This post describes my recent coming-out as a Sacred Deathcare practitioner.
I’m coming out of the closet about the Sacred Deathcare skills I have used and have kept hidden for years. I’ve been afraid that talking about them openly would sound scary or make people think I’m weird (or weirder than before)!
But I’ve been doing Sacred Deathcare work for decades, alongside my Sacred Self-Healing work. In this post, I’m naming Sacred Deathcare as my calling and claiming it as my work.
Table of Contents
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Who is Betsy Leighton?
I’m a writer, blogger, and healer dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with their innate peace and wholeness by healing nervous system dysregulation. My personal experience with chronic illness called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) shapes my work, and my content offers tools to empower those with chronic illness to improve their well-being and take charge of their health.
I created the Sacred Self-Healing Method and am a trained and certified Safe and Sound Protocol provider, an author, blogger, and A Course in Miracles Teacher. I hold a Master of Divinity in Spiritual Counseling and am a trained spiritual mentor, with certificates in sound healing, aromatherapy, nutrition, and Sacred Deathcare. I offer a self-study certificate program in the Sacred Self-Healing Method, provide spiritual counseling and coaching, courses, and supported subscriptions for the Safe and Sound Protocol.
What is MCAS?
Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) is a chronic condition that affects all organ systems. It can cause severe, disabling symptoms every day, including potentially fatal anaphylaxis. MCAS often occurs with other chronic conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Managing MCAS is challenging because many healthcare providers are unaware of it, and diagnostic tests can be unreliable. Treatments include antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers, as well as avoiding triggers. Check out this post on managing MCAS.
Intention
Sacred Self-Healing relies on intention and frequency. Intention directs frequency to bring about healing. The universal formula for healing is:
Intention + Frequency = Healing.
In this expression, “frequency” refers to the specific healing modality being applied. Setting an intention is particularly beneficial when utilizing self-healing methods such as frequency and forgiveness. This post covers more information on the power of intention.
Beneficial Frequency
Beneficial frequency refers to natural vibrations that synchronize biological and Earth systems, to support overall harmony. For instance, visible red and blue light from the sun are beneficial frequencies because they regulate circadian rhythms. Likewise, Earth’s Schumann resonance is a naturally occurring frequency that aligns internal and external rhythms for health. This post discusses beneficial frequency in more depth.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness, like love, is seen as a high-frequency energetic state connected to compassion and gratitude. In contrast, emotions such as resentment and anger are thought to have lower frequencies, constricting rather than elevating well-being. Forgiveness helps elevate energy, promote emotional healing, and support physiological balance. Science hasn’t measured the frequency of forgiveness, but studies show that forgiveness can improve heart and brain patterns and help the body work more smoothly. Forgiveness brings balance, healing, and peace—both emotionally and physically. This post delves deeper into forgiveness.
The epiphany
A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for an in-person Sacred Deathcare workshop with my mentor, Sarah Kerr, in Calgary, Canada. I was telling my husband about it, and he asked me if I knew anyone who was already using the skills offered in the workshop, to understand whether I thought it would be worthwhile to take.
As I opened my mouth to reply, I realized my husband knew I’d taken a lot of classes on death and dying. He knew I’d been a hospice volunteer, facilitated funerals, studied to be a hospice chaplain, and done spiritual counseling and ritual. But he didn’t think I had helped souls to cross the veil.
In that moment, it hit me that I’ve been doing Sacred Deathcare skills and practices for a very long time. For at least 12 years, I’d helped hundreds, if not thousands, of souls to cross over to the other side and find their way to the light. I’d helped souls who were stuck here in energetic entanglements to get untangled and free. And I’d even worked with dark energies, Karmic energies, and unprocessed human energies, helping transform them into peace. But for whatever reason, I had never shared the details with my husband.
Maybe I had held back these details about my work due to the generational trauma from centuries of people like me being persecuted for having Sacred Deathcare skills. Perhaps I thought my husband would be uncomfortable talking about it.
I often underestimate my husband, and he was surprisingly chill about this conversation. I realized my discomfort had all been in my mind. I’d been holding myself back from sharing my skills and gifts for so long, thinking that something bad would happen if I “came out”. But once I let it out, I felt a massive sense of relief.
I explained to my husband that I already had many of the skills I would learn in the workshop. And while I was speaking, I realized I wanted to take the seminar for reasons other than the ones I’d given initially. I want to connect with other Sacred Deathcare practitioners and talk about the stuff we do as if it is normal. I want to feel myself surrounded by my peers and take in that my work is real, valid, and valued. I want to experience in-person Sacred Deathcare classes (since I’ve taken all of them remotely so far). Taking the class feels like a way to claim Sacred Deathcare as my real work.
What now?
So, I’m publicly outing myself as a Sacred Deathcare practitioner, and it feels pretty good.
Now that I’m not using so much mental space and energy to hold myself back from sharing my calling in life with the world, I’m experiencing a big expansion moment, sometimes called spiritualing upleveling. And that feels amazing!
I’ve got big plans coursing through my mind at warp speed.
I’ve created a new online self-study class on Preparing for a Good Death. And I’ve got ideas for more classes.
I’ve reached out to other local Sacred Deathcare practitioners, and we are working on ways to support each other.
I’m using the phrase “Sacred Deathcare” more in conversation and sharing that it’s my life’s work.
I’m attending events sponsored by organizations that support Sacred Deathcare, and finding my place in the local and national networks.
And I put Sacred Deathcare on the menu bar of my website, moving it from a hidden sub-menu to the front and center.
What is Sacred Deathcare?
Sacred Deathcare is a holistic, spiritually centered approach to the end-of-life journey. It incorporates practices and rituals that honor and support the dying person, their loved ones, and the deceased. It recognizes the importance of addressing the emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs of individuals facing death and loss, alongside their physical well-being.
While doctors, nurses, and hospice providers attend to the physical needs of the body — for medical interventions, comfort, pain medicine, and palliative care — Sacred Deathcare providers, sometimes called death doulas, attend to the needs of the person’s soul.
As my mentor, Sarah Kerr, teaches, the principles of Sacred Deathcare emphasize community connection, cooperation with archetypal forces, and the creation of healing rituals to facilitate a more profound and healing experience for both the living and the dead. The approach recognizes the importance of integrating the soul’s journey into end-of-life care and offers education and support to the dying and their families.
Sacred Deathcare providers can assist with:
- Preparing for your own death
- Preparing for a death in the family
- Preparing for and processing pet death (especially for children)
- Complex family dynamics around death or loss
- Unresolved deaths from the past
- Pregnancy loss (abortion, miscarriage, etc.)
- Life losses that feel like a death, even if nobody has died
- Integrating non-ordinary or mystical experiences
- Any other deathly situation where the healing energy is stuck
Intention
The Sacred Self-Healing Method relies on the power of intention.
Intentions are more than goals; they are your co-creative participation in your life path and healing. By setting an intention, you add your desire to be a partner in your destiny, in combination with the seen and unseen forces at work in the Universe. Whether you are setting an intention for a successful root canal, a great new job, or a business meeting to go well, the act of putting forethought into the outcome of the process can be a powerful tool.
Intention is the driving force behind any energy healing modality, from Reiki to sound healing to prayer.
The universal equation for healing is:
Intention + Frequency = Healing
The “frequency” part of the equation is whatever healing modality is being used.
Intention can be used for health and healing, job searches, fitness, relationships, and pretty much everything.
This post has more information on the power of intention.
The bucket theory
The bucket theory simplifies understanding symptom reactions with MCAS. Imagine your body as an empty bucket you don’t want to overflow. Reactions to various stimuli fill the histamine bucket at different rates, forming the total histamine level (how full your bucket is). More histamine means more symptoms. By managing triggers, reducing exposures, and taking medications and supplements, you can control your bucket’s level.
Know your typical symptom progression
Understanding your symptom progression during a flare is key to developing your rescue plan. This post discusses how to recognize symptom progression so you can be prepared to address them.
Get my free ebook, symptom log, and meal plan!
Want a tool to easily track your symptoms?
Check out these circadian health tools!
I’m an affiliate with Bon Charge, a company that makes tools for circadian health, and you can receive 15% off your order with my coupon code BETSYL.
Bon Charge offers tools such as yellow– and red-tone blue-blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, PEMF mats, infrared saunas, and EMF-blocking products.
Sign up for the SSP!
I’ve found the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to be the most helpful bottom-up healing strategy if your nervous system has been overloaded with toxic exposures, including mold or non-native EMFs, chronic infections, concussions, stress, or trauma. The SSP is a passive listening therapy based on Polyvagal Theory that helps heal nervous system dysregulation. Many people with MCAS and other chronic conditions have nervous system dysregulation stemming from infections, toxic exposures, concussions, and trauma. The SSP is an easy-to-use app that lets you listen to specially filtered music for 30 minutes each day as part of a 5-hour cycle. Studies show the SSP has a profound effect on mental health and chronic conditions. Here’s a short podcast describing the Safe and Sound Protocol.
You can sign up for the SSP here!
Heal your mind!
While the SSP is a bottom-up, somatic therapy for healing the nervous system, the Sacred Self-Healing Method I offer is a top-down nervous system-healing modality that focuses on cognition, attention, perception, and emotion, using the mind’s higher functions. The SSP and the Sacred Self-Healing Method complement each other and together produce lasting results. Here’s a short podcast on my self-healing practice.
I provide one-on-one in-person and remote chronic illness and caregiver coaching, as well as Sacred Self-Healing Sessions based on the Sacred Self-Healing Method, a proven, novel co-creative healing modality detailed in my Books.
Order my books!
Here’s a short podcast highlighting my five books.
My latest book, Living In The Light: Healing with Forgiveness, Sound, and Light, is all about the tools that have been most helpful for me to heal: forgiveness, sound, through nervous system retraining using the Safe and Sound Protocol, and light, through entraining my circadian rhythm with the energy of the sun. Living In The Light is available here!
Rocks and Roots chronicles my solo backpacking journey on the Superior Hiking Trail and my efforts to overcome nervous system dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome symptoms to complete the 328-mile hike successfully.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method ebook is available here and in most ebook retailers!
The Sacred Self-Healing Workbook is available for purchase here!
Betsy’s first book, Sacred Self-Healing: Finding Peace Through Forgiveness, is available here
Companion Recordings
The companion audio recordings of chants, guided meditations, and sound healing demonstrations that accompany the Sacred Self-Healing Method are available for free on my YouTube channel here
What do you think?
I’d love to have your reply below!
Disclaimer
The preceding material does not constitute medical advice. This information is for information purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, cure, or treatment.
