Are you scared? Worried? Excited? Feeling ambivalent? Feeling on top of the world and ready to face everything and anything that comes your way?
Your feelings surrounding your upcoming birth (and even about your previous birth/s) can have an impact on your body, and also on your labour itself.
Fear for example can make labour slow down or speed up depending on how your body chooses to react to the fear, it can make it feel more painful, and can stop your body from working effectively to birth your baby.
In comparison joy, love, excitement and happiness can make labour feel less painful, make it easier to cope with the contractions of labour, can make your body work more effectively and can even make labour progress faster for many.
So I ask you again, how do you feel when you contemplate your upcoming birth and everything that could happen during it?
What are the predominant feelings that are coming to you? And if they are negative (angry, fearful, worried etc) how do you think that they could be changed?
Are any of these feelings important to you? Is there a reason that you feel they are important to you?
Look deeper into the reason for feeling them. What is the reason/s, and why has it affected you so much? Is this reason (or reasons) helping you or hindering you?
If they are hindering you, what can you do to change that?
If they are helping you how are they helping you?
When you know what your feelings are, where they are coming from and WHY you are feeling that way you have taken the first step towards being in control of them and can now start to make them work for you, and prevent them from working against you.
It's not quite as easy as just saying "I am going to feel THIS and won't feel THAT!" but when you put in the work early, before the birth itself, it can make the whole experience feel different than it could have otherwise.
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Does any of this resonate with you? Want to work with me on your pre-birth mindset? Send a message to arrange a no obligation interview to find out if I'm the right doula for you!