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THE BIRTH

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IMG_0669-2Now that our son, Sky, is 12 days old, and I am slowly, but surely, recovering, I want to share a little about the birth. Although it is such an intimate subject that most people don’t care to know the details of, I feel it is such an amazing process of nature, that, a little of which, just has to be shared.
When most of us think about birth, we think of images we have seen in movies of women screaming in fear and agony with their legs up in stirrups as medical professionals take charge of delivering their babies. After 9 months of watching how this body knows perfectly well how to create a fully formed human baby, then when it comes to the birth, it is as if we don’t trust nature to know how to do it anymore. We fear the unknown, and when we hear of other people’s birth horror stories, and we are told of all the terrible things that could go wrong, this just makes us even more fearful. And in fear, our muscles contract and resist the whole natural process. Birthing, like Life, is about letting go, losing control, not understanding, not relying on logic or thinking. It is simply about following and trusting whatever this body needs to feel, express and do. And this is obviously absolutely unique for each individual body.
For me and Sky, it was one of the most powerfully ‘high’, and at the same time the most earthy, bodily experiences, I have known. No matter what ideas or plans Robert and I may have had about how it would or should go, in the end, it was just about following the body and falling into absolute trust with this experience now, now, now… It was amazing how the body knew exactly what to do in each moment. It was such a letting go of convention, politeness, and social decorum, and simply a surrender to the innate wisdom of animal nature. Funnily enough, as much as the thinking may have liked to imagine a serene quiet labour and birth, (having watched several birth videos where the women just quietly breathed through the labour), I found that in my experience this body needed to make loud roaring sounds as an expression of the intense energy that flowed with each surge of the womb. Feeling my body opening and opening, and then my baby moving downwards, and only letting go to this. There was no fear, and nothing in me called these sensations painful. In fact there was not a lot of commenting on, or labeling these sensations at all. Although I felt a sense of spacious euphoria throughout, this was no escape from very much feeling the strong intensity of each wave of energy as Life birthed itself. As much as Robert was with me all the way, making loud roaring sounds alongside me, and our wonderful midwife was there with her own encouraging sounds and gentle touches, I knew without doubt that, it was not up to me, or anyone else to do anything. I was alone with my baby, as Life took us on this amazing journey together. I felt the very raw animal nature of this female body, doing exactly what she was made to do. It was messy, it was noisy, it was intense, but it was so incredibly alive and real.
After Sky was born, and I held him in my arms, all I can say was that I was mind-blown! Looking at Robert with tears streaming down his face, together we fell in love with this sweet little creature that came from nowhere.

~ Unmani

 

SLOWING DOWN

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 As most of you already know, I am now about 7 months pregnant. Over the next few months, I am taking some time to slow down, and just be with what is happening with my body, our baby, and our beautiful little family.

Although I won’t be traveling or holding more meetings or intensives until August, I am offering a limited number of online private sessions until mid April. If you would like to arrange these, please see: https://www.die-to-love.com/wp/dive-in/online-private-sessions/
I will also be continuing with our Monthly Themed Webinars as long as it feels good to do.
During these ‘slow’ few months, Robert, will continue to post here on Facebook,Youtube, and our website. And Nicola, my assistant, will continue to respond to emails at: admin@die-to-love.com
Love Unmani

REAL INTELLIGENCE

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Just feeling into the baby growing inside my belly… He doesn’t know that he is a baby. He doesn’t know that he is a boy. He doesn’t know that he is a human. He doesn’t know what time it is. He doesn’t know which country we are in. He doesn’t know that he is someone. He is just wide open intelligence (and he doesn’t even understand what those words mean). The intelligence that he is, doesn’t need to understand any of those concepts, because it is Life itself – so much more than concepts.
And of course the funny thing is that, although we all start like that, in our mother’s womb knowing nothing about anything, really nothing changes when we grow up. Even when we think we know everything about who we are and how to live this life, our true nature is still that same wide open intelligence, that doesn’t know in thinking, but knows as Life itself.
~ Unmani

The Miracle of Life

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C27A7420As some of you may already know, at 41, I am pregnant with my first baby. As this is a particularly miraculous unending human journey of growing and being touched by life, I would like to share with you, some of my personal unfolding journey so far.

About 2 years ago, I had given up any hope of having a baby in this life. Although I had never really been one of those women who needed to have a whole family of children, I did always have a very physical longing to live out the biological purpose of this female body. Month after month, cycle after cycle, this body prepares to grow a baby, and then grieves over the loss of another egg. It is the natural process that is such an integral part of being a woman. However, it took years, and several painful relationships, before I could really acknowledge that longing, as there was a lot of old fear and pain around it.  But as time went by, and it didn’t look like it was going to happen, I grieved deeply, and somehow the longing seemed to fall away.

Even to take one step backwards, I had given up hope of ever being with a man who could really meet me as a woman, but also as a friend and life partner. Life seems to work that way, just when all hope was lost and I was perfectly satisfied with the life of being a single woman who was self-sufficient and happy, out of nowhere, I was showered with the gift of this beautiful man. Neither of us were looking for, or needing a relationship, so we were both a little suspicious of how good it was at first. In the first days and weeks we did our best to challenge each other with all our past painful wounds and longings, and found that there was space for it all to be felt and heard in love and laughter. This in itself has been, and endlessly continues to be, very healing.

Exactly a year later, in exactly the same place in Portugal, we discovered that I was pregnant. It is almost as if life was playing at being as synchronistic as it could. People have asked whether this pregnancy was planned, and the answer to that is yes and no. We were both open to it, but were not really trying to make it happen. We jokingly said ‘we leave it up to the gods’. And the gods (whoever they are), decided.

Robert already has two lovely grown-up sons in their twenties from a previous relationship, and was not looking to have more children. However, he surprised himself, as to how open he was to having another child now. Over the years, he has in himself, matured, relaxed and opened to life more and more, and is not so stressed and worried about all the practical details, and ‘doing it right’, compared to how he was in the past.  In his words, ‘this baby is just welcome’.

We have some loose plans about how it might unfold, but both Robert and I are simply living in awe of the unfolding of life in this journey into the unknown. Although of course women have been doing this for thousands of years, to me it is completely unknown, not only because it is my first baby, but also because it is always, and always will be, unknown and fresh.

At 16 weeks, I am feeling all kinds of new and previously unknown subtle and not so subtle physical sensations. I have always been very sensitive to what is happening in my body and especially to the subtle changes in my menstrual cycle. Being pregnant is just an extension to that. The body is doing what it is programmed to do and it has nothing to do with ‘me’ or what I might think about it. It seems to be a process of surrender and letting go in such a deep physical way. It is a wonder and amazement to watch it all happen.

In the first couple weeks of pregnancy I felt a tremendous amount of energy in my belly area. It was so powerful and overwhelming that it often kept me awake at night. The energy had the flavour of the greatest creative and destructive force of Life and Death. I had never experienced it so obviously in such a physical way before that. Although I do remember when I was at the birth of my niece, when I first walked into the room where my sister was in labour, I was shocked and intimidated by this same powerful energy that filled the room. Now this same energy was working in such focused way in my womb. All I could do was lie down and surrender to it.

In the first few weeks, although I knew I was pregnant, at the same time it didn’t feel real. I felt all the strange sensations of fullness, and energy in my belly, but I couldn’t relate it to an actual person growing inside there. I started reading about the physical stages of pregnancy, and I knew logically that there was a tiny embryo growing inside there, but all I could really know and trust, as ever, was my direct experience: Sensations happening. Thoughts struggling to compute what it all means, and to try to label what is happening in order to provide a (false) sense of security. A growing intuitive sense that it is all happening perfectly as it should be. And a knowing of the beginning of a new, and yet strangely ancient, journey into the unknown.

As the weeks have gone on so far, my belly is growing and becoming more and more obvious. I have felt more of a sense of a new life growing in me, although still not feeling it as being separate from me. I have on many occasions found myself talking to it or soothing it in noisy or uncomfortable situations. In a way, it is similar to how I might self-sooth the child that I am and have always been. There is no real separation between the child I am and the child I am apparently carrying in my womb.

We have now had our first ultrasound scan where we actually saw the baby moving around, waving it’s arms and even crossing its legs. It was such a heartbreakingly touching moment to actually see the image of the baby in there. The doctors have said that everything looks healthy as far as they can see at this stage. They mentioned a long list of possible problems and possible tests for possible problems. Although we are not being purposely close-minded to these possibilities, we are also not wanting to blindly take on the fears of others. People have so many fear-based opinions about pregnancy, the fact that I am a bit older than usual, birth and raising children. We are both doing our best to side-step these opinions and face the reality of it all as it comes step by step.

I don’t know what I am doing, but I live in wonder, surrender and gratitude to life as it unfolds.

Unmani, 26/11/2014
www.die-to-love.com