Episode 18: Authentic Marketing That Feels Good to Create with Joanne Homestead

Written By Stephanie Konter-O'Hara

Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Can Marketing Feel Good? A Soulful Conversation with Joanne Homestead

What if writing emails could feel like a journey of self-discovery instead of just another sales tactic? In the latest episode of Redefining Us, host Stephanie Konter-O’Hara sits down with Joanne Homestead—email copywriter, coach, and founder of Desk Plant Creatives—to explore just that.

Joanne’s path from a 15-year teaching career to soulful storytelling began in a graduate school memoir class, where she discovered the power of personal narrative. Now, she helps purpose-driven entrepreneurs turn marketing into a meaningful, values-aligned practice.

In this heart-opening conversation, Stephanie and Joanne dive into:

  • The importance of your origin story—and how to uncover its power

  • How personal storytelling deepens emotional connection in marketing

  • Why values are essential for authentic branding

  • The role of safe vulnerability in content creation

  • The three pillars of a strong email sequence: value, connection, and promotion

  • What to do when perfectionism or marketing "rules" block your creativity

  • How messy first drafts (“zero drafts”) can lead to surprising clarity

For therapists, coaches, and creatives alike, this episode offers a fresh, affirming perspective on marketing that feels good, does good, and stays true to who you are.

Tune in and discover: That telling your story—your real, messy, beautifully imperfect story—might be the key to standing out, serving your people, and reclaiming your voice.

Connect with Joanne:

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I wrote a book! Becoming Mommy: Aligning with yourself and finding your voice during pregnancy and motherhood, available at all major retailers . View on Amazon

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  • SPEAKER_01: 0:48

    Welcome to Redefining Us, where we explore sexuality, identity, motherhood, and mental health to help women thrive authentically. Let's break free from roles that limit us and create a life where you can truly be yourself. Welcome back to Redefining Us. I'm your host, Stephanie Contrahera, and I'm a licensed professional counselor. And today we have with us Joanne Holmsted. She's a founder of Deskplant Creatives, is a email copywriter, copy coach, and obsessed storyteller. She empowers soulful entrepreneurs and coaches in wellness, well-being, and mindset to elevate their stories, to connect, compel, and sell with audacious authenticity email style.

    SPEAKER_00: 1:32

    Welcome. How are you? Thank you. Thank you for having me on, Stephanie. I feel I'm doing pretty good today, trying to keep warm.

    SPEAKER_01: 1:41

    Well, that's good. Well, we're just going to dive right in. So what brought you to a place where you felt compassionate about supporting women in business and trying to coach and mentor them for email marketing?

    SPEAKER_00: 1:54

    Yeah, that is a great question because no eight-year-old girl is saying, I'm going to be an email Well, maybe nowadays. Who knows? Yeah, that's true. It's true. Definitely not when I was a kid because email was not even a thing at that point. Yeah, so it has been a winding journey. I was a teacher for 15 years. And then when I started my business, I did not even, I didn't know anything about email marketing, marketing business. I come from the education world and especially copywriting. I did not know what a copywriter was when I started my business. That was now four years ago, but I have learned so much from that. But I would have to say like, okay, if we were to talk about like, and this is something I'm passionate talking about too, is your origin story and how did you get to where you are right now? And there are so many different entry points, you know, for your origin story. because it really is like, it's a journey. And so right now what's speaking to me right now in my origin story in terms of like, how, you know, how do I get, where does this all stem from? Like the email marketing and storytelling. I have tracked it back to this moment when I was in graduate school and I took a memoir course. And this is one of my I think I got to choose two electives in my whole graduate course. The rest was on becoming a literacy specialist in schools as a K-6 teacher. And so I was very practical. I wanted to take elective courses that filled in my skill set. I was going to take one in like a linguistically different language. students around literacy. But my friend who's in the graduate school in my same cohort said, let's take this memoir course. That's not going to support me in my career goals as a teacher. But I decided to go with it because I'm a nurturer. I like relationships. I value our friendship. And I was like, okay, you know, why not? Let's do this memoir course. And so in that course, we wrote some of our stories from our experiences in our past. And I remember that first little mini memoir that I wrote, like something happened, something clicked in me. There was a light that lit up. I was so surprised by what happened, like the inner transformation that happened to me when I wrote that and what came out when I shared it. and realized that mini memoir that I wrote about was something that was really important in my past that I hadn't even, I didn't really think much about, but it just, it just came out. And so this was really the seed to what I'm doing now. This is what I like to think of it as. It's like marketing to me is not, it's not marketing. It's building relationships and It's educating, it's informing, it's inspiring people to take action. That's the copywriting piece. And it's all through storytelling. This is why I'm an obsessed storyteller. This is why I want to help other women entrepreneurs and coaches to elevate their stories, to tell their stories, because when you tell your stories... And you can speak your voice. It's really like self-discovery, like what I gained from that memoir course. It was really something inside of me that needed to come out, that needed to be shared. That's how I think of marketing content. It really is just you're telling your stories and you are sharing what you're learning about yourself in the moment and through your whole journey as well. Again, there's a lot of different country points for that. And so that's really my seed from there was this memoir course that just surprisingly brought out this new light in me. And that's why I love doing what I do now, because I love seeing that light turn on for my clients as well. And seeing them step into their authentic voice and not worry so much about what do people want to hear? What do I say? I always sound professional. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to offend anyone. All the things come out and it's really being able to look at that and say, okay, what is it in your heart you want to speak out? And okay, now how do we go about doing that without all the panic buttons going off at the same time?

    SPEAKER_01: 6:43

    Yeah, I imagine you help people really tap into maybe some vulnerability for themselves too along the way because most storytelling I feel like is really only captivating when there's some vulnerability tied into that.

    SPEAKER_00: 6:57

    Yes, there definitely is a piece of the vulnerability and there's a piece of I'm showing up as myself and that can be very, very scary and that is okay. Like I have been there.

    UNKNOWN: 7:11

    Yeah.

    SPEAKER_00: 7:12

    A lot of it has been there. You're not alone in that. And it is understanding how to share your vulnerability in a way that is comfortable to you, that it's not like you like, oh, I have to be vulnerable because that's what they say I have to do in my marketing, you know, and then sharing things that you're not very comfortable sharing. I don't like to come in that way. It's like, no, what do you feel comfortable sharing? And what is it like? What does it really mean even to be vulnerable? vulnerable when it comes to writing your stories and writing your marketing content. That's just really a way to educate, inform, and inspire action is what I like to say. It's like building the emotional connections there in a way that feels good. It's not manipulative. It's not creating shame in them. It's just really helping them to see more clearly what's going on, what's their challenge, and this is how I can help.

    SPEAKER_01: 8:14

    Yeah, I imagine there's a lot of purpose-driven businesses that you work with. So I imagine they may already be somewhat tapped into what their values are, what they want to convey to their audience. But I'm curious, are there exercises that you go through to help people maybe understand Tap into those values or tap into those pieces of authenticity that maybe has been set to the side because they have all of the rules of marketing blocking them from seeing that that's actually what is going to help promote them the way that feels aligned with them. I

    SPEAKER_00: 8:54

    love how you bring up values because that's the big piece about authenticity. When I first started my business, this is how I thought of authenticity. Like, be yourself. Show up as yourself, you know, easy, right? There's a huge piece of it now. I believe when we show up authentically, it really is about aligning with our values. It really is a big piece of it. And as I work with a lot of clients who are personal brands, they are the face of their business. And talking about their brand values are really their personal, their personal values. And that is something that I like to work out with my clients, especially when it comes to talking about their voice and their stories and the way they want to market themselves. It really comes down to what are your values? I'd like to have it in all of the email sequence blueprints I have for my clients. I have there on the top of each email type is, Just list your values right here. Because when you have your values there, then when you write, you can go back and look and say, oh, does this align with my values? Like, for example, like mine are creativity, personal growth, integrity, and authenticity. And so when I write something and I go back and look, I'm really looking for those values. Like, oh, oh, here is where... I am talking about creativity and, oh, this is where I talk about authenticity. So it's just a way for you to, again, like, as you said, be able to align with your values and align with what your story is and how that connects back to your business. Yeah.

    SPEAKER_01: 10:49

    Yeah. As someone that's been in business for, I don't know, maybe going on seven years now, I should probably actually keep track of The years go by. The time has warped. But congratulations. I feel like COVID made the time feel different. Like I've lived 10

    SPEAKER_00: 11:05

    lives. Oh, gosh. I know. Seven years is really equivalent to about like 77 lifetimes.

    SPEAKER_01: 11:15

    Especially as a business owner, but that's a whole other story that we could probably have a little separate podcast about. But I wanted to speak to the values that I had as a business owner, perhaps in like 2017 when I started this, to the values that I have now. Yes, they're similar, but there's also, I think, sometimes these unique shifts in the way that they show up or the way that they hold value to me. And so I'm just kind of thinking about this meeting that I went to recently. They're like, what are your values as a business owner? And then what are your values as a person? And how are those potentially just, they're the same, but different. They show up in different ways. I'll give you an example. The exercise was like, there's my values are connection and independence. Those are my top two values that I recently rediscovered. But those things show differently in business than they might in my personal life. So I'm curious in the work that you do, is there a way that you try to encourage people to honor that the values might look different in different spaces, whether that's in the execution of an email compared to the execution in their business or the execution that that value might show up in their personal life. Because I think sometimes there can be, I don't want to use the word confusion, but maybe just like values feel so big sometimes. Yeah.

    SPEAKER_00: 12:49

    Yeah. It can feel really big. Like I'm curious to know for you, what is the difference for you in terms of your business and your personal in terms of what you said about connection and independence.

    SPEAKER_01: 13:02

    Yeah. So I'll speak about independence because I feel like that has the biggest difference as far as like what that means to me. So for independence, that would look like I get to decide exactly the way that things are going to look like. I'm quote unquote in charge of my life. I I get to do things solo. I get to spend time by myself for self-reflection. I get to just like, I don't know, exude a sense of I can do anything that I want to do on my own. But because of the business that I run and the fact that there's a team involved, the independence looks a little different because I'm not just making decisions for myself. I'm making decisions for my team. And I'm making decisions based on not just what is good for me, but what is good for everybody else. And then in extension, the clients that we serve. What decisions am I making that are going to serve the clients and protect the values of wanting to have equitable and affordable and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, like services, right? that doesn't look like something that's all about me. You're embarrassed. Right. And so sometimes, yeah, I guess I wonder if you had someone that was in a conundrum like that, like what sort of exercises or tools or things that help you guide people to work that out?

    SPEAKER_00: 14:41

    Yeah, that is such a great question. I love this. Yeah, I think that I haven't like come across that for clients in terms of their value. Well, yes, there is. There's like a difference between how their values show up in their business versus their personal life. Definitely. And where is the like, is there a line in terms of how do you draw that line? Is there a line there? How do we balance the two? And it always comes down to for my clients is what do you feel comfortable with in terms of like when you're sharing your stories? And this goes into your values to like sharing your values in terms of personal life experience and then business experience, like the professional experience. Yeah. Because a lot of the stories may stem from the personal life side, because you are learning a lot through that. And that does come into your business. And therefore, there is a blend. It's not like black and white. Oh, yeah. This is personal. This is professional. And so it really just comes down to what do you feel comfortable sharing? The thing that you've kind of set some boundaries around, like, okay, for example, like I work with a lot of clients who are moms. Do they want to... tell stories about their kids in their business marketing content that's something that they they can decide where's the boundary for that so it really is about like just sending boundaries around what is it I feel comfortable sharing in my personal life that is also related to my business because it is really an integration and what do I feel like it's off limits I don't I want to talk about it. And just finding also the different levels, too. Like maybe you do talk about your kids, but you're not naming anything specific. And it's not really specifically a story about them. It's just more about you're trying to teach a concept.

    SPEAKER_01: 16:52

    Yeah. And that sounds like the values maybe inform the type of stories that are shared. Yeah. Or maybe hold them accountable to, am I shining a light on the value in the way that I'm sharing or in what story I am sharing?

    SPEAKER_00: 17:07

    Right. Yeah. Yeah. Is it reflected in the story? That was a great way to put it. Are my values reflected in my story? And then how do my values inform what stories I tell? Yeah. Yeah.

    SPEAKER_01: 17:24

    I think values... to me feel like they can be complicated, but maybe there's a way to really simplify them. Cause as someone who's tends to be very analytical, like this is the type of stuff that could like paralyze me from like writing because I'm like, how do I even get my thoughts onto the paper in a way that feels like I'm sharing something, but I'm not sharing too much and I'm sharing what I want to share and We'll still have interesting and dynamic things to share with people.

    SPEAKER_00: 17:56

    Yeah. I see. I see the gears turning. Yes, the overthinking is definitely something that you are not alone in. Many of us as entrepreneurs and business owners, we can get into that hamster wheel of spinning and just like in paralysis. I like to joke that my husband... loves getting these printed t-shirts online from Threadless. And he was looking at a particular t-shirt. He was doing some online shopping. I kind of like look over his shoulder and he's like, I don't know if I should get this t-shirt for myself or not. And I look at the t-shirt and the t-shirt says like, hold on, let me overthink this.

    UNKNOWN: 18:41

    And

    SPEAKER_00: 18:42

    I just started laughing so hard because I said, you have to get that shirt because you're overthinking it. It was just so great. Yeah.

    SPEAKER_01: 18:55

    That is a funny anecdote because I feel like it's like the true level of overthinking. I imagine it's like a common hurdle. Even as I was sharing about my hurdle with independence, I was thinking like, am I overthinking this? I feel like I'm complicating it and I probably am. And so that if I was sitting down to write an email and share a story, if I'm already overcomplicating talking about my values, I imagine I might overcomplicate what story I feel like is good to share in an email marketing campaign.

    SPEAKER_00: 19:26

    Yes. Yes. Yes. It's all. Yeah. It's like a catch-22. It's like, oh, if you're overthinking the overthinking, then you're stuck in the loop. You're not alone in that. And a lot of my clients find themselves in that paralysis. And that's where it's like the overthinking. And that's where it comes down to. There's the strategy. Okay. We have a plan. It's a line. We're going somewhere. And then there's also the, this is going to be messy. Like the first draft. is going to be messy. And you're just going to write what comes out. Because we have a plan, we have a strategy, you have some resources to choose from. So you choose something, and then when you sit down to write, you're not thinking about, okay, how is this reflecting my values? Are my values informing this? How do I hook someone in? Is this a story that is okay to tell? All of that Just like throw it out the window. And all you do is you just write. You just write what's coming to you in the moment. And there is a structure and a framework that I use for that to then make it so that it's not just random. We're just not making random stories and random content. It really is going in a direction. But really, when you're writing that draft, you have the resources, you have the structure and framework. And within that safe space, you can just... dump it out, write it out. And then after that, that's when you can start really tweaking and you can really start seeing, okay, what's what in here? Oh, I'm seeing some values in here. Okay. I like that. And that's just helping you for the next time you write like, oh, I liked that. It's a process. It's a journey. You're learning along the way. And so once you dump it out and and you have it written, you just have it all written out. It's messy. You're thinking in your head like, oh, this is just way too long. Or like, oh, this is like, where is this going? Like that is okay and very normal. And that's actually good to have those thoughts because it just means that you're just writing from your heart and you're just dumping it out. And that way from there, you can say, okay, let's look at the length thing. And what I like to say about length is it's okay if it's long, as long as it's compelling. So you don't have to worry about, oh, I have to stay within this, you know, maximum of whatever, 500 words or whatever that is for your emails.

    SPEAKER_01: 23:04

    Yeah, it sounds almost like anything. It's really important to just recognize that it's like a zero draft. It's not like draft one, draft two, final draft. It is the first go around. Just getting words on the paper is truly like a zero draft.

    SPEAKER_00: 23:20

    Yeah,

    SPEAKER_01: 23:21

    yeah. Needing it to be a certain way.

    SPEAKER_00: 23:24

    Right. It doesn't need to. Yeah, it doesn't need to be anything. And a lot of my clients, some of my clients will get they get stuck because they're thinking, what? What does my audience want to hear? It gets stuck with, they're on this side. My audience is way over here. It's almost like I'm standing on a stage. What do they want me to say? Which can cause paralysis too. And instead of thinking of it that way, thinking of like, well, what do you have to share with them? And you're creating that bridge. You're creating the bridge to them through that way. Yeah.

    UNKNOWN: 23:56

    Yeah.

    SPEAKER_01: 23:57

    Yeah. I mean, since this podcast is called Redefining Us, I just want to make a link to this idea that you're kind of helping people redefine how to market themselves. So think about marketing and think about the journey of telling their story and shedding all the like shoulds or must haves or perfectionism or all these layered things. complicated thoughts they might have around what it looks like to put themselves out there in front of their audience.

    SPEAKER_00: 24:28

    Yeah, it really, I like to describe it as a journey. It really is a journey into yourself. And I've seen that for my clients where I'm teaching them and coaching them to do, I'm teaching them the fish, to be able to write emails that really speak their heart, that get open, that get People inspired to take action, to get clicks and to book calls with them. And also for my clients who I do the done for you for them, even that is a journey for them as well because... They're learning along the way as well. When we really dig into what's coming up for you right now, what is it you want to share? How does this connect back to your offers that you have? And it really is a redefining of a home. It's almost, I like to say it's like going into the kiln, going into the fire and coming out. Yeah.

    UNKNOWN: 25:29

    Yeah.

    SPEAKER_00: 25:29

    transformed in a new way. And I feel so honored to be able to be a part of that journey with my clients. And even the clients who like writing and who like storytelling, you know, when they come to work with me, we find like, oh, I see that you're actually hiding behind your stories. Okay. Yeah. They're using storytelling in a very particular way of teaching and informing, but not as much of the storytelling where they're bringing in their personal stories.

    SPEAKER_01: 26:06

    Yeah.

    SPEAKER_00: 26:06

    And I have found with one of my clients who we realized like, oh, you're using the storytelling, but you're hiding behind your storytelling. When she started telling stories, more personal connection stories, she started to get more engagement because people, I mean, 100%. When you're just more authentic and you're putting yourself out there, but in a way that's, you know, that's still comfortable to you, you just have to dig into your thoughts. Like, why is that happening for her? We dug into it and realized what was really behind it. And then she was able to release it and write more connection emails. When you start being more authentic like that, people resonate with it and they start engaging more. They start clicking more. It's fascinating. As you know, human behavior is so fascinating. Yeah, for sure. I'm

    SPEAKER_01: 26:57

    not sure if this is something that you hold to be true in the way that you help people market themselves, but I have heard from, there's a thousand gurus out there, so I'm not even sure who I learned this from, but This idea that your marketing needs to be educational slash informational, connective, like driven, so you're connecting to the audience, but then also entertaining. And I personally, in my business as a therapist, I'm like, how do I entertain the audience? Like, that seems like a big ask for a therapist because our job isn't really... again, entertainment-focused. So I don't know if there's three things that you really focus on when you encourage people to write from a certain place or to be thinking about what information to include. Yeah, I would kind of love to hear your thoughts on that.

    SPEAKER_00: 27:54

    Yeah, I mean, because I work with clients who are in wellness, well-being, and mindset, yeah, entertainment is not... Sometimes the word entertaining and entertainment can... It can lead you to think like, I need to be got my top hat on and I'm tap dancing and look, you know. I like to also think of entertainment or entertaining as compelling. That's really what you're doing. It's not like you have to tap dance. It's really about are you writing in a compelling way? It's attracting people and it's like they're leaning in, like they want... They read your first line. They want to read the second line and the third line and the fourth line. And they are suddenly at the end of your email and they were just compelled the whole way. And even if, you know, people don't have time and they're scanning, that's okay too. You can create it in a way that for scanners, it's also compelling as well. And so that's kind of how I like to think of the piece of... Is it compelling? And yes, I do, you know, go through with my clients on the different types of email content that they can be creating. One you had mentioned is the value email, is the educational, thank you. I was going to say edutainment,

    SPEAKER_01: 29:30

    which

    SPEAKER_00: 29:32

    is what you're talking about, the education with the entertainment content. Is it educational? What's the value you're bringing? And also like value doesn't have to necessarily be like you're teaching a tip or something. It can be inspirational as well. That's also what I like to call like a value email. And then there's the connection emails. Are you connecting with them? That's really bringing out the behind the scenes. What's going on? What are you working on? And then the third type is the promotional emails.

    SPEAKER_01: 30:02

    Oh.

    SPEAKER_00: 30:03

    And the promotional. And when you have the three types, like generally what I see is either they're really leaning into the value. They're giving so much value. And what they're saying is that no one is clicking to book a call with me. And that's where, oh, we need more of the connection and the promotional emails. Yeah. Or if they're doing a lot of promotional emails. Yeah. They may also not be getting a lot of clicks because they need to be able to show the value. Their community is not seeing the value. If they can see the value, then when you promote, it's a much easier yes. Like, yes, I see the value and I absolutely want to work with you. So yeah, it is a balance and I have a ratio of... Okay, let's see if I can do this right. Like value is four times, connection is... three times and promotion is two times. So if you had a grid of, okay, numbers is not my, of I think like nine or 12 on a grid, you would end up with like six of those emails are value for our connection and to our promotional. I think it's like a nine grid.

    SPEAKER_01: 31:28

    Okay. All right. Yeah. I think it's important to, Like know that having strategy around what you're putting out there is really important. I'm sure everyone has seen, or at least people who are in business have probably seen all of the billions of, you have to do it a certain way in order for it to work. Videos on Instagram that are like, you can't just post every day. You have to post with a purpose. Or you can't just email people and expect them to click on your stuff because you emailed them. You have to give a reason to reach back out to you.

    SPEAKER_00: 31:58

    Yeah, that is a big piece. And I think that's where, so I finally came up with my framework for what I do. It's a seven part framework and it is STORIES as an acronym. And the first S in STORIES is strategize and align. It's really setting the vision. It's really setting your North Star so that there is a strategy. It's not like random throwing spaghetti on the wall, which... It's also okay when you're just getting into it and you're learning and you want to try it. I'm not against that. Like, just take that. Don't, don't overthink it. Just stay patient and do it and see what, you know, what you get is you get data, you get information. And then from there you can then pivot and say, okay. I'd like to put some strategy on this. So it's not so random. So yeah, it is definitely like the strategy and the aligning piece is important, but also having flexibility in that. A lot of the times I say to my clients, like, this is what I'm teaching you and you can go break the rules. Like go break the rules. It's okay. Just because I... I'm saying this is best practice. This is what we do. If you want to try something new, go try it because that's really what it's about as a business owner is trying something out, tweak and see what happens, what works. For sure.

    SPEAKER_01: 33:23

    Well, I want to thank you for coming on and I'd love for you to share with our listeners where can they find you? How can they connect with you so they can learn more and schedule a call?

    SPEAKER_00: 33:33

    Yeah. So I am most active on LinkedIn right now. And so if you'd like to connect with me there, you can find me by my name, Joanne Homestead. I'm the only Joanne Homestead on LinkedIn and on Google. So it's pretty easy to find me. You can also search Joanne Homestead copywriter on LinkedIn too. to really make sure it's me. But I'm pretty sure I'm the only one there. I'm also on Instagram in the messages, not actively posting anything. But if you want to find me there, it's deskplantcreatives with a dot in between each of the words. And then, of course, you can come join me in my email community, Flourish. That's where I am so passionate to show up and share Give copywriting tips, email sequences, email strategy tips, and stories of all flavors. It really is just showing you all the different ways that you can use stories in building relationships with your community and attracting the people you want to bring in. So if you'd like to join me there, you can go to my website and grab my free email storytelling guide from there. And then I can also share with you the link for the free gift. And from that, you can join my email community.

    SPEAKER_01: 35:00

    Awesome. You know, all that information will also be linked on the show notes and on our website. So if you feel like you didn't get a chance to write all that down, don't worry. It'll be posted there as well as on our Instagram. So thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you for the listeners. And I hope you all took something from us.

    SPEAKER_00: 35:18

    Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on, Stephanie.

    SPEAKER_01: 35:21

    Thank you for tuning in to Redefining Us once again and share with other people so other people can continue to listen to Redefining Us and we can get into more listeners ears. If you follow us or subscribe or leave a comment or review, that'd be greatly helpful for other people to find us and also just for me to get some feedback. What do you guys want to hear me say? What do you women care about hearing? I'm totally open to to bringing on guests and talking about topics that are unique and inspiring to everyone. So please let me know. And this year, hopefully we'll be full of a lot of community building, a lot of public speaking, a lot of resource sharing. So I really encourage you to follow us on social media at Well-Minded Counseling on Instagram as our handle, as well as going directly to our website, wellmindedcounseling.com backslash redefining hyphen us to So you can be in the know with all the things that are happening in the redefining us community. Once again, thank you so much for listening and keep being awesome.

    Speaker 00

    01:08

    you so much for having me.

    Speaker 01

    01:10

    Yeah. So I'd love to hear about the work that you do with people and why you're so passionate about it.

    Speaker 00

    01:16

    Yeah. So... I am essentially a miscarriage doula, but I always love to start with like, I don't love the term miscarriage because I don't feel like it properly takes in everything that we go through with pregnancy loss. But I try to first call it first trimester birth and second trimester birth and refer to it as birth and death. But Algorithms on social media don't recognize those as terms for people to find me. And so the miscarriage doula is what I am. I started doing this work in 2020. So my first living son was born in February of 2020, only three weeks before we were on lockdown for the pandemic. I was struggling with postpartum anxiety at the time, but it was deeper than that because before he was born, I had two miscarriages and I struggled to get pregnant. And I just had this goal the whole time of like, if I could just have a baby in my arms, everything would be fine. This will all not matter in the future. And then he was born and I saw his little face and I thought, oh, that's what the two babies I lost. That's what they could have looked like. Or this is now putting a human version of those babies to my eyes. Just the psyche of it was messing me up. And so I had been supporting people I guess in a less professional way because I am very open. I have little to no filter. And so whenever I went through my pregnancy loss experiences, I talked about it very loudly on the internet and that drew a lot of attention from people because not everybody, I call it a privilege that I am so open because I don't care what people think about my openness, but there are people who can't talk openly, but they want to so bad. And so I talked really openly about miscarriage. People would find my Instagram account and I had a fertility blog and I would walk them through pregnancy loss. And so then once my living child was born, I thought, how can I do this on a bigger scale? My job working in real estate contracts did not feel important anymore. I was like, this is not making a difference in the world. Like anybody can read this contract. I don't know. It just felt so small. And so I took a course by Sisters and Lost to become a birth and bereavement doula. And their course really focused on birth in second and third trimesters. And so I saw that still that first trimester birth and lost was missing. There was still this gap. And so I focused more on first and second trimester losses. However, I've supported a lot of people through their trimester losses as well. And I don't think I knew what I was building at the time that I was building it. I just knew I needed to build something. The goal was always for people to find me before they experience loss because I want to help prepare people. I want them to know what questions to ask. I want them to understand the pros and cons of all of their options. I want them to feel like they have an informed choice, not just hearing the options and being like, well, one is surgery, so I'm going to pick something else without really understanding what's what the surgery aspect is, but also how to navigate the grief because the grief is what took me down. I felt like it was so heavy and I didn't understand why it was so heavy because I didn't know this little life and I lost them so early. I couldn't comprehend why it was so heavy. And so doing a lot of continuing education in grief and trauma has been really, really meaningful for me, but also for other people. And so now I run the Miscarriage Doula, which is an online resource and service. I talk to people one-on-one. We have support groups. We have a ton of free handouts that basically just list out all of the options and things to go to the store and buy if you're having a miscarriage at home, along with some things to help people cope in grief after loss. And so it's kind of what I do and why I do it. I feel like that's the short version and that was very long-winded.

    Speaker 01

    05:15

    What I really heard from what you were saying is that like most helpers, there was this personal experience that then led to a lot of curiosity for you and this deep drive to have a lot of more personal understanding of yourself that then led to this deep desire to help other people who are going through or maybe might go through or have been through the same or similar situation. And I mean, in my opinion, people can argue about that with me about that. But I think those are the best helpers because there's such a passion and ability to be empathetic with the person that they're sitting across from that maybe isn't there when someone doesn't come from that place of deep curiosity and deep empathy.

    Speaker 00

    06:06

    Yeah, totally. And I usually say to my clients, I like who I am now. I don't like how I got here, I guess. Like I would never, I don't know. It's so complicated. If I could wish away the trauma I experienced throwing miscarriages, I would, I wouldn't heartbeat. I think that some people say that they wouldn't because then it would erase those pregnancies, but I would love not to relate to these people. Right. But unfortunately I do. And then I guess, fortunately it gave me this deep understanding of feeling empathy. I mean, the empathy that I gained is, Yeah. Yeah.

    Speaker 01

    07:05

    I don't know if I've ever met someone who's like, I really love that I had trauma. Like, excellent. Best kisses, right? So I think that's very relatable. Like, no one wants to go through these things in order to have empathy. But since it is a part of your story, it's really amazing to me how you've really used that. I'm going to use the word trauma again. I don't know if that's how you label it. I might be putting words. It is. Okay. No, yeah. Yeah. that trauma to then help other people. So,

    Speaker 00

    07:38

    yeah. Yeah. Well, and I do think it's because I know that with your podcast, a lot of your topics are about like womanhood and motherhood. And I feel like one of the lessons that I learned from experiencing loss is to teach my children this empathy myself, instead of allowing them to just experience the worst things in the world and then gain these things. Because my parents never taught me the empathy level, but they also didn't teach me that it was okay to give part of myself to other people. So I didn't have the best examples growing up for these things that I had to learn in a hard way, if that makes sense. So I feel like as a mom, and I call them my living children because I have two children and they're my third and fourth pregnancy, I want to teach them to see people and to feel for them when they're struggling. Or if you can offer them support, do it like this. It is simple, but I feel like I was never taught things like that.

    Speaker 01

    08:34

    Yeah, I think it's really, I mean, I've heard the phrase a thousand times, but I'm going to just use it since it is so cliche and people know the same, but we don't have to walk in someone's shoes in order to understand their story. And so like, how do you impress upon the importance of that when it comes to even maybe some of the people that you work with? I imagine, okay, I want to speak for myself. In my own story of life, there was times where I was like, well, my situation's not as bad as this other person's or like, I'm not that hurt by this because like, look what this other person went through. So it's almost this imperative trauma thing. And I think that helps some people in my case, almost bypass being empathetic towards myself. Yeah. Yes. I do that a

    Speaker 00

    09:28

    lot with people. I was going to say, I imagine that's something you come across with the people. Yes. It is. And again, because my approach is to make sure that people are experiencing the grief and that they're not trying to bypass the grief. I will catch people, especially in support groups, they will say like, oh, well, so-and-so in the group had a loss three weeks later than mine. That's so much worse. And then they feel like they can't speak on their grief. And so I usually will stop them or talk to them privately and remind them that just because somebody has a loss, it's later than theirs. Or if somebody has a loss where there's more physical trauma involved or more medical trauma, however they feel like somebody else has it, quote-unquote, worse than them, that that's not a reason not to feel grief. My mom is very much somebody who, like that, where she is always like, well, at least you weren't diagnosed with cancer. She's literally said that to me before. And I'm like, mom, that doesn't erase what we're going through. And so my response is always, well, somebody has it better, but we still celebrate our wins. We don't just tell somebody not to celebrate a promotion at work because somebody out there is making a billion dollars a year. You know what I mean? So I think it's natural to do that. But there's that saying that comparison is the thief of joy. And I've posted on Instagram saying comparison is the thief of grief. And I find that to be true a lot of the times because people, again, talking about like the heaviness of pregnancy loss and the grief that comes with it. People are like, well, I've lost my dad. Why am I so sad about this loss? And it's a different loss. That's why it's heavy in a different way. And so seeing it all as separate is really important. But people, they compare it all the time. It's hard not to.

    Speaker 01

    11:08

    Yeah. Yeah. I oftentimes when I work with clients, even who have had living children, but maybe it had a really difficult birth. I'm not sure if that's something that you focus on with your clients, but just even the grief around it not being the way that they envisioned bringing your baby into this world. And I imagine that probably comes up in some of the work that you do as well.

    Speaker 00

    11:32

    Yeah. There are people who... have had a living child and maybe experienced a loss after. And maybe with their living child, it was a really traumatic birth. So they were looking for redemption in this next pregnancy. And then they experienced loss. And it feels like a double blow of why can't the birth part of this go correctly? And that's a really hard thing to deal with because I do think there's grief for that experience that you've had in your head this whole time because you're In the world, we paint birth as always this beautiful, magical time. And for everybody, it's not. And then the opposite can be true as well, where people have pregnancy loss or recurrent pregnancy loss or fertility trauma, and then they're finally pregnant and things are going well, they're preparing for birth. And usually their only goal is, well, I just want everybody to be healthy. And the experience is kind of in the backseat. And I do see a lot of people not having great birth experiences because I think they spent 40 weeks not focusing on actually making it to that milestone. So I feel like birth trauma comes from loss and from full-term living children and pregnancies as well. I

    Speaker 01

    12:43

    guess what do you see as a common reason why people finally make the effort to call you and work with you?

    Speaker 00

    12:51

    Most of the time, people come to me right after a miscarriage. And I always love when people do that because then I can help them prepare for the road ahead in the first month and having the first period and then returning to everyday life. But there are people who find me a year after, two years, and it's sometimes they're still struggling to feel comfortable getting pregnant again. Sometimes they're struggling to get pregnant. Sometimes they have a living child and they're like, okay, this didn't fix anything. Like that's still there. But I would say majority of the people reach out because they they're struggling and they're looking for somebody who gets it. A lot of people are in therapy and have brought it up with their therapist. And like you said, it takes like sometimes just a level of really getting it on a personal level. So a lot of my clients are in therapy, but also talk to me as a second person for this specific thing, just to talk through what they're struggling with, especially because in society, we hear a lot of at least this and at least that. And I don't say any of those things. I just kind of will sit in the discomfort and we make a plan moving forward and, and things like that.

    Speaker 01

    14:02

    Yeah. You know, I'll speak for my experience as a therapist, but you know, there's no, class that they give you on perinatal mental health you have to independently go out and seek that information learn it it's not just something that is a prerequisite to become a therapist and even grief isn't something that's really talked all that much about in school I had to take a special elective to even learn about the process of grief we get like a week where they're like Oh, let's talk about it. And I'm like, grief is pretty impactful. And it literally impacts every single person, whether, you know, like you said, like a loss of a parent or a loss of a child through miscarriage or, you know, what have you. There's so many ways that loss can impact you and we get a week of it. So, yeah, I think. Again, I'll speak for myself. I've had to go out and educate myself about how to talk to people and explore these concepts and use that, what you said, all the resources at hand to learn because it's not just readily available and talked about commonly, whether it's in school or in the general public.

    Speaker 00

    15:17

    I've had therapists reach out to me That way we could all hop on a call together. So I have done calls where it was somebody and their therapist. And that was always really like I like the collaborative aspect of that. And then I also I have a course that teaches people of different professions of providing specific to miscarriage grief. A lot of therapists, a lot of birth doulas, which is really important because sometimes their clients can experience loss. But I think that that's like a big part of being in this professional space is realizing if I want to learn more about something, I have to actively go out and learn it. There's not just a one size fits all class or diploma or anything like that, which I think I guess is really helpful that I like to learn. So I don't I don't mind taking a lot of courses. That's fair.

    Speaker 01

    16:06

    Yeah, I think it's important for people to learn what they want to learn about. But I don't know. I also feel like it's a slight like disservice to learning. Oh, totally. Not having to be, again, in people's faces and talked about all the time.

    Speaker 00

    16:20

    Well, and I feel the same about in the medical field. And I have a lot of clients who are ER nurses, labor and delivery nurses, nurses in general, OBGYNs. I've had fertility specialists as clients. They are not taught in medical school about miscarriage, not to the degree that it needs to be. It's covered in scientifically what happens and we can all figure out what happens, you know, but it's not discussed heavily. In my experience, in my second miscarriage, I ended up in the ER because I was bleeding really heavily at home. And I was in the ER for eight hours before anybody checked me vaginally, even though I was profusely bleeding. And now you've been trying to be dramatic. I had blood all over my clothes. They could see the blood on the floor. Nobody checked me. my vagina for eight hours. I had to fight them to get something stronger than Tylenol. And the biggest thing was, is that they just didn't understand how intense a miscarriage is. I think they heard me express that I was eight weeks, but my pregnancy was only measuring six weeks. And they took that as like, okay, so this shouldn't be that big of a deal. But I was covered in blood. And I have now, you know, now that I've had clients who work in these fields, they have the same experiences that I did. And it takes that for them to realize how they weren't taking it seriously before. Then there's a lot of guilt with that and, you know, other layers to their grief where they wish they could go back to all of those patients that they didn't understand what they were going through because they didn't have the education. And so I feel like when I was going through it, I was angry at the medical staff because I was like, how could you guys not know this? You're doctors. But now I have a little bit more empathy and I'm more mad at education standards. You know, we could fix that. Those are things, those are classes that we could focus on or topics to spend more than one class or one week on. And I understand the world is very big and there are a lot of things to learn about. But I feel like grief, like you said, comes up so much. And I imagine for nurses, pregnancy loss comes up, whether it's on somebody's form or from a previous experience, like still being trauma informed on these topics is important. And I just feel like we're failing. We're really failing human beings and not being more versed in it.

    Speaker 01

    18:41

    Yeah, I agree with everything you said. And I think it could be handled a lot differently, especially for people who are day in, day out faced with these types of clients. It might be quote unquote, a little bit different for just your PCP, right? That's not the thing that they're specializing in. Yeah. If you're a nurse that works on labor and delivery floor, you should probably be more educated on miscarriage and that experience.

    Speaker 00

    19:11

    Well, and so in the United States specifically, because I work with people all over the world, so I've got to know like other health systems and they all kind of suck. I used to think, oh, wow, every country has it so much better. And in a lot of ways they do, but healthcare sucks around the world. And I feel like that is a really sad thing to realize. But like in the UK, they have an early pregnancy unit where if somebody has bleeding early in pregnancy, they can go there for specific care. They don't have to go to the general hospital. Like here, if you have a problem, you're going to the ER. You can go to urgent care, but they're going to tell you to go to the ER. Like you said, you're not going to go to your PCP for this. You might call your OB, but they're going to tell you to go to the ER. And so you go to the ER where they see all types of different things. And I don't know, it's just, I feel like that's the one department that I'm like, we could totally do better here because this is where people go. When they have vaginal bleeding or if they're bleeding a lot out of any hole in their body, they're going to the ER. And so I think that they think about it from a scientific term and they know they can't do anything to necessarily prevent it from happening. But I think that focusing more on the care would be really helpful. But I feel like there's a gray area, especially in first trimester care, even for somebody who's pregnant. and things are going well and they're super sick. I have a friend right now who's dealing with this. She goes to the ER, she's waiting hours while throwing up and going to the bathroom before she's hooked up with fluids after it's been days where she's not eating. And I just feel like there's a gap in the care for people, especially early on in pregnancy, whether things are going well or not. I don't know how to fix that. I wish I did.

    Speaker 01

    20:54

    I mean, I would imagine funding and research are at the core of a lot of these problems.

    Speaker 00

    20:60

    And I

    Speaker 01

    21:00

    fear we're getting

    Speaker 00

    21:01

    further and further from getting that. Yes. Which sucks.

    Speaker 01

    21:06

    Yeah. I remember when I was pregnant, I had to wait until week 10 and I was very anxious for like the first 10 weeks. I had already experienced a miscarriage and then I had experienced a chemical pregnancy, which was still a loss of itself, even though I wouldn't even say it to myself, even though it was only a chemical pregnancy, right? But the hope was there. And yeah, so I was like almost angry that I had to wait 10 weeks to see someone because my anxiety was just... every day. Should I take another test? Should I make sure that I'm still pregnant? I don't know what's going on in there. Do I need to get one of those Doppler things off the internet so I can try to hear? Can you even hear anything at 10 weeks or before 10 weeks? So I was just very anxious most of that first trimester because I don't know until week 10.

    Speaker 00

    22:07

    That is also a crazy aspect to me. I guess I'm biased because I I only support people in loss, although I also support people in pregnancy after loss, but they've experienced loss before. And so if I had a client who was in your situation, I'd be like, well, do you want to be seen before 10 weeks? Because let's make that happen here. I literally write out the message for them to send to their doctor to advocate for that earlier ultrasound. Or we talk about what are the pros or the cons of having an earlier ultrasound on your mental health? Like, is it going to help? It depends on people's stories. And I think it's totally... ridiculous to wait. That's what the norm is because I think about it from my standpoint, like my first pregnancy stopped growing at six weeks. If I didn't have my first ultrasound until 10 weeks, that's already over four weeks that the pregnancy has not been progressing, that my body has been pregnant. And then they're going to want to confirm another seven to 10 days later, right? And so I'm just going to keep being pregnant and That's so dangerous if I start bleeding and I don't know what's happening. There's just so much that then if you call and you're bleeding, they're like, oh, that could be normal. Just wait another week and come in. And I don't know, I just feel like it could be so much better. Or even just, you know, having a spot on... an OB's website of resources in case somebody has a miscarriage over the weekend or starts bleeding. So that's a lot of things that I have set out to do, that I've set out to change, making sure that that information is accessible. With my first miscarriage, I was given my options and I was terrified of having a miscarriage at home. Like nothing else terrified me more. I Googled, what is a miscarriage really like? And I was just met with Reddit threads where people talk about how it was a heavy period. I feel like people were afraid to be honest because I don't think that that was their experience. And now I've met thousands of women who have not had that experience. Of course, there are people who have that, but there's a scale of normal. And instead of telling us the scale, I was like, oh, this can't just be a heavy period. I already have heavy periods. How much heavier could it be? That's alarming. And so I was not prepared for having my miscarriage at home. And I wasn't prepared for the amount of blood. I wasn't prepared for the pain. Now that I have what feels like lived 10 lives, I recognize that what I experienced were contractions at home. It was very birth-like. And I think that it was really brushed off because pregnancy stopped growing at six weeks. But I think that there's a lot of factors that aren't taken into account whenever we think about pregnancy loss and I mean, I've had people who have the quote unquote, I say quote unquote chemical pregnancies, not because I don't think that they are real, because I don't like the term. I call them early miscarriages, is those can still be really heavy. And the consistency of the bleeding can be abnormal where it's really concerning. It's just across the board, we are so unprepared. So my goal has always been to be a resource or to provide that information a little bit easier for people because I couldn't find it. And I don't want people to not be able to find what they need

    Speaker 01

    25:22

    yeah and google isn't always your friend right but if you can find the right resource on google yeah which just sounds like you have a lot of information on your website that people can get educated rather than just reading of no offense to reddit but a reddit thread right it's maybe not the most educational information there

    Speaker 00

    25:45

    Yes. And so I do have a lot of people who find me from Googling specific key terms about miscarriage. And even on Reddit, there are people who have shared my resources there. So I feel good that even if somebody ends up on Reddit, there's still a chance that they get that information. I have made information for doctors and I've sent it to them for free. I'm like, please just give this to people. I don't even care. I don't care if I'm broke for my whole life. I just want people to know this stuff because I think about myself and the thought of somebody else feeling as hopeless as I felt, literally, that breaks my heart. I know that there are still people who don't have access to information because they're not thinking about Googling it or maybe it's happening so quickly. And I feel like those are the things that keep me going because I hate this is a reality for so many people.

    Speaker 01

    26:37

    Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, let's share with everybody where people can find you and how they can connect.

    Speaker 00

    26:47

    Yeah, I guess the best way is my website is miscarriagedoula.co, not dot com. And Instagram is where I am most active. It's just Instagram at the Miscarriage Doula. I provide a lot of content there. I provide links to the free handouts and our support groups and things. So those are probably the two best places to find me.

    Speaker 01

    27:07

    Awesome. And I imagine a lot of your support groups are virtual or are they in person in North Carolina?

    Speaker 00

    27:12

    Everything we do is virtual. I do have in-person clients whenever they're local to me, but everything is offered virtually.

    Speaker 01

    27:18

    Awesome. Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you so much for being on Arden. I feel like I learned a lot. I'm sure people that were listening learned a lot. So yeah, I really appreciate your time. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for tuning in to Redefining Us once again and share with other people so other people can continue to listen to Redefining Us and we can get into more listeners ears. If you follow us or subscribe or leave a comment or review, that'd be greatly helpful for other people to find us and also just for me to get some feedback. What do you guys want to hear me say? What do you women care about hearing? I'm totally open to Thank you so much for joining us today. So you can be in the know with all the things that are happening in the redefining us community. Once again, thank you so much for listening and keep being awesome.

Stephanie Konter-O'Hara
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Episode 20: The Truth About Infant Feeding and Why Parents Deserve Better with Valana Frohardt

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Episode 19: Redefining Miscarriage as Birth Grief and Transformation