Sitting

All day I resisted the seduction of Busy. Instead I drank instant coffee and sat quietly working all day, compelled to harvest all that just unfolded in the last week with 14 incredible birth workers from all walks of life and all stages of life. I didn’t want to miss the harvest.

As I sat, women came to my door to say goodbye to me with their eyes and hearts soft and wide and hearts generous, open and overflowing with awe and gratitude for the experiences they had just shared together and privately during their time at Eat Pray Doula.

Words like ‘transforming’ and ‘I could never have imagined’ and ‘like no other workshop I have EVER attended’ along with ‘sisterhood’ and ‘tribe’ were quietly offered. These feelings affirming that the effort and investment to come to Bali to study was more than worth the investment in Themselves and could never be quantified by words alone.

I understood. The Group was one more of the Gathering of Women that comes together to create something bigger and stronger for the future of Women in Birth at Eat Pray Doula. As one of their teachers, I am humbled.

But with all their dreams of becoming and developing as the keepers of Birth, what I saw MOST in them over the week was this:

Compassion is necessary to work with families in birth.
But it isn’t enough.
Kindness is also necessary.
But even that isn’t enough.
Intelligence and a hunger for knowledge and Knowing is essential in order to teach and empower  families.
But it isn’t enough.
Wit and humor for both our families and ourselves is so important.

Certainly these things are all common denominators in women who work with families in birth.

But what I am basking in tonight as I look back at the close of yet another Eat Pray Doula workshop here in Bali is that the piece that feeds ALL of those things…the Essence that makes it all WORK is COMMUNITY.