Your words matter.
If you’ve got something to say and would like to contribute to The Doula’s Kitchen Blog, then I’d really love to hear from you. Sharing information, building communities and raising our voices to be heard is a very beautiful and necessary thing.
Find your super power!
I like to think of our brains as a computer; full of data and core programming.
This data makes you, you.
If you’ve ever experienced brain-spam (or pop ups) then you’ll understand how easily our brains can override the whole system.
A Hypnobirthing Hurrah!
We LOVE introducing you to TCBS Instructors so please help us give a warm welcome to the wonderful Lizzie (The Doula’s Kitchen) who will be teaching the Calm Birth School method in Somerset❤️❤️❤️
My name is Lizzie.
Pregnancy without a mother - how are you supported?
I Googled ‘pregnancy without a mother’ many times - with the thoughts;
• I’m not ready.
• I can’t do it without her.
• Who will mother me?
• Who’s going to help me?
…and after the birth of my second child, I made a wish.
✨Siblings at the birth - my story.✨
When I was nine years old I watched my mother do something remarkable. It was powerful, raw and wholly feminine.
She gave birth.
THIS is lockdown.
@mumologist posted yesterday about the importance of sharing the messy, chaotic and the fretful; because on these (mostly) beautiful squares the potential to feel inadequate is great indeed.
A great pottery throw down.
What else do doulas do? Well this doula has wanted to throw a pot ever since she made a house out of clay at middle school. (That’s many years. Lots of them!)
Anna Stiles, potter extraordinaire and wonderful friend, lives locally to me in Dorset, and has a rather splendid workshop in the barn next to her rambling farmhouse.
Bone Broth Shots.
Why is a bone broth such a marvellous nutritional boost to our gut flora?
• Because meat stocks and broths are healing foods.
• Gelatin (from the joints and knuckles) is a leaky-gut healing superfood! It protects and heals the lining of the digestive tract and helps to regenerate cells.
• It’s also magic at helping digestion and the absorption of nutrients.
Epic Travellers.
Did you know that this month, Humpback whales are passing our UK shores on their journey from the north on their way to give birth and raise their young in the south?
From the icy waters of the Arctic Circle they swim over 5,000km to the warm, bright waters of the Caribbean.
Once there, the female whales give birth, nudging their live young to the surface of the blue green waters to take their first breaths.
The Capricorn Moon and a Cup of Tea.
This new moon energy (which you may have begun to feel the effects of yesterday as a sort of quiet contemplation) helps us to define our goals in our career and personal progression.
It likes us to look at what we have released to make way for the new intentions we’ve set. This means that you might be revisited by what you’re letting go of just to make sure you’re letting go deeply.
Dear Lizzie and your ADHD brain,
My kitchen is full of children. All. Of. The. Time.
Dear Lizzie,
I just wanted to confirm that it really IS a big adjustment to facilitate home learning for a 12, 10 and 6 year old whilst you’re working.
It’s also ALL the feels for your ADHD Brilliant Brain (which only digs it’s heels in and waves frantically these days at times such as this) and this feels like a craving for deep hyper focus. That’s ok.
✨The Postpartum Doula. Looking after your nutritional needs after baby.
✨The Postpartum Doula.✨
✨Looking after your nutritional needs after baby.
* Shopping plans.
* Stocking up.
* Thinking about postnatal nutritional depletion and how I can support you.
Recipe books; and other stories.
✨What are your favourites right now?
Currently, I’m all about Hemsley + Hemsley and Gather by Gill Meller.
Cuddle up. Oxytocin’s favourite.
Anxiety, and panic, and fear, can manifest itself suddenly and with an overwhelming response.We all have trigger-points and these are things that will show up throughout our life.
It’s the tools we acquire that will help us manage these feelings and these - whether for a understanding a phobia or a low-lying ‘what if?’ - activate the new brain that brings us back to now; being consciously in the moment.
Home learning; don’t look up at the mountain.
Here we are again.
#youngestwatson got up this morning and said he wished to wear his school uniform because he thought it would help. I think it has. He did decide that perhaps his school shoes weren’t necessary. I think he’s right.
The women who shape us; from every kitchen.
Every morning I look at this photo of my mother (on the right) and her sisters.
Sixteen years ago today, she died. It was sudden and she was just 47.
Her name was Annabel. She was wonderful.
✨Tales from the kitchen table.
It’s more than the food.
It’s about the sharing of skills; the watching and combining of ideas.
And it’s about the talking.
The discussion of current life and memories; the funny, the forgotten and the poignant.
2020. A rare “thank you.”
Amidst the timeless uncertainty, you gave me time to be certain.
Certain that I wanted to follow my heart and thus, a dream.
2020, you have made me a doula and a hypnobirthing teacher.The women I have met on this journey are some of my favourites in the whole, wide, wonderful world .
The Birthing-Boat. My Hypnobirthing Journey.
Eyes closed, I danced to the rhythm of my birthing-boat, the momentum was in my control. The boat lifting on another wave, up and up, faster and higher.
“Here is another one.” I would announce calmly.
The top of the wave, the boat stilling. And down the other side, exhilaration, relief, rest.
The Doulas Way.
Holding space for a woman to birth in comfortably and safely is something that any doula will hold close to their heart.
Every doula I’ve met, or followed on social media, has their own unique way to hold, guide and love the women they support - and the families that surround them.