Prefer to Listen? Find the accompanying podcast episode on the Unschooled Homebirth podcast, Episode 64, wherever you get your podcasts!
As May comes to an end, we are deep into spring energy, and I thought it might be time to talk about the energetics of spring, of the East guiding direction, which is all about breath and all that uplifts us in life and birth. Whether you have explored birth from the energetics of the cycle of nature or not, there is still a good chance you have at least explored the energetics of breath in regard to birth as breath and breathing patterns are one of the most commonly studied comfort techniques in birth preparation since around the 1950's. This was the time period when breath and breathing patterns for use in birth became popular in the US based on techniques Dr. Fernand Lamaze used with women giving birth in his care in France, although Dr. Lamaze says he picked up his ideas from observing birth in other countries outside of the West, and certainly women were using breath instinctively and intuitively all along before it became "formalized" into a method. My point here is, nearly every woman preparing for birth explores breathing techniques in some capacit.
Beyond breath, the larger scope of practicing in the realm of air also involves inspiration on all the levels, including emotional and spiritual, which means popular birth coping techniques like affirmations, the words you speak and hear, and the music and sounds you listen to, these all have the power to elevate you on this journey of transformation. So today we're going to talk about breath and other aspects of the spring energy for homebirth and we just might hit on some inspiration about breath and air you haven't heard quite this way before.
Spring is the beginning of the expanding time of year, which comes with an awareness of space and breath, a lightening of the air as the dampness of winter dries out and the days get long and new life reemerges, and we awaken to step outside, feel the energy in the air and fill our lung. Spring is a good time to turn our attention to the various aspects of breath and air, as it’s important energetically and physically to the process of labor.
The energy of air, associated with the guiding direction of the east, is invaluable to our life and to birth as the connection point of physical and spiritual energies and the connection of your physical being and the world around you, all invisible connections but still palpable as your inhale and exhale. Evidence of this physical connection, of the spirit and physical being coming together into life is what everyone is waiting for at that first breath or cry of a newborn baby. That's the sign of life that brings a breath of relief and joy to the family and the birth team, but also acts as a reminder that the crossing between birth and death is very thin, and they are of the same cycle, co-existing, life is not possible without death, and we honor the rememberance that life ends with a final breath just as much as it begins with one.
Breath as Flexibility
One of the other big areas I discuss with my student in regard to the energetic of this season, the east direction and the air element is it's association with flexibility. This association I think is made more clear in the Chinese medicine version of the element system, where we have wood in place of air in the east direction of the cycle, and this contains the energy of controlling and letting go, being to able to flow and bend with changes in the wind, while also remaining firm and upright in our convictions. This combination, which we call flexibility takes having a sense of surety in your place in the world around you and in your truth, and also being aware of how deep you must go to find the deep truth, because we have to be flexible about a lot of aspects of life and birth. You hear all the time how you can't control how your birth will go, which I don't believe is entirely true, but there are certainly some aspects of birth that aren't in your conscious control for various reasons related to the fact that you are here for your human experience, and that comes with certain lessons of this lifetime. How much or how little of it is in your control depends on your depth of truth, how deep you are wiling to go to excavate the external cladding that you might think is truth, to find the center, the core of what is actually your Truth.
When your truth is deep, into the depths of what I'll call ultimate Truth, the 'how's' and the 'what's' don't really matter, you can be flexible and let go of those absolutes because you know there is no one right way for anything to manifest into life, including your baby's birth. Your path will follow the one true cycle of nature whether you see it or not, and if you're caught up in the external layers of expectations for birth, everything that's cladding the outside of the truth, that makes it pretty and organized and scientific and evidence based, like what many modern birth plans and birth courses offer as education, your birth may not look at all like what you hoped. If you do have a knowing of the deep layers of the cycle that birth follows, the same cycle everything in nature follows, your expectations will be met every time, because those expectations are built on real truths and not what people have told you in books or on websites, or even from your birth team, who have their own cladded truth they are dealing with, whether they know it or not.
Here is what I think makes this unbelievably important and even magical. With this truth of the cycle of nature in your awareness, you will understand the path your baby took to arrive here on earth to be with you, no matter how different it looked from what you imagined because you see the cycle of birth and how it will shape your baby's birth, how it will shape their life and your life and the relationship you have with each other and the world around you in the years to come. Being able to see and understand this path, this is a gift that will shape the relationship you have with your child, the understanding you have of who they are in the world, because I believe that when given the chance, we all enter this world in the way we need to in order to stay attuned to the cycle of nature, according to our connection with nature, and when birth isn't interfered with unnecessarily you can see that pattern, and that's a part of who we are. There are times this process does require help, sometimes that's part of the journey, and in that case, an intervention or coaching could be part of what is needed to harmonize with nature's cycle, but it's up to you to know whether an intervention is necessary or not and that comes by knowing the deeper truth, by feeling into the harmony of nature's cycle so you know when your birth is off course,vs just a variation in the course.
This is an important area to get clear on, and a major pillar of what I teach in the Natural Birth Compass Program because it's the foundation for everything else about birth and communicating with your birth team and just being prepared for what a truly transformational and deep experience birth can be if you have done the right preparation.
As we come into further into breath, a most powerful tool for birth, and life, because it is both autonomic, so it happens without requiring our conscious control or awareness, and we can also consciously control our breath for healing, for relaxation, for energy, and for birth. Through breath you can change the pH of your blood, you can change your state of consciousness, you can breathe your baby into the world. That's how powerful it can be in our control, and yet when you sleep or when you're focused on something, like driving or listening to this podcast for instance, your lungs are still taking in oxygen and letting go of carbon dioxide, without missing a beat. I have always found it fascinating that something as essential to our life as breathing is something that we have the ability to consciously control. That fact alone is enough to make me certain that it's important to pay attention to that gift, to be aware of the power of that gift. So make sure you are taking some time to really notice your breath to feel it throughout your body, to notice your breath at different times in your day, in different states of being.
When Breath Makes You Inflexible
Simultaneously, while breath is a wonderful tool for birth, I also always caution the families I work with to be careful about getting too caught up in breath, especially specific breathing techniques and patterns as thinking about patterns and being worried about doing it right, those thoughts are enough to disrupt the birth process. Every mother will have a different approach to her breath that will be most supportive when the time comes, but remember earlier when I was talking about remaining flexible, this is one of those areas where your relationship with breath and with air can work against you. If you become inflexible about breathing during labor, whether that's coming from you or is influenced by your birth team, it can lead you to focus on a breathing pattern that isn't actually beneficial for you. This influence is common from birth teams, because they feel like they have to be doing something especially if they think you are struggling, although it may be their very presence that is causing the distress in the first place, and if you were feeling safe somewhere alone or feeling supported by just your birth partner, you might be having a very different response to birth without the audience of your birth team.
When your team is present in the room, it's so common for thems to naturally coach your breathing if they see you tensing up, or during the pushing stage of labor, and in the moment it can feel really helpful, and moms come away from birth thinking this is what got them through. This happened to me during my first birth, my midwives were coaching me through breathing during the pushing stage, and it seemed really helpful, like it was the thing that was going to get me through the final stretch of birth, quite literally a stretch, right on through the ring of fire and all, and not until later did I realize how harmful that part of my birth actually was to my birth experience, and to my daughter's birth experience. Ultimately it really disrupted that whole stage of labor and led to a difficult early postpartum experience for us all. I had no idea at the time or even for months after the birth that being coached in breathing had caused such a domino effect of problems, really that wouldn't ultimately become clear to me until I dug deep into the truth of birth, found the birth cycle, and all that I know now and am guided by now. At that time, as it often goes, I didn't have this insight, so I just did what my midwives recommended, and the coached breathing felt powerful, and then I had to deal with the consequences of that misplaced power without even realizing what they were the consequences of for so long. On the upside, that experience for me means you get to learn from my lessons, so while I would love to go back and have a different experience for that birth, it also shaped who I became and how my family lives now, and that I wouldn't trade for anything. Hopefully, getting to hear this lesson through me means your journey is smoother and you get the benefits of this perspective for all aspects of your life.
So when it comes to using breath in preparing for birth, and as a comfort technique, instead of focusing on regimented patterns, it should be about developing an awareness of breath in your physical being, your emotional being, your spiritual being, which we're going to get to in a moment. It requires noticing how these levels of you are connected and influenced by the environment around you and feeling how those influences show up in your breath and feeling how you can use breath to shift all of the elements of your being, including air in a way that is natural and comfortable for you. That might come to mean you like patterned breathing, and that's perfect if it works for you, or it might mean you want to sink deep into your subconscious and not be consciously aware of your breath at all, and that's perfect if that works for you. You might find you use different methods of breathing for different parts of labor, again, perfect, as long as you are the one leading, which means you need to get comfortable with your breath before you are in the midst of labor.
Breath impacts our nervous system so deeply, but the relationship with breath, with air, with the expansiveness of air is different for each of us and learning what that relationship feels like for you right now is what will be the most beneficial for your birth.
Air as Inspiration - The Importance of Inspiration in Birth Affirmations
And finally I think it's important that we also talk here about the capacity of air as inspiration in other layers and realms of our beings because inspiration is not only for your physical breath, it's also for your emotional and spiritual breath, to breathe life into your dreams and ambitions. This has to do in every way with your ambitions for your homebirth and the beautiful vision you are holding for your baby's birth into the world, and it's related to the techniques you might be using to get there, specifically things like affirmations, songs and music, stories, everything related to words because words, just like breath, have the power to inflate and elevate us, or deflate and shrink us.
What I'm not saying here is that you should only listen to positive birth stories and that you should never listen to anything about preparing for unexpected outcomes, because there is no one right way to prepare. What I do mean by the words and stories you listen to is that you need to understand why you are listening to the story or reading the book or listening to the podcast, what inspiration are you looking for? What are you trying to inspire within yourself? Do you need to get that inspiration from something birth specific or is there another source? Maybe exploring nature, reading poetry, or listening to nature inspired music will be more inspirational to you than another birth story. When you find yourself looking for something to read or listen to or watch, ask yourself, are you looking for information and gathering resources or are you looking to be soothed, are you looking to feel secure in your choices? When you know why you are looking for the inspiration you are hunting, you can expand your resources to find the inspiration that actually fills the need.
Identify Your Sources of Inspiration
When it comes to things that inspire you. what are those sources for you in your life generally? This is so important to know. So important that I have my students write out what we call a Compass of Nurturing that helps them identify their sources of inspiration and how they like to be cared for, whether that's self care or the support they receive during labor, and it even relates to the kind of care they would like to receive during prenatal visits, because all of this is important for emotional and spiritual inspiration, to be uplifted in the way that works for you as an individual. Further, different types of inspiration are important for different aspects of our life, that’s why I have my students organize this on their Compass, because each type of inspiration impacts a different level of our being and sometimes you need to draw it out to make sure you're not missing any important levels of your holistic being.
For example, for me inspiration has always come from nature, and now also my kids, watching them grow and have experiences in life. In the natural world around me, I find it in the great trees and forests of the Pacific Northwest, in the mountain ranges we have here, in a field of snow, a pond, these are all sources of inspiration for me that help me feel nurtured in my connection to the exterior world. When I want to inspire my south fire guides, that's where I would go, but if I want to nourish my north water guides, I would be using different sources of inspiration that help me access that vibration for me, which might be completely opposite what brings you inspiration in those areas of life.
When thinking about your sources of inspiration, you might be wondering what really does it really mean for something to be an inspiration for you? I think it means that it teaches us something more about ourselves, our humanity, our connections with the world around us, places where we see reflections of who we want to be, where we can can learn the steps of how to take actions to get there, how to become this inspired version of ourselves, if we pay attention.
When I'm watching my children, I am reminded to have whimsey, to have joy, to look for fun in life through imagination, through laughter, through being a good friend. From nature I am reminded of so many things, but one that commonly sticks out for me is remembering to take time for being in the calm, being someone who can be content to be still sometimes, to just be in the moment with all my senses open, and to harmonize with nature and have patience as I am reminded that everything has its time, everything has its season. I'm always reminded of that very strongly during spring time as the flowers are so close to being ready to pop open everywhere, but still holding tight, and they will open when the time is right, and as humans we have our right times for everything too, and the more we remember that, the more we can be content with where we are and who we are in any given moment of our lives. Right now, you are the perfect version of you who knows just what you need to know for today, and tomorrow you will be a different version of who knows different things at just the time you need them, if you are on your path of Truth.
As you get clear on your inspirations, you can use this to make powerful affirmations for your life and your birth. Most people make affirmations around something they want to be or want to have, and they write them in a way that they are trying to convince themselves that it's true or possible, but you can't convince the subconscious of something your conscious mind desires just by saying it over and over. It has to come from a deeper intention, from an inspiration that elevates your subconscious to take in the intent of the affirmation. Your subsconscious can't decline the invitation to accept something as true that comes from a place of inspiration because it's your heart level consciousness speaking, that's your Truth, that's your vibration and it's never wrong.
So I encourage you to identify your sources of inspiration, whether that's a person in your life, or nature, or something that guides your spiritual path and notice the purpose underlying that inspiration. What are the lessons there? Is it something you can use to inspire your birth preparation or your transformation into parenthood?
Summary & Action Steps
Coming back again to breath and air for a summary and action steps, spend time feeling your breath, notice how you breathe in different situations, when you're comfortable and calm, but also tune into it when you're busy, when you're or stressed, when you're drifting off to sleep, when you first wake up, when you're exercising, when you're still. How do you breath when you're challenged physically, emotionally, spiritually? Do they each feel different? How do they feel different and can you become aware of the differences so you notice them in labor? Take time to play with your breath, I hope you are now as fascinated as I am about the fact that we have conscious control over our breath and you start to feel the many ways it can make an impact in your life, in your day, in your energy, and in your connection to the world at large, as it is one of the key connections we have with the world outside of us, it ties us to nature - this magical exchange of elements with the plant world, and it ties us to the heavens and all that is in the light world. Air lifts us up, and it's always there for us literally inspiring our lives.
And if you feel inspired to share, I would love to hear about your sources of inspiration! You can share on Instagram or Facebook @naturalbirthcompass or DM me there so we can start to inspire each other and the birth culture at large!
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!
