"A servant heart doesn't think less of himself, he thinks less about himself"
"Een dienend mens denkt niet minder over zichzelf, hij denkt minder aan zichzelf."Doula means servant in Greek. The word servant often has a negative feel to it.... being a doula's is really serving and supporting the labouring woman.
I like the quote above as it paints a different and positive picture of a servant role. Having a servant heart is an attitude, is one who puts himself to one side for another and if its done out of a healthy self image does not do it because he thinks less of himself but for the good of the other.
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This weekend we had two more days filled with learning about communication. Challenging in many ways as I am not the worlds best communicator but it was good to practice in a number of role play cases during which I found that I wasn't as bad as I thought.
We were challenged to look at how our judgments of people could stand in the way of our serving them as doulas.... for instance how do you deal with a woman that smokes and is unwilling to give it up during the pregnancy even though its damaging to her child? Some in the group were not willing to work with such a woman and others felt that was a step too far and wanted to support her regardless. I am very anti smoking but found that I did not have the heart to leave such a woman to her own devices, she still has to give birth and parent that child. Supporting her through the birth was more important to me than her giving up smoking.
I travel to and from the course with Farola, a gal from Rotterdam also on the course. I enjoy her company and the feeling of partnership that we are going to get this doula thing going in Rotterdam. Its also always great to de-brief the day together as we train home. Another two weeks til our next 2 day session. Can't come quick enough :-)
So in one aspect we are all doulas of our 'neighbours'... and you are doing a very christian study :D
ReplyDeleteI think I never saw servant in a negative way... maybe because it has the word serving in it, and for me that has to do with being in an exclusive restaurant, having the opportunity to have access to anything you want, but on a level of being equal. They have something I want to pay for. Another thing that for me was always going with 'being a servant' is the joy of caring and hospitality.
Too bad it's not that way with the Dutch words... "slaaf, serveerster, dienaar" keep sounding like 'you are below in rank'.
A well. It sounds like you having lots of fun learning :D
Keep up the good work, and it's a shame that I probably won't be pregnant anymore.... but in case I would, you will be the first doula I ask for, and getting me back into life without problems would take us a heck of a lot work!
:D