KAREN SHELDHAL

Karen Helm Sheldahl, Anam Cara ~ End of Life Doula

The Metolius Basin in Central Oregon is home to Karen where she lives with her spouse and raised 3 children. Karen served as Honorable Postmaster of Camp Sherman (1999-2013) and represented Oregon Postmasters at the Portland District and in Washington D.C. She is an endurance-walker, cross-country skier and a quilter.

During her early education and while surrounded by a large extended-family, she cultivated an aptitude for faith and service. One salient event as a life-long learner, was attending a 10-day silent retreat. This advanced her contemplative nature through learning Centering Prayer, as promoted by Fr. Thomas Keating. She was later drawn to the Sacred Art of Living Center, Bend, Oregon, where she completed an intensive 2-year program focused on the art of supporting life and death. She is a 2015 graduate of the Anam Cara Project, and completed her End of Life Doula training with The Peaceful Presence Project in their first cohort in 2021.

Karen believes it takes an act of courage to have deeper conversations about the sacred space between living and dying. As Anam Cara~ End of Life Doula, she places a great importance on generating conversations upstream of major life events, such as: What are the practical needs to be considered to put affairs in order? Also encouraging healing conversations that offer gratitude, forgiveness and love. And, if they are open, conversations like,“What do you think happens to the Essence of your Being?”

Karen understands there are those of all faith-practices and those with no faith-practice. She has competently navigated End of Life with an atheist, an agnostic, a Buddhist, and her father, a Catholic.