Living Happiness

A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to stumble across a wonderful article in The Calm Space written by a blogger whom I’d never met before, Stacey Curnow of Midwife for Your Life. In her article, she wrote about inspiration and not giving up on one’s dream: something I very much needed to hear at the time … and which all of us probably need to be reminded of now and then.

Because this article was a guest post for Stacey, I immediately paid a visit to her own home ground, her own beautiful website, coaching platform, and blog: Midwife for Your Life. And I discovered that her passion for helping women give birth had naturally led to another purpose and passion: helping women give birth to a life they love.

One of the things that intrigued me most about Stacey was that she was a certified nurse-midwife: I’d never met a nurse-midwife before! Right away, I wanted to know more about her and how she chose such an interesting profession. And after reading the insightful, poignant, uplifting words of Midwife for Your Life (I’ve been visiting almost every day for a month now), I wanted to know more about how her passions and pursuits inform her work and her writing on a daily basis.

I let her know of my interest, and she responded in kind: she particularly liked a post I’d written in response to one of her posts. And we both agreed that it might be nice to get the word out about each other.

So today we have a special treat: Stacey has graciously agreed to an interview here at Living Happiness. And for those of you who missed my post, Remembering You, you can catch it again today over on Midwife for Your Life.

So without further ado, here is my delightful interview with Stacey about her amazing work and how she herself has given birth to the life she loves.

How did you make the decision to become a nurse-midwife? What sparked your interest in midwifery?

I could say my father and brother were physicians and that I’ve always been interested in women and health care, and that’s true, but really it comes down to the “Hand of God.” After I graduated from college, I worked as a nanny. When I thought of a long-term “career” I was clueless. One day I was looking through a free, local, parenting magazine for activities for my young charge and saw an ad for a women’s health center staffed by midwives. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

I didn’t even know that midwives existed in a professional capacity – I thought they were the stuff of folklore – and I was intrigued. And that’s the moment I would say I felt the “Hand of God” – it seemed to be pushing me to this clinic. I was overdue for a yearly checkup, so I made an appointment and ended up talking for more than an hour with the midwife who did my exam.

I left there knowing that I wanted to be a midwife and that I would do whatever it took to become one. Good thing, too, because it took 7 years! That was almost 20 years ago, and I still love the profession as much as I believed and hoped I would the day I left that clinic.

You are also a life-coach and your business, which includes a website, blog, and series of coaching programs, is called Midwife for Your Life. What prompted you to begin it? What is the core message you hope to convey there?

I’m actually not “trained” or certified as a life coach, but when I first heard of the profession, I thought, “That’s what I do every day.”

Only a fraction of my work as a midwife has to do with physical aspects of care (like blood pressure or fetal heart rate). The vast majority of my time with a client involves listening to her dreams for the life that’s growing inside her, the birth she desires, and the mother she wants to become.

It’s all just perfectly complementary to life coaching – everyone is gestating new ideas, dreams, and goals for themselves all the time. As a midwife, I help women give birth to their babies. As a life coach, I can help anyone give birth to a life they love.

You have a new children’s book, Ravenna, that will be published later this spring. Can you tell us a little about the story and what inspired you to write it?

I’ve always loved children’s picture stories, and I filled bookshelves with them even before I had a child but never imagined writing one. That changed when, in preparation for my first child, I read a book on parenting, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla Kabat-Zinn and Jon Kabat-Zinn. It included the story of Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady: I loved the story but was a little dismayed that it revolved around physical beauty and romantic love.

I decided Ravenna would be my reinterpretation of the medieval legend. It’s about a boy who develops a magical relationship with a talking bear and finds his heart’s desire. Then he learns a lesson about freedom and friendship and must make a difficult choice. The story ends up being a celebration of autonomy, interconnectedness, and being in nature.

Let’s talk a little bit now about you as a person. If I were meeting you for the first time, what would my first impression of you be? Would I be correct?

Once in my 10th grade Social Studies class, we had to pair up with another student and talk to them for five minutes. We had to then come up with two words to describe the other person.

I was new to the school and nobody knew me, and even after talking to my partner about myself for five minutes, she said, “I don’t know her, I don’t have anything to say.” The teacher said, “Oh, I can tell you two words for Stacey: lovingly empathetic.” I almost burst into tears right there – the memory of it still brings tears to my eyes.

I felt like such an outsider, but somehow that teacher saw me. I don’t even know if I believed her – I was just so grateful she was kind and had something nice to say about me – but now I think, “Yes, that fits.” In any event, that’s who I want to be, and on my best days that’s who I am.

What qualities do you like most about yourself?

A quality I really like about myself is that I’m generally curious and cheerful. I’m interested in almost everything (except local politics, much to my husband’s chagrin) – I’m a “7” on the Enneagram: an “enthusiast,” someone who is always seeking new and exciting experiences.

I’m passionate about different cultures and really love traveling and learning new languages. I love when I find myself thinking, “I can’t wait to see how this turns out,” as I start any number of new adventures!

I also like that I’m pretty unselfconscious – I’d rather share my struggles than look like I’ve got it all together. For example, I can be deceitful, manipulative, petty, jealous and unkind – even quite recently! I’m not proud of these qualities, but they are a part of me. I just don’t believe they – or any qualities – define me. I’m so glad I know that!!! I’m learning to get my needs met in life without resorting to hurtful behavior … I want to be a better person. Who doesn’t?

Finally, I like that I’d always rather do something and do it poorly – even fail – than not try something because I was afraid. One of my favorite expressions (and I apply it to my business a lot) is “I’m building this plane as I’m flying it.”

What makes you laugh? How do you keep fun in your life?

This is another thing I like about myself: I love to laugh, and I laugh easily and often. My husband is hilarious and makes me laugh every day, although he would say he’s not that funny and I’m just an easy audience. (Just today he had me in stitches with a Winston Churchill impersonation.) And my just-turned-5-year-old son is also a constant source of mirth and merriment. And then there’s our crazy funny, 8-year-old Jack Russell terrier. Really, our family is a madcap menagerie!

I also make spending time with my girlfriends a priority. I see at least one of them every week, either for lunch, a walk, or a margarita.

If you could give your 20-year old self some advice, what would it be? What would you tell her?

When I was 20 I had no idea who I wanted to be when I grew up. As I mentioned, my father was a physician and my older brother was in medical school, and I perceived a lot of pressure to choose an “important” profession, but as I mentioned earlier, too, I’m an “enthusiast,” so a lot of different paths looked attractive to me.

I didn’t know how to make the decision of which path to choose. So my advice to my 20-year old self would be to choose. Just commit. One of my favorite quotes is from Scottish mountaineer, W.H. Murray:

I could never have imagined how my life would open up to me after I made my decision to become a midwife. And I believe 100% that it would have opened as fully to me if I had pursued any other path – because this has definitely held true for any other dream or goal I’ve committed to.

Another of my favorite quotes is from Einstein: «It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.» I would say to my 20-year-old self, “Stick with your decision, stay committed.”

Thank you so much Stacey for taking the time today to share yourself, your work, and your passion with my readers. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you a bit more, and I hope that we will continue to be able to support one another in our endeavours.

With this in mind, I would like to share the following with our readers:

Special Note: Stacey is giving a FREE teleseminar on 4 Simple Steps to Give Birth to a Life You Love! tomorrow on Thursday, May 6th, at 8 pm EST. You can register for this special call by clicking here.

Stacey Curnow works as a certified nurse-midwife in North Carolina, and is the founder of Midwife for Your Life: a website, blog, and series of coaching programs designed to help women give birth to a life they love.

For more than 15 years her career has taken her from western Indian reservations to a center-city Bronx hospital to the mountains of southwestern Mexico. Many of her articles have been published in print magazines and online.

Stacey received her nursing degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her master’s degree in midwifery from Yale University. She has been a student of positive psychology for years and has applied it to her midwifery and coaching practices with great success.

She lives in Asheville, NC, with her husband, her young son, Ruby the Wonder Chicken, and Ruby’s sidekick: Spencer the Wonder Dog.

Stacey, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

Namaste,

As many of you know, things have recently gotten pretty bad for Greece. The country has debts it can’t pay off, is operating at a loss … and is now contemplating a bailout that will have it paying upwards of 15% interest for God knows how many years. To say things are bad is an understatement. Things are scary as he**. People feel like they’ve wandered into someone else’s nightmare.

Friends of mine are worried. “Austerity measures” are being taken: their pay is being decreased by 7%, they’re losing their Christmas and Easter bonuses, their pensions are being frozen, and there’s probably more bad news to come.

For many people who were already just barely making ends meet (a lot of people), this may be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back: “Where is the money going to come from to pay our bills this summer? How are we going to pay for our kids’ schooling?” These are just a few of the questions being asked as tensions run high. And, as you can probably imagine, it is almost impossible for G and I not to be affected by it, too.

Over the past month, we too have found ourselves taking a close look at our life and our finances and asking ourselves, “How will we purchase the furniture that’s still needed for the living room? Or the car that we desperately need to buy this year? And what about just being able to put some money by each month: the emergency fund we may need, the little bit extra for a rainy day?” We ask ourselves these questions and begin panicking because we don’t have the answers. We get depressed and then “don’t want to talk about it.” We both spend several sleepless nights worrying about a future that hasn’t even happened yet.

It was during one of these mutual worry sessions the other day that my Inner Voice finally took advantage of a lull in our conversation to jump in with a few words of her own.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she said. “Hold it for a minute. You’ve got enough, don’t you?”

G and I, caught by surprise and definitely a little puzzled, “Huh?”

“You have enough,” she repeated … and then began to lead us through the situation, one question at a time.

“Did you have enough to pay your rent this month,” she asked. Yes.
“Did you have enough to pay your electricity?” Yes.
“Your water?” Yes.
“Your phone and internet?” Yes.
“Did you have enough to buy your groceries every day?” Yes.
“What about the gas in G’s bike?” Yes.
“The personal toiletries you need?” Yes.
“Have you gone without?” No.
“So every need you have has been met?” Yes.

“I rest my case, then,” she said, “You have enough.” And she paused for a moment to let the truth sink in.

She was right. G and I had nothing we could say that would refute her for, like a wise parent, she had soundly shown us the Universe’s provision. For us to complain of our plight, to insist on more than what we’ve received, this would have been the height of greed, selfishness, thanklessness, and conceit — two greedy kids handed their more than ample weekly allowance having the gall to still beg for more and complain if it wasn’t given. We, G and I, knew it was time to stop. Enough was enough.

Since this conversation, we have occasionally been tempted to come back with a, “Yes, but what if … ?” To which a reply is always given before we can even finish the question: “Well, if that happens, we’ll take care of it then.”

And once again G and I are silenced and reminded to be present in our present. A present which, we have been assured, is more than abundant. Enough is more than enough.

Abundant blessings to you today,

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