The Course
Are you ready to step into the work of supporting others through grief, death, and life’s most profound transitions?
A Healing Doula Academy is a comprehensive, spiritually grounded training designed to prepare you for the real work of care, presence, and end-of-life support.
Inside this program, you will be guided through:
- Emotional and physical support techniques for grief and dying
- Somatic awareness and nervous system regulation
- Ancestral and ritual-based healing practices
- Ethical, grounded approaches to holding space
- Creating safe, supportive environments for individuals and families
This is not surface-level learning.
It is a deepening into the capacity required to sit with what most people turn away from.
What you will learn
By the end of this training, you will not only be a certified Grief & Death Doula, you will be someone who can:
- Offer steady, compassionate presence in moments of crisis
- Communicate clearly within emotionally charged environments
- Support individuals and families through the realities of grief and loss
- Stay grounded in the face of intensity, without becoming overwhelmed
- Integrate this work into your life, your community, or your existing practice
These are not just professional skills.
They are human capacities—ones that will shape how you show up in the moments that matter most.
Curriculum
- Understanding Somatic Movement
- Understanding Sacred Movement
- The Importance Of Sacred Movement And When To Apply It To Your Doula Work
- Yin Yoga with Vanessa Lherisson
- Energetic Bodywork For The Dying
- Learning About Limpias
- Sound Healing
- The Chakra System
- Breathwork Practices
- Meditation Practices
- A Self Check In
- Ancestral Veneration
- The Intersection Of Ancestral Veneration And Healing
- Creating An Altar
- Incorporating Ancestral Rituals And Ceremony
- The Wisdom of Ritual with Mangda Sengvanhpheng
- Divination Practices
- How Indigenous Cultures Recognized the Presence of Loved Ones
- Ceremony To Transition The Dead
- Shrouds
- Ceremonial Funeral Practice
- After-Death Care: Legal, Biological & Spiritual Foundations
- A Self Check In
- The Shades Of Grief
- Underdiscussed Loss Types
- The Many Ways To Die
- Calendars and The Self Care Bowl
- Conversations To Hold With Grief Clients
- Conversations To Hold With Organizations
- Facilitating Group Conversations
- 10 Soul-Centered Questions for Holding Space with Undervalued Groups
- Conversations To Hold With Dying Clients And Their People
- Caring For The Caregiver
- The Medicine of Witnessing Without Fixing
- Legacy Projects With The Dying
- What To Do When The Conversations End
- How To Know When Your Client Is Transitioning
- A Self Check In
- Examples of Case Studies
- Something To Think About
- Setting Up A Doula Practice
- The Client Intake And Assessment Process
- Designing Your Sessions
- Virtual VS. In Person
- The Circle Of Care
- The Many Ways To Doula with Pleasance Silicki
- How To Interact With Medical Staff As A Doula
- Advocacy: Speaking Up, Holding Space, and Honoring Choice
- The Messy Bits
- Boundaries And Self-Care In Doula Work
- Grief As A Liberation Practice with Tina Strawn
- Grief & Death Care is Political: A Sacred Act of Resistance
- Code Of Ethics As A Grief And Death Doula
- Legal Considerations In Grief And Death Care
- End Of Life Documents
- A Self Check In
Academy Founder and Your Guide
Sundari Malcolm is the founder of A Healing Doula Academy and has spent over 20 years working in birth, grief, and end-of-life care.
Raised between New York City, and a spiritual community, her work is shaped by both modern practice and spiritual lineage. She has taught yoga, meditation, and somatic practices globally, and has supported individuals and families through some of life’s most profound transitions.
After walking both of her parents through cancer, her relationship to grief and death is not theoretical—it is lived.
Sundari’s approach bridges:
- practical, grounded care
- somatic awareness and nervous system regulation
- ritual and ancestral healing practices
She trains students not only in what to do—but in who they must become to hold others through grief, loss, and death with steadiness and integrity. This Academy is a direct extension of her life’s work.
It is not built on trends or surface-level certification, but on years of experience sitting with grief, supporting the dying, and guiding others into this role with clarity and depth.
Inside this training, Sundari does not position herself as someone above you—but as someone who will guide you into the capacity required for this work.
Compassionate
Holistic
