'I spend my days with people who are dying. They all share these three life lessons.'

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Baci Hillyer is surrounded by death every single day. For most people, it's a life that's almost impossible to comprehend.

But for Baci, who as a teenager lost her father and brother within six months of each other, "grief-walking", as she calls it, has been her constant.

"I'm the walking example of what the aftermath of death looks like when no one is prepared," she told Mamamia.

Instead of wallowing in her pain, Baci found her calling. She works as a death advocate and end-of-life doula, a guiding light supporting individuals and their families through the dying process.

She spends much of her time in a palliative care wards, having deep, honest conversations with patients whose lives are nearing their end. While everyone's life story is unique, Baci says their final life lessons share a striking and sobering similarity.

Watch: How to deal with the loss of a loved one. Post continues below.

"Everyone seems to have the same regrets at the end of life," Baci said.

"When you're in palliative care, you have the most honest conversations with people because time is limited. You don't want to be spending time on small talk or silly things.

"What people share with me… 'Oh love, you follow your heart', 'Follow your truth', 'Don't be afraid, otherwise next minute you'll end up here'."

There are three key things that pop up time and time again. And they are a powerful warning for us all.

'I didn't spend enough time with my family.'

"I didn't spend enough time with my family," and "I worked too hard."

These are things Baci hears all too often. People reach the end of their life and realise they were living to work, not working to live.

Suddenly, they're hit with an even bigger, crushing realisation: what was the point?

"That's huge for people," Baci said.

"What was it all for? Because I'm not taking any of this with me and I didn't even get to enjoy it and see the family enjoy it."

'I wish I'd been true to myself.'

"The truth lands really hard when you're at the end of your life," Baci said.

As they stare down the final curtain, people find themselves confronted with a sobering reality: they've wasted so much time not living how they wanted to live.

"A lot of people are like, 'I wish I lived a life truer to who I was'," Baci said.

"When you're getting towards the fact that life might end, it really forces you to think, 'Hey, I've got to be more authentic or this isn't serving me.'"

It's a lesson Baci suggests we all learn sooner rather than later.

"Seek out authenticity at an earlier age," she urged.

'I lost touch with my friends.'

Losing connection with friends is another major regret.

"You've got people you've journeyed with all your life, so you journey with them and they journey you out."

Many people find themselves lonely as they approach death, with lots of time for reflection — and regret.

"There's wishing you stayed in touch. They may reach out or find them and then there's the whole missing time they could've spent together," Baci said.

If you were looking for a sign to rekindle that friendship or send that text, let this be it.

Baci Hillyer works as a death advocate and end-of-life doula. Image: Supplied.

A message for the living.

As people approach death, they each have a message for their younger self. It's usually deeply personal, but, again, Baci says they share similar themes.

"They're really about being brave, trusting your intuition… self-confidence, not worrying about what anybody thinks and having the strength to be who you are," Baci said.

"They look back at the moment something could've pivoted, and they look back with regret or relief that they did."

But the "big haunting stuff at the end of life" always comes back to one key thread: forgiveness.

"Forgiving oneself for all the things they did or didn't do, forgiving someone is massive, forgiving a situation that happened or needing to be forgiven by someone."

It's a message from the dying that Baci hopes can give us, the living, a roadmap for a life without regrets.

Baci's experience reflects common end-of-life regrets, including some of those documented in Bronnie Ware's The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Feature image: Supplied.