Holding Space for Infertility
How can we apply best practices and hold space for individuals facing infertility? In what way can birth workers, individuals experiencing infertility, and those who offer care/support strengthen our skills to transform the stigma and silence that so often accompanies infertility?
All are welcome to join Amy Wright Glenn, the founder of the Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath, and Death, in the exploration of these topics this October.
Description
Holding Space for Infertility
Wednesdays
October 1, 8, & 15
1-3pm EST
Holding Space for Infertility is presented live via Zoom and recorded for all participants.
💔
Amy Wright Glenn’s self-guided Holding Space for Pregnancy Loss trainings have strengthened and inspired birth workers, doulas, midwives, chaplains, and bereaved parents. These trainings have helped shift the paradigm of our collective understanding of grief, pregnancy loss, and ritual.
Now, for the first time, Amy will apply the Institute’s innovative paradigm to infertility which, according to the National Institutes of Health, impacts (on average) 1 in ten adults.
Strengthen your skills to companion, nourish the support network, and draw upon the healing power of ritual when it comes to supporting individuals through infertility.
All are welcome to take this 8-hour training. Birth workers and those who have lived through, experienced, and suffered with infertility are particularly welcome.
I wish more people understood that infertility is one of the loneliest,
most terrifying things a person can experience.
It changes you to your core.
~ Cheryl Dowling
Holding Space for Infertility includes:
- 6-hours of live module/webinar time with Amy ~ offered up through the Zoom. (All modules are recorded for participants)
- Personal journal reflection/writing based upon prompts provided in each of the three 2-hour modules of study.
- Small study group/discussion on Cheryl Dowling’s book “Unspoken ~ The Unbearable Weight of Infertility”
The three modules of study include:
1. Applying the companioning model of bereavement care: At the heart of the practice of holding space is the work of companioning the bereaved with compassionate presence. Strengthen your capacity to show up with compassion, skill, and mindful presence to support those facing the unique confusion, anxiety, and grief of infertility.
2. Strengthening support networks: Consider how to “comfort in/dump out” in the work of supporting individuals facing infertility. Nourish their support networks ~ and your own, as self care is central to care giving. Review what is helpful to say ~ and not to say.
3. The healing power of ritual: Focus on the various elements of ritual and learn to craft creative, personalized, and transformtive rituals that support individuals facing infertility. Consider how the role of ritual (secular and/or religious) can support a holistic integration of the complex emotions surrounding infertility.
All participants are required to read Unspoken ~ The Unbearable Weight of Infertility by Cheryl Dowling
*Certificates of Completion issued by the Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath, and Death are offered for all who complete the training.
