Episode 36 - Khye Tyson: The Burnout Cycle

Khye (they/them) is a sacred transition guide and founder of Kuluntu Reproductive Justice Center. In today's conversation with Josie, they discuss the sacred nature of birth, and how to be aware of and handle burnout cycles during transitional periods of life such as trying to conceive, carrying a pregnancy, becoming a caretaker or parent, building a birthworking business, and more.

[ID: A beige background and orange semi-circle. Text reads: The Intersectional Fertility Podcast Episode 36: Khye Tyson @kulunturjc and Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier @intersectionalfertility.]

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Episode Transcript:

Disclaimer: This is an automatically generated transcript edited to be more readable. It may not be 100% accurate.

[00:00:00] Josie: I am Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and this is the Intersectional Fertility Podcast, where ideas and identities intersect to deepen our understanding of fertility and ultimately our Whole Selves.

[00:00:32] Khye Tyson is an unapologetic, southern queer Black femme who enjoys yoga, building community, laughing, subverting the gender binary, and reminding people that they can fire their doctors. Khye is a sacred transition guide, entrepreneur, healer, consultant, and educator. As the founder of Kuluntu Reproductive Justice Center founded in 2018, Khye is working toward a world in which Black women and femmes can live, thrive, and raise healthy families freely within a healthy community.

[00:01:08] Khye loves to hike, sew, thrift, create art, sing, and dream of a world in which education is intuitive and culturally responsive. They're originally from Nashville, Tennessee, and currently reside in Atlanta.

[00:01:31] All right. Welcome back to the podcast everyone. Khye, welcome. 

[00:01:36] Khye: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. 

[00:01:40] Josie: Me too. So will you share with us your pronouns and where you're joining us from today? 

[00:01:46] Khye: Yeah, absolutely. My pronouns are they them and I am here in Atlanta, Georgia, unseated, Muskogee territory. 

[00:01:55] Josie: Cool. And I'm so curious, what is the story that led you to become a sacred transition guide? And I love that name, I've never heard it said that way. Can you explain what that means and what it is? 

[00:02:09] Khye: Yeah. I read something the other day where someone was saying like, if you asked me to explain my story, I'd have to tell you my whole life. And that really resonated with me because people ask me, and I go down a whole rabbit hole.

[00:02:20] So the short version is, my whole life I've done childcare and education and I ended up going to school for education. I was working in higher education and universities and I was burnt out. I was ready to go and I wanted to figure out a job that I could do without having to go back to college.

[00:02:41] And at the same time, my sister was having her first baby and kind of being an emerging auntie in that way and experiencing that and realizing how much I didn't know about birth. And about our bodies really. Also at the same time, learning about the maternal mortality crisis and also learning about the reproductive justice movement.

[00:03:03] All those things were kind of happening at the same time. And so I decided to become a doula and after I became a doula, I realized I didn't want to, I say this with quotes, just "be a doula." I realized that I wanted to put my own spin on it, and I wanted to integrate my doula work with, educational work with the childcare, with the human development that I've learned and that I've worked with for 10 plus years.

[00:03:32] And Kuluntu was born, and that was 2019 that Kuluntu Reproductive Justice Center was born. I started calling myself a sacred transition guide last summer. I went through a training about, it was like about content creation, but from a perspective of, how are you communicating your purpose and your gift and all these kind of things.

[00:03:57] And so it was really spiritual and something I was like writing or doing some assignment for that program. And I wrote like, Birth Is Sacred or something like that. And then I kept going and I came up with Keep Birth Sacred. Kinda like keep Austin weird, but with birth. And so keep Birth sacred.

[00:04:21] And so then I kept writing and I kept exploring that. And I don't wanna say I wrote it because it's part of my purpose to communicate this to people. And I don't think I came up with it, but I'm putting words to it. That birth is a sacred transition. That doulas are, people who hold people through transitions and birth isn't the only one.

[00:04:43] Obviously. There's, there's birth, there's death, there's giving birth, there's getting married, getting divorced, puberty. Like, there's so many different transitions in life that are, you know, we think of them as like rights of passage or whatever, but they're really just really big transitions.

[00:04:58] Living in a capitalist society, you know, we don't always look at it as sacred, but birth really is sacred. Like, if you look at it from a hospital model, it's like, we have 10 people on the floor today, and we're managing their labors and whatever, but like, when you look at it from a spiritual perspective, birth is sacred.

[00:05:19] There are multiple sacred transitions happening all at once with the baby, with the parent, the birthing parent, the non birthing parent with a community. And acknowledging that, and naming it as that, because I feel this, just a general sense of like people not realizing how sacred birth is and not appreciating it for what it is.

[00:05:39] And so I really wanna name that and remind people that, yeah, it may be not it. I don't like when people call it a miracle, like the miracle of life because you know, there's millions of us. There's, there's billions of us. Like it's, it's not really a miracle, like technically, but it is sacred. It is beautiful.

[00:05:57] It is a transition and it is magical for sure. Right. It's just not quite a miracle.

[00:06:02] Josie: Yeah, and also that, like, that miracle speak kind of reminds me of like getting more towards like right wing ways of thinking. Kinda gives me the creeps. 

[00:06:14] Khye: For sure. There's a very heavy handed like, That, yeah. Of that message. So that's also a piece of it for sure. 

[00:06:24] Josie: Yeah, totally. I love that. Yeah. And I love that idea of sacred transitions and that there are so many different kinds. That kind of leads me into, I would love to know like how you came to focus on preventing burnout. Specifically and then like helping folks build sustainable birth working businesses, cuz that seems like another sacred transition.

[00:06:47] Khye: Yeah, I think there's, I've had to do a lot of work internally of unlearning colonization. Which includes capitalism, which is capitalism, and unlearning how I feel about money in order to actually have a business where I feel okay asking people for money and charging people things so that I can pay my bills and exist.

[00:07:12] And so I think there's a lot of, well, I have two minds of it. So the first part is that, if I can help people with all this information that I've learned about running a business, I don't know everything and I'm not the best at everything. You know, I'm not a seven figure, whatever. All these different like business owners are like, look at me.

[00:07:31] I made $8 million when I woke up this morning. And like that is not me, but. I'm pretty good at, at helping folks who are at the beginning figure out like, okay, here are the things that you need to be legit, or, here are the things that you can do to help get more clients. Because birth is a sacred transition, and because of the maternal mortality crisis, doulas are essential.

[00:07:56] And even more so than, than on a normal day. And so, the way I see it, there's this wave of doulas and this wave of birth workers, right. With the maternal mortality crisis, which is amazing. You know, some people call it a trend, like whatever. I think if it's a trend, it's a good one. I think we could do worse.

[00:08:16] But We don't want it to stay a trend. I guess we don't wanna look back in 10 years and say like, oh, that was a nice flash in the pan. It was nice to have all those doulas for a while, and so I think a lot of people are being called into it, but if you don't know how to sustain your business, which in a capitalist society means you have to make money right.

[00:08:36] Then, this wave of doulas will disappear in five, ten years. And there's already people not already, there are always, you know, have always been birth workers, but there are people who I hear all the time who are burnt out from birth work. And who are, you know, they've been in for five, ten years or they're so frustrated because they can't find any paying clients and they literally have been around for like eight years.

[00:09:00] And I'm like, you've been struggling like this for eight years? When, you know, we could have had a conversation at some point and, I could have given you some books to recommend, some podcasts or something like surely. You shouldn't be burning out because you can't pay your bills.

[00:09:19] And that's a completely valid reason to get a new job. Right. If you're not getting paid from your job, then yeah, you should probably get another one. But also, like, how can we get you paid? Especially if this is your calling, if you feel called to this work. And there's so many of us who are burning out, and I see it, I see it in myself.

[00:09:35] I see it in the people that I work with. I see it on social media, like we're all burnt out and I've always noticed like no one heals the healers. Right? No one helps the helpers. And doulas, teachers, social workers, even, you know, doctors and nurses. Who's taking care of us when we are the ones taking care of the people who are giving birth.

[00:09:59] And if we're not being taken care of, then that means that we're not doing our best work. We're bringing trauma into the room, we're bringing our own mess into the room. We're exhausted. We're, you know, we're not doing our best work. So that's not sustainable either. For people to not be doing their best work. day in and day out. 

[00:10:19] And some people, some birth workers have three, four, five births in a month. I don't even know how that's possible. I can't do that. How, like, are you sleeping? Are you okay? I just worry about people and maybe not worry, but I'm concerned that the capitalistic idea of like hustle all day, grind hard.

[00:10:42] When healers and helpers try to do that, we burn out because we can't, I mean, nobody can do that, but we really can't do that. Because we absorb people's emotions. We care and we extend ourselves so much. We want to extend ourselves to four, five, six clients a month. But that's, if that's not possible for you, if it is possible for you, what's your secret?

[00:11:03] But like, if, if it's not possible for you, that's okay. Right. And how can we still make sure that you can take care of yourself? Because we're the healers. And somebody gotta look out for us. That's my my soapbox. 

[00:11:17] Josie: Yes, yes. I love that soapbox. And I'm, I'm sort of picturing you as the doula of doulas right now. 

[00:11:24] Khye: I've actually heard that before, so Yeah. I'll take it.

[00:11:31] Josie: Totally, I know. It's so true. I think that we need to create more sustainable practices for birth workers cuz we need them. We need birth workers hugely right now. Yeah, totally. I would love to talk about kind of more about what that means and how that manifests and kind of the intersection of burnout and fertility.

[00:11:57] Will you talk about like what the burnout cycle looks like, especially among birth workers, and do you think we can all experience that burnout cycle in different capacities? 

[00:12:07] Khye: Yeah. I love that you are thinking about this intersection. I've never thought about it, but when you sent the questions, I thought about it and I really like the thinking around this intersection. But yeah, the burnout cycle. I wrote it down somewhere and of course I have no idea where I wrote it, but I'm gonna try to remember it. But basically this particular burnout cycle, I was thinking about doulas and birth workers and by extension, healers and helpers.

[00:12:35] And I think this can extend to parents, to grandparents, caregivers, right. To a bunch of different healers and helpers in whatever capacity. But usually we do the, in some way, shape, or form, because we enjoy it, we like it, we want to do it. Maybe it's not what makes our hearts sing, but maybe, you know, someone has to do it, so I'll be the one to do it, right?

[00:12:57] We do this work because it has to be done and because we might have an affinity for it or something, and then we at some point failed to set boundaries or failed to uphold those boundaries and that leads to resentment. Which then leads to anger and all that can lead to that feeling of burnout. Of I am now resentful of, whether it's the person that I'm caring for, whether it's the other people in my community for not helping me for while I care for this person, whether it's for myself or putting myself in this situation, that anger and that resentment comes out somewhere and it ends up usually being targeted towards the job.

[00:13:43] So even if we have a heart for it, the job is usually what? Like, oh my goodness. I absolutely like, you know, in August, it's the joke with like teachers on TikTok is like how the teacher shows up in August and they're all happy, and then by June they're like the bottle of vodka or whatever. It's like, how many of us feel that?

[00:14:04] Of I love this work and I'm exhausted. And you have just enough time to rest, recover. Whether that's taking a vacation, whether that's the weekend, whether that's, you know, a month or two off or whatever. But then if you're not setting those boundaries, then you jump right back into the cycle.

[00:14:24] And so I think it's the, it's not just setting boundaries. Well, I should say it is setting boundaries with multiple people. Obviously with the outside world, with your community, with the people that you work with, with your kids, whoever, but also with yourself. Like what type of life do you wanna have, or what type of schedule do you wanna have?

[00:14:46] And like, what can you do to move towards that today? Even if you're working for other people, you can still say, I want to work out when I first wake up in the morning. And it like setting that boundary with yourself. And that's not easy for a lot of different reasons.

[00:15:05] Especially for neurodivergent folks. And I am a neurodivergent folks, so I definitely, you know, it's, it's not always easy, but like what support can you put in place to help you? Keep those boundaries with yourself, whether it's another person for accountability setting 12 alarms.

[00:15:24] Whatever it is that you need to be able to do that for yourself because you know that when you work out first thing in the morning, you have higher energy and you're a lot less tense. Which means that you're interacting with people better, like having to prioritize ourselves.

[00:15:43] Which a lot of healers and helpers are terrible at. And sometimes that's the reason why we're healers and helpers. To avoid taking care of ourselves. And so it feels counterintuitive for a lot of us, but we really need to slow down, take care of ourselves. And uphold those boundaries to be able to care for other people better. 

[00:16:03] Josie: Totally. And I when I started learning about, I'm kind of obsessed with boundaries, and I've done like a lot of reading about different books on boundaries and thinking about it. And it's been a few years of boundaries for me learning about them.

[00:16:20] But I think one of the turning points for me was realizing I had to keep enforcing the boundaries. That it wasn't just like one and done, it's like oh, you have to keep doing it.

[00:16:32] Khye: Yeah. That's the part that, that somehow they always miss in like the summaries you gotta, you gotta keep, and sometimes you gotta adjust and sometimes you gotta enforce the consequences of the boundaries. It's hard, it's hard. 

[00:16:49] Josie: It is hard. And it's, you're never done, you're never done with the boundary work. 

[00:16:54] Khye: No. And it's hard to do boundary work if you don't have the underlying self-worth. If you haven't healed that part of yourself that says I'm not worthy of my boundaries being respected, or I'm not worthy of taking up space.

[00:17:11] I am worthy of existing without having to contort myself. Like if you are not able to say those things, it's gonna be really hard to set boundaries and people also skip out on that part of the conversation that you have to be a certain level of healed, I guess, to have that ability to stand up and say, I deserve for my needs to be met. 

[00:17:34] Josie: Yeah. That's, that's such a good point cuz I was picturing like, What's the timeline almost of the burnout cycle? And first I was picturing boundaries and then going towards resentment and then anger, like if you're not able to enforce those boundaries.

[00:17:52] But you're right, I think before the boundaries is the self-worth. So it's sort of like self-worth, boundaries, resentment, anger, like that's like the timeline of the burnout cycle. Or instead of boundaries, I should say, not enforcing the boundaries. 

[00:18:07] Khye: Yeah. For me, I know the longer I would go without healing the source of the burnout, or at least like, without like quitting the job or like, breaking up with the person or whatever.

[00:18:21] The longer I would go. Like I would have a job and the burnout cycle would get faster and faster every time. Like, it would take me maybe six months to feel it the first time and then it would take me like four months. And then like three months, and then I'm, now I'm feeling it every two weeks and now I'm feeling it every day.

[00:18:39] Thinking that the burnout cycle is, can only be fixed with a vacation and can only be fixed with, self-care or whatever, the bandaid can only last for so long and the cycle for me just kept speeding up to the point where I was like, I have to get out of this situation.

[00:18:58] Sometimes I feel like that's how the lessons of life happen. Like they just happen more and more and faster and faster until you get the point and you fix the thing. Totally. 

[00:19:09] Josie: Yes. And I, I think that it's a good sign really, cuz it's like you're, you're, not only is maybe the cycle's happening quicker, but maybe you're just recognizing it faster.

[00:19:18] Khye: Hmm. Yeah. I like that perspective. 

[00:19:22] Josie: That seems like a good sign to m. 

[00:19:25] Khye: Yeah, for sure. For sure. 

[00:19:27] Josie: You're like a year ago I would've put up with this for six months. Now I'm only gonna put up with this for a day. 

[00:19:33] Khye: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And maybe that's what we need to, to get to the point of changing a situation.

[00:19:39] You know, most of us, as long as we're comfortable. As long as the situation is more comfortable than the change that needs to happen, we're probably gonna stay content just by virtue of being human. And sometimes it has to get worse before you can realize like, I need to go. 

[00:19:57] Josie: Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah, that's so true. 

[00:20:00] Khye: Or I need to change something. Maybe not just go but something has to change. 

[00:20:04] Josie: Yeah. And I, so I'm wondering like what burnout looks like among different people you work with. Like is it different among folks who are trying to conceive versus like people who are birthing or birth workers who are running their business. What are some different ways? 

[00:20:20] Khye: That's a good question. I think, I feel like the symptoms of burnout look similar for a lot of people. And I'm not, I'm not a therapist or a psychologist, but just my perception. Is that burnout can look like apathy. It can look like, it can look a lot like depression.

[00:20:40] Yeah. For me, burnout looked a lot like anxiety. Mm-hmm. of like panic attacks before I went to work or having to like, talk myself into getting out of the car and really slow down my breathing and things like that. Burnout can look like for some folks not being able to get up to go to work or get up to take care of the baby or get up to continue to run their business.

[00:21:07] Maybe even doing the bare minimum, maybe showing up, but just kind of going through the motions. Yeah. I think burnout for me, I recognize it in my gut first. If I'm feeling, if my stomach starts kicking when I'm, when I get closer and closer to the building, or get closer and closer to time or whatever it is.

[00:21:27] Then sometimes that can be burnout. Sometimes that can be other feelings too. Some if I feel it consistently, you know, every Tuesday I meet with this client and my stomach starts turning 30 minutes before then maybe it's this client that, that has me feel in this particular way. And so, yeah, I think it, it looks the same for a lot of folks externally.

[00:21:50] But I also think that each of us has different ways of processing. The burnout. And I think that's where I'm thinking about the fertility piece of like, I was having a conversation about fertility. How I see fertility is that fertility is, is like optimum wellness or optimum reproductive wellness maybe.

[00:22:14] Where if someone is fertile, I guess, or has good fertility, I don't know. But if someone is fertile, we're thinking their cycles are regular, we're thinking that they have predictable, their body has predictable outputs in one way or another. And if someone is infertile, there's something that is misfiring or something that's not happening the way it should.

[00:22:37] And so when stress enters the body, this is, like health 101, when stress enters the body. Things start to go haywire. And so one of those things that can start to go haywire for sure can be the reproductive system, as well as the nervous system, mental health, your physical health for some folks you know, heart health.

[00:22:59] There's so many different ways your body can physically manifest the stress or the issues that are happening in your life. And so reproductive is a big one. And I think because hormones and things can, you can feel those fluctuations in your body.

[00:23:21] And so we can be, if our fertility is thrown off by stress, for example, or burnout, specifically, then we might feel it more if it's being manifested through our reproductive system, we might notice our cycles are off. We might notice that if you're tracking your fertility, you might notice something is different in the numbers that you're seeing.

[00:23:45] And so I think it's, there are some things that maybe they don't manifest as loudly, maybe, or as obviously, but the reproductive system, I think is pretty obvious for a lot of folks. If something is amiss, if something is different than normal or than usual. 

[00:24:04] Josie: Totally. I think the reproductive system especially for folks with uteruses, is just very it's so sensitive to just the slightest changes and people think, oh, it couldn't be that, that's affecting my cycle. And it's like, yeah, it could. Like it's just like at the sensitivity level is just kind of off the charts. 

[00:24:29] Khye: Yeah. If just being around other people can affect your cycle. Yeah. It's really sensitive. Yeah. 

[00:24:35] Josie: Yeah. Exactly. Like the cycle syncing where everyone gets on the same cycle. Yeah. 

[00:24:40] Khye: Yeah, yeah. I still, that's so magical to me. I'm like, wow, our bodies are so fascinating. But yeah, it's really sensitive. And even the people I was just reading, one of my friends on Facebook was saying like, I switched to organic pads and tampons four years ago.

[00:24:57] And ever since my cycles have gotten lighter and I have a lot less cramping and I've heard so many people say that whether it's organic pads and tampons, reusable pads, the menstrual cups, the period panties. Well, I don't know if I've heard people say it about the period panties. Now that I think about it.

[00:25:14] Josie: Cause they're probably not organic, the period panties. 

[00:25:17] Khye: Yeah, I don't know what they're made out of. I don't know. But I've definitely heard it with yeah, organic products and then the reusable cup, the disc, and the reusable pads. And so, and it's, even with me, it happened with a lot of people.

[00:25:33] And so just thinking about that sensitivity. Or like, yeast infection, you can get a yeast infection from, you know, running in a certain direction it seems like sometimes. And yeah, our bodies can be really sensitive. 

[00:25:47] Josie: Totally, totally. Ugh, yeah. Yeah. That's really helpful. I'm just picturing how burnout affects different folks in that way, and I'm thinking how it affects me.

[00:25:58] Yeah. I feel like I read something the other day that said, I was talking about like that tiredness where you're just feeling like that really strong, I don't know, like lethargic, just where it's like you're walking through lead and I'm just, when I feel that way, I'm like, man, I don't know. I didn't realize I was burnt out, but I must be because I'm just, I'm so like struggling so much with my energy.

[00:26:26] Khye: Yeah. And I think that's, one of those things that can be like, you can have low energy for a lot of reasons. And so like, if you don't identify with burnout, I mean, I think it's helpful to maybe go through what are all the different activities that you're doing or you know, what has been taken up a lot of time lately and to consider, maybe you have been and you just haven't had the time to slow down and think about it.

[00:26:49] But if you're not identifying burnout with any particular task or any particular relationship, then maybe it's, you know, has my medication changed or have I been pushing myself really hard at work for the past two weeks? And now I'm exhausted. Or maybe I've been on call for birth and even though I haven't been in the hospital yet, I'm exhausted because I don't sleep well when I'm on call.

[00:27:12] It could be, I think it's exhaustion and that feeling of, like you said, like walking through lead. I think it's an opportunity to examine what it could be. Cuz it could be a thousand different things. But burnout is absolutely one of 'em. And it could be that, yeah. You just haven't had the time to slow down and really think about it.

[00:27:31] Which is a lot of times the case, especially if you're a caregiver, you don't have time to consider how exhausted you are because you're taking care of someone literally 24/7. And that's where it's really important to have that time for yourself and to, and to really sit with yourself and think about what does your life look like?

[00:27:51] What has it looked like for the past few weeks, and how do you feel? Do I feel satisfied? Am I getting what I need? Do I need more support? Do I need rest? Do I need food? Where am I lacking in my wellness right, this week or today or this hour. And what can I do?

[00:28:10] Maybe I can go drink some water and that will help just a little bit, to get to the next thing that I have to do. But, you know, how can I take care of myself as I'm taking care of everyone else? 

[00:28:21] Josie: Yeah, totally. I think where I get tripped up with recognizing burnout in myself is that I don't take into account the mental and emotional strain that things can have, you know what I mean?

[00:28:35] Where it's like, well, I'm physically tired, so, but I haven't been doing things that are like physically strenuous. So then it's like, oh, I don't know. It's so, it's like taking into account, but like mental, emotional, but kind of the invisible strains. That's like taking up mental space or like burning my energy in that way. It's like that's a little harder to pin down. 

[00:28:59] Khye: Yeah. It's less tangible, right? Yeah. Because physical is like, oh, my stomach hurts, or I can't keep my eyes open and I'm falling asleep. Or I have a headache. Like it's very, you can put your, your hands on it, literally. But when, if someone says, I'm mentally exhausted from this, like, it's hard to say, I see the meme every couple.

[00:29:20] Someone posts like, I'm tired, but not the kind of tired that, you know, sleeping will fix, or something like that. And it's a lot of times what we're trying to communicate is that mental exhaustion, that emotional exhaustion. Whether it's, you know, a lot of folks, especially neurodivergent folks, we tend to ruminate on a thought.

[00:29:39] Or on something that happens. So if, for example, I attended a birth, A certain incident happened, I might be replaying that incident over and over and over and over and over. And even though that birth was a week and a half ago, right? It's been on repeat, I close my eyes and I see it, I'm there. Right.

[00:29:57] And honestly at that point, that's vicarious trauma, which is something that's really important to talk about when we're talking about burnout and caregivers. So it's known as vicarious trauma, secondary trauma, compassion fatigue. Any of those, any of those terms. But basically that even if you weren't the person who was in the center of the traumatic experience, you can still be traumatized from it.

[00:30:21] And as birth workers, birth trauma can, you can become traumatized with birth trauma and it's, yes. It could be burnout and it could also be trauma. And acknowledging that and acknowledging as birth workers, we are on the front lines, quote unquote. A lot, especially again, those birth workers who attend three, four, five, six births a month.

[00:30:46] Like, are you processing this? How are you processing this? Because. Just numbers wise, we know the majority of those births, there was probably something, that you maybe had to step in or you were having, you had to advocate for your client before the birth or during the birth or you had to ensure that the client was being listened to.

[00:31:10] You had to do something or you saw something. You heard something most of the time in a birth. And so are we are processing those things and are we acknowledging the trauma that we are experiencing, so that we can not bring that into the next birth. Right? Yes. In capitalism, a lot of us, we have to eat, right?

[00:31:33] We have to pay our bills, but we also as healers, traditionally, and a lot of cultural traditions, healers were not expected to work all day every day. Healers were expected to in between working, in between seeing clients or what have you. They would have their time to themselves, they would have their downtime because we need that.

[00:31:53] We move a lot of energy. And we have to make sure we're taking care of ourselves or else we are gonna burn out. Because, what is burnout, if not trauma on top of trauma, on top of trauma, on top of trauma that we're not dealing with. No one wants to feel that way, you know, and there's plenty of birth workers who say, I won't attend this type of birth.

[00:32:16] I won't attend a birth at this hospital. I won't attend a birth with this doctor. Those maybe trauma responses, maybe not. I don't know. And I'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing to do for your practice. Do what you need to do to take care of yourself and acknowledge that if you have those types of restrictions and those types of boundaries.

[00:32:39] There might be a trauma connected to some of that. And you know, sometimes we set those boundaries and we don't, we just know this thing doesn't make me feel good or this thing feels bad. Or this thing I don't appreciate, but we don't always realize this is connected to a trauma. So, you know, just taking the time to really . Dig into why do I feel that way? 

[00:33:01] Why is this something that my body is feeling averse to, you know, someone says the name of this hospital and my stomach drops. What is that? And how can I address that so that I'm not, you know, moving into all my interactions with this on my back?

[00:33:17] Josie: Yeah, I think that's such a good point to differentiate between what's burnout and what's trauma. And I do think that that's so specific to birth work that there is so much vicarious trauma that birth workers are experiencing. So yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. That's such a good point.

[00:33:42] Yeah. So I would love to talk about like how folks can prevent, their own burnout cycle. Do you have any exercises or techniques to share with our listeners what people can do? 

[00:33:57] Khye: Yeah, that's a good question. I would say the biggest thing with figuring out how to avoid burnout is, especially as birth workers, if you're working for yourself or if you have the flexibility in your schedule, really examine your day-to-day schedule.

[00:34:16] What are the things that you're spending time on? What are the things that you're not spending time on? The things that you're avoiding, maybe what are the things that. give you the most results in your business. Versus the things that give you the least results. So, for example, social media.

[00:34:32] If social media is something you spend a lot of time on, but it doesn't give you very many results as in client inquiries or whatever other thing metric you wanna measure your social media success on. If you're not getting a lot of results in that, sure. You could learn more about social media and try to improve your social media presence.

[00:34:55] Or you could spend that time doing something else, or, you know, somewhere in between. There's always a third option somewhere. Instead of getting frustrated that nobody's watching your TikTok, then you know, instead of spending four hours a week editing videos, then maybe you could spend four hours a week doing something else.

[00:35:15] Whatever that something else may be. Whether it's just going to different places where pregnant people exist and walking around or putting your business cards in the diapers at Walmart. I saw someone else do that on a video. I thought that was genius. Also, if they have, if they're buying diapers and they might already have the baby, I don't know.

[00:35:33] But anyways, 

[00:35:34] Josie: That's true. Maybe they're preparing. 

[00:35:36] Khye: Yeah, and you never know. They might be having another baby sooner rather than later. But yeah, being more creative about the things that could be beneficial for you, or if your clients seem to really like your classes that you teach, maybe spend that time on the classes instead of social media and trying to find more people to come to the classes.

[00:35:56] Maybe you could just have more classes for the people who came to the last class. Things like that. And I think there's a lot of internal work. I wish I could say there was like, I had like a workbook or something. Cuz I do love a good workbook, because a lot of this is your internal work around money.

[00:36:16] About receiving, about what are your values in life? You know, what do you consider success to be? What, you know, if you, if you envision your life 10 years from now, what are you envisioning, and what can you do today? To start down that road. It's a lot of that work. I think those are some questions that are a good start, but it's really unfolding and getting to know yourself and learning who you are and not what your family considers success or what your bills are saying that you need or whatever.

[00:36:52] Like what do you consider as success and so, and what are you willing to do to get there. And what are you able to do to get there? Also, cuz not everybody can, quit their job to, to work on their work full-time. You know, not everybody can dedicate 50 hours a week to their business. If you're a full-time caretaker, you might not have that.

[00:37:13] But what can you do with what you have to get a little bit closer to where you want to go. And a lot of that for us is doing that internal shadow work. Of Instead of feeling like I'm not worthy of receiving money or I'm not, I don't deserve to make $80,000 a year or whatever amount of money.

[00:37:36] It's not about like, I'm gonna manifest a million dollars. It's about how, how do you feel internally, again, about the, with the boundaries if you don't feel like you're worthy of taking up space and asserting your needs, then you're not gonna be able to charge people for your doula services, and then you're gonna be burned out in five years.

[00:37:55] I can't find any paying clients. Not even five years, in six months. Yeah. I can't find any paying clients. Right. If, if someone handed you a thousand dollars and put it in your hand, you would probably throw it back at 'em and run away. So, you know, it's a lot of that work. And that is not quick work.

[00:38:11] That is right. for me anyways, it's taken some years to do a lot of unlearning of, of what I've learned as a child, what I've learned in this society. What I've learned as a Black person, what I've learned about people as, as a LGBTQ person and all these different identities. Yeah. And what the society says I am.

[00:38:32] And I have to unlearn all that and like, who do I say I am and what do I believe about myself before I can then, have the self-worth to say, yes, I will do this, and this is how much I'm charging for it. And to hold that boundary. Because that's another boundary of this is the work that I'm willing to do for free, and this is the work that I'm willing to do for an amount of money.

[00:38:58] And you can pay it or you can find somebody else to pay it, or we can find somebody else to pay it together, but someone is going to compensate me for this time and this expertise. I am good at what I do. And that takes a lot of unlearning to get to the point where you can say that with like looking someone else in the eye.

[00:39:17] If you are a healer and you can look yourself in the mirror and say, I'm good at what I do, and I know what I'm talking about. And not like shy away. Yeah. Then that is, congratulations that's big work. That is big work cuz a lot of us, especially assigned female at birth, folks, we're taught to hate ourselves from top to bottom.

[00:39:41] To doubt our abilities to doubt everything that we, that we put out into the world. And so for women and femmes and folks who have throughout their lives, been told that they don't deserve to take up space in this way. That they can't make enough money to not only live but thrive.

[00:40:03] That they can't do certain things. That's a lot to unlearn. To unlearn, unpack, and then to relearn and re-remember how powerful you are and how magical you are, and how you deserve to have whatever you want. And that it's not noble to be poor. It's traumatizing. And you know that, yeah. There's no one workbook I don't think that can, that can, that can get anybody there. But, it's a lot of work. It's worth it. 

[00:40:34] Josie: Totally, it is worth it. And I remembered what I was gonna say earlier as I love how you keep coming back to the body and how you're feeling in your body and paying attention to that, you know, those sensations and where they are, and paying attention to that like, As a signal to help you with that work. That work of increasing your self worth and knowing that you're able to, put boundaries in place and reinforce them and that kind of thing.

[00:41:07] And something I've loved too that I've watched you do is you'll put out, speaking of like social media, you'll put out like little like guided meditations or things like that where you walk people through feeling more peace in their body. I love that. 

[00:41:24] Khye: Yeah. A lot of the stuff that I do is the stuff that I need. And the affirmations, especially. I attended some event and they had someone come and like do a grinding exercise at the beginning and they, and she had us tap on her chest and that was just so simple to me that that was cuz it's grounding. If you have like anxiety or any kind of like, panic disorder or anything.

[00:41:56] It's just really, really grounding for your body. And so like, I just really, I thought those were really simple. Pairing that with affirmations is just a really simple way to feel more powerful and to remind yourself who you are and those types of things. And I yeah, I really like making those and, and thinking of the, the different affirmations. So yeah. I'm glad that they're helpful for folks. 

[00:42:21] Josie: Yes. I want everyone to follow you and be able to watch those. They're so powerful. They really helped me too. 

[00:42:29] Khye: Thank you. Speaking of burnout, I haven't really been posting on social media. Since I think I stopped in maybe like March.

[00:42:37] I posted a couple of things since then, but yeah, a lot of those videos are from 2021, so yeah. I don't know if there'll be any new ones cause social media is, is something that I'm choosing not to spend my energy on right now. But I definitely, I wanted to leave it up because Yeah, I think what's up there is really good.

[00:42:58] So I hope that y'all are able to benefit from the stuff that's on there. And I will say too, that I have, so I was doing like journal prompts on social media. Like I would do like a different journal prompt every week and people had been complimenting me on the journal prompts like they really enjoyed them and they shared them with people.

[00:43:19] And I decided a few months ago to make a card deck of the journal prompts. So to have, it'll be a year's worth of card or a year's worth of journal prompts and you can just shuffle and get journal prompts. And a lot of 'em are really introspective. Most of them are introspective or about like connecting with your body and different things like that. Like a lot of the things that we've talked about. So that is one thing that I don't have a workbook, but I have some journal prompts coming out. 

[00:43:50] Josie: That sounds even better. I love that. Will you please share that info with me when they're ready and I'll share it with my audience? 

[00:43:57] Khye: Yeah, I'm still working on the design, but I'm gonna open pre-orders soon, so I'll definitely let you know when they open up. I'm really excited. I think they're gonna be so cute. 

[00:44:07] Josie: Oh, that's so exciting. Yes. That sounds amazing. I will definitely buy one and tell everyone else too. Yeah. So that kind of leads me into my next question, which is what if you could share more about the work you're doing to help folks build sustainable birth work businesses and how, and where people can learn more and get your help and all that good stuff? 

[00:44:31] Khye: Yeah, yeah. So Kuluntu we do a few different things. One is working with organizations, so like corporate entities or like birth work organizations, reproductive justice organizations, hospitals, doctors, medical schools, all that kind of stuff, talking about intersectional birth justice. Another thing is direct birth work services with folks who are looking for fertility, birth, postpartum, or abortion Doulas.

[00:44:58] Specifically focusing on LGBTQ folks of color. And then the third piece is working with other birth workers, which is my favorite. I'm a little biased, but one thing that we have coming up is the birth justice mentorship program. It's gonna be happening in the Fall. We have the first one last fall.

[00:45:17] And we talk about how to run a business with integrity, but like starting with integrity so that it's built into the foundation because when I really think about it, you can't have justice without integrity. 

[00:45:32] And integrity I think is crucial, especially in your interpersonal relationships because, we all know about the prophet or the person who's very famous and on TV and you know, all their messages are very important. But then after they die, their kids and their spouse and their parents and their family and all these people come out and say, they're actually a terrible person. And what good are you actually doing if you're not really living out your values?

[00:46:00] And so the mentorship program is designed to guide newer-ish birth workers, or maybe not even newer, but like birth workers who maybe started a business and you're just going and you're serving clients, but you haven't slowed down to think about those bigger picture things. And so yeah, that's happening in the fall.

[00:46:21] There's also, I have a digital product page. It's learn.kuluntu.center, and on there there's a bunch of different products for birth workers. If you want to sign up, there's a preview for the mentorship program. There's also different workbooks, like one for finding your business name and really finding a business name that embodies what you want your work to be. 

[00:46:48] I have a webinar called Building Your Birth Justice Biz, and again, talking about how justice can't exist without integrity and thinking about the different elements of running your business with integrity because we have an opportunity to, especially if you're making money and you're employing people and you're, you know, you're doing big things.

[00:47:09] We have an opportunity to do those things with integrity, right? And to not contribute to these harmful, capitalistic systems that are, you know, paying a virtual assistant in Sri Lanka $3 a month or something. Like, that's not integrity. If you can uplift someone else by paying them a living wage, a thriving wage, why would you not do that?

[00:47:31] So things like that. And then I also have some courses on there like introductory courses to LGBTQI literacy to the maternal mortality crisis and talking about birth justice and reproductive justice. So there's a lot of stuff on there. And there's also a blood pressure tracker that you can get for free.

[00:47:53] You can use it for yourself, for your clients or whatever. It also, there's a video on there that talks about the, the proper ways to track your blood pressure, cuz there are ways that you can do it wrong, right? We should know these things as humans. But yeah, I found that out when I was doing research for the blood pressure tracker that there's certain things you can do.

[00:48:12] Like if you don't position your body in a certain way, your blood pressure can be off by like 20 points. Which is huge, side note. So the things like that, that's a lot of the work that I do is like, Hey, these are things that we should know as humans. Whether it comes down to like birth or it's running your business in a way that's not awful because a lot of the entrepreneurship language and like content out there is very like small business capitalism.

[00:48:46] How to be a capitalist when it's just you and your kids packing orders in the basement and I don't like that. And I think that we have, again, an opportunity to do things differently. Even though we haven't necessarily seen what different can look like, I think it's possible and that's really my goal is for birth workers to still be around in five or 10 years.

[00:49:07] And for us to run our businesses with integrity and spend our money with integrity so that when we look back on this moment, we can say, wow, these Black and brown birth workers, they really invested in their communities. They contributed to 2 million births that would have had trauma without us. Or whatever the case is. Instead of like, 20 years later there's like, oh, tax fraud, and this person embezzled all this money.

[00:49:40] And like, why? Why does it always come to that? Right. And so I really want us to survive this moment in history, but also to thrive through it and to, you know, this is what we're called to do, which many of us are, then we deserve to thrive through that. And I think it's possible for all of us to thrive without us being each other's competition.

[00:50:03] We can support each other and we can care for each other and we can teach each other. And we can create this world that we we're all collectively working towards, but not really talking to each other about, which I think is weird. So yeah, we should talk to each other as we're all doing this revolutionary work.

[00:50:23] This sacred work, this hard work. Because this is one of my big things right now is that self-care can't replace community care. And we need to heal from this vicarious trauma with each other. And we need to prevent the vicarious trauma with each other. Just as much as we need to care for ourselves and just as much as we need therapy, we also need community care to go with it.

[00:50:46] Josie: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Ugh. Thank you for all the work you're doing. It is so important. I love the vision of the legacy that you want to to leave behind. And I'll be sure to include all those links that you mentioned in the show notes so people can access all those goodies easily. 

[00:51:09] So there's a question I'd love to ask all my guests, which is in Chinese medicine, our fertility is referred to as our essence. So the more we're able to get in touch with who we really are, or our essence, the more access we have to our fertile potential or creative power. Do you have any personal practices or rituals in place that allow you to connect with your essence or your whole self?

[00:51:34] Khye: Yeah, I love that. Yoga, definitely yoga. If I don't do yoga at least twice a week. It's not pretty for anybody. That really helps me connect to the essence of who I am. Yeah. Really integrate what I'm learning with my whole body. And I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but also masturbation.

[00:51:59] Josie: Yeah. Heck yeah. You can definitely say that. No one has said that yet, and I'm kind of surprised. 

[00:52:05] Khye: Yeah. It helps, like, honestly, it helps me move a lot of the energy that gets stuck in my body, especially after a birth. Yeah, it's just, it really, really, really helps me connect to my essence and to not get caught up in all the, all the things. That get kind of caught up in me on a day-to-day basis. 

[00:52:27] Josie: That makes so much sense because that's like your pelvic region where a lot of that like birth energy is stored whether or not it's you giving the birth or not giving the birth. 

[00:52:39] Khye: Yeah. Absolutely. And that's if you've read, the Body Keeps the Score.

[00:52:44] That's what he talks about. 

[00:52:45] Josie: I have that recommended to me so many times I need to read it. 

[00:52:50] Khye: Yeah. Which I feel like I heard somewhere that like, he's not the originator of those thoughts. But either way it's, I think it's solid to read. But he talks about how your hips hold a lot of tension and a lot of trauma.

[00:53:05] And I know for me it's my hips and my shoulders. All this neck, shoulders also holds a lot for me. And so I think in general, Those are where we can expect trauma to be in our bodies. But also each of us probably has our own thing as well. You know, some people it's like the left knee or you know, whatever else.

[00:53:27] So like where do you hold trauma? And I connect it with like, what part of your body is tight? Which is where I think yoga comes in of like, I need to loosen up my hips, or I need to open up my shoulders and open up my chest because I've been hunching over, or my shoulders have been up by my ears.

[00:53:45] Yeah. And so really focusing on opening up those parts of my body that that tend to hold a lot of trauma and tension. Has been really helpful for me. 

[00:53:54] Josie: Nice. Ah, I love those answers. Well, Khye, thank you so much for joining us today. This was such a wonderful conversation. 

[00:54:03] Khye: Yes. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this. 

[00:54:06] Josie: Awesome. 

[00:54:09] Thanks for listening to the Intersectional Fertility Podcast. To get customized fertility recommendations based on your whole self fertility method element, join my mailing list at intersectionalfertility.com and get immediate access to my two minute quiz. If you like the show and want to hear more, tap subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and please leave us a review, it really truly helps. 

[00:54:35] The Intersectional Fertility podcast is hosted by me, Josie Rodriguez-Bouchier, and produced by Rozarie Productions with original music by Jen Korte.

All content offered through The Intersectional Fertility Podcast is created for informational purposes only, it is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.