How Death Doulas Help Families Navigate End-of-Life with Love & Compassion with Aimee Yawnick – Ep 087

Death is one of life’s certainties, yet it remains one of the hardest subjects to talk about. Many families avoid end-of-life conversations out of fear, discomfort, or superstition. Unfortunately, this avoidance can lead to increased stress, resentment, and regret when the time comes to make critical decisions. So how do we make the process smoother, less overwhelming, and more meaningful?​

In this episode, Matthew Peck is joined by Aimee Yawnick, a practicing death doula and founder of Leaving in Love. Drawing from her personal journey, Aimee shares what it means to “hold space” at the end-of-life, how to navigate powerful emotions such as grief, guilt, and even relief, and why these conversations are the greatest gift we can give to loved ones.​

We also discussed Aimee’s six-week course, What Matters Most, which guides participants through a process of envisioning their final 90 days. From legacy letters and videos to healing old relationships, Aimee explains how facing mortality can change the way we live — and not just how we prepare to die.​

Whether you’re in retirement, caring for an aging loved one, or looking for ways to get started with end-of-life planning, this conversation has a ton of valuable insights that will help you and others navigate this challenging aspect of life and death.

In this podcast interview, you’ll learn:

• What a death doula is and the value they add for families.
• Why avoiding conversations about death often creates a bigger burden for loved ones.
• How “holding space” provides comfort and calm during life’s most difficult moments.
• The importance of legacy planning through letters, videos, and rituals.
• How the What Matters Most course helps people align values with end-of-life decisions.
• Why planning early and before a crisis leads to greater peace of mind.

Inspiring Quotes

• “The earlier you can get an end-of-life doula involved, the better. The more conversations we can have. The more we can heal.” – Aimee Yawnick

• “The body knows how to heal itself up until the very end. And even though it’s not healing itself physically anymore because treatment isn’t working, it can still heal itself emotionally.” – Aimee Yawnick

• “It is burdensome to not do all of the planning, the estate, the financial, the emotional, the medical. Do it all. That is the last gift you could possibly give to your loved ones before you die.” – Aimee Yawnick

• “It’s not my job to win everybody over. It’s my job to hold space, educate, and help them to understand what they can expect to experience as their loved one goes through these different stages of transitioning from life to death.” – Aimee Yawnick

Interview Resources

• Leaving In Love
• Leaving in Love on Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
• Aimee Yawnick on LinkedIn | Facebook
• What Matters Most Workshop
• The National Council on Aging (NCOA)

[INTERVIEW]

Matthew Peck: Welcome, everyone, to another edition of SHP Financial’s Retirement Roadmap Podcast. I’ll be your host today, Matthew Peck. You know the old saying about how no one gets out of this alive? Well, it’s a fact. Same as Benjamin Franklin said, “Death in taxes,” he led with death. And as I said before, no one gets out alive. So, how do we make that process smoother? How do we de-stress? What is a fact? But we all fear, and there’s so much emotion. There’s loss. There’s grief. Sometimes there’s resentment. There’s regret. I mean, all of the strongest, most powerful emotions are all part of something that we will all have to pass through.

So, where do you go for help? How do you help manage all of that? Well, you may or may not be aware, but there’s something called a death doula. Now, what’s a doula? A doula is actually based on Ancient Greek. It’s about service and being a servant, but it’s a term that I had to research myself. So, then it’s like, okay, let’s find out because SHP is in the business of de-stressing financial decisions and de-stressing healthcare decisions, and investment decisions. Okay. Well, how do we help people at the end of life? And that is what a death doula does. And of course, I’m not the expert, and that’s why we had to go out and find a great guest to come onto the podcast to help us explain what a death doula does, and why is it so important, and how it can be so helpful.

So, without much further ado, I’d like to bring on Aimee Yawnick. She is the founder of Leaving in Love. She’s going to correct me, don’t worry, and probably hit me upside the head in a moment. And she’ll tell you all about it. But she’s been a death doula for many, many years, and we wanted to bring her on to help explain what exactly it does, what does she do, and how she can help. So, again, without much further ado, welcome to the podcast.

Aimee Yawnick: Thank you, Matthew.

Matthew Peck: Alright. So, hopefully I did an okay introduction. You’ll have to correct me. Let’s start with the corrections. So, correct me where I’m wrong, and then we’ll go from there.

Aimee Yawnick: Okay. I am the founder of Leaving in Love. I’ve been doing this since 2022, so not many, many years. I think that’s it that I need to correct you on. I think a lot of what you said is very accurate that we fear death, there’s a lot of anxiety around death and dying, and we don’t talk about it enough. And when it comes to end-of-life planning, most people find going to you or going to an estate planner a lot easier than coming to somebody like me. It’s easier to talk about money. It’s easier to talk about their estate and who they want to give what to. But when it comes down to the emotional aspect of dealing with death, facing their own mortality, thinking about what’s important to them when they’re facing that final chapter, they want to avoid it. It’s like if I don’t talk about it, maybe it won’t happen. Maybe I’ll be that first person that never dies. But no, it will happen.

Matthew Peck: Well, what I would say, by the way, the past couple of years has kind of been passing like dog years because it’s been a little stressful here in the big world. So, maybe since 2022, I know it’s been three years, but it seems like a long time. I think really ever since 2020 has been years are now all compressed to, yeah, talk about stress. Okay. So, tell me, let’s start with inspiration. What inspired you to be a death doula?

Aimee Yawnick: Wow. It was not in my plan. My background is in life coaching and fitness, and nutrition. And I had a business right before COVID, well, several years before COVID, where I was cooking healthy meals for very busy families and delivering them. And I’m a nurturer, and that’s just one way for me to nurture others is to cook for them. Well, when COVID hit, everybody was furloughed. And what did they do? They went home, and they cooked for themselves. So, there goes that business. So, it was about a year and a half where I was wondering what was next for me. I didn’t want to go backwards and do what I’d done before. I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and so I decided to look for a volunteering opportunity.

And when I was looking, I saw something for hospice volunteers, and it just spoke to me. Like, one of those taps on the shoulders, “This is next.” So, I got trained to be a hospice volunteer, and I did that for about four or five months, and I found it to be very inspirational. It’s work that I think you just need to lean into, right? It’s a privilege, it’s an honor to sit bedside while somebody is at the end of their life.

Matthew Peck: Well, if you don’t mind, for our audience, how do you train? I mean, because you’d like to think that empathy and sympathy is almost a natural, a sort of God-given, if you will. But I mean, I guess what’s that training like if you’re not already almost predisposed for that role?

Aimee Yawnick: So, I think that’s the point is that it has to be a part of who you are. Anybody that I’ve talked to who is in the end-of-life work has been called to do that, where somebody might hear that I’m a death doula, and they either take a step back because that’s scary, and it might be contagious what I do, or they lean into it. They want to hear more. So, training to be a volunteer really is more about HIPAA and how to sit and be with somebody. And making sure that you don’t do anything that you shouldn’t do. Like, we’re not medically trained. I have zero medical background. So, it’s really just a state of being with another individual. When somebody’s at the end of life, for the most part, they’re not talking.

Once they get to that final stage and they’re actively dying, they’re unconscious. And sometimes, if you’re a volunteer, you’re offering respite for a family member who’s been doing this round the clock, and they just need a break. Or somebody is in a nursing home or assisted living place, or they’re in hospice. And they need somebody to be next to them so that nobody dies alone.

Matthew Peck: Right. Well, because we were talking about COVID too. I mean, that was one of the biggest, I mean, because here I was…

Aimee Yawnick: Tragedies.

Matthew Peck: I have kids, and I’m thinking about how sad it is that birthday parties and graduations and all those rituals were obviously banned or whatever with COVID going on but by far the most tragic aspect of, and I’m sure you’ll agree, is that idea that people were unable to see their loved ones in nursing homes or even as they pass away and they were behind plate glass windows and whatever that may be.

Aimee Yawnick: And they’re watching them on a Zoom screen. It’s awful.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. How unnatural or inhumane. Obviously, it was a time and a place. But that always stuck with me. And let me ask too, how do you separate? I mean, I have a lot of nurse friends and firefighters and whatnot, and just more of how are you able to separate from something that seems sad? And do you take it home with you, or a layman like me missing something where maybe it’s not that sad at all?

Aimee Yawnick: Well, for me, my personal experience is that this is just the circle of life. Death is a bookend of birth. And we’re all, like you said at the beginning, we’re all heading in that direction. Sometimes it’s extra sad because somebody’s leaving sooner than we think they should as a younger person, but I believe that death is a sacred experience and that somebody needs to help a family to understand it’s never going to be okay that your loved one is dying. And to have somebody there who is not part of your inner circle and who can… Do you know what I mean when I say hold space?

Matthew Peck: Hold. You said, I’m sorry, hold space?

Aimee Yawnick: Hold space.

Matthew Peck: No. You will have to tell me what ‘hold space’ is.

Aimee Yawnick: So, imagine, have you ever lost a loved one?

Matthew Peck: Yes, of course.

Aimee Yawnick: Okay. Were you in the room?

Matthew Peck: No. The grandparents, as of right now, thankfully, at this recording, it’s just been all grandparents. And I have seen the dead body or the corpse afterwards, but I was not in the room when the passing happened.

Aimee Yawnick: Okay. So, imagine a loved one is at the end of life. There’s a lot of emotion going on. All your family is there, and you’re watching your loved one transition from life to death. And in the background, you feel a presence. You feel the presence of somebody who is, I have no other way to describe it than holding space. It’s like, and sometimes I literally do this. I open my arms and I try to hold the room in a hug. Like, just putting love and peace and intention into the room and trying to create a sense of calmness and ease. And maybe acceptance isn’t the right word, but we’re going to get through this. So, I’m not in it with the family. I’m kind of on the outside, but I’m holding this sacred space. It’s the best way that I can describe it.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. And almost that moment in time.

Aimee Yawnick: And oftentimes, after the death, after maybe there’s a follow-up visit with me and the family, I have been told, “I could feel you in the background.” So, I don’t say anything. I don’t really do anything. But it’s intention. That’s what it is. It’s intention. And I think that has a lot to do with this work, intention.

Matthew Peck: Well, and let me kind of pick that up a little bit because that obviously sounds like one of the most important roles and responsibilities of a death doula. But let’s also almost start at the beginning, right? When do you generally meet individuals? I mean, is it when they’re in hospice and then you’re sort of introducing your role? I mean, it’s tough to say, “Oh, it’s a business.” I know it’s a business because obviously we have food that we have to put on the table, but take me through like how and when you generally meet people. And what’s the initial coaching, and what’s the general timeframe?

Aimee Yawnick: It depends on each individual situation. I’m working with a family right now where there’s three children, three small children, and one of the parents is at the end of life. They have been through several treatments for cancer, and the treatment is no longer working. And what they would like to do, we talked about legacy earlier, is create some legacy videos for their children. So, that later in life, their school-age kids, maybe at graduation, high school graduation or wedding day or the birth of the first child, this parent will be able to reach in, like maybe even reach in from beyond, and they’re creating videos for each child, for each individual occasion.

So, with this family, that’s what I’m doing to help is to create these videos to help these parents get into a place of, “Okay, if I were there in that moment when my daughter’s about to walk down the aisle, what message do I want to give to her?” And get them in that space, hit record. They speak from their heart, and then that video is saved until that day.

Matthew Peck: And so, which is extremely powerful, generally, your services begin when clients are sort of in the, and I’m not even sure if you call them clients, that sounds a little bit too formal. But when they are in hospice, and then the kids will kind of reach out to you, and then you’re kind of bridging between the one that’s passing and then the kids?

Aimee Yawnick: It can be. So, I mean, I would say just like hospice would say. You know, usually they’re called in way too late. The earlier you can get hospice involved, the better. The earlier you can get an end-of-life doula involved, the better. The more conversations we can have. You talked about regret at the end of life. The more we can heal. The body knows how to heal itself up until the very end. And even though it’s not healing itself physically anymore because treatment isn’t working, it can still heal itself emotionally. It can still help to heal relationships. So, these are a lot of the things that I talk to my clients about. If there’s anything unsaid, anything undone, sometimes it’s cleaning up something with yourself before you pass, and you want to release that regret or you want to release that anxiety.

Sometimes it’s with family members. You’ve got a relationship where you haven’t spoken for years, and maybe you have something that you want to say. So, if you, say, get a diagnosis, and you’ve been told that you have so long to live, which isn’t necessarily guaranteed. It could be longer, could be shorter.

Matthew Peck: Yep. Exactly. That’s a medical opinion.

Aimee Yawnick: But if you act quickly and we start having these conversations about, “Okay, I know that I’m moving towards my final chapter. What are some of these things that I want to do and say?” You might be physically able to physically do a bucket list like, “Go travel here. I’ve always wanted to see this place.” Or maybe it’s more of, “I want to write legacy love letters to my friends, thank all the people who have meaning in my life, and I want to do that.”

Matthew Peck: So, is it kind of like completely open-ended to a certain extent that when you sit down with the, for lack of a better word, client…?

Aimee Yawnick: You can say client.

Matthew Peck: Client. Okay. All right. So, is it completely open-ended where you sit down with the client and then just get to know them on a human level and then say, “Ooh, I think this would help”? Or do you come in with a sort of like specific guidelines to say, “Okay. Here’s what I like to do with every client I sit down with”? I guess, how do you approach it?

Aimee Yawnick: No. I meet my clients where they’re at. I’m here to serve. Like you said at the beginning, doula does mean a woman of service. Like, that’s the core of that word. And that’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to serve in the way that my clients, my clients’ family feel it would serve them the best. So, sometimes it’s just, I mean, I’ve sat with the wife of a dementia patient who is no longer verbal. And we just have conversations about how she has felt over the years watching the decline of her husband and allowing her the opportunity to just say the things that have been festering inside of her that she thought maybe were, like she was judging herself for how she felt. There’s a lot of guilt often that comes up with a death by complications with dementia.

Matthew Peck: Well, I mean, because that was actually what I was driving at, because like I can see this being a two-way street or along the lines of it’s just as helpful for the client as it is for the family members, right? Because, I mean, I can’t say fondly, but I do remember one thing that struck me about a family friend that passed away, and the elderly woman had been sort of in and out of nursing homes for two years. I mean, it was one of those difficult, more harder ones. And when she eventually passed, the primary caregiver, like the individual daughter or primary caregiver was sort of like, or during life, she was almost resentful that her mom was needing all of this care, and she had to drop everything her own career and what she was doing, and her own passions and hobbies and everything else that she was doing to then take care of her mom.

And I know it’s a term of labor of love, yeah, but she was sort of, I think, she was shocked at how resentful she was. And then, oh, by the way, then mom eventually passes, and then she feels bad because she’s relieved. You know, she’s like guilty because, “I’m relieved. Like, I shouldn’t be happy that my mom just passed.” But she was…

Aimee Yawnick: Relieved.

Matthew Peck: Yes.

Aimee Yawnick: She was relieved.

Matthew Peck: Right. And so, we went from resent to relief, to guilt because of that. I mean, so that’s why I imagine like I’m assuming that you sit down with clients and just say, “Hey, I’d love to talk to your family,” or only if the client says, “No,” or “Yes, I think it’s a good idea.”

Aimee Yawnick: Yeah. I mean, it depends on who’s hiring me, and again, and it also depends on where the client is because if the family waits, I’m going to say too long, but if the family waits until the very end, there’s not a whole lot I can do for the dying loved one. There are rituals that we can perform, like an anointing ritual. We can, after death, I can help them to bathe the body and just give gratitude for the physical vessel that has helped this individual walk around earth, right? But if it’s that far into the dying process, then, yeah, I’m going to be working with the family. I’m going to be talking about how they’re feeling. One of the questions that I ask first when I sit down with a family is, what do you, individual, each individual person, what do you understand is happening with your loved one right now?

Because I’ve had a family of five in the room, and I’ve had five different thoughts on what’s actually happening. So, to have everybody in the room together and talking about this is very helpful. And then just giving people permission to feel what they feel. All feelings are valid. All feelings are valid, guilt, resentment, relief, all of that. It’s valid. If you have the feeling, they’re God-given feelings and emotions. They are valid. What you do with them might cause some issue with other family members. How you deal with them could change the way that your grieving process evolves, but the feelings themselves are all valid.

Matthew Peck: Well, but let me also ask too. So, if we’re in those room with five, how much skepticism do you deal with? For anyone that’s not watching, there’s a big smile.

Aimee Yawnick: I mean, I’ve had people sitting back like this.

Matthew Peck: Yeah.

Aimee Yawnick: Who’s she?

Matthew Peck: Yeah. Right, right, right.

Aimee Yawnick: You know, like, “What’s she doing here? She doesn’t know our family,” and that’s absolutely acceptable.

Matthew Peck: Or another valid feeling, right?

Aimee Yawnick: Absolutely. And you know what? I honor that. I’d probably be that person in my family, right? Very protective of the individuals and wondering who this outsider is. And it’s not my job to win everybody over. It’s my job to hold space, educate, help them to understand what they can expect to experience as their loved one goes through these different stages of transitioning from life to death, and help them to, I say deal with, I don’t love that phrase, but deal with what comes up for them. And anybody that wants to talk to me is more than welcome to, but if they don’t want to, I respect that.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. No, it’s interesting. And to go back, you mentioned sort of like an anointment ritual, or I’m not sure if ritual is the right way or that you put it, but how do you deal with cultural differences and cultural views on death? I mean, you have some, obviously, this is the Jewish faith, the Catholic faith, the Islamic faith, Hindu. They all kind of view death differently. Obviously, it plays a role, say the least, but I guess how does that come up, and how do you navigate around that?

Aimee Yawnick: I will respectfully do any ritual and help to navigate through any ritual that I’m not familiar with. But if somebody, like you said, if somebody is Hindu and they have particular rituals that are important to them, I’m not that person. I don’t have that expertise. I worked with a Greek family. They taught me so much. And as we were witnessing their loved one transition, they were teaching me about some of their rituals, and I just kind of held the space and kind of ushered things along. So, if you want somebody very specific to your religion, your rituals, I would say search for that doula. I mean, there’s a directory out there, and you could find…

Matthew Peck: Oh, interesting. So, specific that, that sort of religiously, or culturally specific to their…

Aimee Yawnick: I would hope. Yes.

Matthew Peck: I’m sure, I mean, obviously, it’s a big world and a big internet, but, well, I was curious too, and as you got into this, did it end up having kind of like a deep dive, like in regards to books and how different cultures viewed death? Or I guess when you really embarked on this journey, what type of further background or reading or research? Or I guess what was the biggest surprise that you found whether with yourself or with the families, as you embarked on this?

Aimee Yawnick: Boy, there’s a lot of stuff. So, the first thing that comes to mind for me is the most surprising thing personally and with my husband, because he’s obviously living with a death doula and not 100% thrilled with that. It causes you to face your own mortality every day. So, I wasn’t, I think, I maybe expected that, but I didn’t understand fully what that would mean. So, working with somebody who is at the end of their life causes me to have to see my life daily through the lens of my own mortality. And what that does is it makes me appreciate things a whole lot more. I say that it makes me argue with my husband in a different way because I ask myself, is this really that important to me? Like, in the big scheme of things, is this the thing I want to die on the hill for?

So, it changes my perspective. It has changed my perspective on life. And I think that’s common for a lot of people. You ask anybody who has survived a diagnosis, like a cancer diagnosis, they’ll say the same thing. Like, life is just different now because I have looked my mortality square in the face.

Matthew Peck: Now, is that something that you would recommend to someone that might be in best health?

Aimee Yawnick: 100%.

Matthew Peck: But how do you then convince that person?

Aimee Yawnick: I don’t.

Matthew Peck: Okay.

Aimee Yawnick: Not my job. I am not here to convince anybody of anything. So, a different part of my business is a course, a six-week course that I run called What Matters Most, and that is exactly what we do.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. You’d mentioned that offline, so talk a little bit about more. So, it’s a six-week Zoom. It’s an online course, right?

Aimee Yawnick: Yes, it is an online.

Matthew Peck: Okay. Yeah. So, walk through some of the particulars.

Aimee Yawnick: So, it’s called What Matters Most, and what we do is we start the first class by I assign them their death date. So, it’s 90 days from the day that our class starts. So, what’s today? The 19th? We’re May, June, July, August. So, your death date is August 19^th. Everything we do in the course from there is under the assumption that you only have 90 days left to live. So, we’re going to do a deep dive into what’s most important to you in your emotional life, your relationships, your spirituality, the practical things in your life like estate planning, financial planning. Do you have a will, like all that stuff, that practical stuff, but legacy? What kind of legacy do you want to leave for your family and your loved ones?

We talk about your physical body. How do you want your comfort care and your physical environment if you’re at the end of your life, you only have three months left to live? And this is a way for people to step into as closely as possible, unless they are living with a diagnosis, step into what it might feel like to be at the end of their life. And I’ve gotten amazing feedback from participants that that is exactly what happens. They face their mortality, and life just changes for them.

Matthew Peck: Now, how much, just to kind of go back to that six-week course, because obviously, we operate in the nuts and bolts side of things, as you mentioned, wills and trusts. And as we talked offline, most of our listeners, if not all, know about legacy planning being one of our five areas of financial planning that we offer. So, wills and trusts, we make sure that it’s obviously written, documented, et cetera. When it comes to a plan, does a six-week course have sort of written documentation afterwards? I mean, I guess, how much of this is sort of memorialized versus more of a mindset?

Aimee Yawnick: Okay, great question. So, when it comes to the practical course, the class where we cover the estate planning, the financial planning, like wills, all of that, I bring experts in because that is not in my wheelhouse. And that is not my expertise at all. So, I bring somebody in to do the nuts and bolts, like the bare minimum of what you need to do, and then they become trusted sources for my clients. Okay. As far as, is it a mindset or is it like practical, tangible things, what I give them or what they take away from this product-wise is it’s called a vision map or what I call a care plan, an end-of-life care plan. And what we’re doing when we’re looking at this, the end of your life of these last three months, is what is your current reality? Like, if we were to look at financial planning, what’s your current reality? “Well, I haven’t done anything. I get a paycheck. I put some of it in my 401(k).”

Matthew Peck: There’s no plan in place, basically. Yeah.

Aimee Yawnick: There’s no plan. And then we look at a vision for that part of your life. What would you like your vision of your financial planning to look like? I would love… And we create this vision statement, so there’s an emotional attachment to it. “So, the vision for my financial planning is that I have all my paperwork in order, my children will be taken care of, everybody specifically knows exactly what and where they can find all my documents, and I have peace of mind.” It’s like, “Okay, what is step one for you to go from your current reality to your vision?” “Well, I’ve got to find a financial planner.” “Great. When are you going to do that?”

Matthew Peck: I know one, by the way.

Aimee Yawnick: You know one?

Matthew Peck: Aimee, I’m biased, but just in case, if you’re looking for one, but keep on going. That’s just anecdotally.

Aimee Yawnick: And this is where my coaching background comes in, because I feel that you can give people all this personal development stuff, and then if you don’t hold them accountable, it’s just another personal development book or course or whatever. So, my coaching comes in here because I create accountability for them. So, if they say my first step is to find a financial planner, I say, “Okay. When? By when are you going to find this person?” “Oh, I’ll do it by next, next week.”

Matthew Peck: Right. Set deadlines. Yep.

Aimee Yawnick: “Okay. Well, what’s your plan between now and next week?” “Well, I guess I’ll have to google,” and like it really takes it down to these itty-bitty steps that are very practical, but very powerful because once you get to the end of it, you’ve realized your vision. And we do that with the physical domain, like your physical body, and the emotional aspect of it, which is your feelings about death and dying and your relationships. So, if you are looking at your death date of August 19th, are all your relationships cleaned up with a tight little bow on them? And if not, with whom do you want to clean up a relationship, and with whom do you not? Are you like, “You know what? I’ve done everything I could with that relationship. I’m okay.”

And sometimes it’s finding that resolution that gives you some peace of mind. So, we do that in all these different domains. So, they walk away with this vision plan of how they’re going to change their life.

Matthew Peck: Well, no, and I love that because, and we shared a little bit offline, and most of our audience knows, I mean, I love the sympatico and the similarities between that financial plan, and obviously I appreciate that example. Because the idea that if we can cover the nuts and bolts, if we can make sure, “Okay. Hey, here’s where we’re going to take social security, and here’s a comfortable spending level. Here’s how we’re going to make investments that match that, and now we’re going to make sure that your estate plan is documented and healthcare is all set, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” right? When all of that foundation is placed, that frankly, I mean, obviously, we’re professional as we’re professionals, but that part’s the easy part.

Because honestly, in my opinion, I’ll be curious of yours, the harder part is what’s it all for? Why did you work as hard as you did? What were you looking forward to? What makes you happy? How do you find significance now that you’re no longer working? It was because the idea, I’m sure you’ve heard sometimes, marriages enter different phases when one spouse is retired.

Aimee Yawnick: That’s a very good way of putting it.

Matthew Peck: But those are the thornier and trickier parts to figuring out sort of the meaning of life, and not to make it too melodramatic, but that’s what I mean. Like, look, in the idea that people are out there and, obviously, again, I’m biased, and people are out there like, “Oh, I’m going to manage my own assets.” And it’s like, look, if you’re managing your own assets, you’re not going to have time to figure out the bigger, more sort of emotional and happiness questions, if you either meant focusing on here or you haven’t gotten that done in the first place. In other words, the foundation has to be in place.

Either do it yourself, get that foundation in place, and now you can move on to it, or hire a trusted individual because you talk about relationships. I mean, those are the areas that are much harder to navigate through because there are no easy answers there. How you invest a portfolio, I’m not going to say there’s easy answers, but there’s sort of a set menu of choices, risk profiles, and all of that stuff. But when it comes to the emotional aspects of life, end of life, so much trickier, no easy answers, no right or wrong. I mean, just nothing but gray in that spot. So, I just wanted to really share that similarities.

Aimee Yawnick: One of the things that I’m proud of these courses about is that it is a value-based program. So, that’s why it’s called What Matters Most. So, we need to identify what your values are. And once you get really, really clear about what matters most in your life, and that’s why the umbrella of you only have 90 days left to live is so powerful because it puts people in a sense of urgency, and I don’t want to say panic, but kind of panic. It’s like, “Oh, shoot. I only have 90 days to live.” All of a sudden, all the small stuff just falls to the side. And you start to focus on what is most important in my life. And that’s what creates that foundation that you’re talking about is it’s value-driven. When people understand their values, they know where they want their money to go, right?

Matthew Peck: Absolutely.

Aimee Yawnick: They understand, “This is where I want my life’s work to land.”

Matthew Peck: Yes.

Aimee Yawnick: “When I understand the relationships that are most important to me, I know where I’m going to focus my time and attention over these last 90 days.” So, it is important to determine an individual’s values or help them understand what they’re about.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. And to ask the good questions.

Aimee Yawnick: Exactly.

Matthew Peck: Because you mentioned at the beginning, too, and I kind of want to sort of wrap on a harder one or harder question, right? You mentioned how people almost say like, “Okay. I’m sorry. What? You’re a death doula?” And think it’s almost contagious.

Aimee Yawnick: Yes.

Matthew Peck: Okay. So, now I get overcoming or I can sort of understand overcoming skepticism of we talked about how family members would be like, “Who’s she coming in here?” And being protective of family members. But how do you overcome that idea that, “Okay, I’m a death doula. Let’s talk about passing”? Are you able to get people? I guess, how do you overcome that sort of superstition? I’ve had plenty of clients. They were generally kind of off the boat or older generation that didn’t do a will because they thought if they did a will, then thought they would die. Right? And it’s like, “No, that’s…”

Aimee Yawnick: That’s not how it works.

Matthew Peck: Right. It’s kind of beyond that.

Aimee Yawnick: No, that’s not how it works.

Matthew Peck: But I’m just trying to think like, whether it’s for your own interactions with people be like, “Yeah, no, this is normal, guys.” I mean, I guess, how do you overcome?

Aimee Yawnick: It’s education. It’s a lot of education.

Matthew Peck: Because you’d also said earlier that people are afraid to talk about it.

Aimee Yawnick: Yeah. That is the biggest challenge.

Matthew Peck: So, how do you confront that?

Aimee Yawnick: Education. So, I do a lot of stuff in my community. I do death cafes at our local library. I do mortality movies. I work with the Council on Aging a lot. So, I’m out in my community. I’m doing a What Is A Death Doula panel in the fall to get people to understand a little bit more. The biggest objection that I get that is a little bit easier to overcome is, and like you said, our older generation now, those boomers, right, they’re saying, “I don’t want to be a burden to my family.” And I can tell you, the number one way to be a burden to your family is not having these conversations.

When your loved ones are trying to make decisions about your end-of-life wishes, and they have no idea what you want, that is a burden. When your loved ones are trying to decide whether or not you would want a feeding tube, whether you would want to be intubated, whether you want your old, frail body to have CPR performed on it, and you wind up with cracked ribs and worse off than when you started, these are torturous decisions for your loved ones to make. So, it is burdensome to not do all of the planning, the estate, the financial, the emotional, the medical. Do it all. That is the last gift you could possibly give to your loved ones before you die.

Matthew Peck: Well, I think it’s a wonderful note to end on. Aimee or Ame, sorry. Because we also found out offline that officially her name is Ame, and my mother-in-law’s name is Ame, so I’ll give a quick shout-out to that. And I was going to say too, I think it was a great conversation because as the son of a nurse and my mom still living, and God bless her and doing great, she’s a labor and delivery nurse, so she certainly broke into me that death is a part of life that that all of that, it’s going to happen. But just to really, if people aren’t sort of born of nurses, if you will, I certainly want to emphasize that, the fact that it is a fact of life and there’s nothing to be afraid of and there’s nothing to be scared of.

I mean, yes, it is a scary thing. Maybe I’m kind of contradicting myself, but it’s just, I mean, education, right? And, Aimee, you said it yourself, is the way to take a look at it. I mean, it is going to happen, and you can’t run from it, right? It’s okay to be scared from it, but maybe not run from it. You still need to address it at a certain point in time. And that’s why I love you so much for coming on the show is because it is part of our message of getting a plan in place, of the fact that it’s a lot less scary when you have a plan.

Aimee Yawnick: And when you make that plan when you’re not in crisis.

Matthew Peck: Exactly. Exactly. No fire sales or anything along those lines. So, I really think that…

Aimee Yawnick: Do it now.

Matthew Peck: Yes. Pretty much. I mean, because…

Aimee Yawnick: Do it now, and then you’re like, “Oh, that’s done.” Because it’s somewhere in the back of your mind, “I should be doing my will. I should be doing my estate planning. I should be doing my end-of-life planning.”

Matthew Peck: Yes.

Aimee Yawnick: Get it done.

Matthew Peck: It’s going to happen. So, again, Aimee, thank you so much for joining us. We’ll certainly put all of your information on our podcast and our notes. Thank you, everyone, for listening. Hope you enjoyed a little bit less about finances and stocks, bonds, mutual fund, and something else that’s probably more important than some of the other things that we talk about on a weekly basis. But thanks again, Aimee, for joining us.

Aimee Yawnick: Thank you.

Matthew Peck: And, everyone else, be well.

[END]