Birth Professionals in the New Paradigm

As stated in the recent documentary titled I AM, “Shift is about to hit the fan”.  We are among a changing time and the shift that is occurring on our planet right now is impacting every aspect of our lives.  This includes childbirth!  The new paradigm is among us.  People are no longer sitting in the back seat of their lives.  An awakening is happening!  It’s exciting and scary at the same time.  As we the new paradigm rises up around us, the question for those who work in childbirth is ARE YOU READY?

We are!  We have built this entire program in the essence of the new paradigm. Without limits, rules, regulations, certifications, a list of have-to’s or should-do’s.  We are already aligned with the heart of humans and we are opening up more and more minds to begin to hear their own inner wisdom louder and clearer than anyone else.

We hope you will join us as we take these next steps on our planet.  Connecting to our fellow human beings in a place of heart-centered connection.  Where honoring the whispers of the soul are not only allowed but encouraged!

We feel led to offer an online class for birth professionals who are looking for guidance on their journey into the new paradigm.  As they let go of the need to be right about everything and scare pregnant moms into making ANY choice.  But instead offering complete freedom and support in that freedom.  If you’re interested or inspired to join us, please consider registering for our upcoming online course for birth professionals.

“BIRTH PROFESSIONALS IN THE NEW PARADIGM”
—CONSCIOUS WORK IN CHILDBIRTH —

As a birth professional, we are driven by the desire to change, both in birth itself and in the people who are about to go on the journey. This eight-week class is designed to offer you tips, inspiration, insight and more ways to continue to take the inner journey awakening to your consciousness and allowing it to naturally spill over into your work as a birth professional. While birth professionals have a tremendous impact on those they touch, the biggest impact comes from being an example by the way you live your life. The world is shifting and changes are occurring at a rapid rate — this course is for the new paradigm of consciousness that is waking on this planet right now.

To start off the course, you will receive a welcome email with information about what to expect in the course and some tips on how to get the most out of  your experience with us. Once the course begins you will receive a weekly email offering information in the form of: videos, guided meditations, doses of inspirations, documents to download and birth professional tips. Within every week, there will be a new Pure Birth professional video to watch and a guided meditation to listen to. Each week there will be a different theme that will allow us guide you into a heart-opening, soul-awakening journey back to YOU!! Some of the themes: “Awakening to Your Inner Voice”; “Change Begins with Us”; “Yoga & The Body’s Wisdom”; PLUS MORE!

You will also receive a “Birth Professional Guide to the New Paradigm” to download the first week of the class! Each person registered for the class will have two individual phone call/skype sessions with Pure Birth founder, Melissa, to help guide you on your path, answer your questions and inspire you as a birth professional. This private sessions will occur in the first week of the class and the last week of the class.

Class Dates: January 9th – February 27th
Cost: $199 (save $50 and register before 12/31/2011)
Free to our current affiliates

REGISTER ONLINE HERE: Link

How do I best prepare for birth?

Well, I have been asked this question thousands of times and I have answered it a hundred different ways.  The response changes on where I am on this beautiful journey in birth and my understandings of life.  My answer today might sound counter-intuitive for a childbirth educator or doula, but it is for the moment the most clear understanding I have of the question so far.

Upon discovering a positive pregnancy test, women usually spend the first few weeks scouring the internet, books and asking friends questions about pregnancy and birth.  This normal reaction to seek out information and guidance is similar to a child who just learns to read and realize how much information is now available to him.  However, after the dust settles on this initial jump start education program, there becomes a time when real decisions become necessary.

In previous decades, we have thought that childbirth preparation meant breathing techniques, anatomy and medical terminology.  In the more progressive childbirth classes, we taught poses for childbirth, relaxation techniques and birth plans.  As this question arises today, instead of suggesting birth plan preparations I suggest finding their soul.  Getting to know themselves with the deepest intimacy that is available at the time.  Making the journey about going within instead about learning another breathing technique.  It’s not that the breathing techniques, birth plans and birthing positions aren’t helpful, because they are.  But they are useless if you don’t understand the depths of your soul, knowing its whispers in your heart.  Most of the time spent on planning the nursery or researching car seats seen silly in comparison to the mindful journey of coming to know your inner wisdom.

If we all have an inner wisdom, and I believe we do, how do we decipher the difference between a fear, a cultural story and the whisper of the soul?  THAT’S WHAT A PURE BIRTH CLASS IS FOR!  It’s not that a Pure Birth class is the only way…. not even close.  It’s just one of the many ways to experientially begin or continue the soulful journey inward.

The Pain Pleasure Dichotomy

It has been thought for centuries that pain was the opposite of pleasure.  That when pain was present pleasure was absent.  This idea has been widely accepted for generations.  The pleasure-pain principle was originated by Sigmund Freud in modern psychoanalysis, although Aristotle noted their significance in his ‘Rhetoric’, more than 300 years BC.

‘We may lay it down that Pleasure is a movement, a movement by which the soul as a whole is consciously brought into its normal state of being; and that Pain is the opposite.‘

This idea is that as human beings, we inherently move towards pleasure and avoid pain.  This one concept has built an idea that the two are opposites and mutually exclusive.  There are many examples cited about this idea of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.  Such a child who gets burned by fire and avoids the fire.  This we can witness as a child is learning about its environment.  This seems like absolute truth at first glance.

However, a new idea is being born, one that allows for the possibility of pain and pleasure existing simultaneously thus becoming neither of those.  When a person allows themselves to be outside the realm of opposites, one can experience both joy and sadness, pain and pleasure, laughter and crying at the same time.  The interesting part of this idea is that most of us have experienced moments of simultaneous pain and pleasure.  Even if it was just for a second, the experience is often dismissed and deemed an abnormal experience or perhaps the person claiming to experience it was delusional or crazy.  It is in this moment of simultaneously experiencing pain and pleasure, that we realize how subjective the idea of pain/pleasure has become.   In the simultaneous experience of opposites,  bliss arises that surpasses both pain and pleasure.  It is in feeling this blissful, whether both are experienced simultaneously or you might say that neither were experienced at all, there is an experience beyond words, ideas and concepts.  An experience that defies logic, science and rational thinking.

Perhaps it’s time to conceive of the idea of as an idea whose time has come.  In doing so, we open the door to the impossible idea of experiencing pleasure in birth.  I know it’s possible, because I personally experienced it and the only reason I personally experienced it was because I knew it was possible.  Welcome to the new paradigm of birth.

“It is not necessary for you to be pain-free in order to be free of suffering.  It is not necessary for there to be a lack of disruption in your life for there to be peace.”  ~Neale Donald Walsch

“What seems nasty, painful, evil can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.” ~ Henry Miller

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond the pain.” ~Saint Bartholomew quotes (One of the Twelve Apostles, 1st century AD)

Transcending the Mind

A letter to the mind:

“Hello there mind. Thank you for your endless stream of thoughts that circle around in my head and in my life.  You bring me the ability to think intellectually and solve math problem and for that I am grateful.  However, during my upcoming birth experience, I would like for you to become quiet so that I can hear the wisdom of my heart and allow it to guide me through this beautifully sacred process.  Please take this time to have yourself a break, mind, and to give it a rest.  I don’t need your analysis of what is going to be happening in the past or future and I know that is where you like to stay.  I am working on becoming an observer of you so therefore you should know… I will be watching.”

The mind is a powerful tool that is an avenue to being a human being.  As we are making great strides in our culture, we are also understanding the power of transcending the mind and observing the mind from another perspective.  Some would call this perspective the soul or spirit.  That’s what I like to say because it reminds me that I am three part being containing a body, a mind and a soul.  Learning how to become comfortable and intimate with all aspects of my three part self, helps me feel more like my “self” and more whole.  That is why some people use the term holistic or whole-listic to imply using the body, mind and soul.

These days it seems most people are most comfortable in their minds.  A few people have ventured into understanding their bodies and even fewer have peered into the aspects of their soul.  These other two parts of a human being that often remain quiet and untapped can become quiet powerful in the process of labor and birth.  When preparing for the journey of birth, it serves a woman well for her to begin (or continue) the journey into the intimate understanding of her body and soul.  Learning to hear the wisdom that is contained within each of these aspects will guide her along the way, giving her all of the in-formation (coming from within) that she needs during her labor process.

This is why Pure Birth was developed in a way to provide tools to access the body and the soul and to become the observer of the mind.  Meditation and yoga are two of the more popular avenues to this but there are hundreds of ways to access the full self.  Art, music, nature and many others often connect human beings to something other than their mind.  In these brief seconds of a transcendence of their mind, they can often feel something that is unexplainable.  It is unexplainable because in order to explain the experience, one would have to use their minds to think about the words to say and this is not possible since it happened outside of the mind.

Preparing for Birth. Preparing for Life.

Life and birth are interchangeable.  What we do to “prepare for birth” is the same stuff we do to prepare for “life”.  What kind of life do you want to have?  Do you experience a high-tech, stressful daily lifestyle?  Do you know that the life you live often equates to the birth you experience?  In our efforts to prepare women for childbirth, we have set up some systems/techniques on how to get through the labor.  Depending on the type of birth one chooses to have will depend on the type of system they choose to prepare for their birth.  There is everything from hypnosis to fear tactics and everything in between.  We can choose any of these types of classes and take a weekend or a series of classes before having a baby and then feel like we have done everything to prepare.

Over the years, I have had a lot of couples ask me just a few weeks or months before their baby’s arrival.  What can we do to continue getting ready for our birth?  I used to say, “practice your relaxation techniques” or “read your affirmation cards”.  Now, I’m thinking some more about this.  Not that either of those things are “wrong” in terms of preparing for birth but there is more to it than that.  In your everyday life there are numerous opportunities to practice vulnerability and surrendering.  What are your resisting in your life today?  Or better yet, who are you resisting?  What would happen if you faced this person or experience and melted into a surrender state?  I know what would happen.  You would realize that the fear was worse than the actual experience itself.  Then, when you are “preparing” for birth and you wonder how will I ever surrender to something that scary, painful, horrible, etc, you can remember this experience you just had.  Today when you surrendered to something in your life.

It’s all the same stuff we’re talking about.  If you want to prepare for your birth, taking a childbirth class is still a good idea.  Just remember, in order to truly have the experience you want to have, you need to first look at what’s currently going on in your life and if it reflects the birth experience you want to have.  If it doesn’t, take a childbirth class that will help you change some of those lifestyles and belief systems to better match the birth experience you are choosing.  Or consider what amount of change you are willing to go through in order to have the birth of your desires.

The Labor Labyrinth

Historically, labor has been discussed in stages and in a linear fashion.  We have often referred to labor as a growing process, always increasing in power and always increasing in physical signs of labor progression (dilatation, station, effacement).  Although I have adopted this philosophy for years, I have recently been questioning the truth around it.  Through the many labors I have quietly sat through, observing the woman move through her labor, I often see women moving in and out of strength in contractions, forward and backward in dilatation and babies going up and down in the pelvis.  I have also witnessed women going into a transitional type stage of labor and then back out again.  Only to watch her at some later time, go back into this intensity we call “transition” to see if she wants to stay there or back out again.  Many times, women will experience moments of this intense, overwhelming part of labor and then I watch her move into a more peaceful state for a few hours.  Often times, I can notice in these situations that her physical labor progression signs will follow her willingness to go into “transition” and stay there.  This has got me rethinking the whole linear concept of the stages of labor.  It seems like it might be more accurate to say that labor is more circular and spiral like a labyrinth and much less like climbing a mountain.  Unless of course, you were climbing around and up the mountain in a circular motion and that would be a closer analogy.

As labor circles around, laboring women unfold various aspects of the labor and birth.  Everything happens in just the right “time” as it is very noticeable that the time experienced at birth has been said to stand still, stretch or even feel condensed.  Many women report in labor feeling outside of space and time, not feeling very oriented with time at all.  As a matter of fact, in the depths of labor, many women have no idea what time it is!  As a doula, there have been many occasions where linear time didn’t seem to fit into the experience.  One particular experience I remember writing down notes about when different events where occurring.  As I would review the notes and look at the time I wrote down next to them, I would be shocked.  What was 20 minutes would feel like 2 hours.  I kept double checking my notes but it continued to happen through the entire birth.  I felt like I was in a time warp and there was nothing linear about it.

Letting go of linear thinking and embracing this circular concept may take some time to take hold in the birth community, but for those of us who have sat through thousands of hours of birthing, it cannot go unnoticed that events don’t always unfold in the way the books say it should and time can play tricks on our minds.

Grateful Birthing

There I was, laboring in the water at my house during my third birth, surrounded by people who loved me.  Feeling the sensations of birth overwhelming my body with the necessary strength to give birth.  As each sensation came into my body, my mind repeated the mantra “open” while my breath continued taking me on a journey into the depths of surrendering.  Oh the beauty of each sensation, I thought to myself.  Knowing that the strength that my body received was a gift I received on my way to holding my baby.  The breathing remained steady, repetitive and focused on the continual letting go that happened in each moment.  Gratitude became the theme for this birth.  As each contraction started to let up, I simply said thank you to myself and to the forces that brought the strength to me.  For everything I feel physically brought me to deeper levels of gratitude because I knew that the strength increasing meant I was closer to holding my baby in my arms.  As I continued repeating my open mantra, I began feeling this little boy inside me slip further into my birth canal.  Birthing without any vaginal exams but with sheer confidence in my body, I announced to the room that the time was getting close.  All that was left was some vomiting and then pushing was coming next.  The quiet room let a small laughter out as they began anticipating the closeness of the birth.  Within a few contractions, the vomiting came next.  Again, I knew this was a blessing because it meant we were very near the end.  Pushing started the moment the vomiting ended and quickly the baby’s head descended into my birth canal and released into the water.  Within a few minutes, he entered this beautiful world without a sound.  His eyes opened in the darkness of the night, looking around to see those in the room.  His peacefulness was something I cherished.  The moments before my labor began, I went into the shower and welcomed my newest baby into the world.  Telling him that we all loved him and we ready for him to come into our family.  Labor began the moment I stepped out of the shower and he was born three hours later.

My third little boy who graced us on April 8th, 2008 brought me the opportunity to take a blissful journey into a birth experience that I didn’t know was possible.  One that taught me gratitude could change everything about birth.  Shifting into a state of gratitude brought me a sense of peace that welcomed EVERYTHING that I felt, regardless of its strength.  Resistance and pain were not present with me and this completely changed my mind about what I thought was possible about childbirth.  In changing my  mind, I knew that the opportunity existed to help others know there was yet another way….  A few months later, Pure Birth was born.

 

Letting go of ‘teaching’ women how to give birth

Today, we are moving at lightning speed into new ways of living our lives and approaching every day.  These changes are happening rapidly all over the planet, as people are waking themselves up.  Pure Birth was developed out of this space, as a new evolution in the way we give birth.  After experiencing 3 births, attending more than 100 as a doula and teaching more than 400 families about birth, I woke up.  I realized the natural birth classes that were being taught were from the old paradigm.  They were great classes and I believed in them 100%, until I didn’t anymore.  Then it was time to develop Pure Birth, from the heart.  Starting with concepts from yoga and meditation and then slowly moving into the realization that birth came from within.  That the idea that ‘teaching’ anyone how to give birth was no longer making sense to me.  If women knew how to give birth, by listening to their bodies and that still inner voice, then what was I doing here anyway?  This question haunted me as I continued to let go of the old concepts of teaching and embrace new concepts of this new paradigm.  After taking a three year spiritual journey completely breaking down belief systems to nothing and learning how to live more malleable and fluid, the form that took shape about Pure Birth arose from here.

The new concepts that started to arise from this was that the work I wanted to do was not in getting them to hear my voice but inspiring women and their partners to hear and believe in their own voice.  This meant that it wasn’t about me being the expert in birth but about her (the pregnant/birthing mama) being the expert in herself.  Learning to accept, love and cherish everything about herself.  For me, this happens when we stay present and in the moment rising our awareness with each breath we take.  Pure Birth really has very little to do with educating women about birth and has everything to do with empowering women to live consciously.  Out of living consciously, birthing in awareness and in empowerment happens naturally.

These new ideas about birth completely change the construction of childbirth classes.  Before, classes were about coming to meet a Birth Professional, who knew everything about natural childbirth and would share it with the students.  In letting go of teaching women how to give birth and embracing this opportunity to share transformation of herself, creating space for transparency and vulnerability, and honoring herself in every way, natural birth happens spontaneously.  But this kind of birth is different than the birth was ‘taught’.  This kind of birth happens holistically out of her own knowing and her own waking up about life.  These types of transformations happens because the pregnant/birthing mama has a desire for the transformation.  There are no ‘shoulds’ or ‘should-nots’ about how she gives birth.  She knows this innately because she has let go of the old belief systems that would tell her to do it any certain way.  This conscious birthing mother has woken up to her own inner voice, which is her guiding system.  No one’s voice is as loud and as clear as her own because she trusts her own wisdom.

Those who work in birth today are also recognizing the need to embrace these concepts as we remember that in the new paradigm we cannot empower others if we are not empowering ourselves.  The work for these kind of birth professionals also comes from within, a side by side walk instead of a guided journey.  We are all moving and changing, recognizing that is the only way transformation happens.  To be well-educated about birth, have lots of experiences with birth and to be passionate about birth is still what makes a birth professional continue with birth work.  However, we are moving into a place in consciousness where birth professionals are letting go of teaching concepts and moving into empowerment concepts.  Rising up the awareness and consciousness of those families we work with, reminding them about their own wisdom within.

“Wise teachers can point the way, but only we can make the journey.” – Brian Weiss, M.D.

Transparent Birthing

One of the most amazing things to witness in birth is a woman transforming and opening up to her authentic self.  Most of us walk around showing many different versions of ourselves.  When we are at work, we may be in one identity and when we are with family we may be in a completely different identity.  Showing these various identities in many different ways is sort of a camouflaging that we do to make it comfortable to ‘show up’ in these different environments.  These different aspects of ourselves are identities that we have built and created, all of which are illusions.  There can be a lot of pretending that happens in these versions of ourselves.  We may pretend to be interested in what someone has to say at a family event, just to be nice and go along with the conversation.  Or at work, we may spend a lot of time trying to prove our worth, because of a fear of not feeling valued and the consequences that could occur if that were true.

One of the beautiful aspects of birthing without pain medications is the journey into transparency.  As she starts labor, she is often still attached to her identities or illusions she has built.  This identity is often one that is comfortable showing her happy, confident, compassionate self.  She is still concerned about taking care of others and about being ‘polite’.  The interesting thing that happens, as she moves into the depths of labor, she slowly begins to drop these identities, as she realizes they are not truly who she is and the effort that is necessary to keep up with these false identities is wasteful.  The effort put into pretending is no longer valuable.  The intensity of the labor forces her to let go of this, dropping into her authentic, transparent self.  This creates a huge place of vulnerability.  It is true for many women that this inner self has not been shown to anyone in many years!  This can be frightening to open herself up to her authentic self, especially in labor as she is struggling and facing her own weaknesses.

Because of the intensity of labor, she is forced with a decision.  Keep up with the pretending to make everyone else comfortable or let it go and move into her own labor and knowing within herself.  This is one of the most beautiful moments to witness at birth.  When she lets go and embraces herself, deep within her soul.  Remembering that she is nothing but love and all of the other aspects she has shown up were all illusions.  Although this transformation may only be momentary, this plants a seed deep within her often times creating more and more moments in the future where she becomes comfortable showing up as herself, fully transparent and vulnerable.

What is the new paradigm of birth?

Many have been talking about planetary changes happening.  Everything from pole shifts to global weather changes.  For the past decade, many spiritual teachers have been referring to an evolutionary change happening to our species.  A sort of waking up, raising consciousness or increasing awareness.  This is something that is gaining in speed and popularity, as many people ARE actually waking up from their sleep.  This means, they are starting to become aware of their own awareness.  In this awareness, a human being begins to notice thoughts, emotions and feelings in a new way.  There might also be some questioning that begins to take place.  Starting to wonder about their belief systems that have been the basis of making life choices.

This impact on birth is extremely profound.  As human’s continue this waking up process, the birth experience transforms into a completely different experience.  It now becomes something that is empowered, awake and blissful.  Women move away from suffering, hard work and “should-do” type of experiences.  In the new paradigm, women embrace their birth experience in the same way they embrace their awakened lifestyle.  By going within herself, a woman creates a meeting with her soul, learning to drop away from the physical experience of birth becoming more fluid and malleable.  She finds her strength from within and she also finds her surrender at the same time.  Knowing that it is the strength of choice, of empowerment, that brings her the choice to surrender.  When she surrenders to ‘what is’ she experiences birth in another way.  She experiences it in a blissfully, awakened state of being.  Because she is accepting what is about her birth instead of resisting and fighting the experience.  She has let go of the conceptual ways birth has been ‘taught’ for generations and she embraces the wisdom she was born with.  She moves with her body, she breathes consciously and she completely trusts her body with all of its built-in wisdom.

Birth becomes an experience full of love, gratitude and welcoming the human being that is entering our planet.  The one who is coming to bring the gifts into our world.  This is the beginning of the new paradigm of birth.