Resource Document

Five Words for Mindfully Engaging:

Validate, Motivate, Educate, Initiate, Celebrate

These five words offer a step-by-step guide to connecting with parents and helping them to engage with the processes in ways that will lead to discovery and wisdom.

Validate  

• Validation is KEY—if you skip or rush it, none of the other pieces that follow will fit or be effective.  

• When planning a class or a session, it is helpful to step inside parents’ minds and hearts a bit. Return to “beginner’s mind.” Jot down a list of your best guesses about parents’ existing knowledge, concerns, feelings, actions, beliefs, assumptions, questions, inner conflicts and ambivalence on this topic. THIS is what you will be validating in class.  

• Your verbal and nonverbal responses can convey acceptance, understanding, and compassion for their current beliefs.  

• Validation takes many forms: anecdotes, stories, questions, body language/facial expression, and statements.  

• By validating parents and meeting them where they are NOW, you set aside judgment, bias or expectations that they should change or do something different.

• When you are able to begin in a solution focused mindset, without attachment to outcome, you are modeling and speaking from the Love Warrior.  

Motivate  

• Validation and Motivation are often intertwined rather than appearing as two separate steps. As a new CBE/Doula, you will discern (either in  advance, or in the moment during class dialogue) what is already motivating parents to learn this material (or what would motivate them to avoid or disengage from it). What internal or external motivation or pressures might parents already have that you can tap into use as a way to help them engage with the information, module, or process you are presenting?  

• This is NOT about motivating parents to choose what you think is right, or scaring them into avoiding certain things, or achieving particular outcomes—in class, or at their birth, or in their lives.  

• Through validation and deep listening in class, you will hear and affirm their “positive intention,” i.e., their motivation. When preparing your module, take some time to think about what motivates parents to choose or avoid certain things related to this topic.

• When parents’ beliefs, fears, or feelings are heard and validated, their potential resistance melts away. You will know you are “on the right track” when parents’ non verbal cues show that they are ready to listen to what you are saying next.  

• Think in advance about how you might inspire all different kinds of people to want to learn about this topic. How might gender, sexual orientation, race, culture, or traits such as introversion or extroversion affect their motivations and goals? Consider, as well, learned behaviors such as acting from an internal or an external locus of control, or learned attitudes towards authority. Be curious about where these parents are as they prepare to step over the threshold into birth. Close observation of their approaches and identities will offer clues about how best to meet them where they are right NOW.  

Educate

• Mentors work from four perspectives (the perspective of the birthing parent, the partner, the baby, and the culture), using conscious and unconscious learning, and stimulating both left-brain and right-brain learning. The material must be both timely and relevant. Because class time is limited, it is crucial that parents walk away from class with a good grasp of just a few key points, rather than feeling bogged down by details that may not, ultimately, be helpful in their birth journeys.  

• Learning objectives are the key points that you want parents to remember. Learning objectives have “measurable outcomes” -- things that the parents should become able to do over the course of the activity.

• Learning objectives are not specific points you make or pieces of information that you share. They are not promises or ammunition for your own agenda; they are not based on what you want parents to choose or  avoid, or on what parents are hoping to hear.  

• Here is an example of what NOT to write: “Upon completion of this class,  parents will be able to practice breath awareness to achieve deep  relaxation and a pain-free labor. A parent can learn and demonstrate  breath awareness; however, they may not necessarily achieve or demonstrate deep relaxation, and certainly can’t demonstrate a pain-free labor over the course of the process.  

• Remember, the key to this process is to hone in on the most relevant and helpful skills and understandings. You will be continuously refining your learning objectives, so don’t worry about getting them exactly right immediately, and don’t think of  them as fixed agendas. When writing objectives, finish this sentence: “Upon completion of this module, parents will be able to: [fill in the blank].”  

Initiate  

Initiation: Activating the Love Warrior

• “Initiation” means: taking action or starting something new. This is what the Warrior archetype does. Whenever parents act, practice, or DO, they are in their Warrior (not their Child, who waits, hopes, or freezes).  

• Initiation is when parents put what they have learned into action and use their own experience (often multi-sensory) to integrate and embody the “teachings.”  

Examples of Initiation:  

• holding ice during pain-coping practice  

• making birth art  

• observing or participating in a role play, group     dialogue,journaling  

• sharing their responses to a story or anecdote  

Celebrate 

• Honoring and validating parents’ learning, insights and new knowing are key parts of bringing your module full circle. Be sure to allow moments of reflection on how they have grown, completed tasks of preparation, made new connections, or shifted archetypes.  

• A small ceremony or ritual, especially in the last class, may be just what is needed. Explore and research ways to honor parents’ rites of passage. Celebrations need not be fancy, lengthy or flowery. Often, a few resonant, heart-felt words will do.

Examples of Celebration:

• Singing a lullaby

• Reading a poem

• Telling a story

• A footbath ritual