LOVE, PEACE AND MEANING: A CONVERSATION WITH TWO DOULAS
There are two women in my life that I know and admire who are both studying and training to become Doulas .The simple definition of a Doula is:
‘A trained companion who is not a healthcare professional and who supports another individual (the Doula's client) through a significant health-related experience. A Doula may also provide support to the client's partner, family and friends. The Doula's goal, and role, is to help the client feel safe and comfortable, complementing the role of the healthcare professionals who provide the client's medical care’. - Wikipedia
However, these two women will be working at the opposite ends of life. One is training to be a Birth Doula, supporting women and their families through their birthing experience. The other a Death Doula, supporting someone and their loved ones through the experience of dying.
Completely different life situations yet the role they play is similar in many ways. Both women are passionate about helping people feel safe and to allow them to experience their birth or death according to their personal values, beliefs and choices.
Charlotte Squires - @thelivingdoula - with her baby boy, Rupert.
Charlotte Squires has been led to her work as a Birthing Doula from her own recent experience of giving birth to her son, Rupert. However, it was her experience of cancer and the life lessons she learned from it that helped her to see the life she wanted to create.
She describes cancer: "As the most terribly wrapped gift I ever received. Before cancer I abandoned my own needs, recklessly put others before myself, put work before my health and unconsciously chose stress over joy. Being diagnosed was a huge wake up call, and in some ways a relief to be given the space to choose a better reality for myself. The relief I felt was the overwhelming permission I afforded myself to love who I am unconditionally no buts about it, it felt like coming home, as though I knew I was right where I needed to be, there was a deep knowing within myself and a trust I hadn't felt before.”
Death Doula Linday Shaw: “Love is the most important part of living and dying.”
When speaking with Lindy Shaw, training to work as a Death Doula, she referred to the idea: “If we consider our own death we can live a happier life.”
The simple question of, if we knew we only had a day left to live what would we do?, is a sure way to quickly see what we really value in life. Yet talking about death or even thinking about death can be scary and uncomfortable. In our culture death is not often discussed, in fact we rarely even use the word preferring to describe it as ‘to pass’.
Just as women organise a birth plan and think about how they want their birth experience to be, we can consider planning what is important to us in our dying experience. A Death Doula can play an important role in helping us to consider our care, do we want to be at home, who do we want around us, what would we like to happen after our death as well as to support us spiritually and psychologically. They can play a simple role helping us plan some practical components, or a significant role working with you and your family before and after your death.
Spending time thinking about our own mortality is not morbid, it can be motivating and help us to live our life the way we truly desire. It allows us to examine our values, doing things that make us happy or fulfilled, spending time with people we want to be around and even pursuing something that holds real meaning for us. Thinking about death helps us to savour moments and to focus on what is truly important to us and to not sweat the small stuff.
Charlotte reflects: “While I was unwell I would often dream of the life I was going to commit to post treatment, one of joy, of consciousness, a life I could be deeply proud of. I yearned to be a mother, a wife, to be able to dance and run with ease, to travel and share my own personal light with the world. I made a promise to myself to always remember the lessons that came with cancer, to embrace the human experience. Embrace the down days, the sadness, the feelings of loss, of anger, of anxiety for they make me more human, not less of a human.”
I asked Lindy the three most important things she learned from working with people at the end of their lives.
She said:
1. That love is the most important part of living and dying. The American poet, activist and professor Maya Angelou put it beautifully when she said: ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel’. For those supporting someone at the end stage of their life, the most important message I can give them is, if you are doing it from a place of love, you can’t go wrong.
2. ‘Will I be remembered?’ or ‘Does my life matter?’ are often two of the most important questions those at the end-of-life will ask themselves. To support someone dying, talking to them about their life and helping them find meaning in their life is, I believe, extremely important.
3. Those who are dying may find it necessary to forgive themselves or others. Helping someone find that forgiveness or reconciliation brings a sense of peace to the dying. Love, peace and meaning. That is what a good life and death entails.
Both these women have learnt to be around people during the uncomfortable and painful process that is a part of life. They are wanting to hold your hand when you are at your most vulnerable and to allow your experience to be as close to your personal choice as possible.
