We recently had the chance to connect with Paula Adams and have shared our conversation below.
Paula, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: What are you being called to do now, that you may have been afraid of before?
What I’m being called to do now, that I may have feared before, is to stand unapologetically at the threshold—where medicine ends and meaning begins.
I’m being called to walk with those who reject the sterile silence of hospice, not because they fear death, but because they crave autonomy, ritual, and truth. These are the patients who want more than sedation and protocol. They want to be witnessed. They want to choose.
For years, I feared that stepping outside the sanctioned systems would isolate me. That speaking openly about MAiD, self-delivery, and sacred death care would make me a target. But now, I see that my voice is not a risk—it’s a lifeline.
Through Destiny’s Door, I’m creating a space where the dying are not managed, but honored. Where grief is not pathologized, but held. I’m working with those who say “no” to hospice because they want to die awake, with agency, with ritual, and with community. I’m helping them navigate the legal labyrinth, the medical silence, and the spiritual unknown.
I’m no longer afraid to challenge the system. I’m no longer afraid to be the threshold keeper. Because this work—this radical, reverent advocacy—is not just about death. It’s about dignity. It’s about choice. It’s about love
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Paula, and I walk the threshold between life and death. I’m a death walker, caregiver, ritualist, and sacred end-of-life guide with over 30 years of experience holding space for the dying. I founded Destiny’s Door, a sanctuary-in-the-making in Southern Maine dedicated to reclaiming death as a sovereign, sacred act. My work is rooted in ancestral wisdom, ritual, and the radical belief that dying deserves the same reverence as birth.
Unlike many in the death-care field, I walk with those who don’t fit the mold—those who fear institutionalized dying, who seek autonomy outside of hospice, and who want to choose their own way home. I honor all forms of death choice: MAID, VSED, self-delivery, hospice, and the paths still being dreamed into existence. My calling is to protect the dying from outside agendas and to restore ceremony, truth, and soul to the final passage.
What makes Destiny’s Door unique is that it’s not just a place—it’s a movement. A remembering. A portal for those who want to die intentionally, spiritually, and in community. I’m currently developing educational offerings, ritual toolkits, and a podcast series called The Caregiver Series: How to Stay Alive and Survive, designed to support those who hold space for others while navigating their own sacred exhaustion.
I walk the fringe. I challenge systems. And I hold the threshold with fierce compassion and unwavering devotion. This is my service. This is my soul work. And I’m honored to share it.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
The one who saw me clearly before I could see myself was my Grams. She was a medicine woman in the truest, rawest sense—no credentials, no clinic, just an aluminum shed tucked behind her trailer in a Texas park, where people came to be healed. She cared for neighbors, wanderers, and the broken-hearted with herbs, prayers, and a knowing that ran deeper than blood. I watched her stir tinctures and stories in the same pot, never charging a dime, never asking for recognition. She simply served.
Grams lived long into my adulthood, outliving my mother, and in many ways, she became my root system when everything else fell away. She’d say things like, “You’ve got the gift, baby. You just don’t know how to wear it yet.” I didn’t understand then. I was still trying to survive, still trying to fit into a world that didn’t make space for the sacred.
But she saw it. She saw the death-walker in me before I ever held vigil. She saw the ritualist before I ever built an altar. She saw the healer before I ever knew what healing meant. Her shed was my first sanctuary. Her hands, my first initiation. And now, everything I do—every chant, every ceremony, every soul I walk home—is braided with her legacy.
She didn’t just see me. She named me. And I’m still living into that name.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering has taught me what success never could.
It showed me how to sit in the fire and not be consumed. It carved me open in places success only ever skimmed. Through loss, exhaustion, and the sacred ache of caregiving, I learned how to listen to silence, how to hold grief without rushing to fix it, how to honor the raw truth that healing isn’t always about feeling better—sometimes it’s about feeling everything.
Suffering taught me how to walk beside the dying because I’ve survived my own deaths. It gave me discernment, humility, and a kind of soul wisdom that can’t be taught—only earned. It stripped away illusion and left me with what’s real: breath, ritual, presence.
Success may open doors, but suffering built my sanctuary. Destiny’s Door was born from that place. Every chant, every ceremony, every offering I create is rooted in what suffering revealed to me: that there is beauty in the breaking, and power in the way we rise from it.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
One important truth I hold—one that often stirs discomfort or disagreement—is this:
Not every death needs to be saved. Some are meant to be claimed.
In the world of caregiving and medicine, there’s a relentless push to preserve life at all costs. But as a deathwalker, I’ve witnessed the sacred clarity that comes when someone chooses to die on their own terms. Whether through MAID, VSED, or simply refusing further intervention, there is power in saying, “This is enough. I am ready.”
Many people struggle with that truth. They see death as failure, as something to resist, delay, or sanitize. But I see it as a rite of passage—one that can be intentional, beautiful, and sovereign. I believe the dying deserve autonomy, not just comfort. They deserve ceremony, not just sedation. And they deserve to be witnessed, not managed.
This truth challenges institutions, families, and even fellow caregivers. But I stand by it. Because I’ve held the hands of those who died with dignity, and I’ve seen the difference it makes when death is not feared—but honored.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
That I didn’t just help people die—I helped them reclaim their death as sacred. That I stood beside the ones the world forgot, the ones who didn’t fit the mold, and I said, “You belong. Your way home matters.” I hope they say I challenged systems with grace and grit, that I built Destiny’s Door not as a brand, but as a sanctuary for truth-telling, ritual, and radical autonomy.
I want them to remember that I held space when no one else would. That I sang to the dying, built altars from scraps, and turned silence into ceremony. That I taught caregivers how to survive their own sacred exhaustion. That I didn’t flinch in the face of grief, but leaned in—because I knew that love lives there too.
And I hope they say I left behind more than a legacy—I left behind a remembering. A way of being. A path for others to walk when the world feels too loud and the soul needs a place to land.
That would be enough. That would be everything.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://deathwalkerpaula.godaddysites.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deathwalkerpaula/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paula.adams2
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@deathwalkerpaula
