Deeply Well with Devi BrownElaine Welteroth, award-winning journalist and author, discusses the importance of purpose and how it guides her career and life. She emphasizes the need to define what you stand for and what you care about more than money or titles. Welteroth also reflects on her time as the youngest editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue and the challenges she faced in navigating her purpose within the constraints of the title.
Devi and Elaine have a moment of praise for Oprah Winfrey; as an example of someone who has used her platform to empower and elevate others.
Welteroth also shares her experience of being a mother and how it has expanded her understanding of purpose and service. Motherhood inspired her work with Birth Fund, an organization focused on expanding access to midwifery care and improving maternal health in the United States. She points out the broken medical system and the maternal health crisis in the country, emphasizing that the issue affects all families, regardless of socioeconomic status. She explains the importance of midwifery care and the need for more options and resources for birthing people.
Connect: @DeviBrown @ElaineWelteroth
Learn More: TheBirthFund.com
Support: Make a donation to The Birth Fund
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Hold it.
Now, release slowly again, deep in, helle hold release, repeating internally to yourself as you connect to my voice. I am deeply, deeply well. I am deeply deep well. I am deeply.
Well.
I'm Debbie Brown and this is the Deeply Well Podcast. Welcome to Deeply Well, a soft place to land, a podcast for the curious and creative who are ready to expand in higher consciousness and self care. I'm Debbie Brown. This is where we heal, this is where we become. Today's episode, Oh my god, we are going to go off the places. I'm so excited to share my guests with you today. Award winning journalist, New York Times best selling author and judge on Project Runway, Elaine Welter Roth is an award winning journalist, TV host, and author of the instant New York Times best selling book More Than Enough, which won the twenty twenty NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. At age twenty nine, she was named the youngest editor in chief in Conde nas history, where under her leadership, team Vogue evolved into a platform that elevates marginalized voices and amplifies political discourse. After spending more than a decade climbing the ranks of magazine journalism, Elaine can now be seen on television weekly doling out fashion industry advice as a judge on Bravo's Project Runway. Her masterclass on Redesigning your Career debuted in twenty twenty one and has helped thousands navigate career transitions. Now, her popular new advice column, Askalane appears in The Washington Post, exploring how to navigate pivots in life with more ease and less inks. In addition to the Washington Post, her writing appears in The New York Times, British Vogue, and Time. She is a new mom living with her husband in LA and to say the least has just birthed something so powerful for women. Welcome to the show, Elaine.
Thank you so much, Debbie. That was beautiful.
I could listen to your voice all day. I could just listen to you read me the alphabet.
Oh my god, Okay, I'm going to leave you a voice and be like, eh, yeah.
Please, yeah, I feel like I'm dropping my I'm like getting more breathy and getting more vivy just listening to you.
Oh my gosh, you're so generous. Ele. We have so much to talk about. Thank you so much for joining me. I mean, you were doing really powerful things in the world before we get into like the big thing that I can't wait to sink my teeth into, especially as a mama. You know what I've noticed from you and your work from Afar is you have been weaving purpose for a really, really long time. And I remember very distinctly when I first you first kind of came into my orbit, when you first took on the position as the youngest editor in chief and teen Vogue, and I remember in that moment how monumental that was and how much that shifted things, I think for so many people, and especially through the ways that you shaped a magazine that you wanted to expect so many of the things that came from your rain, You wanted to expect those things to come from that publication. And so it's really powerful and really intentional. And from seeing your transition to then continuing to do just like a bevy of forward facing projects in the world, having your book and the things that you teach and share in the book, and now this monumental offering with birth fund. I mean, how have you noticed and recognized your purpose and how have you've seen it kind of evolved but still be the truth of what it is and all the dynamics that you've been applying it to.
I love this question.
I love this as a place to start because I think sometimes, you know, you mentioned about my plum talking about career pivots and life pivots, and I think people are like, oh, she's like the pivot queen. It's like, you can call it that, But really, to me, the thread is purpose.
And yeah, purpose.
Is multi pronged, So it's really not about taking a sharp left or a sharp right from the designated destination. It's about where is purpose guiding me next? Where can I be most of service? Where can I grow even more? Where can I expand? And so I think when I look back through my career and even at any point in my career looking forward, I've always been guided by purpose and the purpose, the thread has been there. Whether people recognize that or not, you know, that's not for me to teut, but for you to recognize that, for you to say that, for you to lead with that makes me feel seen and understood in a way because all of these disparate things that maybe make me the sort of like the framing might be multi hyphen it, and that's fine, but really it's I hope that when people experience my work that they experience the same that thread of purpose and soul work and heart work and in elevating of consciousness in different mediums.
Like that's really what it's about.
And as I've grown, and as my perspective has shifted, and as my purview has expanded, as life experience has enlightened me and taught me new lessons, I feel compelled and convicted to share that through my work in whatever medium. And I think the beauty of being a storyteller and a creator and just a person in this world in this era is that there are no limits. Yeah right now how you can apply yourself and those lessons and those skill sets that you pick up along the way.
And I think we're in.
Such a beautiful age where that old concept of an American dream has fallen away. The idea that you can only be one thing, that you can only aspire to one career path is now outdated, and we now know that we get to design and redesign ourselves and our path as we go, right, and the goal is to allow, as you said so beautifully, purpose, to beat the thread that weaves together that beautiful tapestry of experiences and stories and work that we all get to leave behind.
Oh my god, I love that. I love this so much. You hit the nail on the head in a few different ways. I realized recently. I was like looking back through these like my storage and finding all this stuff that I've done and worked on over the years. And I realized that I've been giving talks on purpose for exactly fifteen years, and there was always this thread, and I talked about it while in different careers. But I believe the equation of purpose. The equation I found is it's a mixture of the wisdom gleaned from your lived experience, the skills you've amassed so far, you're innate, gifts and service. And it's not purpose if it's not in service to something more than you.
You know.
And I think the last ten years kind of culturally we've been in this zeitgeist and it's not all bad. And I know everyone listening and here's me talk about this all the time, but it's been all about kind of performance. The optics of how you look to someone else, right, the validation. It's been about job titles.
Right.
This has been a very tidally time. You know, everything is about kind of you know, like what is the fanciest kind of way to say something or what is the catchiest name for business you've made. But it's like people aren't always peeking behind the hood to say, well, what is the business or what is the purpose or how does it serve or how does it do anything other than kind of edify the person you know that wants to share. And it's so powerful because to your point, especially you know, and I don't. I haven't. I haven't caught that, so I don't think that that is seen about you. But from the outside looking in, I know I've definitely gotten that too, where you know, people be like, oh my god, I'm obsessed with what you've done in the wellness industry or with this pivot, and I'm like, yeah, it's not really a pivot. This has been my life, my whole life. And you know, it's like it's using my voice, but now in a way that I really know, it's like channeled from God as opposed to using my voice and being trained to use my voice in broadcasting for many years, you know, But it's that evolution, and the evolution is the new ways that you serve with that equation, with everything that you've amassed.
It's interesting that you're centering this conversation or starting the conversation around purpose and the difference between purpose and job titles. Yeah, because I do think that in my magazine editor era, titles held so much weight and so much of your value in the world was defined by the title that you carried, and so your title chasing, right, not necessarily purpose chasing.
And I always, while I was focused.
On sort of, you know, excelling in my career and getting to that next promotion, I also felt the weight of the responsibility that came with that title. As someone who looked different than most people who held those titles, I saw it as an opportunity to bring a different perspective, to tell a different story, to open the door to a new kind of person, so that we could redefine the title rather than the title defining us. And ultimately, when I decided to graduate from the title of magazine editor, which had come to define me, you know, that moment of transitioning or that moment of transitioning into the Teen Vogue editor in Chief title that kind of went viral, which is something that you don't prepare for, you don't anticipate, you don't curate. That's a moment God made happen, right, And I look back in hindsight and I say, thank God, Thank you God, not for the publicity or the notoriety, but for that divine setup for everything that you were going to use me to do. Thank you for that platform. And what was happening behind the scenes was not as glamorous as what it looked like on the outside, and so that timeframe was actually really challenging for me.
There was a lot of that.
I felt very disintegrated, Like you know, there was a perception and then there was a lived reality, and they were different. But I felt the weight of carrying this crown that I was handed and now I have to make it look good and everybody's excited for me.
Let me embrace that.
But also I was navigating a lot internally professionally throughout that experience, and so ultimately I felt like I was able to trans that title into purpose work. I was able to take what that title meant and transform it into something different, and then something that suited me and my purpose work better, or that just felt more aligned. I was able to try to create some alignment within a world I didn't always feel I fit into, with a world whose values I didn't always subscribe to. I was able to take what came with that title and the publicity that came with it, and the respect and the power and.
Sort of.
Transfer it into spaces where I felt we needed more spotlight, and the voices that deserved a platform, we were able to lift them up.
But at the point in which I.
Felt that I had graduated, I was ready to graduate that title and move on, and I saw all the things that God had for me, even though other people didn't see it.
People saw this job as like.
The pinnacle, like the mountaintop, like why would you ever, you know, abandon that title, Like that title is your value in this world.
And while I saw that and.
Felt that that's what people believed about me, I believed something different about me, and I knew that God had something more for me. And so I feel so blessed now to look back at that time and think, think, and again say thank you God for helping to liberate me from that title and the ways in which it could have kept me hostage to spaces that were actually too small for what he had me to do in the world. Right, But that you go through this like part of the evolution also looks like the metamorphosis, right of like a butterfly, you go through this like wormy phase where it's like you just don't it doesn't look good. It doesn't look to the world right, like it doesn't look fully formed. It's not colorful yet, it's not you know, like the form isn't there right, and you just feel mushy and exposed, and like, you know, you know what you're metamorphosis, or you hope you have a vision of what it's going to lead to.
But I think there was this awkward phase of.
Taking off that cloak of that title and going through that metamorphosis now publicly in a way, with the pressure of having something to prove to the world and feeling like I had to I had to come with what was next I prove? And so now I feel so liberated. I feel so free from all of that, and I feel the thing that I have I have always believed about me and everybody else. I now feel like I can live in that reality, which is it's not about what you do, it's about what you stand for. Yes, right, yes, And that's what I've always cared about, but that's not always with the world that I've occupied has valued or that's not how they have seen things. And so you sort of have to play the role to gain the respect in that world, and then you have to figure out how to transcend that world and make and make the kind of impact you want to make and stand for something. So for me, I hope and you know, as people listen to this, because I do think that sometimes conversations about purpose seem a bit, a bit ambiguous, a bit vague, a bit woo woo, a bit like yes, but what does that mean? And like what does that look like? What does it feel like to have one? How do you know if you have a purpose? How do you know if you've outgrown the purpose? Like what if you're trying to formulate your purpose?
You know?
And so I think like sometimes using different language is helpful because sometimes purpose just feels so big, that.
Question of like what's your purpose?
It's like yeah, oh, it's like a big oprah question. And so you know, sometimes we're to intimidate it to even like engage with it. And I think a different way of framing it is what.
Do you stand for? Yes?
And when I think about values, which is another kind of like ooh, values, it's like I don't know what are my values? When I think about that, Like the question that I pose to myself and to anyone I'm in conversation with is what do you care about.
More than money?
Yeah?
Because well, we all are motivated by money to an extent.
We all deserve to live well, to be safe, to absolutely access to the things we.
Need, absolutely, and there's no shame in that. Especially as Black women. We have a responsibility to try to break some generational curses and some chains and to try to build up some generational wealth for the families that we are building cultivating and the lineage that comes after us. But I also believe that we are motivated by more than money, and we're not often asked about that motivation to tap into it. And so that's been helpful for me in guiding my career because now I'm in a stage like you where opportunities come to us or we have to create opportunities, and sometimes we have to put the price tag on that opportunity, or we have to say yes or no based on a price tag and a set of criteria. And so I think it's important to define for yourself what is your value system, what do you stand for, and what do I care about more than money, so that when opportunities present themselves, and when they come with money or not, you have a built in filter for how to make decisions along the way that are true to the purpose that was placed in you, and that will be part of the work that you will put into the world.
Deeply. Well, I hope everyone is really connecting to this in the core of themselves, really foundationally, because I resonate so deeply with so much of what you said, and so much of it was part. So many of the things that you have said and recognized about kind of the steps and some of the pain points about kind of navigating purpose are so so similar to experiences I've had where people will say, oh, you're crazy for leaving that you know, like what are you doing? And it's like sometimes you have a vision that the world doesn't catch up to for quite a while, or you know, I remember I was sharing I was sharing with someone recently. I forget what they said, like they were just like something along the lines, because now wellness is on trend right, like it's very, very in since twenty twenty, and I'm so grateful for that because it's not a fight to kind of get people to care in the same ways that.
It used to be, or to get it or to get it.
And want it and I to do value in it, you know. But I remember someone said to me, like, oh, yeah, I see you're in you know, you've gotten in the mental health space, and I said, you know, it's interesting because back when I was a number one rated radio personality, I actually had in twenty twelve and twenty fourteen, had started mental health shows before that term began, and I had hired myself a therapist to join me on the show this is ten twelve years ago, to talk to the community every episode about what the psychological you know, what's going on in our psyches as we process information. So I'm like, this has always been the truth of who I am and the truth of the way that I've used my gifts and skills, but it hasn't always been valuable to other people. So at the time that I was doing that, the feedback that I'd get from the higher ups where I worked was, well, why can't you like, why are you asking artists about suicide? Why are you asking them if they're depressed, Ask them about who they have beef with, ask them about who they're sleeping with. And so sometimes it takes you know much to your point. You have to trust what you value. You have to trust your integrity, You have to trust your dignity and your process, and know that if it feels really deep to you, no one else has to get it. There might be the divine time that those kind of paths collide and it all makes perfect sense. But even if it doesn't, you know why you're here and you need to get to work. You know, you need to serve. It's really powerful.
Totally.
I relate to what you're saying, and I think it's interesting I'm remembering now because I see you as like this version of Debbie Brown, but I know of this radio background and like we kind of both come from a journalist background, and it's so amazing to see how you have flipped that, or you know, transition to that into something that feels more aligned with absolutely your.
Soul work, like your purpose work.
And I hope it's inspiring to journalists who are listening, because I do think this is a hard time to be a journalist, and I've talked to so many journalists who feel like it's a bit of a dead end job and those jobs are getting cut and those jobs are not well paid and so but I see journalism and storytelling as so like such relevant skill.
Sets, Oh my god, that are in such.
Transferable skill sets for so many different career paths, and you can flip that into whatever you want to flip it into. So I just want to call that out because you are an example. I think we're both examples of like like in my in my situation, I say like editor afterlife, but in your case, it's like, you know, same thing. It's like, yeah, where do radio hosts take it? Well?
You know what's interesting too about journalism specif I found that anybody that is a good journalist has heightened intuition.
Oh, I've never heard anybody say that, but absolutely, one hundred.
You have these knowings, you have this way to go about finding things and information. You're tracking the evolution and all the pieces of storyline being formed. Like it's a very sensory highly intuitive kind of experience. Yes, so much. To your point, that skill set is useful in so many profound ways. You typically can be an excellent kind of wisdom keeper or teacher in any capacity. You know, put some respect yet question.
Yes, I love that so much. You have just put words to why. The one title that has always fit for me is journalist.
Yeah.
Regardless of what I'm doing in journalism, whether it's traditional or not, whether I working for a company you know or not, you are a journalist. It's like you either are or you're not. You are born this way. You are curious. You want to ask the deep real questions. You want to interrogate the truth of the matter, whatever it is, it's the truth.
You're a seeker of truth.
You are a seeker of truth.
And that is an identity I relate to. I proudly wear it like that's a job title that doesn't feel constraining or fraudulent to me. Like I've had titles where I'm like, yeah, yeah, I guess that's my title.
Huh, you know that's my lower thirds. That's what they say. I guess so, but me, Yeah, but this is like no, like this is this is like this is how I was.
Born, Like my mom would call me Barbara Wah wah when I was a little girl, because of all the questions I would ask were like little Oprah, I would this is who I have always been before anybody gave me a title, I was a journalist, and after the title that I graduated, I will always be a journalist. And I think that now that you've framed it that way for me, like it's actually something that's like it's part of your It's part of deeply who you are.
And Nate gifts, Yeah, Nate gifts skills amassed, you know. And it's like even even speaking to Oprah because I think she's one of the most God given, incredible, incredible archetypes of exactly everything that we're saying right now, it's like you start in journalism, right, yes, but ultimately she was designed by God to change the world and to bring a complete paradigm shift into the way that journalism is even done and into all the ways that you can be a journalist and what those kind of abilities can inspire in other people. You know, her storytelling of herself, of the world, of her guests, like it enriched people, It evolved people, It nourished people.
Yes, and she starts conversations that matter in a world that's focused on the wrong things often the distractions, the fluff and they, you know, and the clickbait that we will chase. You know that that media institutions will chase. She's going the other way. If you watch her career, she's always gone her own way and started conversations that mattered to her that then became to that that then began to matter in the public zeitecase. And she's still doing it now. So shout out to Oprah with that. I love Oprah, we are your children. We are so grateful for your life.
One hundred percent. She will forever be the north Star.
And even when I saw her recently on her special, was just like, look at Oprah, still doing Oprah.
This is what she's always done. Fine, looking so fine.
But but what I love about her is that she's always leaning into the nuance.
Yes she is.
She is inviting us into the gray spaces in a world that tells us it's either black or white and that we are meant to be divided and you're on this side or that side. She invites us into the common ground that is that is the great area in between. And she did it with Ozembic, She's done it with I mean, over the years, she has expanded our consciousness around things that might seem really controversial or very polarizing and helped us find through our own empathy and humanity.
That we can.
She expands our understanding absolutely, you know, and then therefore our connection to each other. And I'm just in awe of HER's that And that's truly when I look at when I interrogate, like what I'm here to do, it's that.
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Whenever you know, the few times that criticisms kind of pop up about her, I'm always like, oh, you didn't watch her every day after school? And it shows that part because if you really, I mean, I would run home as a child, run home three pm in LA and I'd be.
Like four pm in North California.
Yes, it was parenting, It was you know it. The way that she even was unashamed about the pain points of her life, to me is one of the most striking things that I think changed us cellularly on an emotional level. People that watched her, you know, your ability to own your story and not be reduced by it. She embodied that.
Yes, she was the original influencer in that way, yo, you know what I mean, Like, because journals are trained to not talk about themselves, you're not meant to be a subject. But the way that she generously shared herself with us, her vulnerabilities, you know, the secrets of her weight loss journey, for example. She has just given us such an intimate look into who she is and the soul of this person and the character of this person. And it's made us grow to trust her, and so she can she can now shine that light on any topic and we will follow her. We will follow her and wherever she will go, we want to see where she wants to flash her light next.
And you know, we trust that she is.
She's a guiding light for us because she has been vulnerable enough to let us see inside her, her heart and her and her soul and her story.
You know, the consistency of her integrity, the consistency of her character. You know, in the world, whether she is out about behind a camera, in front of a camera, it's just like you can't make that up. You know, you can't make that up. It's the proof and the truth of her life.
This is like a full This can totally be like a full Oprah Club.
Podcast just about loving Oprah me too, because you know what.
Put some respect back on Area's name when people seeing her be misunderstood, Oh my god publicly has It's like I take it personally, like like you, I watch her show every day four o'clock after school. I had a friend that we would we would call on the commercial breaks to chat about what we just saw.
That's we were lost in. And she has built.
Up so much equity that if you come for her, I will come for you.
Do you know what I mean?
Like That's how I feel. And in this era, I do think she's misunderstood. I do think that this younger generation doesn't even quite understand what she has always meant to us and the generations that came before us. So it's really I love that this randomly came out here because I feel like she deserves this love and this ode and like it's up to us to carry out her legacy and to tell because I will tell you my mentee, who is twenty like early twenties, she's like so wait, like who is Oprah?
Like why do people care about? Like did she have like she had like a show or something right, And I.
Was just like, oh, this is sacrilegious, Like what so we got to keep saying her name and talking about her, her legacy and what she means that is so interesting now whatever.
Forever and even because we could, I mean, we could go right. But it's like, I think one of the things that I've consistently heard people say in a way that makes no sense to me is like, oh, well, she built a school in Africa, but does she care about black people here? And I'm like, what has she done for black people? She exists, She exists. Everything that she has touched has been in service to black people and to women and to the expansion of consciousness in so many ways. You know what. I think about the reach of who she puts her hands on, who she gives her glance to, her attention to, and the reach they have. And to me, that's always what really shows a person's character and who they are as a leader. It's who do you empower? Who have you helped, who have you elevated? Who have you seen gifts and talent in and gone out of your way to help that come to fruition. That's the real sign. It's not about you. It's more than you, and it's about everything else that you create. And I mean I think that just that, just that that can show for itself really seamlessly.
And just people people having an opinion about what other people should do with their purpose. Yeah, it's irrelevant. You can go do what you were put here to do. You have no that is the big I just want to start there. You know, how dare you have a critique about what somebody else should do with the massive purpose? Like especially somebody her, the massive purpose that she was placed on this earth with in all the ways that she has manifested that for the benefit of.
All and the heart that comes with that much visibility, because that's a sacrifice.
You go build your school for Black American children, please do.
If you're not in the arena, right, if you're not putting yourself on the line to serve, to live your purpose, to even be still enough to figure out what it is or to help another find theirs, what's the criticism?
Yeah?
Right, Like what can really be said? You have to get in the arena. You have to be doing something in order, in my belief, to have the right to criticize what someone else is doing.
I agree with that completely, and I just you know, you are called to service. You have to understand that about about about purpose and work in general, right, Like, of course Oprah could do all of those things, but she waits for the call. She was called to build that school in South Africa. That's a divine calling. How dare you criticize what God called her to do and that in the ways in which she was obedient to that calling?
Do you know what I mean? That's how I see it.
What are you doing?
Okay?
Yeah, moving forward a little bit.
You have pivoting.
Pivot, time to pivot. Ope, we love you you. So we're both mamas and we are.
Both little boys.
Little boys. Oh God, I love being my son's mother, being a boy mom me too.
Who knew I thought I was such a girl's girl. I mean, I am a girl's girl, but I love being a boy mom.
Right.
Who knows what's to come? But it you know, part of what I'm seeing as we make our way to really kind of dive into the birth fund is I'm also seeing the depth of the experience of you being a mother, and I'm seeing kind of the effect and the profound impact your son has had on your life, which then of course influences your work. So tell me how being a mom and being connected to your beautiful son's energy has expanded the way you experience your purpose and your service in the greater world.
It's even surial wing you say your mother or were mothers, because I remember most of my life not being a mother and not knowing when that would happen for me. And it certainly was not in my immediate roadmap when it happened to me. And I wasn't even in the place where I could receive that blessing in the in the in the in the way that now I understand, like how how big and how just the magnitude of the gift of motherhood. I didn't see it that way at the time, and I'm just so humbled, Like you know, I have built this career with such intention, and I've navigated my life with just that instinct you're talking about, and I've trusted that, and motherhood was just something I surrendered to. It required a completely different, like operating system. I adopted a completely different operating system. Everything I've done in this world has been the result of striving, setting an intention, like making it happen. It's almost like this masculine energy, and becoming a mother was about the exact opposite. It was about releasing control, relinquishing control, surrendering to a higher power, to a divine plan that came in divine timing that was not my timing. And so even the process that that metamorphosis, that grief, Yeah, that like, oh, my identity is shifting and not on my terms and not in my timing, and that with that came so many humbling lessons. And then for me, pregnancy brought many humbling lessons. I had a physically very challenging pregnancy, and then mentally and emotionally I was impacted. And then you compound that with the broken maternal the broken medical system and the maternal health system in this country that underserves mothers and families and particularly black women at every socioeconomic level.
And let me say that again, because I.
Think that there is a misconception that if you have resources and you have you know, education, and you have wealth and good networks, like you'll be spared. And that's not the case. And even for me being a journalist and being aware of the stats around the maternal mortality crisis, I still really didn't. It wasn't an issue that hit home for me until I became pregnant and was out here looking for a doctor and that process ultimately, you know, the process of being a mother and looking for care and not finding it in the obvious places and having to search outside of the traditional path and finding this like oasis of support and care in an alternative path that I had never considered before, which was Midwiffrey. And you know this, this, this whole kind of world opened up to me that my son led me to and it wasn't a part of my plan. And if you had asked me three years ago what Midwiffrey is, I would have been like, what is that?
You know?
I didn't even. I didn't even it wasn't on my radar.
But now and if you would have said to me, could you know, would you ever see yourself starting a whole new venture that is focused on expanding access to mid with free cared, say absolutely not, like maternal health. It's like, these are terms that felt like I don't know, something like politicians focus on you know what I mean this is? And I think that's again part of the problem is that I think the concept of maternal care feels like it's fringe until it's you, until you are staring into the cracks of this system and you see how you can fall into it, and you see how you can become a statistic and you don't know who to call for help, and you don't know what your options are to access better care like this is in this country. This is such a crisis that is like our biggest open secret that we are not addressing because we are waiting for someone else to We're waiting for someone else to fix it. We think that it's philanthropists, politicians, lawmakers, hospitals, doctors, birth workers jobs to fix this. But when you look at the numbers and when it comes to maternal mortality in this country, they are soaring and we're not talking about it enough. And it is not a fringe issue. It's an issue that impacts every family. We all have mothers, right, This is if we care about life, if we care about family, we should care about this issue. And so this is a moment for me, going back to your original question about purpose, This work with Birth Fund is the culmination of every everything I've ever done, of every skill set that I've picked up along the way of every relationship that I've cultivated, every ounce of equity and credibility that I have built in my career was for this moment. It is not a pivot, It is a culmination. It is a career culmination moment where I can finally It's like a light bulb when out I said.
Oh, that's why, that's why you've been so good to me. God, That's why.
This was a setup so that when you deposited this into my spirit, when you called on me, I could pick up and I could, in this earthly realm make phone calls to Serena Williams and you know, influential people in this world that can help elevate this message, that can help raise resources in real time for families that could make this conversation relevant, like you equipped me, God uniquely to be able to do this, to stand in this gap for families, to do it, for the mothers who've lost their lives unnecessarily, like senselessly. Eighty percent of the maternal mortality. Maternal mortalities in this country are preventable. Eighty percent. These are not deaths that are that you know, childbirth is just you know, it's tough, it's you know, it's a life or death thing. It is, but eighty percent of these deaths are preventable. And when you when you look at other high income countries all across the world, their outcomes are so much better than ours. And the thing that they all have in common is midwifery care is their default birth care model. It's covered by insurance, it's covered by their government, it's normalized in their culture. And when you look at America, most people don't even know what a midwife is. And that's by design. That's by design. And none of this I knew. Like so for anybody who's like, oh, it's going over my head a little bit, it did go over my head as well.
We were not taught about this.
It's part of it's part of our design, it's part of our conditioning. When you look at the history of midwif free midwiffree is midwives, Black midwives in particular, they birthed our country. They birthed our nation, and obstenetics and the whole industry of obgyns, which we are taught as the gold standard of medical care for you know, birth work. Yeah, that was an industry that was invented around for profit model. And when you really interrogate the way that that system was built, it's built for profit over patients. And when we really start to ask questions about what we were taught about what constitutes a normal, safe, healthy birth experience, we realize he we don't. We weren't taught very much other than give up your authority to a doctor. Yeah, listen to the doctor, do what they say, and that's it. But the beauty of Midwiffery and how it's transformed my life and not just the thing that I didn't realize about the gifts that my son would bring me in the gift of motherhood, is that it extends so much beyond just getting that baby out of you. Like the gift of motherhood, like the way that you bring in your child is a rite of passage, and it's deeply spiritual and it is a sacred. It's a sacred experience. And I think that in this country, unfortunately, the medical system has stripped away what is sacred about childbirth. And for me, I was someone who was very conditioned to trust the medical system, find a doctor, get the epidural, have the baby, like knock me out. I don't even want to be there. For it like I am not that girl, I am not the wo woo girl. Like this is brand new to me. And so what I can say as someone who has been converted because of my first person lived experience is that I for me, birthing became the most empowering experience in my life. That changed me fundamentally, That expanded my purpose in my work, expanded my identity in ways I never anticipated, gave me downloads, spiritual downloads. I don't even talk about this part really because I don't know if it's ever a safe environment or if people will hear it in the way that it's intended.
But I know that this is a safe space for that here. Yeah, the spiritual.
Downloads that I got through the sacred container that home birth and midwives created for me has fundamentally changed my walk in this world. So when people say why are we talking about wherese, I'm like, why, that's.
Just you have the baby, you move on.
The way that you have that baby can either empower you or disempower you for the next chapter of your life. And if we as women understood that having a child and the way we choose to have a child can unlock our power to ourselves, like, wake up to your power, or the exact opposite can happen. If we reframe birth in that way, then we understand that this work is of the utmost importance at a time when women are under siege in this country. Our autonomy, our bodies, our power, our choices. There's a war on women right now. And so the way that we can reclaim that for ourselves is one way, just one way is through more autonomy and our birth choice. And I want to give that to women. That's really what Birth Fund is about. Having experienced this, I'm like, this should not be a luxury. This should be accessible to any birthing person who has been made to feel unsafe in a surging, soaring maternal health crisis. You should have other options. You should know what your options are, and those options should be accessible to you. And I want, I want women. I'm not here to push Midwiffree on people. I'm not here to push home birth on people. But I am here to help educate and enlighten folks about your choices. Yeah, right, so that you feel like you have some agency. And ultimately, if this is a choice that appeals to you, I want to make sure that there are resources available to you that make that choice, that light off in life saving choice available to you. And so that's what birth Fund is. We are raising resources from individuals, from corporations, people outside of the medical system, outside of legislators who are taking too long to make the changes that we need. And we need those changes too, and we're working on that too. But it's and not or we're not waiting for systemic change. We're making change right now and we're opening our pockets. We're leading or leading with what we can give first, and then we're creating this funnel where it's like we're meeting people where they're at. Whatever you can give it goes to a family, even if it's five dollars. No amount is too small. And I will say, I'm coming to you today. I think I'm more emotional today and I'm more like, I don't know in your world that would be like.
Heart chakras open today, it's open. It's like wide open.
It is because I just like all the work that we've been doing has culminated in literally what we are doing this week, which is finally meeting the.
Families Oh wow.
That we're funding and we're introducing them to their funders and you are seeing this like real human connection, this human generosity, what we can do with our spirit, with our gifts, with our resources to help empower and change people's lives, like in real time, and it actually doesn't take that much, you know. And so to see people like John Legend and Chrissy meet this beautiful mother of seven who's homeschooling all seven of her children and this is the first time that she's going to have access to a home birth.
To have birth on her terms, and like it's just it gives me chills to it's so special.
Today Alexis o'hanian met this mother in d C. And he's from you know, and we're pairing people with people from cities that they're connected to.
So John Legend grew up in Ohio.
He's talking to a mother of seven in Ohio and it was just amazing. Alexis o'hanian's talking to this mother in DC and she's, you know, having her third child and she's a birth worker, but this is going to be the first time where she's actually going to get to benefit from the work that she does for other people. And it's just this is this is heart work. Like this is purpose work, Like this is what if if I leave this planet tomorrow. I'm like, yes, I have that bio and those titles and those things. You might you might remember me for that, but this is what I want to be remembered for, because this is what all that built towards.
Deeply well, I want to kind of speak to some of the nuanced layers that I think are also behind this, because I really want to underscore how important it is to think about not just this work, but that kind of portal time that we're speaking to, of a woman birthing something right, bringing something to the planet. It is a divine experience. There is no way around that. And it is this truly portal experience that, depending on what you have access to, could either as a woman, keep you completely stuck and disempowered, or it could be you know, the expansion of consciousness, the ubleveling of love, the healing of what we call generational curses, you know, the birthing on the planet of the bigger work. And you know, some of the nuance and some context even behind these conversations about women's bodies that I always think of is, you know, for instance, to the formulating or the creation of gynecology and obg yns and speaking to the importance of why black women deserve this. Gynecology was created on the backs of Black women through the person who invented the field, experimenting on black women's bodies, experimenting on their vaginas, on their wombs. You know, it's horrifying, it's horrible. So reclaiming this is also reclaiming that for our ancestors, you know, and when I think about, you know, a big conversation that has been happening, I think for all of our lifetimes around reproductive rights and whether you're pro choice or pro life or whatever you resonate with, you know, you hold inside of you. But a piece that no one speaks to is that people are only concerned quote unquote concerned when there is a fetus in the What I never hear said out loud is please have the baby, and this is how will help you. Right, Like everyone wants to yell at women and argue and discuss and oppress their bodies, but I don't ever hear someone saying, no, we want you to give birth to this baby and here's how we will help you. Because the number one reason that women terminate pregnancies is actually poverty, yes, and so that's another you know, It's like when we think about when I think about the work that you've birthed with this, not only are you creating safety for allowing children to come into this world that sacred experience, but you are creating the sacred container that surrounds them with the love and compassion that is necessary for life and that is deserved by every life that enters this world. And that is typically the thing that so many women do not have the opportunity to give their children. It is the feeling of welcoming, of loving, of celebrating. We see that on TV a lot, right because you often see on TV birth happening between a two parent household that usually has you know, no like present trauma. That is bringing the baby into the world to a big family that's going to help them with a great baby shower, and they're coming home to this beautiful room that's decorated for them. That's not necessarily the average experience of most people that bring children into the world. There is a lot of pain in it for a lot of people, a lot of hopelessness that you never want to extend to your child who doesn't want to be a great mother, you know, but to give them this as the pillar, as the backbone behind them, it changes the way that you can navigate loving someone, being there for someone, all the things that we don't talk about enough that we actually do have to learn when we first become mothers, and especially depending on what your childhood was like or what your experiences are. You know, very often people are creating a love for their child they didn't feel for themselves, and it's such sacred, dignified work, it's such honorable work. So I'm just hearing like the depth of purpose and what you've created, but not only all of the ways that it is going to profoundly alter women physically, but also the intended good will that this sets forward into their family lineage.
I receive that, and I'm so glad that you are highlighting the intersection between the maternal health crisis and the financial crisis that we're in, because that is something that we want to address upfront. And I think, you know, one of the things that is important about this work is while we are stubbornly, singularly focused on expanding access to midwif free care and lifting that up as a solution because I think there are many organizations and many people doing great work around improving maternal health conditions in this country, but I think they're often doing it with like a diffused focus that people can't really grab onto. So I think if we focus on this one thing, we can make a difference.
Right.
But the way that we're approaching partners is, this is what we are going to do. Will you help us in this and what can you do right? Because we know that this is a complex problem and the poverty piece is massive, and so I am so honestly one of the biggest blessings and another reason you caught me and I'm telling you today this was a divine appointment with you today because we were supposed to talk like a month ago, I wouldn't have had this same posture. I wouldn't have had the same story to tell because I wasn't at this point in the story yet of the building of Birth Fund. But literally today I got to see kind of like the fruit of our labor, not just in meeting these families, but also in our presenting partnership with so far we are about to share with the world this massive financial commitment that they've made to birth Fund, but directly to these families. So each of these families are getting ten thousand dollars invested into their and invested into their family through a newborn vault. This is what it's called, and it has a high interest higher interest rate than any other checking or savings accounts, like ten times the national average and more than that, they are being paired with a certified financial planner that is going to sit with them in their family to help them map out their family's financial future.
Okay, they are.
Building a bespoke financial literacy program that's going to give them step by step, a step by step guide for how to budget for their family from the newborn stage until college. This particular vault that they're gifting them is also going to help them earmark savings for college for big, big moments like this is the type of financial literacy and preparedness that we are not as a country equipping families with. And yet we're shaming them when, as you say, they make the decision, fifty percent, fifty six percent of families do not feel fifty six percent of people in this country do not feel that they can afford to expand their family Yeah, So before we are shaming people for why they are terminating pregnancies, we should be first of all compassionate and understanding empathetic about the conditions that they're living in that they wouldn't want to bring a child into and doing our part to help shift those conditions and make it a better environment to bring a child into this world. And that's what this work is about. And so you know, partners like SOFI are just coming to the table and creative additive ways that are expanding our program and kind of creating this wrap around support model that we can use as a model for what the government should be doing and frankly what private business should be doing. So you know, we've gone to like this is what I mean by like literally everything I've ever done has culminated in this work. Every brand partnership that I've ever worked with, Oh, believe that they got had up about birth Fund, and believe that many of them came to the table creatively. Bobby is one of I'm an investor in Bobby. It's a woman led formula company. They came to the table and said, yeah, we want to help, and we will sponsor a year of lactation support for your families in addition to giving them free formula for a year if they need it, if breast feeding isn't successful for them, or if they make a different choice. We've talked to baby lists who makes you know, baby registries. They're giving our families fifteen hundred dollars in gift cards. So the things that they thought they couldn't afford suddenly they can't. Like, we're making this this comprehensive like package for families that, like I wish I had access to. I think every family deserves to have access to. If you're taking on the ultimate sacrifice of expanding the population in this country, somebody should be giving you some rewards for that, you know, not shaming you and not just hitting you with these bills and this care that's so below par. So I feel like what we you know, we are living in a time that's very dark. It can feel very heavy, and it can feel like like the light, it's hard to find the light sometimes even when you're a light seeker. And I feel really powered by being able to take back my power and focus on what is the change I want to make, What's the kind of world I wish I could live in? And how can I create that even just for one person? Because that's enough. And that's the thing that got me started on this path. Like when I heard the call, I questioned it. I was like, is this even going to be?
Like? What's is this impact going to be great?
How much would I have to raise to really have the kind of impact we need to make in this country? Like I would need to raise like millions and millions and millions of dollars? And then I just and so I kind of kept ignoring this call. I would I was not picking up this call. I was not And then on top of it, I was like, oh my god, I have so much to do already. How am I going to make time for this? And then kind of like pregnancy. Honestly, it's kind of like my reaction to pregnancy. I was like, Oh no, we don't have time for that right now. No girl, or plate his pull come back another day. Like it was very that I was like, ooh, girl, we don't have time for all this. Also like I don't honestly truly, and I feel like you're getting off a lot. It was like a therapy session, but I'm like I have I've carried some wounds with me from the corporate world, and I have enjoyed working as kind of a free agent, not really having to rely on teams that I've built and cultivated. And I knew that this calling was big and that it was going to require a team, and that it's not something I could do by myself, and that scared me, and that's also why I put it off. And then I was called to do healing work around some of the wounds I've been carrying around with me quietly, no one sees them. I had them there there, and I've had to do some like deep personal development healing work in order to be the person who could answer this call and who could carry out this mission. And so I feel so grateful. Again it all comes back to my son. I feel so grateful to that powerful little soul that chose me, that made way for all of this expansion in every way, and he brings so much joy, Like this conversation is so serious, but like our home is so silly. I'm so silly at home with him, Like he's like the lightest part of my life, and it balances out this type of work. And also this work brings so much joy, and it brings so much light and levity too, But I just feel I feel grateful that, like I had to get over myself and so much of what I was caring and I had to let it go in order to say, Okay, yes, Scot, I will take this call. I will take this call. I will I will follow your lead. I will do this even if and I started small, it was like I don't even feel confident enough to call anybody else and convince them to help me with this yet. So I'm just going to do it as like my own little birthday fundraiser, and I'm going to put my own little money into this fundraiser, and I'm going to ask my community if they want to be part of it, you can do it, and like I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. There was no like follow up post, there was no like press announcement. It was just like, let me just see if like people will show up, yeah.
And it was.
It was it was like it was like having a birthday party online, like not knowing anyone who was going to show up to it. And then and then somebody called me, They're like, did you see that you exceeded your fundraising goal in sixteen hours, and I was like what And I went on and I was like, that's it, bet God, Yeah, I got you.
Okay, So I hear you like, that's.
The this is my sign, this is the this is the case study. This is like the proof of concept that I needed. I am going to take this little, simple one to one community support model where if it's with the intention, if I Elaine wells Wet one person can so for one family in my community to have this empowered safe birth experience, then I have done important work.
I've done enough.
This is going to have generational impact and if I can inspire other people to and by the way, in that sixteen thousand dollars that we raise in those sixteen hours, we were able to support not one, but two families. And I was just like, we can scale this, Like this is a simple one to one community model that we can scale overnight. I know ten people right now I could call who can afford to cover the cost of multiple people's birth experiences.
And then wait, all those corporate partners I've been working.
With all these years, all these deals I've been drafting and slanging from my magazine editors, because please believe editors are also salespeople. We know how to keep a magazine afloat, and it's with the support of sponsorship. We know how to go out there and sell something we believe in, stories that we believe in.
That's what this is is.
It's just like everything felt like an AHA moment about this. It was like I could see the stars aligning, I could see it all connected. It was like beautiful moment. It was like a beautiful mind moment, you know. I was like, I see how this can happen. And what it required, though, was other people's belief. And that's something I can't control. I have to have the belief. I have to have the conviction that's strong enough to make the case, and then it's up to them and every DeBie, every person I called on my wish list said yes, come on, every everyone. Sometimes I just have to sit down. I'm just like I need to lay down and just let this marinate, Like did this happen?
And we're just getting started.
And there's a couple things that I really want to highlight, especially as it speaks to purpose one. Thank you for generously sharing that you know you had to kind of step back and do some self exploration and see you know where the shadows and what is being repressed and how can I meet it? Because that's a part of purpose too. You can get the call, it doesn't mean the call is ready to go. You have the seed of awareness that has planted in you with God's voice. And then sometimes we have to do the work necessary to rise to God's occasion, you know, to rise to the occasion of purpose. And that's why and we've been, I must say, we have been beautifully illustrating this throughout the episode. That's why. Purpose is this really this this slow growing formula, this equation that presents itself and unveils itself in your life over time. And it's not just a quote unquote title right.
Where it's not.
It can't ever just be one thing. It's the totality of all of it. But sometimes we do have to pause and prepare to get to that next evolution of what the purpose is. It's just it's so beautiful, it's it's it's so powerful for everyone listening, I would love if you would share two ways. First, if anyone listening is really like filling this deep inside and saying I have something to give to this, how can someone come on and really pay it forward. And also for anyone that's listening and saying I really need this, what's the best way for them to get connected to this work?
Yes, I love that.
So we've made it so easy for people to be a part of this by opening up the fundraiser on Instagram. So while we have these incredible corporate partners and these incredible individual donors like Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian and all these great people, it's not just for rich folks Like this is that there is an Instagram fundraiser that is live and it will not be live forever. It is running through May tenth, just before Mother's Day, and so May eleventh actually is when it ends. And so I would humbly ask, if you have a heart to give, give what you can give it there and it will go directly to families who will benefit from this kind of transformative care. And then in terms of people who are desiring this care. On Father's Day, we are going to open up applications publicly. Once we've closed this first public raise and we know exactly what our capacity to give is, there will be an open call for applications and it will be designated based on the regions where we have participating birth workers, and we're building this thing really thoughtfully, really slowly. Birth is life or death, and so it's important that we are working with the most qualified the birth workers who have the best outcomes, and we're vetting those partners and we'll be growing our network over time. So for those who are looking for that care, you can stay tuned and check in with birth Fund on Instagram around Father's Day. Also, just stay tuned, like follow us, because there's news all the time that we're dropping and there will be different opportunities to get involved along the way. We'll have different kind of pop up events throughout the year and that sort of thing as well.
So amazing, I'm excited.
At the end of every episode, I ask each guest to provide those listening with a little bit of soul work. So this is something that after they've heard this episode and until we meet again next week, they can really kind of savor and integrate everything that they've heard. And it could be as simple as like a thought starter, a journal prompt, an exercise of some sort or practice. But what should the soul work be for everyone listening?
Wow, that's a big question, Oprah, fruit of that tree. I guess I would say, what's coming up for me right now is what's calling you? And I think sometimes you have to get quiet to hear that call. And if you already know what's calling you, I would my public question would be what's holding you back from picking up that call?
And is it you know, whatever that is. I think this is an invitation to examine that, work through that, heal that because whatever that is, it's keeping you small. And you were called to greatness and you were called to service that will benefit more than you. So I think sometimes the call is to get out of your own way, and that certainly was a call for me that I had to answer first before I could answer this call.
So that's what I would share.
Beautiful, Thank you, thank you.
This was so great, Debbie.
Thank you so much for creating that space and have this conversation. I have not had a lot of conversations about birth one, but this one feels different and I'm very grateful for it.
Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you for the work that you were birthing in the world. Thank you for sharing your light, thank you for answering your call.
It is.
This is such an important, powerful work that doesn't just affect the women of this lifetime right like this is lineage work, this is generational work. We've shifted a pattern in our family system for good and it changes the way people get to be in the world. So thank you so much and thank you for coming now. Mistay stay Stay. The content presented on Deeply Well serves solely for educational and informational purposes. It should not be considered a replacement for personalized medical or mental health guidance, and does not constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, it is advisable to consult with your healthcare provider or health team for any specific concerns or questions that you may have. Connect with me on social at Debbie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram, or you can go to my website Debbie Brown dot com. And if you're listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, don't forget, Please rate, review, and subscribe and send this episode to a friend. Deeply Well is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jacqueis Thomas, Samantha Timmins, and me Debbie Brown. The Beautiful Soundbath You heard. That's by Jarrelyn Glass from Crystal Cadence. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
