I’ll never forget the first time that I held a woman’s hand as she slipped away. I was volunteering at a local hospice and had been asked to sit with her because she was constantly crying out.
Though she was young, she had no family or friends to comfort her. She had been restless and terrified.
All I could think was: ‘What would her mother do if she was here?’ So, I held her hand and told her that I would stay with her. She stopped crying and turned to look at me, and I began to sing.
A warm cloak pulled in around us and I could feel her fear begin to ebb away. She knew she was dying and that there was no turning back. Her body – and soul – knew what to do. Feeling safe with me holding her hand, she surrendered and grew calmer. Despite the pain and anxiety, there was also a feeling that all was well. And it was. She died very peacefully a few hours later.
Her death showed me how miraculous and rich a good death could be. So much so that I decided to dedicate my life to the terminally ill and, leaving my job as a health journalist, became what’s known as a Soul Midwife, someone who offers love, compassion and practical help in the final weeks, days and minutes of someone’s life.
Over the past 25 years I have sat at the deathbeds of hundreds of people, and I have come to a profound understanding of what really happens when you die, both physically and spiritually.
Also known as death doulas, Soul Midwives are today frequently found working alongside doctors and nurses in salaried roles within hospitals, hospices and care homes, as well as supporting people in their own homes.
In 2017, I was even named End of Life Care Champion by the UK’s National Council for Palliative Care.
Felicity Warner is a Soul Midwife, someone who offers love, compassion and practical help in the final weeks, days and minutes of someone’s life
Yet the work of a Soul Midwife is far from clinical. As Soul Midwives, we marvel at the mysteries of the dying hour and have deep insights into them. We know that as we watch, wait and listen, miracles sometimes do happen.
Soul Midwives are very often drawn to the work they do because they are often highly sensitive people who feel the emotions of others to an extraordinary extent.
That was certainly the case for me. As a child, I dreaded meeting new people not because I was shy – far from it – but because I was hyper-aware of what they felt. If someone held my hand or sat me on their knee, I could sense their energy and ‘read’ their thoughts. I could also smell if they were ill, even if the illness hadn’t manifested yet.
I remember hearing an aunt talking about the cruise of a lifetime she was going on in a few months’ time and knowing that she’d have a heart attack. She died on the ship at Southampton, only half an hour after boarding.
Staying with school friends was impossible. While everyone in the house slept, I’d see things hovering in the shadows and have innocent conversations with the family’s ‘dead’ relatives (at the time, I didn’t realise that they were dead).
Gradually I learned to disguise my peculiarities. I was bright and outgoing and became a very skilled chameleon.
But in my mid-forties, I experienced a huge power surge in my abilities. I woke up one morning and felt as if I had been completely rewired.
It was as if the volume dials on all my senses had been turned to full. Everything danced and pulsed with light and for the first time, I began to see auras – the energy fields that surround all living things – around people.
It fed directly into my work as a Soul Midwife, allowing me to better sense the approach of death, feel the departure of spirits in the moment of leaving, and even help trapped spirits escape to the light.
Today, in the days and hours before someone’s death, I can often detect changes in their aura.
An aura is made up of two parts: the etheric, which is next to the skin and looks like a thin band of smoky grey film, and the energetic, which extends like a colourful, swirling plume all around the body for about 40cm (16 inches).
With old age, or as the dying person becomes weaker, the etheric aura begins to fade until eventually it becomes almost undetectable. However, a couple of days prior to death it begins a rapid transformation, becoming softer and fuller.
The colours of the energetic aura also begin to fade during the weeks before death, until there is only a faint glow left, giving the aura a pale and hazy appearance.
As with the etheric aura, however, the energetic aura expands just prior to death, and this often has the effect of temporarily revitalising the dying person. Observing auras can also be a useful way of gauging how much time a dying person is spending out of their body in preparation for finally leaving. When someone is ‘out of body’, the aura virtually disappears, and at this point, you know that the end is near.
In the years after that first young woman’s death, I began to see a pattern in the deaths around me. I could see that on a very primal level there was a common experience of dying that was somehow being missed or overlooked in the busy medical context.
So today I believe that dying consists of three distinct psycho-spiritual phases:
‘Today, in the days and hours before someone’s death, I can often detect changes in their aura,’ says Felicity
‘Those who have near-death experiences often recall a tunnel of light where they are greeted by loved ones or spiritual beings and are enveloped in the purest energy of love,’ Felicity Warner writes
Chaos: At the start, following a diagnosis, when death is imminent, all safe boundaries are dissolved and there is often a feeling of intense emotional chaos.
Surrender: After a period of fighting the illness, there comes a point of surrendering and going with the flow.
Transcendence: A period – sometimes very brief, perhaps only during the last moments – of bliss and ecstasy as transition occurs.
Those who have had near-death experiences often recall experiencing the same sensations: a chill spreading up through the body, a sensation of rocking backwards and forwards, disorientation, an altered sense of time, a diminishing of the senses, starting with touch and followed by taste and smell, then sight and hearing and loud buzzing noises.
As they move out of the body, they are able to look down and see their empty shell.
They then enter a tunnel of light where they are greeted by loved ones or spiritual beings and are enveloped in the purest energy of love.
Towards the end, though the physical senses are fading, the dying may become super-sensitive to things we cannot perceive.
They may become aware of worlds beyond this one. They often experience hallucinations and visits from deceased loved ones. One woman I worked with, Catherine, had been in the hospice for several weeks, hardly speaking. Yet when I went in to see her, she told me that her (deceased) parents and sister (a twin who had died at birth) were with her in the room.
She carried on a detailed conversation with them while I was there. She died two days later, at peace in the knowledge that she was joining her loved ones.
Soon after clinical death, when the heart has stopped beating and the last breath has been taken, the final stage, the separation of the spirit and the soul, will take place. Soul Midwives call this ‘the unbinding’.
To many people, the spirit and soul are one and the same thing. However, Soul Midwives tend to see a distinction between the two.
The spirit is the transitory and ego-based aspect of our personality, relating to who we have been in this lifetime. It drives us on throughout our lives, in an upwards, soaring, expansive and spiralling motion. It finally disperses and vanishes at the point of death or soon after.
The soul meanwhile is the eternal template, a map of everything we are and have the potential to be. Its nature is deep, solemn and immortal. I know this sounds woo-woo but for me, it is an understanding based on decades of study.
Over the years I have spoken to many of those who deal with the dying – doctors, nurses, nuns, priests, healers and celebrants.
The separation of spirit and soul is a splitting of two different energies – which can be intuited at the moment of death. For those like me who are thoroughly experienced in these extraordinary last moments, sometimes it is even seen as the separation of a thin silver cord, which spins from a centre point in the body in two opposite directions.
The spinning motion thins the cord, which then dissolves. Sometimes I can see the soul or spirit energy leave the body before clinical death has been recorded.
Even though the person’s heart is still beating and they are continuing to breathe, you can feel them shift and then leave.
Indeed, the shift of energy can be very dramatic – an energy explosion creating shock waves around the room. Often that explosion is then followed by a vacuum-like force, which sucks the energy from the room, including the warmth. A sudden chill can appear and the area around the dead person can feel very cold.
Soul Midwives often feel the spirit of the person around them for some time after the death. It can be hours or days, but usually it takes about three days for an energy signature to disperse. If you experience a sense of your loved one after they’ve ‘gone’, continue to talk to them and reassure them until that sense disperses.
Many families who are newly grieving receive signs – sometimes subtle, sometimes not – that their loved ones are still present. Birds are a common motif, but so too are butterflies and animals acting strangely in general.
I have lost count of how many stories I have heard about birds flying into the house and staying around for a few days following a death, or a cat arriving, or a pet behaving differently.
I once heard of an out-of-season butterfly that seemed to be everywhere, fluttering around the supper table and even appearing at the funeral.
The strangest story I heard was the appearance on a bedroom wall of a message written in lipstick after the sudden death of a young husband. It simply said: ‘I love you.’
Occasionally, a person’s energy won’t go at all. As Soul Midwives, we sometimes have to help someone who has become ‘trapped’ and earthbound move towards the light and leave.
There are various reasons for an ‘energy body’ to linger when a physical one has died, including guilt, fear, unfinished business or not enough spiritual energy to move to higher planes.
The excessive grief of loved ones left behind, and their inability to let go, can also cause a spirit to become earthbound.
Sometimes spirits don’t even know they are dead.
When we work with earthbound spirits, we spend time talking to them first. Some spirits need to be counselled to help them overcome a fear of annihilation, which is often the real reason for them not moving on.
Soothing them and giving them confidence, as well as showing that there is nothing to fear, will in most cases be enough to convince them it is safe to move forward.
We offer all earthbound spirits love and compassion before asking that they be received by someone already dead who loves them and will help them towards the light.
Soul Midwives usually do this as a group, sitting ‘in circle’ together or linking up at certain times when we can focus together.
Though rare, spirits can also attach themselves to us and create problems for our own wellbeing. Common symptoms of spirit attachment include feeling restless and frustrated or as if your energy is being drained.
Or waking up in the early hours and finding it hard to get back to sleep. Sensing or seeing presences. Having sharp pinprick feelings over the legs, hands and arms. Feeling something crawling under your skin, or feeling unexplained bursts of anger, sadness or other emotions.
Some people, especially those who are very empathetic, are more susceptible to picking up stray spirits than others, and some environments have greater numbers of discarnate spirits than others too.
Hospitals, for example, tend to have larger numbers of spirits because many people die in them.
To release a spirit which has attached itself to you, breathe in their suffering, surround it with light, then breathe it out again and let it go.
Adapted from The Soul Midwives’ Handbook (Revised Edition) by Felicity Warner (HayHouse, £14.99), to be published on Tuesday. Copyright Felicity Warner 2025. To order a copy for £13.49 (offer valid to September 6; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
