HLP Voices: Holding Space, Leading with Heart - A Conversation with Rasee Govindani

At Her Leadership Playbook, we believe leadership begins at home. It begins with how we show up during life’s most meaningful transitions.

Growing a family is one of those moments. It is powerful, emotional, and often unpredictable. Both women and men need support as they navigate the physical, emotional, and mental shifts of parenthood. When supported well, families thrive. And when families thrive, everything around them becomes stronger, relationships, babies, and the way we lead in life and work.

That’s why I’m truly honored to introduce Rasee Govindani, a doula and childbirth educator based in Bangkok. Since 2010, Rasee has supported thousands of families through birth and postpartum with a deep commitment to care, knowledge, and presence. She offers birth and postpartum doula services, prenatal consultations, childbirth education, and placenta encapsulation, all grounded in evidence-based and culturally sensitive approaches.

Rasee Govindani

I met Rasee during a time of great uncertainty. I was pregnant with my first child, and just a week before our flight to give birth abroad, the world shut down. The pandemic changed everything. Far from home and community, I literally felt lost. Then I found Doulas of Bangkok and everything started to shift. I was met not just with information but with care and calm. What could have been a fearful experience became one of the most empowering moments of my life.

As the founder of Thailand Babies and Doulas of Bangkok, Rasee has built spaces where families feel held and heard. Her work during the Covid-19 pandemic became a lifeline for many. And through it all, she continues to remind us what real leadership looks like. It is quiet. It is kind. It is rooted in connection and courage.

I’m so happy to welcome her voice to Her Leadership Playbook.

Pınar: You have been attending births since 2010. What first drew you to birth work and becoming a doula?

Rasee:  I don’t have a very exciting origin story. In 2008 I was working at Agoda as an editor while I waited for my visa to move to the States, a job I didn’t enjoy. One day I saw an ad for doula training by Denise Love, an Australian nurse who was living in Bangkok at the time and supporting families as I do now. I didn’t know anything about doulas or childbirth, but something clicked inside me. That training changed my life.

I had always been passionate about supporting women, and service was important to me, so doula work brought those two together.

Pınar: Over the years, how has your understanding of your role evolved? From being a support person in the room to becoming a space holder for a larger community?

Rasee: I spent years feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing; nowadays we call it Impostor Syndrome. In doula work there are no metrics or data to support your effectiveness beyond your clients’ satisfaction. As my place in the community shifted from “just a doula” to a more significant part of the English-speaking parenting community in Bangkok, I found it challenging to embrace this expansion of my role.

I am still a doula before I am anything else. One-on-one birth support work is still the core of what I do. But I have grown to embrace (sometimes with a lot of discomfort) that I serve different people in different capacities. I run Thailand Babies, which currently has over 3,500 members, and I still approve every single post. I am often the point person for families looking for doulas, I teach childbirth and parenting classes in and out of hospital, and I have become the representative for our doulas in many spaces.

I know that when I work with a family, they are my priority, but I am also deeply aware of how I represent other doulas, especially to doctors and hospitals, and how I am a lifeline for a lot of people navigating different challenges around conception, birth, and the postpartum.

Pınar: You have built trusted, nurturing communities through Thailand Babies and Doulas of Bangkok. What does community mean to you?

I am a big believer of the saying, “Shame dies when stories are told in safe places.” It starts and ends with safety for me when I am creating spaces for people: in our Facebook group, in every class that I teach, in support groups, within my relationships with my clients. When I am vulnerable and tender in these spaces, it allows others to feel safe to do the same.

It really does come down to being deeply kind to each other. I think we forget that each person has a story we know nothing about and how they exist in the world is influenced by experiences we are not privy to. We all want the same thing: to be seen and to be loved for the humans we are. And that is the foundation of every community that I create and facilitate.

Pınar: In a world that often feels disconnected, especially post-pandemic, how do you foster trust and belonging in your work?

Rasee: We don’t heal in isolation, and we shouldn’t parent in isolation either. Relationships will literally save our lives. While the pandemic has left so many people grieving and disconnected, connection is the medicine. I believe in love. I lead with love and I return to love when I lose my footing. I am emotionally invested in my clients, students, and the people that reach out to me for support, and that will always come across in how I interact with people. Trust follows safety and safety allows belonging.

Pınar: Let’s talk about the science behind the care. Why is continuous labor support so powerful for birth outcomes?

Rasee: Evidence-Based Birth did a great article on the value of doula support: “Evidence shows that continuous support can decrease the risk of Cesarean, the use of medications for pain relief, and the risk of a low five minute Apgar score. Labor support also increases satisfaction and the chance of a spontaneous vaginal birth. Continuous support may also shorten labor and decrease the use of Pitocin.”

As a doula I meet my clients well before labor and spend a lot of time getting to know them, as individuals and as a family. I learn all I can about the birthing person’s values around birth and parenting and together we create a birth plan that details the family’s preferences around their experience in hospital. By the time labor comes around, I have a good understanding of what’s important to my clients and they know what to expect, as much as is predictable. I follow a family prenatally, through the birth experience, and for a little while postpartum so I am witness to their story in a way that few people in their lives will be.

A doula is like a guide for a challenging hike. The journey (in this instance, birth) is yours to walk. The doula can’t walk it for you, but they can make sure you don’t get lost and that you don’t feel alone. Your doula knows the terrain, has walked alongside others on similar trails, and carries a backpack full of support: emotional encouragement, practical tools, comforting words, and steady presence.

Pınar: Looking back, what moments in your journey fill you with the most pride?

Rasee:  What I get to do for a living is such a privilege and I have had hundreds of moments that reminded me I was exactly where I needed to be. Sometimes it’s a birth that goes exactly as planned. Sometimes it’s someone doing something they never imagined they would be able to do. Sometimes it’s creating communities. Sometimes it’s the hard stuff: helping families say goodbye and navigate the impossible, supporting families in making life-or-death decisions, being witness to unbelievable love and strength.

Someone came up to me the other day at the mall, someone I hadn’t met before who recognized me, and the first words out of her mouth were, “You saved my life.” She had been struggling with severe postpartum depression and had reached out to me, which allowed me to connect her to the right resources.

This work is literally lifesaving, and I am incredibly proud to be part of the parenting community in Bangkok.

Pınar: For women who want to build heart-centered communities or businesses but don’t know where to begin, what would you say?

Rasee:  Figure out who you are, what you’re trying to create, who you are serving, and what your values are. Clarity of self and purpose are necessary for heart-centered work, and your business or community must align with your values. And then you’ll just have to be brave and build it, with no guarantees anyone will come. It’s always a leap of faith if you’re going to start something from scratch. You start and give it time, do the work, and then cross your fingers and toes that you’ve created something that is needed.

Exist authentically in the world. We all want to engage with businesses that are run by people we find inspiring, that we want to be friends with, that feel familiar and deeply human. Pursue joy relentlessly. Whatever it is you’re investing your precious time and life in, it should make you happy.

Pınar: If you could go back to the beginning, what would you tell your younger self?

Rasee: Probably to value my services more and charge more money. When you are the product and your work is very much heart-work, where you’re not producing something tangible, it is very difficult to put a price on your services. And no matter how much I love doula work, it’s still my job. It took me a long time to become competitive in my pricing and to increase that in line with my experience and knowledge.

Set a price that reflects both the community you’re serving and the time that is required by each client, including every meeting you have prenatally and in the postpartum and every phone call and text message you reply to for weeks. Let’s not forget travel costs and endless cups of coffee and the cost of childcare.

Be fiercely protective of your time and energy and value both appropriately. Your energy is not infinite and the cliché that you cannot pour from an empty cup is especially true when you do this kind of work. I don’t have to be available all the time, no matter how easy it is for people to get a hold of me these days. I can leave messages on read until my business hours. I don’t have to reply to an email right away if it’s not urgent. Video meetings often work just as well for a vibe check as meeting in person.

I read a quote that said, “Boundaries are love letters to yourself,” and I’ve taken that to heart. Drawing good boundaries is how I can show up as my best self as a doula, a mother, and a friend.

Pınar: Thank you, Rasee. For your work, your heart, and your honesty. Your leadership reminds us that real power lives in presence. And that holding space is one of the most courageous things we can do for each other.

You can connect with Rasee www.doularasee.com, from instagram @doularasee and from facebook @doularasee .