Debra Diamond Ph. D. - Diary of a Death Doula: 25 Lessons the Dying Teach Us About the Afterlife

Debra Diamond, Ph.D. is a psychic/medium and author. Shes a former Wall Street money manager, CNBC commentator and Johns Hopkins University Professor who left a high profile life to pursue a life of spirituality and purpose. She earned an MBA from The George Washington University, a Masters Certificate from Christies Education and a Ph.D. in Metaphysics from the Esoteric Interfaith Theological Seminary. She is the author of Life After Near Death: Miraculous Stories of Healing and Transformation in the Extraordinary Lives of People With Newfound Powers.

Dr. Diamond has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Inc., The Baltimore Sun and NPR and other television, radio and broadcast programming.

Some say it takes a village to write a book. I am fortunate to have a team, both here and in the invisible realms, who helped me write Diary of a Death Doula to assist others in their time of need.

Daniel, Alex and Jed, thank you for your incredible help and support. I dont know what I did to deserve you but you make my world. You are special and I love you.

To Virginia McCullough, thank you for always knowing what I mean, even when I dont articulate it very well, and for your innate understanding of the material. You are a channel in your own way as well as being patient and kind.

Thank you, Phaedra Greenwood. I was actually looking for a painting group, not a writing group, but some divine providence led me to you instead. You are a remarkable person who always knows the answers and made a great impression on me.

To my classmates from that group, Jan Smith, Karen Baldwin, Abbie Conant and Brinn Colenda, your community provided the foundation for me to write my books.

For her wisdom on many levels, her support and suggestions, and all around wonderfulness, Sheila Kinkead, thank you. You helped me in many ways.

Susan Laubach, you are a person of so many talents, writing is just one of them. All those walks provided growth for me in the visible and invisible realms and I will always treasure our times together.

Kathy Kessler Overbeke. Thank you. I appreciate you in so many ways that Id have to write another book to cover all the years.

Debbi Wilen Schwartz, you are a gem and one of the most caring people I know, besides being off the charts smart. Thank you for your steadfast support.

Thank you for everyone in the healing and helping professions for all you do. You are angels.

Ten years ago, I had a transformative experience which led me to examine all my assumptions about the nature of reality, consciousness and life and death. Let me put it this way: To say my life was turned upside down would be a profound understatement. Everything I knew and did changed dramatically.

I left my high profile position as a money manager, CNBC commentator, and professor at Johns Hopkins University to pursue a life of purpose and spirituality. I became a psychic/medium and began to use my skills and gifts to help others and to explore the invisible realms beyond the material world.

As my journey progressed, my path continued to shift towards the direction of service to others, and one result has been my deep involvement in the world of hospice. In 2015, I became a hospice death doula, someone who sits bedside with the actively dying. Now, Ive had the privilege and honor of spending time with many patients at end of life. Theres no place Id rather beno work that is more rewarding.

The idea for Diary of a Death Doula came from what I experienced sitting bedside with the dying as a death doula, perceiving sacred realities. Because of our cultures fear of death, I thought it might be helpful if I could share stories about my work with you in the hopes it will alleviate your fears and anxieties about end of life and death, and provide comfort and information to all. (In the interest of privacy Ive obscured or combined the identities and conditions of the patients.)

Being a death doula has given me a richer appreciation for lifeand thats just one of the many lessons of this work.

Ill share more life lessons with you in the pages that follow and hope you find them as reassuring and inspiring as I do. Perhaps what I learned and experienced will change the way you think about life and death, open up the conversation and even challenge your own personal beliefs.

Working as a death doula is surprisingly life affirming, not morbid or sad as so many believe. Being in a hospice setting teeming with clinicians and specialistsnurses, aides, chaplains, and other volunteersfilling roles that might strike others as impossibly dreary, can be deceiving. Why would anyone willingly do this work? But like any other profession, theres more to it than meets the eye.

During the time I sit with the dying, extraordinary things can happenor not much at all. The work is spiritual and sacredbut its not for everyone. When Im driving home at the end of my day, my concerns always seem to melt away as my perspective shifts and I give thanks for my many blessings.

In Diary of a Death Doula, Ill take you with me on what turned out to be a remarkable journey full of stories and insights and plenty of surprises. Id like to think a different perspective about end of life and death will enable you to consider a new way of thinking of death, not as an end as so many believe, but as a continuation.

In Diary of a Death Doula, I look at death on three distinct planes: the physical, the soul, and the afterlifebut my perspective is unique. As a psychic/medium as well as a doula, I have the ability to bring the invisible realm into the visible and to recognize the interplay we dont often perceive through our five senses.

I bring an additional perspective as well, since Ive spent many years researching and working with the phenomenon of the NDEthe near-death experience. Unlike my hospice work, working with the dying, the individuals who experience NDEs return to their bodies to continue life. I wrote about the near-death experience and consciousness in my first book, Life After Near Death: Miraculous Stories of Healing and Transformation in the Extraordinary Lives of People With Newfound Powers. That book examines life-altering NDE experiences through interviews with many individuals whove had them.

Now, in Diary of a Death Doula, I delve into not what we call near-death, but actual death. Rather than being an unusual or strange experience to go from one situation to the other, I realized it was another leg of the same journey that allowed me to offer stories and insights about life, death, and the nature of consciousness.

In the end, I was given a much deeper look than I expected.

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