Birth Mystics

Be Here Now

Katie guides us through a discussion about the power of presence and what that can do for your birth. Living in the present moment is one of the greatest gifts birth can give you. Mindfulness is the ability to be in this moment without allowing distractions to pull you out of that focus. You can imagine your thoughts as a river that can sometimes sweep us up into its current. Mindfulness teaches us to pull ourselves above the water in order to observe and watch it pass, helping us realize that we are not our thoughts. There is an important aspect of non-judgment in that process.
One birth doula client that Katie worked with was having a hard time and often asking when she could start pushing, or how many contractions she was going to have to go through. She still did it. She had a fine birth experience. So it doesn't mean that not being mindful during birth will make everything terrible and horrible. Sometimes the shifts are subtle.
If you do the math, generally speaking, every 3 minutes you'll have a 1 minute contraction, then it's about 15 minutes per hour of contraction for every 45 minutes of calm. Mindfulness can help you embrace that 45 minutes of calm instead of holding onto the contraction that already happened or the contraction that's coming. Your brain doesn't know the difference between what is real and what is imagined, so if you're focusing on the pain of that previous contraction, your brain thinks it's still happening and your physiological response will be the same as if it were.
We often learn in our youth and society that having big emotions is not okay. You're either sent away or shushed or shamed. Learning how to sit with your big emotions is one of the biggest and best things you could do to prepare for birth. Mindfulness is a wonderful tool for doing just that.
Stephanie speaks about the Beginner's Mind. For example, you're eating an avocado. Hold it. Touch it. Smell it. Eventually take a bite and let it sit on your tongue for a moment or two. Chew it. Swallow it. And realize that you've never, ever had that avocado before. It is the only one of its kind. Can you approach it with curiosity? Meeting it without the label and preconceived ideas. How can you apply that to birth?
We're so often stuck in our heads that we don't experience so much of life—the food we eat, the people we love, the places we go. Birth is a powerful opportunity to bring us very, very present. It brings us into our bodies and activates our senses. Katie can still close her eyes and conjure up those same feelings and bodily memories of her births because of how embodied she was.
Katie speaks about how mindfulness can be pivotal in helping you through the last few weeks of pregnancy when you're so tired and tempted to be induced without medical indication. Any form of natural induction that you can try, Katie tried it—spicy burgers, sex, raspberry leaf tea, curb walking, and more. Even so, her baby didn't come until 10 days after the due date. It can be helpful not to announce an exact due date to friends and family so that they don't inadvertently put pressure you in those final weeks. You can consciously choose to be more vague—we're due in the spring or we're due Mid-May. Find ways to be joyful, to be in your body, to celebrate this last stage. Everything is about to change. How can you more fully engage in those moments?
Stephanie remembers her obsessions with infant mile-markers with her first baby. She couldn't wait for her daughter to grow up and learn the next new thing, to the point that she didn't fully enjoy each moment. By the time she had her fourth baby, she learned to slow down and savor her little baby and not want him to grow up too fast.
Curiosity is a key component of mindfulness. It's not rose-colored glasses. It's not having a critical eye. It's just being open and full of wonder with each new experience. Children are naturally mindful. Stephanie shares a memory of taking a walk with her son. He kept stopping and getting distracted. At one point, Stephanie was scolding him until she realized that he was smelling a rose. She stopped in her tracks. Why would a mother ever tell her son to stop stopping to smell the roses? He didn't have the problem—Stephanie did. So she chose to meet him there in the place of wonder instead of trying to pull him into her way of living.
Mindfulness doesn't make everything blissful. Instead it can help you learn how to cope during the difficult times and how to be fully engaged in the most pleasant of times. Consider postpartum and all of the strange and sometimes scary thoughts that can pop into our minds. Instead of identifying as those thoughts, we can instead see that our brain is trying to cope, is sleep-deprived, and you're under a great deal of stress. You can create distance between YOU and your thoughts—they do not define you. The thoughts are actually neutral, and it's what we do or the actions we take that matter. Non-attachment helps us let go of extreme thinking and invite possibilities.
Sources Cited: the poem "Living in the Now" by Vanessa Hughes
If you'd like to learn more please visit www.freyabirth.com

Labyrinths

You've likely been taught that birth (and life) is a lot like a maze—having to make the "right" choices in order to achieve a "good" birth. But what if there's another template for giving birth (and living) that removes those vocabulary words entirely and sets you up for peace, clarity, and empowerment?
The whole point of a maze is to find the way out, typically as quickly as possible. And yet, it's designed to frustrate and mislead you, with seemingly endless crossroads. Decision-making looks like "right or left" which quickly devolves into "right or wrong." You know you've taken a wrong turn if you hit a dead-end and have to back-track. That's typically what leads to anxiety, depression, and self-criticism. Sometimes you blame yourself, other times you blame the maze, or maybe even other circumstances. You get stuck in the "if only" game, wishing you could go back to that crossroads and make a different choice that would yield different results. Much of birth (and life) trauma happens here.
The goal of a labyrinth is quite different. Instead of trying to "escape" or "get out" you're seeking to go deeper and deeper into the heart and center. There is only one path, and so the decision-making changes. Instead of asking "right or wrong" you're asked—will I keep going? Just because there's one path, that doesn't mean it's all going to be smooth, perfect, beautiful, and ideal. It's not that that ONE path is ALL right—it's a fusion of everything. It's prickly, soft, light, dark, heavy, quiet, loud, smooth all mixed into one. Instead of asking us to "choose the right," labyrinths teach us to "choose the ripe," like a succulent fruit falling from the vine. When you choose that ripened fruit, the path unfolds before you. You can proclaim, "This is the choice that I made. So be it." That is the path.
If you don't want to give birth in a maze you can choose different rules. Consider an example. During labor, the nurse suggests breaking your waters. Is this a "right or wrong" scenario? Start by checking in with your brain—seek information, statistics, facts. Then, check in with your unique situation—where am I at, what is my body needing, how are things progressing? Then, check in with your feelings and intuition—how does this option feel? Ask for time and carve out privacy in that decision-making process. In that quiet, alone space you make a choice and then inform your provider. Now, once you've gone through that process, are you guaranteed a perfect outcome? Ugh. Unfortunately, no. Even after all your hard work and trusting your intuition. So this is where the mind-work comes in. Living in a labyrinthine way is not a guarantee of getting what you want, but rather teaching you a different way of responding to what happens. It gives you permission to say, "I did all I could do. I made a choice based on the information I had in the moment. I felt really good about it at the time." You own that. In a labyrinth, there's no such thing as moving backward. Even if that choice to break waters somehow spiraled into an emergency c-section, you will be very tempted to regret your choice. Instead of betraying yourself every time you make a choice and it doesn't play out the way you'd like—instead you honor your past self. You offer her compassion and grace. AND, you can still learn from those choices.
Labyrinths can be found in many different ancient cultures: Christian, Pagan, Native American, and Greek mythology to name a few. In the Christian tradition you can find labyrinths on the floors of cathedrals to represent the journey to the Holy Land. You can walk or finger-trace a labyrinth to make any kind of journey in your life, and certainly birth is one of those. It will play with your idea of progress, because labyrinths are not linear but circular. Instead of trying to make a plan and go from point A to point B in a straight line, labyrinths teach you to circle in and away, to move closer and then wind out, and circuitously make your way to the center. It teaches us to cherish the journey itself and not to fixate too strongly on the destination.
References from this episode:
Labyrinth of Birth, by Pam England
If you'd like to learn more about Stephanie's work, please visit www.bhavabirth.com

Crossing Thresholds

Inanna was a queen and priestess and she felt a call to descend into the underworld. She prepared by gathering everything she needed. Inanna made her descent, but at every gate something was demanded of her to give up, which she did. She gave up a scepter, a breastplate, bangles, her necklace…and finally, her robe—enabling her to cross the final threshold at her most vulnerable and powerful.
Katie speaks about rites of passage that are too often under-celebrated, such as menarche, motherhood, and more. She talks about how all of these significant rites of passage have a distinct threshold over which we cross, and the more we do so intentionally the smoother that crossing will be. How we prepare for birth often evolves, where it's less about "the stuff" and more about the support. Like Inanna, there will be parts of you that will be shed and surrendered, and not because they weren't useful but because they fulfilled their purpose. The work we do prenatally is building up "me" and the work of birth is stripping "me" down.
No matter the journey, there will be threshold moments—some of them very hard—that will reduce you to "nakedness" or deep vulnerability. There is potential that lies there for our whole lives. Within birth itself there is a threshold known as Transition. That is when you are experiencing the most softening, opening, and releasing in preparation for expulsion of the baby. Adrenaline often shows up here, sweating, flushing, over-heating, etc. This is often a distinct shift, both physically and mentally. You may start to encounter your self-limiting beliefs: I can't do this, I can't keep going, this is too much, I can't go on. How big have you allowed yourself to be? Transition takes you beyond that limit. That can feel terrifying. It can also feel wild, intense, and powerful. Some often feel ashamed of how they may have acted in those moments, if they were "too loud" or "too wild" or "too big." Wouldn't it be amazing if we instead celebrated and marveled at that burgeoning side of ourselves?
Katie and Stephanie have a discussion on voice in the labor room. Sometimes we hold subconscious or conscious expectations about how loud or quiet we want to be during labor. On one hand, we may be afraid of sounding animalistic or wild, or on the other we may shy away from sounding too sexual with moans and groans. That can result in a desire for a "silent" birth, where you restrict your noises and voice, but this restriction can flow downstream and also closes your cervix. And partners? You can show up for your loved one during labor by validating their sounds and normalizing whatever comes out of their mouth (or any other orifice for that matter).
We invite you to share your transition stories with us!
 
References from this episode:
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
 
If you'd like to learn more please visit www.freyabirth.com

Into the Darkness

Katie shares with us beautiful prose of going into the darkness. She invites us to challenge the idea that darkness is evil or scary and how to use it to our advantage during childbirth. For Katie, darkness is solace, peace, and seclusion, which are wonderful adjectives for birth. Consider how we often meet a lover in the darkness. Our senses are turned down. We get to put all of our focus into touching and feeling.
Stephanie shares her experience being "highly sensitive" and how much the noise of children can overstimulate her. One way that she balances things out is through low-lighting. This definitely translates, for many people, into the birth space. Some midwives wear headlamps at births to be more honoring of their clients' desire for darkness.
When you're laying down at night, getting ready to sleep, and all the lights are off--where do your thoughts go? For some, it goes into ideas. Others, planning. Imagination is often sparked, for good or for bad. It can lead to feelings of unsafety. If that applies to you, that can be informative self-awareness for your upcoming birth. Our brain is the place we live, and if your default is fear--birth could be more challenging in this area.
Nyx is the goddess of darkness from Greek mythology. One story that's told about her involves her son, Chaos, who incurs the rath of Zeus. He flees to the safety of her mother, Nyx, and Zeus would not follow him. And he's Zeus! That just shows how powerful darkness is that even the most powerful god will retreat. But, perhaps, if you're prepared to face the darkness you don't have anything to fear.
Stephanie points out that this is also found in Yogic teachings, from Paramahansa Yoginanda's book The Second Coming of Christ. He teaches that any reference to the "wilderness" or "darkness" is a reference to the third-eye, or sixth chakra. And the third-eye is very much associated with seeing reality and discerning truth. You'd think that would be connected to light, but it's not--it's in darkness that we discover and know truth, when all of our other senses are quiet.
Katie reminds us that traumatic births aren't always healed by "perfect births" to follow. Many times, births are a combination of light and dark, smooth and pokey, and there is still profound healing potential within that full spectrum. This is the process of integrating the shadowside.
Stephanie speaks about the challenges of growing up in purity culture and an obsession with all that is light, bright, and right, while avoiding anything that is dark or evil. What that separation does is makes the darkness more powerful than we are. This is where addictions are born. Like the story of Jekyll and Hyde, where the good doctor meets his own demise because he didn't know he could integrate his evil nature. This is powerful in your birth preparations, as well. You don't want to only focus on your "perfect and good" birth, but also spend some time understanding your fears and "worst case scenarios." If you avoid those areas, they become more powerful than you.
We challenge you: give yourself time alone in the darkness as part of your birth preparation. Get to know yourself there. Meet your baby there. Enter the darkness in order for both of you to step out, together, into the light.
If you'd like to learn more please visit www.freyabirth.com

Willing to Die

Stephanie reads her original poem, "Willing to Die," which explores the metaphorical and mythical journey birthers undertake. Instead of fearing death of the ego, we can learn to embrace it, and when we do—birth transforms us. This kind of death is about moving with the seasons and cycles of life and accepting our undoing. To learn more about Stephanie's work, visit bhavabirth.com

Baba Yaga

Katie tells us the Slavic myth of Baba Yaga. This is a myth, while on the outside can appear very dark, is actually about connecting to our intuition. Any myth with all of its components can represent the entire psyche. Baba Yaga is a powerful template that all of us can follow in our process of discovering our intuition in the birth space.
To learn more about Katie's birth work, please visit www.freyabirth.com

Kundalini Awakening

Stephanie describes feeling intense grief and rage from childhood trauma that surfaced during her first postpartum. Then she learned about Kundalini, which instilled a deep and profound purpose to her pain. This awakening isn't just trying to shove our past traumas into our faces just because--it's trying to evolve us. To learn more please visit www.bhavabirth.com

Poseidon

Katie walks us through her original poem "Poseidon" that she wrote while six months pregnant with her third baby. As she laid in bed pondering her upcoming birth the words just came together in her mind. She jumped out of bed and wrote it down, feeling how it deeply expressed her hopes and wishes for her birth. This poem also represents her embodiment journey. If you'd like to learn more please visit www.freyabirth.com

Bhava

Stephanie discusses what led her to naming her business Bhava Birth. It's a Sanskrit word that translates to becoming. When it's spelled bhavah it translates into giving birth. The etymology shows a deep and profound connection between these two processes, of birth and becoming. If you'd like to learn more please visit www.bhavabirth.com

Freya

Katie introduces what inspired her to name her business Freya Birth. Join us as we explore Norse mythology to understand the meaning and symbology of the goddess Freya and how it pertains to birth. If you'd like to learn more please visit www.freyabirth.com
References: Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, A Good Birth: Finding the Positive and Profound in your Childbirth Experience, by Anne Lyerly