Having emotional support on any level of our lives can be a game changer to make us fully prepared for what may lie ahead. By having these types of relationships, we can build confidence in ways that prepare us for the unknown, and being determined to make them through any means necessary can help us for a myriad of personal and professional relationships. Amy Wilt, owner of Dauphin County Doulas, provides an overview of how a doula provides this type of support in a very important part of our lives: the beginning. Her unique take as being a nurse, combined with her journey to get to this point, will inspire anyone to find ways to make inwards to the career and passion you truly wish to pursue!

Guest Bio

Amy is the owner of Dauphin County Doulas, a doula agency in Harrisburg, PA. She is a nurse, certified birth & Postpartum Doula, certified childbirth educator, Peanut Ball Trainer, Dancing For Birth Instructor, Body Ready Method Certified Pro, and a Postpartum Corrective Exercise Specialist. As a trained nurse and a trauma-informed DONA International certified birth doula, Amy is committed to empowering birthing people to have the birth they want. Amy is the mother of 3 boys (Dylan, Zachary, & Alec), 2 cats (Ragnor & Bjorn), and Dusty the dog. She is also the Executive Director of Better Birth and Beyond Doula Network, Inc.

Website: https://www.dauphincountydoulas.com

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Intro/Outro By: Michael Dugan, Podcast Host: Voice4Chefs

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

This is Speaking From The Heart.

Welcome back to episode number 42 of Speaking from the Heart.

Today we will have Amy Wilt, who is the owner of Dauphin County Doulas, which

a doula, we learn a lot about in this episode if you never heard the term

before, but we have covered this in another previous episode, but the doula

agency that she runs along with her team is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

She is a nurse, which is a unique take on what a doula can do, and we go into

that quite a bit with this episode.

She's also a certified birth and postpartum doula, a certified child birth

educator, a Peanut Ball trainer, and dancing for birth instructor, along with

being Body Ready Method Certified Pro.

She's also a postpartum corrective exercise specialist and as a trained

nurse and a trauma informed international certified baby birth DONA, Amy is

committed to empowering birthing people to have the birth that they want.

Dylan, Zachary, and Alec, and two cats named

Ragnor and Bjorn and Dusty the dog.

She also is the Executive Director of Better Birth and Beyond

Doula Network Incorporated.

I never really understood or respected the fact of what a doula really did

until we explored it in this episode, but it reminded me so much of the

things that we often take for granted when it comes to not only what happens

after the birthing process, but more importantly, what happens after any sort

of significant life event in which we do need that emotional support, whether

that is through a friend, family member or some other significant person in our

lives that can help us guide into that process, and I think that Amy and her

team definitely do quite a lot of that.

But with that, let's go to the episode.

All right.

We're here with Amy Wilt.

Amy, thanks for sharing your heart with us today.

Absolutely.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, absolutely.

I really appreciate it.

I've had a lot of businesses just because of trying to get the name out there for

the podcast and I really appreciate you responding to it and being part of this.

It's been fantastic to get to know a lot of people and I'm was really looking

forward to our conversation and really, I want to start off because the audience

heard a lot about what your background is.

What got you involved with being a doula?

That's my real big curiosity question and full disclosure, I've had to research a

little bit about that before I even hit the record button and figure out what's

going on in that field, but for those that aren't familiar with it, maybe you want to

give a definition of it and also explain a little bit about how you got started.

Sure, so one leads right into the other.

During nursing school, I fell in love with labor and delivery and as a nurse I

realized that what I thought I was getting into nursing for patient advocacy, just

having that connection, it's not what nursing is about, and knowing that I loved

labor and delivery, I thought, "How can I do this without being under the guise of a

hospital?", and trying to figure out what that looks like and be a patient advocate.

I found out that there's this thing called a doula, which provides emotional

and physical support to birthing people.

That's how I ended up making my journey to being a doula and I absolutely love it.

Was there a particular experience or maybe somebody that has

gone through child birthing that maybe got you interested in the first place?

Do you mind sharing anything about that?

I was the only person in my class to see both a vaginal and

cesarean birth, which was really cool.

Myself, I had really great birth experiences for the most

part; didn't have a doula.

My kiddos are 20, 16 and 12.

I don't have any connection or link to anything as far as that's concerned.

I was curious because sometimes many of my guests have had like experience

that kind of led them into a field, and I know personally for myself, I've had

a lot of different things happen in my life with people that I've experienced

that have helped me to get to where I'm at, so I'm just curious because,

and this is actually leading into a question I had also when I was just

reading through everything that you do.

Is it typical for doula to also be a trained nurse, I mean, what's usually the

industry standard when it comes to that?

So not very often.

I am kind of a unicorn.

There aren't many of us who are nurses who are doulas.

There is a wide range because there is no regulations in doulas in any state,

so there's about 160, possibly more, certifying bodies out there for doulas.

They are not all created equal.

As an agency owner, we do look at those kinds of credentials: continuing

education, those sorts of things.

I definitely am a little bit more on the medical minded side as far as

making sure you have training, you're keeping up to date with training and

that sort of thing, so this is an ever evolving and changing, evidence-based,

healthcare situation is really it.

Yeah, and I think that probably provides a very unique experience for your

clients then especially, and even your team, because I know you have other people

that help you out with this process too.

Mm-hmm.

So I think with that said, what actually got you involved with nursing

then, kind of taking a big step back, because I find it interesting, especially

when I was going through college, full disclosure, because even the audience

doesn't know this, I actually wanted to be a lawyer when I was going to school.

I did not do that.

I was completely not prepared, especially the Great Recession of 2008 that

completely changed my plans while I was still getting my bachelor's, I was saying,

"Nope, I'm not going to do that.", so I pivoted myself, but I find it interesting

that you had gone to school, you got trained as a nurse, you got all the

credentials, and you said, "One day, I want to be a doula", so walk us through

what you and why you initially went to school for nursing and tell us a little

bit about that, because you've already shared a lot about like how that you got

to this process of being a doula, but I think even that background helps us.

So interestingly didn't start out in nursing.

If you would ask anybody who I went to high school with blood and all

the things was not my thing at all.

I was ewww with everything.

I went to school for education, actually elementary education.

Oh, wow.

That's quite a change instead of educating little kids, you're educating the adults.

Yep, so realized that it wasn't for me.

I graduated with business and then went back again for elementary;

could not get a better grade than a C on English 101, and for education,

you had to get a B or better.

Mind you, I was pregnant with my first child when I went through going back

to school and said, "You know what?

Clearly education is not in my path", and I kind of gave it up.

I explored my path a little bit more and I thought ultrasound

technology, that's really interesting.

That's what I want to jump into; reached out to the school, tried to

figure out how I could get involved, and the GPA had to be at least a three

seven to even attempt to get in, and at that point I went, "Uhhuh, not me."

Wow.

So then they looked at me and said, "You ever thought about nursing?"

"Nope, not at all, but I guess I am now", and so here we are.

Yeah.

Was there a big influence for somebody to kind of help you get to that

direction too, because you said that, "Oh, here, this is an opportunity for

you", but were there people or like champions in your life that kind of

also helped you with understanding that maybe you might be good as a nurse too?

That's a really interesting question.

I feel like I've been on my own a lot and just have had things presented

to me and I couldn't get into the ultrasound program, but "Hey, do

you want to do nursing instead?"

I had no idea what I was doing.

I'll be perfectly honest.

I had no clue.

When I went through the first part of my clinicals, my clinical director

pulled me aside and, with nicer words, she basically told me I was terrible.

Wow.

And that I'm out of my element, but I was like, "You know what?

I'm going to stick through this", and I paid the money and I'm doing all the

things and I'm at least going to graduate.

This is what I'm going to do.

About a month or two later, she pulled me to the side, the same instructor,

and said, "You're doing really well.

I had my doubts about you I didn't know if you would make it, and

you're actually doing really, really well and I'm really proud of you."

Was there a feeling that you had when you were able to

say, "Yeah, I proved you wrong."

I know that sometimes it could be really tough to do something like

this, and I know that sometimes we have that motivation in to prove

somebody wrong, but it doesn't sound like it was more about that.

It sounded like there was something else involved, like maybe another feeling.

What did you exactly feel because of doing that?

It was more of an accomplishment.

I knew I could do it.

Most of the people in my class at that time were CNAs or they

had worked in the medical field.

They knew something medical and I didn't I literally was clueless as

to what I was getting into and that made it really hard and very unusual.

My background really was business.

I did a lot of retail, and interestingly, I shared with my oldest, I was going

through school, well, when I was in nursing school, I was also pregnant.

Wow.

And they basically told me that I could not work a full-time job.

I worked full-time retail that I already had, at that point, probably he was two

and a half or three, and then pregnant with my second and going to nursing school

and basically was like, "You can't do it.

You can't do it all."

I figured out a way, and looking back, I'll be honest, I have

no idea how I did it, but-

I have to be honest and tell you that my mom actually, when I was

growing up, she worked through a whole bunch of different odds and end jobs,

especially after I turned into the teens.

She went back into the workforce, but she attended a local community college.

She got her LPN certification from a local community college.

Amy, she was in her late forties, early fifties, and it was really empowering

to see my mom do that, especially my half sister also, who they both went to

school together at the same school and went through and studied together to

get through this, so it was incredible for my mom to be able to do things like

that and challenge the impossible, so there are success stories out there and

I'm really happy to hear that you felt that it was a sense of accomplishment

because I think a lot of people think it's a lot of work, and they often

sometimes don't want to do it because of a lot of the pressure that's involved.

Good job.

I love that hearing that.

I want to talk a little bit about Dauphin County Doulas, which we've already opened

the episode talking a little bit about that, but I want to pivot back because

I was reading your mission statement and the part of it that really stood out to me

is this sentence that I want to read out, is that it says, "We believe information

is the key to having an empowered birth."

It made me start to think about, what are some of the things that

you typically do when you're meeting with a client for the first time?

What are some of the things that you try to do to make someone feel

comfortable, because obviously the birthing process for some women, I

have even talked to a guest about some of the things that are consequences

as part of that in a another episode.

I'm just curious, what do you usually find out about somebody before you actually

take them on or need to know so that you can provide the right assistance?

Can you walk us through that process that you do?

Yeah, I think to get to your question is figuring out or finding out

what they need or would like doula to be for; what their needs are for doula.

Some moms come to me and they're second time moms, and they tell me, "Oh,

we did it on our own the first time.

It was a really not great experience, and so we realized we really want

doula the next time to have a better experience.", and so those are the

people that I realized have to heal from that first experience before they

can actually have this next experience to be more of a positive experience.

We have first time moms come to us and say, "I heard all the statistics

about doulas and I know I want one to have a better birth than

what it could be without one."

I've had partners who reach out, which is awesome.

I love to see that, to say, "I think my partner would have a benefit so much with

having a doula.", so it's kind of trying to figure out why they were looking for

a doula in the first place, and then going from there as to why this makes

sense and what their needs really are.

I do hear "I want an advocate" a lot.

We do not advocate, we help the person to empower themselves to advocate for

themselves, and if they cannot do so because they're laboring too hard and

words aren't coming out of their mouths, we know from all the conversations

and meetings that we've had, we know what they want, what they need, and

we can verbalize that and then confirm that with the person to say, "Is that

correct?", and that way, they still are advocating for themselves in the end.

I love that because I have a similar mission in my business of

Your Speaking Voice which I started is to empower people to become the

best version of themselves, and that is through not only the things that we

have in our voice, but the nonverbal, the things that sometimes that lies

dormant inside of ourselves, and I resonate with what you just said because

we're doing things similar, is just a different way of practicing it because

of the situations people go through.

Without mentioning names, can you talk about maybe an experience you had with

somebody or maybe one of the people that you work with, which I've read

through many of your team members, it sounds like a incredible team that

surrounds all these awesome people, whether they're partners or women.

Can you share with us maybe a great success story or maybe something that had

really challenged you, but, as somebody coming in as a client but had changed

you forever because of that experience?

I know that's a pretty broad question, and that's why, because I figured that

there has to be a multitude of different situations and things, but without

mentioning names, could you describe a situation that happened that way and

what did that do for you, personally?

I had a situation one time where a person came to me.

It was a second time mom, and she had a cesarean the first time, and she wanted

a vaginal birth after cesarean or VBAC.

We had worked with her; had all the prenatal visits.

I knew what she wanted, what her plan was.

We went into the hospital when she was in labor and she did

a great job with the labor.

It ended up being a cesarean and I thought I had failed her.

I thought this was just the worst possible thing that could ever happen.

I was not a good doula because I didn't give her the birth that she

wanted, and during our postpartum visit, she actually looked at me and

said, "This is exactly what I needed.

You did everything that you could possibly do.

If I didn't have you, I would've never had that experience.

I knew that my body could labor.

I knew I was able to go through it.

You were able to stand by me and keep pushing me and even though it ended

up in a c-section, I am so thankful for this experience.", and that really

just made me kind of look back and go, "Okay, I didn't fail at my job."

She was still really, really happy with all the things that she experienced.

She knew that I worked my butt off to try to figure out how we could get her

to have the birth that she wanted, and I was in her corner cheering her on the

entire way, and she recognized that.

I find that so encouraging because I mean, yeah, I don't know if anybody ever

noticed on episodes that I've recorded so far, but I'm a male, so I don't know

what that feels like to give birth and I know there's plenty of things out there

that I could go and test it out myself, and I'm sure that maybe even Amy, you

could tell me where I could go to get that sort of stimulated experience.

I would've loved that, but being a single male, not really thinking about

that right now, so before you even say anything, thanks for the offer.

I'm not interested right now, but, with even with that said, all joking aside,

I think that it's really great to hear that even though it didn't go out the way

you thought it would, even that person, it still was a rewarding experience.

Do you find that most chances when you're working with clients, maybe

they don't always get the results?

Do you have any advice for people that, especially if it doesn't go the way it

does, especially with birthing that you could recommend that would help them to

feel a little bit more at ease knowing that it is a natural process, sometimes

it doesn't go the way it should, but at the same time, I've had friends that

have told me about their experiences and that's because of just the things that

they remember from that and they wish that they would've done things differently.

Is there something that you could recommend, and this is really the

question I'm asking, can you provide us maybe some tips to think about if

we are considering going through that process and having then a doula to

kind of walk through that, because.

I think that would be helpful for so many people, especially if they are struggling,

because I know there's a lot of people struggling with even giving birth.

Mm-hmm.

When we talk about a birth plan, really their birth preferences,

they're the ideals, the thing that I would really like to happen.

I will tell you the people that come to me and have a very solid birth plan and

it's like, "This is what I want to happen.

We are not deviating.", they're the ones that usually don't get their birth plan.

The people who are like, "This is my birth plan, these are my preferences, this would

be really ideal, but I totally understand if sometimes birth goes sideways and I

need to do other things, I'm okay with that.", they're the people who typically

get pretty darn close to that birth plan, so not being so stuck on all of

the things as having to happen, it's more of I understand this is flexible, this

is fluid and understanding all of these things, 99% of the time, you have choices.

I come back to that evidence-based information.

We help people know what information, know what options that they have.

Usually doctors only present one thing and say, "Here, this is what we should

do", or "This is what I'm thinking", and that's not necessarily the case.

There might be two or three or four options that we can talk about, including

what if we just do nothing for the next hour, and maybe we can revisit it in

another hour and see what happens, and usually in that hour, birth changes

so much and that hour, we might not be able to do whatever was suggested

an hour ago, because now circumstances are different usually for the better.

I encourage people just to be open-minded and have their ideals, but then understand

things might go sideways, and I think that it helps our clients understand.

When we do a vaginal birth plan, we also do a cesarean birth plan.

That's because it's great to prepare for the unexpected and we talk about what the

unexpected could be, that way, they have at least a little sense of understanding

of what this could look like, and I will tell you, our clients are so happy

that we go through that with them.

People who do unexpectedly end up in their cesareans, they come back to that going,

"I'm so glad that we were at least semi prepared for this completely unexpected,

unbearable thing.", and they felt a little bit more like they were in control going

into that really uncontrollable situation.

Sometimes it is about having the plan, but the plan might not always

work out, so having that ability to be flexible is really important, and I

even say to my clients too, "Yeah, we're setting this up now, but it doesn't

mean that we're always stuck to this.

We have to review where you're at and maybe we have to make adjustments."

It's always a continuous process of growth and development when it comes to that,

and I appreciate that you do that too.

I'm sure that makes a lot of people feel at ease, especially if they

had a bad experience with a doula, maybe they had that happened before,

but to hear you say that this is what we do is really encouraging

to understand and fully field out.

I want to pivot to this aspect.

I noticed that you're the Executive Director of the Better Birth and

Beyond Doula Network Incorporated.

Is that any relation to Dauphin County Doulas?

I'm imagining not, and can you tell us a little bit about the organization,

because this is the first time I've heard of it, and I'm sure my listeners have

not heard of this before too, so do you mind describing a little bit about that?

Sure.

I did things backwards when I set up my business.

I actually set up Better Birth and Beyond before Dauphin County Doulas.

My passion was really when I got into this work, I wanted develop a nonprofit really

serving people who couldn't afford doulas.

Serving people specifically domestic violence survivors, immigrants.

What I realized is when you develop a nonprofit, you kind

of need money to throw into the nonprofit to actually have it work.

Thus, Dauphin County Doulas was born to help get the nonprofit off the ground.

I will be honest.

We do take pro bono clients and I still kind of feed from the

aspect of Better Birth and Beyond.

I don't really advertise, that we have that availability, because

all of our doulas would be doing it pro bono at this point.

We are so busy with Dauphin County doulas that I have not put a lot

of focus or time into Better Birth because we've been so busy, but that

was my ultimate goal when I started Better Birth and Beyond to get there.

I'm actually working with another nonprofit who will hopefully kind

of make those dreams come true.

That's in the works right now.

Is there a way that people can help out?

Yes, definitely.

Financial is probably the biggest thing.

The time and effort that a doula puts into a client is huge, and to

give that over and over again without being compensated is really hard.

It's really hard on the doula, the doula's family; just in general, really difficult.

If we broke down a doula's wage, it would probably be about $5 an

hour when it comes down to it.

Just everything that we do which people don't realize.

When I created Better Birth and Beyond, it was to help the people who need

supported, but also to pay the doulas a fair wage for their time and energy and

really emotion, because there's a lot of emotion that goes into this work too.

Every once in a while we have somebody who donates.

Maybe they'll purchase a chunk of time and say, "Can you just donate

it to a family who needs it?"

Sometimes we have people who will donate money and say, "Yeah know, I

know so and so needs this birth.", that always absolutely helps, that

way we can support our doulas.

That's really cool because I wondered how much time commitment there

is, and thanks for educating me and even my listeners, because I'm sure that the

time commitment, like you said, isn't really understood or realized until you

actually are doing it, and my question was basically around the lines of is there any

other way in which somebody could help, and I think he answered that very well.

Amy, we're at the towards the end of our time and I wanted to

give you a few minutes here to showcase Dauphin County Doulas.

I know you do a lot more than just doulas, as I saw from your website, and I know

we had that as a big focus, but maybe you want to talk about that a little bit.

How can we get in touch with you?

Anything else you want to share?

I give you the last few minutes.

Yeah.

Thank you.

We have a plethora of services, not just doula support which

includes both birth and postpartum.

We do as well sibling doula support.

We do lactation support.

We do education classes, so childbirth education, right now I do a Know Your

Newborn and Baby Care Basics classes.

Those are taught right now out of Om Baby in Camp Hill.

We do car seat education and installation.

We have an awesome car seat safety tech who does all of that great stuff.

We do tens unit rentals that you can use for labor, and we are just starting

to do gift registry consultations, which I'm super excited about.

We also do before baby prep services to actually get the household, including

the baby's room, all ready for baby to come home, which is super exciting.

You can find out more at www.dauphincountydoulas.com, and

all of our information is on there.

Awesome, and I'll put all that in the episode notes for those

that want to go check her out and the business of Dauphin County Doulas.

Amy, I want to say this, as we close up.

I know that for many people it can be very time consuming and very stressful,

especially when you're changing or pivoting your life and having the

birth of a child can be a very big responsibility that some people aren't

exactly thinking that they're ready for, even if they have had kids, maybe

once or twice before, maybe it's their third, maybe they're having twins.

I know somebody that I interviewed has four kids, and the managing all those

expectations along with the primary responsibilities of the household,

can be very demanding and all of that.

I find that your services, the field of doulas, something that I really didn't

understand as much myself, has really been an important aspect of getting

to know, and I think that you're doing some incredible work in the Dauphin

County area, even beyond, and I think that your partnerships with those groups

that are supporting you is vital to ensure that we have a healthy and bright

future because, I don't know about you, but I think the future is not these

artificial intelligence bots that we keep on hearing about, I think it's still

going to be humans, and I think that we need to take care of our little humans

that are being raised and providing that support is desperately needed,

so, Amy, I want to say thank you for Speaking From The Heart with us today.

I really enjoyed our conversation and really getting to know a lot

more about yourself and the business, and I wish you much success.

It sounds like you are doing incredible work and I hope that if

people are interested, they will come to you to be able to provide that

support because you do provide an important service, so thank you again.

Thank you so much.

I'm so glad to be able to just connect because that's exactly what

we do on a daily basis is connect.

I want to thank Amy again for being on the show and talking a lot about

the process as it relates to doulas, and if you are indeed a family that

is in need and needs some assistance with afterwards, or even beforehand,

so that you're ready for the process of birthing, please reach out to them.

They are a fantastic group of people, and Amy certainly gave me

a lot to think about when it came to how we can support one another.

Oh yeah, supporting.

That's a big deal.

It is.

It really is, because sometimes we lose that compassion for each other and for

ourselves, but I think that really having everybody involved with the process is

what's truly important when it comes to not only our self-development, but even

the personal and professional things that are truly necessary to become

enabled, which one of our guests, long time ago, talked about the concept

of being differently enabled, and we all process things in different ways.

We all have different types of disabilities, or differently enabled

skills, along with the different types of things that we often do to help each

other be able to get through a certain situation, a certain unique experience,

or anything else that takes us on a path in which we have to learn a lot more

about ourselves, and I think that Amy and her team really do that, and given

that Amy's unique experiences allow her to create that facilitation process, she

also recognizes that sometimes things don't always go to plan, and I think

that's why she even mentioned to me even before we started the episode, that we are

in a lot of need in this world, and she specifically was telling me about how busy

that they are and that the need is only increasing, which makes me think that this

world has changed when it comes to just getting that level of support, especially

after what is involved with that process.

We often look to the past to help us understand the history of how things

are shaped and formed, and those sort of experiences help to translate into

what oftentimes becomes the model, or the things that we continue to do to

create value for other people's lives.

Well, at least we think that's the case.

You see, sometimes that model that we rely on often needs to be reviewed.

It needs to be updated.

A communication amongst the people that are involved with that process

needs to be done, and I've worked with business clients even before, talking

about some of the ideas and strategies that they can employ to become able

to overcome a financial situation, a operational plan issue, or anything of

that nature amongst the many years of Commonwealth experience that I have doing

that in the public sector, but we're not dealing with big level plans here.

We're dealing with big serious plans when it comes to life-changing moments,

and I think Amy respects that given the fact that with the background that she

has as a nurse and also being certified as a birth doula, she works with a

wide variety of those clients, of which she shared plenty of those examples

during this episode in which we get to understand more of the intricacies,

the successes, even the time commitment that's involved; a matter of fact, The

$5 an hour that really most doulas get.

I think the need for resources for this sort of group is more

important than ever before.

We need people that are able to come around us and support us and whatever

fashion that we can do and becoming a doula is a very time consuming

process, which in itself requires many certifications, including having child

clearances, because certainly safety has to also be an important factor in

the conversation itself, but this is where the intersection of what we can do

as a community, along with what we can do as a whole is important in itself.

What I mean by that is that the American Red Cross has been the standard for those

sort of disaster recovery efforts across the United States for several decades.

As a matter of fact, they're one of the more leading charities when it

comes to when natural disaster or other sort of situations displaced

people and shelter, food and water are needed more than anything else.

They are a crisis interventionist organization in which is well respected

in many different fields, but is the American Red Cross always able to

provide those sort of level of services?

No.

Why?

Because they need volunteers and they need people to help support them.

They need to be trained just as well so that they're able to respond to those

sort of crises, and so Amy, in some way is also doing something similar

and what she needs that help with those people that also provide that

level of support for those families going through that birthing process.

I don't know about you, but even as somebody that is a male, single, And has

no future plans, at least right now, to have a relationship with someone, at least

until somebody else tells me differently, I think that is really difficult to really

factor in what is really necessary for somebody to become truly successful, and

as a male talking about this subject on this podcast, I know that that can be

a very difficult, tedious line that I walk, but walk with me for a second on

another path that's somewhat related.

I feel that sometimes even being a coach, a consultant for other people,

you are coaching them through a process.

maybe you have a unique connection, maybe

you're able to identify with someone that allows you to create that value,

that opportunity of a lifetime to be able to make networking of reality

for somebody that is often afraid.

Working on someone's resume, which I often do, means having unique conversations with

people that have to understand what are some of the background characteristics

that make up your work experience.

Those are the things that I often have to dig through in order to

better understand the client that I'm working for in order to produce

a result that will work for them.

That is not easy to do.

If you think walking in and supporting someone is as easy as holding

someone's hand, you're not seeing what's underneath the surface.

There's so much more to this conversation than just seeing and seeking what the

truth is when it comes to understanding what people go through, especially even

postpartum wise, which I know a few people, a few females in my life that

have gone through that experience, and how traumatic and how upsetting it can

be to not have the level of support from others, but the truth of the matter is

sometimes even that struggle, even that pain that we go through, means that we

can define ourselves on the other side only if we're willing to accept the

reality that there will always be change.

Even the best laid out plan doesn't always go to plan, but

you heard it from Amy herself.

Even just telling people that sometimes it might not go to plan and being able

to be prepared for it can be just as rewarding as well, and I think that's what

really makes it unique is that sometimes even if we're trying to share what is on

our heart, even what's on our mind, it's about just having that conversation to

start out, and I know I've had butchered many of those conversations even from

myself at my young age of 36, which I know can be a very tedious, time consuming

process then afterwards to clean up.

What I learned in this process, especially, is that you can

make mistakes, and even those mistakes can learn from you.

It's a two-way street.

When you make a mistake, as long as you're able to understand where that

mistake came from, you can make amends.

Now you might be saying, "Josh, that's not true.

When you say something really bad and you really make that person

mad, they'll block you on Facebook.

They'll block your phone number and they will never talk to you again.", and yes,

I have done that and there are people that are paying the price for what I have

considered to be not good influencers, but it's all about surrounding yourself

of the right people and then knowing that sometimes you have made a mistake.

That makes us big human beings, that have big shiny hearts, that have

the opportunity to share our unique experiences with others, and that is what

is truly important even with Amy's case, with being a doula along with her team, I

think that all of us need to realize and recognize that we can feel terrible, even

the darkest of needs, but we can get to the other side knowing that we can feel

a lot more comfortable about everything that we could possibly do in order to

become not only more prepared, but to be able to pivot when it's necessary, and

that is the most important part of being a human: Learning from your mistakes,

and pivoting when it's necessary.

Thanks for listening to episode number 42 of Speaking From The

Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Thanks for listening.

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