Formerly A Social Worker, Today I Help Mothers Attain Wellness.
“This career as an entrepreneur with a maternal clientele might seem disconnected from life as a social worker, but there are cohesive elements between the two paths.”
Contrary to what we might imagine, giving actually makes us happier than receiving. Studies of giving indicate that there is in fact immense satisfaction from helping others. In the case of a career in social work, this satisfaction is inherent in many instances, as the rationale towards the act of service is thought of more to be an obligation, a passion, a calling. But the burnout from the job itself - that is also very real. With an extensive background in social work, today I channel the lessons from the field into my current work which is more entrepreneurial in nature - helping mothers achieve wellness through holistic approaches.
At this point in life, giving or providing acts of service, has become intertwined in my DNA. Personally, I come from a family of public servants - my parents were both social workers, my sister is a teacher and my brother works as a trade union advocate. Educationally, I have earned a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a Masters degree in Forensic Psychology. Experientially, for ten years, I worked at a non-profit providing services to adults with developmental disabilities. Today, I am immensely grateful that I have had these experiences and gained this particular set of skills because it steered my life down a path of actively serving those in need - even when it's in a slightly different setting.
I transitioned out of social work five years ago, after having my second child, as I needed to take a break from the relentlessness of the profession. But I couldn’t shake the idea of wanting to ‘pay it forward’. I refocused my skills and passion into helping other mothers navigate their wellness goals. What started out as a fitness coaching business, morphed into Louise Simply Fit - a holistic wellness practice where I help mothers efficiently ‘hack’ their daily lives - whether that is as a new mum adjusting to the transition of having life include a new baby, or learning techniques in mindfulness, fitness, meditation, self-love or parenting. This career as an entrepreneur with a maternal clientele might seem disconnected from life as a social worker, but there are cohesive elements between the two paths.
Emotional Intelligence
After graduating university in the UK and moving to the United States at what felt like a wise old age of 22, I started to become aware of the importance of understanding different people’s emotions, situations, and life experiences. As a social worker, my eyes were truly opened to the power of empathy and putting myself in someone else’s shoes. This became more relevant after I began to identify as a mother myself. I had seen how my clients were treated differently because of their disability - it seemed like they were either pitied, viewed as inspirational (simply for living with a disability) or judged negatively. While I had always worked with my clients to empower them to self-advocate, now I was able to imagine myself in the shoes of their parents, or imagine them as my own children. To be honest, it helped me to step up even more. I could not imagine my own child being treated in a disparaging way, and I wasn’t about to let it happen to any of my clients.
Today, when I am supporting new mothers, it is so important to be able to discern what they are experiencing, and to be able to help them label their feelings and emotions. Motherhood can feel like a minefield of hormones and shifts in perspectives - and being able to understand and label those changes is critical in being able to feel a bit more in control of their own health and life circumstances. There is a theory that when people start to feel like their basic needs are not being met (often the case with new mothers - think the lack of ability to eat a meal without the baby, shower or sleep through the night) they attempt to restore control in other ways. When a new mother can understand that what she is feeling is due to lack of sleep, or that the fourth trimester is a season that will pass, it helps to ease her postpartum anxiety and feel in control of her life.
Boundaries
As a young social worker, it was very easy to lose myself in my job. This is not surprising as social work is more than a day-job, it is a calling - a vocation. As a young twenty-something, I didn’t have the same ties in life to prevent me from going full steam ahead, 24/7 (quite literally actually, because I was on-call for group home emergencies 24/7). The residents of the group homes that I managed almost became like surrogate children to me. I cared deeply about them, and was involved in all aspects of their lives (social, emotional, vocational, financial, medical, logistical). In these scenarios, the boundaries were most certainly blurred.
It actually took becoming a mother before I learned how to create clear boundaries in my job as a social worker. This is something that is still a work-in-progress for me, in my role as a mentor and coach and, of course, in my personal life. Naturally, I want to invest all my efforts with whomever I am helping, but I’m learning that in order to be able to help other people, I must set my own boundaries, and I absolutely need to care for myself in the process.
The analogy of the airplane mask, though overutilized, is completely accurate. As hard as it is to accept sometimes, we truly do need to take care of ourselves first, if we want to be able to help others. We need to care for ourselves mind, body, and soul, so that we can be the absolute best version of ourselves to take care of those around us.
Inner Strength
Inner strength and resiliency is something that we often think is innate or nonexistent. But actually these are things that you can learn and develop over time. In fact resiliency research has found that perception is key to resilience, meaning that two people can experience the exact same traumatizing event, but experience it in very different ways.
As a social worker, I faced a lot of challenges. I wanted to quit so many times. I wanted to just walk away from the stress, the horrendous budget cuts, the emotional toll - but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Something inside me wouldn’t allow me to. Personally, the toll was huge - I dealt with symptoms of stress, anxiety and working 70+ hours a week. Being on call 24/7 meant that I never felt like I had a break. But there was also a huge part of me that compelled me to stay connected - to my clients, to my overworked staff who were paid minimum wage and went above and beyond, and something else inside of me - the resilient part. Over time, I learned skills to adapt to the adversity that seemed to be thrown at me every day, and somehow I knew that I would always get through it.
Today in my wellness practice I am able to teach those skills, and help mothers tap into their own inner strength. To learn how to adapt to difficulties and struggles so that the end result is a stronger version of themselves. It is truly a blessing to be able to pay forward my own experience of developing grit, and help others achieve their goals - whether that be through mentoring the use of meditation and mindfulness techniques, coaching them to build their own businesses, creating a positive weight loss mindset, or improving their day-to-day outlook. All of these are examples, but are illustrative of what I am trying to accomplish by applying previous experiences and lessons into my current role.
Concluding thoughts:
Over the years, I have learned that having a ‘giving mentality’ is a gift that is unique and something that I am thankful to be able to channel into the work that I do. But as someone skilled, trained, and raised in the vocation of giving - I also recognized the toll that it can take if you do not identify the negative health effects that arise from burnout.
There is no doubt that I miss working in the social work field (I miss the individual clients who became like family to me, I miss the advocacy and the knowledge that I knew I was making a difference in people’s lives every single day), this new path is a better fit for me. It still allows me to channel my skills, which at the same time allowing me to have a better work-life balance. I am able to combine my calling to help, with my family life and caring for myself all into one neat little bundle.
As an almost 40 year old mother of three, entrepreneur, wife, daughter, and a friend - I am learning that this gift is applicable to all areas of life - even outside of the social work context. I can harness it to bring out the best in people, to truly empower women, and to teach my kids to harness the power of giving.
Naturally, as I extoll the positive effects of giving, I am mindful that it also implies that it’s not all a selfless endeavor. Giving allows me to feel connected socially to my community and aids in my daily gratitude practice which I actively cultivate. These are both valuable and vital connections for me at a time when we are so severely isolated due to the pandemic. Recognizing all of this -- how could I not provide similar experiences for mothers who need support? My hope is that after reflecting on my story that you also feel inspired to give and support anyone around you who may need it. Perhaps your prior experiences, personal or professional, can be insightful in identifying new opportunities. Giving can be as little as paying it forward by purchasing a coffee for someone at the coffee shop, or as big as donating your time at a local food-drive. Whatever you choose, make sure that it is meaningful to you, so that you can reap the maximum benefits of the positive wellness effects of giving. In doing so, you’ll find that the benefits are twofold at a minimum, and immensely satisfying.
