Human nature – Carrie Kenner: Doula Trainer. Writing Coach. Sacred Feminine Guide.

Teaching Hate is Child Abuse

Carrie Kenner — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 19:54:18 +0000

How Children Learn to Hate

Long before learning their ABCs, 1+1=2, and “Share your toys,” children learn how to be a human from the people around them. If we're not careful — or worse, if it's intentional — children also learn to hate. So let's call teaching hate what it is: child abuse.

A couple of months ago, I was writing a lot about how children learn — how we all learned as children to be in the world. (See my blog posts How We Learn and Families: The Training Ground for Small Humans.)

We learn from our parents or our primary caregivers. We watch them closely, looking at their behaviors and words to figure out how to behave and what is right or correct.

We learn things like what foods are "normal," how people interact, and what is safe or not safe to do.

We absorb all these things primarily by watching, and then over time, we are told things explicitly. We also learn implicitly by watching others around us. It’s a complex, layered process of learning, happening mainly in the first couple of years of life.

Some kids are fortunate to see and experience love and caring and learn really positive things, while others see and experience horrendous things and learn hardness and fear. Either way, it shapes their worldview.

It’s Unfair When Kids Have No Control

Whether good or bad, these experiences imprint on kids how to be in the world, and they don’t have control over it.

First of all, they don't have control over their environment and can’t choose what they see or experience.

They also don't have control over how to think about things because they don't have rational thinking ability yet.

They can't say, "Wait, I saw one thing and that disproves this other thing I saw."

That kind of thinking isn't developed in the brain yet until they are teens. (And then it’s still pretty rudimentary!)

Children also are also at a huge disadvantage to making comparisons because they are unable to read nuance. While they are very watchful and see nuance, they don’t know how to interpret it.

So it’s important to understand that biologically and developmentally, children simply can’t process things the way adults do.

And even if they could make these discernments between what they are told and what they observe themselves, children are entirely dependent on others for care and are hard-wired to do whatever it takes to fit in, to not be ostracized, to belong.

Teaching Hate: The Unseen Child Abuse

Many forms of child abuse are obvious and unquestioned: Sexual assault, physical violence, emotional abuse where children are told they are stupid, bad, or worthless.

Each of these violates the physical space, holistic development, and innocence of children.

But there is another realm that is violated and rarely talked about: the pure hearts of children.

Children come into the world pure. I've seen hundreds of babies come into the world, and there isn't a lick of hatred in their bodies. They may not like being cold, being outside the womb, or being poked and prodded, but they don’t hate anything.

Babies react to discomfort purely from survival instincts, not from judgment or hate.

Their nervous system tells them if something hurts and they cry in response.

If they're feeling cold, their hard wiring says, "Being cold is not good for survival,” so...cry.

When they need energy, their belly cramps and they want to eat.

Their crying make it look like they’re pissed off and angry, but there's no judgment involved.

It’s all just survival wiring.

But when they learn that broccoli is yucky and they haven't even tasted broccoli, they are being conditioned — brainwashed — by somebody around them.

The Difference Between Broccoli and Spiders

As they grow, children learn many behaviors and ideas. Learning to dislike broccoli is unfortunate, but not harmful. However, when they are taught to dislike or hate other people, animals, or even insects, it becomes deeply problematic.

Most people don’t hate spiders or bees because of personal experience; fear of insects is often passed down as a behavior or belief. But if everyone goes around killing every insect they see in ignorance (versus personal experience or knowledge), these critters who are essential to our planet’s survival get annihilated. Not good!

But let’s get back to my focus on hating people.

When kids are taught to dislike, judge, or hate other people, cultures, countries, or religions, they have no defense against such horrid thinking.

Any type of hatred or judgment against others — but especially racism because it’s so easy to target someone visually this way — is child abuse because it gets planted in the brain of a vulnerable child.

They aren’t equipped to question what they are being told.

They learn a type of thinking, it becomes part of their thought and behavior patterns, and they go out into the world and replicate that ideology and attitude.

Hatred gets normalized and we see it all around us.

The Difference Between Spiders and Mexico

Many people think it is perfectly fine to dislike people from another country. What??? Why would I hate someone who is otherwise just like me except for the continent they were born on (which, by the way, they had absolutely no choice in)? Should they grow up to hate their country because it’s not my country? Or should they grow up to hate me because of my great misfortune to be born in a country other than theirs?

Try this exercise to see how hate works in our hearts:

Take a few deep breaths and imagine this scenario: Someone see you. Your skin color is different from them. You speak a different language from them. You eat something different for breakfast than they do. And they hate you for it.

Imagine what that hatred must feel like in their heart. Put yourself in their body for a moment but feel their feelings in your body.

How does their hatred feel in your heart when imagining it? Yucky, huh? Tight, painful, hard.

Now, feel in your body what it feels like to be hated (don’t think about it or how you’d respond to them, just FEEL what it’s like to be hated). Can you feel what their judgment does to your body? Do you feel safe? Is your brain affected? How is your heart?

Nobody wins when hate is involved. Not the hater or the hated.

Yet most people are taught that nationalism is just fine.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Children repeat what they hear. It's how they learn to talk and — remember they have no filters —while this can sometimes be entertaining, it also shows how they can perpetuate harmful ideas without understanding them.

You know that expression, "Kids say the darndest things?"

Well, they do. They repeat what they hear, often out of context or with a mispronounced word that makes it adorable.

Sometimes what they’re repeating is not appropriate for their age but they don’t know that.

And sometimes, what they’re repeating should have never been said in the first place.

I was parking at the local Costco a few months ago and saw a truck parked near the front of the store. Across the back of the truck was a banner that said “Fuck Biden.”

I imagined the freshly-minted 6-year-old reader sounding it out proudly for grandma.

Or the confusion it instilled in an 8-year-old who heard enough news to wonder what on earth the President had done to cause such hatred.

Maybe a kid saw the driver of the truck and they looked just like their favorite uncle. “Hmmm, yeah, maybe I should think like him, too,” without having any more understanding of the statement.

But mostly I wondered who the fuck thought it was okay to put that on their truck and drive around in public with it, innocent children be damned? Child abuse.

(And in case you're wondering: If I saw a truck that said 'Fuck Trump" I'd think the same thing.)

Why Even Teens Lack Discernment

It’s true that much of human survival is based on detecting differences. It’s how our brain categorizes things to decide if they are safe, dangerous, or unknown based on past experience.

Our bodies are hard-wired to notice differences and pay attention to them.

But hating differences is something our minds conjured up.

Children have the ability to see inconsistencies, but they will often keep it to themselves. Or the spunky kid will say, "Hey wait, I saw one person that looks like someone you told me to hate, and they were really nice, but you told me they're all mean.”

When kids get to the age where they can safely individuate from their parents, they still choose not to honor anything that goes against the values they’ve been taught. If they are well-conditioned and fearful, they are unlikely to say, "Wait a second, I'm seeing some flaws in your teaching."

Even teenagers are afraid to stand out or confront a parent because their survival is still heavily dependent on that parent and the desire to belong. Peer pressure at its worst.

Breaking the Cycle

Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can personally do to change all the hatred in the world. But I do know that if each individual becomes aware of this kind of abuse, and each family vows to end hate violence, it can be stopped.

If you work with families and children, consider how you can raise adults’ awareness of what they’re saying about others. Remind them that their children take their words as facts, and poisoning their minds with hatred is unfair and child abuse.

Of course, we first need to get hatred out of our hearts, language, and minds. We all have it because we’ve all learned it in our culture of othering. It will take some intentional practice to instead accept and be kind to people who are different from us (which is everyone).

Be Mindful of Your Words

Don Miguel Ruiz, a Toltec teacher, said, "Be impeccable with your word" in his book The Four Agreements. That means to carefully curate what you speak to not cause harm to yourself or others. I attempt to do it everyday. I fail at it everyday. But my failed version is better than if I didn’t try at all.

We can all be more mindful of the things we say about others. And we can make sure our kids understand, as early as possible, that people say things that aren’t necessarily true.

When it comes to people having different opinions from yours, it’s inevitable. My stance is that, as long as no one is being harmed by someone’s opinion (i.e. they don’t force it on others or instill it in defenseless children), they are entitled to it. However, when someone wants their ideas or opinions to be institutionalized — made the only legal or available option — or used to make people feel unsafe or less valued than others, then it becomes harmful.

Then they are peddling oppression, which is cruel and dismissive of other people’s dignity and rights. Basically, hate.

The Importance of Teaching Truth

We see the spread of hate so much in the world today with grown people spewing verbal attacks on people they don’t agree with, or book bans that prevent kids from learning all the history so they can see how hate played out in the past.

What kind of example does this set for children to learn about other people’s ways of being instead of attacking them for it?

Why would anyone try to prevent learning about history when we know that if we don’t understand our history, we’re doomed to repeat it?

Attacks and bans come from the same place: fear and moral weakness masquerading as power.

So does propagating hate.

If we poison children’s bodies with toxins, that is child abuse.

If we're poisoning their minds with hate, that is child abuse as well.

So let's do better. I hope you join me in that.

***

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Human and Business Systems: The Beauty and Brutality

Carrie Kenner — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 20:21:14 +0000

I love human and business systems.

I'm not super proud of this fact but it's my reality.

Systems are a collection of activities, procedures, and ways of doing things repeatedly that form a pattern that is predictable and makes things easier.

At least for some people.

This leads to why I'm not proud of the fact that I love systems.

While systems can be helpful, they are also what create and maintain colonization, patriarchy, white supremacy, dominance, and oppression.

So today I'm talking about how to create compassionate human and business sytems.

But let’s back up to the beauty of human and business systems first...

I — like all human beings — like familiarity and predictability.

That’s because humans — even though we think we're the top dogs in the universe— are actually quite vulnerable.

We're vulnerable to threats to our wellbeing and our physical bodies, as well as our egos and our future (what we worry might happen to us).

Worry creates anxiety and that activates our nervous system into a stress response.

Our brains don’t like stress (neither do our bodies).

What our brains love is knowing what to expect.

They love knowing that they've seen this process before so they can assume the same thing that happened last time is going to happen again.

That’s what systems do for us: provide predictability.

Systems also save us time. And I’m sure you've heard the adage time is money.

So humans tend to like systems for their familiarity, and time and money saving features. People in western cultures have been highly conditioned to rely on systems to be efficient, effective, and predictable.

You’re Already Loving Some Systems

If you have a few routines you do over and over, you’ve created a human system that probably makes your life easier or gets something done in a more efficient way.

If you have a set of tasks you do before you go to bed every night, that's a system.

If you have a certain thing that you eat for breakfast every morning, that's a system.

If there's a particular route that you take to work every day, that is a system.

If you create a monthly budget and set up all your bills on autopay, that is a financial system.

If you take your car to the Jiffy Wash every Friday and you have Joe clean it out every month, then you have a car care system.

Those things all help you maintain an order in your life. But that’s not why I like systems.

Systems Are a Gift to Your Nervous System

Let’s compare humans to animals for a moment...

Humans have a sense of time, ego (control), and safety. When those senses are threatened, our brains get freaked out because our hard-wired stress response gets overridden by our emotional and thought responses, creating havoc.

Animals, on the other hand, only deal with safety. When their safety is threatened, they are well-equipped to respond to danger (they are much stronger and faster than humans, and they don’t think about it, they just react). And the next most important part?

Animals know how to discharge stress after a dangerous incident.

Humans? We store the aftermath in our bodies, causing further distress.

So the more we can reduce stress, the better our nervous systems can function. That’s why systems are helpful.

Animals don't have systems. They are not time or ego-oriented, making them extremely inefficient.

Animals do one thing at a time. They do that one thing over and over. And while it’s a pattern (familiar), it’s also redundant.

Have you ever watched a cat walk back and forth, back and forth along the windowsill, or a dog turn three times before lying down? Every time? Ugh, so inefficient!

Or have you ever watched an animal try to gather a bunch of their young ones? They pick up one and take it over there, and then the other ones disperse, and then they catch another one to take over to the first, but it’s already joined the others. They go back and forth at this until they finally get all the kiddos corralled.

Kids love animal behavior because kids aren’t programmed to be efficient yet. They do the same repetitive, inefficient stuff.

But adults watch animals and just shake their heads.

So, while animals are very inefficient, they do pay attention to patterns.

They walk the same trail every day because it’s familiar, which makes it easier to identify anything different that could be of danger. That will set off their alarm system.

Most humans are taught to turn off their alarm systems and instead rely on calculated predictability.

Business Systems

In business, there are a number of different systems.

There's an operating system, which is a set of policies and procedures that guide how a business is run.

An operating system is powerful because it’s both effective and efficient, but also because it can be given to anybody to implement.

If I hire somebody new, I can show them the operating system and they can follow the procedures and do their job.

We also have marketing systems, which are methods we use over and over again to reach people we want to become our clients or buy more widgets.

Businesses have financial systems that track income and expenses, report profits, calculate taxes, and pay employees.

Then there are client management systems. These are the set of actions that drive a client through the process of working with you, from how they become a client to providing information, scheduling visits, concluding service, and gathering feedback.

Those are all examples of systems that you might see in a business you visit or set up for your own company.

Bigger Systems

We’ve looked at human and business systems. But there are bigger systems that are statewide, national, or worldwide. Systems like the World Bank — a financial system that guides how money is loaned around the world and how different countries interact with each other to improve the standard of living globally.

There are highway systems that consist of how roads are built, constructed, and used — from freeways to highways, country roads to city streets, arterials to neighborhood streets. Traffic rules guide people on how to use those roads safely.

Then we have things like the healthcare system — the network of hospitals, clinics, ancillary services, and insurance companies. In this system, all these different entities work together to deliver healthcare to people.

There are also systems within our own bodies. The cardiovascular system — a huge system of all the blood vessels, heart and lungs — gets oxygenated blood to all parts of the body.

These are all big systems that are composed of multiple parts that are designed to make everything work well for everything that's involved.

The Center of a System

I believe that systems can be incredibly helpful as long as people understand what they're designed to do, who they help, and how they can harm as well.

Within every system, something is considered the most important in that system.

The World Bank, for example, is a financial system centered around loaning money from one country to another. The beneficiaries of this system are poorer countries, but raising the standard of living globally is what is most important.

The cardiovascular system is centered around the heart. All the other parts of the body benefit but without the heart, everything will die.

The highway and road system is centered around safety. Yes, the roads get people from point A to point B. But the most important part is that they are alive on arrival.

When you're aware of what is centered in a system you can decide how you want to participate in it.

The Dark Side of Systems

You may have noticed systems that don’t actually benefit the people moving through them.

The U.S. healthcare system is centered around insurance companies. Ah, it should be people, shouldn’t it? But in the U.S., insurance companies are the gatekeepers to accessing and paying for care. All the other players — doctors, hospitals, patients — don’t want to be left holding the financial bag, so insurance remains centered.

The U.S. political system is centered around maintaining a binary party system. It is supposed to ensure that every person has a vote and representation based on those votes, but individual votes get subsumed in an electoral system that is designed to divvy up regions to maintain party control.

Many systems are explicitly designed to favor — or oppress — certain people. The judicial system, the penal system, and most financial (banking, taxing) systems are centered around maintaining wealth and power. They primarily benefit white people, and people with generational wealth or power.

Some systems seem to defy nature, logic, and morality. Everyone knows they aren’t effective or efficient. In healthcare, for example, both the people running the system and the people being moved through it are not happy.

Yet, they persist. Why?

Many human and business systems were created to serve the interests of the people who created them (but don’t work in them). The people in power. They want to keep it that way.

How to Change a Business System from the Outside

I used to work in healthcare administration as an efficiency expert.

My job was to examine systems and see if they were working well and how they could be improved. I had to consider how the system was enacted by employees and the impact on patients.

Oftentimes, the staff wanted to do something that was easier for them but made a worse experience for the patient. I might notice it would be more efficient and cost-saving for the company, but at what cost? If we had to handle multiple complaints, or lost customers the overall savings wasn’t worth it.

My intimacy with systems means I am the customer from hell : )

I ask myself if the people I encounter in a system are part of the problem or just pawns in the process. Then I ask them. If they know they are pawns, I ask them to stop playing a part in something oppressive and do better. If they aren’t, I let them know what it’s like for me.

I have gone into many systems as a customer and said, “This is inefficient for you and it's also miserable for me. What can we do to fix it?”

Sometimes my suggestion is met with interest. I’m encouraged to talk to a manager or file a complaint. My heart drops when the response is, “There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s always been this way.” I know that person’s soul has been sucked right out of them. They don’t even want a way out anymore.

Become a vocal customer especially if you’re paying for that system (which you are as a taxpayer in government systems or as a customer in a private business).

Human Systems Don’t Change Themselves

Human and business systems can be changed; I know that because I used to change systems all the time.

You can change a system from the inside. Are you participating in a system that harms people? If you work in a place that uses systems that benefit some people over others or aren’t designed with the customer in mind at all, here’s how you can make changes:

Start by being mindful about how you are participating in a system that may be harming others. Check in with yourself and your co-workers to see if others agree with you.
Ask where the problem in a system arose. Was the system designed that way intentionally (to increase profit, disregard some groups of people, or cover liability) or were the designers unaware of its impact?
Apologize to every customer for the problems the system is causing. Let them know you want to make changes and encourage them to file complaints.
Don’t do what you are told to do if it doesn’t make any sense. Yes, you could get fired. You could also get promoted. Who knows?
Remember that systems were created by people and they can be changed by people. Bring this up in staff meetings and ask for support to make changes.

I offer this information to raise your awareness of the human and business systems in your life.

You are part of a system. When one thing in a system changes, the entire system shifts. So when you make a change — which you can do! — you are creating systemic change. Go for it!

We can all create systems that work for us, and that work for everyone else in our communities so that we can have calm nervous systems. We can save time and money in our personal lives, and know what to expect to create more calm.

We have the power to influence positive change.

I hope this helps you live a more happy, fulfilled, and peaceful life.

***

If you’d like help creating new systems in your personal or business life — or want coaching in how to improve systems where you work — schedule a free call to see how I can support you.

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The Felt Sense of Doula Work

Carrie Kenner — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 07:00:58 +0000

I am a copywriter for a continuing education platform for psychotherapists. In my role, I meet many expert therapists who are offering courses and I learn about their work.

So far, I’ve learned about:

How I Learned About Felt Sense

A few weeks ago, I was interviewing one of the experts about a course she was creating and she kept mentioning ‘felt sense.’ She used that term in a few sentences and alongside other concepts included in her course.

But I wasn’t sure what she meant by felt sense. So I asked her to define it for me.

“Many people think ‘felt sense’ means something they feel physically, like on their skin using the sense of touch. But it’s not that at all. In the specific context I’m talking about right now, it’s the experience one feels when they are deeply listened to. They can feel in their body that they are being deeply listened to, which leads them to feel safer and therefore able to be more vulnerable and say more. There’s an actual energetic shift that happens inside of them. And that shift is felt by the person doing the listening. The listener knows the way they are listening caused that shift and opened the other person up so a shift happens inside of them as well.”

I was blown away. Not because this sounded outrageous.

Because I’d been doing it for over 20 years as a doula.

Only I didn’t have a word for it.

What is Felt Sense?

Felt sense was a term coined by Eugene Gendlin. He described it as:

A felt sense is not a mental experience but a physical one. Physical. A bodily awareness of a situation or person or event. An internal aura that encompasses everything you feel and know about the given subject at a given time—encompasses it and communicates it to you all at once rather than detail by detail.

A felt sense doesn’t come to you in the form of thoughts or words or other separate units, but as a single (though often puzzling and very complex) bodily feeling.

The vague, beyond-words experience of a felt sense is more than just a "gut feeling" or intuition. It’s not instantaneous. It forms, fuzzy at first then morphing into clarity. It is the sense of the whole of a situation.

Because doulas are typically working with clients in atypical situations — labor, postpartum, death, crises — we cannot count on luxuries like talking during someone’s labor. So doulas learn to rely on all our senses and a state of just being to feel into what is going on in any given moment.

I believe that is where our capacity for felt sense comes from.

How do doulas learn these skills without knowing what they’re doing?

This revelation about felt sense got me thinking about how I learned how to do that. Because when I did it, it felt like magic. How did all the other doulas I knew learn it? And how did I teach it to thousands of doulas without having a term or definition for it?

Here’s how I would teach it to birth doulas:

After a long session learning about and practicing communication skills for doulas — which included how to listen more deeply, how to use all of your body (not just your ears) to listen, how to ask open-ended questions, how to be an active listener, and how to ask for consent before providing information — I would tell my students:

“You will sit down with your clients for a prenatal visit and at the end of that 2-hour visit, you’ll be shocked by how deep and profound your connection will be in that short period of time. I don’t know how it happens or why, just trust me that it does. Sitting here now, you don’t believe me. But I’m telling you, if you use these skills, it will happen and I want you to remember my words today. You did that.”

Since that interview with the therapist, I’ve talked to a number of my past doula colleagues who are now therapists. I want to emphasize that all of these doulas were birth doulas, and I believe there’s a reason for that as well.

Turns out, becoming a therapist is a really common career path for birth doulas. I can think of 10 just off the top of my head and I bet there are hundreds more. I think that’s because many of the nuanced skills we use as doulas translate to the therapist role easily. In fact, I’d venture to say doulas are waaay ahead of the game when entering the field of psychotherapy.

What my doula-turned-therapist friends tell me is that doulas learn on the job many of the most important skills that therapists struggle to learn because the skills aren’t actually taught in grad school. Mainly theories and general modalities of therapy are taught.

Why Doulas Excel in Their Next Careers

In my career as a doula, I studied developmental psychology, attachment theory, pre-and perinatal psychology, the consciousness of babies in utero and newborns, embryology, endocrinology of pregnancy, birth, and lactation. None of those things are required to be a doula, those were just my particular areas of interest and I am a very curious person so I read books, attended conferences, and took classes on my areas of interest.

Other doulas dive into other areas: postpartum adjustment, neurodiversity, trauma survivors, special needs infants, sleep, infant feeding, nutrition, business and marketing for doulas...the list goes on and on.

But every doula finds an area of interest and explores it.

What this means for any doula entering a new career field is that they’ve got so much knowledge already — and now they’re learning from people who will use words to communicate it all — the rest comes much more easily.

So whether they go on to work with families in social service agencies, to affect policies and legislation in government, to provide more expansive birth support as a midwife or obstetrician, to treat individuals as a therapist, to heal the body as a massage or craniosacral therapist, chiropractor, or acupuncturist, or to become a better parent or human being, what they learned as a doula is perhaps the best training ground possible.

What else do doulas know to do without knowing what they’re doing?

Besides learning how to listen, we learn how to sit and just be. We learn the skill of patience, observing what is happening around us and not jumping to reactions.

We learn how to watch people for facial expressions, body language, posture, voice inflection, the eyes, what’s not being said as much as what is being said. And we’re not just watching our client. We’re watching their partner, kids, family members, friends, doctor, nurse, or midwife. Whoever is in the room. We call it ‘reading the energy in the room’ and it’s a crucial skill for facilitating communication in emotionally-charged situations or when conflicts are happening.

We dance in the realm of the unknown. We learn to be okay with not knowing when a baby will come, how long the labor will be, or what someone will be like during birth.

We step into our client’s space with the acknowledgement that we have little political power. We don’t want it. We want our clients to have all the external power. We have a mother-lode of internal power in our hearts.

We learn to not have answers. Sure, we have information — and we learn to ask our clients if they’d like to partake of our information, rather than shoving it down their throats — but in the realm of the unknown no one has the answer...not the doctor, not the client, not the doula.

The Art of ‘Holding Space’

Another thing we learn to do, which almost everything I’ve mentioned so far is a part of, is holding space. This is especially relevant to birth doulas.

Holding space can be defined many ways but it involves these components:

Creating an energetic container — the space — for an experience to occur
Being fully present and empathetic with healthy boundaries to protect yourself from absorbing energy that isn’t yours
Allowing whatever needs to happen in the container to happen — i.e. not trying to influence, coerce, or create a certain outcome
Creating space for vulnerability, scary or dark thoughts, ‘negative’ feelings or emotions without fear of judgment, rejection, punishment, shame, or retaliation
Witnessing and acknowledging the emotions, words, and actions that arise in the container
Being fully present and able to witness your own emotions and responses and acknowledging them as well
Being an energetic “guardian” of the space to help align others who enter the space and help them adapt to what is in the container
Being free of judgment, intentionally putting aside your own beliefs, opinions, agenda, and desires for a situation

Holding space, in essence, is a way of creating and holding the energy of a physical space and the people and experiences within it, and holding those things to the highest good.

You can watch my demonstration of holding space in my vlog post here.

How do doulas get so good at this stuff?

As I mentioned earlier, doulas often get good at doing by doing.

There aren’t many situations in life where you have to rely on instinct because all the other tools we typically use — communication, knowledge, behavioral norms — aren’t available.

But there’s something that precedes being thrown into a space where you have to just be.

And that is the thing that compels someone to be a doula in the first place.

It’s either a love of babies, birthing people, pregnancy, families, reproductive justice, empowerment, lactation, child development, or something related to the fascinating process of ushering people through emotionally challenging times in life.

No one thrives as a doula without something afire in their belly or heart. You just cannot take someone who is not interested in birth and convince them to hold space for hours beside a moaning person in a birth tub while listening to Enya.

So there’s an underlying affinity to these nuances — felt sense, sitting in the unknown, holding space, and being present — that gets refined in the process of becoming.

That is what doulas nurture in themselves and in their clients.

That is what I nurture in doulas.

Have you been sitting on the threshold of becoming a birth doula? My friend and colleague, Amty Kramer of Thresholds, and I are collaborating to bring both of our doula trainings for the price of one to aspiring doulas.

40-module online birth doula training course
Unlimited monthly Q&A calls with Carrie
4-live Zoom sessions with Amity that cover emotional intelligence and relationship skills
Community forum for 24/7/365 problem-solving, connection, networking, and resourcing
Inclusive content and approach to birthwork
Taught through a social justice and anti-racism lens

Learn More now

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Setting Goals by Writing Your Own WHAT?!?!

Carrie Kenner — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 06:50:46 +0000

Goal Setting

In last week’s vlog, I wrote about mission statements.

One of the things about a mission statement is it doesn’t include goals. A mission statement should not be specific, measurable, or time-bound.

Its point is to be lofty and paint a picture of what you are working toward.

But this week, I am talking about goals.

One of the things that characterizes a goal is that it is specific, measurable, achievable, and has a deadline. That’s the only way you’d know if you achieved a goal!

Read about my process below and if you like it, you can sign up for a FREE workshop to work on your goals.

Weird Times Call for Weird Measures

During the pandemic when — like everyone else — I was floundering with too much time and too many questions on my mind, I learned this goal-setting process from Donald Miller.

Donald Miller is the author of the book, StoryBrand, which is a method of copywriting (my favorite) I use all the time. He has written many books for business owners and coaches and I love his work.

Back in March 2020, he offered to share the goal-setting process that he uses. And since he's been extremely successful in life and is a good-hearted person, I wanted to learn his secret sauce.

What I love about this process is that it starts very weirdly, and I love weird things!

“It starts very weirdly, and I love things that are weird!”

Starting at the End

You begin the process by writing...your obituary.

Writing your own obituary is an opportunity to future-think your life’s goals and purpose and ask yourself the question: What’s the legacy I want to leave?

Some people think this is morbid.

I think it's really empowering. So take it or leave it.

This exercise is not about setting a dollar amount you hope to earn in your lifetime (though that could be a part of it). It’s about what you want your life to have meant. How you want to show up. What you want people to remember about you.

Because when you do that, your life has purpose.

The point is to think about what you want to be able to say about your life after all is said and done.

It’s Quite Timely for Me

I’m in the process of writing my mom’s obituary and planning her memorial service, so it’s very poignant for me right now to talk about writing your own obituary.

It would have been fascinating had my mom written about how she would like to be remembered.

I always wonder how well we see ourselves like others do.

Fortunately, my mom did write a lot about her family history, and that was helpful for writing her obituary and the services.

And I hope my children appreciate the obituary I wrote for myself (even more so, I hope I achieve what’s in it so they don’t have to re-write the whole damn thing).

Writing Your Obituary

Writing your own obituary is like reverse-engineering your life.

You start with the legacy you want to leave and figure out what you’re going to have to do to get there.

I recommend you find an hour or two where you can begin the process undisturbed. Find a comfortable and quiet place to write. Eat something yummy, feel the air on your skin, take a few deep breaths, and appreciate this life and body you are in.

Then just start writing all the things you’d want people to say about you, how you touched their lives, how you inspired them, what you accomplished, what you are most proud of, what you enjoyed the most in life, and what you are known for.

You could also include a few of your major screw-ups if you want because, hey, we’re all human! But it’s mainly about celebrating what you did.

Get it all down on paper (or device) and then look for the major themes and accomplishments. Then, order those things chronologically and see if you can find the ‘bridges,’ the things that connect one theme or accomplishment or time period of your life to another.

You should end up with one and a half to two pages. I hope you find the exercise as uplifting and inspiring as I did.

Next, the Decades

The next step is to list all the decades in your life, from birth all the way to the end.

Imagine living as long as you’d like or expect to. How many years is that?

For me, I was 60 when I wrote my obituary, and — gods and goddesses willing —I expect to live into my 90s. So I’d had six decades so far, and another three to accomplish the things in my obituary I hadn’t done already.

Now, you start at the beginning.

What did you “accomplish” in the first decade of your life?

That may sound like a joke, but it’s actually a very important question.

Drop into your heart and ask: What aspects of who I am emerged in my first 10 years of life? Things like your general nature, your personality, your natural talents, your place in the family, your style as a learner. These are the ‘accomplishments’ of your childhood.

Then, what happened in your life from 10 to 20? Your identity was forming, you pursued and developed some of your natural talents, you developed relationships and activities independent of others, you emerged into a young adult and perhaps left home, worked out in the world, sought out higher education, and discovered key traits of how you move in the world. You likely came up with your worldview.

Now keep going, decade by decade, looking for the aspects of who you are now that emerged during those 10-year increments. You might include significant relationships that influenced you, jobs, mentors, places, and achievements that contributed to your legacy, and any shifts to your belief system.

Each decade is just one paragraph that sums up what you discovered or developed about yourself in that time period.

Do this until you bring yourself to the present.

And Then the Fun Begins!

What is left for you to do so that folks say the things about you that you wrote in your obituary?

List out the things you have yet to accomplish, and place them in the decades you have left.

You are going to figure out the trajectory of the rest of your life (and this is where we get to the goal-setting).

As you are outlining the coming decades, remember to not only focus on work. Be sure to include things that will lead to the quality of life you want — inner peace, personal development, time with family, contributions, etc.

Turn that list into a paragraph description of what you will have done (write it as if you DID those things) for each decade.

When you’ve mapped out the remaining decades of your life, your Life Plan is complete.

Your Life Theme

Now search through all the decades — past and future — and pull out the major themes about you and your life. The throughline that runs through your way of being in the world. The thing that was evident in you at any age. An undeniable quality or characteristic that everyone recognizes in you. The meaning and purpose of your life overall.

Write those things into one paragraph that encapsulates how and why you lived your life.

This is your life theme and is the capstone of your Life Plan.

Bringing It Into the Present

Okay, take a deep breath. That was a lot of work!

Now, we’re going to focus on the here and now.

Take a look at the description of the decade you are in. (If you are nearing the end of a decade, you might want to just skip to the next decade. If you are just starting or in the middle of a decade, stay where you are.)

What will you need to do in the next 10 years (adjust the number of years depending on where you’re at in this decade) to achieve that vision?

Your 10-year goals will be high-level. Things like: buy a house, build a retreat center, start/change careers, have children, create a farm, travel the world... things that may take an entire 10 years to plan, save up for, implement, etc.

I like to divide my 10-year goals into categories: Career/Work in the World, Family/Community, Health, and Spirituality. You can create any categories that make sense to you.

Your 10-year goals do not have details about what you need to do or how you’ll do them. Just be realistic about what can be done in 10 years.

The Climactic Scenes

In any hero/heroine’s journey, there is a climactic scene: The thing that happened to create the shift that was necessary for transformation to occur.

You see, you’re not writing a fantasy novel here, you’re actually creating the map for your transformation to become the person you just wrote about in your obituary. This is powerful stuff!

So for each future decade, you’re going to forecast a climatic scene. What's the big thing that needs to happen in those 10 years to influence your career, family, community, health, or spirituality (or whatever your categories are)?

Doing the same old things year after year, decade after decade, isn’t going to create big change. So what's the event that's going to move you forward and get you closer to the vision you have of yourself?

Here’s an example of a Climactic Scene:

After the pandemic canceled my travel plans and I returned to Seattle, I found land to settle on and began to build a community there. I had to start a new career, so I took marketing coaching training and started to consult with other small companies for my livelihood. In the process of growing roots in this new community, I met someone with shared values in farming and social justice. We built our home together, grew the gardens, planted the orchards, and raised flocks and herds within a shared homestead.

Breaking It All Down

Now we're going to start making your 10-year goals more doable. Remember, your 10-year goals are not detailed enough to implement. They create the vision. Now we’re going to make them real.

Take a look at your goals for this decade and decide what you have to do to reach them.

For example, if you want to build a house, you have to save a certain amount of money for a down payment, decide where you want to live, decide what kind of home you want, find land, develop a budget, get a loan, hire an architect, and find a builder.

Each one of those goals is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound.

But it’s impossible to do all of them today, and still fairly broad.

What you can do sooner and what will take a while? You could probably hire an architect today, but what's the point if you need to save $50,000 for a down payment and you currently have $500 in your savings account?

Start plotting out what has to happen first, which things are contingent on others, what will take the longest to do, etc.

Now you’re going to identify which of those things you have to, or can, start working on in the next 5 years. Make sure it’s realistic to accomplish those things in the next 5 years, and leave the rest for the following 5 years.

There! You’ve got your 5-year goals, which are simply smaller pieces of your 10-year goals.

Making Your Goals Actionable

But 5 years is still too broad to drive what you can do today. So you’re going to break it down even further. Using the same process as above to go from 10 to 5-year goals, go from your 5-year goals to a 1-year goal.

You are not listing out all the goals for all 5 years, just the year in front of you.

List what you can realistically accomplish this year that's going to get you closer to your 5-year goals. Make sure they are SMART goals.

Put your yearly goals into a spreadsheet, checklist, or something that you can track.

For each goal, create subgoals or milestones. Assign a due date to each one. But don’t have them all due on 12/31/24. Spread them throughout the year so you have subgoals due every month.

Then, transfer all the things due for each month onto monthly goal sheets. I don’t recommend creating them all at once, because during the year, goals will get moved around or delayed. Just do one month at a time before the month begins.

From your monthly goals, assign them to the weeks in that month, and then — I bet you can guess the next part — break the weekly goals down into daily tasks.

You should create daily task sheets that include the tasks you are doing each day to achieve your weekly and monthly goals. And don’t forget to include meetings, appointments, errands, activities, and personal/family/social time so you have a realistic and comprehensive view of what you can and will do each day.

The Clincher

Here’s the most important thing you should know:

Every successful business owner has goals that they check and monitor every day.

Any task from your daily goals that doesn’t get done gets reassigned somewhere else in the week. Anything from your weekly goals that doesn’t get accomplished gets moved to the following week. Months and years...same thing.

You do NOT have to be perfect. NO one is. You just have to constantly monitor, track, adjust, and revise your goals to keep you pointed toward your bigger vision.

And even that can change.

A goal-setting process is never about chaining you to a set of ideas. It’s about mapping out your path and keeping you on track.

When you can say, “This is what I’m working on today because it’s one step toward my vision for my lifetime,” you are on track!

This process will help you put the nitty gritty daily details of life into a larger context that brings meaning to your life.

When the context becomes meaningful --> the daily task becomes meaningful.

I think what most human beings want is meaningful lives, a meaningful existence. We want to know that the shit we’re doing on the daily matters for something. Because sometimes it's hard to remember that, isn't it?

I hope this process will help you move yourself, your family, and your community toward something bigger and grander and better. Something you will be proud of when you’re looking down at what your survivors are saying about you.

If you are interested in this process and would like to attend a FREE workshop to get started on your goal-setting process, click here. You’ll get all my templates, guidance on getting started, and more hints and tips.

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Getting Started and Finding My Voice

Carrie Kenner — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 07:54:15 +0000

This is my journey of finding my voice in a society that silences women, starting with my mother's subtle but unsuccessful rebellion.

How do you bring an idea to life if your passions are silenced?

Dedicated to my mom.

My mom was born in 1929, when women weren't known for having their voices heard.

While she was no exception, she did find a way to express herself through music.

My mom was an extremely accomplished violinist, and she used her music career to forge a different path from most women in those days.

She left home and got a degree in music. She got a sexy little sports car and traveled even further away to work. She supported herself — and, I dare say — had quite a bit of fun along the way.

She met my dad when she was 28 and he was a 39-year-old divorcee with a teenage daughter — scandalous! — and they quickly had my sister and me. She was very late starting a family in that era.

Even though she was late to motherhood by 1960 standards, she was a pretty hip mom. Cat-eye glasses, capri pants, two-piece bathing suits, a musician, and actor in the community theater. She also made a mean batch of peanut butter cookies.

But she was also pathologically non-confrontational. It came with the territory. Her favorite motto:

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Finding My Voice

Growing up as a girl in the 1960s, I wasn’t much better off than my mom.

I, too, was quiet and obedient. My natural gift — and favorite pastime — was watching people.

In school, I was the ideal because of my quietness and ability to go with the flow. And of course, not saying anything if I didn't have anything nice to say

So when did I find my voice, and how?

In high school, I met a young man who became my partner for 10 years and the father of my first two children.

He exposed me to information about the African diaspora.

He introduced me to Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Marcus Garvey, and other incredible voices of Black activists of the day.

I was assigned a book report in my history class: choose a historical figure and prepare a presentation on them for the class.

I chose Harriet Tubman.

Says Who?

"She’s not a historical figure," my history teacher said.

"Yeah, she is," I argued. I had started to find my voice and was determined to share the new information I was learning about.

I had that opportunity at dinner one night with my family. My dad was discussing something he'd seen on the news and said presidents should always be revered.

Jabbing my finger, I shouted, "No, they don’t! Did you know Thomas Jefferson owned slaves?!"

My dad looked at me...and started laughing.

He thought that my passion was amusing, or frivolous. Like a plaything.

I lost my voice.

But I know now that when you silence people, their words, thoughts, and ideas don't go away.

They just go inside. Underground. Like Harriet.

Feeding the Monster

Inside, those ideas often gestate into new forms; they grow and evolve. Sometimes, they sleep for so long they die. But often, they’re just biding their time, feeding off the bile and getting stronger.

For me, that silencing is when my body went looking for a microphone, for a way to express what was gestating inside of me, to amplify the injustices that I'd been seeing since I was a five-year-old kid.

I fed my monster feminist literature and books by Black authors like James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ntozake Shange. I feasted off these voices who had such important things to say.

I can’t believe we’re still debating the truth of their voices today.

While expanding my ideas and finding my voice, something else was growing inside of me — strong desire to be a mother.

On My Terms

I’d wanted to be a mother — like seriously wanted to have a baby — since I was 14. I graduated when I was 16, went to art school (the way I’d found to express myself, even though I didn't know that’s what I was doing), got a job, turned 18, and said, “Okay, now I’m old enough to have a baby.”

Because of the reading I'd been doing by activists and feminists, I decided I would have my baby at home.

It was 1979, and homebirth was less popular than it is now (about 1% of people give birth out of the hospital today). But I persevered and found midwives. Our son was born just before noon on a sunny day in June 1980 in the upstairs bedroom of our apartment, surrounded by 5 midwives, our moms, my best friend, and my partner’s little sister.

That picture above is the moment I got started as a doula. That is when I felt the passion for what I do today.

I had no idea how transforming the experience of birth would be. At that moment, I felt I could do anything, an experience that has served me well for the rest of my life. Anytime I'm in a predicament or question my ability to accomplish something, endure something, or figure something out, I remember that I made a human being and brought him into the world on my terms.

Immediately, I wanted to bring that same sense of empowerment my midwives gave me to others. They believed in me long before I did and planted a seed that took 20 years to grow.

My Biggest Fan

In 2000, I heard about doulas. In 2001, I became one. By 2004, I was training doulas.

My mom attended a few hours of one of my doula trainings to see me “in action.” At the end, she stood up and said, "You may not believe this, but my little Carrie used to be the quietest little girl. She never had anything to say. She'd never cause any problems. So when I see her standing up here today, totally in her element, so articulate and knowledgeable, she has found her voice. And I am so proud."

I was pretty damn proud, too.

The next year, I was invited to speak about the benefits of doulas to medical students at Oregon Health Sciences University. The lecture was on my mom's birthday, so I took her to Portland with me.

The auditorium was filled with hundreds of medical students. And there was my mom in the front row. I think she would have been beaming if she wasn’t so gobsmacked. How could her “quiet, little Carrie” be standing here in front of medical students and teaching them about doulas?"

My mom was my biggest fan, telling all her friends about doulas and talking to anyone who’d listen about the benefits of having a doula. She also seemed to attract doulas to her, striking up a conversation with a stranger and finding out within a few sentences that they were a doula.

"Do you know my daughter, Carrie Kenner?"

"Yeah, she was my trainer.” Or “Oh yes, I know her very well."

My mom couldn't wait to call and tell me about the newest doula she had run into or the latest doula convert she had made.

So my mom believed in me — even when my dad laughed at me — and she supported me in finding my voice.

The Art of Manifesting

I am known for my ability to manifest things. So I want to tell you about the process I use to bring an idea into existence.

It always starts with just a thought.

I had an idea about a book report that I wanted to write.

I imagined becoming a mother.

I dreamt about helping people find empowerment through birth.

These are all just concepts, stuff in the mind, nothing tangible.

But when you work with those thoughts, more clearly-formed ideas come.

Then, you must speak them out loud. Saying your ideas — to another person, the universe, or a non-human — activates them. This is the difference between a prayer you say in your head and one that is spoken. When you put your ideas to words, their energy starts to coalesce and spread. You honor them with your breath and tongue.

Then, the words become action. The energy of the idea has transformed from thought, to word, to becoming embodied. Now, you’re doing something with it, making it tangible, bringing it to life.

Every time you speak your intention, every time you honor it with action, you are calling in the universe to assist you. You aren’t doing it alone; you’re working with all these other energies to turn your notion, this passion, into something beautiful in your life.

When were the moments that a seed was planted in you that turned into something huge, impactful, meaningful, and defining for you?

We must grab onto those moments, even when we don't know where they'll take us.

When I was sitting there holding my newborn baby, I wasn't thinking, "I'm gonna be a doula someday and I’m going to train doulas and become a business coach for doulas."

All I knew was: I could do anything.

This is my first vlog of 2024, and I wanted to start at this place of beginnings, the place of finding the seeds that were planted long ago. I want to weave together the enduring quest for birthing ourselves, manifesting our passions, navigating societal challenges, and finding self-expression and empowerment in our lives.

I’ll be exploring these themes over the next few months. I hope you'll come along with me.

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Decision-Making Part 2: Tools

Carrie Kenner — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 04:18:48 +0000

Part 2 In a 3-Part Series

In last week’s blog, I shared about decision-making and how it's not what we think it is. We tend to think it's very logical, analytical, and reasoned, when in fact it's a very emotion-based process.

Check out Decision-Making: Faking You Out Big Time! to learn about the parts of the brain — almost all involved with emotion — that we use in the decision-making process, t the power of implicit memory (the deep, old memories that we're not even necessarily conscious of) in the decisions we make, and why decision-making skills should be taught to people starting at a young age.

What's a Decision-Making Model?

Decision-making models are tools that are helpful to people faced with making an important choice. The ones I share here are useful in the context of healthcare, and especially in the context of birth in the healthcare setting.

There are several decision-making models used by both patients and providers.

Use Your BRAIN

The BRAIN model is an acronym representing questions patients or clients can ask when a procedure or treatment is recommended.

B Benefits of the procedure or treatment

R Risks of the procedure or treatment

A Alternatives to the procedure or treatment

I Intuition

N Nothing, or Not Now

You've probably heard about the importance of weighing the benefits and risks of many things in life. It’s important to remember that all procedures or interventions have a potential benefit and a potential risk. In healthcare, we're weighing the benefits against the risks in the context of the medical condition.

100% Risk-Free!

There's no intervention that is risk-free. Even breathing air can come with a risk if there's pollution in the air. Yet, certainly, stopping breathing would carry a bigger risk. So we need to look at alternatives.

What are the alternatives to what’s being recommended? There could be one thing, three things…15 things! And for each one, you have to go through the benefits and risks.

If you’re paying attention, you’re probably starting to realize that this isn't just a simple five-question process. It can be lengthy if it involves a lot of alternatives.

'I' Is For Intuition

The letter ‘I’ in the BRAIN acronym stands for intuition. Intuition is a different kind of information that we can access. But it's not highly valued. In fact, it’s often not considered at all in healthcare situations.

Intuition hasn't been researched, it’s hard to measure, and there's very little data on the efficacy of intuition. But in my opinion, it's extremely important.

During pregnancy, people's intuition is heightened; in labor, it’s even more acute.

So we can ask a client: What does your intuition, your gut, your sixth sense, say about this intervention?

We can help them get into a state where they can access their intuition, instead of being influenced by their thoughts or by the voices of others.

When people are supported in this way, they often have a strong sense if this is something they want to do now or not.

Not Now!

Which leads us to ‘N.’ What if we do Nothing, or Not Now? This is just another alternative, but it's an important one.

What would happen if we didn't do this thing at all? Or if we waited an hour, a day, a month?

Answering the 5 questions is how the BRAIN model gathers information for decision-making.

But something is missing: the context.

It's All About the Context

What is the medical situation that's occurring, and how important, urgent, or dangerous is that situation? If the situation is dangerous or urgent, the risks may not seem as bad. But if the situation is normal — something that happens to everyone or is just a symptom of the process — then the risks are not worth it.

Without knowing the situation’s severity, you can't accurately weigh the benefits and risks.

Consider this: If someone is sitting in their living room writing up their birth plan and they are choosing the intervention they want or don’t want, ALL the risks don’t seem worth it because nothing dangerous is happening in their living room. It’s impossible to say what you might want or not want later in labor.

That’s why it’s so important to have a model like this one to use in labor when someone might need to be making decisions in the moment.

SHAREing is Caring

The next model I want to tell you about is a model that care providers use to develop a collaborative decision-making relationship with a patient. It’s called the SHARE model.

S Seek the patient’s participation

H Help them explore the options

A Assess the patient’s values and preferences

R Reach a decision

E Evaluate the decision

In this process, the care provider is inviting their patient to join them in decision-making. It’s not only the care provider’s expertise, or the patient’s preferences, that are being considered.

Any good decision-making model looks at options; that is the core of informed consent. The care provider can explain what they are recommending, provide alternatives to their recommendation, and describe how each option works along with their benefits and risks.

The next step is finding out what is important to the patient. What are their values and preferences when it comes to their healthcare? These might include religious or spiritual practices, mental/emotional preferences, and personal values.

From here, together they can reach a decision on the course of action. Then, the care provider can evaluate the decision to make sure it is relevant to the situation and assess its effectiveness over time.

There you have it! Two common tools used to help in making a decision.

By the Numbers

But now I want to dive a little bit deeper. I want to look at some of the factors that influence what decisions are made.

One of them has to do with research information, data, and how numbers are presented. Remember, we are conditioned to try to make rational, logical decisions. We tend to pay attention to the numbers.

But the numbers can be manipulated to try to influence people.

If someone is told they have a 5 in 100 chance of a complication, they probably think that number is pretty low. They’d have to try hard to imagine 100 people in a room and pick out the 5 that have the complication.

But if someone is told they have a 1 in 20 chance of developing a complication… ooh! They can imagine 20 people in a room and see the 1 unlucky person.

Five in one hundred or one in twenty are the same odds. But unless someone is quick at math, they are likely to hear those numbers differently and that can influence their decision.

Another way data is manipulated is when someone is told, “You are twice as likely to have this complication if you do A versus B.” For example, if intervention A has a complication that happens to 1 out of 1,000 people and intervention B has a complication that happens to 2 out of 1,000 people, intervention B is twice as likely to cause a complication. That is true.

But the real risk is .1% vs .2%. We’re talking very small numbers here. If someone is very risk-averse, those numbers might mean a lot to them. But to the average person, 1 to 2 out of 1,000 people are very small odds.

You can see that how statistics are communicated can influence people's sense of risk or safety. That’s why people must see actual numbers and be given guidance on how to interpret those numbers.

The Groopman Spectrums

And that brings me to the Groopman spectrums. Jerome Groopman is a physician who wrote the book, Your Medical Mind, published in 2011. It explored how medical decisions are made, and was used by a lot of physicians and lay people to understand how to factor in information for decision-making.

Groopman identified different spectrums that people might place themselves on that influence how they make decisions.

One is called the Naturalist-Technologist scale. On this scale, people are asked to consider if they favor natural remedies — herbs, acupuncture, diet, meditation, exercise — to treat medical conditions. Or if they prefer technology — machines, medications, devices — for their medical care.

The next one is the Minimalist-Maximalist scale. Do they want to try all the things available or do they like as little intervention as possible? Do they prefer to rely on the natural course of events or do everything in their power to change the trajectory of their health?

The next scale is the Doubter-Believer. Is the person suspicious of doctors, distrustful of the medical system, dubious that any medications work? Or do they do anything their doctor tells them, believe wholeheartedly in the Western medical system, and trust the ads for pharmaceuticals they see on TV?

And finally, there’s the simple Risk Averse-Risk Tolerant scale. Risk-averse folks are not willing to take chances. The numbers scare them and they want as little risk as possible. Risk-tolerant folks see life as a series of probabilities, and they are more interested in trying things aligned with their values even if they don’t provide the best odds.

But here’s where it gets interesting: The spectrums intersect. Someone could be a naturalist and a maximalist. So they want to do all.the.things as long as they fall in the natural-remedy category. Or they could be a risk-taking minimalist. They only want to try the one thing that appeals to them, even if it’s less likely to work. Or they could be someone who wants lots of technology, but only the kind that comes with low risks.

Oh, but there’s more...

First Birth Story

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about How We Learn and how families are our first teachers. The deep-seated rules and agreements we made as small children affect the decisions we make as adults.

I like to use the process of The First Birth Story to help clients see this phenomenon at work…

What’s the first memory someone has about birth? It usually happens when they are elementary school age, as old as 10 or as young as 3. They might recall hearing a birth story of a relative, or remember when a sibling was born.

If they lived in a hippie commune and all the babies were born at home, they might say, “When the baby comes, the midwife comes over and everyone brings food and is really happy.” They would form a rule or agreement about birth like, Birth is exciting and a celebration and everyone is there.

If they remember when their little brother was born, and "Mom was really loud, and then she was whisked out the door and gone for 3 days, and Aunt Martha stayed with me but she wasn’t very nice and wouldn’t let me go see mom, and then when mom finally did come home she had this baby with her and everyone paid attention to the baby…" their rule and agreement about birth might be, Birth is scary and people go away somewhere and then you lose love.

Now keep in mind, these rules and agreements come from the mind — and with the language — of a child. Over time, other experiences overlay (but don’t replace) the original rules and agreements. Those new experiences might confirm what the child thought, only now with more adult language. Birth is intense, needs to happen in a closed environment, is an ordeal.

When we help clients understand their First Birth Story, they can see how it may be influencing the decisions they're making as adults.

The Aftermath

What happens after a decision is made and then things don't go as hoped for?

A lot has to do with one's stress-coping and resilience skills.

If someone sees their birth plan slowly evaporating — each thing on the list being removed by the hands of fate — they may try to salvage anything that’s left.

They want to feel like they have some control in all of this, that they are a good person/parent/birther who did something right. If they aren’t able to have the home birth / unmedicated birth / vaginal birth they hoped for, maybe they can at least have their baby on their chest right after birth, or keep their placenta, or play a special song. They are looking for the one thing they can still have.

Then there are the “Oh fuck it!” people.

These are the folks who, when their birth plan starts to derail, throw up their hands and say, “Forget it, do whatever you want.”

They're not just throwing up their hands to their birth plan. They're giving up all their agency and power for the rest of their birth.

This is often a stress response, a way they've learned to protect themselves when things get really hard and they don't know what else to do.

How Doulas Can Help

As you can see, there's a lot to the aftermath. And that's why doulas can be so crucial to positive experiences of birth, even if they don’t go as planned.

Doulas help people process and integrate the experience they had at their birth. They do that by giving clients time to first adjust to new parenthood. Then, after they've had a chance to let some of their thoughts and ideas about their birth percolate, we can explore what that experience was like for them.

We often start by just asking clients to tell us what happened from their perspective. It's important to let them tell their story without interruption. Then we ask:

What was that like for you?

Depending on how they tell their story, we might ask some follow-up questions. For some people, it might be helpful for them to verbalize what they wished happened differently, and we can validate that.

We can ask what they learned about themselves from that experience. If you’re familiar with the Heroic Journey, you know that the hero has to face the unknown and go to the underworld, where hard things happen and they have to do things they didn't want to do. But they learn important lessons which they bring back to the upper world in their new version of self.

Someone might have learned that they're tougher than they thought, or that birth is humbling. or that their partner now recognizes their strength and endurance.

Doulas help bring those learnings to the forefront. And that's how we help them to integrate their experience and make sense of it.

I hope you can use some of the nuggets from these decision-making tools to help your clients, family, or friends if they call and say, “I have this thing that I have to make a decision about and I don't know what to do.”

Join me next week because I'm going to share the process I used with my doula clients when I was preparing them for birth. I'm also going to share some stories of decision-making from the trenches in my career as a doula. Thanks for reading!

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Decision-Making Part 1: Faking You Out Big Time!

Carrie Kenner — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 01:23:51 +0000

A new series of blogs on how we make decisions

I read a newsletter article this week by Anne-Laure Le Cunff of Ness Labs. It was called “Why Smart People Make Dumb Decisions.”

Her article reminded me that I wanted to blog about decision-making, so here we are.

Decision-making is the process we use to identify, sort through, and select an option, produce a final choice, and maybe take action on it. For the most part, this is a rational process...at least it appears to be, and we like to believe it is.

The decisions we make in a day can range from what to eat for breakfast, should I click on this link or not, or what to invest our money in.

We Do It In a Nanosecond

We make thousands of these choices every day — most automatically — using mental models that integrate past experience, consequences, memory, values, beliefs, and desires so we know how to behave next. We don’t have the luxury of full seconds to decide which way to move when a ball is speeding our way, or how to respond when we see brake lights in front of us, so most of this happens in a nanosecond.

If you asked the average person, they’d tell you they make mindful, well-thought-out decisions. If you told them the left brain is rational and the right brain is emotional, and asked them which side of their brain makes decisions, the resounding chorus would be, “Left brain!”

And they’d be wrong.

Left Brain, Right Brain, Front Brain, Back Brain

The decision-making process is actually a front-to-back-of-the-brain process that relies dominantly on emotional centers. We like to think we use reason and logic (and data!) to arrive at a smart decision. That’s because we don’t notice the emotional, historical, and subversive memories operating in the netherregions of our brain.

Our bias towards our decisions being logical is further emphasized when we use words to justify them — words that come from the left region of the brain, where our verbal centers reside.

Wrong Again

A lot of research on decision-making has been done in the realm of dieting. But my interest has always been on why people choose certain things for their births... and why they don’t follow through or change their minds when the rubber hits the road.

One explanation is that labor is just harder than what they expected, what they could imagine, or what they’re prepared to navigate. The birth process really is outside any other life experience. It's like trying to plan how to jump a car across the Grand Canyon when you’ve never operated a vehicle before.

For decades, I watched childbirth educators and doulas make a fundamental mistake when it came to preparing people for labor and how to make decisions when they’re in it.

The most popular school of thought relies on the belief that if people have good information — current, evidence-based, rational data — they will make good decisions for their care in labor.

But that’s not how it works at all.

All the Emotional Players

Here’s what scientists have discovered about how we make decisions:

The hippocampus is involved in memory, learning, and emotion. Its main job is transferring short-term memories to long-term storage, but it also plays a role in emotional processing, including anxiety and avoidance behaviors.

The prefrontal cortex regulates our thoughts, actions, and emotions by connecting with other brain regions. The prefrontal cortex is in close contact with the structures and circuits of the emotional brain that seek gratification and alert us to danger. It also evaluates risks and rewards and applies them to the future.

The anterior cingulate cortex is involved in several complex cognitive functions, such as empathy, impulse control, and emotion.

The orbitofrontal cortex — primarily known for its role in identity and reward values for taste and smells — seems to determine the relative reward value of choice options as well, and provides biasing signals in more complex decision-making situations.

And then there’s the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (I know you were wondering when I’d bring it up!), which binds together the networks that support emotional processing, decision-making, memory, self-perception, and social cognition — all factors that influence our decisions.

You see, it’s not about data at all!

Why Don't We All Know This?

I used a completely different model of birth preparation, taught to me by Pam England from her book Birthing From Within, that focused on excavating one’s first beliefs about birth, exploring their current values, and guiding them through a process to initiate and prepare them for the journey of birth however it unfolds. Sure, we talked about facts and data, and I shared a decision-making model for labor, but now they had a heads up that their emotions were the real driver of decisions they’d be making.

“Because we have to make decisions every day — at work and in our personal lives — it’s surprising that smart decision-making is not taught in school. It’s the kind of skill everyone should have in their mental toolkit.” — Anne-Laure Le Cunff, Ness Labs

It sure would make navigating birth a lot easier.

(P.S. It’s also important to note that the frontal lobes of the brain don’t fully mature until after puberty. So kids and teens are literally unable to make good decisions. I know that’s not a surprise to any of the parents here. But it also stresses why decision-making skills should be taught in schools.)

Changing Our Tune

In last week’s vlog, I spoke about neuroplasticity and how our nervous system, brain, patterns, and beliefs — all the things that drive our thoughts and behaviors — are not rigid. So it goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway) that if we make decisions based on past experiences and observed consequences, but we change the meaning or value of those things via neuroplasticity, our decisions will change as well.

Which is why some folks start making very different choices after a period of transition, reflection, or personal development.

If you do end-of-the-year goal-setting, you might be interested in how the concepts of neuroplasticity and decision-making can be factored in.

The New Year goals that many people create are often a narrow-visioned prospect: pick the things you want to happen, write them down, and post them on the bathroom mirror. Maybe say a few mantras or self-affirmations to make them come true.

I take a different approach, and I love sharing it with folks. It’s a process of deep reflection, forward-visioning (to your funeral, to be specific...about as far forward as you can go in your own life's events), and using your decision-making style to set 1-, 5-, and 10-year goals. I use this process in my JumpStart program because it's also a great process for business owners.

Next week, I’ll talk about two models for decision-making, the factors that influence our decision-making style, and how our best-laid plans can get derailed via the “Oh, fuck it!” phenomenon. See you then.

I’m thinking about offering a goal-setting workshop using my 3-part approach around the new year. Let me know if you’re interested.

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Neuroplasticity: Our Brains Are Like Clay

Carrie Kenner — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 02:53:03 +0000

It turns out I have a lot to say about families…

And it appears that you – my audience – like to hear what I have to say about them as well. I received so many comments after my last blog about your own families of origin, their impact (good and not-so-good) on who you are as humans, and the ways in which you come to grips with family legacy and perhaps a different future that you’d like to create.

Last week was my sister’s birthday. I offered to take her away for the weekend, not just to chill and relax and celebrate, but also to do some deep work on our family of origin stories. So, quick digression here…

My Side Gig as a Copywriter

In addition to being a doula trainer, business and marketing coach, and grandma to thousands, I also have a side gig as a copywriter for a company that creates continuing education for psychotherapists. I write the sales page and emails for each course launch, and in preparation for doing that, I interview the presenters, review their body of work, and become versed in their modality. Learning cool stuff is a great side benefit of being a copywriter!

One of our upcoming presenters, Dr. Tian Dayton, is an expert on psychodrama and sociometrics, which are therapeutic modalities that use specific exercises to mine one’s current self for experiences from the past that hold particular meaning – usually in the context of a negative incident or trauma. Then there are additional exercises that work with those experiences, such as mapping out the players in a situation, using role play or dialog between the adult and child self to “re-do” the experience, or letter writing to be able to express now what wasn’t possible then.

As I was reading Tian’s book, Sociometrics: Embodied, Experiential Processes for Relational Trauma Repair, I was really drawn to her exercises. They were simple, approachable, and – to me at least – looked fun! And that’s when I invited my sister to go away for the weekend to do some of these exercises. So back to last weekend…

Time With My Sis

My sister and I did a few of the exercises to map out the breadth of our lives. We identified current behavior patterns, completed a timeline of significant events throughout our lives, mapped out our primary influences – both people and entities like school or workplace or communities – and did a few role-plays of situations that have plagued us for years.

In these role plays, you get to choose if you want to be yourself or the antagonist. We did a little of both.

No matter the situation, or the role we played, it was transformative to get a “re-do.”

In some cases, the re-do surfaced tears and relief from years of carrying around a traumatic story. In other cases, it was simply the satisfaction of finally saying what we wished we could have said in the moment.

What struck me the most was how simple and effective these exercises were.

Everyone should have access to them (you do: buy her books here). Why aren’t these common skills for how to be healthier people? Why don’t we learn these skills in school, work, or in our families?

Learning About Different Approaches to Therapy

In the process of learning about different approaches to therapy, I’ve picked up some knowledge of the neuroscience behind why these things work.

I’ve learned about our inner parts and how they strive to keep us safe and protected from life’s challenges.

I understand how experiences reside in our body, though most attention is paid on how we remember them in our minds.

And now I get why painful childhood events can be harder to treat than adult traumas.

One of the coolest things I’ve seen is how difficult relationships with our parents can be healed through our relationships with our own kids.

But the most profound thing I’ve learned is that even the most wounded people can heal.

We do not need to be defined by our most painful experiences. We do not need to be stuck in an endless loop of remembering – or blocking out – the things that have hurt us the most. And we don’t have to navigate the world from a place of harm.

It turns out that we have something called neuroplasticity. That means that our nervous system, brains, patterns, beliefs – all the things that drive our thoughts and behaviors – are not rigid.

We do not have to repeat old ways that don’t serve us or others; our family patterns are not cast in stone.

But, we have to do a fair amount of work to change them.

Neuroplasticity and Clay

I think of the process as similar to working with clay. Clay is one of those substances that can change form based on its surroundings. In some states it is malleable and soft, smooth and luxurious. In other states it is hard, rough, and cutting. You must have the right conditions – or create them – to get it to do what you want it to.

If you want it to be pliable, you need to warm it up, infuse it with water, work it with your hands, get it to loosen up.

If you want it to be hard and rigid, you have to let it dry out. Blast it with heat to suck out all the water, or let it languish without moisture for years.

When I was a ceramic artist, one of my favorite things was to take a big block of dried out clay – something most people would look at and think was ruined and worthless – and soak it in a bucket of water. Within a day or two, its elasticity and vitality was restored.

I’d still have to put a lot of elbow grease into working the water into the inner parts of the clay. But once I did, I could make a work of art out of it.

Or I would take slurry – clay mixed with water until it has the consistency of thick cream – and pour it into a mold for a plate or bowl or picture frame. Within a day, the mold would absorb the excess water and I’d have a dry clay piece ready to paint or glaze before firing.

Similar to clay, we need to know how to help our brains and bodies be more malleable, or how to shore ourselves up to make us stand strong.

Because life requires both.

The state of the world is rife with trauma, grief, anger, and hatred. Ideally, we’d learn within our families how to navigate these painful parts of life. But instead, many people are buried alive with negativity in their family setting.

We all have the capacity to change our attitudes, views, values, and behaviors to be and do better in the world. To forge new family patterns, create new neural connections, and become stronger, healthier humans.

My mission as a doula, urban farmer, educator, mother, grandmother, and human being has always been to facilitate a better world of healthier and happier families with heart-centered human beings that create joyful lives.

Want to join me? Here are 3 small things you can do this week:

Choose an old family trait that you’d like to change (remember, you can’t change others, but you can change how you’d like to do things differently).
Tell a child how wonderful they are and that you love them (this is especially powerful if you aren’t their parent).
Learn more about neuroplasticity and ways to heal trauma either within yourself or others.

Thanks for making this world a better place!

Note: For those of you who get my emails, you know this is a busy month of birthdays in my family. Last week was my sister’s, this week is my mom’s, and next week is the biggie…my son and three of my grandsons all within a few days of each other! I’m sure I’ll have another family-related story to share next week, so be sure to subscribe to this blog or get on my email list to get notifications. The links are below.

Also, if you are interested in working with families from the very start, and helping to influence the making of the best humans possible, the doors to my birth doula training are open! Check it out here.

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Families: The Training Ground for Small Humans

Carrie Kenner — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 19:58:19 +0000

Note: The author is well aware of the range of dysfunction within families. This blog post intends to focus only on the phenomenon of families as “first teachers,” not on the content — supportive or destructive — that is being taught to children. The reader can extrapolate the profound impact of both helpful behaviors and harmful ones on the developing mind, body, and psyche of a child, and the long-lasting effects of abusive family dynamics. A future blog post will delve into intergenerational trauma as a result of this phenomenon, and offer avenues to prevent and heal family-generated trauma.

Why I Think Families Are Really Important

We hear all the time about the importance of families.

Family members stress, “We must stick together; blood is thicker than water” and all that...

Elders share stories of long-gone ancestors in hopes of keeping memories and legacies alive...

Politicians spout rhetoric on how their programs will support families, or at least family values as they define them...

Social service agencies promise to keep families together as the ultimate goal.

I think about the importance of families in a different light, though.

The impact of family is much more profound than a motto or sentiment.

Families are actually “first teachers,” modeling and showing children how to move through life.

A family is literally the place where babies and children learn how to be human.

Babies Know Nothing About Being Human

It has innate reactions and reflexes that enable it to find the breast, lift its head, crawl, and suckle.

Babies can do these basic things to keep themselves alive.

And then, as they start observing what's around them and notice their surroundings and how the people around them behave, they develop their neural pathways for human behavior.

Humans have mirror neurons that allow us to copy what we're seeing. So, for the first few years of a person's life, they learn from the people around them how to behave, what to do, what to say, and how to react to situations.

All these behaviors and reactions are programmed pre-verbally, which means they are not stored in the conscious part of the brain. In later years, someone cannot recall how they learned specific speech patterns, food preferences, or facial expressions.

Babies learn so much, so fast, and it’s all planted deep inside their minds and bodies at a subconscious level.

As a child becomes verbal, the left part of their brain — the logical part — starts to kick in.

Though young children won’t be able to reason for many years, they start to develop the capacity to reason.

Reasoning is so critical in this process of becoming a human because that is how we can look at the behaviors, patterns, and values we learned and get curious about them.

If we have the insight to observe them, to wonder, “Hmm, why do I do that? Why do my parents do that? Why do my grandparents do that...” we can start seeing familial patterns.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The ability to reason isn’t going to happen for many years yet.

Kids start to develop the skills for logic and reason when they’re elementary school age when they’re learning math and writing.

During this time, they are also being influenced by others around them — other kids or teachers if they go to school, or by TV or books or other media.

They see how other families do things.

They start to see other ways to be human.

But most very young children will continue to do what they learned in their family of origin. Young children have a built-in instinct to conform in order to belong and stay safe (you’ll learn why in a moment).

The Teenage Years

When people get into their teenage years, the very important individuation process happens.

Individuation is when we start to see ourselves as unique individuals, recognize and flex our autonomy, and form our own ideas and opinions.

We begin the process of discernment. “Huh, when I was a child, I learned X, Y, and Z. I was explicitly told X, Y, and Z, but other things were implied, or I deduced them by looking at what was going on around me.”

All children learn these things:

We do this in our family, but we don’t do that.

Moms/women do these things; dads/men do those things.

These people are good; those people are dangerous/not to be trusted/bad.

These are what I call the black-and-white “rules of engagement” we learn to navigate the world.

Because children are too young to reason or think about these things critically, they gobble it all down hook, line, and sinker.

But in the teenage years, we start to wonder. “I thought XYZ is the way it is, but I just saw something that showed me the complete opposite.”

And now they’re at a crossroads.

Now, they have to decide if they want to keep believing their old rule or not.

And the thing is, there are big stakes at play!

If a child stops believing something their family believes, they risk being ostracized.

They rely on their family to feel taken care of, safe, and protected. If they don’t go along with the status quo, they are vulnerable.

All humans have an innate sense of the risk of vulnerability and the importance of belonging for our safety. That's one of the reasons young children are so easily manipulated. Not only do they not have reason to think things through, but they also have a very strong need to do what everyone else around them is doing so that they fit in, belong, and be taken care of.

Now, back to the teenagers...

Even teenagers, who are quite capable of doing many things to take care of themselves, aren’t safe alone in the world or able to support themselves.

But they are starting to try out different ideas, make other choices, do things differently from their family or peers, and have some sense of having agency or at least being able to defend their ideas.

Why Holiday Dinner Can Suck

As those teenagers age into adulthood and leave home for college, work, and to take care of themselves independently in the world, they can really make changes in their ideology that might differ from their family.

And that's why Thanksgivings can be so tenuous: you never know what kind of opinions will show up around the table.

So when I think about the importance of families, I think about this process of becoming human and how we learn it from our family of origin.

We all know we don’t have a choice about our family members. We are stuck with them for the most part until we individuate.

People flip out if we start to question our family’s fundamental rules of engagement — those deep core values of how to be a good human.

Most people don’t know where their beliefs and behavior patterns came from. Because those rules and values run deep, most people aren’t aware of how they inherited them. They do what they’ve always done and don’t question it.

If someone starts poking around their inner psyche, looking at their family values with scrutiny, it can be really threatening to those who are humming along with the status quo.

The Power to Change and Heal Families

When I work with families, I ask them to do an inventory of their beliefs, values, and rules of engagement:

What do you want to keep or maintain from your family of origin?

What do you want to shift?

How will you do that?

I have an amazing story about delving into my family lineage so I could break a pattern that had plagued us for centuries. I needed to understand what had happened to my ancestors so I could heal it.

I went on a retreat to explore and commune with my ancestors. I learned their stories, understood when and how the break happened, and drew a line in the sand, saying, “It's stopping here, with this generation.”

But to do that work, I had to understand deeply this process of becoming a human. I had to uncover the family patterns, make new choices, and communicate what I’d learned to the rest of my family. I told them, “We're not going to do this anymore.”

This is the power of understanding how we learn to be human.

When you know how this process works, you can learn and embrace your family — with all its beauty and faults — for what they have done for you and also to make different choices for yourself.

It's an incredible opportunity.

Family love, choosing awareness, facing family patterns, and knowing you have the power to change them — though it may take a bit of work — will make you a more expansive, compassionate human being.

That is what I wish for us all.

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How We Learn

Carrie Kenner — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 07:55:53 +0000

I’ve been thinking lately about how humans learn.

I've always been interested in learning and teaching. When I was a kid, I would play school for hours.

I loved school and did really well, in large part becuase I was the perfect candidate for the U.S.-based educational system: I was white, I was a girl, and I was conditioned by 1960s culture to be quiet and do what I was told.

I did so well in school that my first-grade teacher asked me to help her grade the other kids’ papers in class. And she asked me to be the flower girl at her wedding!

My second-grade teacher recommended that I skip the third grade, which I did.

By the time I was 14, I was figuring out how to get extra credits and graduate when I was 16.

I studied psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, and neuroscience. All these things helped me understand how people work and why they behave the way they do.

And here's what I discovered:

There are very unique ways that we gain knowledge.

Inherent or innate knowledge - These are the things our bodies know to do without us “knowing” how to do them, or thinking or learning about them. There’s no mental or cognitive awareness. It’s how our heart beats, how we breathe, our digestion, growing a baby, and giving birth. External factors, such as stress, diet, toxins, cultural conditioning, and personal belief systems, can influence and impact these things. However, our bodies still do them without having to think about it.

Spiritual “gifts” – These are qualities or traits we are born with that come from beyond our physical being, often referred to as “gifts” or, as Michael Meade refers to them: fate or destiny. Not in the sense of karma or lack of agency, but rather how to express our purpose in a lifetime.

He suggests that, instead of meeting St. Peter at the pearly gates to have our list of sins or good deeds inventoried, we simply ask ourselves, “Did you fulfill your destiny?” And if you answer no, it's not that you go to hell. It's just that you have to reckon with that and carry a huge burden into the afterlife.

Preverbal learning – These are the things we learn how to do before we have words or reason. We learn language, how to walk, how people interact and behave together. It’s how we determine what we like and don't like, the cultural norms and family expectations around us, and how to be a human in society. Preverbal learning is the deepest, most foundational way we learn how to be in the world because it gets set in our preverbal subconscious. It sets the basis for the belief systems that form our future ways of being.

Intergenerational – And then there's intergenerational learning. This is a new one. A study was done with rats where the researchers emitted a specific odor in the rats’ environment. Whenever that odor was emitted, the rats got an electrical shock. This was done for an extended period so that, even when the rats were no longer being shocked, when that odor was emitted, the rats would still shudder as if they were being shocked.

Then, those rats had baby rats. When the baby rats were exposed to that odor, they would also shudder even though they weren't being shocked. Other rats that weren't the offspring of the original shocked rats didn't respond in that way.

Even rats conceived with the sperm of the shocked male rats, or birthed by the female shocked rats had those same reactions.

Then, those baby rats matured and had their own babies. The “grandchildren” rats also had the same reaction; even though none of those last two generations of rats were exposed to the electrical shocks, they still acted as if they were.

I don’t know if these intergenerational learnings fall in the inherent or the preverbal category of learning, but what scientists are starting to understand is that we learn things pre-conception as well as prenatally or in utero, from our environment during gestation.

Formal – No we arrive at the most common understanding of learning, which is formal learning. This is where we learn things like reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Formal learning is done in school or from books, and it is what most of us think of when we think of learning.

Observational – But keep in mind that there weren’t always schools. Humans learned historically through observation and stories. They observed the cycles of the moon or the seasons. They watched how others did things when they wanted to learn something new.

No one sat a child down and taught them how to do a specific task. Children were expected to watch closely and try it on their own, and they might receive supervision and guidance. It was a built-in version of the apprenticeship model.

I was very keen on observation. So much so that when I was four, I learned how to read just by observing what my sister was learning in kindergarten.

And I've used observational learning to watch what other people do in situations. Sometimes, I feel like a chameleon, quickly taking on the behaviors and actions of others so I can figure out how to get things done or what to do in a certain situation. Observation has helped me expand the way that I am in the world.

And that's part of my story of how I became a doula.

I watched what my midwives did for me. Then I did that for my friends.

Eventually, I took more formal trainings and learned how to be a teacher of adults. After 20 years of teaching, I consider myself a masterful teacher.

Two of the most important things I learned about being a teacher came from Pam England, the author of Birthing from Within, who taught me how to teach with stories. And Paulo Freire, the author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, taught me about how to create self-determined learning for adults based on their desires and needs.

Both of these methods are the exact opposite of what we usually get in formal school. Instead of filling one's brain with facts or transferring the knowledge from one brain to another, we're really entering into a relationship with the learner to find out what motivates them and what they actually need to know and want to know.

Which learning styles do we use to become a doula?

Some say being a doula is innate. It's a gift one is born with. People who have the gift don't even realize that other people don't have it because being doula-like is just the way they are in the world.

They're naturally empathetic, helpful, kind, compassionate, comfortable being hands-on, and calm in intimate and stressful situations.

They have a gift for being with people and being comforting and soothing.

Other doulas learn through observation like I did. They watch other people do it. They go to a birth where a doula is present and say, ‘Ooh, I want to do that.’ Or they shadow another doula and learn by watching what that doula does so they can become one, too.

But most people go the formal route. They take a doula training

For decades, there has been an ongoing debate about in-person versus online training. My own beliefs have evolved over the years. Initially, I was in the camp that believed one had to attend an in-person training to learn how to be a doula. That’s because students had to learn hands-on skills, and I had to be there to “check” what they were doing.

Over time, though, I started to realize that we need a lot more doulas, and not every doula can take the time or afford the money or travel to get to an in-person training.

My doula training used to cost $800. Students had to come to an all-day class once a week for seven weeks, or to a class five days in a row. That just wasn't feasible for a whole lot of people.

And let's face it, the world needs a whole lot of doulas.

So, I started to let people to attend my doula training via Zoom in 2016. Then I started to put some of the curriculum into online modules. In 2018, I created an entire online doula training and it worked really well.

And then the pandemic happened.

And all the doula trainers who previously said it couldn't/shouldn't be done went online! Ironically, I didn't want to teach only online, so I stopped.

I spent a couple of years diving deep into marketing and writing, and traveled around the country in my campervan. And when I came back, I realized I'm not done.

But I've also slowed down. I'm not interested in spending all day in a classroom or long hours on Zoom.

I can provide training that is inexpensive and accessible to many more people by putting it all online. Win win!

Thinking about how we learn best is crucial — for ourselves when learning new skills, and for how we do our work and interact with others.

How do you best learn yourself? How do others want to receive information?

There are many styles of learning, many teaching methods, so much neurodiversity, and multiple perspectives that open up the options to meet the needs of everyone. And it's such a great time to do that now.

I hope you've learned some new things about how humans learn. And reflected a bit about how you learn and how you might teach others.

You can subscribe to this blog, or sign up for my email for updates on freebies, courses, and sales. All the links to take action are below.

Human nature – Carrie Kenner: Doula Trainer. Writing Coach. Sacred Feminine Guide.

Teaching Hate is Child Abuse

How Children Learn to Hate

It’s Unfair When Kids Have No Control

Teaching Hate: The Unseen Child Abuse

The Difference Between Broccoli and Spiders

The Difference Between Spiders and Mexico

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Why Even Teens Lack Discernment

Breaking the Cycle

Be Mindful of Your Words

The Importance of Teaching Truth

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Human and Business Systems: The Beauty and Brutality

But let’s back up to the beauty of human and business systems first...

You’re Already Loving Some Systems

Systems Are a Gift to Your Nervous System

Business Systems

Bigger Systems

The Center of a System

The Dark Side of Systems

How to Change a Business System from the Outside

Human Systems Don’t Change Themselves

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The Felt Sense of Doula Work

How I Learned About Felt Sense

What is Felt Sense?

How do doulas learn these skills without knowing what they’re doing?

Why Doulas Excel in Their Next Careers

What else do doulas know to do without knowing what they’re doing?

The Art of ‘Holding Space’

How do doulas get so good at this stuff?

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Setting Goals by Writing Your Own WHAT?!?!

Goal Setting

Weird Times Call for Weird Measures

Starting at the End

It’s Quite Timely for Me

Writing Your Obituary

Next, the Decades

And Then the Fun Begins!

Your Life Theme

Bringing It Into the Present

The Climactic Scenes

Breaking It All Down

Making Your Goals Actionable

The Clincher

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Getting Started and Finding My Voice

How do you bring an idea to life if your passions are silenced?

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Finding My Voice

Says Who?

Feeding the Monster

On My Terms

My Biggest Fan

The Art of Manifesting

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Decision-Making Part 2: Tools

Part 2 In a 3-Part Series

What's a Decision-Making Model?

Use Your BRAIN

100% Risk-Free!

'I' Is For Intuition

Not Now!

It's All About the Context

SHAREing is Caring

By the Numbers

The Groopman Spectrums

First Birth Story

The Aftermath

How Doulas Can Help

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Decision-Making Part 1: Faking You Out Big Time!

A new series of blogs on how we make decisions

We Do It In a Nanosecond

Left Brain, Right Brain, Front Brain, Back Brain

Wrong Again

All the Emotional Players

Why Don't We All Know This?