Niki DiGaetano shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Niki, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: Are you walking a path—or wandering?
For most of my life, I followed a well-worn path: get a degree in a practical major (marketing and graphic design), dive into a relationship with a “safe” option (someone who kept me small-minded and narrow because he was all of those things and more), secure a well-paying job in aforementioned major, get an apartment…and on it goes.
But walking that path didn’t serve me in the end. So instead, I burned it all down and built a life I love. I trained to become a death doula six years ago and haven’t looked back.
Now, I’m taking steps to become a licensed clinical mental health counselor – specifically, a grief therapist. Despite doing non-clinical grief work for the last few years, this is unknown territory: wandering, meandering, sidling close to my next right step, and leaning into what feels like a deep “yes” in my soul.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Niki, a death doula currently specializing in grief support and legacy work. I came to this work after a career and existential crisis left me reeling in the wake of everything I thought I knew; I had done everything I was told to do, and I still wasn’t happy. In fact, I was dangerously close to falling back into the clinical depression that swallowed much of my teenage and early twenties years.
In an effort to experiment with my life, I took up volunteering with my local hospice. I sat beside patients in various stages of dying and fell in love with the work: companioning, bearing witness, and chatting with people who simply wanted to be seen.
I became a death doula (a guide for all things end-of-life) in 2019 and began niching down into grief work in 2023. Ever a writer and a lover of stories, I found fulfillment in providing my clients with the ability to hear their stories – many of which were fraught with searing pain.
This is the work I do today while navigating my day job as a graphic designer – all while stepping into grad school to study clinical mental health counseling.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
My compulsion to seize control of everything once kept me safe. But in 2022, I was stripped of all control when I became abruptly homeless, lost my partner, and decided to embark on a three-month hike of the Appalachian Trail. Those 900 miles taught me that I could be powerful and strong – while still letting go of that deeply-coveted control.
Even now as I sit in a time of in-between, I’ve learned I can relax into the unknown. I’ve learned I don’t need to have all the answers: that I can simply Be while becoming whatever is next.
What’s something you changed your mind about after failing hard?
My first grief session supporting a new client ended terribly: I was essentially fired on the spot. After that fiasco, I decided I didn’t have what it took to offer griefwork. I doubted myself, my training, and my capacity; I thought it had been for nothing. Then I talked it over with several mentors in the death care profession, and they helped me realize I had not-so-subtly sabotaged the session; I was so convinced I was a fraud that my imposter syndrome was leaking out of every pore.
That was several years ago. Now, I support clients walking through a variety of grief and loss. And I love it so much that I decided to pursue clinical grief counseling. I sometimes look back at how close I came to stepping away from doula work, from grief work, from this work of my soul. And I am so, so, glad I changed my mind. I learned. I continued. I never regretted it for a moment.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
That could be a very long list! But for now, suffice to say the project that’s captured my attention these days is my book in progress. This manuscript weaves together two parallel stories – my 900 mile hike alongside how I came to be a death doula several years prior.
They may seem like completely separate narratives, but their connective thread is this: they both saved my life, albeit in differing ways. The book combines the insights I’ve gleaned from my work as a death doula who bears witness to grief, loss, and trauma with the wisdom of the woods – and everything they hold for how we might lean deeply into our numbered days.
I suppose this project is many things – memoir, experience, musing – but above all, it’s an invitation: to learn how to love being alive, penned by someone who once wanted nothing more than to die.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I think I’m finally doing work that my soul was born to do. As a trained death doula who specializes in grief work, I meet with clients 1:1 virtually (or locally, if you’re in Salt Lake City!) across the country, providing a space for them to process their loss and grief in a safe, supportive environment. My role is not to fix, but to simply offer compassion, love, and to bear witness – which is often the biggest thing grievers need. I love weaving the neuroscience of grief into my sessions as well; providing this crucial grief education to my clients helps normalize and validate their experience in a world that often pressures them to “get over” their loss.
While I always mention the caveat that I am not a clinical therapist, in a few years, that disclaimer will no longer apply. A few months ago, I applied for several clinical mental health counseling master’s programs. My end goal is to becopme a licensed grief therapist. Although I won’t hear back from all the universities for a few more months, I’m thrilled to have received early acceptance into a handful of programs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://numbered-days.com
- Instagram: @numbereddays.doula
- Other: nikielle.substack.com (Newsletter)
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