I’m Not Just Welcoming Babies Into the World Anymore

Truth Moment right out the gate. I’ve spent the last year in BIG transitions. From becoming an empty-nester, living alone for the 1st time in my forty something years + shifting the whole shape of my work. I’ve been asked, but I’ve never fully said why.

For majority of the last decade, I have had the sole honor of supporting women when they gave birth. Hands on. Middle of the night. Over 200 families as I am writing this.

I will FOREVER love the work that I do until my very last breath, but quietly- well maybe not that quietly, I have been shifting + transitioning into something bigger and I believe its about time I share the what + why of it all.

Her is the thing in it’s simplest form: I cannot unsee what I have seen. I can’t even begin to unknow the things that I have learned + more importantly I can’t just sit by idly. There is no secrete that Black women in this country get managed + not taught. We get monitored. We get prescribed. We get told to push through. We are gaslit about our experiences. What we almost never get is someone sitting us down + teaching us how our own body actually works. Not just the nine months everybody pays attention to. We are more than just nine months at a time actually.

Because its not just about birth. That’s not the only focal point. It’s about the girl who is twelve + terrified of her own period. It’s the woman that is trying to conceive but feels like her body has turned against her + is a stranger. Its the forty-something that has been told her exhaustion is just life + that she needs to get use to it. The patriarchy decided that women’s health stopped mattering the moment we were done making babies + society at that lie up so much that as a whole we stopped expecting more.

Well guess what? I expect more. ALOT more. For you + for me. My daughter. My nieces + all the women of my blood line.

What I am building + what I have built is rooted in something simple, honest + a little radical: lifestyle medicine is the cheat code + manual that we were never given. The way you eat, move, sleep, manage your stress, + who you stay connected to, that’s not wellness theater or a distraction. Its the actual medicine. When you learn your own body so deeply, the systems built to gaslight you to start to lose their grip. Self trust is deepened + self knowledge becomes a true act of rebellion + self defense. I’ve said it before + Ill say it again, folks aren’t checking for us, so we got to check for ourselves.

So I am moving. Away from being in one birth room at a time + towards sharing this medicine, teaching, writing, speaking + walking alongside women through the whole lifecycle. The writings you have been reading is part of it. The retreats are part of it. The coaching is a big part of it + is some of the most personal work I will ever do, one woman at a time, for the season her body is actually in.

I’ve never made a big production out of 1:1 work. If I’m honest, I’ve never made a big production out of any of the work I’ve ever done. I am a big believer in quality over quantity + having the true capacity to fully be present for my clients. That’s a big part of how I operate. I would also like to think that because this has been my approach that I have always aligned with the folks that I am suppose to when I’m suppose to.

One more truth moment for the road? When I build, I do the build for me. For whatever was lacking and/or needed. I build for my daughter, hell, I am actually building for you too. Not an avatar, or an abstract woman. You. The one reading on this phone, maybe tired, maybe in a season nobody prepared you for.

We weren’t given the tools, the manual or any codes + I intend on spending the rest of the time I have on this spinning rock making sure the women that come after me get what we didn’t alot sooner.

Till next time

XO

Denawa Deniece