Prefer to Listen? Find the accompanying podcast episode on the Unschooled Homebirth podcast, Episode 56, wherever you get your podcasts! 

I just wanted to share some words about gratitude as we are in that time of year!

This year has gone faster than I could have imagined, and as we get ready for another day focused on gratitude I am finding myself slowing down. For several years now, seven or eight at least, we have raised our own turkeys, and it has been one of the experiences that has changed my understanding and relationship to life. When you take a life to nourish your family, it takes on a whole different meaning. Gratitude for life and the circle of life is a powerful energy and something I hope all can feel al the time, but especially right now as we are in the season of this energetic.

Gratitude as it relates to the directions, which is related to the entire purpose behind the Natural Birth Compass Program, resonates with the energy of the West and the season of fall, where we find ourselves right now this November of 2021. Gratitude is a nourishing energy, for you and for those around you. It is an energy of inner vitality the bridge that connects our outer and inner world.

When there is something in our envirnment, our external world for which we are thankful, we connect with it through our senses, our touch, or taste, or smell, and if we also accept it with gratitude, every cell of our body accepts it with even more expansion and we receive even more vitality.

When we are living a more detached life or spend our days oblivious to the elements of our environment, just eating whatever is there to get through the day, listening to music or the radio mindlessly, having the television on without the intent to nourish ourselves in some way, our cells are not as open to the input. That might be ok if your intent is only to have background music, but then do you need it or would you be better off with silence for a spell?

Not everything that comes into our senses has to have an intent or a meaningful use, but most of it should. Too often it's easy to slip into a mindless routine, just going through the operations, going through the day without awareness, but your senses are begging to be used, begging to be bathed in intentional and nourishing messages. The sound of a breeze blowing through the trees, the image of a V of geese flying south for winter, the smell of grandma's soup simmering on the stovetop. These are nourishment for your body and soul on another level and these are just as important as the prenatal vitamin you take or the protein shake you drank this morning on your way to work.

Take some time everyday to let your senses connect to the world around you and then feel gratitude for each sensation that you are given and your cells, your tissues, your soul, and your baby will all be nourished by this small act.

Today I am grateful for the sound of the fire in my wood stove, the smell of turkey broth on the stove, and the bright yellow leaves that cover the ground and will be nourishment for the soil and microbes of the Earth herself. How about you?

That's all for today, but stay tuned because I have some articles I'm getting ready to release soon, some that will take this topic even deeper.

Wishing you a wonderful harvest time and, of course, a wonderful journey to birth!

If you would like to start to explore a new paradigm of homebirth preparation, download the free guide Three Cycles You Need to Know for a More Confident and Intuitive Homebirth, get your free copy by clicking here!