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By: Maurene Merritt, RN Tanya, my dental hygienist says of her recent birth experience to her 3-month-old baby boy, "I was fully present for the moments I wanted to be fully present for." Of course I reflected on her statement and pondered, "What are the moments that we want to be fully present for? For me, I wanted to be as fully present for the entire experience as I could because in my mind, it would bring me closer to my baby. This may sound irrational, but I've long felt that love is not about what is rational but rather what one is willing to risk for the sake of truth, connection, and happiness. Consider that in labor, unlike most of life's moments when our vision rules most of our perceptions, it will be what you hear that will help to heighten your awareness to the experience. Begin now, in your pregnancy. Take a safe, comfortable seated or lying posture. Bring your attention to your breathing and as you exhale, feel how the eyes so naturally want to close. Keep your attention focused lightly on your breathe, and let yourself be drawn to the gentle sound of the breathe moving out of your body. Gradually, let the sound of your exhalations become louder, so that you begin to make a soft humming sound. With every exhalation, like a gentle flowing water fall, let your awareness be drawn to the sound inside. What do you notice? Can you feel how the sound of your breathing helps to quiet and soothe your mind?  How does your baby respond to your more audible breathe? Do you feel that your baby is more active or quieted by the sound? Consider that your baby is cushioned in approximately 2 quarts of fluid and that sound waves travel much quicker through fluid than that of air. I am reminded of a very endearing story about how quickly sound travels through water. The story teller was in our circle, pregnant with her first child. She said "when I was younger I'd go and visit my grandmother who lived on the lake. My grandmother warned me, don't share your secrets on the beach unless you want our neighbors across the lake to hear you." So the gentle humming on your exhalations will certainly be subtly felt by your baby. We can use our mindful, more audible sounds to help make a stronger connection in pregnancy. For example, as you sound, direct the energy to the space that your baby holds in your body, or imagine him/her in your mind. In labor, we can apply the same principles. The gentling humming, infused with thoughts of holding your baby in your arms, or usurps from your diary that bid farewell to a most cherish confinement help to deepen our connections.  The sound of birth. When your baby slips out of your body, most likely it will not be what you will see that will tether your moment, but rather what you will hear. Consider that the actual moment of birth is so intense for most women that they are unable to clearly see their babies.
Too, the release of rectal pressure often forces the spine into extension causing the head to be gently thrusted back so that your eyes initially will be directed up, towards the ceiling. So for several seconds, it will be what you hear that keeps you more connected to the moment. The now empty, hollow space that once held the reassuring sounds of your baby's thumbing, beating heart beat will quickly acquise to the sounds of your baby's first gasps for new life, and your care providers gleeful shares of joyful celebration. Of course, your eyes will certainly devour the first sight of your newborn. But until then, practice stilling the mind with the sounds of your breathe to help yourself be fully present for these precious, short lived moments. Let yourself make a strong connection between the sound of your breathe, your mind, and connection with your baby. Who knows, you just may find yourself so mesmerized by what you hear in labor that you'll want to live more of your life tuned into every moment. Together, forever, in our hearts, Maurene *reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/
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By: Maurene Merritt, RN I direct Meghan's attention inside herself and give instructions to make the connection between her and her unborn baby. Meghan is due with her first baby at the end of October. She doesn't know if she is having a boy or girl, so she calls her baby "Candy Corn", coined by her older sister.  I love the name because it is another blending of the power inherent in 3 for me. The stripes of yellow, orange and white stack neatly together like that of family, season, and the festive time of Holiday. Of course, too I think of my own beloved daughter, Candyce. Although we never called her Candy, she was the sweet that first drew me inside. To better connect with her baby, I suggest to Meghan that she recall the "special hearing pathway" that we revisit often that was created to help affirm the special connection that mothers have with their unborn babies. We then chant the sound "o-u-m" for 90 seconds, the time of one contraction during transition, considered to be for many women the most intense part of labor. I asked Meghan of her experience. She said, "I could easily imagine my baby, but not myself." The following week we engaged with the same exercise and Meghan described having a very different experience.  She said she imagined herself to be pure, white light, like how on an overcast day the light burst through a cluster of gray, thick clouds. It's important to mention that there was no discussion or mention of "light" prior to her experience. In other words, I did not cue her to imagine herself to be such a form. Meghan imagined this on her own, guided by threads of her breath, sound, and deep connection with unborn child. For many pregnant women, communicating with their unborn baby is ongoing, and is as natural and normal as the often contented, peaceful, endless days of the second trimester. At Birth Blessings Yoga we take this connection to another level by providing a framework that affirms and honors the power of our love to make this amazing, magical connection. The three pillars of our frame our intention, imagination, and attention. Together, they enliven 3 specific, highly concentrated, energetic areas of our subtle body known in yoga as Chakras. It's the 6th Chakra called, Ajna that is located at the brow, in the middle of the head, in the same space that we imagine, that enables us to be a transmitter for telepathic communication. In scripture, it points to our ability to connect with our teacher or Guru for transformation which is really at the heart of our yoga practice. But it can be any extraordinary connection, and to me, there are few greater than that of a mother and her unborn child. Indeed, in my case, I believe it was in fact my absolute certainty that in pregnancy my baby heard every word of my gracious bubbling heart that a decade later helped me to connect with my Guru.  The 5th Chakra,Vishuddha is located at the throat and it is responsible for helping us to speak truth. Our speaking isn't necessarily verbalized but rather words infused with raw feeling that holds power to manifest. One of my favorite aphorisms that reflects this knowledge is from Patanjali, a great yogic expounder, when he said that, "words, meaning a feeling are interwoven. As words are eternal, so are meaning and feeling." The 4th Chakra, Anahata is located at the heart. It's here that we begin to know the power of intention behind our ability to touch. Touching not in a physical sense, but rather touching what is elusive, the formless. It's a first for many of us, to be so enraptured with the invisible.  When we allow ourselves the full expression of how we are feeling about carrying a baby coupled with the power of affirmation, our awareness quite naturally will be drawn to lighter, more subtle forms of ourselves. Then we can more readily experience the full power of our connection. And who knows, it just may be the very impetus that keeps heaven's gates open to more experiences that our as sweet as Meghan's with her candy corn!
Happy Mother's Day, Maurene *reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/  By: Maurene Merritt, RN Mary has just 5 minutes prior given birth to a beautiful baby girl. It is her second baby, and like her first, she wants to give birth without medication. I began care of her when she is already deeply drawn inside herself, 8 centimeters dilated with hefty contractions, coming every 2 minutes apart. I remember how strong they are, like the under toes in the ocean, that as a young girl I'd have to guard against being pulled in, lost in the abyss of what is big and unknown. It doesn't take Mary very long to open up her body and give birth, 40 minutes later with only 3 pushes. I'm watching her, she is sighing, with her sight glazed, gazing off into space. She has an easy, unblemished hold on her baby that is cradled in the soft part of her that now is shiny wet from the heat of labor. I perform my nursing tasks with an eye on their inner state. It's so heavy, childbirth but I know that there is deep satisfaction rendered from the experience, despite her body now collapsed into a heap of worn flesh.  I let the air settle, and softly, quietly approach her to inquire about her experience. I don't want to disrupt the subtlety that so easily can disappear with just the slightest hint of our more abrupt, unconscious side. There's a pause, and then she begins, "well, you have to get out of the way and let your body take over". I listen intently. I ask her about how she felt immediately after the birth. There is a pause. She interjects, "there are no words to describe it." I say, "can we try?" Another pause, longer this time. "elation". I'm delighted for her experience and then eager to share more of what I know about the nervous system and childbirth. Specifically, our nervous system function in patterns, and in order for us to embody a particular pattern, we must have the experience first, and then the pattern can make itself available to our perceptions. In the case of Mary, what is so remarkable is that her elation is independent of any outer circumstances. In fact, I believe that such elation is self born manifested from the rare, powerful inner experience of childbirth. This gives Mary the opportunity to shift her awareness to an infinite supply of the same joy, just waiting to be rediscovered.  Let me give you a more concrete example to help clarify this concept. Soon after a baby is born, a pediatrician will shine a small beam of light into their eyes with a cone shaped instrument. They are looking to see that the nerve pathway responsible for site is clear. A baby does not activate the nerve responsible for seeing until later on in infancy, and if there are any blockages in that pathway, the baby would be blind. This would occur because the experience (seeing) has to occur before the nerve activates that pattern. In the same way, consider that the joy that is our essential nature can only be perceived once we have the experience. I then asked Mary how she could help herself embody her elation? Her response of "remember the experience" was so perfectly aligned with our teachings, to continuously be drawn back to the details of our inner experiences.  I encouraged Mary to share her experience frequently to loved ones, friends, anyone who will be truly present for her. Too, I suggested writing because, like my teacher says, it will further help clarify and take the measure of the subtleties and intricacies of her experience.
I thanked Mary for being so courageous in her exploration of one of the most profound experiences in a woman's life. She has my blessings to search deeper into its essence. In love and light, Maurene *reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/  By: Maurene Merritt, RN Skye Harrington sits, beaming brightly at the center of our circle. She eventually comes around to sharing the sequence of events that led to birth. But it is obvious that her attention would rather be fully present for what is snuggled in her lap. Skye oozes the unmistakable joy and contentment that springs forth from someone who is obviously "in their element". So I wasn't surprised to hear that the first words out of Skye's mouth were, "I know now I was born to be a mother." It's a high calling, to be in your element because according to the yoga scriptures of Kashmir Shaivism, being in your element means being balanced in the 5 elements that make up the universe. They are, from the most refined to the least, "ether", which may be easier understood as space, for if not for space, there would have been no room for the creation of us! "Air" is the second element, and we can know it through our breathe. "Fire" is the third and it is that part of us the burns or digests matter, the heat of passion to be enthralled, and the energy produced in the factory of each of our cells. The fourth is "water" and it actually makes up most of the content of our body. And last but certainly not least, "earth" which reflects our bones and their affinity to be moved down by gravity.  In the same scripture, relating to the elements perhaps in a different thread, there are 3 qualities that were extracted from nature (Prakriti) that help describe our ways of being in the world. We call these ever changing, evolving qualities Gunas, and they are, inertia or solidity (Tamas), dynamism or powerful movement (Rajas), and luminosity or lightness (Sattva). So back to Skye and her way of being with mothering, we call this kind of happiness Rajas because it moves in relation to her connection with her newborn. Actually I call it the Royal Rajas because for me, there has been simply no earthly experience that has come close to the intoxication felt in the first few months of giving birth. Nevertheless as grand and extolled as the experience was, eventually like all women, the world will catch up with us and draw our attention away from these rare, precious moments, fully immersed in love.  On a brighter note, although the experience is transient, can we be so inspired to know that such a state exists, and to hold it independent of our outer circumstances? We call this self born kind of happiness Sattvic, and it is at the very heart of our yoga practice because it is from this centered, still place that we have the opportunity to know what is immovable, constant, and eternal (Purusha).
In my next blog, we'll look to our asana practice to be more "in our element" so that we can be more Sattvic in our way of being in the world. In love and light, Maurene *reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/  By: Maurene Merritt, RN Listening to women so soon after they give birth, it sounds like their story has a life of its own, moving through their bodies like a runaway train with seemingly nowhere to go. However, if we listen well, it can direct us to places inside that require more of our attention. They're the places that we continue to return to over and over again, the knots that need to be untied so that we can integrate our experience and have it be inside us more like a well tuned conductor, guiding our direction to the magical tune within us that helps us to find just the right balance of the two wings of yoga, surrender and effort.  I could hear, clearly were our lovely Liz Sullivan's train directed her. It was when she first arrived at the hospital, very tired from putting everything she had into laboring for hours at home, she lost it, allowing herself the sobs and cries that reflected how she felt. It was the surrender wing, the letting go, the giving ourselves over to our innocence; the unedited, strong, fighting youthful spirit that is willing to do and be anything. It's the place where for me personally, now, I try so hard to go, over and over again, like a laboring woman, I sit, I breathe, and I wait for the opening.  So often immediately following these precious, unbridled moments, space is somehow created within us and quick, effortless movement prevails. My writing just flows and it feels as strong and joyful as the moment I found the perfect balance between push and paddle to keep myself a float on top of the water, despite the hours of effort required in pursuit of my goal. For Liz, her "Laney" came so quickly that she wished that she would have been forewarned of such drastic,sharp unexpected movement, a concern hardly heard of in labor, and one that will serve her well, especially if she is willing to continue to explore, reflect, and articulate. Her baby's sharp, drastic movement downward followed by birth - the release, it's the culminating moment of transformation, grounded down deeply by a force beyond our will, only to be lifted higher upward for lighter, more joyful movement.  Liz certainly has strengthened well the effort wing of yoga and knows it well. She is a bright, articulate, beautiful, hard working woman that put forth great effort in preparing for labor. My blessing for her is that she continually find her way back to her mat to fine tune what she learned through her experience, the wing harder to know, that of letting go.
*reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/  By: Maurene Merritt RN It is not what we are afraid in childbirth that can hurt us, because in all probability you will not experience it. To prove that to the part of yourself that needs to be convinced, try this 2 minute exercise. Make three columns and label the first column, Experiences that you were afraid of but did anyway, in the second column, identify what you were afraid of, and the third, what actually happened. Be specific. So for example, if you identify going to graduate school as something that you did and feared failure, ask yourself what is it about failure that you were afraid of? Or, in regard to childbirth, if you fear pain, what it is about pain that you are afraid of? The more specific you can be with exploring your fears, the less power they will have over you. When I taught this at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA for a small group of couples committed to natural childbirth, they were softened by their reflections, and felt more confident moving forward with their intentions. I hope you too will enjoy the same.  Although fear is mostly benign, what can reek havoc and dismantle our lives,leaving us stunned and in need of repair are those unexpected surprises. Unfortunately, there is little we can do about preventing them (although Karmic law says that the more enlightened we become, the greater power we have to draw near positive, uplifting experiences - for another blog!). What we can do though, if we are wise and brave is take up the work of putting ourselves back together again. Consider that when we do, the hard-wiring of our being in charge of gathering and making sense of our world gets rewired so that we become heavier in the parts of ourselves that needs to be and feel fully vested in survival, safety, unconsciously, confidently grounded, agile. Because our childbirth experiences are often full of unexpected surprises, processing the experience is a very powerful way to deeply ground yourself in the here and now. Then, we are freer to light on other parts of ourselves that relishes reflection, contemplation and enjoys the artistic expression of our journey through writing, painting, movement, and music.  Yoga is a practice that provides for the work of putting ourselves back together, and what is so splendidly beautiful to witness is that healing just happens, like the birth of another brilliant shining start in the black velvet sky, or the sound of another baby's first cry. It just happens, seamlessly, organically, miraculously.
I would love to hear your experiences from the above exercise. Please share below to further assimilate your experience and help others do the same. Together, forever, in our hearts, Maurene *reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/  By: Maurene Merritt
Elisha, her friend, Diane shared of her disappointment, that her baby at 36 weeks was small for gestational age, which means that her baby is smaller in size than normal for her baby's sex and number of weeks pregnant. Elisha share with me that Diane really took it to heart, digging and probing inside herself for what she could have done differently to prevent her baby from being underweight, despite Diane doing everything right in her pregnancy. It made perfect sense to me that Diane took it to heart because in fact,as far as I'm concerned, her baby is her heart. For most pregnant women, our baby's well being is constantly on our minds, even when we are busy, like an all purpose hat on our heads that fits so well we forget that it is on until a change in season. Providing reassurance and being a good listener can certainly help to console Diane's heartache. However, our hearts live beyond our rationale, cortex thinking mind and would hear better fragments of our silent speaking, words shared in the most inner recesses of our being, the place that comes more alive when we conceive and we once again can hold dear our hopes and our dreams and believe in how it is all suppose to be. Consider the ancient yoga centering technique called a Dharana to communicate with your baby and provide the heart with an opportunity to shine brightly, offering protection, strength and deep connection. *reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/  From very early on in my pregnancy, I had reservations about a hospital based program's ability to support my strong intention for natural childbirth. Looking back on it now, I was right, the class was mostly an informative session about what to expect at the hospital and not a class that empowered. I made sure that when I started teaching classes at a major medical center that the curriculum was balanced, thorough, informative and joyful. Fortunately, I had a wonderful nurse manager that supported my efforts. To this day, she is one of my gems that I will treasure always.
Despite my trepidation, with my big belly, two stuffed pillows, and my heart full of glee, I attended weekly classes for 6 consecutive weeks, along with 10 other couples. My husband would be able to participate in several of the classes but needed to travel abroad for business and so was absent for others. But I was able to teach him what I learned in our practice sessions that we did religiously before bedtime. It took us real effort to stay disciplined, after a long day, we were both tired, him from the grind of corporate life and me carrying around an extra 25 pounds in the swell of August in New England. Finally the day arrived when I would be able to put my knowledge and practice of lamaze breathing to the test. I made one of my last entries into my journal while being pregnant at 2:45 p.m. August 15th, "Dear baby, this will probably be the last time I write to you while you are part of me. I share tidbits of early labor activities and then express my sadness over how much I will miss having her a part of me. Throughout my labor, I never once used lamaze breathing. Instead I did what came naturally, straddling my breathe like one holds fast to the front bar of a fast moving, swirling, gliding roller coaster car. In that way, the breathe became my god, an instrument of calm, soothing and protecting me like a deep streaming inner sanction as the turbulent forces of nature raged on. Here in lies the difference between lamaze breathing and yoga, for both marry the breathe and have an ultimate goal in mind. Lamaze uses the breathe as a distraction away from the pain of labor until such time a baby is born. On the other hand, yoga worships the breathe as the goal and not a means to an end. In yoga the breathe carries prana or life force, which is the very essence of our existence. The intensity of childbirth demands that we give our full selves to our breathing and in doing so provides for a heightened experience. This higly focused attention on our breathing is called Drishti and is highy praised on the yoga path. Pranayama is the control of breathing to direct prana throughout the body. In my next several postings, we'll practice Pranayama specifically for childbirth, helping you to work with your breathing in the context of enlivening your vital energy for the richly gratifying work of transformation. Together, Maurene http://www.birthblessingsyoga.com/ *reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/ There's few bigger transitions in life then the ones required of us in childbirth. And whether your enduring the title wave contractions of active labor or the slower, more choppy waters of the first year at home with your newborn, feeling grounded can give you the confidence you need to ride it out and get to the other side, ready to take on the challenge of a new way of being.
In the circle on our yoga mats we learn to feel the experience of being more grounded by actively pushing the bones of our feet or hands into the earth, and being receptive to the rebound force that helps to stabilize our foundation. We can use the same principle to feel more grounded in light by expressing ourselves vocally wih chanting, humming or even singing. Called chakras, our body houses subtle, concentrated areas of energy, and it's our third chakra, in the throat area that when activited can hold our awareness evenly through the core of our being, vertically, acting like a tunnel of lightness for us to ride. It is our bones that have a strong affinity for gravity, and they help to keep us down, earth bound. In contrast, our expression of sound has a strong affinity for our awareness, and helps move us up, to lighter fare. Together, the two opposing forces help keep us balanced, at center ground. Too, we can deepen our experience of "core lightness" by using the corresponding cobalt blue color of the throat chakra and its related influence on our skeletal system. So as we chant the sound a-u-m, we imagine our bones the color of the caribbean waters or that of a clear blue sky. Enduring the most difficult challenges in our lives like those of childbirth can open up new pathways in our being. So when the opportunity arises for us to take our next step, we can reach for it, and knowing all of you the way I do, we simply can't miss! Together, Maurene *reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/  Join me in welcoming the newest addition to our Cape Cod Mommies Advisor Team: Maurene Merrit, RN! We look forward to her blogs and expertise!!! Maurene Merritt, RN is a holistic practitioner, teacher, and writer. She has an extensive background in holistic childbirth education including developing and teaching the first partnered yoga childbirth education program in a major Boston Medical center. Presently she is an employee of Falmouth Hospital where she serves as a maternity nurse and is active with the integrative medicine department. She also has a private practice where she calls herself CapeYogaGirl. Visit her website: www.birthblessingsyoga.com or www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com 7 yoga practices to help us move beyond... We get stuck. On our mats, it is called "inflexible", on our birthing beds, "failure to progress", and on paper, a "writer's block". And whether it's our bodies not opening or our paint brush or words not flowing, our desires can lead to unimaginable frustration. In such moments, we are tempted to force the outcome, or in the case of our creative expression where sheer force would only hinder progression, we either give up after reaching a multitude of dead ends or worse yet fail to begin the exploration.
However, when we look to our ancient, sister yoginis who journeyed the long, narrow road to enlightenment, consider that it would be beneficial for us to breathe, listen, and wait. More often than not, when we begin something new, change is slow, even barely perceptible. It is when we persist with confidence, at some point, soon after we have allowed ourselves to move beyond our feelings of hopeless and despair, it happens. What is a ordinary perception of our selves wanes and we become privy to our granduer. In such precious, unbound moments, our bodies fold into our creation and we give birth to our babies, books, and elation! We look back on the fruits of our labor and like our lovely Heather Benway of the circle declared of her birth story, want to hear the words over and over again. We feel awe, how could something so amazing, so brilliant, so original come out of us! Consider that our effort in waiting is well worth our creation. Below are 7 yoga practices to help us move beyond. 1. Close the door. Surrender requires feeling safe. 2. Breathe. Keep your breathe fluid and even. There is a synergistic relationship between the mind and the breathe. When the breathe is balanced, your mind will follow. 3. Focus. Give your attention to something that you love that is still like a plant, coat, or perfume bottle. 4. Listen. You know more than what you think you know. 5. Change. Do something different if you don't feel movement frequently. 6. Feel. Allow your desire to drive your effort. 7. Persevere. Never give up, keep the course until the very end. *reprinted with full permission from http://www.birthblessingsyoga.blogspot.com/ |
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