I think there is a path created for every one of us. Sometimes we struggle to find it, sometimes it just unravels itself under our feet. Some people find it quite late in their lives, some early on, but we all find it and if we accept to follow it, we will find the meaning of true happiness.
For me the pre-taste of the rightness in finding my path was when I experienced Zero Balancing for the first time. I got up from the couch and I was filled with awe and goodness and I knew this was a gift that I would have to learn to give. That was a day that I began my journey to become a Zero Balancer. Another epiphany hit me hard when I assisted my sister and her partner in the birth of their daughter. I looked into their tired but happy eyes and I knew this was another gift that I would have to learn to give. This was the day when I began my journey to become a Doula. At the very beginning I thought that I will just follow my two separate paths and will try to be the best at both of them separately. But along the way, as I was growing and learning to follow my paths and as I put my wobbling feet in front of one another I discovered how much I can bring into Zero Balancing from my knowledge of being a Doula and how much I can bring to my “doulaing” from Zero Balancing. And in embracing that I found my whole self.
Although you would think them so very different, you can find in both similarities that will bring you to another level of understanding yourself and the other.
Mindfulness: In Zero Balancing you approach your client without any expectations. You are open to everything they will tell you before the session and then you are open to everything that you can feel underneath your fingertips. You do not judge, you don’t put diagnosis in, you let the client feel what he is feeling, you let him name it and deal with it on his own terms. You are mindful of his needs, you acknowledge them, but you stay in the Companionship Zone – you are their companion, and accompany them along “Their” journey. It is all so very easy to say, but I’m afraid not so easy to make it happen – to be a true companion you have to leave your ego at home, and this is the difficult bit. Even for the person whose ego is just the ordinary size of “I”. It is difficult not to know better, not to be wiser and to remember about a constant need of being open. It is so easy to fall into a trick of our own mind, but yet you can control it, and this is what both of these disciplines did for me. When I’m a Zero Balancer I’m also at the same time a doula to my clients. When you are a doula (doula means a female servant in Greek helping women during labour and birth), you are the side-kick. Your client is the queen of the show and her wishes are your command – whatever the wishes may be and however ridiculous they seem to you it doesn’t matter. She calls the shots and you have to deal with that (or change career). Doulas try to help women to have their dream birth, whatever that means. You meet your client and listen to her worries, her fears and you let her know that she deserves and she can have her dream birth, and that she deserves and can have her saying, her choice. And although you cannot predict the outcome (oh, how rich would a person be who can predict when the birth will happen, how long it would take and how it will go) you open yourself for your client, for the wisdom of her body, you open yourself to the universe and the birthing knowledge imbedded there, and you just go with the flow as a companion with your mind open and your heart full of love. And it doesn’t matter what you think a dream birth should look like, it doesn’t matter that you have been there before and you may think that you know better – you remember, you left your ego at home, and this is her ego and her needs at this particular moment that you cherish.
Stillness comes with mindfulness. You have to still yourself – for the briefest of moments stop the outside world from touching and influencing you. You have to ground yourself and get your strength and body wisdom to guide you. And when you find within yourself this place of stillness you are able to hold the space and your client in the highest regard in the safe and wonderful place of healing. And here when I am a doula I am also a zero balancer for my clients. This is a true skill that took me years to learn, but one that helped me on my doula journey. Ego cannot enter the true place of stillness. You can listen and observe from that place with your whole being. Your body becomes a transmitter and your senses are razor sharp. You can notice and you can respond to your client, whether on the couch or in the birthing room. Your intuition is on high alert and you believe in yourself and you can listen to what she is telling you, and you can act on it – because imbedded deep into your intuition is your whole life knowledge and knowledge of generations that came before you. And this is the place where you don’t have to second guess yourself – in true stillness your mind, body and soul act as one. And you are grounded – rooted deeply into our Mother Earth taking and giving back nourishment for yourself and for your client. Holding space is so very important. Sometimes this is all that your client needs. Because in the space that become sacred, sacred things can happen – healing can occur, new life can be born. And you are the witness of those miracles. And you remember that you are the witness and witness only, because by then your ego is deeply asleep in the small room at the peripheries of your subconscious.
This is how my two paths merged and became one – a path of healing, because in healing others, one finds true healing for oneself. In walking and discovering my path I discovered myself and I very much like the person I have become. I found a true calling in being a zero balancer and a doula and I’m so happy that the two things I love doing most complement each other so well. In what I’m doing I found my true happiness and in embracing that I found my whole self.