Birth Pains and Transitions
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009Being pregnant is such an interesting experience. Of course, there is the indescribable joy and awe of being a part of growing and bringing a new Light Being to the planet (mixed in with some whining about the loss of my waist and the ever-shrinking aisles in the grocery store…I just KNOW they got smaller the last few months…)
There is also fear…”can I really do this, at this time…in this way?”…a deep knowing of what is to come…sleepless nights, rough trips to the grocery store, potty training, the first day of school, adolescence, the need to have the last word, learning how to drive…(pause while I take a deep breath…)
Can I be a good mother and balance all of the craziness that is my life…again…with this lone child at the end of a chain of five kids?
The end of pregnancy is one long contraction, a deep going inward that occupies most of your thinking and feeling space inside of you. As my belly is growing and I move towards the birth of my child, all of the details of life seem to disappear.
I call it pregnant-brain syndrome. (I spend a lot of time walking up and down stairs wondering just what I came up or down for…)
I write all the details down now. My desk is flooded with little notes to myself. But, in spite of my diligence, I mostly ignore these notes. It’s not that I don’t want to stay on top of things. It’s just that I am in a highly refined simplistic mode.
As my brain and my consciousness contract, my heart is simultaneously expanding. It is so clear to me that the true point of life, or at least my life, is to live and breathe love. And right now, all the little details and even irritations don’t seem to matter.
I am focused on birthing a child and with that I know I am on the cusp of a new Big Love.
I remember the shock I felt when I had my first child. I wasn’t prepared to love so deeply and so violently. As I stared at my beautiful curly-headed, chubby, blonde baby I would have terrible fantasies about what lengths I would go through to save him if something should happen to him.
The love of a parent gives you the courage and the strength to throw yourself down in front of a moving truck to protect your child if need be. Some call is biological imperative.
I think its love.
Love is simple, but complicated. Some of our greatest acts of love are our most painful. Certainly there is no greater arena than parenting that teaches us to let go and enjoy the departing flight of our loved ones as they leave the proverbial nest.
Oh, yes, we want them to stay. Oh, yes, we want to grab their tail feathers and beg them to come back or take us with them.
But if we succeed in holding them back, we are not acting out of love, only our own selfish need to not feel the bittersweet pain.
Isn’t it interesting how we struggle sometimes to commit these great acts of love in other parts of our lives? I am grateful to have been a mother. It certainly has made me a better friend and lover over the years. (Although letting go is still the part I hate the most…)
Childbirth is a big letting go. Those of you who have had the experience of birth know that you have no choice but to surrender to the process. The waves of “love at work” pulse through your body and you give in to an exquisite purposeful state that takes you the one of the biggest payoffs in life.
When I worked as a midwife, my clients who tried to keep control over the process always ended up with complications. If you don’t give in to the process, the process will take over and force you to surrender.
I always felt like birth was bigger than me. The process called me forth to serve my part but I was simply a piece of a Divine Plan.
The hardest part in labor is called transition. These are the last few centimeters of dilation before pushing. Personally, I don’t care what Lamaze teaches. It hurts like hell.
But, if you surrender, trust the process, you are in an altered conscious flow and the pain is manageable.
The first time I gave birth, I thought I was going to die during transition. No joking here. I begged my midwife to call an ambulance and take me to the hospital.
She simply smiled and said to me, “Take it one contraction at a time.”
Those words still echo in my spirit 18 years later. Take it one contraction at a time, has been my mantra for any transition that I’ve gone through.
Last night in my Inside the Body of God class we talked about our stories and the myth of perfection. Isn’t it funny how so many of us carry old stories and programming about getting Life “right” (…as if Life has this linear progression from birth to death, kind of like the “chain of being” evolution graphics in our old biology textbooks)?
As Lightworkers, so many of us buy into the myth that we have to navigate growth and change “perfectly”, keeping a smile on our face and always thinking positive.
Ugh. Let’s face it. Sometimes it’s hard and you want to call an ambulance and get some good drugs.
Evolution has never been linear. Several adaptions and mutations appear simultaneously. Many variations on a theme are always present. And some adaptions and mutations don’t work.
Growth, like evolution is never linear. It’s more cyclical. We deal with an issue, evolve and then we deal with a new variation on the issue.
Ultimately, deep down underneath it all, we are all simply having a human, third dimensional experience in learning to trust God.
And trusting God means that we are also learning that underneath all of this experience is only Love.
Pure Unconditional Love.
(That doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences and reactions to our actions. But we are always Love and Loved.)
What does that mean, really?
Being pregnant, I like to keep it simple. If you go back to the Torah, or the Old Testament, I think the whole journey of Life can be summed up in the story of Manna.
As the Israelites are wandering in the desert scared and worried about food and water, God gives them (us) the following instructions:
1. Don’t worry. I’ve got it handled. Everyday I will give you Manna. Manna is the perfect food. You can make it taste like anything you want and it will nourish you completely.
2. Don’t take more than you need. I’ll always give you enough and more on the next day. If you hoard Manna, it will simply rot.
3. If you need extra for a sick brother or sister, I will provide extra.
4. Your only job is to gather the Manna. You have to do the work.
5. On every sixth day, I will give you extra Manna so you can rest and enjoy the magnificence of Life on the seventh day.
Pretty simple, huh?
There is a cycle here. Each and every day you can choose to experience Manna in a new way. You’re always supported. Don’t change the rhythm or the cycle. At the end of each cycle you are given time to go in and reflect and then start over.
Our lives are cycles revolving around birth and death, cycles of renewal, cleansing, growth and endings.
We can easily grow and evolve when we align with the cycles. It’s when we resist the cycles (especially the starts and endings) that Life forces us to submit in more challenging ways. It is sublimely simple but easily made complicated.
This week I invite you to surrender to the cycles of your life and your reality. Accept the beauty of where you are in your life cycle, whether you are cleansing, purging and renewing or growing, expanding or even ending.
Love yourself as you move through change and transition. There is no “perfect” way to navigate through it all. It’s okay to scream and have a temper tantrum if that’s what it takes to get to the other side. Releasing that energy only makes room for clarity and peace.
Each step in your journey is really about growth and expansion. Remember to take the contractions of transition, one contraction at a time.
May you remember this week to Trust and know you are fully supported on your journey and may you remember that deep underneath all of this experience is really only the grandest expression of pure, unconditional Love.
Love,
Karen