The mind is so amazing!

This post is actually part two of the previous post.

As the days have passed in the past week and I have had a chance to reflect on the whole experience I feel more and more proud of myself.

I went into this with an attitude of doing whatever I could to be as prepared as I possibly could.

I don't know at what point I decided that the use of Active birth and meditation/breathing techniques would help me but now in retrospect I have learnt so much about myself in this process and everything I learnt has helped at different stages in the journey.

I have to give thanks and credit to my mediation teacher Dr Shari Read, my meeting of Shari in the first instance was chance but I now believe she came into my life for a purpose.

I realized that the birth of H boy was physically challenging and I guess I wanted to have some techniques up my sleeve to cope if that was going to be my experience again this time.

I think the biggest difference was realizing that I needed to work with my body and not fight what was happening during labor, to remind myself that every contraction was one step closer to baby and that letting go of fear in this situation was imperative. I needed to learn to stay relaxed and conserve energy when I could, be calm and know that I could do it and fill myself with strong positive thinking.

Working through the Meditation for Pregnancy course that I did, I wondered constantly if I would be able to actually do any of the meditative work during the labor itself. But I didn't realise that I would learn so much else along the way, such as all the positve self talk and affirmations, the breathing skills and how to treat myself gently and stay calm throughout the process.

Similarly, the Active Birth book by Juju Sundin was something that I read with some skepticism. I didn't think that I would be able to use these skills when it came to the crunch. I guess I was thinking - how do I remember to do all these things at once. Now I know that by reading this book and internalizing some of the skills to the point where I could try them at different times throughout the labor and seeing what helped that I was able to achieve great things.

I am most impressed with the transformation of my thinking patterns and ability to be in control through the labor. I attribute this entirely to the skills I learnt in my Meditation for Pregnancy classes. The peace and calmness that surrounded Blake's birth is something that I can't really put into words - and something I never thought possible. When the pain was increasing at the beginning I could hear my meditation teachers voice in my head teaching us how to breath properly.When I was struggling towards the end of 1st stage I was able to reach inside myself and tell myself how strong and capable I was of getting through this, how much I was looking forward to meeting our baby and most importantly to remind myself how well I was going and congratulate myself. It provided a massive boost of confidence when I most needed it and reminded me that there really was nothing to fear in the labor process.

I also feel now that I have had a switch flick over in my head and I finally believe in my own ability to embrace the power of my mind and thinking and I want to begin to see how I can start to put this thinking into practice in my daily life.

I want to stop dwelling so much on the past and future and live more in the present, being mindful of the right now.

So the next part of this journey for me will be about developing my practice of meditation in order to achieve this. I am excited by this power that I feel like I now have.