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Hey Future Doula,

You love all things birth, and have probably found yourself totally
obsessed - reading books, scrolling birth and doula groups on social media,
maybe even listening to our giant podcast library over at Indie Birth.

Your friends probably tell you all about their birth stories (and maybe
strangers in the store do, too!) and you are just so pissed about the way
these women are being treated.

We are betting you want to be a part of the revolution. There’s so much

you have to offer the world, even if you have no experience in birth yet.

But!
You aren’t sure how to get the training you need.

You’re confused by all the confusion. What’s a “birthkeeper”? Are doulas

professionals?

Maybe the doulas you know are burnt out.

Or maybe they just don’t know who they are, and aren’t brave enough to
really serve women from the heart.
Perhaps they are barely making enough money to break even.

And worst of all, they might even be traumatized from the

scary/mean/sad things they are seeing at the births they attend.

We are going to talk about 5 ways for you to become a POWERFUL doula,
and move beyond all of these common issues.

And if you already know you want to learn more, you can set up a
free Clarity Call with us here.

#1 Why a Weekend Training is Not the Way to

Become a Powerful Doula
The long story short is this: If you want to be a powerful doula that is
changing peoples’ lives and revolutionizing birth in your community, going
to a 2-3 day birth doula training that barely scratches the surface of what
someone REALLY needs to know is just not going to cut the mustard.

Doula trainings nowadays are a dime a dozen. There are so many that it
can feel overwhelming trying to narrow down what makes each unique (or
not).

Most focus ONLY on hands-on skills for supporting a labor, and focus on
teaching you to be accepted, mainstream and approved by their
organization (hence, the goal of becoming “certified”).

Don't get us wrong - the commercialization of doula training has been

helpful in many ways (more people know what a doula is, and hiring a
doula isn’t weird, etc).
But bringing the doula role to the mainstream has also, frankly, dumbed
the role down to the lowest common denominator.

It’s all “hot rice socks” and “peanut balls” and “eat a bunch of dates before
labor”.

And most doulas end up enabling birthing women (ouch!) to make status-
quo decisions that may not be the best for them because they

1) don’t want to rock the boat...

2) are not knowledgeable enough...
3) aren’t confident....and
4) have bought into weird rules around a doula’s “scope”.

Ultimately, most doulas have NO IDEA that they are missing the real
foundation from which they could effectively support and teach their
pregnant clients. That is the meat and potatoes of working with pregnant
women. Not tricks and gimmicks. Not people pleasing.

This much-needed foundation is what we teach in the Indie Birth Doula

Academy so you can feel grounded, purposeful and supported in your
work as a doula.

#2 The Client Clarity Method and Why it is the

MOST IMPORTANT Tool in Your Toolkit
One of the 5 pillars of our doula program is the Client Clarity Method.

This is more powerful than 10,000 rice socks, my friends.

Until a client gets clear (and I mean crystal clear) about how they want to
feel during their labor and birth, there is not a real birth plan to speak of.

This is where confusion, regret and disappointment creep into the birth
experience.
Not to mention birth trauma.

Most doulas spend little to no time finding clarity with their clients, and
then are (GASP!) shocked when their client makes different choices than
they had previously discussed.

The pregnant client didn’t know what they wanted. The partner and doula
are out of the loop. Communication breaks down. People get flustered,
disappointed, and sometimes even resentful.

Gaining client clarity is the #1 secret weapon in preventing burnout and an

actual disdain for doula work.

The way this looks in practice is spending LOTS of time with a client,
building a strong relationship with them, and practicing your ninja
counseling and coaching skills.

One of our very favorite tools for digging to the bottom of what someone
wants is Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map book and workbooks.

We’ve been inspired by her feelings first, logistics later approach, which
has made its way into many of our client materials we’ve created.

Bonus Hint: Without a doula having done work to obtain her own clarity,
helping a client obtain clarity is near impossible. So digging into this work,
and perhaps doing the Desire Map YOURSELF would be a rockin’ first step.
#3 The BIGGEST Mistake Most Doulas Make

We know that most doulas are really smart and really passionate, but they
are not being trained, prepared, inspired or encouraged to do the work
their heart is actually calling them to.

They might not even have considered what their heart is trying to tell them.
Instead, they are defaulting to the need for certification and (real or
imagined) legitimacy.

You do not want to be an “assembly line” doula.

Doulas are told to take on any client that wants to hire them, and to be
grateful for the business!

The truth is, most doulas primarily work with birthing women that don’t
even know how birth works and aren’t aware they have choices, and then
they show up and are expected to help them have a great birth.

We encourage our students to figure out exactly what kinds of births they
want to be attending, and more importantly what kinds of women they
want to be supporting.

The more specific you are about WHO you want to serve, the easier it will
be to attract those people, and then say “no thanks” to potential clients
that are a bad match for you (yes, really).

The birth world is one of the only places in business where we are
encouraged to ‘help everyone”, ignoring the fact that doulas will have
different interests and strengths, and women will have different needs!

Other business niches have known this for forever, and super successful
business people will tell you that the way to deliver amazing value and also
enjoy your work (that’s why you’re doing this right?!) is to develop your
ideal client avatar.
If you are like many of our students, and you only want to attend births
where the mother is super educated and knows exactly what she wants,
and she wants an unmedicated, natural birth...

Then we would encourage you to do exactly that!

If you want to specialize in helping women have gentle planned

cesareans....If you want to only do prenatal visits and education….If you
want to work with VBAC mamas….If you want to do postpartum care or
vaginal steaming....Then we would encourage you to do that, too!

Here’s your permission slip to be picky.

In doing so, you are able to offer what you truly are skilled at and
passionate about, and your clients are getting a service that is more
tailored to their unique desires.

Some of our students’ biggest "aha moments" have come from this piece of
our training, and we wanted to share it with you, too.

They feel a huge sense of freedom, relief and a surge of creativity when
we let them in on this secret that they can be choosy about who they work
with and what they feel they can truly offer.

You can click here to schedule a free Clarity Call with us if you want
to learn more about the support we can provide at the Indie Birth
Doula Academy.
#4 The Sacred Science Birth Code

Science is now showing what women have likely long known and
understood before birth became medicalized.

There IS a blueprint for optimal labor and birth.

And it is your job as a doula to be fluent in this blueprint.

Our Sacred Science Birth Code breaks down all of the incredible birth
science we now have, in addition to the less tangible, sacred knowledge
about how birth can unfold.

This makes it so you can see through both lenses in any given moment,
which is invaluable if we want to move towards a new paradigm of birth.
An exclusive focus on either science or the sacred is just not as powerful.

This means honoring the unknowable pieces, the mystery, and the
energetics of birth.

One of our favorite things to remind ourselves of is that, in the biggest

picture, we still know almost nothing about labor and birth. :)

Yes, the paradox is that there is always lots to learn!

Remembering to stay humble around the life initiation that IS birth

can eliminate the cultural obsession with control that we
have about birth.

There is as much unknown, as there is known,

about birth.
Sometimes labor stalls because the sun rises and melatonin levels
decrease, making contractions less effective. But sometimes labor stalls
because a mother is fearful, or has too many people in the room, or
perhaps has an unresolved subconscious fear lingering from her own birth
as a baby.

And we might never know “why” and that is OK.

So many doulas feel pressure to know “why” something happens during a

labor or birth. It is ok to sometimes not know, and still honor that there may
have been a reason.

It’s preferable to serve women as a doula in a way that supports not just
their physical experience, but their emotional/spiritual one as well.

This unique combination of understanding both the sacred and the

scientific aspects of birth is what makes our training special.

If you want a place to start learning this blend of birth knowledge, we

highly recommend Dr. Sarah Buckley’s book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering
and our book Indie Birth: A Story of Radical Birth Love!

#5 Charge For the Results You Will Provide

While being an exceptionally powerful doula, you also need to be making a

sustainable living doing this work!

But birth workers are notoriously bad at running businesses.

It might be because women are told we aren’t worthy of earning a decent
income, especially when we’re doing something we enjoy.

It might be that the main business model is primarily masculine, and that
most women don’t know how to be real and authentic while also making
money.

Or it might be a byproduct of a culture that can’t wrap its head around

paying for social, emotional and educational support (but we don’t put up a
fight when we are asked to fork over thousands of dollars to a car
mechanic/dentist/taxes).

Our work as doulas is often “invisible labor” (like most women's work!) but
after the fact, families almost universally say that their doula was the best
investment they could have made for their birth.

There are also some really hardcore, over the top “business focused” doula
trainings out there that swing the pendulum way too far the other way.

Instead we try to blend the feminine and masculine together in a model we

teach called the Wise Woman Model of Conscious Business, which includes
teaching our potential clients and community about the value of doulas.

So how do we make it clear to potential clients that we are worth the

investment (and figuring out what to charge is a whole ‘nother topic)?

Since it is hard to quantify the work of doulas, we recommend

focusing on what you want your clients to experience more than what
tricks you know.

They want a birth that feels powerful, due to unparalleled education and
support from a powerful doula.
No one cares if you bring 20 essential oils or know five different rebozo
methods if your clients are still largely unprepared and are left feeling
powerless, traumatized, and sad about their births.

So when you meet with potential clients, utilize the studies that we have on
the effectiveness of doulas, outline as clearly as possible what sort of
transformation they will get from working with you, and make sure you
start collecting written and video testimonials from your happy clients.

Once you reframe it this way for yourself, you will start feeling confident
about what you are asking for financially from your clients to help them
have powerful births.

And when you feel confident about your worth, people will be HAPPY to
pay you for this incredible work you do as a POWERFUL doula. How
awesome is that?
What’s Next?

We have built 5 powerful pillars into the Indie Birth Doula Academy to
support and guide you as you become emotionally, spiritually and
financially fulfilled in the Doula role.

We’ve been doing this work, as midwives, for a long time and we feel
confident that we can midwife you in the doula role as well.

If you want to talk with us about how we can help you become an
incredible birth worker and make lasting change in your community, you
can set up a free Clarity Call.

During a Clarity Call with us we can explore your goals and motivation for
being in birth work, and talk about what your next best steps might be,
whether that is one of our programs or not (there is never any pressure).

If you’d like to set up your Clarity Call, follow the link below - we would be
honored to be a part of your journey.

https://indiebirth.org/claritycalls

Feel free to send us an email at

help@indiebirth.org if you need
anything or just want to say
“thanks for the guide”.

Looking forward to talking soon!

Big Love,
Maryn and Margo