What Did Childbirth Teach You?

You know when you have an insight that hits you round the back of the head - the kind that suddenly makes you want to re-examine the various chapters of your life through the new lens that this ‘truth’ you’ve just discovered has offered you?

I had one of those moments last month.

It came off the back of my podcast interview with Jane Hardwicke Collings, in which she expanded on her statement that “we have the birth we need to have, to teach us what we need to learn about ourselves, to take us to the next place on our (healing) journey”.

The learning from her first birth, was that she “wouldn’t, couldn’t and didn’t surrender”.

And as my first birth seemed similar in some ways to hers (an emergency C-section after days of labouring), I assumed that I too shared this same teaching. But when I unpacked the potential lesson further, I realised that there was more to it than that for me.

BECAUSE I’ve always known how to surrender, JUST not to myself - INSTEAD, to those around me to whom I unconsciously granted false authority.

This trait has its roots in childhood, of course - to authoritarian, disciplinarian parents who told me how I should feel rather than holding space for what I actually felt, and who took it upon themselves to correct any reactions, feelings, behaviours and even physical traits of mine through shaming, coercion or punishment.

Their approach had the desired effect: slowly crushed through repeated second-guessing and contradiction, by the time I was an adolescent, I retained only the husk of a sense of self. I didn’t know who I was because it had been stamped out of me.

And as a result, either readily aquiesced to plans that were made on my behalf (unaware that I should even be a part of decisions), or unconsciously attempted to forge some kind of identity through doing the exact opposite (testing a few teacher’s patience to the extent that I was described, in secondary school, as having an ‘attitude problem’).

In short, I had learnt to give away my power to others, and was either a reflection or a mirror image of them, with no original ideas of my own.

So as I combed through my past, looking for clues as to what my specific teaching might be, I found multiple examples of unconsious self-betrayal: in the schools I was sent to, the university I applied to, my choice of career, romantic partners and even the way I showed up intimately.

I saw how misplaced loyalty to others had lead to a complete lack of trust and belief in myself - I simply went along with (or did the exact opposite Of) whatever I was told.

So it made sense that I gave up ownership of my first birth experience before it had even begun, by deferring decisions I should have felt empowered enough to make, to whichever hospital employee happened to be on hand.

And it made sense that the way in which I gave birth then choreographed how I parented - expertise was something that I sought anywhere but inside myself: in my partner, friends, books, online or with professionals. Because submission felt familiar.

But as you already know - through being a member of this healing community - when you make a pattern conscious, you take away its hold over you.

So by unravelling the teaching of my first birth - what I’d brought to the situation, my life so far and what I wouldn’t, couldn’t or didn’t do - I was able to transmute that rite of passage into what Jane calls a ‘portal to power’ - and view it, today, not as a failure to experience the birth I’d envisaged, but as a fork in the road of my evolution.

With hindsight, I saw its significance:

a missed opportunity to claim rightful ownership over my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self - an example of how I might have stepped into my deferred sovereignty but didn’t.

It took nearly three decades to regain this - I don’t think I wholly-owned a decision (that wasn’t a reaction to something that happened to me) until I was 29 (to get divorced) and 30 (to dedicate my time and effort to supporting women on their healing journeys). It’s why they feel so very pivotal, important and almost sacred to me.

And even though I still catch the last vestiges of self-betrayal in my occasional anticipation of being corrected or told off for doing something ‘wrong’, now, most of the time:

• I am able to make decisions for myself

• I am no longer dependent on others’ views or behaviour to model an identity that I must then emulate or reject

• Other people are no longer the ones who set the parameters for what I must consider ‘right’ or ‘wrong’

Now, what I know for certain, is that whichever seeds are sown during childhood, these don’t have to dictate the rest of your life unless you ALLOW them to.

Because Triggers, rites of passage, life itself - it’s all One Big Teaching.

If you are paying attention, every year, every day and every moment presents you with a fork in the road.

And the best thing is, it doesn’t matter which fork you take, or whether you ‘get’ the lesson being presented to you at the time or not. Because it will be revealed to you when you are ready to digest this particular medicine.

I learnt, exactly 16 years later, that my first birth experience revealed that I needed to trust myself instead of giving away my sovereignty.

Now I need to work on the potential teachings of the other two : )

To listen to the interview with Jane Hardwicke Collings, click HERE.