Being Here is Enough
Pregnancy and birth prepare you for parenthood. .
The new sensations in your body are a cry for a more embodied life. Your body saying it’s all here! The answers you search for outside of you are right here!
The waiting for baby to arrive in their own time. . Prepares you for the very slow and “unproductive” days ahead of you.
The scan or the diagnosis that comes up unexpectedly. . An invitation to practice stillness, presence, discernment, and trust.
The miscarriage that you felt unconsciously was coming, yet still hurts so much you feel numb. . . Connects you to the holy dance with the universe. Each baby has a choice and remembering that they are unique souls on their own journey is hard to reconcile with the yearning for their presence is so deep.
Each an invitation to unfurl your hands as you grip onto the illusion of control. Each an invitation to deepen your connection within and to something greater. Each an invitation to soften into the flow of life and let go of how you’ve been told this “should” look, so you can discover how your soul and the souls of your children desire to be in this life.
It is all on the way, not in the way.
How is what is coming up for you on the way and creating opportunities for you to heal, reconcile, and connect deeper to your truest self? This place of being and awareness, while it sounds “simple” it is not easy. I have never been attracted to the quick fix. I have always felt it was much deeper and the guidance more within than without the guidance of ones own spirit.
In this social media age you are fed the “How to’s and the if only’s” And while hearing the stories of others can be so helpful, they also can keep us searching for the “right” answers outside of ourselves. I saw this so much as I took childbirth courses and as I began to teach them. Each parent hopefully looking at me hoping that I held the answers to save them from suffering. Yet practicing hip squeezes, and talking through the risks and benefits, while helpful does not equip one for entering a journey into the unknown. So I began to get curious about what would help parents navigate this time of uknowing. I kept coming back to the one thing that made me a good doula, presence.
Presence or just being may seem simple, but for most it is quite difficult. The busy thoughts that come up, the uncomfortable emotions that lie just beneath the surface, and the busyness of the world around us hinders our ability to just be. Yet as you step into birth you realize it is one of those moments in life that the only place to be is here. Cultivating a practice of presence, awareness of ones emotions and bodily sensations, curiosity is a beautiful place to begin. This can look like setting an alarm on your phone for the same time everyday and when it goes off your stop what you are doing, close your eyes (if you are able), and take three cleansing breathes. A cleansing breath is a deep inhale through your nose, expanding your rib cage in every direction. Followed by an audible sigh out your mouth as you exhale. This ritual of breath has been utilized by so many and its history is deep. This also works as a beautiful cue for your nervous system, that when you take three cleansing breathes it knows this it is time to soften and enter the parasympathetic nervous system.
This is ultimately why I created the Mindfulness Childbirth Course. Yes it is a place to learn about birth and your options, but also it is a space to connect to a sense of safety within. This place of calm will not only serve you during birth, but also in the postpartum as this new little baby looks to your nervous system for clues.
