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Writer's pictureRita Lança

What does “Transition Doula” mean?


Being a Transition Doula is the way I manifest who I am. What I do is absorbed in me, it's an extension of who I am.


What is a Transition Doula?


To be a transition doula means caring for, supporting someone who is going through a big change in their lives, connected with loss.


This accompaniment is based on about two decades of experience in the social sector and in the intimate relationship I live with the divine and it is from this centre where I find love, light, peace and strength that I intervene in reality.


I propose a form of care that is rooted in a deep vision of our goodness. In addition to the suffering that we may experience, I am permeated by the calling to stay with compassion in the unspeakable, to see the resources that we are carrying, to go beyond suffering, transforming it into something that makes sense.

Ria de Alvor landscape at sunset, with flamingos

In my view, to be a doula means holding a space and time so that a person feels confident to express what needs to be expressed. It means revealing through the way I am present, the potential to be a channel of resonance, of the innate wisdom that each one of us manifests.


It's walking at someone’s side. It is accepting myself and accepting the processes that each one of us lives, as an opportunity for development, with the awareness that the various deaths that are part of our lives carry clues for us to live better, be more present with ourselves and with what surrounds us.


It's living in truth, giving new meaning to each phase of life as a new season. It is believing that we have the right to die, alive, with dignity and love.


The basis of my doula work is contemplative and compassionate listening, which starts from the recognition of our similarity as beings who are seeking to free ourselves from suffering and be happy. I am open to the narratives that emerge, to the way a person weaves their way through life, to the cadence with which they tell their story and how they revisit themselves through it.


I see us from a holistic perspective - a person as a being with multiple needs, in interconnection, a person in their own context. I cultivate awareness, presence and trust, in connection with my own source of inner wisdom and a long-term vision (the person before, during and after their death), connected to everything that surrounds us.


Two quotations that inspire me and mirror this vision:


We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.

William Butler Yeats


I learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou


Above all, I am a very grateful being, so well received, for the privilege of witnessing the mystery of life.


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