Lessons from Childbirth
My one and only childbirth was not the drug-free, fully natural experience I planned. Despite 6 weeks of Lamaze training and a very caring delivery nurse, I ended up with an epidural, an oxygen mask (because of my low blood pressure) and an episiotomy. The fact that my son weighed 9 lbs. 3 oz. at birth explains much. But something the delivery nurse said (before she went off shift, leaving me in the hands of a much less motherly person) has stayed with me for these last 24 years.
In between the contractions, you need to relax.
The inability to relax between the contractions is the source of a lot of our problems, isn't it? When traumatic events happen its very difficult to let go of the them. Our minds relive the experience, churning and churning with visual images, emotions, and imagined conversations. And our bodies retain the tension, becoming cramped and immobile. These patterns are unfortunately reinforced by physiological changes. A substance called myelin acts like Teflon, sheathing the neurological pathways that we use most often, making thoughts, in a sense, easier to think. And our muscles develop adhesions as a response to stress that limit their ability to function freely.
So relaxing between the contractions isn't that simple. You cant just tell yourself, "OK, the contraction is over, you've got 15 seconds before the next one! Take it easy, relax!" Sure, read a magazine, have a mojito! Hell, that didn't work...Oh, boy, here we go again...
This is why we need a regular practice devoted to this result. And it's best when that practice has positive feedback, to help develop that myelin sheathing on the "better" neurological pathways, if you will.
In both yoga and aikido practice, when I do manage to find that moment of relaxation before the next contraction, or even in the middle of it, I get immediate positive feedback. Either someone hits the ground with a thump and says, "Wow! How did you do that? I didnt feel anything!" (That's aikido, in case you were wondering), or I experience a combination of openness and greater strength that lets me do something I never did before.
In between the contractions, you need to relax.
The inability to relax between the contractions is the source of a lot of our problems, isn't it? When traumatic events happen its very difficult to let go of the them. Our minds relive the experience, churning and churning with visual images, emotions, and imagined conversations. And our bodies retain the tension, becoming cramped and immobile. These patterns are unfortunately reinforced by physiological changes. A substance called myelin acts like Teflon, sheathing the neurological pathways that we use most often, making thoughts, in a sense, easier to think. And our muscles develop adhesions as a response to stress that limit their ability to function freely.
So relaxing between the contractions isn't that simple. You cant just tell yourself, "OK, the contraction is over, you've got 15 seconds before the next one! Take it easy, relax!" Sure, read a magazine, have a mojito! Hell, that didn't work...Oh, boy, here we go again...
This is why we need a regular practice devoted to this result. And it's best when that practice has positive feedback, to help develop that myelin sheathing on the "better" neurological pathways, if you will.
In both yoga and aikido practice, when I do manage to find that moment of relaxation before the next contraction, or even in the middle of it, I get immediate positive feedback. Either someone hits the ground with a thump and says, "Wow! How did you do that? I didnt feel anything!" (That's aikido, in case you were wondering), or I experience a combination of openness and greater strength that lets me do something I never did before.
I still kind of feel like a failure at natural childbirth...
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