I am always excited for the opportunity to talk about my passion for my work. Recently, I had that opportunity through an interview with VoyageMichigan Magazine, whose mission is to build a platform that fosters collaboration and support for small businesses, independent artists and entrepreneurs, local institutions and those that make our city interesting.
Click on the link above, or see the interview below:
Hi Rachel, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I grew up and currently live on unceded Peoria, Anishinabewaki, Bodéwadmiakiwen (Potawatomi), and Mississauga land – also known as Southeast, MI. I have lived in Michigan my whole life, from childhood and even through college wherein 2009, as a young woman I graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and a minor in Women’s Studies.
After studying, I worked in the corporate sector for eight years. Navigating the ups and downs of my personal life during that time, and living near to my family. In 2015, my sister gave birth to her first daughter. Being at her side during labor and delivery began to reignite the passion I had discovered in my academic career. Observing the way our medical system treated birthing people, and learning about the policies and procedures of modern American childbirth was very illuminating. During my academic career, I had been very interested in the ways that systems of oppression intersected with our medical institutions, and witnessing birth set off a lightbulb.
In the meantime, I was also in the midst of personal change and growth and went through an intense period of my own medical challenges. I was disturbed by the lack of solutions being offered by my doctors and the callous nature with which they treated me and discussed the most vulnerable aspects of my humanity. While recovering from these acts of medical abuse and trauma, I discovered a whole community of people who were invested in the holistic care and healing of the reproductive system, and the second light bulb went off.
Those two experience were really the catalyst and driving force that have inspired me to shape my business around full spectrum doula work, menstrual cycle healing/holistic fertility guide, and reproductive health education that takes into account the historical and structural forces that shape our care in the modern world.
To me, this work is as deeply spiritual and personal, as it is overtly political. But most of all, I love being of service to my community, sharing the story of my own healing journey, and showing others that they are also capable of taking radical responsibility for their own health and vitality through true body literacy.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
I imagine the struggles I face running a small woman-owned business in the midst of a global pandemic are very similar to others! The margins are thin for all of us and deciding which parts of my business to prioritize, to focus advertising on, has been really hit or miss and difficult to navigate.
It is not so surprising then that the greatest results in growth have come from relationships I have with other people. I have had the distinct privilege of being a part of many communities that have shown great compassion, interest, and support in my work – most especially in the yoga world and with my fellow birth workers. Counting on them to share their experiences working with me, and to help spread the word and make personal recommendations has been so valuable. It is a lesson that I continue to arrive at – that our healing and growth must be in relationship, and can’t be done alone.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am most proud of my work developing the Holistic Menstrual Awareness Learning Modules. The development of this curriculum has been an immense labor of love. It is through the pain and struggle of my own healing journey that I came to create these classes. When I was going through the most challenging moments, I was alone without a guide or any education about my own body to fall back on. I bought as many books, took as many classes, and found as many one-on-one relationships with other healers as I could. After a few years of intense personal work, I looked back on a huge body of information – information that I felt was critical to the health and vitality of others, and an intense imperative to share took hold of me. I had no idea what would come of it, but I felt a prodigious drive to somehow form it into something I could offer back to others and hopefully begin to change the culture around reproductive health.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
We succeed by lifting each other up in relationship and in community. I am constantly working to deconstruct the damaging ways that some of our inherited value systems set us up for failure. One of them is that in order for you to succeed, others must fail, or that there isn’t enough to go around. This scarcity mindset keeps so many people from connecting with others in their field for support, advice, and comradery. My advice would be to seek out the community of people doing the same work as you and support each other.