Overwork, compassion fatigue, burnout. It’s a common cycle for anyone in a helping profession, and it feels especially intense for lactation consultants because the stakes are so high—I mean, we’re working with babies who can’t eat! Compassion fatigue is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be the end of you. "If you don’t take care of yourself there won’t be anyone to take care of the families that need you" In this episode, we will cover: -What to do when you are tired: We all have limits, and we’re all going to reach them -Hitting the wall: What it looks like when the compassion runs out -Powering through: Getting through the other side -Strategies for prevention: You can help yourself so you can help others -Recharge and overcome: Put your compassion in the right place If you like what you heard today, please follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lactationbusinesscoaching You can email us questions and comments at hello@lactationbusinesscoaching.com.
Overwork, compassion fatigue, burnout. It’s a common cycle for anyone in a helping profession, and it feels especially intense for lactation consultants because the stakes are so high—I mean, we’re working with babies who can’t eat!
Compassion fatigue is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be the end of you.
"If you don’t take care of yourself there won’t be anyone to take care of the families that need you"
In this episode, we will cover:
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About Us
Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.
Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.
Many thanks to Stephanie Granade for her production assistance, and to Silas Wade for creating our theme music.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION DETAILS
Customer Name: Annie Frisbie
Date: January 29, 2020
Episode: 8 – Dealing with Compassion fatigue
Length: 41:19 minutes
SPEAKER(S)
Annie: I'm Annie.
Leah: And I'm Leah.
Annie: And this is Lactation Business Coaching with Annie and Leah, where we talk about the smart way to create a compassionate and professional private practice.
Leah: Let's dive in.
Annie: Hey there Leah.
Leah: Hey Annie, how are you?
Annie: Well, as always when I'm talking to you, I'm good because I really look forward to these conversations.
Leah: I know. It's my favourite part of the week is getting to have this time to talk shop and really tackle all these hard issues that you and I are dealing with on a day in and day out and know that everybody out there that's listening is probably nodding their heads with us, like oh yeah, I'm dealing with that too. So it just feels like, even though we can't see them all out there, I just feel so much more connected with my community of LCs through this podcast because I know that we all face these really tough challenges and I know today we're working with a really tough one and I think this is kind of one of the biggest thorns in the side of IBCLC in private practice work, and it's compassion fatigue and we get hit super hard with this one, I think maybe more than most professions out there.
Annie: Yeah, absolutely, and I think that it's important that we talk about this because of the ramifications of not talking about it can have on us, and also on the families that we're working with and on our professions. So we're going to go deep and hopefully get somewhere with this topic, but before we stress ourselves out, Leah has got some marketing motivation for us. What do you have for us this week?
Leah: Well on our theme of working with, reaching out to those that you want to refer, getting your product out in front of the people that you want - and your product is you - to use you as a lactation consultant, really reaching out to referral sources is a valuable way to grow your business. So we've talked about reaching out to doulas and hospital LCs and hospitals in general, and the other area that I think is really valuable is midwives, and I know this can be different for different areas of the country. For us in Texas we have lots of freestanding birth centres and lots of private practice midwives, and I think they are an amazing place to get referrals because they are typically dealing with families that are highly motivated for breastfeeding and really want to reach out and tap into resources in their community. You have very primed and ready to go clienteles and I think the midwives, although they are very wise in breastfeeding, they do hit places where they're like, this is beyond my scope, and we can be that resource and value to their services by them having lactation consultants that they refer to. I think that can even make their business more valuable, and that's how you want to approach it. I want to make your business more valuable by you having amazing resources at your fingertips when you might not be able to help out the family because it's gone beyond what your abilities are. I'm here for you. I'm here for your clients and your families and I'm ready to help them. I think that's a really powerful way to, again, build your name in the community and make that far reaching.
Annie: And midwives might be more inclined to follow through with some of recommendations you might have, like for getting blood work, for when you've got supply issues, that midwife is actually more than the OB. She is going to have the motivation to follow through with some of those things, and sometimes it's easier to get to them. They are more accessible than doctors.
Leah: They are so much more accessible. In future podcasts, I will be talking about marketing yourselves to doctors and things too, but I think it's a nice place to start with the birth community with doulas and the midwives because I think they're very accessible. Typically, by nature, you have to be warm and welcoming type of person to work in that profession, and it can kind of warm up your marketing juices and confidence and how you want to talk about yourself and your business to start with these maybe a little bit more accessible and easy to talk to places to get referrals, and then you can kind of branch out from there as you're feeling more comfortable. So don't forget - reach out to those midwives. Make connections, show them how you can bring value to their business. They are running a business too, especially if they have a birth centre and they have overhead and things. So showing your value to them can really make them want to connect with you and refer to you.
Annie: And you could make actual friends too, like where those businesses become something really personally fulfilling, connecting with people that are likely to share a similar worldview and passion for things and belief in the value the things that you value.
Leah: Absolutely.
Annie: I just really like midwives. I think they're awesome, the ones that I know.
Leah: I know. All the ones I know are just amazing human beings. Aside from their profession, they're just amazing human beings.
Annie: And I think the good ones get compassion fatigue.
Leah: I was just about to say I think they probably could relate to the issues of compassion fatigue too, and certainly they're dealing with life and death situations and high stress, and so I'm sure that they can definitely relate to some of the things we are we're talking about. But maybe we can start with just what ... maybe there's a new person here. They're like, what the heck are you talking about? Compassion fatigue? So Annie, what would be your definition, like if you were going to put it in the dictionary? What is compassion fatigue?
Annie: So when you work in a helping industry, you're putting out a lot of yourself to people. It takes emotional energy. So if you think of someone who does physical labour. They are lifting heavy things all day or someone who is maybe working as a trauma surgeon where you're doing just a lot of really intense physical stuff. You might be feel physically exhausted the next day, where you're sore from lifting all those things or my hands are aching because I was doing this really fine motor skills work. And so you've got a feeling physically in your body that tells you how hard you are working. So for us, we're not really doing a lot of really physically intense things like midwives. My midwife friends are like, I'm so sore after a birth. They spend hours squatting.
Leah: Leaned over in a really awkward position, like if a mom's maybe on a bed or something and I'm trying to contort my body to help them. Sometimes my back is aching, but not our typical, for sure.
Annie: Not our typical. And so what we are doing is we are working very hard with these soft emotional skills. We are using empathy. We are listening. Sometimes we're listening to things that are really intense, that are ugly, painful, scary. Some of these things might be triggering for us of things in our personal histories, and we're having to do a lot of work to present to our clients a calm, reassuring, compassionate face, pulling back all of our emotional responses. So not that we're robots, but when a client is telling you her birth story and there's a moment that's really horrifying, we can't jump up on our chair and say, Oh my gosh, that's crazy. I can't believe that happened to you. And this is horrible. You're not supposed to start sobbing because you're so upset about what you just heard. So you're having to push that down and stay professional. But we do have to deal with that so we can get to a point where we have used up, we've depleted our compassion muscles and we're fatigued and we're sore and we don't feel good.
Leah: And it can be even to the point of having a physical response. I mean I know at the times where I've become aware of my own compassion fatigue, it is almost physical, just like I feel sucked dry of all energy. I can't even discuss what we're having for dinner because it just seems too emotionally draining to talk about it, you know? I know that I'm hitting my compassion fatigue when any conversation feels like it would just sap the last bit of energy that I have in my body, and I always know if I am passing out at 8:00 PM because I'm just so exhausted. I'm going to fall asleep really, really early if I have compassion fatigue. My body gets physically energy drained. That's my signal. So when I can't even stay up past the kids' bedtime to have a conversation with my husband for a minute, then I know I probably need to do a self-check, like where am I at? That's what it looks like for me, or an overwhelmed feeling I think would be the other thing. I usually feel like everything's piling on top of me. Everything's feels 200 times bigger, like the load of laundry is not just filling a basket. It's covering our entire house. Just feels so big and just can't even manage it. But what does it feel like for you? What does compassion fatigue look like for you?
Annie: I get where I feel like I have to withdraw just socially and I'm a pretty friendly person. I tend to have a lot of energy, so when I say that, that sounds like, Oh, that's what introverts do. I'm not really an introvert. I can handle a lot of social interaction, but when I've got compassion fatigue, when I'm overloaded with hearing what my clients are dealing with, I will go somewhere where ordinarily I could have some small talk and I just want to hide. I just don't have any small talk for you. I also have been known to do the big short cry. I don't know if anybody has ever seen ... there's an old movie called Broadcast News with Holly Hunter and William Hurt and Albert Brooks, and Holly Hunter plays this journalist who is super high strung and super on edge all the time, and she has a ritual every day where she takes the old rotary phone, takes it off the hook and unplugs it and then sits on the bed in the hotel room and cries for like 90 seconds. But she cried so hard, tears are flying off her face and then she's okay. So I have been known to do that. I end up doing it in my car. I feel like it's a recurring theme of a couple things happening in my car.
Leah: I know.
Annie: I'll find myself in my car and I'm trying to get out of a parking spot and nobody's letting me out, and I will be sobbing and screaming. 'Just let me out, somebody. Let me out. Don't you know that poor woman got an episiotomy? She did a what? Just let me out of my parking spot'. And so that's how I get. It gets to where I'm not able to...
Leah: It bubbles over.
Annie: Yes, I'm either unresponsive to other people or I'm overly responsive to all of that social stimulation and not able to just be kind of regulated and even-tempered and healed.
Leah: Yeah. Well it's good. I think one of the biggest things we can do, knowing that we're in a profession that is prone to compassion fatigue, is to recognize your signs. We all respond differently and just start having an awareness. If you're a LC and you're sitting there going, I am so overwhelmed, this is just so much, and if you're feeling like those feelings seem really big, maybe take a step back and see if compassion fatigue is really what you're feeling. It's not that your business is that overwhelming in the sense of like, okay, you need to hear write a check to somebody or something like that. If, if those things are feeling like just super about to crush you, you having some awareness, stepping back and looking at, okay, have I been pushing too hard, or have I had a series of really challenging cases that were very triggering for me because they were so much like my own experience, or did I have an experience with another professional where they just kind of cut me down and that has just been weighing on me, things like that. I think an awareness in and of itself can be therapeutic when you're dealing with compassion fatigue. Once I had heard the term and I actually read a book about compassion fatigue, even just knowing like that's why I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. It's not literally that my house is overflowing with laundry. It might be, but the fact that I can't cope with that right now is not because I'm just a weakling and I can't cope with stuff. But it might be that because of this job that I'm in, I am accepting that I am probably at times going to run up against some compassion fatigue and then having turn around and compassion for myself and that this too shall pass. So awareness I think is huge.
Annie: And I want you to find the name of that book cause we're going to link to it in the show notes on compassion fatigue, cause I'm a reader so now I want to read that book because it can be a framework. If you're listening and you're saying, oh yeah, I totally feel that way but I don't feel like I can laugh about it or I don't feel like I'm getting to that place that Leah just mentioned of being able to take a step back, if you like you're in it, I really want you to think about what you tell your clients when they tell you things like 'I don't see a way out. I can't enjoy my life. I don't know what I'm going to do.' Do you know what you tell your clients? You tell them that they should seek help from a professional, that what they're dealing with and how it's hitting them might be more than just the baby blues.
New Speaker: You might be dealing with something that's more than just the struggles of having a small business. And I just really think that there's nothing wrong with getting therapy and getting counselling when you're feeling like your business is overwhelming. It doesn't have to be about your personal life. It can be about troubles in your business and having difficulties setting those boundaries, and dealing with the pain that you're encountering and having to work with. So I think that I would love for anyone who's feeling too overwhelmed, or the overwhelm or the shutting down or the crying lasting longer than it should, to find a therapist in your area who helps people who have businesses and helps with work stress because you might need that. You might need to see one less client a week so that you can go get the help you need to be able to keep doing this work that I know you got into because you love it and if you're not loving it, you can get some help.
Leah: Yeah. And I think there's some strategies for sure that we can help ourselves stay on the other side of compassion fatigue. I think inevitably we'll probably all feel some through our profession at times because sometimes you can't control it. We don't get to preselect our clients, like I want nobody that has had dramatic births this week because I just can't handle anymore. We don't get that. We don't know when we show up or when we read their intake form that they've filled out. It's not like you can say, Oh. No, I'm not going to be able to handle you. But there are other strategies that I think can be really powerful.
New Speaker: You know, we talked about awareness. I think having a sounding board, a person that's safe. I really like having another LC because I just don't feel like I could tell my husband about that, but it's not the same because he's never worked in this job. And of course they'll have compassion and he knows that it's a tough place, but having that somebody who really gets it, like you and I, Annie. We really get each other because you're walking the same path I am, so one of the lactation consultants that works with me, really, all of us, all the lactation consultants at work will right away, 'I just need to talk this through because it was an overwhelming visit' or 'Oh my gosh, this week is going to kick my butt like I just don't know.' And just sometimes having that compassionate person that that knows that can say, yep, I totally get you, I totally hear you is sometimes all we need. When you think about the moms we work with too, sometimes that's all they need. They just need somebody that's ...
Annie: They just need to know that they're not alone.
Leah: To know that they are heard and their feelings are valid and important and understood. So I think having a community, I know we have a lot of online communities too and I hear LCs reaching out all the time, like guys, I'm at the end of what I can tolerate this week, and sometimes just all of us go in 'You've got this! You're amazing!
Annie: Or I've been there, and just giving that empathy that we're so good at giving and when you're feeling like you are in a good place and you've got a lot of extra compassion, go spread around the lactation community because there are people out there who don't have somebody to turn to and who haven't made that connection yet. And so be proactive with your extra good energy and give some of that back to the community and help people because it breaks my heart when I see lactation consultants posting that they don't have anybody to talk to, or they tried to talk to somebody and we're kind of rebuffed or didn't get the help that they need. I'm very pie in the sky, but my vision for our profession is that we can be people who lift each other up and aren't just reactive about it, but proactive about it and looking for ways that we can pour into our fellow lactation consultants so that we can keep doing this because it's important and it's necessary. And if one of us falls down, let's pull that person back up.
Leah: And I love! I love on some of our boards. It makes me all get teary-eyed. I can think of a specific situation just recently where a LC was just at the end of what they could deal with. 'Oh this is so hard' and I put on the notifications for that post because I wanted to hear what other people... of course I wanted to support her and I said something, but also in some way I wanted to hear what everybody is saying because I needed to hear it too, and just reading, and I think it ended up being like 60-something posts on this one person. I don't even remember what it was, but there's something like they were frazzled, and then all these people posted. It was just, it made me feel....
Annie: I love that. I love that.
Leah: I love our community. I love, love, love how we step outside of ourselves to support each other, and it was just such a beautiful thing, and then hearing what everybody was saying was just so resonating with me and I was like, Oh I just want to save all these comments for later cause we've all been there from time to time. But I definitely think like we were saying, there are ways to try to minimize and then also "address" or treat - not treat, treat is not the word - but help with compassion fatigue if you find yourself in that. But one of the things that I know I struggled with early on cause I'm super excited, new LC and we got busy real fast. So that was super exciting. And I was going to see all the people day, night, weekend, any moment, anytime. I'm seeing everybody that calls and instantly, I would hop in the car. I'm out, and to my detriment because there is only so long you can keep up that pace.
Annie: You can't do it.
Leah: And it was super hard to come to that moment of 'okay, although that was exciting and I was living off some big adrenaline rush, this is not sustainable.'.
Annie: It doesn't last. It's not sustainable. And I think you see that when you talk to some lactation consultants who've been around for a while, and they will talk about how draining it is to try to maintain that kind of pace. I know that there are some who are struggling. Yes, they're really busy because they're the only lactation consultant in their area and they do feel this moral obligation to help people. They don't want to turn anybody away because they know that if they turn somebody away, that person might not get help.
Leah: They might not get any help.
Annie: That is the worst, I have to say.
Leah: They are against the wall, like against a wall.
Annie: I had to find it really hard to brainstorm strategies for that person.
Leah: There is a lot of people who do tele-lactation, you know over the interwebs, that do not in-person but they're going to do it through Skype or the different platforms that you can do telemedicine, and that might be a resource for somebody who's in a more isolated area where they are the only LC in the area is to have in your back pocket when you know, okay, I've hit my limit. I need to refer these people out that you're not saying, okay I have nothing for you, but at least you have something for them, you know.
Annie: Yes, something you know. And also just to say that there's a huge need out there and to check your superhero cape at the door because you can't help everyone.
Leah: Yes.
Annie: And so just to accept that and say I have a policy that I am going to recognize that I don't help everyone and be okay with that and to say, you know what? It is awful that we live in a world where babies aren't going to breastfeed because there's only one lactation consultant in this entire area, and that person ran out of visits and isn't willing to create more room in their schedule to see more people. That is not your problem. You don't have to solve that and you can't solve that and I'm going to tell you exactly how you're not going to solve it. You're not going to solve it by burning yourself out so you're not going to do it anymore and then your community will have nobody.
Leah: Nobody. I know, or you're trying to see everybody and you can't give your best help if you're completely compassion fatigued out and running on empty yourself. You're not going to give the people the help that they are needing at that moment and I was actually just talking to a friend who's also in a helper role and was feeling this exact feeling like I have to add more appointment slots. I have to open up more. I've got to! I'm going to come in on my off day and I'm like, if you think about it, you could literally work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you still wouldn't be able to help every single baby out there. So decide on how many babies are, or whoever you're working with and you can help and do your absolute very, very best at those. And then you're making a huge contribution, but running yourself dry, seeing everybody you can, trying to squeeze everything in, you're not going to make as big an impact as you think you will.
Annie: This is like a very not totally accurate metaphor, but so you have a pitcher full of water and you're going to give 50 people a little bit of water and they're all going to go away saying, man, I'm still thirsty. I wish I had more water. But if you give one person a giant glass of water and they drink it down and they're satisfied and it met their need...
Leah: That's a huge impact.
Annie: Yes, it's different. Those other people are still thirsty, and I am devastated for those other people that are still thirsty. I don't think any lactation consultant who is in this for the right reasons is not going to be heartbroken for the people that get turned away. And again, you can only do what you can with what you have and take what you can do and do your best at it.
Leah: You can be awesome at it.
Annie: You can be awesome for those people who do see you and you don't know what it's going to happen in your community, and you might be saying, gosh, I don't even have the bandwidth to mentor somebody or train somebody, but wanting to find ways to make being a lactation consultant seem attractive and exciting as a career possibility so that you can get some competition. Healthy competition is good for everyone, so you're not alone. And I think what Leah and I definitely want to communicate to those of you who are really stuck in that bind, is that we hear you and we believe you and we don't think that it's anything small that you're dealing with.
Leah: No, and there is no easy answer.
Annie: No easy answer, and so we just want you to know that we're here for you and we want the world to be a better place specifically for you at this moment.
Leah: And you know, another area. So being in that situation is hugely draining, but I think another area, and I see this a lot right when you're starting out the gates is you're so excited to get to help people that you almost want breastfeeding to work out way more than they do. So you're putting so much emotional energy into their outcome, and so much time and so much extra into their outcome, but maybe that family doesn't match you in that and then it can be so draining when they're not in that same place. They are not wanting it as bad as you're wanting it and then you feel defeated and crushed when it doesn't work out, but they weren't able to put in that same level, or that wasn't a fit for them, whatever the case may be. There's a hundred different scenarios, but we always have to kind of check ourselves and remember that we can't want it more than that family wants it, and we're there to provide them the resources and the plan, but we can't go past that. We can give them all the support that they need, but we can't make it more than what they're willing to do themselves, and I think that's a place that it's really hard, tough lessons to learn in the beginning is that. I know I went into so many consults over follow up, doing so much over following, so much pouring myself into this, trying to get this to work for this family when it really just wasn't going to be the fit for them.
Annie: That wasn't their story. That wasn't what they wanted or where they were going. It wasn't their goals. I love that you can't want it more than they do, and I also love the one that I heard when I was first starting out was not my baby. It's not my baby.
Leah: Yes, and we can love them and support them and know that their choices are their choices and also match what level of push they want to push, but that's a fine little tuning that you have to do in your practice over time. So you probably won't get it perfectly in the beginning, but awareness of where is this family at and am I matching what they're doing or am I pushing harder than what they are because that drains you so much and then it's so defeating when you feel like I've put everything I have into this situation and then it's still didn't work out and you didn't have control because it's not your situation to work out. It's your job to lead them, but you can't make them follow, and so it is so challenging. I found the name of that book for you.
Annie: What is it?
Leah: So it's Keep the Fires Burning: Conquering stress and burnout as a Mother-Baby Professional.
Annie: We all need to read that book. Next on my list.
Leah: Yes. It's a great, great book. And so to wrap up Annie, before we get to your tech tip, I just wanted us to share a couple of things that you and I have done because I think we'll all at some point, even if we're doing all these strategies to prevent compassion fatigue, there's situations and times that it's going to happen. So when you're screaming at the people in the parking lot, what is your go-to strategy for overcoming compassion fatigue?
Annie: My personal go-to strategy is that I take a look at my schedule and I say I'm going to use some work time to catch up on something that is not seeing clients. So my personal situation is because I home-school my kids, all of my work time is time that I am paying for. So there's extra stress that I put on myself, which is I'm paying for this drop-in program that they're doing or for them to take a class that I'm dropping them off at, or whatever it is. That's like money coming out of my pocket, and it's really hard for me to not try to fill all of that with clients, but I have learned over the years that if I'm feeling that overwhelmed, that means I'm seeing too many people and I need to take just three hours even to be in my house, my apartment alone - which I never am - because I home-school my children.
There are always other people here. So the only time that I can be alone is if my kids are doing childcare. That's for me to work. So giving myself permission to do that and also resisting the urge to squeeze people in and arrange for additional childcare so I can see that person, and that is so hard for me to do. I'm always happy when I'm able to do it and just say, you know what? I am not going to work an extra client this week. I'm just not going to do it because I have other things that I need to do, and I don't need to balance them against the value of doing a breastfeeding consult. I'm going to do them because I want to do them and they're valuable to me and they're what's going to keep me going and that's it.
Leah: Yeah. And for me as a small business owner and entrepreneur, I can fill any non-family activity time with something to do with my business, and when I'm feeling compassion fatigue, one, I jump in with tons of self-care. So am I eating well? Am I getting plenty of rest? Because that's like first go-to for me. I don't want my body to shut down on me. Am I exercising? Have I missed any of that? Because I am so overwhelmed right now. I start there and then the next thing I do, I know for me, if my boys all are at a friend's house, I'm like, Oh I could get some work done. I could do this thing on my website or add some Facebook posts. I'm always thinking in that where can I squeeze in more things, and so when I'm feeling compassion fatigue, I shut everything down. I close all the computers. If the kids are all occupied and they don't need me at that moment, I'm literally going to vegetate, which is so rare. You could ask my husband. That woman never stops and I don't watch TV. I'm just always going. It's so powerful for me because it doesn't take that long. It might be just a half a day on a weekend. Everybody's occupied and I do nothing. I didn't even know.
Annie: Why is that the hardest thing to do?
Leah: It's so powerful. I will literally just sit in it. I'll sit on the back porch and not look at anything and not listen to anything or not do anything. It's like literally I have a vegetable moment, and I just sit and I eat good food and just do nothing. And so that's my kind of go-to thing to do. And I sometimes really look forward to when you have Saturday and nothing's going on. Oh goodness. I'm going to vegetate for a minute.
Annie: It might not be for long.
Leah: I can usually not tolerate it for a really long time, but it's so recharging for me to just have that. I'm not going to put myself in any pressure to do anything. I'm just going to have a vegetable moment for my brain. I love it.
Annie: Yeah. Great. I love it.
Leah: Self-care’s so important for us too. We can't even forget about our own needs.
Annie: Totally. I went on a vacation last summer and there was one morning where everyone was doing something and I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to do. I just ended up walking around for like 90 minutes.
Leah: Oh wow!
Annie: And my feet were just moving and I had no destination and I was like, this is weird. I am always going, going, going.
Leah: A plan. I'm doing this for a purpose.
Annie: I think for people like us who are really energetic and who - let's face it - I love to work. I love to work, but it is not good for me to work all the time even though I love it. I love chocolate chex and it is not good for me to eat chocolate chex at every meal of the day. We are not going to link to chocolate chex in the show notes. Please don't follow my example on this, but they are delicious.
Leah: Oh yes, I can totally understand. My go-to thing I do is low-carb kind of fits my diet and there's this stuff called keto bars and everybody out there is not allowed to go buy this, because it goes out of stock all the time. So don't go buy it because I need to make sure my shipment comes, but this is my secret. It just picks me up. No matter where I am, if I'm having a bad day or whatever, I'm just like, I get to go sneak in there and it's super expensive and a luxury, but I just like, Oh, it's so good. It has no sugar in it. So I don't feel bad about it at all.
Annie: You have to take care of yourself because if you don't take care of yourself, there won't be anyone to take care of the families who need you and who are depending on you, and that's going to lead to compassion fatigue. You know what? You're going to get it and that's okay too. Just don't keep it inside. Don't try to deal with it by throwing more work on top of it. Recognize that you are valuable and you are worth taking care of.
Leah: Absolutely. And before we go, Annie, tell us about your tech tip for the day.
Annie: So my tech tip has to do with little small strategies you can do to turn off your work mind, and so I am obsessed with snoozing my emails. So listen, I'm not going to get into the whole thing, like how many notifications of unread messages anybody has on their phone. If it's like 32,000 I don't want to hear about it. It makes me super anxious to see. So I'm somebody who keeps my inbox really clean. But anytime some new message comes in, I get that dopamine hit and I'm like, Oh, I've got to respond. I have got to do something about it and I use snooze. And I say, you know what? It is Thursday at 6:00 PM and we're going to have dinner soon and we're going to do bedtime and I'm not going to work, and I took a quick look at this and it is nothing that I need to deal with and I will snooze it until when I know that I can sit down and deal with it. And then the beautiful, magical thing for me, which is once I snooze it, it goes away from my brain. I stop thinking about it and that is magic for me, because I don't stop thinking about anything. My mind is always going and it's a curse.
Leah: Oh Annie, we're so much alike. It's scary. But I have a question though. So you say snooze it, is this like a button I'm pushing?
Annie: So it'll be a little different in different email clients, but I use Gmail to access my email. So I have my free Gmail account for personal and then I've got a G-suite for my client work, and I use the inbox interface to access it, which I just really like the way the inbox looks, and they recently added snooze to regular Gmail. They've been rolling it out so even if you've been using the classic Gmail view, you'll now see a little bit button at the top. It looks like a clock and you click on that and then you type in when you want to see that email come up again and then it pops up like it's a new message. So it's great. It's a great reminder.
Leah: It's amazing. Oh I love this idea.
Annie: I think Outlook can probably do that too if you're accessing your emails through that, but I love it. It's great cause as soon as I snooze it, my brain says no longer a threat. I don't have to deal with this. Go think about something else, and then it pops back up and it's new so it gets my attention.
Leah: And you hit snooze again.
Annie: I get two dopamine hits off one email. Amazing.
Leah: That is such an amazing tip. I love all these tech tips because although I think I'm fairly tech savvy, you seem to always find something I don't know about and I get so excited because now I'm going to have to try this.
Annie: You have to try it. You'll get addicted to it. I love it because it's really made a big different to my communications. It's really helpful for most of all for me are the inquiries. I got your name from my childbirth class teacher, I'm due with my baby in January and I'm like, I'll snooze that till next week. I mean, maybe not next week but I'll snooze it until tomorrow. I don't need to respond to that right away, and I certainly don't need it taking up any bandwidth in my brain when I have consults. That person does not need to hear back from me right away.
Leah: Right. I love that. I think that's so powerful. And again, it's just another extra strategy to help us work on not getting ourselves overwhelmed with answering every email, every text and talking to every person and seeing every visit. It's really another great strategy for helping us combat that compassion fatigue. Well Annie, it has been another amazing talk with you. I am so grateful for this time we have together.
Annie: Me too. It's just great to find out that I'm not alone with my thoughts about all of this, and I really hope that if you're out there and you're listening and you're like, I am too feeling not alone with my thoughts and that's great. Reach out to us, send us an email, leave a comment on our show page. We've got a page on Facebook or just say hi to us if you're in a group with us. Say hi to us. We love our Facebook groups, me and Leah.
Leah: Yeah, we love connecting. And also the next thing that we need from you guys is if there's a show topic that you're hearing, like, Oh, that made me think of this and I really want to have Annie and Leah talk about just anything that has to do with lactation business, please let us know. You can, like I said, reach out on Facebook, on email, on our show notes, just anywhere. We'd love to hear your feedback on what topics are important to you and we've gotten many more great ones coming up, so stay tuned. It was great talking with you, Annie.
Annie: You too, Leah
Leah: Thanks for listening to Lactation Business Coaching with Annie and Leah. If you liked this podcast, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.