with Difficult Conversations

07:44 The Concept of a Good Death

17:47 Art and Grief

21:13 Certification Debate

24:19 The Challenge of Gaining Experience as a Death Doula

26:09 Heart-Centered Qualifications and Volunteering

26:56 The Debate on Charging for Services

29:08 Certification and Training Controversies

32:57 Marketing and Personal Branding

39:59 Navigating Client Relationships and Boundaries

44:46 Building Community and Setting Industry Standards

45:28 Conclusion and Call to Action

Transcript

Tolley: [00:00:00] I am doing this work for my own growth as well as for everybody else's growth. I think everybody who does this work wants that kind of reciprocation in the energy flow. 

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end of life coach. Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself.

My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true. In this episode, I sit down with Tolley Casparis, a death doula from Southern California who brings so much honesty and heart to this conversation.

We talk about what it's really like to support people at the end of life, the emotions that show up, including the ones we don't always want to name. We talk about why these conversations matter and how holding space quietly and consistently can make all the difference for both the [00:01:00] dying and their families.

We also get into the realities of the profession, who actually has access to good death care, the complexities around medical aid and dying, and finding the right balance between paid and volunteer work. The conversation also gets into the challenges around certifications, the influence of social media and why building real community and committing to ongoing learning matters.

So much. This is an open, grounded conversation about what compassionate end of life support really looks like. Thank you for joining us for this conversation. Welcome Tali to the podcast. Thank you for coming on. I know we connected on Facebook and we've gone back and forth a little bit, having some conversations about death, doulas, and the world of death through Liz right now.

So I've really been looking forward to this conversation with you. I appreciate you taking your time out. Tell me a little bit about you, even outside of being a death doula. Where are you from? Anything you 

Tolley: wanna share? I'd like to start by saying thank you for having me here today. It's great. I am a Southern California native.

I grew [00:02:00] up in Pacific Palisades, still live here, and so I currently live in a disaster zone. I think that sadly, most of the United States will be in a disaster zone soon due to this climate global warning and climate change and what we're watching around the country. Many communities, Asheville, tons of them are living in disaster.

It's weird. I can't tell you what it's like because there's a neighborhood divide and you cross it, and life is normal. And you come back over on this side and we're like, we're all gonna die of cancer from what? We're breathing in the air. It's crazy. So yeah, Palisades and death and the world, I think we're coming to a place where if we don't acknowledge death and deal with it in our culture, it will acknowledge us and deal with us in our culture.

I'm very proud to be representing a Saner way of dealing with the end of life. 

Jill: It's 

Tolley: kind of how I feel about being a death doula. I think it's the saner way to deal with it, and I don't think people really understand what we do [00:03:00] because I think what we do is so vast that most of us don't really understand how gas it can be.

What's your Ben? What do you do? What's your thing? 

Jill: Even I don't always fully understand what I do. There's the two ends of the spectrum. There's the work that I want to do. There's the work that I could make some money off of. I have to find a balance between those two. I have been doing more end of life care plans with people.

Yeah. Which I am finding more joy in that. I originally thought first I was like, I don't know. Just sitting around doing paperwork with people sounds really boring, but it's so important. It's so important, and I've found that I really enjoy the conversations that I can have. When I'm talking to people about what's important to them at the end of their life, because that's not an easy conversation to have, and I love difficult conversation, I feel like that's real, 

Tolley: right?

Like a lot of us, I think that's a death doula qualification. You have to love difficult [00:04:00] conversations. Because 

Jill: you're gonna have a lot of 'em to be good at this 

Tolley: job. 

Jill: Yeah. And so I do really enjoy that work. I also do like sitting with people at the end of life, but you're not gonna get a lot of money for that part of it.

There's not a lot of paid opportunities to sit with people. So I found that's more of like a volunteer role. Mm-hmm. Volunteering at the hospitals. Actually, it's interesting 'cause just today a friend of mine died a couple weeks ago. I had sat with him. At the end of his life with a group of us as volunteers.

He lived in California, I believe in the Palisades. When I went today, they gave me some of his things that they were like, you should probably have these. I know he would want them, and one of them was a picture of the neighborhood that he used to live in. When I was sitting with him, he was telling me all about the neighborhood and his time living there.

I'm 99% sure that's where it was. So it's funny that now 

Tolley: magical place. It was a magical, magical place. And that's not an accident that I started this whole thing with the Palisades, and you have [00:05:00] that connection and the death and the conversation is being driven in this direction over and over again. Um, yeah, no, the difficult direction thing is really important.

I've come to think of myself more as an advocate. Than a doula. Yeah, because I think that when we enter the family's home and when people realize that they need outside help, it's bad. You know, like if you're kind of okay managing this, you're not gonna call an outside person, even though you should. Yes, even though you should.

But right now people don't understand us enough that they have to have a critical need in order to go searching. For us. It's a little crazy. I love my clients, I love what I do, and I end up being more of a, how do we get the family into a place where we can let this person graciously leave this life more than, what does this person need?

I have a client right now who's 90 who had been suicidal when I first came into the setup and is no longer love that, but he's talking [00:06:00] about. The things that weigh him down, the stuff on his soul that is still there 45 years later. And it's like the fuel, I don't know how else to explain it, but we have these moments throughout our life where we draw a line in the sand for whatever reason, that moment stays with us because we've had to make a judgment.

We've had to take a stand, we've had to pick a side or, or some kind of thing like that. This gentleman's children. Didn't really understand the details of why he made the decision. They disagreed with what they thought the reason was and never listened to him. They argued with him about why he shouldn't hold this ideal, and one of the kids leaned over and said, dad, I just don't want you to be angry.

And I looked at the child and I said, why He's earned that anchor. It's the end of his life. Why are you telling him he doesn't get to have feelings about things that happened? We all have inappropriate stuff. Yeah, true. And if we can't be [00:07:00] like, yeah, this is wrong in my head, but it lives in my heart, and have a real clear conversation about clearing that before we cross the divide.

What are we doing in end of life work? You know, we have to hold space for the uncomfortable. We have to be nonjudgmental, we have to say. I can see why that would make you angry as opposed to saying, I judge your anger and you should give that up before you die. It's hard. People wanna be judgy. They want there to be a, a, a specific moral road that everybody should walk down.

And I think in our country right now, we see that everywhere. We see it, especially at death, where people are like, you need to be like this. You need to be the way you need to be in order to move to the next step better. 

Jill: Yeah, and I've seen some of that pushback a little bit, even within the death doula community, this idea of a good death.

We're striving for everybody to have a good death, and I mean, of course I want everybody to have a death that [00:08:00] feels as comfortable as possible. But what a good death is for one person, what they even have the privilege of having as far as their end of life care. You know, if you have a lot of money, sure you can hire a bunch of caregivers, you can have all the bells and whistles, but for a lot of people that's not gonna be the case.

And so for them, a good death is gonna look different than it is for somebody else. Mm-hmm. But it's like a lot of it kind of, I think. Overlaps a little with like spiritual bypassing, right? That like if we're only focusing on giving people a good death, we're not doing the work. We're not showing up and sitting with the really hard stuff and just being like, I'm gonna witness and I'm gonna help you as best as I can.

And we're gonna get through this together, but it might not be good and we're gonna be okay with it. Oh, 

Tolley: it's always good if there's something that needs to be addressed or dealt with or processed. But if there's an [00:09:00] issue still at the end of your life, you need to pay attention to that. That whole idea of the good death.

I have so much to say about that. I think that there is a consensus of people who are not of my generation. I just know that I'm Gen X and from millennial down, they do things different than I did. And I get that and I respect it, right? I do. Mm-hmm. Uh, but there is a thing of. People who are being trained as death doulas, particularly from white women, particularly from this generation that tends to be like 30 to 42.

And they have an idea of a perfect place and thing. And this and the position. And I'm gonna read to you and then we're gonna light this incense, and then I'm gonna put on my playlist that I've made and it's gonna be great, and we're gonna have a good death. You know what? I'm so sorry, but like mm-hmm.

Have a good life first. 

Jill: Yeah. 

Tolley: If you have a good life, you'll have a good death. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Tolley: Really, truly. [00:10:00] And what you mentioned about resources, Palisades is a pretty rich community. Before the fire, I sat next to a lot of people as they were going, and I made sure that they were very comfortable. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Tolley: We weren't sitting on the Medicare mattress.

I was ordering a mattress, you know, that kind of stuff. And the adults in their life would still sit on either side of the bed and argue over them. How many times have you seen that? And I'm like, y'all, that ain't no good death. Like what do you do? And they don't even know. They can't see that reduced human, the smaller bit of energy, the waning that's happening, the waxing and the waning of the human.

They don't give that person enough credence to take their argument outside of the room. It's unbelievable to me how often I have to go. People, people, people. 

Jill: But again, that's part of our role is to be that person to be like, maybe you should take that outside the room. It doesn't matter how much money you have, how much resources you have, people are still.

[00:11:00] People there is only so much that can be done with money, but like siblings, especially the sibling rivalry, that still comes up at the end of somebody's life. There's only so much that can be done about that if they haven't worked on it ahead of time, and that's always. My goal is, like you said, you need to live a good life.

That's how you're gonna have a good death. If there's that drama going on in your life right now, it's just gonna get amplified at the end of life. As a parent, especially, I look at my two children and I think that must be heartbreaking to have your children fighting like that and knowing that it's, they're, especially if you have money, they're gonna be fighting about the money.

They're gonna be fighting about all this stuff. I would have a hard time letting go too. If I was laying there listening to all that while trying to die, it would be really difficult for me. 

Tolley: I am often very sad for the person who is dying, even when they're not my client and that person [00:12:00] wants to do better but can't.

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Tolley: That is a real thing. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Tolley: That I have seen. And you want to, as a. Potential coach or helper, advocate say that there's a place like there's growth. I wanna see movement, I wanna be able to measure the growth from when you hired me to when I'm done with you. And I don't get to do that. That's not my job.

Jill: Hmm. 

Tolley: My job is to hold space, to guide, to talk clearly. I don't mince words because there's just way too many receptors, right? That like you can go like, oh, I hear that word, but I'm gonna make it mean this over here as opposed to this, what she's actually meaning. And, and so I'll just, I'm, I'm a big metaphor person so that people can really understand what I'm trying to say.

I turned to the child the other day and I was like, why does your dad have to not be angry? They walked out of that meeting going, I'm gonna be thinking about this one for a long time. Why does my dad not have to be a get it now? [00:13:00] He should be allowed to be angry about things, even if I don't agree. He's righteous in that choice.

Jill: So much of those reactions, it's just because that's like a learned behavior. That's what we've seen other people say and do. And then when somebody like you calls it out and is like, well, why not? And then you stop to think and then it's like, I'm actually not sure. I don't really know. But that's beautiful to be able to do that.

Yeah, because a lot of people are angry at the end of life. For a variety of reasons. And I'm angry, and I'm not at the end of my life. 

Tolley: You know, I'm a 60-year-old single woman in California. I'm angry. I could see what's happening in this world. I'm angry. Am I gonna be angry on my death? No, but maybe. Mm-hmm.

So, you know, anger is a justified response to some of the things that people have lived through in this world. 

Jill: Yeah. 

Tolley: The gentleman in question family survived the Holocaust. 

Jill: Hmm. He's 

Tolley: got anger right there and betrayal right there. The whole [00:14:00] concept of Right to life is very different for somebody who has lived through a pogrom or a genocide like that than for a comfy middle class American who grew up in Nebraska.

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Tolley: We can't make sweeping ideals of what's correct for everybody. I think one of the most important sentences in our training is meet your client where they are. Most people don't really understand what that means. They come in with a price list, like, if we do this, it'll cost this much. And I'm like, how do you even have those priced because you don't know who needs what and you don't know how much of what they need, and you don't know if what you already do will be effective for this particular.

You have to go in and listen the first couple of times and just, my favorite thing to do is what I do with animals. I mirror the person while they're talking. 

Jill: Hmm. 

Tolley: So right now, for example, I would do this. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Tolley: It's a really weird little nonverbal clue that [00:15:00] you can trust me, that I'm responding the things the same way that you are.

And then at the end of it, I'll say, I'd like to reflect back to you what I thought I heard you say. I'll go over everything with them and pause at different points and go, was I right on that? And it's amazing how quickly other people will jump into telling me if I'm right or not about the person.

That's when you say, I think this area needs to be addressed and this area needs to be addressed. And so I start slipping things into conversation and there might be one that I think is really important, but they don't, and I have to hear it when they don't respond to it. I have to stop pushing that I have to say, Hmm, that would be important to me if I were in their situation.

I have a Jewish client right now, an older man who is getting ready to die, and one of the first things he said, he asked me if I was Jewish, I told him I wasn't, and he said, I do not want any Jewish insignia on my gravestone. I do not want to be marked in eternity as being in league with the people who are committing this genocide.

Now, that resonated hugely on a million different ways because [00:16:00] I don't have a lot of respect for organized religion except in the end of your life. Because I think that what you've built your life on and what you've lived your life on is there to help you at this moment. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. So 

Tolley: when I saw this guy.

Separating himself from something that had colored his world and his experiences growing up, his Jewish identity. I thought that was something that needed to be addressed. It turns out it isn't. He's totally fine with it. He knows what's going on. I send him videos of the Orthodox community in Brooklyn, protesting when the Israeli president is at the UN so that he can see.

He's not the only Jew who feels this way, but it doesn't matter to him. Because it's got Holocaust times, so the meanings are very different, and I will never be able to understand the subtleties of those. Yeah, so I think that's important. Did I address it? Yes. Did I get a response? No, I've dropped it. I did get a lot of response on how to let [00:17:00] go of resentments and things, and we're doing arts and crafts.

Next time I see them, we're gonna figure out how to build the stuff that's staying with us, and then whether or not we wanna destroy it or bury it or burn it or honor it, put it on an alter. We aren't sure yet. 

Jill: That is fun. I like that idea a lot. I'm a crafty person. I like to. Do things. I love that idea.

Midnight collages. Mm-hmm. Exactly. My middle of the night collages that I've now started posting on Facebook to inspire other people to just get off our phones. Please just get off your phone, stop reading the news. Stop getting bombarded by it. Follow a 

Tolley: lot of dogs on social media and I can give you a huge list.

I strongly recommend 

Jill: dogs. I love all the, like I send those to my family. Whenever I see cute dog videos, I send those along to my family, but. This idea of creating a piece of art to represent our regrets, our shame, right? Whatever it is, the things that we need to let go of, and then being like, okay, now what do you wanna [00:18:00] do with it?

Do you wanna destroy it? Do you wanna burn it? Do you wanna give it to somebody because now you've turned it into something beautiful. But giving them that option, that's such a really interesting way to, again, not say that it's wrong and not pretend that it's something that is just going to easily go away on its own as they near death, but giving them something to do with it.

That's really 

Tolley: great. I was never artistic growing up. I was the kid who never got their pictures on the board, like ever. So I had kind of given up on art and one of my. Best cohorts and training. I've taken so many trainings for this festival thing. It's crazy. And one of my favorite cohorts we met on a Sunday without the teachers for two hours and did art over Zoom.

I was like, what you guys doing? What do you mean to art On like what? I just like what I was no idea. And so I'm like, I don't even know how to do art. So the first time we met, I cooked 'cause I figured that was my art. And then [00:19:00] I realized that wasn't it. And I just kept pushing myself into what was, what is this and how does this work?

And I had to accept the fact that you don't need to be good at it to do it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it doesn't matter's gonna do. Right. Because the art itself is what's healing, not this perfect finished piece. Yeah. 

Jill: And it feels like that's a good metaphor for life, where it doesn't have to be perfect. We don't have to be good at it.

We just need to do it. We just need to live our life. And at the end, hopefully we can look back at it and just see it for the beauty. And hopefully look at the flaws and just kind of be like, eh, it's part of life. It's part of what makes art. It's part of what makes a human life. 

Tolley: And they're like, I need to do something with this.

'cause this is tormenting me. Let's figure out how to make this not the thing you see right before you die. Mm-hmm. 

Jill: Oh, I really love that. That's a really cool idea. Bringing art into [00:20:00] grief and death is really cool. It's useful, I think, for a lot of people. 

Tolley: I just graduated from David Kessler's Grief Educator program.

The story was what came out of that the most For me, the grief story takes on a life of its own. Like a, a cassette tape. It never stops. It just runs all the time. 

Jill: Yeah, and I've heard of his program. How did you like it? Is it something that you're gonna start using more? 

Tolley: I'm using it already. I'm using it a hundred percent, but for grief education, I have a better teen that I like better.

I would recommend that if people go into this case study with inviting abundance, which is Will Drio and Joanne Zer out of North Carolina, they are tremendous. They are heart-centered. They lead with their lives. They don't lead with theories. Do you know what I mean by that? Yeah, yeah. I took their course when I was first training and I met the most amazing people in [00:21:00] it because of that course.

I was bored for most of David Kessler's course. 

Jill: Okay. 

Tolley: Kessler has a credential that you cannot get away from. It has a meaning in the world to be a David Kessler certified grief educator. This is a perfect segue into something you and I had mentioned that we wanted to talk about. Goodness. Say that. What a great certification debate with us death doulas.

Jill: Yeah. 'cause the first time you reach out to me, if I remember correctly, your private message on Facebook was, like you say you're a certified death doula, but certification doesn. Actually exist or something along those lines. Me being me, I love to research and go down rabbit holes when things like that happen.

And so I've been in Facebook groups of other death, doulas and other areas of the world. Certification definitely means something different and somebody in one of the groups was like, well, in the United States. Licensing and certification are actually different. That's why you have licensed therapist.[00:22:00] 

But really anybody could give you a certificate. I could create my own death doula program, which again is kind of a pet peeve of mine, that if you can't make money as a death doula, now there's a bunch of people creating certification programs, so it does. Make it seem like none of it's worth anything when there's just handing out paper.

I agree. 

Tolley: I actually think that is why I am so against this. Yeah, because nothing means anything when everybody does something that doesn't have anything behind it. There's a few women who are social media death doulas as opposed to bedside death doulas, and that's great. We need them. But we don't need them to decide how this works for us and then become a stronger voice because they work the algorithm.

Jill: Okay. 

Tolley: And that like, I have no problem with a stronger voice because you are educated, because you are in committees with other people because you've listened to everything [00:23:00] that's going on and you have formed an opinion. Okay. But just listening to somebody who has a hundred thousand followers on Instagram does not make them a qualified test doula.

Hmm. And there's a lot of people that are taking that as word. And I'm like, wow, okay. I've been working for six years more than these people. I'm just throwing out stuff. There's a whole bunch of people who don't have discernment, which again is a skill that's been lost who just make these baseless claims.

And it makes me crazy because people in real need are gonna end up with people who show up with a checklist and not with listening ears. And that really bothers me. Bothers me. Somebody was brave enough to search out help at this time, somebody who had enough trust in what we do as a community to open the intimacy of death in their home and allow somebody else to witness and breathe that in and out.

I believe it is one of the most sacred. Responsibilities that we have. And if you're going like, [00:24:00] oh my God, I took like this thing over the internet with this person who, like, I didn't actually sit in with them, I just watched the videos after they were done, but like. I got this. Yeah. 

Jill: And it brings up this point that I struggle with because I came out of food service, right?

That's my background. I had no medical training. I wasn't a social worker. Even though some of my work in food service was basically like a show social worker, I felt like I had a little understanding. There was this conversation I was part of once and they were like, we're pumping out all these death doulas and.

There's people that have literally never sat bedside with anybody while they died that are now going out and trying to market themselves as a death doula. The problem is how do you get that experience if you have never worked in an industry where that was part of what you did? It's that weird balance of we need more people trained in [00:25:00] this within our communities, right?

We need more people to do this work within our communities. So that means we're gonna attract a lot of people that they want to do this work, they want to do well at it, but haven't had the actual experience. When I did my training when I first started, I hadn't been around people either that had died until I was able to establish myself enough that then a hospital trusted me to come in.

And volunteer. Then I was able to sit with people that actually died and I was able to get that experience. So it's like this weird place that we fall. I've had people contact me and say, well, you mentor me. I'm a death doula. Can I follow you around? And I'm like, follow me around to do what? I don't have any clients that you can come and even like sit with me with because trying to get clients is.

Really not easy. I mean, I do phone calls with people once in a while. I do end of life care plans. I mean, I guess if you really wanna sit with me too and that you can, but it's hard to get that [00:26:00] experience when people are still kind of like, what's a death rule? Why would I even want to let you in my space?

And so I hear some stuff 

Tolley: that I can respond to. First and foremost, you are a heart-centered human, okay? And that is what qualifies you to sit next to somebody when they're dying. Nothing else. I'm sorry that the hospital kept you at arm's length until they decided that you were ready. There are all of these groups around in different hospitals called no one dies alone and you just need a volunteer.

You don't need any training and they call you. When somebody in the hospital has no relatives or no things and they let you come in and sit with the person. That's how you get experience. I am very against volunteering for hospice. I believe that that is more women's unpaid labor. Mm-hmm. That men want and need and will say, I can't make my hospice work without volunteers.

I'm like, well, then do your budget better and pay your people, sorry. I believe that this is an industry and that we deserve to be [00:27:00] paid. I also believe that somebody who can't afford what I might be worth deserves my help if they feel I'm the right person for them. So. A lot of death doulas feel that they need to have a thing on their price sheet, on their website that says like, no one turned away for lack of funds.

Uh, I'll work with you on a sliding scale and here are the parameters for my scale, and I respect those things, but I don't do them because I look at each client, what are you willing to do? How badly do you need me versus any other death doula? 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Tolley: If you need me and you found me, and you came to me, I'm working with you.

Doesn't matter what you can afford, it doesn't matter. I'm working with you for the right match. Mm-hmm. I also intend to make a living out of this, which means I intend to pay my rent and my food and my insurance and all of the lovely things that I need to do. So I believe in charging for what we do. I believe that there are different levels of help that people need.

I [00:28:00] believe that, particularly in Los Angeles. I just wanna remind everybody. I'm in Los Angeles, okay? So we're in a very different world than everybody else's. There are a lot of people here in Los Angeles who need to take care of their parents and don't have the time or the inclination to do it. And for that death doulas are a great option and you should charge them a lot of money.

Hmm. If it's the 80-year-old wife of the 90-year-old suicidal man who are living off their pension, I'm like, Hey, pay me a hundred dollars for a month. I got you. What's more important is am I the right doula for you? I mean, I'm never going to take advantage of somebody, but I have different ideas of what costs money and what doesn't.

I do medical aid and dying. I know it's very controversial for a lot of people. I charge money for that. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Tolley: I charge serious money for that. 

Jill: Yeah. That's exhausting to sit with somebody and do that whole process. 

Tolley: Yeah. Yeah. So I hate to say it, but if you're gonna do medical aid and dying and you can't afford it, I'm probably not gonna sit with you because I've been not almost destroyed by it.

But those were the first words that [00:29:00] came into my head by a family that really wasn't all right with the patient's decision and took it out on me. 

Jill: Hmm. 

Tolley: For that, you need to be paid. So there's all of these different things, but certification is one of the things that makes people able to charge. 

Jill: Mm-hmm.

Okay. And 

Tolley: this is why I've got an issue with it. If you have certifications of completion, I'm a doula with training, and I can show you my certificates of completion. I don't have an issue with what you're saying. If you say, I am a certified doula, you are inferring that there is a independent. Board somewhere that has determined qualifications and trainings and areas that each doula need to be trained in and prepared to handle before they show up to somebody's room.

Now, let's just assume that CPR is one of those that you need. I am not CPR certified. Let's say everybody thinks that you should be CPR certified when you're doing this kind of work. Therefore, I am not a [00:30:00] qualified certified doula. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. Then I sat in the training to say that you are a certified doula.

To use that phrasing and to put it out there in your marketing, you're a charlatan. They are trying to fool the person who is reading their thing. Into thinking that they have a qualification that does not exist to be had. It's not that they don't have it, it's that it doesn't exist to be had. Yeah. You say that you're an Olympic athlete, if you haven't made the Olympic team, it doesn't matter if you did junior Olympics in high school, you're not an Olympic athlete.

Jill: Yeah, and I guess that's when it goes back to. A couple things of like wording. You could say you're certified if you have a certificate in the sense that you are certified, you have a certificate, you're not licensed, which is a licensed professional. But the general public does not necessarily know the difference [00:31:00] between the two.

Is it our responsibility to educate people and say, Hey, I am a certified death doula. Just meaning I did a training where I received a certificate of completion. I'm not a licensed professional because there is no licensing in death. Doula work. That is definitely, I think. You're right that there is gonna be people that they're gonna see certified and in their head think that's the same as a licensed psychologist or a licensed social worker, where that is not the case.

What is the point 

Tolley: of putting yourself out there as a certified death doula if you're not trying to infer that you have more education than you actually have? What's the point of using that wording? 

Jill: And I guess that's where, just like when I first did my death doula training, I did one of the online programs, the IACP or something like that, and then I got a mentor, Jill Shock out of la.

That's fantastic. Love Jill. We like Jill's fantastic. Hey, shout out to Jill. Shock. And she's [00:32:00] legit, right? She was a hospice chaplain first. She's been doing this for many years. Her training is spot on, but at the time, it was still early before she really fully stepped into her training. And I had asked her, am I gonna get a certificate at the end?

And she was like, not really. Like that doesn't really mean anything. I was like, but the problem is people see it as, you're just more professional. It means you have qualifications, which is why I was like, so I'm still gonna do both, even though I ended up paying for both so that I had that little physical piece of paper that people wanna see, even though in the long run.

None of them do mean anything. And so I think that is part of it where if you just say. Death doula. You don't have to have anything to call yourself a death doula. But again, you don't have to have anything to call yourself anything when it comes to death. Right. And it makes me crazy that you 

Tolley: don't need anything to call yourself a certified death doula.

That makes me nuts. Yeah. Not that I believe this is the way everyone should do [00:33:00] it, but the way that I've chosen to address this is I call myself a highly trained death doula, and I have a link to my training. I have a huge list of every certification program that I took. And how I completed it, and then a picture of the certification.

Jill: You know, I had a business coach say to me, that looks unprofessional because I thought about listing all the different trainings on my website. And they were like, actually, that just makes people think that you're 

Tolley: not professionals. Was that person a member of the death world or talking to you about business practices in general?

Jill: Business 

Tolley: practices in general, were not in end of lifestyle what they're saying because this is a brand new career. So the more training that we have in different areas, right? If we just say, I've done death doula training from this person, this person, this person, and this person doesn't mean much. But if you've done death doula training from these three people, grief educator training by these three people, grief and the arts [00:34:00] training by these two people, I think that it tells a story.

Of who you are as a doula. Yeah. Okay. And that I believe everybody should have and be out there. And I am a big fan of education. College is my happy place. I would rather be in training than working any day. I love to learn. Then I get out there in the world in my training, and I remember the code of the universe as you never teach what you don't need to learn.

I ate that one. So I look at my clients and I say, oh, what are the patterns? What's happening here? That was also happening there because that's a message for me. Yeah, that's not a message for them. I'm doing this work for my own growth as well as for everybody else's growth. I think everybody who does this work wants that kind of reciprocation and the energy flow 

Jill: changed my life for sure.

It's changed who I am. It changed the way I view the world. It changed the way that I live my life. I am not the same person by a long shot. Uh, it's been close to six years since I did my training. The first one for [00:35:00] sure changed me. The thing with putting the certified. Some of that is also because in your social media, they give you such a short amount of space to put anything in your title.

So there's been a lot of things that I have changed that listing, or whatever you wanna call it on my Facebook, my Instagram, my TikTok, all that 20 times in the last five years, trying to figure out the best wording that covers who I am and what I do. Yeah. And so I think just putting certified death doula.

Was to kind of simplify that, I have quite a few from different people for different areas, and how do you put anything into that little tiny space that they give you? That even covers what we do because we are so vast, we cover so much in this end of life space. 

Tolley: Again, I'm not recommending everybody do this, but the way I chose to do that on my website, luckily I had a younger person building the website, and then I had me, the [00:36:00] older person who was needing to navigate the website, I kept saying, I want you to click through now that he clicks through anymore.

And I said, do you understand that my patients are dying, that they're 80, that they want more information and they expect to be able to find it? Millennials and younger people don't wanna see that. They feel overwhelmed by it. 

Jill: Yeah. 

Tolley: So I'm a big click here person on my site. Like you could just rush through on the phone, go through one page and see everything.

You can also go, what does it mean? Click here. Here's five pages of history. On the history of death in the United States. Yeah. And when it became an industry as opposed to women's work. Right. Here's five pages of my training and then my favorite one is on my, about me, on my website. Boy do I talk about myself incessantly, like all the way down to pictures of myself in high school.

I do not want somebody who hires me to be surprised at who walks through the door. Yeah, good point. It's very important to me that they [00:37:00] understand. I'm gonna be a plain talker that they understand that I am a Los Angelian, that I'm a palisade. These things matter to who I am and how I will come across to you.

In LA people laughed. They were like, what are you doing? This is ridiculous. Nobody has this long of a thing. I've got 10 pictures showing my growing up in the Palisades High school friends, the class pictures in third grade, I think. I mean like I am out, like here's who I am. If you don't like it, great.

Don't bother calling me. Go hire somebody else, because I'm not the right person for everybody. There is no perfect fit for everybody. It's kinda like a therapist, you know? It's not like one person can work with anybody out there. 

Jill: Yeah, 

Tolley: you have to keep finding the right match, and I want people to have so much information that by the time they call me, they're almost ready to hire me.

Jill: Yeah. The older generation does tend to want more. I've had younger business coaches be like, you don't even need a website, you just need social media. And I don't know if that's accurate for the work that I do. I do need a website. [00:38:00] People want. To look at my website and see what I do and see what I offer.

Mm-hmm. And you know, this idea of knowing who to expect when I walk through the door, I really struggle a little bit. Steven, you mentioned the death rule is on social media and they're kind of like the influencer. I don't want me to be the brand. I don't want it to be Jill McClennan. I want it to be end of life clarity.

And then that's why even like my podcast, seeing Death clearly kind of plays on that. And I do have this little bit of a push and pull where I have my social media for my business and then like I kind of blend it into my personal social media. Yeah. But I don't want the brand to be me, and I don't necessarily wanna.

Put all of my business out online either. It's so hard to find that balance. 

Tolley: A quick look at my social media page on [00:39:00] my Instagram for my business, it's just bullshit. It's pictures of death out in the wild. The last picture is a natural burial ground. That's a grave that's been dug in the middle of stuff, but mostly it's just like, how is death out in the wild?

Yeah, because I can't tell you anything on social media about how I can affect you and your death. I can't. It's exhausting. I can drive to my website. Again, you're meeting everybody where they are. There's no one person you're talking to. And I think when you've got somebody who subscribes to a newspaper, you have a general idea of who that is.

When somebody's dying, they'll be anybody because we're all gonna do it. I have no target audience for what we do. I think these business people who understand the way things are, I, I figured this out early. I hired somebody to help me with my resume, and they had zero idea of how to help me put it together.

Zero. Mm-hmm. They were like, oh, okay. Let's put all your training here. And what was the last job you did? I'm like. It doesn't work like that, folks. Yeah. I sat [00:40:00] next to Tom while his mom was dying four states away, and his dad wouldn't let him in the hospital room. No. That doesn't go there. The things that people think like, oh, well, it's just business and you can just tell the story, and I'm like, all bets are off on how to bring in a client.

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Tolley: All bets are off, and so I just try and do this thing. I think works in general in life. I try to charge the magnet. 

Jill: Right. 

Tolley: So I just like sit and I'll just charge my magnet so that what belongs to me gets pulled in and what doesn't get repelled. I like that visual. That's a good visual. Yeah. I'm not looking for work at any cost, so I may be where I need to be, let may be where I'm the best fit.

Let me also be able to make the most amount of money that I could from that situation without being harmful to any of the parties. Yeah. I love people. I really will say we deserve to make money in anything that I'm in. People really attack me for it because they say, well, there's people can't afford it, and everybody deserves a good gather.

I need to eat. I [00:41:00] need to pay my bills, and I have chosen this field. I love that you guys can decide that you can do things like volunteer for hospice. I can't, how did I get my first couple of clients? I showed up. We know who's dying in our communities. We do. 

Jill: No. 

Tolley: If you're in a community, if you are in a church group, if you have friends, if you are a business person who belongs to an association, you know who's dying?

Jill: Yeah. 

Tolley: You write a note to the person who is caretaking and you just say, you're doing the hardest job in the whole world. Just wanted to tell you that we see you. You support the people who are doing the supporting and they may not hire you. The next person who's dying, they're gonna say, you have no idea how much this person helped me.

Jill: Yeah. Yeah. 

Tolley: That's how you get clients. You don't volunteer at a hospice that doesn't let you have any relationship with the patients outside of their hospice. That doesn't allow you to potentially make money from them down the road. There's very big laws about that. You can't do that. If you volunteer for somebody and you meet them through hospice, you [00:42:00] could never earn money from them.

Did you know that? Hmm. 

Jill: I did not 

Tolley: know that. That is a law. Hmm. Like y'all, come on. Like, I'm not going to make men rich. I'm just not. So yeah, my first couple of jobs were, I was scared. I just jumped in. I was really afraid of being harmful. 

Jill: Yeah, 

Tolley: really afraid of being harmful. There were some situations where my own boundaries needed to come in, and that really confused me.

Like, how do you have boundaries to somebody who's dying when, when they're, uh, it, it was just very, very confusing to me. I had to figure out when do you not say something? Hmm? When do you say something to the person in charge if they can't hear it or shift and you still think there's harm being done, when do you bring it to the other family members who aren't in charge?

And then what do you bring to them? Do you bring an insistence that they have to get involved and change things? They just say, heads up. You should know it's going down in a room that you're not welcome in. Yeah. It's a lot hard, right? [00:43:00] Hard calls. Calls and Yes, and I'm sorry, but the certificate of completion doesn't help you with that.

No. But a community does these conversations do listening to other people and podcasts and figuring out how many layers there is to doing this work, how many layers there is to becoming the right person to doing this work. And then also remembering that anybody can do this work at any time and you don't need training.

I work a lot with the National Home Funeral Alliance because I need to remember that any family member can step up at any time and do this work. 

Jill: Yeah, we can. And hopefully more people will in their communities. We actually are coming up on the end of our time. No. How did we do that? Oh, no, by, I know. I know.

We can always do it again sometime though. I don't mind having the same people on because there is so much that we could talk about. We'll just have to do another one. But why don't you tell you people where they can find you If anybody wants to reach. 

Tolley: Hi, I'm Talia [00:44:00] Caspers. My company is known as your death professional because I think sometimes you need a professional and sometimes doula is limiting.

Here I am here. You can find me on all major social medias. My website, because I am a Gen X person, is death profess.com. Okay. Death profess.com. Click through y'all. There's a lot of information there. I challenge you to find the picture of me in a bikini when I was 15. It's there. Ooh. Yeah, it is there. And I also just wanna make sure that you guys know how to reach Jill.

What is your website? 

Jill: Oh my gosh. So yeah, I am end of life clarity on basically everything. My Facebook, my Instagram, my TikTok, and that is my website, end of life clarity.com. 

Tolley: Great. Great, great, great. I think if there's anything we could do to push this forward, it would be to make more community within the doulas and drop the, the, the lines between white doulas who are able to pay [00:45:00] for private education and white doulas who can't, and other people who are looking for affordable education.

And I think we should be all doing, like Saturday morning, everybody get together. I think we should have a topic. And put it out to all doulas everywhere and start talking. I think those are the ways that we're going to figure out how to set standards in our industry. Hmm. 

Jill: I love that community. It's important.

Well, thank you so much, Tali. This has been amazing. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Jill. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting. Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated. Please consider subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review.

Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others. The podcast also offers a paid subscription feature that allows you to financially support the show. Your contribution will help keep the podcast advertisement free. Whether your donation is large or small, every amount is valuable. I sincerely appreciate all of you for listening to the [00:46:00] show and supporting me in any way you can.

You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription, as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one-time contribution. Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death. Clearly.