Soulful Parenting. Susan Gale

the course of any experience, including pregnancy and childbirth. Emotions are important triggers that signal attention to something deeper. For instance, for me, one of the expressed fears was of having a breech baby. I refused to talk about it until my midwife engaged me in the possibility of this occurrence. She gave me permission to talk about it, and what was freeing was the opportunity to come up with a probable course of action that would support the home birth. She was going to assist a natural delivery of a breech baby, if that was what I desired. What was underneath this fear was the intense longing to birth at home naturally, and by reducing the charge of the fear, it lost all power.

      We tend to retract from giving such triggers a voice and a stage to unfold. Sometimes we cover them with “positive thinking,” or we feed them so much attention that they have no choice but to manifest in the physical. What I have seen in my own experience and in coaching other women is that the largest emotional obstacle is fear. I encourage women to embrace and express these fears, and suggest they find a healing venue that feels right for them. If a woman expresses her fears but finds no medium with which to transmute this fear, in order to get it out of her body, she will tend to obsess until something intervenes to cause the emotion to lose charge. The time of obsessing could be a lifetime, a month, or a day, depending on the person. The longer she holds this charge, the longer it impacts her life. Energetic tools can be used as catalysts to process and heal, and to ultimately reduce the charge. Energetic tools such as Reiki or EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)¹ are ways to extract the emotion from the cellular memory. Even if you don’t believe in such tools, the impact of the placebo effect is enough to convince the mind that the emotion has an outlet. Alternative outlets could be writing, dancing, therapy, or energetic modalities. It is up to each woman to decide what technique works to release and let go of unsupportive thoughts and emotions.

      During pregnancy most women go into information overload. It is now normal to be consumed with books, nutrition, tests, due dates—all in the pursuit of knowledge. The knowledge we find is superficial, arbitrary, and alienates us from connecting deeply to our body and the baby’s needs. We are in the what-if-something-happens universe, never really expecting the something to be wonderful or magical. We train for nine months to be on high alert and leave little room for intuitive intimacy.

      Intuitive intimacy is the knowing that the mom-who-is (as opposed to the mom-to-be) is in synergy with baby in every moment. Before eating or doing something, she checks with her body to see if this feels appropriate for her. This harnessing of intuitive processing becomes a continuum tool for labor, birth, and parenting. We live in a world where everyone has an opinion, and everyone is too eager to share it. We are bombarded with other people’s suggestions, and rarely are we encouraged to go within for answers.

       Integrating Healing

      To live moment by moment is a lifelong practice, and the proposition of engaging labor (and parenting) as such a practice can be daunting to many women. What I have found is that to sell this proposition to the person takes marrying the right and left hemispheres of the brain. We access our right brain by feeling, and the notion of having a natural, powerful, and spiritual birth is appealing to all. However, when our rational left brain engages in this dialogue, it requires proof, evidence, and tools to make the beautiful idea grounded in the physical plane. They each have their purposes, and we benefit when both hemispheres are on board, especially when giving birth.

      So how do we present the information in a way that seems doable for women? Most importantly, by the understanding that scientifically, the laboring body—as a perfectly balanced mechanism—is primordial. We find today that science, in pregnancy, has been boiled down to hospital statistics and reasons for intervention, but we forget that there is science happening as the maternal hormones orchestrate the contractions, and signals are sent to the baby to descend. Not only is dilation directly related to these maternal hormones, but so is the opiate-like effect that can result in uninterrupted labor. For instance, the hormone oxytocin, or the “love hormone,” is released during sexual activity and pregnancy, and peaks during the descent of the baby out of the vagina. This hormone not only is responsible for uterine contractions but also triggers the feeling of love and altruism. Oxytocin is just one of four major hormones that are so brilliantly expressed in the laboring mechanism. As each woman understands the perfection of the system, she becomes more comfortable with trusting it.

       Labor and Birth

      I honor each and every mother who is brave and authentic in facing the rawness of her fears. I honor every woman who dares to dream of her heart’s desires. I honor every human being who is committed to birthing greatness in self. But how do we deal with the pain of any process?

      Contraction by contraction is the answer. Knowing we are supported by our peers and a Power greater than ourselves is not only comforting but empowering. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of feeling supported during pregnancy and childbirth. I have seen mothers progressing steadily during labor and when the midwife, doula, or close friend arrives, their labor speeds up. The intensity and feeling of the unknown is more surmountable when those trusted are present, physically or spiritually.