The EngagED Midwife
The EngagED Midwife
Your Energy Is Expensive: Protecting Your Passion as a Midwife
Feeling emotionally drained, cynical about your work, or lacking professional fulfillment? You're not alone. Burnout affects healthcare providers at staggering rates, with midwives facing unique vulnerabilities due to the intensity of our profession.
Drawing from personal experience and evidence-based strategies, in this episode, Cara and Missi unpack the differences between burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral distress while offering practical tools to rebuild resilience. We explore the four pillars of resilience that sustain midwives through challenging times: connection with supportive community, establishment of healthy boundaries, development of self-compassion practices, and reconnection with purpose and joy. These foundations help counteract the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization that characterize burnout.
While individual coping strategies matter, we emphasize that burnout isn't just a personal failing—it's often systemic. Midwives deserve workplaces that protect their wellbeing through adequate staffing, reasonable expectations, and supportive policies. Those in leadership positions have a responsibility to advocate for these changes.
Our top ten resilience strategies provide actionable steps you can implement immediately: giving yourself permission to rest, advocating for your needs, continuing to learn, debriefing after difficult experiences, keeping visual reminders of your "why," moving your body, protecting your sleep, creating post-shift rituals, setting boundaries, and finding your people. Remember that a thriving midwife provides better care—your wellbeing matters not just for yourself, but for all the families you serve.
What resilience practice will you commit to this week? Share your thoughts or questions with us on social media—we'd love to continue this important conversation.
#TheEngagedMidwife #MidwifeLife #MidwivesMatter #MidwifeWellbeing #ResilientMidwife #BeatBurnout #HealthyMidwives #WorkplaceWellness #ReslienceInPractice
Welcome to the Engaged Midwife Podcast. This is Kara and this is Missy, hi, missy, hi. Well, today I think we're going to have a really good topic, because we're going to talk about something that's, you know, impacted both of our careers for certain, and I think it's important to most every single midwife, because we're going to talk about burnout and compassion, fatigue and resilience.
Speaker 2:Well, this is like a total loaded situation for me, Because we did that episode a few months ago on cortisol and like why everybody feels not like themselves outside of perimenopause and menopause, just like professionally right In in our lives, and why what stress and cortisol have to do with our health and well-being, and so this is like the sister episode, right.
Speaker 1:Right, and this is so important because burnout and fatigue and exhaustion and resilience are important to everyone, whether they're a student, nurse, midwife, new practicing midwives, to some of us that are perimenopausal and even beyond. So it is a really important conversation and we hope that it'll be helpful. I'm hoping we can end up with a positive spin and getting to resilience. That'll be the goal of this episode.
Speaker 2:You know, it's crazy that I was just talking to one of my kids about resilience and he couldn't. And you know, because we have children that are all similarly aged. Mine are a little younger, but one of my kids was like, mom, you are, we're such a good student, you did all these things. And I said, no, I studied really hard. I said, and I built resilience over the course of the time that I had to be a student, and he couldn't really grasp the concept of why or what resilience really was.
Speaker 2:And I think it's interesting when you think about that, because our kids I don't think this generation of people who are our children aren't as resilient as we were as Gen Xers, and part of that, I think, has to do with how we were raised. Right, our parents were like the turn-you-loose parents, right when they were, like get out of the house and don't come back until the sun goes down and drink from the you know hose and you know no, I'm not going to feed you and all the things. But our kids have gotten so much more from us in terms of parenting and how we parent that I don't think they're as resilient as we might have been.
Speaker 1:I struggle with that a little bit because I don't know that. I think it's like they're not as resilient. I just think they have a different resilience. But I completely hear what you're saying. That, yeah, I was just giving that example of being like a latchkey kid at kindergarten age. We wouldn't do that nowadays with our kids. It was a different time.
Speaker 2:I mean, rory wanted to ride his bike to school today, perfectly safe, like it's a whole thing, like there's a safe way for him to get to school, not on a major road to ride his bike, and I literally panicked until I saw him on Life360, like get to school, which, yeah, our parents would have been like whatever, did they get there? Did they not get there? I don't know. I'll see him tonight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was explaining to my niece the other day that my parents would get up and they would make sure we were awake in the morning, but they would leave for work before my sister and I got on the bus, so like we were on our own to get ourselves on the bus in elementary school, I just think it's so crazy to think about nowadays. But any who? You're right, we all need resilience skills and how we develop them is maybe a little bit different than by generation, that sort of idea.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, I think, like definitions right, Because when we think about this topic, I think burnout is the thing that comes up first for us. Right? And burnout really is experiencing emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a reduced sense of accomplishment, and it's a lot of. When you leave work you don't feel fulfilled, you don't feel at peace. It's a lot of just feeling, you know, professionally depressed.
Speaker 1:Right, feeling professionally depressed Right, and as midwives, we're particularly at risk for this because it is such a high intensity profession. We have on-call demands, it's very unpredictable and there is emotional intensity to the types of care situations that we're faced with a lot, and so midwives are particularly vulnerable to this idea of burnout and I think you know we're always a big fan of shouting out like the midwife heroes and the midwife researchers that are doing incredible work and Bree Thumb is probably the most widely known midwife to talk about burnout and really like letting us know what the current status is. So go take a look at her work. But we're going to use some of that in our conversation today.
Speaker 2:Well, we know the statistics and most people do know the statistics that healthcare providers are really high risk for burnout. Healthcare providers are a really high risk for burnout and, like you were saying, like midwives have very unique pressures put on us because I feel like 95% of the time we are in very joyful places in our practice and I won't say I'm in a joyful place doing gynecology but in OB, like in OB world, which is where I live right now like 95% is so good, but the 5% that is bad is really bad. Yeah, it's really bad. When we train new midwives, I always think like bad when it's bad, it's really bad and you have to be prepared for when it's really bad and you have to be able to for when it's really bad and you have to be able to respond when it's really bad. So you know, there's, I think, something that goes into that 5%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and just even talking about that intensity and that 5% helps us to differentiate compassion fatigue and moral distress from what we were talking about. So burnout is that emotional exhaustion and the depersonalization and so forth. But compassion fatigue is when that emotional drain comes from being around people that are suffering a lot, witnessing suffering, witnessing pain and so forth, and so midwives are certainly vulnerable to that. And then moral distress also creeps in, because we deal with a lot of moral and ethical issues, and moral distress is when we know the right things for our patients but we can't necessarily make it happen. Maybe the system constrains us, maybe there's limitations on what we're able to do, maybe our scope of practice in our state doesn't allow us to provide the care that we know is necessary, and so that adds another layer in this conversation about burnout is that there's these other things that are happening also that can create that exhaustion, can create that depersonalization, can add to that lack of fulfillment because you're not getting recognized for the work that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here's the self-help part of the podcast today. So this is just like if you were on social media and they were like take this fast quiz to see whether or not you have XYZ right. Mine is all about perimenopause right now and about cortisol and about workouts, like perimenopausal things right. But here it is. So questions to ask yourself in terms of symptoms of burnout, especially for midwives and nurse practitioners. So have you become cynical or critical at work? I could put my like two cents into each one of these questions, but I am going to contain myself.
Speaker 1:Don't editorialize.
Speaker 2:Do you drag yourself to work or have trouble getting started? Have you become irritable or impatient with coworkers, customers or clients? Do you lack the energy to be consistently productive? Do you find it hard to concentrate? Do you lack satisfaction from your achievements? Do you feel disillusioned about your job? Are you using food, drugs or alcohol to feel better or simply not feel? Have your sleep habits changed? And then are you troubled by unexplained headaches, stomach or bowel problems or other physical complaints. So it looks a lot like depression, right.
Speaker 2:It does yeah, but I do believe you can be professionally burned out and not be depressed. I think there's, and not be depressed I think there's. Depression for me is an all the time feeling right. All the time I feel hopeless, sad, unable to find joy in normal activities. I think the line between being overall depressed or having major depressive disorder and being burnt out is can you draw that distinction between I only feel these things when I have to work versus I feel these things all the time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and you know there's. We talked a little bit about what burnout is, but there are certainly causes of it within our profession and I think some of the questions that you touched on can help us think about our own personal causes. Are they personal things? Are they specific to our situation? Are they systemic in the practice that we're in the environment that we're in, that sort of thing? But some of those things can be a lack of control.
Speaker 1:Do you have decision-making capability in your practice? Do you have, you know, are there workload considerations, that sort of thing that are outside of your control, or do you have some say in them, having unclear expectations from your practice, partners from the hospital, from patients, that sort of thing? Do you have dysfunctional workplace dynamics? Certainly we have both, and I think it's true of all, humans have worked in really great functional workplaces and we have worked in really dysfunctional workplaces, and that can contribute in a big way. So some of these questions thinking about like what am I feeling? What are my symptoms?
Speaker 1:Maybe based on the system around you, but or it may be more internal, and then we have extremes of activity. You know, I tell people all the time I'm a delicate flower, I don't. I don't necessarily want to work like to physical exhaustion, but sometimes it feels really good to do so. But call shifts could be very extreme depending on what's going on, and you can physically be exhausted and emotionally be exhausted and just your brain hurts from thinking so hard. But we do have extremes of activity and constant energy or the disruptions in sleep you could have lack of social support if you don't have good support around you.
Speaker 1:You and I both have talked about how our partners are incredible and our kids are amazing. Go back and listen to those episodes too, about my mom's a midwife or married to a midwife, but having support systems is really important. And then that I hate the notion of work-life balance, but when there is imbalance, certainly that can contribute to all of these different things that we've been talking about. And so then you can end up with some pretty significant health concerns, and you mentioned the cortisol and stress, but that can certainly complicate the picture as well.
Speaker 2:These. I mean, every time we say something in this episode I'm going to be like, oh yeah, that right, because this is not, I think, unique to any single person who's a midwife. I think every single one of us have experienced some of this in a job. And my mom God bless her she's been a nurse for so long. She's probably been a nurse now, I think, for 50 years, which seems so wild to me. And she refuses to retire.
Speaker 2:But so shout out to my mom, who said to me very, very, very early in my healthcare career no job has to be forever if you're not happy. And literally it has been emblazoned in my brain since my very first healthcare job, when I was working as a paramedic no job has to be forever if you're not happy. And so sometimes I think am I not happy? Am I burned out? Is it situational, like maybe this one situation is not making me happy, right? Or is it a bigger problem where it's the job and it's not me, right? So I think, with maturity and that question has come, I have to then spend some time digging through what are the other contributing factors to why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling? Before I get to say so I'm just burned out and I think you can be burned out in a job and not be burned out in a profession.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's such a good point. So the average healthcare provider will leave their profession in seven years, and I think what you said is so important that you can leave the job and have such an improved outlook, have improved energy, have joy again. You don't have to leave the profession and that's what we hope you'll take away from this is that we don't want to lose such incredible midwives from the profession. But you can change the job and we've both done that in our professional life.
Speaker 2:This is a really great opportunity for you to spend a few minutes, I think, just talking about your recent transition, because I think that saying that right, saying that you can change the job and not leave the profession is the highlight reel of what has just happened to you this year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went through a really challenging time at a job that I thought I would have for the rest of my life I have been at the same place for more than 16 years I built something. I'm incredibly I. It is my heart and soul, and it was making me ill and it was making me have significant impacts on my relationships with people, but also just my relationship with myself. I tell people that I saw myself in Zoom screens every day disappearing, and so I had to figure out what I was going to do, and you know you were there for me through all of this of was I literally going to do something entirely different, because I just felt like I had been eaten up and chewed out, chewed up and eat whatever. I was not eaten out, chewed up and spit out.
Speaker 2:There it is.
Speaker 1:Oh God Put an explicit rating on this episode. But I had to figure out that and had to come to the realization. I love being a midwife. I'm really good at what I do. I love educating. I love being a midwife. I'm really good at what I do. I love educating. I'm really good at accreditation stuff.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to walk away from the things that I love doing just because I was so sad. I just needed to find a different place to do it. And so I was really worried, and I think midwives in particular like midwives, are worried about leaving their patients. They're worried about leaving their partners. I was terribly worried about leaving my students, and what kind of disappointment was I going to cause for all kinds of other people. But then you also have to realize that your employer will have your job posted by the end of the day, if necessary, or they will find someone to replace you or they will decide to go in a different direction and that's not on me, that's their decision, once I make the one that's right for me and my family and my health and that sort of thing. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about that. I don't think I realized how sick I was and how sad I was until I had a fresh start somewhere else, and so I'm really, really grateful for that opportunity.
Speaker 2:I think what I saw during that time with you was the things that we say are consequences of burnout, right, which are things like excessive stress, fatigue, like always being tired, always wanting a nap, not being able to feel energetic, addicts all the time, insomnia like I can't fall asleep, sadness right, you've never been an alcohol or substance person. But food, right, we feed our feelings when we are burned out. But then all of those things have negative repercussions on our health as well. So I was so happy that you got a new job and have been able to sort of, you know, pull yourself out of that idea of burnout. But what I think, too, that I have seen from you and in research for this podcast episode, is understanding that it can end really quickly, like your feelings of burnout and all of these negative repercussions that happen because of a job.
Speaker 2:As soon as you step away from it, it just feels so much lighter. And you know, one of my really difficult transitions happened during COVID and I had a really hard time letting go of the burnout part because we were still experiencing COVID and I couldn't reconcile the feelings between the job and the pandemic and all the other things that were going on in life and I wouldn't have called it burnout, I would have just said I was just depressed in life and I think you have to be able to make those distinctions. But what's crazy for you is is like the minute you stepped away from that thing that no longer served you, it changed. It was like a total 180 of like oh, kara's back.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's exactly it. I did feel lighter, Like it just felt fresh. It was and not to say it's not stressful Starting a new job after 16 years is incredibly stressful. Putting yourself out there to do the job search is incredibly stressful, All of those different things but it just felt so fresh and there's energy in learning new things. You and I both are lifelong learners and love learning new things, and so it was such a great opportunity and I'm glad you stuck with me. I'm also really glad that I have such good friends in my life that were like Kara, do you need to call your therapist? Kara, you can't just ghost me for two weeks. You're my best friend. You can't just not pick up the phone or answer my phone calls. Because those kinds of things were happening. I was disappearing, I was pulling back because everything was painful and it was because of a job. A job.
Speaker 2:My kids said to me why are you screaming at Kara? I said I need Kara to get her head out of the sand and like figure herself out and let me help her. And Brooks was just like you don't ever talk to Miss Carol like that. And I was like no, no, I don't, Maybe once every few years because one of us needs it. And it was a hard time for us, like as business partners and as friends, to do that. But it's not the first time that it's happened. It certainly probably will not be the last. But you also have to like recognize who those people are, who are not just going to like be like well, fuck you for not picking up the phone for two weeks and we're not friends anymore. I'm done with this, Right.
Speaker 1:So, no, I'm so thankful and I'm thankful for the opportunities that I've been given and I'm I am thankful for the resilience that I have. And then I also think that I've demonstrated to myself that, and so the next time the job gets hard something you know like that sort of thing, like when you've flexed those muscles and practice them before, it's easy for it to come right back to you again as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I think the next step in this is, if anybody is listening to this and they're feeling really burned out, let's work on some like, let's spin this in a positive way. Let's feel good about either how far we've come much like Kara has just like talked about or how we can get to a place where we feel joyful again and everybody doesn't need to leave their job. I don't think that's the message that we're trying to give you. I think the message is really like there is a set of skills that I think you need to have as a midwife in order to be able to do this profession long-term and to be successful and happy and joyful and all of those things. So let's talk a little bit about what we were talking about with resilience, and so you know you and I are queens of saying like we can do hard things. We say that to people all the time. If you watch our social media, we are always telling people you can do hard things, and thanks to Glennon for like a coining knot for us and giving us permission to say out loud like I can do hard things.
Speaker 2:But resilience is not about ignoring the things that are hard right. It's about being able to adapt and being able to have hard conversations sometimes and being able to let some things go. And I'm going to give you the Taylor Swift quote right now. Right, yeah, adapting sometimes means not giving your energy to things that don't serve you. And Taylor said right in the podcast your energy is expensive, it's like a luxury item that not everyone can afford. Is expensive, it's like a luxury item that not everyone can afford. And when you are building resilience, you need to be thinking about who you're giving your energy to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:I think the really incredible thing is that there are midwives that have been in the profession for a really long time that are still joyful and they still are super engaged and they don't have burnout and they have a, they possess a certain skill set, that and they have habits and mindsets and so forth that can really serve them and help with their resilience.
Speaker 1:And I think we should focus on that and think about the positive frame that people have as they build resilience. And there's kind of basically four pillars. So we're going to talk about connection and community, boundaries and workload, self-compassion and recovery, and then purpose and joy, and so those four pillars let's talk a little bit about each of those. So we'll start with connection and community. So there's really no one else other than another midwife that totally understands what the life of a midwife is like, right, and we all need that connection and that community with others in our profession to help support us. There's others our family, our friends, other people outside of midwifery but you do need your community of other people that have a shared experience with you, that you can connect with and that can help you when times are tough.
Speaker 2:Also, it doesn't have to be a midwife who's in your practice, although those people do understand the unique challenges of what's happening within the context of your practice. Although those people do understand the unique challenges of what's happening within the context of your practice, certainly, having people outside of your practice that also understand what that's like I mean. What's fun about Vanderbilt is that we have two different groups of midwives. We have School of Medicine midwives and we have School of Nursing midwives and they look very different and sometimes it's really fun to just sit and talk to one of the school of nursing midwives because they understand but they are outside of it, and so that's a nice delineation. And, much like you with Dome, dome is the director of midwifery education and CARE has got this unique opportunity to connect with you know the 50 other program directors that are around the country who might not be in the same organization but have the same challenges, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always say that's the one room where everyone else there knows what my job is like and there's slight differences, but there's more shared. There's more community there than there is anywhere else. So such a good point, isolation is burnout's more shared. There's more community there than there is anywhere else. So such a good point, isolation is burnout's best friend. When we're isolated it really just feeds into that whole idea of burnout, but when we have community with others, it's its biggest enemy. So find your community, I love that it's its biggest enemy.
Speaker 2:So find your community. I love that. So the next one I think that is important that we talk about is boundaries and workload management. And I am the queen of core boundaries and core workload management and it's mostly because I just keep telling myself like, oh, I can do more, I can help, I can add shifts, I can do this favor for this person and not having a lot of respect for my own family time and like the ability to like put work aside. And you know, saying yes, right to everything is a really quick way to get to exhaustion. You know saying yes, right to everything is a really quick way to get to exhaustion.
Speaker 2:And I will tell you that I was working, for the last two years, four extra shifts every eight weeks. Now people are like, oh, that's not that many, but it adds up to be like 25 or 30 extra shifts in a year. And so if you said that to most midwives do you want to work 25 extra shifts in a year? They'd be like, what are you doing to yourself? And so this year, in an effort to avoid burnout, I gave up all those extra shifts, which means all that extra money, and it took a lot of my time off in the first half of the year to just rest, rest. And I've said, even today I was like, oh, I have one thing on my calendar and then I'm going to bake and I'm going to make dinner for my family and I'm going to go out with my husband, and while everybody else in my life is like, oh, those are things I do all the time and I'm like that's not stuff I gave myself permission to do because I've been pushing so hard for four years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was always about like moving up the ladder, getting promotion, making more money, those sorts of things, and I hope that people listening to us today will take our experience of being pretty seasoned midwives and I'm just learning how to say no to things. I'm just learning how to set boundaries. It sounds like you're doing a better job of it too. Please feel free to start that early in your career, and it will lead to a longer, more productive career because you won't get burnt out as much. And so set those healthy boundaries now, if you're able.
Speaker 2:When I was in academic nursing, I also had no boundaries. I would work and answer email at midnight. Sometimes I would wake up at 4 am and see something on my phone and have to respond to it Like the worst professional boundaries that I could have ever had. And one of the things I appreciate from you and a bunch of other people in my life who started putting disclaimers in their email that said I work at these hours because it's best for me. I don't expect you to also be working at these hours, which also gives permission for people to not respond.
Speaker 2:I tell people all the time I work nights. I am at work while most people are sleeping. If you get an email from me at three in the morning, it's not because it's an emergency. It's because it's three o'clock in the afternoon for everyone else. Urgency, it's because it's three o'clock in the afternoon for everyone else. Yeah, but I think building some practices in terms of boundaries and workload are important.
Speaker 2:Also, one of the gifts of trying to build better resilience is like having rituals for yourself.
Speaker 2:So I know for a fact work nights.
Speaker 2:At the end of my streak of nights I drive home and people think that's crazy, that I work all night and then I drive four and a half hours back to Cincinnati.
Speaker 2:It's my ritual, though, right, I put a book in, I usually talk to you, I talk to a couple of other people that I need to like either vent out or just like talk about what's happening for the week and kind of get myself together so that I can get home, and then you know just like anybody else who knows me really well like it's some sort of workout or some sort of meditation or some sort of something to make me feel like back together. Right, it like brings all the pieces together, and so finding those things helps you build resilience, because by the time I get home, I've probably in that five hours, and after I've gotten to work at it, I've probably forgotten about all the stuff that happened at work and I can move into what I would consider like my home phase of life, which is being a wife, being a mom, being a friend and being able to like have the freedom to not think about the other things in my life that have been distracting for the last four or five days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you really are touching on that third pillar, which is like that idea of self-compassion and recovery practices, and so you know, it's really that you can't pour from an empty cup kind of idea of like to be a good healthcare provider we have to take care of the healthcare provider but you know, it's prioritizing sleep, it's filling your body with good nutrition and energy and it's in doing things that bring you joy and give you rest and recuperation. And all of those things that you mentioned are like a reset right, like it's calling a friend, it's going and doing some sort of exercise or yoga. It may be taking a hot bath God, I love a bath but whatever it is, it's like that reset. It's I'm safe, I can rest, I'm not at work, it's making that separation and that's really, really helpful.
Speaker 2:There are a couple of things that we have kind of listed under our recovery and self-compassion like notes, but that also feed into the joy and purpose, which is the fourth pillar. And it's funny because I'm sitting right next to and if we put up our clips on YouTube, I'm sitting right next to a board of places where I have things posted and I'm going to kind of you can't really see on my camera, but I'm going to pull a couple of things out. There's a picture here that I have of me holding a baby and I'm like, oh my gosh, look how young I look. This baby is the seventh grader.
Speaker 2:Her mom and I are really good friends and I see her growing up on social media and it's so funny that I'm like oh, this picture sitting right next to me by my desk brings me so much joy. It reminds me of why I do what I do. And then this is going to make Kara laugh when I show her this one. It's this picture that I have that's got a fox on it, because it makes me think of Kara and like all the work that we've done, and foxes are our spirit animals. Actually, this card is actually blank. I haven't written in it. It's actually one that was meant to go to Kara that hasn't yet.
Speaker 1:You sent me one very, very similar, because it's up in my office on my bulletin board right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, again, reminders, and so one of the things about, like, keeping moments of joy visible is something that can really help you build resilience, and I have so many pictures on this wall in my downstairs office of like babies that I've delivered and people who I've taken care of and people who are really important to me in my life, and ultrasound pictures of my own babies, and I think, when you see, think when I sit down here, and even if I don't spend time actually looking at them, it's almost like proximity, right.
Speaker 2:I know that they're in my peripheral vision. I know that those are things that make me happy and I will tell you, if you're not a midwife and you just listen to us, because you love us which, thank you so much writing notes to your healthcare providers that say nice things are the things that help us build resilience. I have thank you notes that are now 18 years old that I have kept in a file that I'm like sometimes I just want to pull these out and read them that, like I did the right thing for this one patient and, you know, not every patient's going to write you a note. There might be one note a year, or two notes a year of like the patients who, clearly, like you, made a huge impact in their lives. Those notes mean so much to healthcare providers in terms of building resilience in what they do every day.
Speaker 1:I have a folder that is kudos and warm fuzzies and it's where I place you know, an awesome little one line email from a student about thank you so much for something, or it's. It's just those great things. And every once in a while you need to go read a Kudo or Warm Fuzzy, because the day is really crummy, and I agree with you. Surround yourself with those things that remind you about the joy with what you're doing.
Speaker 2:There's another little note. It was a note that came in a gift from another midwife and it said you didn't have to, but you did so, thank you. Didn't have to, but you did so, thank you. And I was like like that recognizes that you knew I had boundaries that I didn't have to cross, but I did, and it made a difference in your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:We've talked a lot about what we can do to help build our own resilience, but I want to make sure that everyone knows that it is not on you and you alone to make sure that you have individual coping skills.
Speaker 1:The system is involved in this and it's systems that we work in, that we need them to be safe and we need them to be protective of our careers and that sort of thing. And so, as you are building workplaces, as you are involved as a leader, really thinking about the fact that we want to make sure that people have adequate resources, that we aren't requiring mandatory overtime and that we're not understaffing everyone, but we want to make sure that people can survive and thrive in the workplace. And if we have the capability and if there's a midwife that is sitting at a table that can help advocate for other midwives and can make the system better for everyone, we should try to do that as much as possible. I would also argue we all need to be involved in our professional organization so we can be doing advocacy at the state level and the national level, because those protections help our profession and they help us. So you want to speak up when you can see a place for improvements and you want to be involved in making the place better for everyone.
Speaker 2:And a little teaser to your comment about professional organizations we are going to be hosting ACNM CEO Michelle Monroe and Vice President of ACNM Lexi Dunn in our podcast in an episode coming up in October. So if you're interested to hear more about ACNM and how you can get involved and stay involved and really be part of the solution when it comes to midwifery, tune in, because I think they're going to have some interesting things to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, missy, this has been really awesome. We've talked a lot about resilience. We've talked about how you can keep going when the times are tough and when work is hard and at some point in your career as a midwife for everyone. There's going to be struggles and there's going to be difficulties, but I really hope that people take away from this that positive frame and what they can do themselves to help themselves, but also how we all collectively can help our profession. But I think we can wrap up some with a top 10 list of how you can stay joyful and resilient as a midwife. How's that sound? I think it's great, okay. So number 10, give yourself permission to rest. Rest isn't a reward. We deserve rest. So make sure you give yourself a chance to take breaks and take days off and go on vacation. You earned it. You don't even have to earn it, it's just yours. It's a privilege, it's a benefit.
Speaker 2:Take it, so that'll help you refill, schedule those vacation days, much like I did. I'm sure Lydia's listening and is like, oh my gosh, missy and all of her vacation days, and I'm like I'm taking them. Yeah, it's happening. We can't take more of you, that's right. So number nine, advocate for what you need. So really, this has to do with like speaking up about your schedule, about staffing, about policies that affect you. Right? You deserve to be in a workplace that supports not just the patients that you serve but also the providers, and that will also help avoid burnout and provide resilience, just being an advocate for yourself and an advocate for your partners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Okay. Number eight is keep learning. I love learning, I know you do as well and I think most people do but take a new course, learn a new skill, do professional development, talk through things you know and reignite your excitement about the profession. Keeping up to date is really, really fun and learning those new things in our profession can really reinvigorate and make you joyful.
Speaker 2:So many options too the new OBE, the OB emergency certification. Get a fetal monitoring certification, take an ultrasound class, learn about colposcopy. There are so many opportunities for midwives to expand what they know or what they learned in school. So do that. It'll make you so happy. Number seven debrief early and often. Oh my gosh, this is so. I can't even tell you how many times I do this. Did you have a terrible shift? Did you have a really terrible birth or a bad outcome? Like you, don't have to just let that spin in your own head. One of the things I think that has saved me over and over and over again in 20 years is being able to talk it through with somebody that I trust, whether that be another midwife, a physician colleague that I respect or your therapist. Let it go. Let it go out into the universe and find peace in the fact that you've had a chance to debrief about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Okay. Number six keep your why front and center. You just shared with us such fun photos and thank you cards and that sort of thing. Keep it close by and let those reminders keep you grounded about why you're doing the work that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Number five was written from a sea stack. Move your body and fuel it well, so you can't pour from an empty tank. I've heard you say that. And food is fuel for our bodies. People hear me say that a lot. I mean I do love a good Oreo, but it's probably not the thing I should live on. I also love a good treat, like something good has happened. People have seen me on social media cramming a donut into my mouth. That, again, is one of my favorite things to do.
Speaker 2:But food is fuel. So making sure you're also eating things that are good for your body and doing some sort of movement. Not everybody is going to be a runner or an athlete, but I mean there are things that you can do that are as easy as taking a walk or as easy as doing a meditation or as easy as going to like a gentle yoga class. Like yoga doesn't have to be like high intensity, like high insanity, hot yoga, like I like, but it can be something that is just healing for your body. So just don't forget to move your body and feed it.
Speaker 1:All right. Number four was written for me Protect your sleep like it's sacred, because it is. Sleep is the foundation of focus and mood and decision-making, and you want it to be a top priority.
Speaker 2:Yeah, number three I already talked about this, but create your post-shift ritual Mark the end of your work day or work week. I work several days in a row and then I take several days off, and so it's easy for me to have a ritual at the end of those days. But maybe it's like you go home, you shower, you brush your teeth. You either go straight to bed when you work nights, like me, or you take a walk. You do something that says I'm done with this thing, I'm moving on to the next thing, and that I feel like is so important and we've talked in other podcasts about micro-scheduling and how to move from one activity to the next and I think you know having a post shift ritual is, you know, something that everyone I think should come up with, just something that they can do at their end of this shift that, like marks the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely All right. Number two set boundaries and keep them. One of my favorite things to say is no is a complete sentence, 100%. So protect your time off, protect your personal life so that, when you are working, you can show up for the job that you need to do and what you're meant to do, and make sure that you understand what those boundaries are and protect them.
Speaker 2:And the number one way that we think you can keep burnout away is to find your people.
Speaker 2:And Kara and I are really trying to be like the epitome of this for people, because we found each other many, many years ago and there are very few times in our lives where we don't find each other for whatever.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's I'm so mad, I'm so angry, I'm so upset, and then sometimes it's I'm so happy, I'm so joyful, I can't stand myself and everything in between. For us, that's your lifeline, and life does not provide us with best friends on very many occasions, right. And those people are the ones, even if they're not midwives, those are your, that's your, that's your group, that's your tribe, that's your squad. Those are the people, right, and those are the people that you want to talk to when things are bad or when things are good. And those are the people that you laugh with and cry with and remind each other like hey, I've got you and you've got me, and it is not a hundred, a hundred Like. Sometimes I'm at like 20 percent and Kara's at like 80. And that's how we make our hundred, right. It's very rare that we are in a 50-50 situation.
Speaker 1:It's true, ruin every relationship, absolutely Correct.
Speaker 2:But you just need to find your people and make sure that those people are also loved and cared for in the same way that they love and care for you. So I think these 10 ways are great ways to build resilience and bring just joy to your life and to your career and midwifery. And maybe you can't do all 10, but maybe pick one or pick two and make those your priority for the week, because we know that building resilience and being happy and joyful are ways that we can prevent burnout in midwifery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know what? I think? One of the biggest things that we should probably wrap up with is that a thriving midwife isn't just good for yourself, but it's good for all of the people that we take care of, and it impacts how well we take care of people and the quality of care received, and so when we survive and thrive, we're helping the communities that we serve as well, which is really important.
Speaker 2:I also think you know I ended our last episode with some bullet points that I thought were important, and I think these are important too. So one of them is asking for help is not a weakness, right. Everybody needs it at some point, and taking a break isn't giving up. It's either refueling or finding a readjustment in what we do, right, yeah, and I love that.
Speaker 1:No is a complete sentence, me too, me too, and I think you know new beginnings can be such a nice thing. What is it? What is the saying? That like babies are such a nice way to start people or something like that. Like new beginnings, it can feel really hard, but it can be one of the best things that you do, so that you don't end a really important profession and you don't end giving yourself. You know the world needs you. The world definitely needs you as a midwife, so don't forget that.
Speaker 2:Keep going, that's right. Well, thanks for joining us for the Engaged Midwife Podcast. We can't wait to talk to you again, take care.