Four Pillars of Rest in 2022

In 2021 we focused on Boundaries and recognized our need to practice healthy boundaries for self-care and rest.

You see, we want and need to model these things for our clients, so that they can know from the beginning of parenthood that finding that sweet spot between activity and rest is so important. If we are running the marathon race of being a caregiver and parent, we have to pace ourselves.

Bring into your mind the image of a person giving birth.

The contractions are coming, the labor is powerful. The body is doing amazing things both internally and externally. All the systems are engaged. That person needs to find that same trust in their own intuition to balance activity and rest. Taking breaks, or even “therapeutic rest” (ie, pain medicine) if desired. It’s normal to feel worried or afraid that taking a rest might cause everything to slow down, and if that happens, chances are, the contractions will pick back up in frequency and intensity later. Our role as birth doulas is to reassure the birthing person and their partner that this balance of activity and rest is what gives them the endurance for the marathon of birth. 

The same is true for the new parent welcoming their newborn.

Making plans to get solid stretches of sleep at nighttime, taking naps, and having time for connecting with oneself and partner is a key to a successful parents first year of baby’s life. That’s where our postpartum doulas, our newborn care specialists, and our lactation and infant feeding experts all play a pivotal role in supporting parents to have a positive experience for this chapter of the journey.

From this awareness of the need to focus on REST in the new year, we’ve created our Four Pillars for REST in 2022. 

We will start the year off with our first of the Four Pillars of Rest:  Remember and Release all that we experienced, both the good and the bad, the challenges and the struggles, the hope and the heartbreak from the past.  We will remember how far we’ve come, without judgement of where we are now, if it’s not where we hope to arrive. And we will release our worries from the past and our anxieties for the year ahead. We will light a candle and remember all those who have come before on whose shoulders we stand.

In January we will be holding a Town Hall conversation with guest speaker Imani Samuels of HURU, a company whose mission is to help people discover (or rediscover) inner-peace through rest, and adopt the practice in your life. Huru has built a brilliant weekend retreat space for individuals who are seeking to cultivate REST in their own lives

In February, March, and April we will have guest speakers for our Town Hall conversations from the DCH team who are experts in various healing and wellness modalities such as Yoga, Massage, and Reiki, to lead us in conversations on our next three Pillars of Rest: Recover and Reclaim, Reset and Recharge, Activity and Rest.

Rest to recover and reclaim is about allowing all our muscles a chance to have a break and to take note of what areas in ourselves, our communities, and in our organizations need our attention or repair. Without those built in breaks to allow the dust to settle from the last period of activity, we don’t always have a clear idea of how to proceed. For the person in labor it might mean taking a warm bath so that contractions space apart for a period of time and a nap is possible. For the new parents it might mean logging out of their work email to fully embrace parental leave. We use the recovery time, the period of inactivity, to assess before a path forward can be forged.

Rest to reset and recharge is about collecting and preparing the resources we need to say yes when the period of activity begins.  For the person in labor or the one running a marathon it means getting that sip of cool liquid or the bite of nourishing food  For the new parent it could mean calling in extra hands to help with household chores, like baby laundry, meal prep, overnight help, or other tasks like those performed by a postpartum doula or newborn care specialist. For birth workers like us, who are aiming to reduce the health disparities experienced by Black birthing people, it may mean collecting the data or receiving the funding to make a greater impact.

Activity and Rest is about acknowledging the nearly constant ebb and flow of life and of the many competing forces at work in our lives.  Gaining awareness of our relationship with rest gives us insight into our relationship with activity.  Do we hustle for our worth? Or do we know that we Rest because we are Worth it? As new parents, are we driven by the need to be the perfect parent? Or are there gifts in being imperfect parents? (Spoiler alert: there are!) Finding balance in our lives with activity and rest gives us the capacity to lean into the next season of activity and growth when it comes.  

Looking ahead at the rest of the year with DCH in…

May we will have a Trauma Informed Care training with Dr. Julie Bindeman, a licensed psychologist and Co-Director of Integrative Therapy of Greater Washington.

June, July, and August we’re having what we’re calling the Summer of Love, and focusing our Town Hall conversations on the many ways that parents can come to parenthood. 

June we will start with a conversation about supporting LGBTQIA couples.

July we will continue with discussions about adoption and surrogacy.

August we will wrap up our Summer of Love talking about single parents/single moms by choice.

September we will be holding a training on supporting people of a different faith or lack of faith, as our previous conversations on this topic highlighted we still have a lot to learn and ways in which we can uncover our own implicit bias. Still seeking an individual to facilitate this nuanced discussion/training.

October, November, and December we’ll be closing the year focusing on some of the hardest parts of parenthood that anyone could experience.

October is Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss awareness month so we will hold a town hall conversation/training on this topic.

November we will discuss PMADs, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, such as postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, and psychosis. 

December we will discuss racism in health care and review our organization's efforts to fight systemic racism impacting Black birthing people in our communities. 

We thank our amazing team of birth workers and team members who make it their priority to show up for clients, colleagues, and community members by participating in our Inclusion and Anti-Racism Town Hall conversations and we look forward to a restful 2022. 

Love,

Emily & Jacquelin