...Is a question I'm occasionally asked, probably because you can't 'go to school to be a doula,' so there are many different ways of going about beginning doula work. Sometimes people think you wake up one day and decide to be a doula. Other times, people think that you go through this long, rigorous, expensive training process and then finally someday you're able to call yourself a doula. To some extent these are both very accurate, though not in the sense you'd think.
Some sort of formal training is basically required to becoming a doula, because most people want credibility and accountability from someone who is going to be supporting them. The organization I trained with is pretty centered and rooted in nonbiased support, which was super scary to me knowing I'd have to learn that. Going into training I had my own preconceptions and opinions based on the truth that I thought I had learned when I was becoming a mother myself, and to potentially be taught those didn't matter at all to people was a terrifying concept to me. To be taught that I didn't matter was all too familiar to me in my life and to be working as someone who potentially didn't matter to people was a heartbreaking thought for me and was not something I wanted to do; I wanted to matter.
But then why do people hire doulas? And then why do people continue to be doulas?
People want to be heard and respected and valued regardless of what other peoples opinions are about any of their choices and plans. They want their feelings to be validated and they want their fears to be driven out. They want to know their options and know their decisions are right for them. They want someone to go through this part of their life with them to show them where their strength is, and if I can become that for them, I am no longer being told that I don't matter by these people. If I can become what they need, I am being for them possibly the only person in their life who is not telling them what to do, but that they are right and they are valued; that their fears will be taken care of. If I can be who they need in that moment, their value does not make mine any less, but rather, we shine brighter together.
If I can become the one who sets myself aside, I will inadvertently become the one who sets myself apart. In being the one who is able to show people the love they deserve through the most raw and vulnerable time in their lives, I do matter to them. This is a heavy task, but the reward is great because if this can be done, I know it will permeate through their souls for as long as they continue to live and breathe on this earth. Love the people the way they need to be loved.
It's funny, every time I come across a new aspect of becoming a doula, I think this is just going to be the hardest part, until I do it. I think the training is going to be hard, and then I think the supporting people is going to be hard, and then I think the setting myself aside is going to be hard. Just doing the hard things makes them so much smaller, though; fear makes things so big, but action doesn't even give fear a chance. These long, rigorous tasks that come with becoming a doula are only as hard as you make them; they're just as easy as taking a step back and taking a look at the big picture. We are in people's lives for just a snapshot of their life, the most influential moments when time stands still, and then we continue the cycle with another family.
Becoming a doula is like becoming a parent in a lot of ways. It's about being needed and loved and depended upon, but it's not a burden like any of that sounds. It's about learning how things can be done and then teaching the ones who want to learn. It's about raising people up to be ones who shine in the darkness, and it's about knowing the power of the light through yourself first. It's about being called to love and knowing the Voice that calls you and cheers you on to do the hard, scary things you never thought you could do. It's about learning the truth that those hard, scary things are much smaller than you thought and it's about learning that things only seem that way until you do them. It can take a day or it can take a lifetime, but it's about opening your heart and it becomes who you are.
Becoming a doula is a birth of the spirit and yes, it was difficult, until I allowed it to happen.
