What Death Teaches Us About Living: Stories from an End of Life Companion with Deborah Pascuzzi
In this episode, I'm joined by Deborah Pascuzzi, who serves as an End of Life Companion and Complementary Alternative Medicine Certified Practitioner. She's with people walking side by side with them as they face death.
In this conversation, we discuss:
Death & dying:
What it's actually like to be present at the moment of death
Feeling a loved one's presence after they pass
Signs and communication from those who have died
How death has been medicalized and taken out of our hands
End of life wisdom:
What people regret at the end of their lives
How the dying teach us to live differently
The difference between quantity and quality of life
Reclaiming agency over your own death
Spirituality & presence:
The soul and what happens after death
Synchronicities and what they mean
Energy, essence, and how we sense others
Being fully present vs. living in your head
Personal journeys:
How Deborah's mother's death called her into this work
Leaving corporate life to follow an inner calling
Her husband's death and turning an ICU into a sacred space
Practical & psychological:
Why we avoid talking about death as a culture
How facing mortality can reduce anxiety about living
What end of life doulas actually do
The fear underneath our relationship with death
Victoria Ranade: You know, presence is really something that we as a society and culture don't really talk about. I mean, I feel like people can acknowledge we are a mind. We can acknowledge that we're a body, but presence is something that's still foreign for so many people. I'm really curious if you could share with us, what does a presence feel like? What did your mother's presence feel like? How did you experience it, in that moment?
Deborah Pascuzzi: My mother was a very spiritual person, a cradle Catholic, but very spiritual, and she would talk about death and dying, what the afterlife was. Like she knew–she had a feeling of what that was. And we were very connected in a telepathic way. You know, I would know when to call her–we were never surprised. We couldn't surprise each other. And so it's that sense of–and everyone's experience is different. They all have their different gifts. I think mine is a knowing. Mine is a feeling in my body. It's that feeling when somebody calls and you knew she was on the phone. That “I was just thinking of you” and you show up. That was the way my mother and I were.
Deborah Pascuzzi: With my mother, when she came to me, I was really surprised. And I think after a death, you kind of are in a different field, in a way. It's really hard to come back into your body. It's very difficult to be back in your body; knowing what you want to eat, you're not sleeping. You've been in the in-between world, I guess. But once I became better grounded, it was a very lucid dream, and it was in between deep sleep and full awakeness, and there weren't words exchanged, but more feelings. I understood that she felt very bad that we were suffering, but I felt her–big and beautiful and joyful, and there were so many things that passed between us in a way that's hard to put into words.
Listen to the full conversation on the Inner Calling Podcast here.
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