Death Doula, We Know You Can Give, but How’s Your Receiving?

Death Worker, you didn’t get into death work because you wanted to become a content creator. You didn’t sign up to spend your days writing Instagram captions, researching SEO, or figuring out how to “market yourself.”

You got into death work to serve. To give. To tend. To midwife what matters most.

I asked one of my apprentices recently how her practice filled up so quickly after completing Nine Keys. She told me she was getting call after call for death doula work.

Her answer stopped me in my tracks: “Because I am receptive to this work.”

She didn’t say, Because I post on Instagram every day.
She didn’t say, Because I ran a bunch of grief groups.

She said she was receptive.

That word changes everything.

We spend so much time in this field giving - our time, our hearts, our labor, our care. But how many of us have learned how to receive?

Receiving is the other half of giving. Without it, the circuit is incomplete. Our generosity becomes brittle, ungrounded, and unsustainable.

To be receptive is to say: I’m open to being met by this calling. I’m open to being cared for in return by this work.
It’s to let your phone ring and trust that the person on the other end was led to you.
It’s to allow the work to find you because you are open to being found. But, if your current is always outpouring, how can the sacred polarity of giving and receiving be healthy?

Receptivity is not passivity or greed, it’s a posture of openness. It’s what allows the sacred flow of giving and receiving to stay alive. When we block it, our bodies and our practices start to ache.

Giving is sacred.
But giving without receiving is a wound.

So, Death Worker, how’s your reception?
Can you feel where life might still be trying to give to you?

I recorded a podcast for you on this very things. If you need some gentle guidance on Receptivity in our work, please give it a listen. You can find it here.