Is Resilience a Dirty Word?
Is Resilience a Dirty Word?
Have you ever felt like someone mentioning resilience for midwives is just another way of saying, "Suck it up and deal with it"?
If you’re a midwife feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering how much longer you can keep going, you’re not alone. Many midwives believe that cultivating resilience means asking them to tolerate dysfunction, accept moral injuries, and continue to give endlessly without change.
But what if resilience wasn’t about just surviving in order to take more hits? What if, instead, it was about reclaiming your values, your energy, and your ability to thrive in this career you once loved?
In this post, we’re going to challenge the myth that building resilience means accepting things as they are. Instead, we’ll explore how developing resilience restores clarity, helps you prioritize what really matters, and gives you the strength to consider meaningful changes.
Why This Myth Is So Easy to Believe
It’s not your fault if you’ve come to see resilience as just another word for endurance, or even blaming the victim. Midwifery is a demanding profession, and over time, the stress can feel inescapable. Many midwives have normalized exhaustion and constant stress, believing that this is just the way it is. They don’t want to hear that they need to “do” anything else.
Add to that the lingering effects of the pandemic, chronic staff shortages, and budget cuts, and it’s easy to feel like very little is within your control. When you’re already stretched thin, the idea of making changes—even small ones—can feel impossible. It’s no wonder that resilience has become a word that makes midwives bristle, rather than bring a promise of relief.
How This Myth Has Been Holding You Back
When you believe that putting up with hardship until bigger systems changes bring relief is your only option, it keeps you stuck in survival mode. And when you believe that developing resilience requires huge, time-consuming commitments—like lengthy daily meditation or rigorous workout routines—not being able to manage that feels like just one more thing to feel guilty about.
But what if building resilience didn’t have to be a huge burden? What if it could be woven into your life in simple, manageable ways that actually make a difference? And here’s the key: resilience doesn’t mean tolerating dysfunction. It means reclaiming the clarity and capacity to challenge it effectively.
Without personal stability, it’s much harder to advocate for change, implement sustainable solutions, or even stay in the profession long enough to see those changes take effect.
Without resilience, chronic stress and overwhelm make everything feel urgent, leaving little space for strategic thinking. When your nervous system is constantly on high alert, it’s easy to default to reactive decision-making rather than focusing on the actions that will have the greatest long-term impact.
By cultivating resilience, you create the clarity and capacity to step out of the cycle of urgency and invest your time and energy where it effectively counts.
The truth is, stabilizing yourself (the first step) doesn’t have to be overwhelming. In fact, small shifts can have a profound impact on how you experience life and work.
What’s Actually True About Resilience
Evidence shows us that resilience is a renewable resource(1). Although innate capacity may vary from person to person, it is not something you have a certain supply of, and when you use it up you are done. Cultivating resilience is about making choices that support your well-being so you can show up fully—for yourself, your family, and your work.
It is crucial to understand that not all forms of rest and recovery are created equal. You might think you’re taking a break by staying home in your pajamas and scrolling through social media, but in reality, your attention is one of your most valuable resources. When you give it away for long periods, you miss out on opportunities for more effective restoration.
By learning about the different types of rest and recovery (and identifying adaptive and mal-adaptive coping strategies), and intentionally fitting more restorative behaviours into your life, you can make more informed choices that actually replenish you in the time that you have—rather than just numbing the exhaustion temporarily.
Don’t worry, there may still be days and times where pjs and binge watching are just the thing, just not the only thing.
When midwives are better rested, mentally clearer, and physically less depleted, we are in a stronger position to advocate for the system-wide changes that are desperately needed.
Resilience isn’t about fixing individual midwives while leaving the system broken—it’s equally about ensuring that midwives have the bandwidth to engage in the fight for a more sustainable profession.
What You Can Do Differently
Instead of accepting passive endurance, I invite you to get curious about how and where you can be strategic and proactive.
Survival strategies often feel necessary, but many of them are maladaptive coping strategies that actually worsen the effects of sleep deprivation and stress.
For example, we often approach being on call as something to survive. Thinking about being strategic and proactive - what it could look like if call periods were approached in ways that prioritized and maximized recovery and conservation - led me to develop Code SANE.
Code SANE
I will look for every opportunity to:
Pace myself
Nourish myself
Hydrate myself
Rest myself
Manage my mindset
Interrupt the stress response
So that I can:
Maintain my clinical, emotional, and mental capabilities
Finish with as little depletion as possible
This approach shifts your focus from mere survival to strategic conservation and renewal. It’s not about adding more to your plate—it’s about making small, intentional shifts that allow you to protect your well-being while continuing to do the work you love.
It’s worth repeating that behaviours that help you maintain your personal resources do in fact play directly into maintaining and supporting your cognitive function, including decision making abilities, and access to your repositories of professional knowledge and experience.
Of course, there will be times when you can’t avoid going all out, and surviving really is the best you can hope for, but not every call period has to be that way.
When you start to break the cycle of depletion, you’re not just benefiting yourself—you’re strengthening your ability to push for change. Systems don’t change overnight, and they don’t change without the people inside them having the energy, clarity, and longevity to demand something better.
How I Help Midwives Implement These Strategies
It can be very difficult to effectively and efficiently implement good intentions without the right support, accountability, and encouragement. That’s why I created Thriving on Call, a series of 14-week programs designed specifically for midwives.
Inside Level One of the program, we focus on three key areas:
Maximizing Rest & Recovery
Personalized strategies for better quality rest and recovery
Avoiding burnout and promoting long-term sustainability
Conserving & Replenishing Energy
Identifying and reducing energy leaks
Increasing capacity to sustain stamina through long, unpredictable hours
Stabilizing & Utilizing the Nervous System
Implementing micro habits and adaptive coping strategies
Effectively managing stress and making decisions with greater clarity
By working through these Level One domains, you’ll learn how to better manage your energy, regulate your stress response, and create a more sustainable work-life balance.
When midwives are able to stay in practice longer, they are there to witness and benefit from the shifts that come. Change in healthcare is slow, but those who maintain their well-being have a greater chance of both influencing and experiencing the improvements we all want to see.
What Changed When She Stopped Just Pushing Through
One of my clients, a fairly early career midwife, started the Thriving On Call program while feeling completely overwhelmed. Between managing a full caseload, parenting, and other life challenges, she felt like she was drowning.
Through our work together, she began to shift her mindset, implement small but meaningful changes, and break free from the cycle of burnout. Now, she’s sleeping better, making more intentional choices about how she spends her energy, and—most importantly—finding more joy in life and practice again.
But What If You’re Too Overwhelmed to Commit to a Program?
I get it. When you’re already stretched to the limit, adding one more thing to your plate can feel impossible. That’s why Thriving on Call is designed for midwives by a midwife with your unpredictable schedule in mind.
The strategies I teach are practical, achievable, and designed to fit into the life you already have—not the life you wish you had. It's not about instant perfection. It’s about small, manageable changes that build over time.
What makes this program unique is that it’s tailored specifically for midwives. It’s not a generic self-care plan—it’s a targeted approach to navigating the particular challenges of on-call work, sleep disruptions, and the emotional demands of caregiving.
And let's be honest. With all the unrest and uncertainty in the world right now, midwives are carrying even more worries on their shoulders.
The beauty of a program is that you won’t be doing it alone. I provide ongoing support, accountability, and flexibility to ensure that you stay (or get right back!) on track—even when life gets chaotic.
Ready to Change Your Experience of Midwifery?
One of the long term changes I hope to see is for resilience training and support to be baked in to midwifery education programs and continuing support for it provided throughout our careers.
To get there, we need to really make the mindset shift to understanding that our own health and wellbeing is not something separate from our clinical capacity and performance.
Meanwhile, you personally do not have to keep running on empty. "How long can I keep this up?" does not have to be a predominate running question in your mind. Cultivating resilience is about creating a way of working that supports your well-being more than it depletes it.
If you’re ready to start making small but meaningful changes, let’s talk. Book a complimentary call with me today, and let’s explore how you can move towards a career that sustains you, not just one you endure.
Rakesh, G., Pier, K., & Costales, T. L. (2017). A Call for Action: Cultivating Resilience in Healthcare Providers. American Journal of Psychiatry Residents’ Journal, 12(4), 3–5. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp-rj.2017.120402
