In my latest hiatus from blogging, I’ve been dealing with some recurring mild depression–something I’ve had all my life, but since it’s never been debilitating and I’ve never been diagnosed or medicated for it, it’s been easy to ignore–attribute to the gray skies here in the Pacific NW, or in other ways rationalize it away. This time, I couldn’t ignore it–it was seriously stopping me from promoting and organizing my EFT for Birth Professionals workshops. Workshops that I am very excited about!
With the support of my dear and loving husband, who has been a mentor and spiritual counselor for years, I was encouraged to stay with the feelings and not distract myself–great advice to a coach from a coach! What I surfaced was deep grief and a sense of hopelessness. It took a couple of days, but I was finally able to connect it (surprise, surprise!) to the sense of despair and hopelessness I experienced when taken away from my mom after being born. I have done lots of work around healing my birth experience, but somehow I never quite managed to clear this particular aspect. Perhaps because it was so painful!
Like most hospital-born babies in the 60s–I imagine my cord was cut right away, I was cleaned, checked, poked, given eyedrops and tucked in a nice little “cot”. Mom was given a rest and cleaned up as well. I may or may not have hung out in her arms after the birth. I was taken away to the nursery at some point. I may or may not have seen her for every “feeding”, since I was bottle-fed. Because I haven’t spoken to my mom in detail about my birth, recently, I am piecing together what was common hospital protocol in those days (and now, in many hospitals…) and what I react to every time I see a hospital birth video or photo. (Mom, if you read this, please share more details!)
Bottom-line is I know what happened. I may not have the details down perfectly, but the experience of being taken away–in effect abandoned in the nursery–is one that resonates every time I see a photo of a baby in a hospital cot or isolette. I suspect that I made a “decision” that I must not be worthy of love to be taken away from my mom and left alone–such a huge shock after being in the warmth of her womb for so long. For some of us, this might not be traumatic–but I find it unlikely, knowing what I know about babies physiology and brain chemistry. How many of us are still carrying this wound and masking it with drugs or busy lifestyles? How many of us still take for granted that removing babies from their mothers is normal and not harmful in any way?
Crying those tears of despair while being witnessed lovingly by my husband was very healing. Now I feel able to do some Matrix Reimprinting and replay my birth (again) in order to comfort that distressed baby that still lives inside me and help her to finally feel loved and deserving of love.
I gained a greater understanding of why it is so important to have loving support when dealing with our own birth or prenatal trauma. Sometimes the pain/distress is just too scary to go to on our own. The deepest and most effective healing sessions I have had have been with loving practitioners/friends who were able to hold and witness my process.
This is why Birth is so important to me. My prenatal experience and birth has impacted my life in so many ways–profound ways I am still uncovering. I am comittted to continue healing my early trauma and help others to do the same as well as continue to educate women so that they can create safe and loving birth experiences for themselves and their babies.