Whole Health Counseling, Doula & Infant Massage Education

15/09/2025

💚BREASTFEEDING SUPPORT💚
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These bundles are perfect for those wanting support from pregnancy throughout the early days of their journey!!

Thenestingspotllc.com

20/08/2025

What if we told women the truth about birth?

We’d have to tell them that contractions will probably be more than “surges” or “sensations.”

That they’ll probably rock your world and leave you begging for salvation as you clutch the edge of the tub or the hospital linens.

That your gentle breathing exercises and your Spotify soundtrack will be left in the dust as you sweat and pant and sway and swear your way through it

That you’ll trip harder than any mushroom you ever did in college and vomit with the same ferocity and travel to places deep within yourself that you didn’t know existed.

That you’ll float above your body and simultaneously be trapped in it with an intensity you’ve never tasted.

And in that intensity,
in the sweating and the swearing
and the swaying and the vomiting
and the endless hours of contractions crashing down upon you ...

You’ll find your strength.
You’ll find a resilience you’ve never known.
You’ll find the power you need for the journey of Motherhood ahead.

In the messy humanity of it all,
you’ll find that you are holy.
A portal to the divine.
Capable of indescribable miracles.
A vessel of sacred life.

What if we told women the truth about birth?
We’d have to tell them they are capable of anything.

Worthy of being treated like goddesses.
Made to walk through the flames,
surf the tidal waves,
dive into the underworld
And come out alive.

Not unscathed.
Not unchanged.
But whole
and healed
and ready to take on the world.

If we told women the truth about birth,
we’d have to admit that we’ve lied about everything else,
and that they are more powerful,
more fierce,
more capable,
more beautiful,
than we’ve ever let on.

If we told the truth about birth?
We’d shatter the world.

Words and Art: Catie Atkinson

19/08/2025

What exactly do we “trust” when we “trust birth?”

How do we know to trust it?

How can we bring more balance to the habit ways we may reflexively proclaim our trust?

If we trust our bodies fully, we must also trust that our body will let us know when things aren’t ok, and that we may need help.

If we trust birth, we must also trust death. Sometimes there is an actual physical death, but always there is a death of the self, a death of our way of being in the world.

If we trust our doctor or midwife, we must also trust when our body tells us yes or no to something they suggest.

If we trust in the unknown and that which is utterly out of our control, we must also trust in the creative solutions of coping and determination.

If we trust in ourself and our incredible power, we must also trust that we are part of a community, both human and non-human.

What do you “trust” in birth?

19/08/2025

Fear in the Birth Space - Unwelcome Obstacle or Sacred Visitor?

As birthworkers we are the protectors of the psycho-neuro-endorcine experience of the birthing people we serve and work with. So it makes sense there is a strong message in the birth culture that fear in the birth space is bad. That fear is dangerous. And maybe even a sign that we are not doing our job as birthworkers if our clients are saying or showing that they are scared. But does fear really deserve such vilification in birth?

I remember learning early in my doula days, I believe after reading Dick-Read’s Childbirth without Fear, that hormones of stress and fear turn the uterus white from redirected circulation. Whenever my clients would express fear, I would panic and imagine their non-functioning uterus clamping down, and frantically try and shift my client’s state with whatever light dimming, soothing massage, encouraging words, or position change I could come up with to rescue us both from this unwanted state.

But is that really what is happening when our clients are scared in labor?

Physiologically a fear or stress response is more complex than just fear = adrenalin = white uterus. The body actually dumps oxytocin at the same time that adrenalin is released in a moment of fear or stress - to motivate us to reach out and seek support, to stay connected, to take action. This oxytocin is also highly protective of our tissues that might otherwise be affected by adrenalin’s power. It is not fear that slows or stops the birth process, but how we process and move through that fearful moment, the story we tell ourselves about the fear, that influences the physiology of birth.

What if, instead of moments of fear in the labor being avoided and shunned we actually were to welcome them? The psycho-spiritual experience of fear and doubt in birth can be like the Thirteenth Fairy showing up to wreak havoc because she didn’t receive and invitation to the Princess’s blessing, or Beowulf’s monster Grendel, knocking at the door of the party and being ignored only to tear down the house.

What if instead of banning fear from the party of birth we were to soften to that fear, leave the door cracked open so it could enter at will? Invite the mess? What if fear and terror and doubt are the potential sparks that stoke the fire of transformation in birth? Might fear be the catalyst that carries us across thresholds of new ways of being and knowing?

By closing the door to fear’s entry and holding it closed tightly we are likely bringing even more rigidity and tension to the moment. How might fear actually be an ally? How might it mobilize inner resources, maybe even encourage a new movement or position change that shifts physiology? How might it even mobilize the qualities that a new parent will need as they navigate early parenting?

What might our support look like if we valued those fearful moments in labor as powerful opportunities for transformation? Imagine someone in labor looking at you with terror in their eyes screaming “I’m scared!” Sometimes responding with “We’ve got you, you’re safe, your baby is safe” can be helpful, especially if it is medically true, but if said as a habit response or because we want to rescue someone from their fear it effectively conveys that they shouldn’t be scared. Likewise “You’ve got this!” may fit the energy of the moment, but sometimes it simply ignores and negates their actual experience of the moment.

What if we truly validated this intense moment, depending on the circumstances, with something like:

“Birth can be really scary.”
“I see that this is f*cking hard and scary.”

“It is scary to let your old self die.”

“How do you keep going even when you are scared?”

With this kind of validation and questioning we do not make their fear wrong, we are helping to shift their relationship to the fear that will be there regardless of if we try and push it away or release it. By validating their fear they may also feel held enough to communicate when they genuinely feel something is wrong with them or their baby, and that additional support may be needed.

It takes courage to respond in this way to the fears of those giving birth. We ourselves as birth workers can also meet our fears in the birth space with this same self-compassion and validation. I think we are worth it, and our birthing clients are worth it.

19/08/2025

Through the lens of physiological and undisturbed birth we may adopt a rigid ideology to always be hands-off: that being hands-off is “better.” And, when might our hands and body and tools help maintain birthing physiology with their force? This may feel more obvious in moments of emergency support, but what about those less obvious moments where someone asks for or responds to or seems to need our touch as birthworkers? When is force physiological?

Often less is more with touch. And sometimes the force of our entire body weight poured through our structure and into, onto, or through another is ta more authentic validation of a birthing body.

I believe that light touch is powerful, sometimes even more powerful in terms of effect than very firm touch or pressure. And sometimes the intensity of someone’s experience wants to be met with a similar intensity of validation, of holding, of naming, of firm touch.

As birthworkers we can ask ourselves in a moment of “doing” or force in brith:

How do I know to do this?

Am I doing so that I can appear helpful or is this actually helpful?

Am I doing to rescue my client from their experience?

Am I doing to “make something happen” or am I doing to simply hold what is happening?

Am I slipping into the shadow of Service and causing my body harm to do this force?

Am I over-focused on the biomechanics of the pelvis if using firm touch/force?

Or am I responding to what location and angle and depth of my pressure and force has a rightness to it?

I invite us to soften our rigid rules about how we should be touching in labor and birth, to explore the nuance of “force,” and open our capacity to truly respond to what the moment needs in birth and beyond.

Grateful for conversations with

Photo credit:

19/08/2025

09/04/2025

09/04/2025

Doodle Your Emotions series enrollment - hosted by Heartwork Journaling University

29/03/2025

24/03/2025

Excellent idea 💡

24/03/2025

By Heather Hurt

Yes, I want to hear your birth story.

No, I don’t mind if you nurse in front of me. You don’t have to explain a thing.

Yes, you can text me when it’s 3 a.m. and you feel like the world is asleep but you’re not.

Nope. Nothing is too much. Say the hard things out loud.

Yes, let’s walk and talk about how this is the hardest and holiest thing we’ve ever done.

No, your big kids aren’t too loud, too messy, too emotional. They’re just being real. Let them.

Yes, I’ll make the coffee or bring it over. Extra warm, just how you like it.

Yes, I’ll hold your baby while you shower or cry or sit still for a second.

No, I’m not keeping score. I just want to show up for you.

Yes, I see how much you’re holding. And I’m here. For all of it.