You Belong Here
Look out
What's happening for the person you're supporting?
Free Live Workshop for Doulas + Birth Workers
Confident Support in Uncomfortable Moments
Become the doula your clients don't have to perform for.
Wednesday, September 16, 2026
6:30 p.m. ET
Live Online
Free
Your client shouldn't have to perform empowerment, confidence, or certainty to receive supportive care.
They should be able to tell you they're scared.
That they changed their mind.
That they don't want the thing they thought they wanted.
That something feels wrong even when they can't explain why.
That they made a choice you wouldn't make.
And you shouldn't have to know the perfect thing to say to support them well.
In this free 60-minute workshop, you'll learn how to navigate vulnerable, complicated, and unexpected moments with more curiosity and confidence—without assuming, fixing, steering, or taking over.
Can't attend live? Register anyway. The replay will be sent to registered participants.
When Support Gets Complicated
Sometimes the hardest part isn't knowing what to do.
It's not knowing what's happening underneath the moment.
“Did I say the right thing?”
“Did I miss something?”
“Did they tell me what they truly wanted—or what they thought I wanted to hear?”
Doulas are invited into some of the most vulnerable moments of a person's life.
Clients may talk to us about fear, pain, feeding, identity, medical decisions, intimacy, sexuality, relationships, trauma—or choices they believe they're not supposed to make.
And sometimes they don't tell us.
When someone detects discomfort, judgment, an assumption, or even our desire for them to make a particular choice, they may start editing themselves.
They protect our feelings.
They explain themselves.
They give us the version of the story they think we're comfortable hearing.
We cannot support needs we are not allowed to see.
The goal isn't to become perfectly comfortable with everything another human being could possibly tell you.
And it isn't to memorize the perfect response to every difficult conversation.
It's to notice what's happening, stay curious about what you don't know, and keep the person in front of you at the center of the interaction.
In 60 Minutes
Learn to look out, look in, and look in between.
When support gets complicated, it's easy to focus entirely on the person in front of you.
But there is more happening in the room.
Look in
What's happening in you?
Look in between
What's happening in the interaction between the two of you?
HIKE gives you a way to notice all three—and find your bearings before deciding what the moment needs.
H
Hold space
Before doing anything, make room for what's actually happening.
You don't have to immediately fix the feeling, fill the silence, offer information, or make the moment more comfortable.
I
Investigate, don't assume
Get curious before deciding what something means or what another person needs.
Ask. Listen. Notice. Leave room for the answer to surprise you.
K
Keep the client centered
Their feelings don't have to become your feelings.
Their choices don't have to become a measure of whether you did a good job.
Notice what belongs to you and what belongs to them—so their experience can remain theirs.
E
Engage—or ease back
Support doesn't always mean doing more.
Sometimes the moment needs information, a question, comfort, advocacy, or action.
Sometimes it needs you to stop talking.
HIKE isn't a script for what to say.
It's a way to look out, look in, and look in between—so you can respond intentionally instead of reacting automatically.
Save My Free SeatSupport for You, Too
Don't let client interactions keep you up at night.
Did I say the wrong thing?
Should I have done more?
Were they disappointed in me?
Did I support that decision well enough?
Caring deeply about your clients doesn't mean every feeling, decision, or outcome has to become a measure of whether you were a good doula.
Their feelings are not yours to fix.
You can care about how someone feels without making it your job to change the feeling.
Their choices are not a measure of your worth.
You can support a decision without needing to agree with it—or needing their decision to validate the support you provided.
You can reflect on your work without replaying every interaction looking for evidence that you failed.
HIKE gives you something to come back to:
- Did I stay curious?
- Did I keep them at the center?
- Did I notice what was mine and what was theirs?
- Did I respond to the person in front of me instead of the story I was telling myself about the moment?
Leave the interaction knowing:
I was the doula they needed.
Not because you said everything perfectly. Because you made room for them to be fully themselves—and stayed grounded enough to support the person who was actually there.
Why I Teach This
I don't want you to become less human to become a better doula.
Supporting another person doesn't make your own experiences, reactions, assumptions, discomfort, or feelings disappear.
And I don't think the answer is pretending they do.
My work has moved across psychology, social work, sexuality, birth, embodied practice, research, and education. Each has given me a different way of understanding what happens when one human being tries to support another.
The question I keep coming back to isn't “What's the right thing to say?”
It's:
What is happening for the person in front of me?
What is happening in me?
And what is happening between us?
That's the lens behind HIKE—and the work we'll practice together in this workshop.
You don't need to take yourself out of the interaction.
You need to understand yourself well enough that your client doesn't have to take care of you inside of it.
Dr. V · PhD Psychology · MSW · Sexual Health Educator · Doula · Researcher
Join Me Live
Confident Support in Uncomfortable Moments
Date
Wednesday
September 16, 2026
September 16, 2026
Time
6:30 p.m. ET
Format
Live Online
Cost
Free
Come spend an hour practicing how to navigate the moments that don't come with an obvious answer.
We'll explore how to look out, look in, and look in between, use HIKE to find your bearings, and support the person in front of you without taking responsibility for feelings or choices that aren't yours to carry.
Can't make it live?
Register anyway.
The replay will be sent to registered participants, so you can still watch the workshop if you can't join us in real time.
After the Workshop
An hour can change what you notice. The Intensive gives you time to practice it.
Confident Support in Uncomfortable Moments introduces you to the lens behind HIKE and gives you a framework you can begin using right away.
If you want to go deeper, Mind-Body, Birth: Support Intensive explores the psychology, identities, relationships, bodies, communication, decisions, and human responses that shape what happens when we support another person.
Deeper support for your birthers. More support for yourself.
A Bonus for Webinar Attendees
Enroll in the Support Intensive during the webinar offer period and you'll also receive the Implicit Bias Training Certificate for Doulas option—a $75 value—at no additional cost.
Save Your Seat
You don't have to know exactly what to say.
You can learn how to stay curious when you don't understand.
How to notice what's yours and what's theirs.
How to support choices without making them about you.
And how to leave a complicated interaction knowing you stayed present with the person who was actually there.
Confident Support in Uncomfortable Moments
Wednesday, September 16, 2026 · 6:30 p.m. ET
Live Online · 60 Minutes · Free
Register below to save your seat and receive the replay.
The replay will be sent to registered participants.