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Life will teach you more than a doula training…

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about my doula training/ask for recommendations and my two cents in the past. Alas…

Things I wish doula training included… that it can’t. In a 3-4 day training. I don’t think it’s a doula trainings responsibility to fill all the gaps… here’s what I would’ve loved a bit more awareness on and what I’ve learnt and cultivated through life, as my teacher since my doula training 3 year ago.

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Your capacity to be present

Your capacity to be with discomfort

Your capacity to be with immense beauty and unfathomable grief

You can’t save someone from anything. Not themselves, their karmic path or the systems.

Death, how death happens (just like life happens), in homes, hospitals, it’s another valid part of birth, it’s just as sacred as the births where babies live. My doula training didn’t speak to the reality of this.

Don’t ignore the tough conversations.

Your capacity to be in relationship and consciously communicate with clients. Communication is one of those life long learnings.

That it’s challenging to juggle surviving (working, paying bills, caring for yourself) whilst also being on call or in service to the spirit of birth, and where birth can call you too sometimes. I also don’t think we should be doing this work or any service work for that matter from a place of survival. Take care of you first.

Answer the call to rest often.

Let nature really hold you, go coregulate with nature often.

You need a web of resource and support, people to turn to, community, kindred sisters to debrief with, to hold you while you hold others

Why I titled this “life will teach you more than a doula training” is because life will offer you more in the daily, weekly, evolutionary experiences. Because my life has been my greatest preparation for being with birth and death, and my life is my birthwork training. Because often the skills required to be with the rites of conception, birth and death can’t be taught quickly, and are slowly learnt through lots of rupture and rapture. It’s in the way you are present with yourself and your body. It’s in the way you have compassion for yourself and your loves. It’s in the way you touch everything. In the way you relate with joy and grief. It’s in your relationship with your own blood, sweat, tears, vomit and shit. It’s in your ability to meet life and the needs of the time. It’s in the way you communicate with your lover. In the way you make love and orgasm. It’s in your connection to nature and your psyche. It’s in your ability to observe, discern and act. It’s in your ever evolving relationship with your birth imprint, how you birth everything, your relationship with death and dying. Your projections and judgements, your biases and dogma. It’s in all the places you go for awareness, all the conversations you have, the books your read, the food you feed yourself. That’s what makes you a birthworker. It’s not a piece of paper or doing a 4 day course. It’s you as a whole, not you as a fragment. No one can bestow to title of doula or birthworker upon you. These are archetypes, and titles claimed and restored within us, chosen by us.

If your calling is to go do a doula training, trust your body and your intuition and go do that. I’m writing this for a past version of me that thought life was different. I’m writing this for the naive maiden version of me who thought it be easy, and straightforward. God bless her. I was still unlearning the linear nature of school, uni, to job. My life hasn’t been anything like that (and thank God/Nature for that). I love the unconventionality of my path and all the teachers I’ve sat with and places I’ve gone to learn.