CONTINUING ED
Merging the Spiritual & the Scientific
Dynamic courses for birthworkers of all levels
Expand your tools and knowledge to be In Service of Birth
Learn cutting edge tools and dynamic information about pregnancy, birth, motherhood, infancy, and parenthood from a somatic, embodied, and psychospiritual lens.
Go beyond the basics of doula training courses with knowledge that will deepen your connection to your clients, and expand their relationship to themselves, their bodies, and their babies.
Be in service of birth, of motherhood.
Whether you are a brand new doula or have been in birthwork for decades, join me in exploring the deeper layers of the perinatal period. We will explore the personal, the historical, the cultural, the scientific, and the spiritual in order to create connections, deepen our knowledge of the body, increase intuition, and help our clients cross the threshold with deeper trust and confidence.
Many birthworkers struggle to hold the deeper, darker, scary, or Animal parts of the process, just as the mothers we work with do. Our culture represses the human animality of birth and motherhood, but it's much easier to sit with it, in all its raw, beautiful difficulty (and, sometimes, ease), when we have permission to be who we truly are. Permission for this ultimate acceptance of self (and all our strengths and flaws) comes with knowledge of the body, from both an external scientific lens, and an internal sense of being.
Through these courses, you will learn what it really means, from a nervous system (polyvagal) lens, to "hold space," and you will receive the latest tools to help clients understand themselves, how their bodies and nervous systems work, how past traumas and belief systems influence birth and motherhood, and how the medical system contributes to the difficulty many women experience in birth and after.
Join me on a thought-provoking journey--
Monthly Course Topics
In Service of Birth series begins September 2023. Birth and postpartum topics will alternate monthly. The first three topics are planned with dates. See below for more information.
BIRTH TOPICS
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We Birth How We Live
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Birth and the Nervous System
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Birth Belief Systems
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Evidence, Advocacy, and Intuition
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Embodied Anatomy
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Psychospiritual Journey of Birth
POSTPARTUM TOPICS
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The Mother Myths
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Postpartum Care as Ritual
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Tending to Trauma
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The Postpartum Couple
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Humanizing Infancy
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The Anxious Modern Parent
We Birth How We Live
"Know thyself" should be the first thing pregnant couples are taught about preparing for birth. Learn how the stories we tell, as people, as families, as cultures guide how we view our ability to birth. Gain tools for helping clients learn themselves to know better how they will navigate birth.
The Mother Myths
Examine the myths that tell us what makes a good mother, and how these cultural messages impact the postpartum period and beyond. Learn ways to coach new mothers through the identity transformation, grief, and beauty of allowing themselves to fall apart and then rebuild themselves anew after childbirth.
Birth & The Nervous System
A doula who understands the nervous system is worth their weight in gold. Cutting edge research regarding the polyvagal theory gets uniquely applied to the birth process in ways that will surprise you and help you realize how much you already know about the deeper physiology and psychology of childbirth and the immediate postpartum.
Fee, Dates, & Location
Each course is $150 to attend in person locally in Memphis, TN, or virtually via Zoom (live--recordings available if missed due to emergency).
Courses take place Sundays, 3-5pm on the dates listed below.
Location: Jay Etkin Gallery, 942 S. Cooper Street, Memphis, TN 39104
September 24: We Birth How We Live
October 22: The Mother Myths
November 19: Birth & The Nervous System
All students receive available handouts and resources that reflect tools shared in the course.
Join me in service of birth and mothers!
Please fill out the google form linked on this page, and send accompanying fees to my Venmo.
You may register for all three upcoming courses or just one at a time.
You may attend in person or virtually, which you can select in the google form. Virtual attendees will receive a Zoom link near the time of the course.