This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 134 / Woman’s Work In Shifting Seasons with Elizabeth Presta

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

What season are you in? And do you embrace your changing seasons, recognize them for their unique offerings, and celebrate and appreciate their differences and their beauty? Or do you resist them, like winter in New England? Do you feel annoyed, or want to quickly move past it, or run away if you can? We’re here today to talk about Woman’s Work In Shifting Seasons. And I can’t think of a better person to have that conversation with than Elizabeth Presta, licensed birth doula who has traveled extensively to over 31 countries, immersing herself and learning cultural norms along the way. Liz is passionate about women’s healthcare and has a hugely popular podcast Morning Chava. No matter what season you’re in, this too shall pass. The hard, yes, but also the good. Summer is just a season too, so make sure you don’t let it pass by without recognizing, appreciating, and enjoying it! Like nature, and the seasons, YOU and your life are fucking MAGICAL. Live it. Be true to YOU and the season you’re in… I can’t think of anything that defines woman’s work better than that. You can follow Elizabeth on her IG @esandoz Listen in to her podcast Morning Chava  To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com. 

I'm excited to bring you another ad-free episode of This is Woman's Work, because time is the commodity we don't ever seem to have enough of, and I'm not going to waste yours talking about a product or a service unless I really think you can't go another day without knowing about it. So let's dive right into the good stuff. If you're a regular listener, you already know the answer to what this is when I say this is woman's work. But if you're new here, you might be wondering, what is woman's work? And the answer is whatever feels right, true, and authentic to you. You are the decider.

Woman's work might be traditional, nurturing, pretty, empathetic. It might be feminine. It also might be progressive, nonconformist, ambitious, independent. It might be embracing the masculine that lives within. Woman's work could certainly include being a mom, a wife, and a partner. And it could also certainly include being an entrepreneur, an athlete, and an executive. We're daughters, sisters, friends, loved ones, and lovers. Woman's work is whatever you choose it to be, regardless of what society assumes or tells you it's supposed to be. Woman's work can be beautiful and hard and everything in between.

But something that's true about it for all of us is that it's seasonal, meaning that your definition of what it means, feels, and looks like for you to be doing woman's work will change. It will evolve. It will grow. It will ebb and it will flow. Personally, I'm in a very different season of woman's work today than I was even three or four months ago. And I know it'll likely look different even a few months from now. What season are you in? And do you embrace your

changing seasons, recognize them for their unique offerings and celebrate and appreciate their differences and their beauty? Or do you resist them like winter in New England? Do you feel annoyed or want to quickly move past it or run away if you can? I mean, it just snowed here in the middle of March. So trust me when I say that I get it. But winter has its own beauty and without it, we wouldn't experience the pure magic of spring. So we're here today to talk about women's work in shifting seasons. And I can't think of a better person to have that conversation with than Elizabeth Presta, licensed birth doula and prenatal coach who has traveled extensively over 31 countries, immersing herself and learning cultural birthing norms along the way. Liz is passionate about women's healthcare and has a hugely popular podcast, Morning Hava, and provides online

courses to help spread the message of empowerment and advocacy in the birthing space. Liz, thank you so much for being here. And I want to start by talking about some of the biggest shifts in seasons I've personally experienced, which I know is true for many women, which is the shift from being an individual to being an individual in a partnership, to being an individual creating life, to being an individual raising a human. So what are some of the things that we should know about these changing seasons? First of all, I just want to thank you so much for that introduction. I feel like just even you talking about going through the different seasons is so powerful because it's something that we know is inevitable of life, but somehow we're like, how am I in this

season? Sometimes it's like, we know that things are going to change and adaptability is so important, but still sometimes you can find yourself feeling stuck or feeling, how did I get here? Or what do I do now? And so I think it's really important to have this conversation. Um, so many of us want to have life partners, right? We, as a little girl, I remember thinking, I mean, as a little girl, I'm like, Oh, when I'm like 20, I'll be married, you know? And then you're like 20 and you're like, no, like I, yeah, not even on my radar then. Um, but thinking that by like, you know, maybe in a few years and still no, for me, it wasn't until I was 30 and I had done some self-work and I was ready, really, really ready to be in that place. And he's still even thinking like he and I had all the hard

conversations. We did a premarital coaching course. We did so many things, but there's still things that you can't prepare for that pop up. Uh, we got married, married life was great. We decided to start trying to conceive and we experienced loss. And that was really hard. That was part of the season that we didn't know we were going to experience. And, and then even, you know, once we were able to have a kid, the different factors coming up of where we thought we were on the same page, we have the same morals and values as parents, but then it's like, wait, you want to do what? And you want to do this? Like, how are we not together here? And like, how do we get there? So I think it's so important in the changing seasons to first of all, have communication.

So if you're in that season with somebody else, having that open line of communication established is so, so important. Communicating your, your needs, your wants, your expectations. I remember reading something a long time ago that was like the number one cause of divorce. Isn't money. It's not sex. It's not these other things. It's lack of unmet expectations because you have maybe that expectation around money or what your sex life's going to be or, um, how your marriage is just going to go your roles, what you're going to do. Um, you and I were talking before and you said, your roles, what you're going to do. You and I were talking before and you said predictability is sexy, right? Like knowing what those roles are, who's going to

show up for what can be so, so vital. So talking about expectations and also somehow knowing that those can change like once a kid comes along or another kid or a job changes, but starting off with those open lines of communication when it comes to a relationship is so, so important for those changing seasons. And then also with yourself. So knowing that who I am now, you know, you did this intro to me and I traveled extensively and I was recently talking to somebody. I'm like, man, who I was 10 years ago.

I don't know who that is now. Like I was so carefree and traveled, did whatever I wanted, did not have a worry in the world. I'm not somebody who's naturally anxious at all. Becoming a mother changed me a lot. And I did go through a little bit of an identity crisis of, holy crap, like I all of a sudden have, I had no responsibility, like my entire life, all of a sudden I have loads of responsibility. Like, of course I had responsibilities and going to work and showing up and doing things like that. But all of a sudden, like this whole tiny human relies completely on me. So like with these seasons, there were shifting identities, there were shifting roles, there's

conversations. And so I think it's so, so important for me, like the number one thing going through these things is giving yourself grace, keeping curiosity. I think curiosity is huge with your partnership, with whatever changes you're having, whether it's in career, whether it's in parenting, like who am I right now? Like what's going on? having curiosity. I think when you choose to be curious of a situation versus judging it, you're more open to the ebbs and flows that come with it. Yeah. I would say like grace and curiosity are probably the two big things for me with the shifting seasons that come. I could legitimately close out the podcast right now and we'd be good because grace and curiosity, I think are the secret sauce to what we're talking about. Even as I wrote the intro, I had a few like, oh my God moments where I'm like, I didn't recognize these as seasons. I have a tendency when things change

to worry or make it wrong or what's happening or whatever, as opposed to being curious, like you said, what has shifted? What is different? Has my expectation changed? Should I communicate that of myself or others or whatever? But grace and curiosity, I think would take us all a very long way. My next question is a little bit of a tangent, but with your work as a doula and your extensive travel, what do you see as the differences across cultures as we think about maybe women's work? Let's start specifically with healthcare. What are the differences across the world that you've experienced and how do they impact how we see our roles as mothers or as women? So some of the places that I've traveled really opened my eyes to just how differently, like some cultures still do things. So one place that I actually lived and worked at in Africa for

a while in Tanzania, there was a tribe that I worked at a safari lodge there, which was an amazing experience. And there was a local tribe and some of the tribesmen worked there. But we went to go visit the village one day and just some of the cultural norms are shocking. And I feel like for me, I had always been interested in sociology, anthropology, subjects like that, and preserving culture, but yet being able to adapt where you need to be. And one thing that blew my mind was some of the old beliefs that they still held onto. So there, and in many places of the world, uh, still practice female genital mutilation. And it just, it, I was, I remember like developing relationships with some of the people there.

So I asked one of the men one day, I'm like, why, why, like, why is this still a practice here? And he said that women aren't allowed to enjoy sex. Cause if they do, they're going to move to the city and become a prostitute. And I'm like, we're the only creatures that have an organ specifically for pleasure. That's like not how it goes at all. But just like even that mentality still in a lot of places where women really are second class. And in a lot of those places too, women do a lot of the work. So the men just kind of like

herd the cattle or the sheep and the women do everything else. Also in that system, men had multiple wives and things like that. So really opening my eyes to like the privileges that we have here in the United States when it comes to some of that. But then when you go some other places, you see the deficits that we have. So in places such as Finland or the Netherlands is like one of the best places in the world to give birth. And women there start with entry care to midwifery. And then if you're high risk, you go into obstetrics. There's a lot of misconceptions with midwifery. A lot of people think that you can only have a midwife if you're doing an unmedicated home birth or whatever it is.

It's like, no, like with my first, I had a midwife and I had a hospital birth and an epidural. So it's just that it's usually more lower intervention birth. You're given more options. There's a lot of things that are done there that aren't automatically done here. And then you look at things put out in the birthing world by like the World Health Organization and what our numbers should be, what they are around the world. And the World Health Organization says that the C-section rate should be 10 to 12%.

Well, here it's almost 34%. So you see where we aren't given choices or where, where there's just kind of that lack of women's healthcare. I think it really, really starts with like sex education when we're younger. Like I learned nothing about my body. I did not know that I had a vagina until I got my period and had to learn to put in a tampon. I did not know that there was a hole there. Like how did I, and I took a science class, but I grew up in Nebraska where you don't need to have sex education. It's not, you know, it's not required there. And I literally knew nothing. Um, and I think that there's so many

things about our bodies that are still taught as taboo. So maybe it's not as taboo as like Tanzania, but your parts of your body aren't taboo and who we are as women is not taboo, but they're still in healthcare. We're so behind because so much research still hasn't been done on women. So they, they even show that if a woman has a heart attack or a health problem, heart attacks are so much harder to diagnose in women than men because they've only studied the symptoms in men, not in women. So there's just been this fear of our bodies for so long. And I do see that play out in birth, not just like our healthcare system, but in birth. And then that leads into motherhood and even how we adapt to the different seasons of how am I supposed to be confident in

these different roles when I've never even known my body or who I am in myself. And so it was really a cool experience to travel around and see how different people do things, but also know like, like South Africa has a crazy C-section rate. So does Brazil. They're like 50%. So it's, it's not just us who have that, but as a high income nation, our maternal health system is not great at all. So it was cool, like a great experience to experience some of that and then come back with like even more of a passion to be like, okay, we got to make some changes. We can't be afraid of our bodies and we have to help women know that they have options. They deserve to be validated and heard no matter what choice you're making, whether you want a medicated birth, whether you want an unmedicated birth, you are smart enough to know the risks, the benefits and make decisions for yourself, not have somebody making decisions for you. Yeah. I blast my mind, this idea that we wouldn't be smart enough to make those decisions.

Because if you believe that, then how are we smart enough to be raising humans? I had a woman on the show several months ago about cycle syncing. And I'm like, how am I in perimenopause and just learning about this? How have I gone this much of my life without knowing these differences in the phases of my cycle? And I'm like, for my daughter, I want it to be so different, but I think you're dead on how, and my work is in confidence. How do we trust ourselves if we don't know ourselves? And if we're being consciously and subconsciously told that knowing these parts of ourselves is wrong or bad or dirty or whatever, it's a little scary. Okay. I said it was a tangent. It was, I want to go back to some of the seasons. So you talked

about grace and curiosity. I think that's a phenomenal tip. We've talked quite a bit about birthing and being a mom. How could we apply this concept of shifting seasons to another, like for work? Is grace and curiosity still the right mix in that? What examples do we have of shifting or changing seasons as women in the workplace? Mm-hmm. I do think that grace and curiosity is very important there too. And one thing about the grace and curiosity, or one thing about the shifting seasons is realizing that, um, I just want to say too, before we dive into this, when

it comes to like a partnership or in motherhood, you might be the only one in that season in that partnership or in that whatever, you know, like you might be feeling like, in that season, in that partnership or in that whatever, you know, like you might be feeling like, oh, I'm in this season of this, but your partner's like, I'm great. And so sometimes it's easy to think that we're ebbing and flowing everything together, but you're kind of two different people ebbing and flowing. And that's why it's so important to have the conversations, the communication, the expectations, all of that. When it comes to work, I think that we really do ourselves a disservice of thinking that we have to do it all and that we can't rely on any help. We do have this like, I'm a woman and I can do it all now thing. And it's not that you can't have your career and you can't have and be a mom and you

can't have these different things, but we were also meant to do this in community, to rely on people. And I think that that's where even that curiosity comes in of, okay, how can I make this transition or this season easier for myself and my family? How, like, who can we rely on to help? Do I have people in my circle that I know can pick my kids up till school and be with them till I get home? Or am I okay with that outside source, whatever it is. So I know so many people that have trouble with that transition after maternity leave, going back to work. I think it's very privileged for people to say, well, if you don't want to go back to work, then don't. And it's like, well, that's not a lot of people's reality. And then there's a lot of

moms that there's two things that can be true. You can be to go back to work, then don't. And it's like, well, that's not a lot of people's reality. And then there's a lot of moms that there's two things that can be true. You can be grieving going back to work, but still love your career and want to do it. And that can be hard too. Cause you're like, okay, I'm, I don't want to give this piece of me up and I don't want to give this piece of me up and you don't have to, it's not that you're choosing. And I think that that's something that a lot of people struggle with. They feel like they're choosing their career over their kids or they're choosing to be home instead of following their passions. But again, there are seasons sometimes that might work for you, that you choose something

for a while and then you're able to go back or shift. But let's say you're coming out of maternity leave and you're going back. It's not that you're, it's shifting that mental focus of you're not choosing one or the other. It's not a, but it's an, and I love my career and I love my children. I love what that I get to show them what, um, hard work ethic goes and following your passion does. And I love that I get to, um, go to their soccer games and whatever it is. So really again, having that communication with yourself and being curious about yourself

and giving yourself grace for that season, that transition, it doesn't mean that it's always going to go smooth. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have some mom guilt, no matter whether you're a mom who works or not, like everybody carries some load of mom guilt. But figuring out what that's sourcing from, like, what are you telling yourself? Is that coming from an outside source? Is that what people are telling you? Are you comparing or those things about yourself that you are giving into that like aren't necessarily true? So I think that yes, grace and curiosity both really play into that. And just even recognizing that again, it's seasonal,

the transition, right? There's a transitional period and it could be an adjustment going back, or it could be an adjustment staying home, like either of those things and knowing that life is going to ebb and flow and having that communication, having grace, having not just the expectations for yourself, for your partners or for your partners, but for yourself, what are the expectations you have on yourself? What can you offload? What can you outsource? What can you, or what really is important for you? Let's say it's really, really important for you to make dinner for your family. Great. How can we make that work? Let's say that's not your strong suit. I don't like to cook. I don't love doing that. Great. So what can we do for that? How can we make this easier? And really trying to prioritize like how to make your time work for you and to not feel

guilty for loving your job and loving your kids. So several thoughts went through my head as you were talking first. I am so happy that you said that our seasons and ebbs and flows may not happen at the exact same time, at the exact same rate, in the exact same directions as our partner. Jay and I just recently had a conversation where I was like, I know I'm not in the same place as you right now. And that could sound really bad or really wrong, but it was an opening for communication of how do we support each other in the different seasons that we're in. And as I feel every time we have open and honest dialogue and reset expectations, I just felt like this huge weight had been lifted. So thank you for saying that. The second thought is where were you when I was coming back from maternity leave? Because I felt like I was in a no-win

situation. I sobbed when I dropped my daughter off and went to work. And then I was like too emotional or it's a sign I shouldn't go back to work, even though I knew without a shadow of the doubt that I wanted to go back to work. Or if I didn't sob and like held it all in, which I did when I walked in the office, then I was cold and unfeeling and not maternal. And I just felt like I was in this no-win situation. So just, you know, thank you for saying it's an and, and that both and all of the options can exist for you. And then finally, the other thought I had is as seasons change and evolve, the word capacity kept jumping into my head. I think that's a mistake I've made a lot is not understanding in a different shifting season that something that also might shift with it likely does shift with it is my capacity or even my priorities. Any thoughts on the importance of knowing or even how to understand what your capacity might be and how it's changing? Yeah. Before I answer that, I want to say when you're saying like walking into your office with no emotion, then you're cold. One

thing that I feel like we also don't talk about is if you're coming back from maternity leave, you're coming back as a completely different person. Like you're now a mom, you have a human at home, like you went through birth, who knows like how that story was, how the postpartum was. And so you are coming back a changed person. And I don't think that that's like really talked about or given enough credit. It doesn't. And it also can change like your role. Like maybe you have a different view on things now. Maybe you have more to offer. Maybe opinions have shifted and that's okay too. Capacity. So I think how we kind of measure capacity is trial and error of trying to do it all or being like, you know what, it's really important for me to do this, this, this, this, this. And, I think you really realize where your capacities are when you're

feeling burnt out or when you're realizing, oh, I'm going to bed at midnight every single night, instead of the usual bedtime that I like where I feel rested, where I feel recovered or, you know, I think sometimes even our capacities shift with our kids when they're like in sports and this, this, this, this, this, and then you're just like a chauffeur now and really having check-ins with yourself and realizing like, okay, like we've taken on more in this area. So how are we doing? Like in having check-ins with your partner, like, okay, you know what? We ordered out dinner every day this week right now. So clearly I'm not at a place where I can cook. So like, is this financial

financially reasonable for us to eat out every night? Or do we need to figure something out? Like order one of those boxes that has meals in it, or you take over dinner for a while or Monday, Tuesday, I do it, you know, whatever. So it really, how I've seen it most is trial and error. Cause you don't know what your capacity is until you've taken on more. Unless somehow you do like have that awareness of, oh, okay. Like we're going to be doing this. So let's see what adjustments we need to make so that I know I'm not going to get burnt out.

But how I usually see it playing played out is you experience the burnout or you experience that change in your schedule of whatever your norm is. And then you take a step back and kind of reanalyze and be like, okay, what needs to shift here? What can I change? How can we best support what we want as our family dynamic or what roles that we want to have. And again, like having that open communication in your family, um, with your partner and really realizing like what's realistic, what can you handle? And, and like, and not thinking, I feel like as women, we always think that we can do more like, no, no, no, I got it. I got it. You know, it's like, no, I can figure it out, but then we're exhausted. We're so exhausted.

When you were talking. So I like trial and error. I love testing things and just seeing, you know, where, but what the thought came to my head, I wish I would have done this so much earlier is the better part of my adult life. I've been working at capacity. So in another way, I can't think of a time where I've been sitting around twiddling my thumbs going, what could I do today? Like there's just a never ending

to-do list. There's always, you know, demands and pulling of different areas and priorities and all of that. I wish as I think about capacity, it's like, if I'm going to add something new, what am I going to let go of? Because if I'm already at capacity, this idea that I'm just going to take on more and take on more, I mean, there are some things that we can do to increase capacity, sleep a little bit better, exercise, eat healthy. But I think we're talking fractional increases with stuff like that. I wonder if there is that like, Hey, if I'm going to take on this whole new thing, what's going to give, what do I let go of in order to create space and time for that?

I don't know that I've ever consciously done that, but as you were talking, it jumped in my head. I'm like, that could work. Yeah. My last question for you, Liz, is while I'm a firm believer that women get to choose their own definition of woman's work, there are some things that I think many women have in common and some experiences where it feels like only another woman would ever or could ever totally understand. You talked a lot about our partnerships, our relationships playing a big part. I couldn't agree more. And I'm so grateful that you talked about that. But in addition to our spouse or partner or significant other, what other relationships or in what other ways do our relationships play a part in this shifting seasons? So this is something that I've really

struggled with because I, I'm not from here where I live. I live outside Chicago. Um, I was living in Vegas at the time that my husband and I met, we dated long distance and I ended up moving out here. I've lived here for five and a half years and I feel like I'm just now building some deep, meaningful friendships here. And I feel like as an adult, it's hard.

It can be really hard. But last month we flew to Vegas and I spent time with my girlfriends and we went out to dinner one night and I just, I kept telling my husband, I'm like, I just feel like my cup is full. I think that finding those deep, meaningful relationships with other women is so powerful. It's just different conversation. Like I, I realized I'm like, I could tell them things that I wasn't just openly like telling other people, you know, we're all sitting there talking about therapy and childhood traumas and like how it affects motherhood and just deep diving. And so finding those people that, that you can have deep, meaningful relationships with and really show up vulnerable is so important.

And I truly believe that your soulmates might not be your husband or your partner. It can be your friends. They show up in powerful ways and even long distance, it can be hard. But one thing that I've learned since moving is that I kind of have to open that gate for those relationships. It's hard for me to get out of my comfort zone too. I honestly, I'm a homebody. So I, I really don't want to meet you at happy hour. I don't like, I'd rather walk around my block. So I've had to realize like, I want, I have to get out of my comfort zone sometimes to meet people where they're at so that we can develop those relationships. And then like work, a lot of people find really good friends at work, right? Like some of my best friends that I have, I met at a job like 15 years ago and we're still really, really close,

but we do have relationships in every aspect. So whether you're friends with the people at work or not, or whether you're friends with just different people who have voices in your life. So I feel like you have to take that into consideration of who you're allowing to speak into your life, what voices you're hearing, and to really surround yourself with people who challenge you and also uplift you. Because I also realized that I had been around, there's some people that when I'm around them, I leave feeling stressed. Like I leave feeling my cup is not full when I'm leaving. And so really taking that into account and knowing like, okay, like, I feel like we all have that person that might come to mind that like, when we hang out with them, like you just feel lighter and, and, and more full and

really clinging onto those relationships. Cause I do think as women, we're built different. Like we need those relationships. And I'm sure there's more people that are gonna come into my life that I'm gonna develop those relationships with. And I do think that that's so important. It's easy to get sucked into like marriage work mom, but taking time for you to have friendships,

to meet with friends, to meet with people, to do something outside of that, I do find very, very valuable. I feel all of that so hard. First, the time with my girlfriends, I, the same way, it's like, I feel lighter. My cup is full. And the difference between when women get together and what we talk about, literally everything you said, I just was with two of my best friends. And we, we talked about all of those things like childhood trauma, like the big stuff. And yet my husband goes and hangs with his friends. And I always joke around.

I'm like, be sure you don't talk about anything important. Cause I'll be like, how's their wife? How's that? I don't know. We didn't talk about that. I'm so confused what they do, but that's a different. And then as a diehard introvert, I mean, I basically count on extroverted people to adopt me and not be offended when I say no to doing things because I don't want to go meet you for happy hour. I will force myself and enjoy it when I'm there, but I don't want to do it. But I just,

I'm so glad that you said that. Prioritizing our friendships and our relationships with other women, I think might be the most important thing as we think about shifting seasons. Thank you so very much for helping me to even acknowledge that there are seasons of women's work and to help think through them. Liz, where can people find you in addition to listening to the Morning Hava podcast, which is a 0.01% top podcast. So ladies, if you're not

already listening, be sure to. Liz, where else can people find you? Yes. Thank you for that. My Instagram is esandoz, S-A-N-D-O-Z. There's the morning Hava. It's spelled C H A V A Instagram as well. If you DM me on either of those, I go through all my DMS and respond to people. Um, and, or there's my website, which is Elizabeth joy.co. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. I'm going to close this out by reminding you that I asked you earlier to consider what season you're in. I'll also ask you to think about what woman's work looks and feels like to you in this season. Maybe you're in winter and it feels cold, dark, and never ending. What do you need? What do you desire? Reach out because

it may be cold, but it doesn't have to be lonely. Pay attention and honor this season for what it is for you. And please remember spring is coming. Look for those tulips pushing through the snow, hold on and keep showing up for yourself and what matters most. And remember, no matter what season you're in, this too shall pass. Yes, the hard stuff, but also the good stuff. Summer is also just a season. So make sure you don't let it pass by without recognizing, appreciating, and enjoying it. Like nature and the seasons, you and your life are fucking magical. Live it. Be true to you and the season you're in. I can't think of anything that defines woman's work better than that.