Cultivating Community When You Feel Like You Don’t Have One

“Hi! How are you doing?  I made you a meal, when can I drop it off?” -actual text from me to any client or person in my circle of friends.

One of my favorite questions to answer is when people ask me - why did I become Doula. I’m not a short answer person. It’s not in my DNA…so I’ll save the topic of how birth changed me for another post. But what I want to talk about another part of serving as a Doula that is so near and dear to my heart-

Building community and how freaking important it is the days, weeks and months after giving birth. Because for me, serving people doesn’t stop at birth..in fact birth is just the beginning. The beginning of a new journey as parents…a journey that can be confusing and isolating and exhausting without the right support.

Sometimes you have to know what you're missing to know how to fill in the gaps. 

Sometimes you have to be near exhaustion, washing dishes, vacuuming the floor with a giant pad between your legs and hemorrhoids so big they could have their own zip code(who can feel that?) because company is coming over to see your new baby so you know you need to clean…

Sometimes you have to feel the waves of nausea wash over you every time you even think of food, but you know you still have to feed the other tiny humans living in your household…

Sometimes you have to be utterly lonesome drowning in diapers and breast pads and toddler tantrums trying to remember what you look like when you once had sleep…

You have to be in the trenches to realize just how exactly you need to show up for other people in those same ways.

And that's what it is for me.  For the way I serve women and families. Feeling nauseous? Let me bring you some tea and broth and a meal.  Feeling worn out? Let me wash your dishes and fold your laundry and bring you a meal. Feeling unheard, confused?  Let me sit next to you and listen.

It was my fourth pregnancy that changed how I view birth, but it was also the isolation and loneliness I felt bringing a baby into a new place, a new home where I didn’t have my family around and no strong sense of community yet that made me realize how vulnerable I was during that time.  I realized that for the first time in many years being away from my family, that this feeling has become the cultural norm.  I read books on other cultures and how they treat pregnant and postpartum women and was truly baffled by how much we are failing postpartum women.  How much we are leaving new parents to figure it out on their own.

Not on my watch. 

Birth and new parenthood is a rite of passage so beautiful and so hard it can break you or form this incredible new person you are evolving into. The outcomes of this experience can be changed and shaped by the level of support we receive.  In a world that's rushed and busy, slowing down to prepare a meal for another person can feel like a burden…a task that interrupts your day.  Or it can feel like a gift…a lifeline you are throwing someone. A thread you are weaving into a tapestry of connection and community and support.  A seed you are planting that says, “I see you.  You are doing this new hard thing, I want to lighten the load.”  It may seem like just a meal but I can promise you, with that conscious choice to show up for someone else, you are rewriting the story that our American culture has told us of- “Be Strong.  Be Independent. Don’t ask for help. Asking for help is a weakness.”

I have four children whom I have the privilege of homeschooling.  I often joke that some days our school can look unconventional.  Some days it looks like my kids helping me chop veggies for soup, stir bone broth, rolling protein bites and making meals for women and families they have never even met.  Because they know the importance of giving to others in times of need.  And that's my little part, my ripples I’m creating.  Teaching them the importance of caring for others during such a tender time.

If you’re a new or expecting parent, let this be known…there are people out here who see you where you are.  We want to feed you and nurture you and let you be held.  There are seasons in which we take, and seasons in which we give.  That's the beauty of community. So allow yourself to be vulnerable.  Ask for help.  Set up the meal train.  Draw the line when it feels like too much.

If you’re a friend, a grandparent, a community member in a season of life where you have a little extra to spare, remember we all have moments of vulnerability, and when we allow ourselves to show up for others during those times, we are pouring into a community that will hold us up when it's our turn to rest or need.  Make a meal, pick up groceries, babysit an older child, walk a dog, clean their house.  Don’t ask what they need becaue in those times of tiredness and vulnerability most people don’t know.  Pick a task and just ask what time works best.  You are cultivating a community.  And it’s a beautiful thing to grow.

I’ll share a quote that I have written on my actual business card and on the home page of this website-

“We don’t have to do it all alone. We were never meant to.” -Brenè Brown