Welcome to Meditative Heartbeat Therapy
A Contemplative Practice for Presence, Rhythm, and Care at End of Life
Meditative Heartbeat Therapy (MHbT) is a contemplative, integrative spiritual practice designed to support presence, meaning, and peace at the end of life.
Rooted in bedside hospice and palliative care, MHbT uses intentional awareness of the heartbeat to accompany patients, families, and caregivers through life’s final transition, especially when words, cognition, and conventional interventions are no longer sufficient.
In the quiet spaces between heartbeats and breath — where language dissolves and only presence remains — Meditative Heartbeat Therapy was born.
It did not emerge from textbooks or theories, but from the lived experience of sitting with the dying: listening not only to stories, but to silence. To the body. To the final rhythm of life: the heartbeat.
The Practice
MHbT is a gentle spiritual practice created by Chaplain Daniel DeLoma. It uses the sound and sensation of the heartbeat to anchor patients, families, and caregivers in deep presence during life’s most profound transitions.
It is especially suited for the final 72 hours of life, when the nearness of death calls for accompaniment that is both reverent and real.
Through a simple blend of breath awareness, recorded heartbeat sounds, flame-gazing, and contemplative stillness, MHbT opens a space for peace, meaning, and spiritual connection — particularly when verbal or cognitive approaches fall away.
The Philosophy
Meditative Heartbeat Therapy does not replace medical care. It complements and deepens it by attending to dimensions of the human experience that cannot be measured, yet profoundly matter at the end of life.
Behind every clinical sign and symptom is a person preparing to cross a threshold. Dying is not only a physiological process, but a sacred unfolding that calls for tenderness, ritual, and presence. MHbT invites caregivers to meet this moment not with urgency or control, but with attentiveness and reverence.
To accompany another through dying is to hold space for mystery. It asks us to slow down and listen not only for what can be treated, but for what can be felt: the subtle shift in breath, the quiet settling of the body, the deepening stillness that signals a return toward source. In this work, the caregiver becomes both witness and companion, offering presence rather than remedy, attention rather than intervention.
MHbT honors dying as a relational and spiritual passage. It affirms that even as the body weakens, meaning remains accessible. Through rhythm, stillness, and shared presence, the final moments of life can become a time of connection, coherence, and peace.
In this work:
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The body is sacred. It is the vessel through which love, memory, and meaning have moved.
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The heart is a guide. Its rhythm reminds us that life is not extinguished, but transformed.
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Death is a threshold deserving of reverence.
To accompany another across that threshold is to hear, within each fading pulse, the echo of something eternal — a rhythm that began long before the first heartbeat and continues long after the last.
Begin Listening
Every heart carries its own rhythm of grace. To bring Meditative Heartbeat Therapy to your hospice team, palliative care team, long-term care facility, CPE program, or simply to learn more, reach out and begin the conversation. Use the buttons below to explore.