birth

once in a time far, far away I consulted a past life regression therapist.

at the time i was eager to birth a new life, and yet, I was finding it hard to care deeply about anything.

As a result I flitted from new age therapy to new age therapy, feeling alive shortly for each colorful session while under the illusion that i was reaching towards realities which seemed brighter and more complete than this one.

as we started the regression session i felt little emotion. my past lives drifted past like shadows.

Wearing a bright yellow dress I listlessly drifted across a glowing green lawn divided with grey stone walls and fountains.

Pigs gathered around me as i stood staring into a deep well.

A low white building hid me from view and allowed me to drift to sleep amongst purple lavender hedges.

i become aware that this session is not living up to my expectations. slowly my vision starts changing.

I see silver balls suspended from delicate strings. A slight movement in one triggered movement in the others. a voice speaks from deep within my heart. It tells me that i need to become fully present in each molecule of my being. That only then will i understand the subtle movements of my cells and my story. that only then will i truly feel and experience my life. Until then my past lives will mean as little to me as my present.

18 years later i give birth to my beautiful daughter phoenix.

three days after the birth i my doula comes to my house to do a massage integrating the pregnancy and birth process into my being. she asks me to write down what came up so that we can work with where i am at in our next session.

Below are my notes. i would love to edit them further but then this mail might take another week to be published :)

i find myself standing outside a door. Not going in. My whole pregnancy had a feeling of unreality, of not fully committing, of not wanting to bring it to conclusion.

most sensation occurs inside my head. as i focus it moves down to my throat. there is a constriction here which becomes tighter down towards my chest. during my pregnancy i found it hard to verbalize what i want and stick to it. when my gynecologist insisted on booking a elective ceasar earlier than i was comfortable, rather than giving phoenix a bit more time to turn so that we could do a natural birth, i could have shown more resistance, yet as soon as he showed his anger and irritation i just agreed to his demands.

during the massage i hear my baby and a feeling of deep sadness wells up from my heart as i realise how easy it will be to get swept back into life, rushing around, switching off - allowing this time this opportunity, this birth, this small miracle pass by. i am also aware of flo - worried that he is feeling left out and sad - feeling this sadness as outside myself makes it difficult to go deeper within. similarly when having to make a decision about having a c-section it was easier to give in to time streaming past, to be pressurized into something by doctor, to worry about him and his receptionist and what their expectations are than to slow time down and make a decision from the moment.

i go into sadness - only to pop back into my head. i am thinking about what feeling of constriction could mean. while the c-section was happening i could not really feel it especially in the beginning. i felt very removed from the experience.

I am standing on the edge. Perfectly balanced. Neither moving forward of backward. Itta asks me to allow myself to fall forward and see what happens. with c-section i also never fully committed to agreeing to c-section or fighting for natural birth. i hovered between the two - and kept trying to put of birth and final decision as if i could hover in the last stages of pregnancy forever.

During the c-section the mantra, not my will thy will brought me back into the moment, awful as it was, and helped me feel safe enough to do so. the reason i was able to stay in the moment was that i was not worried about whether i was thinking and feeling the right thing. i could surrender to a greater will.

I feel a fear of the unknown, of not being able to let go - of always hovering - i let go anyway. once i surrendered to the birth and a will greater than my own i was able to move forward, to be present and to welcome phoenix feeling completely present in that moment.

Become aware of expansiveness of lower body. i feel a shiver down my left hip. when i surrendered to what was happening and allowed the birth to happen it expanded into an experience so deep and beautiful that it became the whole world and changed me forever.

Tightness in chest, busyness in head, expansiveness from navel downwards - when i a m not fully present my head, heart and belly are often out of sync.

as i enter deeper into the uncertainty i see a red-brown colour followed by the following visual.First in the same colour a pattern represented on linoleum. then a fifties housewife. picture perfect in her sparkling kitchen and removed from reality. She looks like my mother. this is the woman who prefers an elective c-section. She has sold out to other people's idea of who she should be. like her kitchen the c-section theater is "clean, manageable and sterilized".

i keep on falling. As i expand i feel the sadness of others inside Sadness about those i love and the things that cause them suffering, that makes them feel excluded. flo, my mother and my siblings. I feel sadness for Flo, for his lost potential, for not always being supported, for not being allowed to be all that he is while he was little. During the c-section, I was also very aware of Flo and his need to be close to his daughter. I let him hold her when there was a part of me that desperately wanted her to be in my arms and close to me.

As the sadness expands i also start feeling a sadness for my own lost potential as well as the constant burden of feeling not good enough. one of the greatest challenges of the c-section was a feeling of failing at natural birth. From the moment i arrived at the hospital i felt judged for doing a c-section. I felt like i had to explain myself to everyone in the hospital. I felt as if the nurses' stand-off-ishness was somehow linked to my failure to deliver naturally. I felt very scared of the procedure ahead and instead of feeling supported in this i felt disregarded.

Another vision appears. This time it is a blue ceramic pattern of a russian forest. i remember a childhood there filled with mystery and magic. Now the borders have shifted and the forest no longer forms part of siberia but is now owned by the russian state and politicians. In a similar way the magic of my daughter’s birth has been institutionalised. It now fell under the control of the medical system, the hospital regulations and the staff.

As the massage progresses I start feeling more and more like a baby. I start recognising my daughter's movements in my own. I also become aware that i cannot work through the sadness and emotions of others for them. I am separate from them. It is in the increasing feeling of separateness that the feeling of expansion grows from. Being separate also enables me to respond more appropriately to the sadness of others, to connect

to them from a heart firmly rooted in self rather than blending into their emotions. To give Phoenix what she needs to feel secure I also need to be fully present in my own seperate self. Chanting the mantra and listening to my own music took me to such a place during the c-section. despite my fear and the feeling of vulnerability caused by the impersonal yet invasive procedure and setting, I felt God's presence and will closely guiding and holding me close.

as Itta gently pulls on my hair it feels like I am being pulled and birthed into my own body and when she holds her hands over my ears I feel like a baby in the womb listening to my mother's heart beat. I see myself as a baby and i see myself in my baby.