Besides a compassionate companionship Aana offers as well as a range of gentle, supportive therapeutic approaches in Palliative Care. Her intention is to create a safe, nurturing space where individuals feel seen, heard, and accompanied with presence and care.
Her offerings include:
- Reading aloud – sharing literature, poetry, or texts of personal meaning
- Guided meditation – with a focus on conscious breathing, awareness of feelings, sensations and states of mind, heart opening, cultivating joy and sympathetic joy, and expressing gratitude
- Mindfulness techniques – Navigating fear, pain, anger, resentment and confusion (through focusing on a object, clear observing, acceptance/letting go, contemplation)
- Self-Mastery – if there is still enough strength, controlling of thoughts, emotions and eventual actions (through analyses, cutting, replacement, anchoring)
- Massage – gentle foot, hand and head treatment, with or without oils
- Aroma therapy
- Music & Sound – through listening music or eventually feeling sound and rhythm on the body, inspired by Indian classical music or tailored to personal preferences
- Biographical work (life reviewing) – reflecting in dignity on one’s life journey, memories, and meaningful experiences
- Grief support – compassionate accompaniment through processes of loss, also together with family members and loved ones
- Rituals & ceremonies (by prior arrangement)
These approaches are offered in a way that is appropriate to the situation and only if desired by the individual. Where appropriate and in consultation with the persons involved, she may involve qualified professionals.
The intention of her work is to gently support wellbeeing and a deepened sense of meaning, resilience, acceptance, equanimity, gratitude and quiet joy — even in challenging phases of life. Each encounter is shaped with sensitivity, respect, and deep attentiveness to the individual’s wishes and inner process.
Palliative Care comes from the Latin word pallium, meaning “mantle” or “cloak.” It implies wrapping or covering someone with care and protection. Palliative Care therefore focuses on the relief of suffering and on supporting the best possible quality of life until death. In contrast to curative care, which aims at healing, Palliative Care aims at comfort, dignity, and holistic support.
A Palliative Care worker has two main tasks: nursing care and accompaniment. Aana is working solely in the field of accompaniment. As a companion to the dying, she offers the gift of time. She carefully listens to and seeks to understand the person’s suffering, wishes and needs. She provides a compassionate presence and, when needed, helps to arrange further professional support.
After 30 years of training in Buddhist meditation, studying many wisdom texts and learning about practices such as the Bardo (the intermediate state between death and rebirth), she has recently begun studying dying and death from a Western perspective as well. At present she is attending courses, conferences and internships and will soon begin working more formally in Palliative Care.
Aana has a strong personal and spiritual connection to the topic of dying and death. Having lived in India for an extended period of time, she developed a very natural relationship with death. There, death is not suppressed or hidden, but is part of everyday life. The family is responsible for funeral rituals, and after death, relatives pray and sing to accompany the deceased on their next journey. In Buddhism, there is a belief in rebirth, and therefore the body may remain undisturbed for five to seven days. During the dying process, prayers are offered to support the person’s karma and transition.
As a Buddhist practitioner, Aana understands dying and being born as two closely connected and deeply interrelated processes.
Aana became pregnant with her daughter after dreaming about her beforehand. She experienced this as a deeply meaningful and spiritual event, reinforcing her understanding of the subtle connection between birth, death and the continuity of life. Her own son came close to death several times, the first time immediately after birth. These experiences profoundly shaped her understanding of life’s fragility and the threshold between life and death.
Aana was also deeply and lastingly affected by being excluded from the deaths of her grandfathers. This experience left a profound impression on her and strengthened her conviction that dying should not be hidden or kept away from loved ones, but accompanied with openness, presence, and dignity. Aana also accompanied both of her grandmothers in their dying processes. With one grandmother, she felt she was able to support her inwardly and spiritually at a distance at the moment of death. The other she was able to visit regularly, offering her presence and companionship during her final phase of life.
Aana’s heart and focus lie in the spiritual dimension of dying. She is continuing her formal studies in Spiritual Care, seeking to deepen her understanding and to support individuals with presence, compassion, and attentiveness during this profound phase of life.