You see, one of the things I would love to see happen in my lifetime is to have Birthing Peace Within workshops and sessions become obsolete. NOT because I don’t love working with people, and seeing them experience peace surrounding their births that they never because everyone feels honored and respected, loved, and wanted at their own birth as well as the birth of their children. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE working with my clients, I love seeing them move beyond the frustration and anger they have been living with for years or even decades. It is just that I would rather it not be necessary!

What makes me think my workshop’s obsolescence is possible??
Well… an amazing thing happened this week, one that made me cry from sheer happiness. The World Health Organization is calling for the:

“Prevention and elimination of disrespect and abuse during facility-based childbirth”

A few snips from that statement are gems like:
          Many women experience disrespectful and abusive
treatment during childbirth in facilities worldwide. Such
treatment not only violates the rights of women to
respectful care, but can also threaten their rights to life,
health, bodily integrity, and freedom from discrimination.
This statement calls for greater action, dialogue, research
and advocacy on this important public health and human
rights issue.
and:
 International human rights frameworks highlight
disrespect and abuse during childbirth as an
important human rights issue, and can aid
women’s health advocates in raising awareness and
developing policy initiatives on the importance of
respectful maternal care. Rights-based approaches to
organizing and managing health systems can facilitate
the provision of respectful, quality care at birth.

Go here to read the entire statement,  or I will have to paste it all here!

This is a BIG DEAL since many of the traumas my clients have been able to overcome stem from the fact that they felt disrespected or even abused during pregnancy or birth. Often their frustration and sadness were further minimized by the people who said “all that matters is a healthy baby” or “they had to do that to save your baby” when often the mother felt an action or intervention was unnecessary or even forced on her. Her experience is

I would love to say this shift and a new respect for birth will happen overnight, I would love to say those who have been placed in positions of power over birthing women would read this and say “oh, yeah, this is a great idea” – alas,  I think my workshops will still be needed for a while. The great news is that I love doing them, and people are HEALING from the trauma or abuse they have suffered. It is happening!

Think about your birth – if you have given birth more than once pick one. If thinking about when you were born affects you on an emotional level – any level, use that as your focus.
Don’t delve into it deeply, just think for a very short moment about whether you would change anything about that birth if you could ‘go back’ and do it again. If you have any anger or frustration surrounding that birth, if you decided on a plan that didn’t go as planned, if you felt betrayed by your experience in any way, remember to speak to, empathize, and support yourself as you would a friend.  Then join me on the October 14th call to work through and release those feelings and move forward with a new peace.

The way a woman feels about her birth(s), even many years later, is incredibly powerful and can affect so much of her life on a level she may not even recognize.

If you feel like you have some frustration, anger, or sadness surrounding your birth(s), you might find that some simple energy balancing exercises like those in the Tips and Tools for Postpartum Peace (the next day or a half-century later) booklet help. Next time you tell your birth story, tell it from a place of balance and clarity — (click here to get it if you haven’t already done this!) and join me at a workshop or webinar.

If you have a story about how your birth plan, birth, or postpartum changed your life I would love to hear from you — send it to me along with your wish to keep it either private, anonymous, or shared to inspire.

Lori
Lori@BirthingPeaceWithin.com