Doulas and Birth Workers Community Sharing Day’s 💛
What an amazing, wonderful day at our doulas and birth workers community sharing day. 💛
It was such a nourishing space to be in.
A huge thank you to Sue for offering her beautiful space — a gorgeous, sunny, spacious room with views out over Monmouth, and the whole place to ourselves for the day.
We started, naturally, with cups of tea and a good chit-chat, and then moved into some deeper sharing.
We talked about clients and births we’ve supported, situations we’ve found difficult, things that are going well, training we’re doing at the moment, and the different models of care we’re working within — shared care, backup care and how we might support one another more.
We talked about the value of our work and charging properly for what we offer.
We talked about self-care.
We talked about what we’re currently offering women, how that feels, what we might want to change or develop in the future, where our work is coming from, how we’re advertising and what we’re hearing in other birth-worker circles.
And there is just something completely different about being able to have those conversations face-to-face.
Then Sue shared a gorgeous Qigong practice with me. She’s been doing her teacher training over the past year and it was SO nourishing.
Breath.
Energy.
Movement.
Stretching into the meridians.
Feeling our feet on the ground.
Exactly what was needed.
Then lunch — Sue had made parsnip soup and I brought salmon stir-fry — followed by treatment swapping.
And this might have been my favourite part.
Sue gave me the most incredible facial. Hot flannels over my face to begin, then massage around my ears, jaw, eyes and cheeks. She asked if she could work a little more deeply than she usually would to test it out on me and honestly… it was heavenly.
I completely drifted away.
It was exactly what I needed.
Then I showed Sue some of the shiatsu and rebozo techniques I’ve been using with clients recently and getting really lovely feedback from. I gave Sue a treatment, and then she practised some of the techniques on me.
And suddenly the day was gone.
Where does the time go when you’re doing something that genuinely feeds you?
We even finished by swapping produce from our gardens
— I have an overproduction of apples at the moment, and Sue sent me home with carrots and squash.
Just lovely, all round.
Sue and I have both said we’d really love to work together again in shared care too, so we’ll see what comes our way.
Our next gathering will be at Georgies place in Cheltenham, and hopefully a few more birth workers will join us.
If the group grows, I think we can keep exactly the same sort of format — coming together as a whole group and then breaking into pairs or groups of three for deeper sharing, skill swaps and treatment swaps.
Because THIS is where it’s at for me.
Both Sue and I started the day feeling tired. I was actually feeling a little bit low.
And I came away feeling completely different.
When women come together, there really is something magical about it.
And perhaps birth workers need this more than most.
So many of us work alone.
Yes, we have WhatsApp groups, Zoom meetings, online training and professional groups. They all have value.
But there is something irreplaceable about sitting in a room together.
Talking properly.
Showing somebody with your hands what you did with a client rather than trying to explain it in a message.
Hearing someone else say, “I tried this…”
Practising on one another.
Receiving care as well as constantly giving it.
Being able to talk through births — the beautiful ones and the difficult ones — with people who understand.
I also think real-life connection changes relationships.
Things can so easily become misconstrued in online spaces. Tone disappears. Chinese whispers happen. Difficult feelings can arise between people who may barely know one another.
It’s much harder to other somebody when you have sat beside them, eaten soup with them, practised together, laughed together and heard their story.
And I keep coming back to this:
If we want the women we support to value themselves, resource themselves and listen to their bodies… it has to start at home.
With us.
Leading from the centre.
Being the change we want to see.
We cannot continually give to women from an empty cup.
Perhaps some birth workers feel beautifully resourced through family, friendships or other parts of their lives.
But I know that I need this.
I need connection with other birth workers.
I need places where I can talk honestly about births and what went well and what was hard.
I need to keep learning with my hands.
I need to receive treatments as well as give them.
I need local sisters and colleagues around me.
And I think I need this every month.
A little circle of birth workers, filling one another's cups so that we can go back out into our communities able to give from somewhere full.