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A Heart Centre for Community Death Care

Welcome to a space for reflection, learning, and remembering what it means to live well and die well.

All are welcome on this journey as we get reacquainted with the natural experience of living and dying. Together, we can write a new story, one that nourishes us as we walk alongside each other in the wilderness of life and death.

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FEATURED GUIDANCE

For Companions

For Community

For EOL Doulas

End of Life Doula Services

INDIVIDUAL SUPPORT

For Community

For EOL Doulas

The Nature of
the Journey

BOOK & ONLINE COURSE

For Community

For EOL Doulas

Monthly
Grief Gatherings

COMMUNITY SUPPORT

For Community

For EOL Doulas

A Year to Live
by Stephen Levine

BOOK JOURNEY

For Community

For EOL Doulas

LiveWell Workshops

COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS

For Community

For EOL Doulas

Guided Forest Therapy Walks

COMMUNITY EVENTS

For Community

For EOL Doulas

End of Life Doula Mentorship

ONLINE COURSE

For Community

For EOL Doulas

Video & Podcast Interviews

MEDIA

For Community

For EOL Doulas

Grief Stories Facilitator Training

EDUCATION

For Community

For EOL Doulas

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HEART CONNECTIONS

Explore some of our upcoming offerings below.

Whether you yourself are navigating or supporting another on the end of life journey, seeking to better prepare yourself for the inevitable, or are a guide for others on the path, these heart-centred offerings seek to help you live well, love well, and die well. They provide opportunities for listening, supporting, and sharing information, deepening our connection within our hearts and the hearts of those around us.

BOOK 
JOURNEY

A Year to Live

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In A Year to Live, Stephen Levine teaches us how to live each moment, each hour, each day mindfully—as if it were all that was left. Preparing for death is one of the most rational and rewarding acts of a lifetime. It is an exercise that gives us the opportunity to deal with unfinished business and enter into a new and vibrant relationship with life.

 

Join us for a 12-month exploration of life and death as we virtually gather once a month exploring the book's practical strategies, valuable tools, and powerful guided meditations to help with this work, so that whenever the ultimate moment does arrive for each of us, we will not feel that it has come too soon.

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Next journey begins in January 2025

A Year to Live Book Journey

To hear about future offerings, sign up for Endwell's seasonal newsletter.

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MEET TRACY CHALMERS

Endwell Founder, End of Life Educator & Doula, The Grief Well Co-founder, Forest Therapy Guide, Author of The Nature of the Journey

I am a mother, daughter, sister, wife, and friend.
My family and friends are the center of my universe.

I find comfort in spending time with my favourite people. Cooking for my family and friends feeds me. I am fuelled by being in nature - simply noticing the birds, the breeze, and the waves. I am also energized by moving in nature; hiking, biking, swimming, paddling, skiing — my moving meditation.

My life up until this point, both personal and professional, has led me perfectly here, to a place where I can gently encourage people to consider a different story about death. With Doula clients and with participants in workshops and courses, I support others to consider what truly makes life worth living, exploring fears, regrets, wishes for future health care, life’s shiny moments, and love. A big focus on love. I do what I can to support a life rich with connection right up until the last moments.

It is my hope to reduce suffering at the end of life by encouraging people to live well, sharing simple information about the nature of the journey, encouraging heart-centred conversations and planning, and finding as many opportunities for meaning, connection, presence, and pleasure as possible.

END OF LIFE EDUCATION

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Online Course & LiveWell Workshops

A variety of online and in-person courses and workshops are available for community members, companions, people living with a life-limiting illness, End of Life Doulas, and community death care practitioners.

  • End of Life Doula Mentorship
    An 8-week course for emerging End of Life Doulas. Through embodied learning, we'll explore the roots of the Doula practice and specific case studies to further prepare and support new End of Life Doulas. ​ The intention of this offering is to alleviate the barrier of lack of experience in order to enable emerging End of Life Doulas to confidently step in and be of service. This course has been created as a substitute to shadowing clients to serve as a mastery of practice.​ ​ Course begins October 2024
  • The Nature of the Journey
    A self-guided course for companions to accompany the book, The Nature of the Journey: A Guide to Companioning Your Person on the End of Life Journey. The course includes guided exercises and monthly virtual gatherings with a community of companions. Available Fall 2025
  • Grief Stories Facilitator Training
    This self-paced, 6-month training (one live session each month), will prepare facilitators to hold space during The Grief Well (TGW) Grief Stories, an 8-week gathering where participants will be exploring stories about grief through mind, body, and spirit. This space is created to encourage participants to listen to self, and others with an open mind and an open heart. There is time during each gathering for individuals to share their lived experience with grief, if they choose. The facilitator will use poetry, passages, quotes, story, writing prompts, sharing, and silence to support a kinship with grief. The role of facilitator includes: Inviting the group together, finding an appropriate space if held in person Offering radical hospitality Creating a supportive container for people to share - TGWs 5 tenets to be well together Facilitating group conversation Honoring time, being sure the gathering begin and end on time and managing time throughout the gathering Providing additional grief resources Leaning out for support if needed Coming Soon!
  • End of Life Doula Mentorship
    An 8-week course for emerging End of Life Doulas. Through embodied learning, we'll explore the roots of the Doula practice and specific case studies to further prepare and support new End of Life Doulas. ​ The intention of this offering is to alleviate the barrier of lack of experience in order to enable emerging End of Life Doulas to confidently step in and be of service. This course has been created as a substitute to shadowing clients to serve as a mastery of practice.​ ​ Course begins October 2024
  • The Nature of the Journey
    A self-guided course for companions to accompany the book, The Nature of the Journey: A Guide to Companioning Your Person on the End of Life Journey. The course includes guided exercises and monthly virtual gatherings with a community of companions. Available Fall 2025
  • Grief Stories Facilitator Training
    This self-paced, 6-month training (one live session each month), will prepare facilitators to hold space during The Grief Well (TGW) Grief Stories, an 8-week gathering where participants will be exploring stories about grief through mind, body, and spirit. This space is created to encourage participants to listen to self, and others with an open mind and an open heart. There is time during each gathering for individuals to share their lived experience with grief, if they choose. The facilitator will use poetry, passages, quotes, story, writing prompts, sharing, and silence to support a kinship with grief. The role of facilitator includes: Inviting the group together, finding an appropriate space if held in person Offering radical hospitality Creating a supportive container for people to share - TGWs 5 tenets to be well together Facilitating group conversation Honoring time, being sure the gathering begin and end on time and managing time throughout the gathering Providing additional grief resources Leaning out for support if needed Coming Soon!
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“Rooted ways embolden us to remember that with our complex minds we can feel—and live—more than one thing simultaneously.
Anxiety, difficulty, fear, despair. Yes.
Beauty, connectedness, possibility, love. Yes.”

― Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature & Spirit

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FEATURED MEDIA

Video Interviews, Podcast Episodes & More

End of Life Doula with Tracy Chalmers
46:19

End of Life Doula with Tracy Chalmers

In this video I introduce you to End of Life Doula, Tracy Chalmers. Tracy's fuelled in how she can change the narrative around death from something to be solved for or avoided to something natural and full of opportunities. In her experience with companioning the dying, the most striking thing that she witnesses at end of life is the outpouring of love. Tracy can be found at: www.endwell.ca #endoflife #doula #servant #death #spirituality #grief #love #dying #living #end #life #advancedcareplanning #vigil #ceremony #pain #MAID #palliative #hospice #advocate #empathy #compassion #emotionalmaturation The Tea and Chocolate series dedicated to stories of courage which guides us to live from a place of true self-expression. My hope is that it will inspire you to connect with your own self-expression, but also to help you connect to the greater world around you through the stories shared in these interviews. We are all sharing this world and I believe we should share our stories too. Find me on social media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorenspagnuolo/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tea-Chocolate-Productions-1083941205146689
June 30, 2021 - 7 ways non-Indigenous people can support Indigenous folks; Birth to Death Doulas
01:50:45

June 30, 2021 - 7 ways non-Indigenous people can support Indigenous folks; Birth to Death Doulas

14:56 | Journalist Anna Mckenzie unpacks her Indiginews article on what non-Indigenous people can do, right now to support Indigenous people grieving the ever-mounting number of mass and unmarked graves at former residential schools across Canada. 48:32 | Just how normal birth and death are—our panel of doulas shares how they help people move through life's big moments plus the many feelings and fears accompanying them. We hear from death doula Tracy Chalmers, postpartum doula Shannon Sproule and labour doula Sonya Duffee. 1:30:14 | #MyJasper Memories | Recreate one of Jasper's historical photos in one of four iconic spots for a chance to win a free trip to Jasper! https://www.jasper.travel/realtalk 1:45:57 | Trash Talk courtesy of our pals at Local Waste.
CBC Interview with Tracy Chalmers, End of Life Doula
00:00 / 17:48
CKNW - Sara Hyde - Death Doulas
00:00 / 06:20
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HEART MUSINGS BLOG

As a deeply supportive act of self care, Tracy integrates her experiences of caring for the dying and their people through writing. Her blog will share stories from her experiences in community death care. Through sharing these stories about normal, gentle dying, Tracy hopes to help shift the narrative around death from fear based to love based, one story at a time.

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Monthly Guided Forest Walks

If you are located in Vancouver, consider joining us for a monthly guided nature walk where Tracy will guide us deeper into our senses and our connection with nature's authentic ways of being.

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WAYS TO STAY CONNECTED

Endwell's Seasonal Newsletter

Each seasonal newsletter will offer a grounding practice, a poem, information on Endwell’s upcoming offerings, and inspiring opportunities from other community death care practitioners. Tracy will share stories, helpful tips, and all things that inspire her to LiveWell and DieWell.

Connect with @endwell_northshore on Instagram

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