“We are defining a new, and also very old, kind of care: watching, cultivating and fostering the force of life itself. It is a somatic therapy because Doulas are always aware of the body and using tools to help “Life” (and energy) move through it.”
Becoming a “Whole Life Doula”
…And Being on the “Alien Landscape” with Someone.
By Jeanne Denney
Two weeks ago something really important happened in SoULL, and maybe (who knows) the world. We started our first cohort of students in our third (and last) year of training. They will be our first graduates. They will become what we are calling Whole Life Doulas. It has taken a long time to get here, so I can’t tell you how gratifying it has felt to start. As far as I know, we are the first folks to use the term Doula for Whole Life, and mean really…ALL of it. So I want to explain a little about what we are doing. Why we are doing it may come in another blog. But I am slowly putting this together, and I would like to take you with me.
Back in 2014 when I was teaching students in the Art of Dying about presence, I created a visualization about the power of presence with hospice patients. I had witnessed a lot of different ways of “being with” patients through their journeys through illness, some better than others. I wanted my students to sense what our medical system feels like when people are vulnerable and overwhelmed, what it is like to be dropped during the vulnerable meeting with mortality. In our culture, it usually feels like…a very alien, lonely landscape. I wanted them to feel into what helps there.
What I did not realize then was that this exploration would have, nested within it, almost all of the processes we are learning now in SoULL to be what we are calling a “Whole Life Doula.” It could not be a more complete picture of how we are trying to help students learn to be with someone on their “alien landscape,” and the various ways of helping.
There are many, many, many new and alien landscapes in a human life. These are places we feel lost, confused, disoriented, alone, and may not know the language or customs. To come of age, to become a parent, to find your first job or overcome a heartbreak, to lose a spouse, to retire after many years of feeling you knew exactly who you were, to move to a new town, to have an empty nest after 25 years of parenting, to be betrayed, to get a bad diagnosis, to fail out of school, to lose a limb, your house or your youthful beauty. To even be overwhelmed by the demands of success! The list of unannounced changes we encounter in the changes of human life is endless. They all come with that familiar feeling of disorientation.
We start with the idea that human beings in moments of great change and disorientation look for, and need, companionship. A companion is not someone who is necessarily more oriented or aware than they are, but they are at least a person who is “in it” with them, and with whom they exchange energy, ideas, resources and experiences. Skillful “helping” and companioning certainly starts with presence. We have been exploring what that word means in some detail.
Despite the variety of changes we can encounter in life, there are definitely themes and patterns we can learn to recognize in life change, just as in birth and death. I believe that this is because our ever changing human bodies have very similar organic and even organismic patterning (meaning they are a result of our bodies way of changing). It is really good to learn to recognize this. It helps us help.
When we add this body orientation to the terrain of change and find a map, something changes further: we can find direction to move out of freeze and confusion. We can also begin to see where one piece is with respect to another and where we are with respect to where we came from. When we add someone with experience on the terrain with us, it changes again. When we add the wisdom to see patterns, it changes again. And finally, when we add continuity of companionship, staying with another person, helping them find the meaning of their journey, it changes again.
A Doula is not a coach. That feels too goal oriented and egoic. A Doula is not a psychotherapist. Those words do not hold the deep essence of the “ordinariness” in doula care. We are defining a new, and also very old, kind of care: watching, cultivating and fostering the force of life itself. It is a somatic therapy because Doulas are always aware of the body and using tools to help “Life” move through it. Why should this approach be confined only to birth and death, when we are birthing and dying all of the time?
So today I want to just share 6 pillars of Whole Life Doula Care we are working with. It is where we are starting to define this care. Here they are:
Presence,
Orientation,
Know-How,
Wisdom,
Support for Making Meaning,
Continuity of Care through a process.
I would love to have your feedback. What do YOU want in a companion? Why? If we have left something out…please let us know. Because the evolution of the idea of a Whole Life Doula isn’t going to be one person’s idea. It will come from a community of people working on it organically, and together. You are invited.
Oh, and if you would like to do the “Alien Landscape” contemplation?… It is below. Enjoy imagining someone next to you. Or not.
__________
The Alien Landscape Visualization:
Imagine you are lost in an alien and threatening landscape you did not anticipate, one you have never prepared for and whose language and rules you don’t understand. It could be a jungle, a dark woods, the mountains, a dessert, a dingy at sea, space. Let your mind go to one survivalist landscape that comes to mind. Imagine that you are alone.
What kinds of things do you feel? And what do you most long for?
Now Imagine how you would feel if you were in this same situation if you encounter someone else on your path, a companion appears suddenly. Feel what that alone might mean. Consider how sensitive you are to this other person.
What are the qualities that you would most want in a companion and NOT want in this situation?
Now imagine that your companion has a map of this terrain. How does that change how you feel?
Now imagine that your companion has both a map and has had other experiences with this terrain and is not afraid. Perhaps he or she has even taken other people through it. How does this change your experience?
Now imagine that not only does the companion have a map and some experience, but he or she can read the signs of the natural landscape: the weather, animal behavior, smells, like indigenous people do. He or she knows what to eat and how to survive in a natural landscape. How does THIS change your experience?
Finally imagine that this guide has a sense (which you don’t) that this experience has a deep significance or meaning to you, something like an initiation, and is present with you, finding meaning in the task of being with you and honoring the importance of this experience to a larger self. They are not there to help you get out of it, but to get into it, as transformation of the highest level. Something that possibly your whole life has led you to. He or she may not know the meaning, but they are trained to help you find it as you work through the challenges that come.
How does having this kind of person with you change your experience? And what qualities would you want in this kind of person?
One last scenario to explore…. that you have a person with you who takes over your journey, promises to be a hero with special powers, takes charge, and then one day when the going is hardest, you are weak and you and they are not sure that you will make home or can be saved…they leave you. How do you feel? How is this different than the experience we just explored.
