Silence before Humour

Noise. It’s like a belisha beacon, or a loud game show buzzer jumping out of the screen every time I watch a birth on One Born Every Minute or a birth on television, or even homebirths where people chatting away while mum’s in the pool, I even saw one when a telephone rang just as the mother was birthing her baby. The noise sets my teeth on edge. Instinctively it just feels wrong, I want to “shhhh!” them. Why do people feel the urge to fill that  birth space with chat?

Last weekend I finished my Doula training with Michel Odent and experienced Doula Liliana Hammers. I was mesmerized listening to Liliana’s accounts of how even when awoman shouts out or asks questions, she treats it as rhetorical, just quietly shrugs and smiles with a calm reassurance, not even necessarily answering the question. This does take skill and at one point I realized that Liliana would make a fantastic counsellor. Very often in counselling, clients ask a question as part of their own internal process. Entering into an internal space, with the unspoken support of someone nearby, allows them to connect safely with their emotions and to ask questions of themselves.  Asking a question out loud doesn’t always mean that they are asking you for the answer, but seeking that answer from within themselves or even expressing an observation. Silence is often used as a technique to allow someone to become still and to engage with the feelings that arise in that moment, free of judgment.

Why are people so uncomfortable with silence in a birth space? And why do they feel the need to talk all the time.  So often people feel compelled to speak when there is silence and to fill that birth space with the clutter of words and noise.  Very often this is what happens at births, people seem to find it difficult to just sit and to be.  Some midwives are chattering away, interrupting the mother, some fathers or birthing partners use humour to break that silence as it feels uncomfortable and humour is an instinctive way to ‘break the ice’. Sometimes there evens seems to be a bit of a social event going on around the mother.

Why not chat away, interrupt, engage the mother with conversation?  During the birth a mother goes into an internal birth space, it’s a different state of being than she is in every day life.  Naturally, she quietens down her chattering mind, her neo-cortex, the same part of the brain that shuts down as you drift off to sleep at night. Michel Odent told me he called it “falling into sleep and falling into labour”.   To allow the right birth space is to allow the mother the same space as she falls asleep in every night. Secure, dark, unobserved, protected and quiet.  If someone were chattering away to you, or standing over watching you while you were trying to get to sleep it would be difficult wouldn’t it!

Very often midwives used to knit so that they could just be in the birth space, occupied with something that allowed them to be present without making their presence felt.  This strong, calm, non-judgmental, quiet reassurance helped to hold the mother in that  birth space, without the need for interruption.

So when it’s silent be silent too. If the mother makes noise, or asks questions that seem irrational and unlike her,  don’t always feel like you have to reply or even give words of reassurance. Bite your tongue, be strong, present and calm.   Consider that nothing needs fixing, everything is fine and that by wading in with words you are disrupting something that needs to be uninterrupted and undisturbed .  Sometimes that quiet, calm presence, and that reassuring shrug and smile are all that’s needed for the birth space to be a perfect space for birth.

Babies need to be water with love and patience.

 Why the fuss about birth and not the baby? 

By Sophie Fletcher

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept is as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.” 

Eckhart Tolle

Recently I was reminded by a friend about the bigger picture.  She said birth is just a small part of the journey we experience as pregnant women. The much bigger part of the experience is what comes after – motherhood. She wondered why women are so focused on the actual birth rather than their baby and suggested that this preoccupation with birth prevents a woman from wholly preparing to be a mother, connecting with her baby on their journey.

There is no doubt that the focus has shifted from having a baby, and the baby themselves, to how the women are going to manage the birth, get the right pushchair, finish the nursery, perhaps moving house (surprisingly common!) or how long their maternity leave is going to be.   In our Mindful Mamma classes at the beginning we ask everyone to spontaneously write on a note the first word that springs to mind when you think of birth, very often baby isn’t in the mix, instead words like pain, control, blood, long and hard work float to the surface from fears harbored in the unconscious.

But the truth of it is that from conception to birth to motherhood is a life creating, life changing, daunting, challenging and absobloodylutely incredible journey. Birth is just a moment, an intense moment, of a period in your life that will bring you highs and lows, tears and laughter, fear and joy.   There is nothing more frightening than a baby making their first wobbly steps near your mother-in-law’s granite fireplace and nothing more wonderful than your baby’s chubby arms loosely clasped around your neck as they fall asleep rhythmically breathing into your ear.   But we don’t dwell on any of these before they happen, we experience those moments as they happen and enjoy them or manage them skillfully in the moment.

Imagine conception as the planting of a seed, the seed growing beneath the surface nurtured by the soil, out of sight but watched expectantly until it breaks through the surface.  The plant continues to grow but from this moment is reliant on the water and sunlight to grow and blossom.   Just as this plant needs water and sunlight your baby needs your love, care and gentle compassion to nourish their emotional well-being and growth.

Motherhood can be a wonderful thing and it can also be a mirror of birth in terms of the emotions.  There is fear, there is sometimes that sense of losing control, and there is joy, happiness, the worry of not knowing what is the right way and wrong way to do it.

Birth is just the beginning, and just like motherhood you can choose to get on and do it and do it your way, intuitively with love, strength and patience.   Your baby’s journey into this world begins at birth, just as your journey into motherhood begins and your partner’s journey into fatherhood begins.

So allow yourself to become aware in this moment of your baby, the core of your being, your connection with each other and how you are moving forward together hand in hand on a new, exciting and eventful journey that will last long after the birth.

Prior to the birth, allow yourself the time to reflect on what type of teacher you want to be, how you want your baby to learn. Being mindful of that responsibility, reflecting and welcoming that role will in turn strengthen and prepare you the birth – the moment that your journey begin and the moment that your flower nudges through the soil and begins to grow into a beautiful blossom cared for and loved by you.

The guilt that women feel for snapping or shouting at their child is a cruel thing, perhaps there are some of you out there who have never yelled at their child, wished they would just shut up, or wanted to lock yourself in a room with noise cancelling headphones on. If you’re a mum like that I salute you, because you’re better than me.

The truth of the matter is, things are harder for new mothers than they ever have been. Two generations ago, or even a generation ago, we lived much closer to our families. We had trusted support networks that gave us a well needed break and the opportunity to find the space to care for our own wellbeing. It is hard to be mindful of ourselves and our actions as a parent, when we are so busy with interruptions and the spaces between time seem to get smaller. Thich Nhat Hanh a Buddhist monk who has done a lot of work on mindfulness in Western culture, said that children create one of the most beautiful but the most challenging lessons in mindfulness. Jon Kabat-Zinn speaks of your time with the children as a meditation and an opportunity to become more self aware. This great blog by Myla and Jon gives wonderful guidance on how to tune into yourself.

These types of approaches are still on the fringes of our culture however and the overwhelming sense is that women are quite far removed from the opportunity offered through parenthood to become more self-aware, to adjust, to enjoy and to learn. We don’t have the networks we need to support us in that journey and often our sense of self as a parent is obscured by thoughts and feelings of what is expected of us as a mother.

Historically, as women moved more and more into higher education, several things happened, we migrated away from our families to university, we became independent, we got jobs, and we stayed away.Then we got married and had children but we held onto that independence, onto our jobs and onto our children, our right to have it all. The right to be equal to men was something our mothers and their mothers before them had worked hard for, the suffragettes, the 60’s feminist movement sacrificed much to bring equality in the home and in the workplace and there is an inherent responsibility to honour that fight.

I grew up on Virginia Woolf, Mary Wollstonecraft, Germaine Greer and many more but now as a mother and career women I’ve come to realize that I can’t do both and give them 100%, it’s a cruel fallacy. Apparently Nicola Horlicks, Karren Brady and other women are proof that you can have it all, but Karren was back at work 6 weeks after the birth of her son. 6 weeks! It was the right choice for her and that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be sold as having it all, it’s being a full time businesswoman and part time mother.

My instinct is to be at home with my children, making sure that the home is running smoothly (If I’d said that to my 19 year old self, I’d have had a good talking to) but there is also my job which I love, but which I squeeze in around my children, rather than my children squeezing in around my job. That’s my choice and that’s fine too, but I’m a full-time mother and a part-time businesswoman.

When you first become a mother, balancing all these demands is tiring, it’s exhausting, often mums can become brittle and then snap.Most of us are awfully British, even when help is offered we say “no no no, don’t worry I’m fine”, when it may be abundantly clear that you are not.

So when people come and see me saying they’re a terrible mum or that they can’t cope, I remind them of how important their network is, how important that ‘holding’ has been to women throughout time, from the ancient Greeks up to the present day. When you are challenged, be mindful of the feelings and thoughts that arise in you, observe them, understand where they are coming from. Sometimes the fear you have of your child hurting itself while exploring the world around it, may have been learned by you as a child by your mother, awareness of that emotion gives you the chance to know yourself more deeply than before and to let go of obstructive thoughts.

Don’t be afraid of emotions however strong or upsetting they may be, find space to explore those feelings and above all remember that as your child learns its way in the world, you are still learning to. Be kind to yourself.

Here are some quick ideas to create space to breath, focus and tap into your inner strength.

• Say yes to offers of help. If you are away from friends or family consider a postnatal doula or a night nanny. If you haven’t heard of a night nanny have a look at this site by Elizabeth Stokes who is based in Nottingham.http://www.eastmidlandsnightnanny.co.uk/ GOOGLE your nearest.
• Put your baby in a sling and go for a walk, perhaps turn it into a walking meditation.
• Use a talking meditation with your baby: Describe, the sunset, or a tree in the park, or a beautiful view in as vivid detail as you possibly can to
  your baby.
• If you ever feel at breaking point or feel you are going to snap, put your baby in safe place and go into the garden. Getting in touch with nature can be very calming, and you can use a simple walking mediation in a circle, breathing in and breathing out until you are aware of that emotion subsiding.
• Make yourself a cup of tea (even better get someone else to make it for you) tea has magical properties!

Don’t….

…..Think that you can manage on your own all the time, it’s ok to ask for help and if you do ask you will probably get it!

If they really believed I was a hypnotherapist and did hypnotize people for a living I’m sure not quite sure what it would do for their toddler psyches!

But where did they pick up the suggestion that hypnosis is evil, controlling and downright villainous? You’ve guessed it – the television. They don’t watch a lot, but it’s been a long holiday and and my eldest has recently graduated from Cebeebies to CITV and CBBC. Which means instead of Noddy, he gets Scooby Doo, Pokemon and Storm Hawks.

Watching a few of them with him I realized that the myth of hypnosis as a controlling force to be reckoned with was omnipresent in these cartoons. In Pokemon there is actually a move called Hypnosis with rules attached. Far too complicated for me to make any sense of but enough to know that there is actually a Pokemon called hypnos.

Evil hypnotists abound in Scooby Doo, here is a clip in which Daphne been hypnotized by an evil clown with a medallion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0pKFLLzMDY

I wonder if the script writer had challenged himself to shoe in as many references to evil stereotypes as possible in one sketch – and of course the fact he chose the poor vulnerable Daphne deepens the impact.

Sarah Jane Adventures, the Junior version of Dr Who, recently had an episode where an entire school of children were hypnotized by looking at a band.

All of them without fail have the villain controlling the heroic characters. Ultimately the heroes always manage to break out of their trance, usually using distraction (a hypnotherapy technique for things such as pain management) to defeat the evil forces that threaten civilization as we know it.

So I have spent the rest of the time trying to subtly teach my children that hypnosis is actually a good thing, that it can’t control you and that in fact mummy goes to work and hypnotizes people every week. But sadly I’m no match for the hypnotic charms of Scooby Doo and the television.

And that’s the rub of it, watching television is a hypnotic act, so when, as children, we have watched programmes which incorporate evil hypnotists, we are at our most vulnerable at receiving messages. Children are still building up their belief systems and so anything they learn, especially one that has a consistent message, has even greater impact. Those messages which seem so benign and humorous are actually compounded and are being carrying forward as myths into adulthood.

Nearly every client I see that has come along because a friend has recommended it, knows that their friend talks sense and perhaps has seen the positive effect of hypnosis first hand, but still harbours the underlying apprehension that comes from watching or hearing these myths about hypnosis.

I see crossed arms and legs, people turning away from me in the chair – unable to look me in the eye. Comments such as “this is the last resort”, or “are you going to make me cluck like a chicken” are all things that I hear regularly. If I jest and say “it’s fine, I don’t have a medallion or anything like that”, I can see them instantly begin to relax in their chair.

Most clients are total converts after they experience it, comforted by the fact that they could open their eyes at any stage and the deep sense of relaxation following a session. Nearly all say they could stay there and just go to sleep.

But there is always someone who seems vaguely disappointed that I can’t make them cluck like a chicken, or make love to a broom….

I’ve been playing den’s with my children this week – a lot. They love den’s, but don’t all children and even adults? I have to admit I’m a bit claustrophobic but I do love curling up in a den every now and again.

This week we had a new fluffy red blanket which we draped over the den – it gave off a warm red glow inside. Rory my son, refused to come out and curled up into the corner, comfortable and calm. I too felt very at peace sitting in there with the sounds outside muffled and tucked up, cosily next to him.

The symbolism may be obvious, but what is so interesting is that after years of being born that I still now get that sense of peace and security when I’m in that den. Certainly I have no recollection of being in the womb, but I have a sense of it.

Often you will hear of people talk about birth memories, memories of being in the womb, or of a birth imprint or body memory. As adults we very seldom have a cognitive memory of being in the womb, rather we may have a sense of what that may have been like through games such as building, hiding out in dens or even listening to the muffled beat of a heart.

The unborn child is just like the newborn in that it is permanently learning and coming to terms with everything new in its environment. Things learned in the womb remain influential later in life. So hiding in dens, listening to the sound of the mother’s heartbeat can have a calming effect even after birth.

On the other hand research looking into prenatal stress indicates that babies who that have suffered from stress in the womb have shown increased heart rates later in their lives. A study by Gerhard Rottmann (1974) suggested that the more conflict, ambivalence and rejection the mother demonstrated in her relationship with the unborn child, the more the child was affected after the birth.

In a study by Theodor Hau some of the things that were shown to be connected to the above were : less sleep, irritability, excessive screaming, apathy, underweight and gastrointestinal problems.

So what am I trying to say with this post? I suppose I want to get more to grips with this idea of body memory, of the feelings imprinted upon us in the womb and at birth and how that affects us as children and adults.

I have absolutely no doubt that the baby feels what the mother feels, and that’s not just while they are in the womb. My children are acutely sensitive, they know when I am upset or down even if I hide it really really well. Being mindful of this and being present enables a mother to spend time with her child and to be calm and at peace. Benefiting not just herself but her child as well.

During pregnancy by remaining calm and relaxed, you are giving your baby the benefit of all those feel good hormones which we know affect them positively in the longer term. Babies that are born to mothers we have worked with are extraordinarily calm. In the longer term we are beginning to see the toddlers with remarkable focus and patience.

Here are 4 simple things that you can do everyday during your pregnancy to slow yourself down, relax and focus on the baby – If you are too busy then prioritise – ask yourself what is important in your life.

• Take 10 minutes out of the day to meditate or reflect on your baby.

• Practice slow belly breathing while listening to music

• Talk to and play with your baby

• Listen to the Mindful Mamma relaxation cd or some other relaxing music