Talking with Amy Wright Glenn
She’s a teacher, doula, hospital chaplain, yoga instructor, author and mother.
Amy Wright Glenn wears a lot of hats and many of them fit Every Mother Counts quite well. She’s a teacher, doula, hospital chaplain, yoga instructor, author and mother. Her self-published book, Birth, Breath and Death is a beautifully written meditation about motherhood, chaplaincy and life as a doula. We caught up with Amy to talk about her book, her multi-faceted career and an upcoming yoga fundraiser she’s hosting for Every Mother Counts.
EMC: Amy, tell us a little about how your story and book have connected you to Every Mother Counts.
Amy: I felt moved to write a book last year because I had so many powerful changes hit me at once. It was a deeply transformative year. I composed my book and published it and throughout that process I met some really amazing women. One of them is the author Trista Hendren, who wrote The Girl God. Since I write about social justice issues and motherhood and I weave philosophy into the story, she said, “I think Every Mother Counts could connect with your book.”
You’re a hospital chaplain, doula, writer and also a yoga instructor. How did all that come about?
My academic background is in religion and philosophy so for many years I taught those subjects on the high school and college level. That was my main vocational passion. In the middle of that work, my sister became pregnant and was going through a divorce and moved in with my husband and me. During her last trimester she asked me to be her birth partner. I’m the oldest of seven and I remember my mom going to the hospital and then coming home with the baby. It wasn’t until my sister had her baby that I saw a birth. I hired a doula for us because I was nervous about being an inadequate support. That doula was so incredible she changed our lives. In the process of the birth, my sister’s midwife suggested I would be a good doula. I decided I needed to do this for me because I had a lot of fears about motherhood. So I took a year-and-a-half and became certified. Through that experience of being with birth, I felt a hunger to also hold space for death. I had taught high school about myth and ritual including death rituals and birth rituals. I really needed to put my feet on the ground though and see what birth and death looked like in real life so I also became certified as a chaplain. To be with people through their dying was profound, deep and hard and beautiful at points. I integrated these stories into my heart and then, when I had my own baby, that’s when writing really came alive for me and that’s when the book was born.
You self-published this book, correct?
I did. I liked the freedom that self-publishing gave me. I felt like I needed to birth this book and I didn’t want to put it into the hands of an agent. I loved the craft of doing it myself, with the help of a professional editor. I will write more and the book has opened a lot of doors for me. My book came out at a crucible change for me, when I had my son. Previously, we had been living on two full time incomes, my husband and my decision to stay home with my baby was a huge shift for us. The book was one way for me to bring in some money. I also teach yoga and do some freelance writing for different blogs. I’ve gotten great feedback on the book from women I’ve admired like Sharon Salzberg and Suzanne Arms. They’ve read my book and given me their endorsement and that’s meant a lot to me.
How long have you been teaching yoga?
I started to teach yoga when I was a 20-year-old student at Reed College. I taught meditation classes, then asana practice and then I was formally trained in Kripalu yoga in 2002. I taught prenatal yoga for years before I became a mom. Now I teach Mommy and Me yoga and my son, Taber is with me. It’s certainly not as peaceful as a normal yoga class would be. Instead, it’s a joyful way of connecting to moms and saying, “if you can hold this pose and hold your little one or your squirmy one or your running around the room one and still be connected to your breath, that’s your gift as a mom.
Tell me about this yoga fundraiser you’re doing.
For the month of October, half of all proceeds for the Mommy and Me classes I teach at the Boca Raton Children’s Museum go to EMC. It’s my way of being able to connect service work with yoga practice. So much of yoga is about reflection and connection to the world. EMC is a great way to connect that all moms can support. It isn’t going to divide women politically or religiously. All women want mothers to live after childbirth and to thrive as mothers. It’s all-inclusive. This is a room full of mothers who have all had healthy births. We live in a country where we have our challenges with maternal care, but at least we have maternal care.
