Cultivating the Doula Heart: Essentials of Compassionate Care

by Francesca Lynn Arnoldy, Robert E Gramling (Foreword)

Loss is difficult...and universal. What do we say? What do we do?

Part how-to guide, part hopeful manifesto, Cultivating the Doula Heart provides a clear framework for supporting those facing hardship, grief, and loss. Succinct and straightforward, this "work of heart" Components of Doula Care, Aspects of Loss, Ways of Being/Ways of Doing, Grief Support, and Contemplative Exercises. 

Readers will feel empowered to move from sympathy to empathy to compassion. The doula heart can be readily infused into all work and into any relationship.

Genres: Death

100 pages, Paperback

Published September 23, 2018

About the author

Francesca Lynn Arnoldy, Community Doula and Death Literacy Advocate, is a researcher with the Vermont Conversation Lab and a hospice volunteer. She is the author of CULTIVATING THE DOULA HEART (a guidebook), MAP OF MEMORY LANE (a picture book), and THE DEATH DOULA'S GUIDE TO LIVING FULLY AND DYING PREPARED (a workbook). Francesca was the original developer of the doula training programs at UVM and she regularly leads events about providing emotional support. Her goal is to encourage people to hold one another's hands through life's intensities and rites of passage. Francesca lives in rural Vermont in a most beloved village.

Francesca can be found contemplating birth, death, and life with the doula heart on her website contemplativedoula.com.

Reviews

[Vermont Doula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Francesca has written a profound yet easy-to-read book that details both the physical and emotional practices involved in serving as an end-of-life doula. As someone new to the field, this book has been an invaluable resource for those of us called to do this work - and will prove to be a wonderful guide for anyone seeking to provide compassionate care in any capacity.

[Marianne Mullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In preparation for a Death Doula program I will be taking, I have read this book. It's beautiful and I look forward to learning and growing more with learning more about death, dying, grief, and loss (and everything in between)

[Katieloowho · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a doula, she expresses everything I have every wanted to be as a doula so beautifully and also teaches about the connections between life and death which are such powerful bookends to our life on this earth and how holding space is very similar in both. A beautiful read, I will be recommending it to other doulas!

[Jordan Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was beautiful and so profound. I felt somehow loved while reading this. Is that odd to say? Maybe it’s the feeling of being supported but another death worker or just the camaraderie of it but I felt held. This is a masterpiece on how to care compassionately for the dying. Just wonderful.

[Julia Brough · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Are you comfortable with silence? Doulas must honor pauses and recognize the introspection that can occur during quiet moments."

[Judy Ashley]

The concepts and insights from this little book changed my life including how I see myself and interact with others. There are powerful messages throughout and worth reading more than once.

[Gianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gift to end-of-life doulas and everyone else!

[wonky wonky · Rating 5 out of 5]

great wisdom on what it means to be a doula, and practical advice on how to act as one. the skills taught in this book are beneficial to anyone. we can all be a doula to those around us.

[Sharyn Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed every moment of this book, starting with the Prelude, where the author discusses the mystery of her grandfather's death. Some of my favorite quotes from this book:

"We [doulas] are holders, though, not keepers. There is no clinging. We know our client’s journey is not ours. We carry forward any wisdom we’ve gained without a sense of responsibility for determining another person’s way of living and dying."

"Comprehensive training, study, and work in the field can help doulas build a strong foundation of knowledge -- and yet we will never be death experts. We are students of death and students of our clients -- always learnings and expanding the perimeters of our grasp. By nature, death is mysterious. We can generate guesses and theories, but we are without certainty. Uncertainty can inspire fear or curiosity. We have a choice as to how we respond."

"We [doulas] turn toward and lean into suffering with our abiding faith in people."

I also recommend the end-of-life doula professional certificate offered via the University of Vermont's Professional and Continuing Education program. The author of this book designed that program and still oversees it.