Doula Circle was thoughtful and full last night. Thank you to everyone who came, and if you missed it, make sure you're getting our reminders by signing up here AND adding rootsoflaborbc@gmail.com to your contact list so we don't get tossed in your spam folder. 🥴

Here's what we got into:

🔥 boundaries support our self-care and allow us to prioritize our needs so we can show up how we choose to in life and as caregivers

♥️setting & holding boundaries IS self-care and is a way to love on ourselves

☮️ we can learn about our boundaries by paying attention to our bodies, noticing tension and unease when they're crossed and a grounded solidness when we hold them lovingly.

🗓️ boundaries can be something as simple as marking out time for rest, vacations etc on your calendar and then letting clients know you are unavailable at that time. 

🛌 the more you practice setting and holding boundaries, the easier it becomes

😔 it is common for all manner of emotions to come up when we begin practicing setting boundaries, make space for whatever you feel, including but not limited to grief, anger and overwhelm. 

💰 getting clear on your boundaries around topics that you are tender about or that folks typically find activating can be especially helpful. For example, money! 

📚 a book recommendation: You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience by Tarana Burke & Brené Brown

📧 we also talked about streamlining systems to offer yourself more ease. Create a referral list for email and text, thinking about what you usually send when folks ask for that info. In fact, if you send any message more than twice, make it a template so you can use it again and just customize it as needed. 

If you have anything you'd like to add, thoughts on setting and holding boundaries lovingly or book recommendations, please share them below!  

Quick update today! 

This weekend we'll be hosting part 1 of our SRJ Doula Training for collective members who are in our SRJ Doula Program this year and we are so honored to be welcoming a new cohort of birthworkers to our reinstated doula support services program at Santa Rita Jail.

Supporting incarcerated community members as they move through reproductive transitions is a foundational pillar of our collective. After years of working to get this program reinstated, we are grateful to be well on our way back to supporting folks on the inside. 

We will be launching a fundraiser to support this program soon, as we're still in need of funds to support those not covered by our county contract AND to subsidize the cost of the doula insurance our members are required to have, so please keep an eye out. If you're ready to support us now, consider becoming an ongoing supporter through our patreon.com/rlbc

Your support enables us to continue this work. Thank you! 

This month was a funny one because we had Doula Circle last week (3rd Tuesday in January, and this week was the first Tuesday in February! 

Nonetheless, we had a robust conversation about a small host of large topics! 

We talked about:

- An article in the Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics journal by Anna Smajdor of the University of Oslo who argues that what she calls 'whole body gestational donation' ought to be a thing, as “There is no obvious medical reason why initiating such pregnancies would not be possible.”

Please read the article yourself if you're curious and let us know your thoughts below. Those present at circle alternated between disbelief and horror at the idea that anyone could be considering this seriously. I hope we'll figure out how to feed, clothe and shelter the babies and people already here before we devote time, money and energy to figuring out how to use those the wombs of folks who've passed, nevermind the intersectional considerations of how privilege might affect the roles folks will wind up playing in that process! 

- the parental expectation of relationship with children and how helpful it is to be reminded that children do not owe their parents relationship. In fact, that's true of all of us. We do not owe nor are we owed relationship. 

- how many generations would we have to go back in our lineage to find the person with gestational capacity who truly had agency and freedom to choose whether they wanted to have children or not.

Journal prompt: Were you able to choose, or was there an inherent assumption about your reproductive desires? 

- Aid Access: Abortion Pills by Mail
Aid Access will help you order abortion pills by mail. They protect the health and human rights of anyone without access to local abortion pill services. Please check them out asap as laws around abortion pill access are in flux in many states.

- good books folks are currently reading. Below is a small selection! Let us know in the comments what you're reading lately! 

• This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us - Cole Arthur Riley
• Know My Name: A Memoir - Chanel Miller
• Earth Medicines: Ancestral Wisdom, Healing Recipes, and Wellness Rituals from a Curandera - Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz
• Hold me tight - Dr Sue Johnson

Ajira, who hosts Doula Circle, also shared:
Their Birthwork is Lifework! (2023 edition) reading challenge!
Their breath & liberation bookclub waitlist!

Next Doula Circle is: 2/21/23 and we'll be talking about:
Setting & Holding Loving Boundaries!

Please show up for our community member, Amirah who needs a lot of specialized medical care right now that isn’t covered by her insurance:

• Chiropractic care
• Body work
• Energy work
• Blood sugar control
• Hormonal balance support

Additionally, Amirah is immunocompromised and lives with chronic pain, all of which has been compounded by the pandemic, which makes work, transportation and, taking care of herself challenging. 

Let's raise these funds so Amirah can rest, fully supported.

Funds will be used for medical care, food deliveries, and back rent.

Donations of chiropractic care, acupuncture, massages, energy work, and food delivery gift certificates are also welcome! 

A reminder that tomorrow is the first Tuesday of the month and as always, we meet for Doula Circle from 6pm - 8pm PST. 

We host doula circles every first, third AND 5th Tuesday of each month for all Queer & Trans People of the Global Majority full-spectrum doulas, traditional birthkeepers, sacred healers and support care advocates. We  gather to build community by sharing stories, asking questions and sharing space.

Sign up HERE for meeting details and reminders. Hope to see you there! 

After a month long impromptu hiatus due to being hacked then banned, we have managed to get our main Instagram account back - @rootsoflaborbc! 

​Thank you to everyone who followed us on our new account @rootsoflabor which we will be keeping in case this ever happens again. Feel free to follow both so you’re always in the loop!

This experience highlighted how much we depend on our social media to stay connected with you all which is why we started this blog, which we hope you will come to visit on the regular! It’s listed on our linktree too for easy access from any of our social accounts.

We invite and really REALLY encourage you to sign up for our email list so if anything like this every happens again you'll be the first to know what’s happening and how you can support us. It’s only through community that we exist and are able to do the work we are doing. Plus, you’ll be able to stay on top of all things RLBC!

Please let us all know where we can find you off socials too! Do you have an email list or website? Let us know below so we can check it out and uplift your work! It's never too late to start either, so if you haven't thought about this until now, let us know what you're thinking about doing and if you have any questions, feel free to list them too! Alone we know a little but together we know a lot!

We’ll be posting on the blog 2-3 times a week with updates on what the collective is up to, how you can support us in our mission to ensure that everyone has access to the support they want as they move through transitions and transformations as well as features of current and heirloom members and more.

Coming up soon:
- updates on our SRJ doula service
- member enrollment is about to open up
- we’ll be announcing our next skillshare soon 
- next Tuesday we have a community check-in on Clubhouse at 9am!

​Hope to see you there!

 
In case you haven't heard about it yet, our long standing Facebook page was hacked and then suspended and Meta has cut us off from all linked accounts including our Instagram and whatsapp! 😭 

Y'all. It's been a reminder that we don't own those spaces, we rent them with our presence and usage. So, we're experimenting now with offering another place where you can come find out more about what we're up to. 

In case we can't get our old @rootsoflaborbc account back, we've started a new IG that we'll hold far more lightly, knowing it could be taken at any time. 

Here's our new IG account: @rootsoflabor

​Hope to see you there and more importantly, hope to see you here!