I am…The Vulnerability Doula!
Your Trusted Guide for Navigating Vulnerability, Finding Your Voice, Deepening Your Relationships, and Birthing Your Authentic Self
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy — the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
― Brene Brown
As I type this piece, I’m feeling the same mix of fear and exhilaration as I did when I published my first ever Medium piece two years ago, courageously declaring to the world that “I am…Contagious Vulnerability!”. A bold declaration that drew a lot of attention and celebration as well as a few quizzical “huhs?”.
A bold declaration that felt so authentic, so true — and so liberating and empowering to say out loud — and yet simultaneously filled me with more than a little fear and self-doubt as I bared my soul’s essence to the world in my biggest act of vulnerability yet.
A bold declaration made that much more so as I had no idea what my outlandish “I am” statement actually meant!
I’ve come a long way since then as I shared with you in last week’s piece “This is Contagious Vulnerability: A Mindfulness Practice for Mental Wellness”. The momentum I’ve created in 2020 has me ready to take another courageous yet terrifying leap into the unknown and declare:
“I am…The Vulnerability Doula! Your Trusted Guide for Navigating Vulnerability, Finding Your Voice, Deepening Your Relationships, and Birthing Your Authentic Self”
Yet another outlandish and unconventional “I am” statement that I am boldly declaring to the world. And now, with a much larger audience!
As my friend Russell likes to say, anything worth doing is 50% exhilaration and 50% scary AF. I am once again filled with that potent, alchemical combination.
Wait, WTF is a Vulnerability Doula?!
WTF is a Vulnerability Doula, you ask? Good question! It’s one I’ve been asking myself since earlier this summer when my wise friend Catherine Connors observed in one of our juicy, wide-ranging conversations about life and the universe: “You’re a doula of vulnerability — a Vulnerability Doula! You should absolutely make that a thing — it’s so you!”
My reaction in the moment was a full-body YES! And yet later, as often happens, my inner critic started to chip away at my somatic conviction with her persistent litany of “helpful” questions which were really loosely veiled doubts and can’ts.
Sooo, what does it mean to be a Vulnerability Doula?
Is that the best way to describe what you do?
Will anyone get what that is and more importantly will anyone pay you for that?
And on and on.
So why doula? A doula is a powerful space holder, offering a mix of emotional support, wisdom, guidance, and advocacy to a woman before, during and after she labors to give birth. And let me be clear before you get the wrong idea, I am a vulnerability doula. If you’re giving birth to an actual human baby, I cannot help you with that.
As your vulnerability doula, I am here to help you birth what wants to emerge, listening and witnessing as you courageously give voice to longings from deep within your soul. Holding space and guiding you as you do your inner work, curiously exploring the multiverse of you, and mining for the gold within.
Creating a safe container to work with the power of vulnerability and realize its gifts — a sense of belonging, deeper more authentic relationships, greater intimacy with your beloveds, more aligned work, and so much more.
Helping you tune into your inner knowing and wisdom to help you find your voice and birth your authentic self.
Why Vulnerability Doula? Why Not a Vulnerability Coach?
Yes, I know, it would be so much easier/logical/safer to just call myself a vulnerability coach. Yet, despite having completed the CTI coactive coaching program back in 2016, I’ve always hated the term coach and it never really fit me. Growing up, I was a mathlete not an athlete so I didn’t have any direct experience with coaches. The word feels masculine and jocular — rooted in competitive, patriarchal contests with winners and losers — and I’m not really an atta boy, flick ’em-on-the-ass-with-a-wet-towel, performance-enhancing kinda person. It also seems like everyone you meet is a coach these days so the term feels both commoditized and overused.
What I like about the term doula is that it’s rooted in being of service to individuals undergoing powerful and deeply vulnerable periods of life-changing transformation to birth new life into the world. And it’s very clear whose baby it is which helps me to stay in my lane and remember who’s in charge (you!). Unlike coaching, it’s not just about asking powerful questions. Doulaing involves intuitive wisdom sharing and guiding and comes from a deeply natural, wholistic, and generative place.
I also resonate deeply with the metaphor of birthing and it’s very alive in the work that I do. Transformation and self-discovery is not a competition or a battle, it’s a trusting and a surrendering to ones instinctual inner knowing, discovering what wants to emerge and having the courage to bring it to life. As one of the conscious millennials I’ve been guiding for the past two years reflected when I ran the vulnerability doula idea by her:
“I totally see the birthing energy in your work. And the second thought that came to me is that you are helping others to give birth to even more than vulnerability. Like in my case, you’ve been helping me to discover my inner voice, my inner wisdom.”
And yes, it’s feminine. And it has an air of magic, mystery, and miraculousness to it. And yes, that may put some people off, especially those who identify as male. And yet it's a deeply, divinely feminine role. Anyone who has ever witnessed a woman giving birth knows the true creative power, unfailing fierceness, and otherworldly potential of divine feminity in action.
No matter your gender identity, the path to birth your authentic self is that challenging and who better to hold and guide that space than a fiercely femme, divine wild feminist who has been doing the work to birth her authentic self for just shy of 55 years and helping others to do so for decades.
And regardless of whether Vulnerability Doula resonates with you or not, you certainly won’t soon forget it :)
Who Needs a Vulnerability Doula?
Frankly, the better question might be: Who Doesn’t Need a Vulnerability Doula? Why?
Because 2020.
Because we are all vulnerable all at once.
Because everything we thought we knew or could count on has been massively disrupted leaving most if not all of us feeling lost and adrift and deeply uncertain about the future.
Do you love yourself — and I mean your whole self — unconditionally? Do you want to know what that feels like?
Do you want to discover and give birth to your authentic self and bring that unique, divine essence to all that you be and do and love in the world?
Do you want to deepen your relationships with people you love and/or people you collaborate and co-create with?
Do you want to reimagine yourself for the new world that’s emerging rather than fearfully clinging to the old world that’s crumbling?
Do you want more joy — not in the toxic positivity sense but in the eudaemonia, wellness of spirit sense?
Do you want more aliveness?
If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you need a Vulnerability Doula.
Why You Need a Vulnerability Doula
Why? Because the path to realizing all of these longings — all of your heart’s and soul’s desires — runs straight through vulnerability and also involves navigating other fun stuff like fear, uncertainty, self-doubt, an emboldened and activated inner critic, discomfort, awkwardness, and so much more!
And, like childbirth, this path is more bearable when you take this courageous hero/ine’s journey of self-discovery and self-actualization with a trusted guide and wisdom keeper to encourage and support you.
I Am THE and Can Be YOUR Vulnerability Doula
This week during a curious conversation with a person I’d met through an online course, I finally had the courage to offer my services to them as a Vulnerability Doula and it didn’t feel weird or awkward. Ok, maybe a little weird and awkward but mostly awesome.
Awesome because in the moment, it felt like the truest way to describe the role I was embodying.
Awesome to stand in my truth and offer myself in service to hold space for, guide, and offer the wisdom of my experience to a fellow being curious about vulnerability and wanting to deepen their relationship to themselves and their beloveds.
I can hold what needs holding, witness what needs witnessing, and guide you and offer the wisdom of my experience as you birth what’s wanting to emerge.
I know. This all sounds a bit woo — okay, for some of you, maybe a lot woo. If so, you’re not alone — my inner New Yorker is rolling her third eye at me while my inner critic, Killjoy, is accompanying her on the harmonium chanting a mantra of Ohm-MG no!! And yeah, after nearly 3 decades in northern California and 8 years calling the magical Woo-ville that is the hippie town of Occidental, CA home, it’s fair to say I’ve become a little woo. And it’s a deeply practical woo.
One that is deeply and authentically me.
One rooted a belief that there’s gold inside each and every one of us that is our gift to the world and it’s our soul’s purpose in this precious lifetime to discover it and bring it to light and to life.
One that gets amazing results.
I’d love to have a curious conversation with you to explore what The Vulnerability Doula can do for you.