I have just finished listening to a series of talks that Brené Brown has given around the concept of shame and the power of vulnerability. It wasn’t until I was 80% through her book, The Power of Vulnerability, that a light bulb went off. When Brené refers to calm being a superpower it occurred to me how much of our culture’s ideas around birth and more specifically, our discomfort at choosing to acknowledge our desire for a calm and positive birth experience, are rooted in the notion of shame and wanting to avoid being shamed. This fear of being shamed, humiliated even, feeds into our reluctance to take positive action towards our wishes .
We live in a society where people are shamed for being different or not fitting in, and being vulnerable is often perceived as weakness.
It struck me that at every step of your journey towards a calm and positive birth experience, I or your instructors are asking that you fly in the face of all of the things we are conditioned to avoid and protect ourselves from.
First of all I hope that through reading newsletters / blogs / hearing from friends about the amazing birth experiences they have had, that you choose to step forward and say,
‘you know what? I do want a good birth. I want to enjoy my labour, I want to feel the most powerful I have ever felt and even though I don’t know how I’m going to achieve that, I want it.’
This acknowledgement is sooo fucking huge, because in saying that you are choosing to be different. You’re saying that what society deems as standard is not what you want and you’re going to seek out something different. That leaves you wide open to people questioning your need for realism at best, and your sanity at worst. So if you have already stepped up and said ‘this IS what I want’ then I want you to know that you are a fucking superwoman. If you’re debating whether you should take the plunge or have decided not to, I want you to hear me when I say, no judgement here.
Once you have signed up to your hypnobirthing program of choice, we instructors then ask you to put aside any and all of the negative things you’ve heard, seen, and experienced about birth and we ask you to trust the process. We ask you to trust your bodies and we ask you to trust us. Now in real life building trust takes time, patience and for many people micro tests, to see whether the situation or person we’re interacting with is worthy of our trust and more importantly us letting our guards down. Letting our guards down takes a huge amount of vulnerability; which, by its very nature means that we cannot be 100% certain of the outcome, and that can be a scary feeling. So for those of you who give us your trust and choose to trust yourselves I want you to hear me when I say you’re a fucking superwoman!
And then you go into labour.
We ask you to release all resistance, to allow yourself to experience the sensations of birth without becoming too identified with what you’re feeling. Unless you’re feeling ecstasy of course, and then we’re like, knock yourself out. But for the most part, for most women, it’s about releasing all tension and resistance and leaning into the process. Leaning into the idea that there is nothing wrong and that YOU CAN do this. We ask you to let it all hang out, roar if you want to, cry if you want to, sit in silence if you want to and embrace your power and vulnerability simultaneously and that is a HUGE deal.
And for those of you who go with that, while of course the reward is just immense and you don’t need me to tell how amazing you are, I want you to hear me when I say I think you’re a fucking superwoman.
