78 | Why Lactation Consultants Need Boundaries

Annie: Well, hey there Leah.

Leah: Hey Annie. How are you?

Annie: I'm good. How are you?

Leah: Pretty good. Enjoying the spring here in Texas, knowing that the heat is about to come down full force, so I'm just trying to soak up every bit of 70 degrees that I can.

Annie: I was in DC in March for the postpartum support international training. And so spring was already there in DC and I was in Maryland actually outside of dc but it was like the cherry blossoms and like flowering trees. And then my allergies were like, what have you done to me? And then I came back to New York and it was like, oh, now I get to. Again, two allergy seasons in one, but it was, it was really pretty and it was nice to have remember like, oh air can be warm too. I'm looking forward to the spring, coming and sitting on my balcony, which is something that my husband and I really like to do.

Leah: I know I love when the weather gets like this, but we get such a short spring in Texas, obviously. It just kind of like winter suddenly falls off and then it’s kind of hot after that. So it's really nice time. And the wildflowers are amazing. They're just like everywhere. Every field is just full of wildflowers, which is really, and lots of bluebonnets, which is really fun to get to see. So definitely reminding me of all the things that I need to do to take care of myself. Which one of those is like walking and I'm even more motivated to do it when it's beautiful and outside and not 90 degrees at 7:00 AM. Well enough about the weather and springtime. We have a really important topic to talk about today, and I'm actually really excited about it because this has been such a journey for me and my lactation practice, and probably life is learning about boundaries and how to have boundaries as a chronic people pleaser. I've got none of them, so I'm working at it. I'm working hard at it, but. I've really learned a lot from you, Annie, but also just over time, like lactation consultants have to have boundaries, right? Like Absolutely. We totally, that's what I'm figuring out. We just cannot move through this whole journey of being a lactation consultant unless you are very clear with yourself on your boundaries.

Annie: It really is one of the most important skills that we have to develop. And it's something that I know like you and I have talked before, you know, getting our start as Lache League leaders, is that we have this, like, we wanna help you, we wanna be there for you, and I wanna be that encouraging voice on the other end of the phone. And then that sort of bled into how I ran my private practice at the beginning, which was just like, give, give, give, give, give. And it is. Something that I wasn't really prepared for, you know, in my life. It wasn't something that I'd ever, never thought of myself as like, I'm gonna be in a helping profession and I'm gonna wanna help people, but now here I am, like helping people all the time. I had also never experienced in my professional life, in my twenties before. Embarking on this journey in my mid-thirties. I had never experienced burnout before. I didn't really even know what that was, let alone that it was something that could happen to me, and so, mm-hmm. I wasn't even really prepared to recognize the signs of it when it, it did start happening to me, which is, You know, just like that being like cranky and not being able to sleep and feeling jittery and then feeling like I have to, I have to, I have to, you know?

Leah: My burnout really just came with like, This intense exhaustion that I could not remedy. No amount of sleep, no amount of eating healthy, no amount of exercise, no amount of the 14,000 supplements that I like was taking. At one point I'm like, I probably just need more big vitamins and more omega. I'm like 10 pills later. Yep. That is not fixing burnout. You don't need more, you know, energy supplements. And it was so shocking to me. This, you know, Transition into that place, and then I couldn't figure out why that was happening. I'm like, why am I so exhausted? What's happening to me? Like this doesn't make any sense. I love my work. I love it so much, but I feel like I can't even like physically move my body to get to work because I just feel this like. Such a deep sense of exhaustion and it was kind of scary cause I'm like, oh my God, is this a sign I shouldn't be doing this work? Which panicked me cause I'm like, oh my gosh, is this like my favorite thing in the world? And I love it so much and I could energize myself with the clients. It was just everything outside of client work was just so exhausting. And then it was just really kind of sad and scary because I didn't understand why I was feeling the way I was, you know? This led to my deep dive into. Why do people get burnout and top of the list boundaries in helping professions?

Annie: We're so prone to it. When I was researching a talk that I gave about nurture your private practice, expand the circle of care, and I researched all about boundaries and burnout and read a book called The Resilient Practitioner, which is a great book to read. It's for therapists and I talk about it all the time, but it really opened my. So talking about one of the contributing factors to burnout is the uncertain outcome and just really realizing that like we aren't gonna get the whole picture from our clients. We often aren't gonna get an ending and. Seeking that or wanting that, like wanting to kind of make something happen, which I think is how my burnout manifests. Is like, oh, I'm just gonna do more, go harder, try something else. Yeah. And it's not really helpful and it's more for me than it is for them.

Leah: Right. Yeah, It's so amazing to me how the presentation of burnout is so different for everybody. So then it kind of almost mystifies it even more because like, you know, everybody kind of has a different experience around it. So I feel like the message around it gets a little jumbled up. Cause everybody's like, well I don't have it because I'm not doing that, or I don't have it because I'm not doing that. And then they think, Okay. I don't have burnout, so they just keep pushing hard and then next thing they know, they're like really slammed in their face. Like, okay, wait. Yeah, maybe that symptom. Those things that I'm experiencing are actually burnout.

Annie: The good thing about burnout is that it doesn't last forever. It is just a temporary condition, and there are things that you can do to pull yourself out, to reconnect with yourself, to take stock of what you're doing, make some changes. It's kind of something that's gonna come and go and that's normal. You know, like we tell our clients like, lots of things are gonna come and go with your baby. And just because it's happening now doesn't mean it's gonna be happening all the time. So, burnout, if you haven't, if you don't think you've experienced yet, yet, or if you're worried about it, it's not as bad as, as you might think, even though it's bad.

Leah: Right. But it is manageable and it, I mean, it, it does in some ways force you. To look at what you're doing, how you're doing it, and how you need to change, which probably is going to come around to how you need to adjust your boundaries, and another place that might come into play, which you know, kind of contributes to burnout. Is, you know when you don't have boundaries, you don't have a lot of control over a lot of things, but your time is not under your control. Your time is just drug along to whoever needs it at that minute because you haven't defined. When you're gonna spend time doing this for these clients and when you're not gonna spend time doing this, and when you're gonna spend time with your family and not look at work stuff, and when you're going to schedule appointments and when you're not gonna schedule appointments. And I think that contributes to burnout, but also in and of itself, like when you don't have those boundaries. Everything feels really chaotic and that's something I've had to work on so hard because I am the one who will like glance at my phone and then be like, oh wait, you know, this mom's describing signs of mastitis. You know, like, I better talk her through that. Or I better give her a call. Or, you know, this mom, her text sounded really distressed. Like maybe I should answer her. I don't want her to have to wait all the way till tomorrow. That just seems, you know, and it's so hard though because it basically, Eats up your entire life. Like all you're ever doing is being on alert.

Annie: Yeah. I have really have a problem with that. It's like that. Yeah. Just really quick. That's all. I just have a problem with that. That's what describes me. Exactly. I will just try one more thing. My toxic trait is, I'm always gonna think I. Time to do one more thing that I really don't have time to do. Remember going to a chiropractor, one of, um, the chiropractors that I refer to. Before I started referring to him, I wanted to try him out for myself. So I went and like got a couple of like, I think it was like my third time seeing with him, and I realized like his style was like, lay down on the table. Then he'd like put some blocks under me and then he'd be like, okay, I'll be back. And then he would leave. And I guess like it was all like, he was like on the. He does network, higher practice. So, and I had been more used to like, I'm going to throw you around and we're done. Snap, crack a lot. Chiropractic. So he was out of the room. I'm by myself in the room and I'm like, I can see my phone is in arm's reach. And so then I could see something light up and I was like, I should just look at that. So like I reached my hand out and I brought my phone underneath me, like while I'm still trying to lay on these blocks and I'm like looking at my phone and the doctor comes in and he said you know, Anne, because all my doctors call me Anne. I don't tell them my, I, I prefer to go by Annie. You know Anne, this will work a lot better if you participate in the process. Oh my gosh. I was like, I know you're absolutely right. Stop looking.

Leah: I know that's so hard and I am like, I am guilty of it completely. But I'm also. Able to see it now. And I read this book Really Rec recently, which I feel like every parent should read and it kind of has a bad word in the name. So I'll, I'll try to go over that in case any kids are listening, but it's like you're not a parent, which like starts with sh Anyway, so that's a really good book by the way. But one of the things she talks about is like the first step to healing anything in your entire. Anything in the world that you wanna heal, anything in the world that you wanna change about your circumstances or yourself or anything in the world is noticing. Like you first have to notice, you can't take action on anything. That you can't notice first because if you can't stop and say, oh, I'm doing that, then you could never change what you're doing. Right? And it was such a freeing idea because I'm like you and I, Annie, we notice, we notice all the things we are not doing ideally, which is the first step to us figuring out how we might make shifts and we might understand how it's impacting our lives. You know, all of that. So it was actually like so helpful because I'm always. Down on myself, like saying right here, like, I'm really bad at this. I'm really bad at that. I'm like, no. I'm noticing it, so that means I'm on step one of making it better. So good to have, Annie. You're noticing it. You're on step one.

Annie: Well, the other part of noticing it is not just like noticing when you're doing something bad, but also noticing how much you enjoy it when you're giving your full self to things that, that you wanna do, like spending time with your family or taking that walk or. Reading a book or whatever it is that brings you that rest and relaxation and noticing that and noticing how, like you need that as much as you need to make sure your clients are okay if not more. And that's where the third reason that lactation consultants need boundaries. You know, that's where it comes from, which is, it's just better for them when we have boundaries because our main goal in working with these families is to lead them towards that self-efficacy that you can do this. Right? And so remembering sometimes like as a helper, thinking, well, I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing it for somebody else. Can help you do it, but it's also real.

Leah: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think this. Something that we don't think of because we think more help, more handholding, more support is better. But sometimes a little, pulling back a little bit of. You know, allowing people to move through and figure things out with guidance, but still able to figure things out. We typically, I've been as a helping profession, I'm just like, let me just do it all for you. Like, let me just tell you everything you ever need to do about anything. And that way everything will be perfect for you. You know? But they'll never be able to figure things out on their own. And certainly we can't handhold every person forever. So we have to equip them to do that. And it's hard though. I find that hard.

Annie: I do too. But I just in kind of remembering my own journey as a mom and understanding like I guess the older I get and the further removed I am from personally, from those baby days, working with these parents and seeing how much it means to them to have me tell. That you've got this, like whatever this is, you've got it. Like, it might be hard, it might not be going the way you want it to go. There might be things that you need to change. There might be things that aren't gonna happen that you wanted to happen, but you've got this, I believe in you. And that might be just something that comes with age, but I feel like it, it's landing differently lately when I really say that, that they, they're like, I've just been wanting somebody who knows about something to tell me that I'm, I'm gonna be all.

Leah: Yeah, for sure. And it just builds in their resilience and their desire to like, okay, I have the ability to work with the information you've given me, and then like work through this and figure this out. And I think we hold them back if we're. Constantly checking and making sure they're doing this and checking on that and saying like, but, but wait, maybe you should try this. Maybe you should try that. You know, instead of letting them kind of move through the process and, and really equipping them. So it's such a good reminder and I feel like all of these. Points that we're making about why we need boundaries so much are probably also life lessons too. You know, they apply to our kids, they apply to maybe other family members. You know, it's just like friends. It's amazing how so many of the lessons I'm learning through lactation practice, I can also then turn around and apply to, like, I have adult kids now. Like they need some self-ethnicity lessons. I'm like, come on, I need to start applying this. So I love learning about this and I know coming up soon we're gonna be able to learn even more about boundaries with our clients.

Annie: We've got the lactation therapist, Jina Coleman, who is a licensed clinical social worker at an I B C L C. We have had her on a deeper dive in the past and she is just an amazing resource and has dedicated her practice to caring for both the mental health and the lactation support for families in her community, and looking at how those, how those things come together and how to support both. But she's also gonna come and put her social worker hat on to help us come up with some really, Tangible strategies that we can use to help us what, wherever you're at with your boundaries, you know where whatever your weak points are, the places where you're inclined to give in, or maybe maybe the places where you're holding too firm of a boundary and that's also not working for you. We're gonna spend that hour learning from her, getting some hands on strategies. That is happening at the end of the month. We're gonna put the link in the show notes. You can sign up and just come to that one. Or you can subscribe to our deeper dive subscription for $15 a month. You get access to join us live, as well as access to our entire archive of deeper dives going back to January 2020 for as long as you remain a member, and I also threw in some little bonus which you can check out at the website and you can go to learn dot paperless lactation.com/course/boundaries-dive. That sounded very poetic, as I said. Yeah, did put that link in the, in the show notes and we would love to see you there. We, our, our last deeper dive with, uh, Jenny Stiller on ADHD was awesome and I'm still processing a lot of what happened there. And so we're just really excited for the opportunity to bring these experts to you and people to talk about things that, that Leah and I are struggling with. Like every idea we have is because Leah and I are. What's hard right now. Yes,

Leah: somebody come teach me this and then hopefully other people wanna learn it too. And what we are finding is absolutely other people are in the same place we are. And that's what we love. It's just a beautiful community knowing that we're all working through this, we're all trying to understand different aspects of this important role. We play in, you know, family's journeys with their feeding their babies and. So I hope that you guys will join us. I know our last talk with Jina was so good and I cannot wait to talk to her again, and maybe she can help me figure out my boundaries with my clients, but also, you know, all the other places that we need to have boundaries in our lives so we can be healthy and thriving people. So we really look forward to seeing you guys

Annie: there. I know she's gonna help us. I, yeah, she's, she's great. You'll love her. So I hope we'll see you there. And until next time, this was really fun, Leah.

Leah: Talk to you soon, Annie. Bye.