Is This Doula Burnout?

• Transcript

  Wed, 10/11 13:33PM · 23mins

  Welcome to Doula Tips and Tits. This podcast is a place where we answer one question about Dula work, both to support you and to help you support your clients. I'm Kaely Harrod. I've been supporting families in this perinatal space since my oldest was born, 12, nearly 13 years ago. 


  I am a birth and postpartum Doula, childbirth educator, La Leche League leader and a Doula coach. I love guiding and supporting Dulas as they work out their Dula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way. 


  Thank you for joining us on this journey. Welcome back to Doula Tips and Tits. I am Kaely Harrod and I sound a little scratchy today because I have had a cold for a solid week and I am thankfully getting better, but I'm a person that like when I feel better, I sound awful. 


  So I sound super scratchy and squeaky, but actually my body feels good. But it's still worth noticing, noting that that's why I sound squeaky because that's not my normal sound. Today's episode is diving into burnout. 


  Now, I fully acknowledge that I have done other episodes on burnout. It is a topic we're gonna come back to occasionally because it's necessary. It's necessary to come back to it. It's an important topic and it's a topic that does not grow old in our profession because burnout rates are so high. 


  Now, I wanna dig a little bit into identifying if you are in burnout and how to navigate through that and how to see if that burnout is telling you something needs to change or if that burnout is telling you your body is ready to be done with this work. 


  Excuse me, now, I will say that there's a lot of nuance in this and so I don't want you to listen to this episode and get to the end and be like, well, Kaylee told me that I'm ready to not be a doula anymore, right? 


  But also, I think there are parts of this work that are incredibly challenging and I know plenty of people that are like, I was a doula for a short time and then realized my body can't really handle it and I don't know if this is the right thing for me and so how can I be involved in birth work in a more sustainable way, right? 


  So there are variations of it and different aspects of birth work that you can do even if you're feeling like your body's sending you signals and you're not quite sure how to manage those. I wanna share some actual stats with you because I like data. 


  That's not a new thing that you're learning about me if you've been around for any length of time here and I think it's helpful to kind of have some validation but also some quantification, if that's the right word, on what actually is happening oftentimes when we talk about doula burnout. 


  So I'm getting these stats from a synopsis of a doula burnout study that was published in, the synopsis was published in the bump .com, so that website, but the research that they're taking the information from is from the MamaGlo Foundation. 


  So it's not, the research was not done by the bump but they reported on it. So the research showed that 77% of the doulas who were surveyed said that they felt either unwelcome or specifically disrespected in a hospital setting. 


  The other stat that they looked at was whether or not a doula felt seen and heard as part of their care team, as part of like a client's care team, right? And so 48% of respondents said that they had issues feeling seen or heard, meaning that the rest of the team doesn't take them legitimately, it doesn't take them seriously and see them as legitimate. 


  And then the most constant issue and the biggest contributor to burnout in my mind is being underpaid and always on call. So one of the things that I talk about a lot about doula burnout is good pay and having breaks. 


  Now, I'm not gonna dive into that today. I'm not gonna kind of beat that topic because I've already been talking about that plenty of times and I'll actually post in the show notes my, the first time I did a series on burnout so that you can go back and listen to those if you haven't listened to them yet. 


  But what I want to talk about today is distinguishing if what you're feeling now is in fact burnout. When I get asked if I've ever had burnout, my response is typically like sure I have in various ways, in various times and I've kind of dipped in and out of it over the years. 


  Now I could list lots of different reasons for that. The first of which was getting paid poorly initially. The second of which is certainly feeling like a lack of respect for my boundaries and my time, especially when I was working with agencies. 


  And for sure the feeling of like in order to make more profit in my business, in order for my family to have what they need, I have to give of my body and there's no other way to do this. However, the other side of it is the like emotional and social toll of the work that we do, right? 


  Like I sometimes joke with my clients that I'm technically a contractor, but like for them, right? Like they've hired me as a contractor essentially, but like they probably don't invite their like roofing guy to their kid's first birthday, you know? 


  So I'm like, I mean, our relationship is different. I would guess that you're like, you know, back deck contractor didn't like see you naked ever, you know? So I mean, I don't, obviously I have clients that appreciate that kind of humor. 


  So we do joke about that. But also I think we have to consider the amount of emotional work that we have in this field and how that can take a toll on us, depending on how our life is playing out otherwise. 


  So I wanna kind of give you a little picture of my last couple of weeks and give you a sense of how I have been feeling and doing and then talk to you about why I don't think it's burnout. Okay, so, you know, that's spoiler alert. 


  I don't think I'm burned out, but I have had some things in my life that have impacted all different aspects, right? So we recently moved. So we've, at the time of recording this podcast, we've lived in our new house a little less than two, about two and a half weeks. 


  And we love it. Our new house is glorious. We have beautiful landlords that are beautiful, beautiful, wonderful people. And our neighborhood is amazing. We have three hens in the backyard. Like truly it is a dream. 


  Like we love this house. Also, moving takes a whole frickin' ton of work. And I posted on Instagram, it was, yeah, right around the time, like maybe the week before we moved, so about three weeks ago now, that I was on my way to a birth and I got in a car wreck. 


  So I was in a lift and we got hit in a really bad wreck. I was okay enough to go to the birth. I didn't think I was injured really at all, but then the next day found out that I was, in fact, I had kind of tweaked up my back slash ribcage a little bit. 


  And so I ended up needing to go to urgent care and be like kind of resting and relaxing for a couple days to recover from that because I was having pretty significant pain and very limited mobility. And so I, like in the course of seven days, I got in a wreck, went to a birth, realized I was injured from the wreck, went to the urgent care for like, you know, the whole day, cause it just takes a hot second to get seen from urgent care in DC. 


  Laid up, so I had to cancel some shifts and things like that. Like I had to cancel some things with clients and delay some work stuff for a couple days. And then we moved. And then my children gave me a cold. 


  And so we moved and moved while we were sick. And then, oh and in that time, I had another client go into labor and I thought we were having a baby race. Like I thought that another client, two clients were going into labor at the same time. 


  So emotionally, physically, financially, it's been a challenging couple of weeks, right? Now, everything is fine. Like everyone is fine. I am fine. We're, our family is over the cold for the most part. 


  Our new house is lovely and slowly getting unpacked. My body has healed from the wreck, right? Like my clients did not race. So one client hasn't had their baby and other client did and everyone is doing well. 


  And so ultimately everything's fine. What happens to me personally, when I have a scenario like this, where it's like three weeks of a lot of intensity and also some very unusual circumstances. Like I'm not very frequently in a car wreck, right? 


  I'm not very frequently moving houses, but I'm especially not very frequently in a car wreck moving houses with a cold, right? Like that combo is especially crappy. So for me, when I come out of that, I have this kind of dueling feeling. 


  On the one hand, I'm sort of like, whoo, that was a lot. And I need like a couple of days to recover. On the other hand, I'm like, I need to get shit done. And so I'm like, okay, I had to cancel everything last week. 


  So this week I need to do like twice as much work, right? And the reality is that that is a form of people pleasing and like re -bounding from that time of illness and being kind of laid up that is not sustainable, right? 


  And that's a personal thing. And so today I had to kind of say to myself, okay, okay, Kaylee, like be reasonable, right? So I wanna give you a quick example of the day that I thought I was gonna have just so that you really see the concrete nature of this like get shit done mentality, right? 


  So in the throws of the move, we also have a wedding happening in a week and a half. So my sister's getting married, we're super pumped about it. We're flying for that. And so we are like collecting, you know, wedding apparel and whatnot, right? 


  So I have had like four bags of things that need to be returned. And we've had a whole list of things that we need to shop for, like the boys don't have dress shirts and we need, you know, everyone needs a belt and blah, blah, blah. 


  Like all of that kind of stuff. So yesterday we went to a couple of different stores, we got a bunch of things purchased. Everyone has like an outfit now for their various roles in the wedding and like huge successes all around, right? 


  Today I was like, okay, there's two bags of stuff that needs to be returned to old Navy and some things that needs to go back to Target and a few things that need to be sent back to Amazon. And I need to like pick up these chairs that I'm buying for cheap on Facebook marketplace and also maybe some firewood that's in another part of the city. 


  And I have a client meeting in the morning and I have a client meeting in the afternoon. So I was like, you know what I'm gonna do is get up and like, you know, get ready. Like just live my normal early morning too. 


  And then I'm gonna drop the kids at school. I'm gonna run five errands. I'm gonna go to my client. I'm gonna run another errand. I'm gonna go have my second meeting with my client. And then I'm gonna grill chicken for the first time in my life because we have a grill now at our new house. 


  And so why not try something that I've never done ever before today of all days. So I'm gonna grill chicken for the first time in my life, which means I have to have like guidance from the internet on these things. 


  And then I have my doula coaching tonight, right? And I'd like to just report that that's not how my day went. In fact, it was A, not all in my control and B, that's a whole load of stuff that I should not have planned to try to do in one day. 


  But my brain was sort of like, we gotta catch up on all the stuff that we're missing right now. And the reality is that that is not how that works. My body can't handle that. What ended up happening instead is I did run a number of errands. 


  I picked up the chairs, but not the firewood. I saw both my clients. I had both my client meetings, thankfully, which was great. And then I fell asleep on the couch and my husband ended up going and grabbing something from the grocery store for dinner and the chicken is still in the fridge, marinating, for the longest marinade time in all of history. 


  And tomorrow, maybe, I will grill that chicken, maybe. And I did do my coaching this evening, but I didn't do anything in between my meeting and my coaching except for sleep on the couch because I was exhausted, because I had had so many things that I had put on myself to do today that I was like, I just like completely fell asleep in the afternoon because my body was just like, just crashed, right? 


  Because I just got over being sick too, so I'm not really like, I mean, I'm still a little tired and things like that, right? So one of the things I want you to think about and why I share all of this with you is for you to learn from my mistakes, right? 


  But also for you to help gauge if what you're feeling is temporary and situational. And if it can be rebounded from or if it's like an ongoing issue that's indicative of a bigger problem. And so for me, my example of all of these last couple of weeks, Part of what that has impacted is like, you know, I have not posted hardly anything on social media. 


  I am recording this episode and then immediately turning around and posting it, which is not something I usually do because I have my amazing assistant hunter who does most of my episode stuff. So I record, I give her everything and she does all of it. 


  But she was like, I can't do it this week if you don't get it to me by Sunday. And so I said, okay, I'm probably not gonna get it to you by that day. And so I'll just do it this week. So I'm sort of like feeling the impact of the overwhelm in my business in the sense that I haven't been able to show up like I normally do. 


  I haven't been able to interact like I normally would. I haven't been able to engage. Like I have some clients that I need to reach out to. I have some people I need to schedule stuff with. It's not that I'm necessarily behind on that stuff, but more so that I just haven't had the emotional capacity to get all of it done, right? 


  And that's okay. Like that's actually incredibly normal because I've had a really crazy couple of weeks. And what I can normalize in my body, in my brain, and in my business with my clients is that I have very limited capacity for the next week until we go to this wedding and then we get home, right? 


  And the truth is that most of the things that I need to reschedule can wait for that. Most of them aren't urgent. Obviously this client that's due, she can have her baby whenever she'd like, like that's gonna get fit into the schedule anytime. 


  But also I feel like the other stuff, people are not dying without me, right? My business is not floundering because I haven't posted every day on social media for the last couple of weeks. It's okay. 


  Like it's okay and I can rebound from that. And it also doesn't mean that I hate my work. It doesn't mean that I don't wanna be a doula. It doesn't mean I can't handle it. It doesn't mean any of those things. 


  It means it's super freaking hard to have all of those things happen at the same time and still have to like get your kids ready for school and like figure out what's for dinner and just do regular life stuff, right? 


  And that's okay. And what we need to do as doulas especially, but as business owners in general, is give ourselves permission to have some really shit times in life, right? And when that happens, letting some part of our business be a little bit looser for a little while, I don't want you to completely let it go, right? 


  Like I didn't completely stop posting on social. I did a couple updates, especially where I was like, hey guys, I got hit by a car and then went to a birth and then I'm moving, right? Like here's my week. 


  This is why you haven't heard from me. So if you're over on Instagram connected with me there, you probably saw that reel where I was like, this is why you haven't heard from me because I have had all this stuff going on. 


  And so I'm still engaging with my audience. I'm still sending my newsletter. I was still doing my podcast. Thankfully I had recorded my podcast early. So I had it all ready for the all of the weeks during the move, I had already recorded all those podcasts. 


  So I knew I wasn't gonna have to worry about those in the throes of us moving, right? So I want you to take some time. If you're feeling a little burnt out, you're feeling tired, you're feeling like your to -do list is crazy long. 


  Take some time to think, okay, is this temporary? Is this situational? Like this is a transitional time of year. We're moving from summer to fall. Kids are starting school, which means then kids get sick, the family gets sick, right? 


  There's lots of different changes happening. That's true in nature. And it's also true in family dynamics. It's also true in social things and company things, like all of that, right? So what I think we can also sort of hone in on as Doola's is, is this just a seasonal thing that I'm going through where like the last couple of weeks have been hard, but actually I love this work and I can rebound into what I know I should and want to be doing. 


  Or are you maybe at a more kind of critical turning point where you're like, I'm not sure that I can handle this job and maybe my body is telling me to shift. So I'm going to end this episode, A because the episode is getting long and B because I want to kind of dive into that second piece of it of like, do I think that, that I need to stop being a doula? 


  And, and I want to dig into that a little bit and, and give it its own episode. So the next episode that you can expect to come out is that, and we'll dive into that a little bit more. I would really love to hear from you around these two topics because I think that they are a huge, huge, huge problem in the doula community. 


  So I would love to hear kind of where you are, um, in the process of being a doula and also like, have you experienced burnout? How are you navigating that? Like, what does that look like for you? Right? 


  So, um, tune in for the next episode, make sure that you're subscribed and you've left, let leave a review. If you love this podcast, because that is super helpful to us. Um, and then connect with me over on Instagram at her adoula and let me know what, if any form of burnout you've experienced. 


  All right. I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the doula tips and tips podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at her adoula so we can celebrate alongside you. 


  If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app. That helps other doulas find us as we do this work together. 


  This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment. It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business. 


  We'll see you again soon. 


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As a new doula, juggling the demands of a busy schedule, supporting clients, and managing your own self-care can be overwhelming at times. It's important to recognize that burnout is a common experience among doulas, and that there are ways to overcome it.

In this episode, we'll be exploring the various factors that contribute to burnout, including unrealistic expectations, lack of boundaries, and self-care neglect. We'll also be sharing practical tips and strategies for preventing burnout, such as setting realistic goals, prioritizing self-care, and seeking support from experienced doulas and mentors.

Quote from the show:

“So it's not, the research was not done by the bump but they reported on it. So the research showed that 77% of the doulas who were surveyed said that they felt either unwelcome or specifically disrespected in a hospital setting. 

The other stat that they looked at was whether or not a doula felt seen and heard as part of their care team, as part of like a client's care team, right? And so 48% of respondents said that they had issues feeling seen or heard, meaning that the rest of the team doesn't take them legitimately, it doesn't take them seriously and see them as legitimate. 

And then the most constant issue and the biggest contributor to burnout in my mind is being underpaid and always on call. So one of the things that I talk about a lot about doula burnout is good pay and having breaks. ”

CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or  Instagram

https://www.tiktok.com/@doulacoach

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Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services

It is sponsored by The Birth Prep Blueprint Childbirth Class

Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay