Transcript

Hi, I'm April Porter. I'm the host of Living Matters podcast, and I am a functional nutritional therapy practitioner, a quantum human design specialist, a grief and life coach, and a death doula. And my work has led me to have a lot of different experiences with a lot of different people. I have a lot of knowledge to share, and I just thought, Why not make a podcast where I can share this information freely and engage with you all?

So I don't know what the future of this podcast holds. I just have some ideas of information I wanna share. I have some ideas of some guests that I'd like to bring in if possible, and we'll just see where this thing goes. I would love to hear your feedback. I'd love to hear what you want to hear more about what you're enjoying.

What you don't like even. Obviously I don't wanna make stuff that nobody wants, right? But if there's something that's inspiring you or if there's something that I, , can share and offer more support around, please let me know. Okay. So let's give you a little bit of history.

I was a medical assistant for about 10 years. I stayed home with my kids for a while. I trained to be a nutritional therapy practitioner. I did that for about six or seven years. Then what I realized was that the changes that people wanted to make, you know, the biggest thing wasn't that they didn't know what to eat.

The biggest thing wasn't that they didn't have enough information. The biggest thing was that. Their mindset was blocking them. And so what I realized over that time was that I could give them all of the information. I could tell them all of the things that they should do, all of the things that they shouldn't do to achieve the goals that they want, but people had a hard time sticking with it.

And so I realized that I needed more training. I needed to help people understand why they behaved the way that they did and how to. Freed themselves from the limiting stories that were keeping them from the result that they desired. So I went back to school, I became a life coach, and I did that for a while.

And in the background I was also working with this thing called human design. I mostly was using it for myself. I was using it along with some of my clients who were open to the information, but it wasn't something I was publicly putting out there. I was just kind of quietly doing it in the background.

And what I learned was that. Human design shows us so much about why we do the things that we do. And when I could understand through that lens, in addition to the life coaching lens of why people were not making the changes that they wanted to make, and even myself and my family, it was a huge dose of freedom.

And so it's something that I'm very passionate about sharing with people. After a while I. I kind of went back and forth with this idea for probably the last seven or eight years. When I first heard about a death doula, you know, what is a death doula? I heard this term and I was like, I have no idea what this is, but I feel like I need to know more about it.

And you know, my aunt was a hospice nurse for a long time and that work always fascinated me to be with the dying to. Support them on that journey. And I think that my idea of what that looked like as a hospice nurse was actually very different than, than what it is. You know, hospice nurses are bogged down with a lot of paperwork and there's a high client or patient load and you know, they don't get to spend that time, that quality time with people at the end of their life in the way that I'm sure that most of them would want to.

And that's the role that the doula has. The doula comes in and. Supports client with legacy projects, with life reviews, with care planning, with education, with just sitting with somebody with after death care, with supporting somebody who wants a green burial or who wants to have a service but isn't religious.

You know, I'm also trained as A funeral officiant as well. So there's a lot of different aspects to this that I can, and I can do and I offer. And it really depends on the person, but there's a, a deep desire for me to support people in this work. I also trained as a grief coach specifically over about three months, just because I wanted to be able to support people who were really grieving things in life.

Which means everybody, we're all grieving something in life. We are grieving things on a daily basis, whether it is a disappointment that we didn't get to, to have the day that we wanted, or if we're estranged from family, if we are going through a breakup or a divorce, if we have children who are moving out the house for the first time or the last time.

You know, there's so many things besides death that we grieve and in our society we don't really take enough time to honor those losses and those griefs and give them the attention that they deserve. Over time that builds up. And I just feel like that is a, a really important piece that I wanna offer support in the world for.

So that's a little bit about my background and what I offer and why I'm here. You know, over the course of this podcast, I'm sure you'll get to know me more. I tend to not like to create scripts and things. I kind of just like to talk. So hopefully I am saying things that are useful and they aren't too long-winded.

Usually I don't record for too long because I feel like I just wanna get to the point and get on with the day. And I assume that maybe you do too. There will be some episodes that are a little longer where I'm sharing information that requires more time to get into, but I'll try and break 'em up into smaller episodes so that you can, you know, listen to one here or there and not feel like it's gonna take you a week or three weeks to get through it.

Okay. That's all I have for now in this first episode. Just a quick introduction. If you have any questions for me, you can always reach out to me through my website or at hello@aprilporter.com and I look forward to getting to know you better.