After the Last Breath
Rituals for healing and integration in the days after a Death
A course on sacred deathcare practices for the time between a death and the funeral.
For:
Dying People
Family Members and Caregivers
Death Doulas and other End-of-Life Practitioners
And those who want to meet death in a conscious, meaningful way
Learn to hold space for the sacred, while the veil between the worlds is open
The time just after a death has profound spiritual significance.
If you know how to meet it well, deep healing becomes possible, for everyone involved.
Learn to:
Done well, the week after a death can be one of deep, intentional, open-hearted, healing. It can be a rich time of connecting love, and flowing grief.
What happens in the hours and days after a death matters. A lot.
Death is a soul-journey, for everyone involved. The dying person, and those who continue living, both experience a profound rite of passage.
The last breath is just one step in that process. It’s important to tend to the steps that follow it.
For the Dying Person
After your last breath, you enter a profound liminal space, as your soul begins the transition from life with a body, to life without a body.
You’re essentially a newborn in the next world. The initial soul-support you get from those on this side of the veil helps you begin the next stage of your journey.
For Family Members and Caregivers
Your bereavement journey begins when your loved one’s life ends. What happens in these critical first days can make all the difference to how you integrate and heal in the months and years to come.
No matter how prepared you are, a loved one’s death is a soul-shock. Your world gets turned upside down. If you know what to expect after the last breath, and have a plan in place, you can meet the experience with intention and compassion.
For Death Doulas and Other Practitioners
If you support dying people and their families, you know how important it is to help them prepare—emotionally, spiritually and logistically—for what happens after the last breath.
When you understand the underlying dynamics of this stage in the dying/grieving process, you’ll feel confident guiding families through it.
When you have a clear map of the soul’s journey after it leaves the body, you’ll be able to explain these spiritual dynamics in a grounded, non-woo way.
When you can recognize the patterns that keep energy stuck after a death, you’ll know which actions and interventions will support the flow of healing, and how to apply them.
Death is hard and sad, but if you have the skills to meet it well, it can also be grace-filled and heart-opening.
The funeral is not the problem.
If you’ve felt overwhelmed at a funeral for a loved one, you’re not alone. It can be hard to be in such a public space, with so much attention on you, when you’re deep in grief and still reeling from the death.
Too often, attending a funeral for someone close to you can feel like an obligation, a performance, and a painful experience of shutting down what’s really happening for you, in order to do what feels expected of you.
It’s easy to feel like the funeral is the problem. It’s not.
The problem is not being ready for the funeral.
If you haven’t been supported by healing rituals and practices in the time between a death and the funeral, you likely haven’t integrated the shock of your loved one’s death.
The soul moves at its own speed, and it takes time and support to catch your breath and come to terms with what’s happened
A funeral can be a powerful and meaningful ritual in your bereavement journey, but if you’re not ready for it, you’re not able to receive the healing gifts it offers.
Getting ready means giving your soul the support it needs to catch up .
A death can be a shock to your soul, even if you knew it was coming.
In After the Last Breath, you’ll learn to adjust to the changes slowly, gently, and intentionally.
1. Expand the container slowly and gently.
A deathbed is an intimate and protected place. Moving from there to a funeral requires intentional, graduated steps that honour the soul’s timing.
Learn how to gather with groups of family and close friends, and to hold simple rituals for healing and integration.
2. Give structure to your grieving.
There can be pressure to “act normally” or, worse, “keep busy” after a death. The soul knows that this is anything but a normal time, and that denial and busy-ness can be a form of numbing.
Learn about personal and family rituals that give structure, space, and permission for what’s true in your soul.
3. Know your options for body care, and make the choices that suit you.
Caring for your loved one’s body—for two hours, or two days—can be an important step in the goodbye process.
Demystify the experience of being with a dead body, learn the simple steps of body care, and discover why it’s such a tender and healing process.
Done well, the week after a death can be one of deep, intentional, beautiful healing. It can be a rich time of connecting love, and flowing grief.
ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTOR
Dr. Sarah Kerr, PhD
I’ve been a death doula and ritual healing practitioner since 2012. I have a doctorate in Transformative Learning and I’ve been a student of spiritual and systemic healing practices for almost three decades.
My clients and students understand that death and loss are important parts of their spiritual journey, but they may not have a spiritual map to guide them through these experiences. I bring a map rooted in energy medicine, systems thinking, sacred sciences and ancient wisdom traditions.
I’m honoured to share what I’ve learned from my teachers, clients, and direct experience. I’m grateful to be part of a larger community of people who are working to do death better and I hope this course is helpful to you, as you deepen your sacred deathcare skills.
Learn to Bring Healing to Death
The course includes 2.5 hours of lecture and Q&A, filled with practical information, stories and examples of lived rituals.
You’ll learn sacred deathcare practices for meeting death in a meaningful and conscious way.
All material is available as closed caption videos.
Participants will receive a Certificate of Completion, suitable for submission for CE’s or CEU’s (licensure dependent.)
Financial assistance is available. If the price is a barrier, please get in touch.
Broaden your knowledge
Deepen your skills
Grow your confidence
$169 CAD (~$121 USD)
Wisdom and practical skill-building
Sarah’s class was an amazing experience, containing tremendous depth and breadth of wisdom and practical skill-building. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!
Amazing, positive, specific, detailed, practical information
This class, this wealth of information, it felt like a cornucopia, just overflowing with amazing, positive, specific, detailed, practical information. I feel like it answered all the questions I had, and even ones I didn’t have. It just opened up my mind to so many more possibilities. Yes, I have more questions, but that’s a good thing. It was excellent, and Sarah is a wonderful teacher.
Academic and shamanic at the same time
Thank you for being both academic and shamanic at the same time- that is your gift! I really felt you were so articulate and heart-centered, it was amazing to me! Thank you for helping me really relax even deeper and with more clarity in my medicines.
Compared to other end-of-life doula trainings
I have been dabbling in end-of-life doula trainings and you are the most enthusiastic, real person I have yet to encounter. Keep up the good work and I look forward to taking your other courses.
A fundamental teacher for me
Thanks, Sarah. You have been and continue to be a fundamental teacher to me through your work and sharing. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I’m leaving with lots more confidence
I’m leaving this class with confidence – a lot more confidence. I’ve been waiting since I was 5 to actually be able to talk to people about death, people who don’t shy away. Usually I can feel their energy moving away from me, and I haven’t had that today. And that’s the first time. Even at funerals, It’s very, very rare. Even with other spiritual practitioners that don’t deal with death; they deal with life and they have a hard time talking about death. The only other group that I’ve ever been able to communicate and to find the pure joy surrounding death is with animals. So I am beyond grateful for this class.
Thank you.
Come on in, let’s explore this together
Sarah is very talented and inspired and brings a very vast body of knowledge into a form that you can dive into, and understand in a an easy way. But she’s not definitive. She’s pulling you in. She’s got lots of expertise, but she’s not the be-all, end-all. She’s saying, “Come on in. Let’s explore this together. I’ll be your leader.” But she’s not saying, ‘I’m all of it. I know everything.” Which is—it’s inspired— because she’s trying to create a collective consciousness around this space and this community.
Sacred and soulful connection to the mysteries of life and death
I recently watched Sarah’s course ‘Awakening the archetype of the Deathwalker’ and there is something magical about the space that Sarah creates. Even though I was unable to make the live call, I most certainly felt connected to the field of containment that she created with the group.
There are few people in the current circles of the death community that bring pause and contemplation to a group field and I am grateful to experience that with Sarah’s course. I am inspired and cracked open to something more soulful and more alive in death. Sarah is authentic in her language and action.
The sacred, soulful and connected ways to the mysteries of life and death through the lens of an ancient newness are present in Sarah’s ways of teaching.