Building Resilience When the World Feels Like a Poly Crisis

Introduction and Welcome

Britta Bushnell: Hello folks, and welcome to transformed by birth, a podcast about the rite of passage of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood. I'm your host. Britta Bushnell, author, mythologist, childbirth educator and all around deep diver with a side of goofball. I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode holds our hands through the messy existence of what perinatal health and living is in today's society. So grab your comfy beverage of choice or take us along for a walk as we connect with perinatal care specialists and resilience toolkit facilitator. Michaela Lynn, before we begin, we start the way we always do by lighting a candle. If you want to join me, please do or just take a breath as I light mine. Today's candle is for building resilience so we can individually and collectively navigate these turbulent times in the 2010s when I was teaching dozens of childbirth classes and working with hundreds of parents each year, I remember thinking about how challenging parenting had become, How with the advent of social media and information technology, more generally, the illusion of being able to locate the quote right way to parent had skyrocketed, making the act of parenting extra challenging. Then on the heels of that, during the pandemic and the time of quarantine, I thought, no, no, no, no, wow, this. This is a hard parenting era. Now I'm finding myself yet again, thinking about the unique challenges parents are facing at this time of great societal upheaval. Parents today have to be especially courageous and attentive while raising children in today's society, each era has brought a new set of difficulties and added extra stress to an already complex job. What has been true through each difficult era of parenting is that our bodies experience the stress of the times we live in, and that stress is not experienced equally across all demographics, as the stresses layer one on top of another, the need for nervous system regulation deepens. Today's guest works at the intersection of trauma, informed care, resilience and reproductive health. Reproductive Health. Michaela Lynn is a perinatal care specialist and certified facilitator and mentor with the resilience toolkit, training Alliance, their work centers, embodied support, education and advocacy, especially for communities historically marginalized in healthcare, and they bring complex, emotionally charged experiences of birth and becoming into grounded, accessible conversations. Michaela's work highlights the importance of stabilization as harm reduction as caregivers. Whether we're caring for our own children or supporting others through birth and parenthood, we're prone to both primary and secondary trauma, and too often, we turn to helping rather than turning toward the discomfort of our own stress and trauma. Whether you're navigating your own birth trauma, supporting others through theirs, or working as a perinatal professional, this conversation offers essential tools for building resilience and creating the conditions for real healing. I've worked with Michaela personally for many years in my apprenticeship program as a backup doula. We've worked together in a lot of different ways, and Michaela is somebody I trust deeply, getting to share their power and wisdom with all of you. And the practices that Michaela teaches is a profound honor. And I'm so grateful that you are here. Thanks for being here.

Michaela Lynn: Thank you so much. Britta, it is a joy and a pleasure to be here with you.

Britta Bushnell: Well, before we dive into questions that I have, I want to check, is there a response? Is there anything in my intro that you're like, wait a minute. Let me talk about that, or something that you feel like highlighting or should I dive into my first question?

Michaela Lynn: Yes, all of the above. Just kidding, nothing that I would be like, I don't know about that. I agree I was nodding along with you. So just to say yes, yes, you.

Stress, Isolation, and Getting Free Together

Britta Bushnell: Yes, so questions, so, so one of the things that I've heard you talk about is something along the lines that is about stress keeps us isolated and we get free together. So what do you mean by that? Stress keeps us isolated and we get free together. I mean, I love the phrase, we get free together. And so I want this whole part about stress and isolation and freedom coming from coming together, because I feel like it's important, not just for the perinatal period, but life in general. So can you, can you unpack that one for us absolutely.

Michaela Lynn: So when we talk about stress, isolating us essentially, when we are experiencing stress, when we are activated, we disconnect with our own bodies, with other people, with our environment, and the higher the stress activation, the more disconnected we become. And so it may just start, if I'm a little bit activated, maybe I stopped noticing my own body, my own boundaries. I forget I have toes, I'm not thinking about fingers, right?

Britta Bushnell: A kind of isolation, even from ourselves. Exactly.

Michaela Lynn: Yeah, okay, so we become less connected to our own bodies. We become less connected to the people around us. We do not hear other humans as well. So physiologically, your ears tune away from the frequency of human speech, the more activated you are, so you don't hear other humans as well. There's disconnection there, and so this leads to isolation, right? I often talk about it as though we have blinders on when there is activation, we see the one thing in front of us. There's one path, one solution, one option, and that's what I mean by isolation. Is we lose the opportunities. We lose choice. We stop seeing, feeling, experiencing, any word you choose, that which is around us. And so part of building resilience and the stabilization process is coming back to ourselves to connection, to relationship, and that, in turn, is how we get free together. This is not an individualistic pursuit. So often in this over culture, resilience is weaponized and individualized, and so we are pushing back against that actively. This is not an individual pursuit. This is something we do together. We are not alone. It is in connection that we get free.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, so I'm, I'm thinking about the So, the importance of resilience, building of of coming together, but also that it starts in a taking care of our own bodies, needs when we are activated, and kind of bringing ourselves more into a present moment, grounded, oh, I have toes, moment with with tools and that, that that is so, so it's individual, but you're saying it also makes a point. It's, it's key to collective liberation, collective work.

Michaela Lynn: Did I get that? Right? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So as individuals, as you said, Oh, see a little settling for me right there. As I am doing my own individual work, I'm coming back into connection with my body that allows me to come into connection with other people, right? So I hear other people better. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is, let me find the words I want to use. Resilience. Building opens up choice. So as we settle, there are more choices available to us. I mentioned the blinders. So as I settle my nervous system, it's like my field of view opens up, and rather than one option, one path, one road, I can see that I have. Choices. There are choice points. Relative safety gives me choice.

Britta Bushnell: That feels so I want to, I want to just interject for a second, because when I'm thinking back to the intro that I did and speaking about these different kind of eras of parenting that had so much stress in them, and the that part of what is when I track back to those sort of three different areas that I was referring to, one of the commonalities is the feeling of choicelessness, a feeling of needing to do it right to create a sense of safety. And so what I'm hearing you say is that actually, when we are more connected with our nervous system and bringing it into a more resilient, more settled state, we actually can see more choices Exactly, yes. So it it's not just like, Oh, it feels so much better. And, yeah, I mean, that can be true as well, but it actually can make it so that it feels like there's you, you have access to more.

Michaela Lynn: Choice precisely. I love the word you use, choicelessness. We also talk about how a key aspect of trauma is powerlessness, and so part of what we are doing in building resilience is shifting that as well, right? So we have more choice, and we're able to feel more I don't always love this word, but empowerment is the first word that's coming to mind, but essentially it is choice, right? You're able to see that there are options available to you. And the other thing I want to come back to something you asked about earlier, why it's not just about being an individual. So if we think about tiny humans and learning to self regulate, we as humans cannot innately self regulate. We learn how to self regulate through co regulation with a safe adult when we are a tiny human. So the other part of what we are doing as we come back into connection with ourselves is our settled nervous system then becomes, I'm going to use the word beacon for other people. It's like a safety Oh, it's like a lighthouse, right? The the beacon of safety for the people around us. So our subtle nervous system becomes a touch point for other people to connect to and find their own self regulation through, yeah, that.

The Importance of Nervous System Regulation in the Perinatal Period

Britta Bushnell: Like, I often think of it as, like a docking station. I mean, I feel it with my grandson, like, when he he is looking for a nervous system docking station. Like, oh, let me just, I'm not sure I'm feeling safe right now. Let me just come over and and and attach, like, literally, attach to another body, to take a moment. Okay, good, all right, now I'm, I can venture back out and, and I see that a lot, and that's, yeah, that's, that's super, super powerful. And I had a Greer Kirschenbaum on here, who nurture revolution, speaking a lot about how important that is in a from a neuroscience perspective as well, which I love, that that's it's all interconnected work, yes, Yes, and and it has as individuals. So I'm Oh, I'm flooding. I have all sorts of thoughts coming into my mind all at once. But when I'm thinking about parents in the perinatal period, that the these the tools of resilience, which I do want to unpack as well, some of some of what we're talking about here, because you and I know some of what we're talking about, and I want to make sure we share some of that. But when we talk about resilience building and doing, doing tools of resilience building, there's value of of doing so in the perinatal period, in the postpartum period, in life, ongoingly and for professionals who are supporting folks in part because of this, this CO regulation piece that you're speaking about, right? But I'd love to hear you speak about, like, the perinatal period. Can we, like, pull that one apart? Like, why? Why does it matter? Or in pregnancy, or even conception, in the trying to conceive period, like, what? Why does it matter to tend to our nervous system?

Michaela Lynn: Yeah, absolutely, I have 12 different answers to that question.

Britta Bushnell: Oh, no doubt I know. Pick one. Michaela, just pick one.

Michaela Lynn: So first thing I want to say is tying into the idea that I mentioned of CO regulating with tiny humans. This still applies to grown up humans as well, because not all of us had the benefit of safe adults to teach us self regulation through co regulation. So some of us as grown up humans are learning that, and so being able to co regulate with other safe adults helps us in the same way. So as a birth worker, my settled nervous system is still a support for the people around me, my clients, my peers, right again, it is that collective liberation idea that we get free together. Now in terms of the perinatal period, this is a really important time period, and I think it's helpful to bring in here the concept of the path from or the path to healing. So generally, when we talk about trauma healing, it happens in three stages, and that's true for individuals as well as groups, collectives, etc. I'll try to quickly give an overview three stages. First stage is stabilization. So tends to be chaos, overwhelm, and the goal is to stabilize. Second stage is repatterning. That's generally what happens when you go to like a mental health professional. Often that's when you do trauma healing, and then stage three is visioning and building the future. So in the perinatal period, we really only want to think about first stage stabilization. In the perinatal period, it is not the time to be doing repatterning, trauma healing, because there's already a lot that a person is, I mean, for lack of a better word, going through, dealing with holding and so trauma healing is not recommended in the perinatal period. So the goal is stabilization, which is what I teach with the resilience toolkit. And it is as it's essentially everything we've been talking about, right? Building resilience, learning about our nervous system, learning to assess if our current stress state matches the situation we're in our ecology, and if not, if we're in an over response, and we usually are in an over response, how do we settle that response into a more adaptive response? And so that skill is beneficial for literally every human that exists. But in the perinatal period, period especially, we are mindful that it is not just about the pregnant person. So we know that stress in a pregnant person affects the growth and development of the fetus. And so even before a person gets pregnant, we are thinking about, how is this affecting the pregnant person? How is their ecology going to affect the fetus, their child, moving forward so it begins really early, which, again, is why we don't think we don't focus on repatterning, because that's going to bring up a lot. It that is upheaval. It is repatterning can be a lot, right?

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, so, so really focusing on that stabilization, and am I? Am I understanding you correctly to think that stabilization is a lot about also, like harm reduction, like just moving into stable rather than being like, you know, let's dig in and undo. It's really like, let's just find a baseline that works better.

Michaela Lynn: Yes, we're looking for relative safety. The metaphor we often use is drowning and. Seas, rather than asking somebody to swim deeper, which would be repatterning, tell me about your story. Tell me what happened. Instead, what we're doing in stabilization is teaching somebody to find their way to the shore. How do you get out of the water? How do you find your way to land, and then how do you learn how to safely swim in shallow water, right? So stabilization is, I see you drowning. I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw you a lifeline and teach you how to get out of the water.

Britta Bushnell: Not, let's go dive deeper and find out what's under this water causing all these waves?

Michaela Lynn: Right, right? Okay, we absolutely don't want to investigate where the waves are coming from the perinatal period.

Britta Bushnell: In the perinatal period, I'm yeah, now, one of the things you started to speak of that is, is something that I love, that I'm gonna, I'm gonna bait you and see if, if, if you're gonna be willing to do this, but I love the questions that are part of the toolkit to check in with the self, and I'm wondering if you would be willing to share that juicy morsel of the toolkit with listeners, because it just gives an example of how simple and profound this work is.

Michaela Lynn: Yeah, absolutely, I alluded to it a little bit.

Britta Bushnell: I know that's why it popped into my mind. Michaela, yes.

The Resilience Toolkit Framework Questions

Michaela Lynn: So I'll give you the actual words we use and essentially when we're talking about the resilience toolkit, unlike other modalities, where the focus is the practice itself, with the toolkit, it is the framework. And so these questions really are the framework that holds the person, the the toolkit, everything together. So when we're talking about stress and resilience, we ask ourselves, What is my state or how strong is my stress in this moment? So that is the discernment, noticing what is happening in your body and your thoughts and your emotions, how you've been interacting with other people, and then if you're in a lower stress state, we ask, How do I know? And that is helping us to learn more about the language of our body and get a better sense of how different stress responses show up for us, because it's going to be individual for each person. And then we ask ourselves, Is it helpful? Is my state in this moment? Is the amount of stress I'm noticing helping me? Is it useful? And sometimes the answer to that is yes, if I am preparing to be do a presentation or be on a podcast, a little bit of stress activation is helpful, right? A little bit of adrenalized state is helpful for me to achieve a goal. So sometimes the answer will be yes, this this is helpful for me right now. It is useful, and I really love in in the toolkit. We are not pathologizing. We are not saying that stress is bad. The question is, is it helping you? And then the next question, Well, part of that is, is there a chance that there is an over response? So some stress may be helpful, but as humans, we are biologically prone to over response. It's safer to assume the thing I see is a snake rather than a stick. And so next, the question is, what tool can I pull in to settle any over response. So even if a little bit of stress is helpful for me right now, there's a chance I'm carrying more than I need. And so can I settle that which is more than what I need? And then, while pulling in that tool, how do I know if it's working? So then our last question is, how do I know it worked again? What did I notice shift in my overall state that told me that helped me to settle and and we we offer folks, you know some common signs of settling, yawning, sighing, mouth watering, tummy gurgling, all those things you think of when you learn about rest and digest are signs of settling.

Britta Bushnell: I love for me, this this framework and these questions is part of what is my part of my favorite aspect of what I've learned from you and this work in large part because I love the question. I. Yes, asking. You know, what is my stress? But how do I know is such a powerful question, because it shifts for me the thought from Hang on, I'm gonna I've got hammering going on upstairs. Can you hear it? I cannot, really. Okay, Chris, you need to cut this so because I have full on hammering going on upstairs, like right above my head, and I'm like, I don't even know why.

Michaela Lynn: Does a really good job of filtering background noise, excellent. I'm so glad so.

Britta Bushnell: Ah, okay, just keep going. So, so what I love about this framework are these questions. And I love that the, how do I know? Checking in, asking, How do I know what I'm feeling takes us from that heady place into the body in a way that I think is so transformative, and in the perinatal period and in preparation for labor and birth And in preparation for postpartum those questions are so helpful and and then, you know, is it helpful? I think is a really valuable question. Is it helpful? Is the stress that I'm feeling helpful is also really, really valuable? Because, as you said, sometimes there it is, and so it doesn't pathologize stress as a big, giant statement, because sometimes I want a little, a little and and the, how do I know it's working? I mean, these feel really important, even in how we practice for labor, like maybe we're practicing with our partner or practicing with ourselves. You know, I like to use ice when folks are preparing for labor to find out what helps me when I have a stimulus I don't like like holding ice. I don't like that stimulus. It's not trying to be labor. I get that. It's I know holding ice in your hand is not an equation to what you feel in labor. I know that, folks and it can be helpful to have something that we're like. I don't like that. I don't want that. And when we try and learn tools to support ourselves through a negative stimulus, finding out what's working, what's helpful, how do I know that it's helpful? I mean, these are valuable, valuable questions.

Michaela Lynn: Absolutely, I find so much crossover in talking to prenatal families and resilience work. The same ways I talk about resilience work, we often talk about comfort measures and labor and what you were just talking about, right? It brings up, for me this idea of discomfort versus safety, lack of safety.

Britta Bushnell: Unpack that, yes.

Michaela Lynn: We often conflate lack of safety with discomfort, and they are not the same thing. So we can be there can be discomfort and we are still resourced and within what we one of the stress models, window of tolerance, would tell us, we can still be in our window of tolerance and there be discomfort, so we are not overwhelmed by it versus lack of safety is, you know, there is a threat to my safety, and often we conflate the two and see discomfort as a lack of safety, whereas what you're talking about in labor, it's not necessarily a lack of safety, it is discomfort, and so learning how to be with that without being overtaken by it. And that sounds a little Woo, woo, but in practicing the resilience toolkit, and you know, these framework questions help us to discern and assess what is helping us and in labor, that discomfort is what brings your baby out. So being able to hold that and use whatever comfort measures support you and be with the discomfort. Is how we get through.

Britta Bushnell: Labor, not not to mention postpartum. Amen, parenting, yes, parenting has discomfort too, folks.

Michaela Lynn: All the time. So often in my feed right now, I get these videos of parents and their it's always toddlers doing toddler things, and then, you know, a pediatrician or a speech therapist will come in and be like, let me tell you what I saw, right, because so often in parenting, you are helping a tiny human learn how to human, and they don't know how. And so being able to use these same things right? Find our own stability, our own settled nervous system is not only beneficial for us when you have a two year old swinging hands, but then also to be able to hold the toddler, literally and metaphorically, they have big feelings and don't know what that is, because for them, that does feel unsafe. So when we well.

Britta Bushnell: And for you as a parent, it also feels uncomfortable, back to the comfort part. So I mean, it's like holding ice is nothing in comparison to a child that you love dearly and you're having a hard time settling. It's super uncomfortable as the parent. And so what helps you navigate that is a really important exploration, right?

Michaela Lynn: And you know, so this goes back to what we were talking about earlier with choice. When we're able to settle our nervous system, it opens up opportunity and choice points, and we're better able to see that. You know, my child is not giving me a hard time. My child is having a hard time and doesn't know how to navigate it. So it is on me as parent or safe adult to settle my nervous system so that I can hold them again, literally and metaphorically through the experience, and help them learn how to navigate big feelings and what we do with them. As you know, Mr. Rogers said, What do I do with the mad that I feel.

Resilience Versus Pushing Through: Strength and Flexibility

Britta Bushnell: So so this is bringing up for me that there is a distinction between stabilization and pushing through.

Michaela Lynn: Oh my gosh, yes. Can you, can you like.

Britta Bushnell: Because, because there can be an energy of, I just got to get through this, like, I just got to get through this thing. I just got to get through this, and what I'm hearing you say is offering something that's different than that.

Michaela Lynn: Absolutely unpack that. Yeah, this, again, touches back to what I was mentioning earlier, about how the over culture individualizes and turns resilience into it weaponizes resilience essentially, and we tend to think resilience is strength, grit, push through, persevere, don't quit. If at first you don't succeed, right? That's what most often people think of as resilience, and that is not what we mean when we talk about resilience.

Britta Bushnell: Okay, so then, what do you mean when you talk about resilience? Because I do think we probably should have started here. What we got here, we got here. The aspect.

Michaela Lynn: That is often missing from that is the flexibility. And so, yes, strength is important, but also flexibility. So think bamboo, there is strength. You can build lots of things with bamboo, but it's also very flexible. And so together, strength and flexibility give resilience, as opposed to, you know, a wet noodle, which is all flexibility, or an immovable object.

Britta Bushnell: Which is or a bulldozer. I've got a, I've got a grandkid who loves trucks, so I've got all the truck metaphors going on in my head for you right now. Michaela, but also pushing through has that energy of like bulldoze, right? And there's no flexibility in that. It's Get out of my way, right, which is destruction, not resilience, right? And not that there isn't a time when that has its purpose, but, but every day, not so much, right?

Michaela Lynn: And so when we combine the flexibility and strength, then we have this quality of bounce back. Or I tend to think of it as bounce forward, which is resilience right? Resilience means bounce back. And so bringing. In both of those aspects, is this flexible strength idea, and so.

Britta Bushnell: Wait, so can you give me an example? Then, of, like, of, of that bamboo, that flexible strength in regard to navigating discomfort in, say, labor and and parenthood, like, what? What do you like? There's an energy of pushing through and an energy of of resilience, and they're different. So, so.

Michaela Lynn: Thinking about in birth, we were talking about comfort measures and so resilience in birth isn't just do the same thing over and over again, period, because sometimes the thing that you're doing stops working, and we shift. What's the next thing I can try? And then that stops working, and we shift, and we try something else. And so it's that flexibility of, okay, what is something I can do that will be helpful, rather than continuing to try the same thing over and over, which then makes us more frustrated because it's not working, but let me try it again, and then I'm more frustrated because it's not working, and then all I'm doing is noticing that it's just getting more and I'm more and more stressed, right? Instead recognizing, right? It goes back to our questions, recognizing, okay. This thing that I was doing that was working has stopped working. That's okay. That tool is not broken. I am not broken. The situation has just changed. So let me turn my attention to the next best thing, and that is Regulatory Flexibility, which we know to be a known determinant of resilience. So practicing that in the resilience toolkit is actually helping us build resilience, noticing when something has stopped working, shifting to something else.

Britta Bushnell: I love that and that and those questions then play a really key part in that, because they're part of what helps us build that literacy around our nervous systems, way of doing things. Rather than I one of the things I'm going to pivot for a second, if I can. But one of the things that I love is that often, when you are leading somebody through a practice, that you give the flexibility, even in your instruction, to try something else, and that that is so unusual, like the number of times I've entered into a class or a workshop and they say, Okay, close your eyes, put your feet on the ground, you know, whatever. Or even I've done it myself, where I've led, and I give one instruction that is supposed to settle everybody's nervous system, but it might be my preference choice behavior to do, but it isn't necessarily what's working for somebody else. And you always offer that that that instruction of, is it working if it's not try something else? Yes.

Michaela Lynn: So inherent in foundational to the resilience toolkit are trauma informed principles. So baked into the resilience toolkit is voice, choice, self agency. So exactly what you're talking about is, I am never going to assume that what I'm offering is going to work for you. I recognize that for some people it will work. For some people it won't, won't. And my goal is not for you to do the tool I'm offering, but for you to notice what is and isn't working for you. So if what I offer is working, huzzah, come along for the ride. If what I'm offering is not working, please do something else that does work for you, right? So it's that choice. And then we've also been talking about safety, which is a trauma informed principle, right? We center comfort and safety. Oftentimes in wellness culture, we forget that it's not one size fits all. And so exactly as you're suggesting, right? You go to, let's say, a yoga class. You're going to do the asanas that the instructor says, Not often are you going to be like, Oh, actually, I want to do this one instead. I mean, you could. But people would be like, What are you doing? Because that's not, that's not what you do. And then you're right, clad, right.

Trauma-Informed Principles and Empowering Self-Inquiry in Birth Work

Britta Bushnell: So it's making me think about perinatal professionals and how often, when, when we are teaching comfort measures, let's say we're. We're teaching folks to do what it is that we've been taught to teach them to do. And one of the things that I have taken away and from work with you is now, when I'm teaching a comfort measure, I'll teach it, and then I'll say and, and I want you to explore and find out if this works. Do it if some if you do something else, do something else. And at the end of of working, I know you've heard me do this, but is to say, what worked, what helped, not? How was this practice? How? How you know, did you love it? You know, it's like, no, what did you do that helped you and and that feels like a very different approach to the way that most of us as birth profess. Those of us who who work in birth have been taught.

Michaela Lynn: Well, you know what this also makes me think of Brita is when you talk about moving from seat of child to parent and archetypes, right? So I think oftentimes we want an answer rather than a methodology. And what I'm offering is not so much an answer, do A, then B, then C, but it really invites you into, you know, the leadership role of I'm taking ownership of this process, of what's happening, of my body, of my my experience, yeah. So rather than somebody telling me, okay, now you're going to do this. Now you're going to put your hand here. Now you're going to get in this position is teaching people to notice what is working, what is not working, and shift when something is not working, which again, requires us to take ownership and and be in charge, be the parent, which can be scary. I get it, and so it right. We're just teaching different things. Rather than teaching set of instructions, we're teaching, yeah, what's the word I want?

Britta Bushnell: Self inquiry, sure, yeah, yeah, curiosity rather than acquiescing to it's like when I think about when children are in elementary school, they are taught not how to think, but how to follow instructions. And there's a very big difference to learning how to follow instructions, to learning how to learn, learning how to engage and and that's part of what we're talking about here, is we're not wanting to teach families, parents to follow our instructions, but we're wanting them to explore what is helpful and supportive and develop self inquiry for their own ability to thrive and succeed.

Michaela Lynn: Absolutely, absolutely, because I think so often when people are looking for a doula, they are looking for somebody to be like almost surrogate parent. Make choices for me, guide me through, do it for me, as opposed to, you know, witness or companion.

Britta Bushnell: Companion, yeah, companion and, and I get it, I want to, I want to just be respectful and understand that that impulse is really natural.

Michaela Lynn: Absolutely yes, because when you are walking into, and especially great for first Time parents walking into a great big giant unknown, which, hello, what is birth, but a great big giant unknown and parenthood, okay? Yeah, it makes sense. And so part of at least my goal as a doula, as a birth worker, is to help people navigate that transition, not in relying on me, but in helping them to find their own strength, knowledge skill.

Britta Bushnell: To develop their own resilience and stability. Right? So it's really interconnected with your work on the nervous system and resilience building. Yeah, it's all intertwined, right? It's all it's which actually makes me want to speak also about systemic stress, because. That is also an element that comes in and can impact our sense of safety and stability and resilience. And so I'm wondering if you could speak about kind of different types of stress and and how resilience work responds to those. Because there's, yeah, there's a bunch in there, absolutely.

Systemic Stress, the Poly Crisis, and Finding Relative Safety

Michaela Lynn: So what you're alluding to, right? Alluding to saying is we are living in a poly crisis. And so not only yeah.

Britta Bushnell: I didn't say it that well, but yes, that is what I'm trying to point at, yeah.

Michaela Lynn: So not only as individuals, are we dealing with our own individual lives and stressors, but we are also a witness to chaos atrocities across the globe. And so having skills, resources, the ability to within the Maelstrom, find pockets of relative safety where we are safe enough to settle our nervous systems is really important. We cannot exist at these high levels of stress indefinitely, and so being able to find, as I said, those pockets of relative safety. So yes, there is lots of stuff happening. And can I pause and notice in this moment, right here, right now, I am relatively safe in this moment. I don't need to hold all of that. I can settle a tiny bit. And in doing so, I am calling back energy that was being wasted. Right? Essentially, stress responses are metabolically taxing on our bodies, our nervous system, our relationships, etc, etc, yeah. And so in these moments, when we're able to settle even the littlest bit, we are calling back energy that was being used on over responses and in doing so, not only does it open up choice points, as we talked about earlier, but I'm pulling back energy that then I can use in Other ways to change systems, to protest, to call representatives to whatever. The thing you would like to do is.

Britta Bushnell: If we've been activated and utilizing energy in response to the poly crisis going on, there's we're we're actually, in some ways, making it harder to act.

Michaela Lynn: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, well, and you know, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, that stress narrows our world. It goes back to the isolation we were talking about. And so when we are able to locate safety, it opens up our world and allows us to better connect with other people, so that we can do the liberation work together, because we do not get free alone, right? We get free together. And so building resilience helps us to be in better connection. And then additionally, as we're talking about dismantling systems, that is a very particular energy. It's a fight energy, which is, in that case, necessary, right? If I'm going to go out in the streets and protest and be like looking out for my community members and taking groceries to people, that's a very specific energy. I need a little more activation when I come home, though. I need to be able to shift my state, notice relative safety, settle my system. And this is important in so many different ways. One, it means I'm not carrying that high level of stress when I don't need it, when I'm at home, safe. Er, safer. And then two, it also opens up choice, right? So when we talked about the three stages, the third stage is visioning and building the future. So again, being able to recognize when it is time for that, what is the energy we are putting into it? If we are bringing that fight energy into visioning and building the future, we are at risk of recreating the systems that we were just working to dismantle. So being able to settle our nervous system to be in a more settled place. Piece before we start thinking about visioning is super important, so that what we are envisioning, the world we are trying to build, is coming from that more settled, compassionate, creative, etc, place.

Britta Bushnell: Wow, yeah. Oh, that. I mean, it's all interconnected and intertwined and, yeah, so, so I love how the way that you talk about resilience building and the nervous system is individual and communal, and how important that is. Just before we start wrapping up, I have, I kind of want to tap in just a little bit to birth trauma, and I know that's not a little bit topic, so I'm, I'm aware that I'm like dropping a big topic right toward the end of our conversation, and it's such an important one, And I'm imagining, and maybe you can tell me, but that birth trauma is part of what happens in that middle piece dealing with birth trauma. I mean, I imagine that all three parts are involved in the healing process of birth trauma. But What? What? How does resilience work relate to navigating something like trauma from from a birth experience.

Birth Trauma, Stabilization, and the Stages of Healing

Michaela Lynn: Yeah, so you are correct, right? The stages, stabilization, repatterning, and then visioning and building the future in the perinatal year, so through pregnancy, birth and immediate postpartum, our focus is stabilization, and then when you are resourced and feel ready, you may want to move into repatterning right later in postpartum, later in postpartum, and then with.

Britta Bushnell: That wait, I feel like highlighting that piece just a little bit more, because I do see a desire right after birth. I see kind of two responses. One is the thank God, everything's okay, right? Kind of a blanket I'm going to put this aside. Makes sense? Or the I need, I need to work on this right now, while so much is being reorganized, and so your focus on stabilization feels really, really tuned in that, that that is so needed, that, like maybe not right now.

Michaela Lynn: Right again, going back to the swimming in rough seas metaphor, except for now, It would be jumping back into rough seas while carrying a baby, and, you know, keeping your family above water. It's that's, I just please don't, yeah, not recommended, right? So, stabilization, stay on shore.

Britta Bushnell: Help practice.

Michaela Lynn: Being there, got it being there. And then once you feel resourced, and you've come through the transition into this new state of self, family, whatever the situation is, then if there is a desire for trauma healing. That's where we continue with the stabilization work and add on some other healing modality, be it traditional mental health, some cultural, artistic, other thing that you add on. And you know, the options are different if we're talking about a group, collective or individual, but there's another modality that you add on with a practitioner who can hold that with you and walk that path with you. Yeah, and then what you learn from that helps you as you go into stage three, visioning and building the future, what you learn from that repatterning process you can take into building the life you want to live.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, that's so important. And I know that you have a bunch of different programs that you offer, and I believe and tell me, if I've got this right, that one of them is called roadmap to trauma healing, yes, so, so does that connect to what we're talking about right here?

Michaela Lynn: Oh my gosh, yes. So much of what we have been discussing with the stages of trauma healing, we go. So even more in depth describe each of the stages and the needs of each stage and how one would move through the stages. That is a free offering with limos transforms. Highly recommend. It is a great starting point for anybody who is coming into this work and is looking for, where do I start? Roadmap to trauma healing is a great place to start, and then also survival to stability is a course that we offer that then goes even deeper and teaches you an intro to the resilience toolkit. You learn the tools. You learn how to create your own individual practice, really getting started with your resilience journey for perinatal perfection.

Resources, Programs, and Secondary Trauma for Perinatal Professionals

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, you got to talk about that one, because that's super special.

Michaela Lynn: Yes, for perinatal professionals, we also have a dedicated course called tender love, where, similarly, we start with a brief introduction to the resilience toolkit, but then we go into how does stress and resilience come into our work as perinatal professionals, and we dive into a history of the profession, how we got here, how we move forward. We touch on coalition building. It's I am so biased, but it's a really comprehensive and juicy, course.

Britta Bushnell: And you know, I love that word, and I'm guessing, or if I'm remembering correctly, I should say that there's also an unpacking of secondary trauma as well, because birth, birth And perinatal professionals tend to have a fair bit of secondary trauma from the work that we do.

Michaela Lynn: Absolutely so when we talk about trauma, right, there's primary trauma, which is something happened to me or i i personally perceived something that I experience as traumatizing, and then there is secondary trauma where it's not happening to me, or I am not personally perceiving it. Maybe you're a witness. Maybe somebody is telling you their story. So this is where it really ties into birth work is we have a tendency to have people want to tell us their birth stories. If it is a traumatizing story, we can experience vicarious trauma just from hearing about other people's stories or being at a birth, if you're attending a birth, that could be vicarious trauma. And so similarly as perinatal professionals, it's important that we are able to recognize and have tools to support ourselves working through that as well.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, so how can people learn more about you and your work, as well as the resilience toolkit and all of the offerings?

Michaela Lynn: There? Excellent question. Thank you for asking. So you can find me at my website. I am hoping, in the next little bit of time to launch a program where birth professionals can become certified traditional postpartum doulas. I work with a fantastic woman who has a course that covers traditional Moroccan postpartum healing, and so I teach that. I'm hoping to launch it soon. This summer, we are taking a retreat back to Morocco also, so that is available if folks are interested in learning in Morocco with the midwives themselves, wow, and then resilience. Work with Lumos transforms. I spend a lot of time working for Lumos, so the the three offerings I mentioned are available through Lumos, and.

Britta Bushnell: All those things will be linked in the show notes as well and on Instagram, what is, what is Lumos is handle on on Instagram.

Michaela Lynn: Lumos transforms. And I am at McLellan.

Britta Bushnell: PCs, there we go, which is, yeah, PCs, perinatal care specialist, I believe, yes, I'm like, my brain just had a moment of, was that right? Yeah. Okay, so Michaela, as we bring our conversation to a close, I want to ask you one final question, which is, what's one thing that you feel passionately about that you want new or expectant parents to see here? Or feel or know during this profound period of their lives? Oh, yeah.

Michaela Lynn: That's such a good question.

Britta Bushnell: Britta, I know well, you don't have to pick like the not like the thing, but what's one thing that you want them to hear, feel or know? Yeah, you.

Closing Message: You Are Not Alone

Michaela Lynn: Are not alone. Oftentimes, you know, it's like the theme of what we were talking about today. Stress creates isolation, narrows our world. We feel alone. And so I think that's, that's the one thing I would want people to hear. You are not alone, yeah. Another song is playing in my head. That's great.

Britta Bushnell: Thank you, Michaela and thank you listeners for sharing this time with us. If something shared today impacted supported or moved you, please share this episode with a friend. I produce this podcast myself, and your support makes it possible to show a little love for the podcast and these conversations. Please follow, rate and review. If you'd like to continue the conversation, please join us on Instagram at transformed by birth. I look forward to being with you again on the next episode of transformed by birth. Now let's gather what we want to take away from our episode with Michaela today, and breathe it in with an inhale, and as we exhale, I'm going to blow out our candle until next time bye, friends, you.