Her Story
About Marjorie
My professional journey is deeply rooted in personal experience and resilience. Twenty-two years ago, when I was 19, I experienced a stillbirth at a time when there was no support and no one to guide me through such a tragedy. It took me about 10 years to feel like I could do something meaningful with that pain - I wanted to help people. I started by competing in pageants and using stillbirth awareness as my platform. A few years later, I met up with seven other mothers and we created Push for Empowered Pregnancy, a non-profit organization that focuses on maternal health, stillbirth prevention, and reproductive health. One of our major accomplishments was funding the first-ever Rainbow Clinic in the United States, located at Mount Sinai Hospital, which is really helpful for women who have had some type of perinatal loss. As a therapist, my schedule runs from 10 to 4 or 10 to 6, depending on the day. I come in prepared, thinking about how to support my clients with their mental health goals. What I love most about my career is being able to do what I set out to do after my loss - helping support women who've experienced perinatal loss and helping them through their mental health journey. I'm about to be 41, and I really stood on business about it. I did what I set out to do, and that makes me really proud. Before becoming a therapist, I was an educator, and I brought that same commitment to being fully present with my students as I do now with my clients.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Marjorie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to resilience - not allowing myself to stay down. I've had a lot of loss, and I think the key is taking time to grieve, but realizing that I'm still living, I'm still breathing, and so I have so much to accomplish. I give myself that time to be sad and to grieve, but I realize that the Most High has goals for me, and there are things I need to accomplish before I depart the world. I can't do that if I am looking inward. So it's about bouncing back, honoring my grief, but not letting it stop me from fulfilling my purpose.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received is to do whatever you do wholeheartedly. For instance, I was an educator before I became a therapist, and the advice was to really be an educator fully when I was with the children - not having my mind elsewhere, but being with the children completely. It's the same thing now. When I'm with my clients and helping them, I need to be fully present. So whatever you're doing, be fully present in that moment.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice to women entering this industry is that it's okay to remember that we're there for our clients, we're there for mothers who've had loss, but the most important person in this world is you. If you don't take care of you, then you can't take care of others. So prioritize yourself so that you can be present for others. You have to put yourself first in order to show up fully for the people you're trying to help.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The opportunities in my field are clear - there will always be work for me because people are constantly working on their mental health or wanting to deal with their traumas and things that have gone on in the past. That's beautiful for me in the sense that I get to help people and support them on their mental health journey. The challenging part is taking on other people's traumas and not taking it on as my own. I have to learn to separate myself from what I help people with and know what's mine versus what's theirs. The big question is, how do I take care of myself while doing that work?
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think kindness is number one. Kindness goes a long way, and being kind doesn't mean that you're a pushover - it really lends itself to being empathetic. It's about connecting with people and understanding that when you meet someone, you're really meeting their whole ancestors, their generations. All of the people that have created who they are, their DNA is standing in front of you. We come with a lot of things, and so we have to really, truly be kind to one another in order to share this space. It's a big world, but it's really not a big world, right? So to share that space, I think kindness goes a long way.
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