| Treatise on the Intuitive Doula by Mary E. Ceallaigh © 2004 Introducing the Modern Intuitive Doula: Combining astute leading-edge knowledge and ancient tradition, within a human development approach incorporating an awareness of pre & perinatal psychology, the Intuitive Doula attends to her own personal development along with working with her clients. Like a traditional midwife, she is non-medically oriented and non-invasive in her approach and offers a repertoire of unique intuitive gifts and seasoned skills to support primal health and self-healing, with the modern necessity of encouraging informed choice and resources education on the part of clients. The Intuitive Doula, working with women before conception through after childbirth, strategically serves "core energy empowerment" (Harville Hendrix Ph.D’s work, made famous by Oprah, deals with core energy & relationships) with a mind towards encouraging conscious mind-body cycle health, mother-baby unity, sexual integrity, and family bonding that will endure long after she is no longer employed by the client. A special emphasis is placed upon prenatal and preconception relationship within the Intuitive Doula work, via resourcing, full-spectrum informed choice, and intuitive consultations to facilitate the primary self-responsibility of clients for birth preparation and conscious parenting. The Intuitive Doula has a diversely modern range of experiences in preconception, prenatal, birth, and postpartum care and incorporates both an empirical and inter-disciplinary scholarship knowledge base. Some Certified Doulas may actually have less diverse birth attendant experience and education than some independent or Intuitive Doulas, and vice versa. Certified Birth Doula reflects a general title that conveys attendance of 27 hours of workshop training, and a base number of obstetrically approved birth attendance, often within a short period of time, regardless of the actual life experience and higher education of the Doula. The word “Doula” has been revived in recent decades as a term to describe Labor & Postpartum support in a time of increased options for childbearing women. It is actually a Greek word referring to a specific kind of domestic woman-servant who, though in the “highest class” of slaves, was still in lifetime bondage in the slave class within the socially ostracized domestic culture of the time, with its not uncommon abuses. It is well known that despite the ethos of the budding philosophy & art of Late ancient Greek culture, it was a society where women were not considered citizens in their own right, and sequestered in home and temple - meaning that non- prostitute women actually were not to be seen on city streets or in business . This was a society where women’s wisdom and self-authority was completely marginalized into the realm of myth, without the autonomy to fully participate with the legendary creativity and wits that the myths themselves promoted. It is not surprising that some Intuitive Doulas may in fact prefer not to use a term that refers to exclusively Greek culture & slavery, choosing to instead call themselves by more general names such as "Fertility Educators,” “Traditional Birth Guides,” and/or “Postpartum Home Attendants.” It remains to be seen what happens with the term “Doula” in the Intuitive Doula community. A Contemporary Review of Women's Health Culture: In 2004, despite advances in women's education and a resurgence of interest in midwifery, the Western-based "first world" culture model is prevalent with clinical mind-body dissociation as the aggressively advertised and even celebrity-endorsed treatment of choice for women's cyclical and procreative concerns. This social milieu, represents in part an early suffragist, yet also conventional dualistic medicine perspective which functions to manage and even dominate the complexities of feminine sexuality for short-term results rather than facilitating an intrinsic self-healing process of the intelligent body-mind system. Complicit in this are women ourselves, making seemingly automatic choices from the personal narrows of fear, ignorance, and self-repression - all inherent to our society when it comes to the complex subject of the female fertility cycle and the sexuality of its expression, being that the bulk of birth stories, synonomous with "war stories," commonly circulated in women's conversations, postnatal yoga classes, and the media, recount medical dramas of damsels-in-distress being rescued and saved through technocratic and surgical heroics. This complicity spans both mainstream and alternative modern culture, with, for example, many healthy female yoga students and even yoginis finding themselves relying heavily on medical professionals for matters of the womb, despite a formidable capacity to respond with full attunement to other areas of their bodies and lives. Subsequent to the dissociative practices of externally focused care for womb health and parturition (childbearing), a great many healthy women, a portion of them even yoga practitioners and physically-fit athletes, are having trouble opening for birth (dysfunctional labor) and actually being delivered of their babies while physically incapacitated, rather than giving birth. Simultaneously, a great many otherwise healthy women suffer from "lack of meaning" somewhere in the side-effects of prescriptive measures and surgical "self-cures" to manage womb health & procreativity, with self-healing options and information much obscured.1 "Joyful," "devoted," "intimate," "passionate," "pain AND pleasure," "transformative," "sovereign," and "deeply in love" - these descriptions of conscious birthgiving, often in the privacy of a woman's own home, can seem rare to encounter, yet offer a potent remedy for our cultural malaise when interpreted as the birthright of the human being. With women’s magazines and other periodicals reporting estimated statistics of one-third of all Anglo middle-class women in their 30s on prescription anti-depressants in our much talked about "culture of addiction,"2 a likewise third of all women as rape survivors, an even greater number as survivors of sexual abuse and/or emotional abuse, at least 1 out of 10 sexually active women having never experienced orgasm, and Postpartum Depression sounding almost more common than Postpartum Health, the purported "cure" of further dissociation via legal prescriptives or subtle addictions is not really surprising - in fact, for many women at least some of the time, it may indeed seem the only help or treatment in sight according to circumstances. Women's "health" practices of the last 30 years have promoted hormonal cycle suppression (like "The Pill" of the sexual revolution ideal), often without the important accompanying information that such a regimen completely halts biological menses and that true fertility is at risk of ever returning. Along with this, the focus on the other purported quick fix these last 3 decades, that of abortion-as-birth control, has been to the exclusion of fertility awareness empowerment with its inherent option of pregnancy as a potentially feminist experience of profound health and wholeness. Simultaneous to this clinicalization of female cycle health has been the medicalization of normal birth, fostered by the assumption of "woman-as-patient" (held by a majority of male & female doctors of various medicines, medical midwives, conventional childbirth educators, and women ourselves). This approach has also contributed to a protocol of objectification of women at our most vulnerable, as in unnecessary routine pelvic exams, technician-centered practices and environments rather than woman- centered (often with the collusion of women ourselves) and invasive monitoring intervention upon, and/or non- facilitation of, the innate primal body chemistry and private sexuality of freestanding birth. To this societal scenario is now being added the increasing popularity of "Fertility Drugs" and "Scheduled Cesareans." Long-term studies are practically nonexistent on these prescriptives done in the name of modern, (and male- founded) western medicine to the human female, and often any known serious risks and negative sequelae are left in very small print, only to be read by the highly inquisitive and free-thinking. Meanwhile, staggering profits are generated, most blatantly in the interest of pharmaceutical corporations (publicly traded entities on the stock market), and private hospitals and health practices, with a disturbing trend of direct marketing towards medical professionals.3 Healing Perspectives, Healing Partnerships: However, from an intuitive healer point of view, "The Wound Reveals the Cure" (the motto of Hygieia College, founded by lay midwife Jeannine Parvati). The symptoms of women's bodies (both physical and emotional) offer much guidance to the remedy: a true intuition, the Intuition of Joy (as named by Gurmukh, a Kundalini Yoga teacher in Los Angeles). Soul messages that they are, physical symptoms of the fertility cycle, pregnancy, and birthing can be very helpful for guiding the client's own inherent wisdom towards a sacred and sexual evolution of personal power as a possible outcome - and in its essence, a feminist reclamation that transcends gender lines. Accordingly, the tremendous potential role of a client's heartfully committed love partner as her likewise evolving, co-creative ally is a rich realm that is mindfully facilitated by an Intuitive Doula. The Commitment of Intuitive Doulas: The self-healing remedy for a woman is carried within the heart-womb connection. And, like the ancient Lotus that blooms with intact embryos of its own self in the center of the flower, everything that's needed for blossoming a multi-level wholeness for health is already present within the self-healing intelligence of the soulful human's body. This is the healing vision, the prayer, held by the modern Intuitive Doula who works with women throughout the Life Cycle. Likewise, traditional midwives considered their meditations and prayerful attitude and presence in preparation for, and during, labors an imperative, core component of their care, from which all other care modalities followed.4 Thus the orientation and mentorship of the Intuitive Doula is centered in traditional midwifery principles, coupled with a very current knowledge of new interdisciplinary principles to facilitate the "inner midwife/cellular intuition" of each client (whether or not she is partnered) and, likewise, the intuitive wisdom of committed couples as the lovers and sexually co-creative beings that they are. While Intuitive Doulas are not primary care providers, and uninterested in being such within today's medical-legal context, we are committed to the work of facilitating the innate life-bearing process wisdom within healthy women and their partners, when fertility and birth is approached with its sexual and spiritual aspects fully incorporated. The Intuitive Doula is a naturally gifted presence at sacred home birth, and has sought to gather diverse attendant experience, as well as having been taught through the many self-healing and birth stories told by women in-person who need to share them. Working within a full-spectrum of informed choice with clients (who are generally self-selected as seeking a conscious experience of womb health, fertility, and birth), the Intuitive Doula actively incorporates the real potentials of spontaneous self-healing, ecstatic birth, and freebirth as a human birthright and a meaningful part of that spectrum during preconception and prenatal education. Encouraging her clients' personal process towards what is most meaningful to them, the Intuitive Doula is not surprised when clients evolve themselves to greater self-responsibility and peace-of-mind, founded in empowerment as sacred, sexual beings in the gnosis of fertility. Birth Doula Practioners, A Full-Spectrum: Though not all Birth Doulas in our culture are intervention-inclined, or medically-oriented, some of us are (though we may balk at the suggestion) either through aspiring to do vaginal exams as Doulas, to practice mainly as an "epidoula" (late term client contracts that involve labor-sitting, in a steady stream of dependable income from otherwise healthy clients who are predisposed to choose epidural or scheduled surgical deliverance of their babies), or as an assistant to a medical midwife, providing the personal relationship and labor support that many medical midwives do not consider to be requisite to the constraints of their practice, while also switching focus in order to notate the medical midwife's dictation of vitals or assist her during suturing. The Intuitive Doula's precisely applied skills are not to be underestimated in their age-old remedy-specific intention, within a subtle approach. Like many traditional birth attendants during home labors, and unlike many of her contemporaries, the Intuitive Doula's therapeutic repertoire of home labor support techniques includes the mothering aromas of a nurturing kitchen where she keeps her healing hands activated in such arts as soup- making or celebration cake making, in early labor and whenever viable during client privacy in later labor. The Intuitive Doula also applies her physical presence, vocal tones, words, diverse natural comfort remedies, and empathic hands for mobility encouragement and energy/attitude facilitation during labor support, primarily as an initial guide when a committed birth partner is present. Whatever the birthing environment, empowering the birth partner and client privacy, and receding watchfully with attunement into the far background is the Intuitive Doula's main discipline, whenever appropriate, in order to allow for the unique strengths and transformations of clients to emerge as their baby emerges. More than a few women have wistfully confided to Doulas that they wish they would have also had a Doula despite their modern midwifery-managed home or hospital birth, pointing to a feeling of lack - lack of the traditional nurturing facilitation that they assumed they would receive from their medical midwife, though grateful for her care. If they received some nurturing from an assistant, they felt better about it, but nonetheless still speak of a gap between their impressions of what the womanly connectedness of "midwifery" meant and their actual experience. Truly "There is a Doula for Every Woman"5 (the motto of DONA) and, “Every Doula is a Human Woman” (Mary Ceallaigh). Each Doula has her own personal story, her own experience of the range of menstrual health, her own trauma recovery, her own addictions, her own sexual history, her own range of health in lifestyle, her own need to belong, and her own personal maturation - all factors that impact her particular approach to working in fertility and birth realms. Intuitive Doula Ethics of Service: For the Intuitive Doula, her personal self-care and client relationships are approached with an impeccable integrity, anything less than a rigorous daily practice of such detracts from her attunement to the healing paradigm and diminishes her radiant presence. She has seasoned herself in apprenticeship with teachers and clients, and developed the arts of subtlety, integrity, and full presence. She is well-researched in scholarly studies, and articulates in conscious communication both verbally and non-verbally with clients. Within these ethics of service, the Intuitive Doula is oriented towards artfully stepping back and putting the primal privacy and modern mystery of her client in the foreground, holding a very subtle presence, yet also knowing when to jump- to protect, mentor, or otherwise assist. This is a consciously self-directed practice in partnership with the mystery of birth, and different than having a co-starring role in a health-woes script or birth support drama, sitting in as a passive medical observer, or, actively triangulating the core energy of a committed birthing couple by becoming intimately bonded with either of them rather than facilitating their innate sexual intimacy. Therefore the Intuitive Doula may actually prefer to do the bulk of her labor support with her clients in the prenatal and even preconception time, within the foundational work of consultation hours, resourcing, and fertility & birth imagery dialogue - and, having established a meaningful personal relationship beforehand, find that the actual birth-day is an expression of an emergent healing & creativity that has already taken place. This means that, over her lifetime, a portion of the Intuitive Doula's prenatal clients may opt out of labor support services, preferring to go the journey as freebirth lovers without an audience, in the same context they conceived their baby in. Other clients may end up creating choices to create their bedroom or birth center room as essentially off-limits with minimal supervision, the bulk of attendant services manifesting through food preparation in the kitchen, sitting meditations in the office, and liasoning with family members in the foyer! Still other clients may choose to postpone labor support attendance at all until quite late in the process, meeting up with their Intuitive Doula at the same time as their primary care providers, and welcoming their baby face to face soon after. Rather than being invested in how much she is depended upon or needed by her clients, the Intuitive Doula has developed the capacity to rejoice when clients follow their hearts in ways that do not include her, as they did during their conception mystery. As previously mentioned, the Intuitive Doula's work lies in the multi-faceted demands of holding a healing vision - and indeed that is the very reason why her clients (preconception through postpartum) find her appealing and choose her, consciously or unconsciously. Though the Intuitive Doula repertoire is no guarantee for any specific kind of health, healing, or birthing outcome, it does offer support for optimal integrity of experience along the way, and fosters relational dynamics that are essential to long-term sustainable empowerment for self-healing, sexual health, and joyful family life. The Essential Intuitive Doula: In summary, the Intuitive Doula is self-directed and self-initiated in her service to the consciousness of Life's potential, and the principle of full unity consciousness of mother, conscious prenate, and heartfully committed father (when present). An essential component of this approach is an ongoing personal daily practice (varying in type from Doula to Doula, ranging from prayer traditions, to formal meditation, to Yoga, to Tai Chi, silence in nature, etc) for centering awareness of her own intuitive source - as a self-care and core professional responsibility. The Intuitive Doula is a Facilitator, focusing on client empowerment: the primacy of the heart-womb connection and its self-healing energetics, Labor & Birth as a milestone of women's sexual development and family development, the human potential for cultural & ecological healing and - conscious welcoming of the freeborn infant, an infinitely unique, and aware new member of the human family. _________________________________ 1 Tiefer, L., Tavris, C. & Hall, M. (2002) Beyond Dysfunction: The Manifesto of a New View of Women's Sexual Problems. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 28, 225-232 Also see fsd-alert.org 2 White, William L., (1996) Pathways from the culture of addiction to the culture of recovery: a travel guide for addiction professionals, 2nd ed. Hazelden, MN. 3 Wilmer, Tamar (November 2003) “Freemarket Freebies” in New Internationalist 362 4 Odent, Michel (2001) The Scientification of Love, “The Praying Midwife” pg. 89, Free Association Books Ltd. 5 The motto of DONA (Doulas of North America), an international association of Doulas, founded in part by Medical Doctors to promote labor companions and oversee Doula certification. For more information see www.DONA.org ________________________________________________________ ________________________ Mary Ceallaigh has a degree in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College of Pasadena, California. Like many women, she is the great-granddaughter of a traditional midwife. As an Intuitive Doula, Mary has attended home, birth center, and hospital births since 1989, and assisted midwives in the U.S. and Scotland. Co-author of NOW’s 1999 “Resolution to Expand the Definition of Childbirth to Include Homebirth and the Midwifery Model of Care” and former National Secretary of AIMS Scotland Steering Committee (1996), Mary presently resides in sultry Austin, Texas, where she teaches Kundalini Yoga. |
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