Not Your Mama's Meditations

Today I was losing it. I had been out of the house all day from 10am to 7pm and had arrived home to nurse the baby (again), cut up my 4 year old's food, help my 6 year old rinse and brush his hair, and mitigate the arguments popping up like weeds between them. 

With the baby asleep in her carrier and the boys finally sung to bed, it was time for me to go eat my own dinner. As I walked down the stairs, like clockwork her little sweet eyes popped open and then the scream. We call it the "wahgoo" because that is the sound she makes (at high decibels). 

My sweet angel wanted more milk. But she had already had LOTS of milks, and she had been throwing up on and off when she would eat too much. So I said no in my head, but she looked so desperate, I thought, maybe she really is hungry, and against my better judgement, snapped open my nursing bra and snuggled in. As I lifted her to my should to burp her a short time later out flowed a waterfall of precious milk and I yelped with the shock of the sudden drenching. 

"I knew I should have said no!" I cried as I sulked up the stairs to change, grateful I had turned the stovetop with my dinner on it off. The sticky thick liquid coated my shoulder, shirt, and pants, even managing to snag a few errant strands of hair. Once I had restored us both to a dry and clean state, I trudged back downstairs, this time with the "wahgoo" at full volume.

"I need to eat dinner sweetheart, shhh shhh shhh," I attemped to soothe and rock to no avail. And then I remembered, a Beyond Birthing meditation I had made to help birthing mamas drop into a state of deep subconscious relaxation. I reached for the words that would cue this state and let my whole body breathe with the deepest comforting state of letting go, which instantly rippled out to my baby who stopped crying and closed her eyes. 

We walked for a few minutes and I turned on her wave machine completing the magic as she seemed to drop into the beginning stages of sleep. Only one last thing stood in the way of much needed nourishment: a sealed bottle of pure maple syrup to pour into my 10-grain oatmeal. I pinched the seal tag and pulled with all of my might, slipped, and sliced a huge gash in one of my fingers. I trudged back upstairs, uncommonly calm, to gather a bandaid and neosporin. 

Despite the dripping blood, hunger pangs, and the waking baby on my chest, my body remained comforted, soft, and calm. It was a miracle.

I tell mothers in my birthing classes that they can use these tools postpartum throughout motherhood, but this was the first time I had used a meditation in this way and it was wonderful.

The meditations in Beyond Birthing are designed to bring the birthing mother into a state of relaxation that is in deep rapport with her psyche, body, AND baby. We "run toward the roar" rather than attempting to escape the process of birth. In doing so, the mother is able to remain present and connected with her body and baby, enabling her to move and breathe in a way that assists labor making it both safer and easier.

These meditations work in birth, and they absolutely work in motherhood.

These are not your mama's hippy meditations - these are the sanity-saving tools of an emotionally self-regulated busy mom who wants to do it all, and do it well.

Peace.