Felicity Warner – Gentle Dying 2024

What does a good death look like, and how can we create one?

Most of us prefer to not think about our own deaths until we have to. Yet understanding dying as a creative and spiritual journey can be the first step toward a beautiful transition for ourselves and others.

In this inspiring opening module, Felicity will teach you how to prepare for a gentle death and reframe it as one of your life’s greatest events.

Through sacred tools and nurturing practices, she’ll guide you on how to befriend death, face it with courage, and use it as an opportunity for creativity and spiritual growth.

Discover ways to embrace death — your own, or that of a loved one — with inspiration, crafting a beautiful transition that honors the journey of life.

In this session, you’ll:

• Discover how to make friends with death by creating your own narrative and ideas for a beautiful transition to enjoy a meaningful life
• Learn what a good death feels like for you, becoming an empowered visionary for your life’s end as you curate your departure
• Ensure your affairs are in order to avoid leaving a burden for your loved ones, focusing on practical end-of-life preparations
• Explore the universal art of dying well through wisdom from cultures that see death as a grand adventure
• Develop affirmations for a gentle death, training yourself to reframe anxiety around death with positive daily affirmations
• Experience a Deathbed Journal exercise to focus on living your life to the fullest now

We’re great at making plans for the future, but most of us avoid planning for the end of our lives.

Felicity will help you craft an End-of-Life Wishes and Comfort Plan that reflects your desires for peace, comfort, and personal touches during your last days — the sounds of specific music, the scent of particular flowers, the touch of a favorite item, or the joy of a champagne toast with visitors.

One of the secrets of a gentle death is discovering what soothes us when we are feeling frightened and in pain. Once your comfort plan is in place and shared with your loved ones, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that your intentions for your passing will be fulfilled.

By exploring and expressing these needs, you’ll create a nurturing space to embrace mortality and ensure that your final days are filled with support, love, and personal significance.

Felicity will inspire you with ideas you may never have considered, sharing stories and options that spark your own creative thinking. Embrace the end of life with intention, dignity, and a personal touch, making your final days as meaningful and comforting as possible.

In this session, you’ll:

• Unpack the myth that death is an uncontrollable, harsh event by empowering yourself through making personal choices
• Discover the specifics of what comforts you, such as your favorite oils, music, and other special items
• Explore therapeutic modalities that best soothe you, including touch, sound, and smell
• Ensure your wishes are clearly communicated to loved ones, even those reluctant to listen
• Craft your End-of-Life Comfort and Wish Plan, exploring who you want by your side and how to fulfill your deepest spiritual desires, empowering you to articulate and organize your end-of-life preferences, transforming them into a precious gift for your future self

Dying is a powerful spiritual journey and a sacred opportunity for healing.

It’s a chance to return to your divine essence and become whole again, despite the fear, pain, and overwhelming emotion that may accompany you.

The anxiety and uncertainty of approaching life’s end is natural. Focus on the critical need to cultivate a safe sanctuary within yourself. This inner refuge can offer you strength, resilience, and peace, empowering you to navigate the dying process with energy and vision.

Felicity will introduce a variety of practices designed to help you create this healing sanctuary — a place of rest, refocus, and rejuvenation.

Through gentle techniques, creative visualization, breathwork, and the application of sacred oils on specific pressure points, learn how to restore calm and find solace within. With this guidance, feel equipped with the tools you need to embrace the journey of dying with grace and serenity.

In this session, you’ll:

• Create a powerful visualization leading you into a safe, sacred space for post-death orientation using meditation, music, and images
• Craft affirmations to reinforce your thoughts and maintain focus, breaking cycles of nervous system overstimulation
• Learn breathing techniques to soothe, calm, and realign inner peace for quick access to your internal sanctuary
• Draw on ancient techniques using sacred oils, shifting from fear to calm, with a focus on deepening the practice with rose oil

The fear of being forgotten after we die is universal. How can we ensure that we are remembered and celebrated for our true essence? How would you like to be remembered? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your death could comfort and inspire your loved ones?

Discover how to leave a legacy that comforts and inspires your loved ones, a legacy that extends beyond the physical and material into the very core of who you are — your passions, values, and the unique imprints you leave on the world.

Learn how creating keepsakes and mementos serves not only as a therapeutic reflection on the gifts you offer future generations but also acts as a powerful tool in dissolving the fear of death by shifting your focus beyond the physical.

Explore how personal legacies like artwork, heartfelt letters, recipe books filled with cherished dishes, collections of poetry, and more can foster a lasting emotional and spiritual connection with those you love, ensuring you remain alive in their hearts and minds.

Recognize that the way you’re remembered — through tangible and intangible treasures you leave behind — can maintain your presence and influence, offering comfort and inspiration long after you’ve passed.

In this session, you’ll:

• Explore joyful and meaningful ways to create lasting memories, like telling family stories, sharing jokes, and going through photo albums making annotations
• Compile family recipe books to preserve cherished recipes like Mum’s Christmas cake, Irish stew, or tiramisu that were never written down
• Create hand casts of the dying person as a tangible keepsake to cherish
• Make voice recordings, such as a grandmother reading children’s book passages, ensuring her voice lives on for her grandchildren
• Craft handmade keepsakes like jewelry, paintings, and poems for a personal touch
• Experience an exercise of writing enduring pearls of wisdom for your loved ones

Our physical body is created from the elements of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. Each element is a portal linking us to the world beyond.

As the dying process begins, these elements begin to withdraw from the body. When this happens, a set of distinct emotional, spiritual and psycho-spiritual shifts take place, which illuminate your wholeness and your most sacred Self.

Felicity will describe these stages as a profound model for understanding the spiritual and energetic aspects of dying, allowing you to experience a gentle death and attune to the mysteries of the deathbed, including visions of departed relatives and other phenomena.

Fully embrace dying as a transformational experience, recognizing the great gifts these changes bring to your spirit and soul.

With Felicity’s guidance, navigate and relate to these four distinct physical and psycho-spiritual phases, making sense of the shifts, emotions, mood changes, and processes that occur as the end of life approaches, turning our final journey into a deeply enriching experience.

In this session, you’ll:

• Explore the four phases of death, each linked to the elements of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, to understand the sensory experiences of death and reduce fear
• Gain an understanding of the Earth element, symbolizing strength and connection as the body’s vitality wanes
• Discover the Water phase, reflecting how the subconscious prepares for death through memories and the surfacing of soul wounds for release
• Learn about the Fire stage, a time for energetically clearing away what no longer serves, facilitating a departure free of psychic baggage
• Examine the Air element, marking the expansion of consciousness, the release of the spirit, and the transcendental merge at life’s final breath
• Take part in a “What to Bring in Your Bag” exercise for visiting a loved one in each stage of death, equipping you with valuable insights and practical actions for supporting someone in the dying process

As dying progresses and the physical body diminishes and weakens, there is often a spiritual blossoming. This is a sacred moment called the “quickening.”

Our ancestors knew how to recognize this and shift their care from the purely physical into something more spiritual when this process occurred.

But as western dying has become ever more medicalized, sacred vigiling skills — vital for a gentle, spiritually fulfilled death and long-practiced by our ancestors — have been lost and forgotten.

Learn how to honor this sacred moment by keeping company with the dying, nurturing their experience with attention, kindness, and love, and creating a sacred space that allows for a peaceful transition.

This practice is beneficial not only for the dying but also for family members, offering a serene environment to transition from caretakers to mourners, gently preparing them for their own emotional journeys.

Felicity will share invaluable insights about these sacred vigiling skills, teaching you how to create a beautiful, tranquil space in the dying room that paves the way for transcendence.

By tapping into your “nous” — the divine wisdom of the heart — and prioritizing listening over speaking, you can become a powerful guardian of this sacred space.

In this session, you’ll:

• Prepare the dying room as an oasis of peace and calm, recognizing hearing as the last sense to fade before death
• Ready yourself emotionally and energetically with grounding and cleansing exercises, emphasizing a slow, loving presence
• Include friends and family eager to be part of the process, fostering a supportive environment
• Engage in singing, touching, and holding, tenderly caring for both the body and soul of the dying person
• Learn how to offer blessings and perform rituals bedside, creating a sacred space for transition
• Experience a transformative vigiling exercise designed to foster a safe, loving space for individuals to thoughtfully process their emotions and thoughts as they take part in the sacred act of accompanying someone close to death, all within an atmosphere of sensitivity and respect

Just as a midwife helps you come into this life, a midwife for the soul can help others transition peacefully into the next realm.

Scholarly and esoteric research shows that shortly after clinical death, an extraordinary and subtle process takes place. Two separate energies — spirit and soul — begin to leave the body. This is called the “unbinding,” and is a gentle unraveling from the physical to the nonphysical realm.

Many wisdom traditions say the deceased often retain a heightened awareness, capable of hearing, sensing emotions, and most crucially, feeling our love.

The hours immediately following death present an unparalleled opportunity for deep, loving communion between the departed and their grieving loved ones — a time when emotions are intensified, time seems to stand still, and a divine grace envelops all involved.

Feel guided on how to support someone as they take their final breaths, including the sacred practices of anointing, cutting the spiritual cord that bridges the worlds, and holding space during the unbinding.

Receive insights on how to energetically “return to self” after being a companion in someone’s transition, ensuring a peaceful and complete passage for both the departed and those left behind.

In this session, you’ll:

• Explore the transition into death as an expansion of consciousness, becoming a traveler between two worlds and experiencing the duality of existence
• Learn the sacred act of anointing to grace someone’s journey, understanding that this gesture of blessing and release requires reverence and love, not clerical status
• Discover the unbinding process, where spirit and soul separate from the physical body in an extraordinary energetic event post-clinical death
• Understand the crossing of the threshold into divine consciousness and the care for the newly dead, guiding you through this final act of grace
• Recognize how to “return to self” in an experiential exercise guiding you to ground and center yourself after the intense journey of accompanying someone across the threshold, helping you focus on reconnecting with your surroundings and the world of the living