There is a particular kind of harm that happens in death work when expertise becomes more important than presence. It may be subtle and often well-intentioned, but it sure is devastating.
It happens when someone shows up vulnerable, uncertain, and afraid. It happens when the meeting is surrounded with answers instead of the expansiveness of active listening and space. With protocols instead of pacing. With competence instead of care.
And then, their nervous system freezes, refuses to relax. It contracts.
Because what they needed was not information. It was safety.
What Death Support Actually Requires
Most people assume death support is about knowledge. About having answers to complex questions. About credentials and experience and systems. And yes, those things matter. However, they are not what matters most.
What matters most is the capacity to be with someone without trying to fix them. To hold space without filling it to the brim. To pace with their nervous system instead of pushing against it. This is what I now call tender authority.
It is not soft in the sense of lack in strength. It is soft in the sense of being responsive. Flexible. Pliable. Attuned to what the person in front of you actually needs and not what your framework says they are supposed to need.
Why Trust Comes Before Information
Your nervous system decides before your mind does. You can see someone's credentials. You can hear about their experience. You can intellectually recognize their qualifications. But if your body contracts in their presence or if your shoulders tighten, your breath shortens, and your guts say something is off; that somatic response throughout your body matters more than any resume, testimonials, or referrals.
Death work requires vulnerability. And vulnerability requires safety. The kind of safety that does not come from expertise alone. It comes from being seen as a person, not a problem. From being paced with, not corrected. From being allowed to move slowly without being treated as resistant.
This is why I am unable to rush. Why I ask more than spout rules or regulations. This is also why I create spaces for silence to exist instead of filling it with my own knowledge. Because the work is not about me proving I know things. It is about creating conditions where you can access your own knowing. You are the authority of you.
The Difference Between Guidance and Control
The good death support is collaborative, not prescriptive. This distinction matters immensely. Because when support becomes control or when a guide centers their expertise over your experience, then you just gave your agency away. And your agency attached and alive is the whole point.
I do not tell you what you are supposed to want. I can, however, help you figure out what you do want.
I do not impose meaning on your death. I help you clarify the meaning that already exists for you. The breadth of your imagination is something you have been creating this entire existence.
I do not use urgency as a tool to move you faster than your body wants to go. I respect that your pace is the exact right pace.
You are not hiring someone to take over your death. You are hiring someone to support you in shaping it yourself.
How to Recognize Good Support
Here are some markers toward what good death support feels like:
Your shoulders drop during conversations. Your breath deepens. You leave feeling steadier, not more overwhelmed. Questions are welcomed, not rushed past. A solid ‘No’ or an ‘I do not know yet’ are both complete answers. Slowness is where wisdom catches air, not in the static of resistance. You feel met as a person, not managed as a task.
That is the benchmark.
If you feel rushed or pressured or like you are supposed to be further along than you are, fear not!, that is just information coming through exactly how it is supposed to. That is your nervous system relaying messages to you this is not the right support. Listen to it.
What I Am Offering Instead
I am not here to tell you how to die. I am here, to witness you, as you figure that out for yourself. I bring some structure, space, and steadiness. You bring the knowing of your own life, your own values, your own needs. Then, together, we build something that feels true to you. Not true to my framework. Not true to some external standard of what a ‘good death’ is supposed to look like.
I witness what is innate to you.
That is tender authority, and it is the only kind of death support worth having.
