by MotherWit | Dec 19, 2012 | Uncategorized
I connect much of my healing, along with the good medical care and love I’ve received, with my learning to pay better attention to and heeding the whispers of intuition. When I don’t hear things right off the bat, events will arise, if I choose to pay attention, to teach me my soul’s lesson’s more clearly.
I have been in the super doldrums the last few days. It sounds so ungrateful, I know, given how I just got told I am cancer free. But remember, I’ve spent months on narcotics to numb out some serious pain. As a result, it’s buffered a lot of the emotions too. Well, not the good stuff. It is easy to find the gratitude and love for me in any state, but the drugs seriously gave me the illusion that I went through all this trauma with reasonable emotional ease. It almost felt too easy.
So, given that the pain in my body is more sporadic now rather than something that needs constant medicating, all those frozen emotions are making their way to the surface, sneakily and without regard for propriety. Out of the blue yesterday, I started sobbing with incredible sorrow and bitterness for the darker side of doula work. I am referring to the times we sometimes have to witness abuse and energetically provide a buffer and protection for the sake of peace. When we are sleep deprived to the point of hallucination, hungry, vulnerable and missing our own babies. I was so incredibly sad in my concrete knowledge of nineteen years of hospital doula-ing that in general, the system infantilizes and controls women in labour through fear MORE than it respects the sovereignty of a woman over her own birth. I couldn’t see my place anymore, thinking I would forever be swimming upstream, that I was a right idiot for believing I could ever make a difference, a fraud for ever leading my students to believe they could help with an impossible cultural healing. It was a dark, sad, lonely, overwhelming sorrowful place to be in.
I woke up today squirming with the very discomfort of being in my hot flashing, radiation/chemo ravaged body, knowing after a night of absolutely no sleep (a byproduct of no drugs) I had to haul myself to the Breast Imaging Centre at the hospital to check out the lump I noticed a few weeks ago. I was thinking, “Well, you went and got cervical cancer, it’s not a stretch you could have breast cancer too.” I guess I hadn’t freaked out before (thanks, drugs) because I figured fate couldn’t be so cruel… but honestly, more clear headed now, why the hell not? There is no immunity in this heaven and abyss of a thing we call life…no bargaining. Luckily, all was great with the breast exam, so nothing to worry about there. But will I ever let go and trust the magnificence of my body again, it having been so sick for so long without my knowing? Will I be able to put down this new feeling of victimization?
Before my husband came to pick me up from the hospital to take me to my osteopath appointment, I bought a couple of second hand novels from the nice old ladies who man the book depot. In the back of my mind I was thinking, “Maybe I’ll read something inspiring, because I’m just not feeling it today.” Ask and receive.
I was lying on my friend’s/osteo’s table, him just silently holding my head, and I experienced waves and waves and waves of the deepest cellular sorrow, informed by the loss of my place in doula work as well as the erosion of confidence in my body which is now a source of terror to me any time it hurts, bleeds, or produces lumps. I silently and inwardly grieved the loss of my super power of baby making, the loss of riding the exquisite-delicious hormonal dance of ovulation, the feeling of milk full breasts. I grieved the birth of horrific body neurosis, and the lack of faith in my ability to remain well, a deep seated fear I may never feel well again and just die. I have not had such grief since the day I discovered my diagnosis, and that of my mother-in-law, who has lung cancer (we went into the hospital on the same day).
I rode home with my husband, feeling better with having gotten in touch with the tale of my body’s woe, the sadness of what I thought might be the futility of my work in a larger context. These are all very acceptable feelings considering, and better to be moved through in their fullness rather than being numbed out with drugs that are not needed as much anymore. I exited the car, chatted with my neighbour, ran a bath, and began to read one of the books I had bought.
I am not a religious person, but I happened to be reading a book about a nun. Then a phrase jumped off the page, rallying for my spirit’s need for healing Synchronicity to help me out of Loss and Bitterness, giving me the hit of Grace I needed to move through some of this stuff: “…if we ask..for the strength to endure for the sake of others rather than just ourselves, we discover how powerful love really is.” Just like that, my energy shifted.
My role in birth fell into its rightful place, just with those words. We are not there essentially for the nicey nicey lovey lovey. That is just a byproduct of most births and a vicarious reward for our work. The work of attending birth as a doula in an institution is about channeling love, taking dark hits from the doubters and those who never even knew birth was a sacred event, absorbing them, and shapeshifting it all into peace for the emergence of a soul earthside. This is how we hold the space. Our presence amps up the oxytocin in the room when it’s being fed with fear, control, or manipulation…or even, sadly, out and out abuse. We don’t protect women by being cops and birth plan enforcers…we protect them with steadfast love and unrelenting honour of their sovereignty. This takes massive amounts of strength and energy. It is not a job for the faint of heart. I thought of the team of MotherWit, and am so grateful I am surrounded by STRONG women. They are compassionate, kind, funny, smart, well spoken…but they are resilient warriors. They know they have to process the moment to moment stuff that sticks in their gullets and hurts their hearts. They don’t become damaged by the witnessing, they don’t get hung up or messed up by things because of sketchy boundaries. They are masters at not getting caught up in counter transference. They signed up for the work, not just to see pretty home births (though my God, we DO love those…so healing for us). It occurred to me then that I trained them. I don’t take credit for their natural gifts, but I may have had a hand in shaping what their vision of doula work is. Our numbers grow. Maybe my presence in the doula world is not so futile. Then I thought of the beautiful hawk feather I have, and the words of my favourite medicine man echoed through my head, “In the face of hardship can you remember what you stand for, who you stand for, who you stand with?” I shake my head about how many times I seem to need reminding these days, but am grateful I keep getting these reminders. I remember now. My prayers are for the strength to endure so that I can love harder. Not in a codependent, “If I were just good enough, all the bad things would stop,” kind of way, but the, “I don’t have any control here, so I’m just going to be present to whatever comes and remain loving, even if that love has to be fierce sometimes,” kind of way.|
As far as my body goes, I am doing my best to clear out the webs of neurosis from my head. I am constantly reassured of my resilience and good health, despite what I’ve been through. Had my life been just about me, I truly don’t know if I would have subjected my body to such damaging forces, which contain so many risks to my future health. Chemo? Radiation? I always thought I’d say, “no thank you! I’ve done a lot with my time. I’m done with pain now,” and just slip away in a morphine haze. But when I had my sweet daughter curled in bed with me sobbing with the knowledge she could lose her mother, the thought of my innocent little boy not having me around, my dear husband devastated, he who shows me every day how important and adored I am to him and by him, my mother about to spontaneously combust with her worry for me, my tender friends and crusty friends, equally loved, who let me know in their unique ways all the time how very much they are rooting for my health…..I realized that I have enough love to endure just about anything. I endure FOR them. I endure BECAUSE of them. Their love illuminates all the things I still have to do and to enjoy, which I may have forgotten had it all been just about me. I can dig into my resources, trust my intuition, and endure the hard stuff in ways that don’t harm me if I can just continue to pay attention and heed the lessons. All of that love exchange is indeed the stuff of healing and miracles.. It is more powerful than anything else I can think of. It supports and nourishes all the other hard shit I have to do to stay alive and well.
by MotherWit | Nov 26, 2012 | Uncategorized
I see it has been a long time since my last blog post. For those who may not know, I was diagnosed with Stage 3B cervical cancer four days after my last entry. To make a long story short, I finished an intensive round of chemotherapy, external radiation, and Brachytherapy (internal radiation), and have been dealing a lot of pain due to double j stents, these soft tube thingies that run from my kidneys to my bladder to keep my ureters open (the cancer had blocked my ureters and caused my kidneys to fail). One has been removed, and the other is coming out tomorrow. There is still an incredible amount of pain in the place the first one was removed.
So yeah, I’ve been through the ringer. Glad to say I am on the road to recovery, though it is slow. I’m not sure what the actual cancer status is at this time, but I have a really positive feeling. The outpouring of love and good wishes from family, friends, neighbours, the Facebook community, and in fact from unknown people all over world has been overwhelming.
What cancer has taught me is not how shitty life is when you are dancing with the Big C (though it’s had its moments), but that the Universe is a place where there is always love and support if you can connect with it. There is always some small thing within which to take comfort. There are too many incidences that have shown me how held I am to get too victim-y about this process.
I do believe in coincidence. As Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” We don’t have to haul out the symbolism for every little thing. But I also do believe in Synchronicity, and that when we ask for it or put it out there, very obvious connections can be made between incidences and their meaning in our lives.
I had such a moment last night, and I choose to believe it was a moment of Synchronicity rather than coincidence. When things are coincidence, I tend to react by saying, “Oh, hahaha, that’s pretty neat!” When it is Synchronicity, I have a visceral reaction….trembling, maybe some tears, goosebumps. Definitely something on a body level. That could be me wishful thinking. I’m enough of a skeptic to doubt my gut. But when I look back throughout my life and track these incidences, their meaning in my life was always proven somehow. So whether or not I’m being a total flake head, I’m going to trust it. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.
So yesterday was the last day of the MotherWit Postpartum Douls Training here in Montreal. MotherWit’s postpartum doula Millie Tresierra conducted the training. I like to put in an appearance as the Director of MotherWit and a creator of the training, but especially because I’ve been out of the work loop for a few months and am using all of my energy to heal, I just popped in here and there. Our last exercise of the class was to do a closing ceremony. We do some guided imagery work to bring an opportunity for insight and nourishment to our students, some smudging and clearing, and in this case an intention to put down or give away something in their lives that wasn’t needed, and to receive a message or image of something that was needed. Students wanted to give away fear, or the inclination to overdo it, and many received messages of confidence, the need to self nurture, etc. I told them that this intent was living, that if they paid attention, they may find Synchronicity growing in their lives as they aligned more fully with their path.
When it came to my turn, I threw some sage into the container where the other things that weren’t needed were smouldering and said, “I give away CANCER! I ask for complete and permanent healing.”
I went home and didn’t think much about it.
To backtrack, though in the vernacular of healing from cancer we use words like “kill, eradicate, kick cancer’s ass,” etc., I have not actually thought about it in those terms. Instead, I have felt that cancer was part of me that went wild and frenetic, crying strongly for a type of attention I never properly gave to myself, and in fact, often actively turned my back on in a sort of self sabotaging game of “let’s watch my own destruction”. I know some of you know what I mean, even if you haven’t experienced the extreme of cancer in your own bodies. In any case, one day while receiving bodywork on my abdomen, around where the cancer was, I had an incredibly powerful image of an eagle emerging from that place and taking flight. My loose interpretation of Eagle imagery is that it is a symbol of Grace, of the Positive Masculine archetype. While I will never blame anybody for the development of my cancer, I do feel that my cells may have been sensitized, that sensitization nurtured by my own self neglect, by a constant barrage of exposure to manifestations of the Negative Masculine from infancy outwards. If we can often attribute the growth of cancer to an exposure to environmental toxins and lack of proper nourishment through incorrect food choices, I think we shouldn’t discount emotional toxicity and lack of soul self-nourishment, these things also definitely contributing to the eroding of our physical health. Do I think everyone who has experienced these kinds of emotional wounds gets cancer of their lady parts? No, of course not. I can only speak for myself. And again, I do not blame. I have had choices, and in fact strong intuitions about my needs…yet again and again chose not to act on them because they may have disrupted other people’s lives. I have given away a lot of my power in exchange for everyone else’s peace. Lesson learned.
In short, I get the sense that my healing is about transforming (not killing) the energy of the Negative Masculine that has harmed so many (including those who perpetrate that archetype) into the Positive Masculine of Grace, Dignity, Connectedness, Wide Perspective, Truth, Protection, a good “Seeing”; birthing it on a deep ancestral level through the emotional, physical, and spiritual work I and others have done and are doing for my cervix, from my Radio-Oncologist to any of you who have known about my illness and sent some healing vibes my way. All of it has promoted a positive transformation. My sense of transforming it is not some lofty idea I’ve pulled out of my hat to justify an incredibly hard and painful process, but something that has come to me actively through dreams, conversations with others who have shared their dreams about me, images, and yes, Synchronicity. It is what I’m choosing to work with.
The specific moment of Synchronicity I’m speaking of, and you may laugh but there it is, came to me last night while watching Treme. This is an HBO program about life in New Orleans post Katrina. It is my husband’s and my favourite show ever, as we both have such a connection to the place, the show even inspiring us to take our first vacation together in twenty years there. It is so funny how the Universe will even speak to us through the medium of television if we’re not paying attention otherwise, and speak it did. I think it was the season Finale of Treme last night. The very last scene was of a character named “Chief” Lambreau. This season he was diagnosed with cancer. We see Chief sitting in his LazyBoy chair in the hospital hooked up to his chemo meds. He is all bald and tired looking. Before the show goes to credits you see him pick up a piece of bead embroidery he is working on. With a look of determination, he starts sewing. The image is of an eagle in flight. I could choose to laugh and say, “What a coincidence!” but it would dishonour my process. It would also dishonour my students, who I asked to pay attention to their own incidences of Synchronicity after they released their intentions in ceremony. So I put down my fear of being judged as a flakezoid or a wishful thinker. It may be so. But I am going to take the goosebumps and desire to weep after that Treme scene and run with them.
I looked up Eagle Symbolism today just to see what more it might mean, and this is what I got: “Eagle represents a state of grace achieved through hard work, understanding, and a completion of the tests of initiation which result in the taking of one’s personal power.” I think we’re on the right track.
Thanks for listening. Normally I don’t post things as personal as this, but so many people have messaged me telling me how they are following my journey and are so happy when I post anything about how my life and dance with cancer is going. Thank you so much for your good thoughts!
by MotherWit | Aug 28, 2012 | Uncategorized
A few weeks back, one of my dear MotherWittie colleagues injured herself, and was unable to attend the many births she had scheduled. As doulas, we spend a lot of our energy on volunteering for births for women in need. We have liaisons with organizations which call us up asking for volunteer doula services for teens, refugees, women in shelters, etc., and we will provide that. When my colleague got hurt, pretty much all of us at once decided we would just each take over one of her births for the month. Charity begins at home, and we figured if we can volunteer for other people in the community, it’s no stretch to do a birth for a sister in need. We planned to attend the birth, and transfer the payment to her.
I just received an email from my dear colleague and I am full of tearful gratitude. I feel loved, cared for, and understood. People out there don’t realize that as unregulated, “freelance” workers, if a doula becomes ill or injured, she is out of luck. A sick doula is a broke doula, and many of us depend upon our work intensely to support our families. While we do it for the deep love of birth and families, it is also our bread and butter.
I have no words to express my gratitude without being reduced to an embarrassing mess, so I thought I would just show her email to shout out to the world the quality of human beings I have the honour of having in my life. These are the heights of what a doula sisterhood can reach, and I invite you all who do this job to take a look at the healing potential you have not just for the birthing women you serve, but for the women you back up.
“Hey Lesley,
On Saturday night we talked about a lot of stuff, and one of the things we discussed was you, and how we are worried for you. How difficult it must be to live with chronic pain, how difficult it is for us to see you go through this and know that what we see is only scratching the surface of what you’re going through. We see FB posts (5 hours in the tub today? Holy crap), we hear about “the latest” from you when we see you, and we see that you’re struggling, and have been for a while, because it’s just not getting better. I mentioned how you all came together for me this past month when I needed you, and how much it meant to me. We talked about it and we can do no less for you.
We are, every one of us, as happy as can be to take on your client load on a volunteer basis–some of it, all of it, whatever you need right now and until this is resolved. We could each take one a month, for example–even come with you to a prenatal or two so the client knows who we are and that we may well be at their birth. And we are very happy to do it without compensation. You are not well, and it would be an enormous financial hit to bow out of these births, so we can take them on for you. We don’t have insurance, but we have each other, and that’s even better, if you ask me. You need to get better, and we will help you in any way you need.
Love you,
Megan
My dear friends, I cannot express my thanks enough. I hope I will be well enough to attend my births, but knowing that if I can’t, my clients are in wonderful hands is SO reassuring. I put you out there as a shining example of compassion and goodness. Love right back at you.
by MotherWit | Jul 25, 2012 | Uncategorized
I am trying very hard to reduce my intake of NSAIDs. I have for the last nearly four months been in chronic and increasing back pain. I’m not the type to lie around suffering out of martyrdom when the show must go on, so in order to be functional, I’ve been hitting the over the counter pain medications pretty hard. But that cannot go on forever (I’m feeling toxic). I’m trying to take more time to sit with this infernal sensation that travels and migrates, and generally causes me a great deal of grief on many levels. So today, not having taken any Naproxin/Aceteminephen combo, my back is paining me something fierce. I’ve taken to my bed, shifting incessantly trying to get comfortable. Which is not happening. My dog and my laptop are my faithful companions. If I don’t put my mind somewhere I will go mad.
A friend of mine mentioned the work of John E. Sarno, MD, a retired professor (at 89) of clinical rehabilitation medicine at the New York University School of Medicine. Actually, I think he still teaches, but just recently gave up his clinical practice, which is pretty impressive. I’ve read a couple of his books, and I will give a brief summary of what might be up with this pain: Dr. Sarno has treated around 12,000 patients who have come to him with pain conditions of one sort or another, armed with CAT scans and MRI’s showing erosions, herniated discs, degenerative disease, yada yada yada. His message? It’s not proof that what’s hurting you is your “diseased” body. Many studies have compared MRIs of people suffering from pain to those who do not experience pain, and there have been no real differences. Many people have spinal abnormalities who do not suffer any pain at all. He asks why on earth would lying on a soft bed or sitting down create excruciating pain in places the material isn’t even touching? Why can some people carry their kids around no problem but then be in agony when they try to touch their toes? With decades of clinical experience under his belt and a track record of a 90% cure rate (without surgery or drugs), he says with good authority, “Hogwash”.
So why the pain? The underlying issue with the epidemic of chronic pain and illness our culture is experiencing now, he feels, is psychosomatic. He uses that term tenderly because he knows some people might interpret it as pejorative, and he in no way means it that way. He very compassionately explains that the debilitating pain many people are suffering is indeed real, but way more than should be justified by their “injuries”. What he uses as treatment, very effective treatment it seems if 90% out of 12,000 have been incredibly relieved is this message: What you are experiencing is Tension Myocitis Syndrome (TMS), which is basically a harmless but excruciatingly painful deprivation of oxygen to the site of suffering. He believes this because every healing modality which brings oxygen to the affected area like deep massage, passive movement, TENS, stretching, and warmth, brings temporary relief. So the big question is why? Why are we suffering? And why is it that whenever many of us enjoy a cure of one thing, something else creeps up to replace it? I see people OBSESSED with chasing down the absolutely perfect diet to heal their tummy and behavioural troubles, people going to every possible bodyworker out there to find “the” right modality to heal their body’s mysterious suffering, people downing anti anxiety meds for their panic attacks (all part of the TMS picture). Of course they are, they are desperate for relief! I myself have been on this hamster wheel all my life. I have suffered some kind of chronic pain or health issue since early childhood….”nervous tummy” (as a kid I couldn’t go out of the house without getting stress nausea), as I got older I developed a bad case of OCD in which I counted every breath and swallow I ever took in sets of five. I studied psychology at the time and by learning about it, got it way under control naturally and it ceases to be a problem today. When that stopped, I developed chronic throat issues. I was emaciated and ill from constant tonsilitis and was a wreck from all the antibiotics. I got my tonsils out and then serious IBS started once I got to enjoy relief in my throat. That continued for many many years, sometimes the pain so awful (I’ve had several babies naturally, so I know real pain) and scary, I’d pass out and end up in the hospital. Interspersed with this was always some area of chronic, annoying musculo/skeletal pain and/or anxiety issue, as well as never ending insomnia. But the muscular pain at that time wasn’t debilitating, because the IBS was taking care of that..it was just annoying…enough to be a distraction sometimes. As I got older, I started developing migraines (sometimes the see auras, pukey type) around my cycle. I finally got really really serious about my health and cut out all wheat, sugar, bad oils and chemicals, and started training for a half marathon. I felt on top of the world. My IBS was totally under control and the migraines were GONE (and continue to be), as well as the chronic upper back and neck annoyances. Plus, I was looking like a very in shape hottie for a mother of four, if I do say so myself.
Then, just around the time I was really finding my groove as a runner, reveling in good health and loads of energy in my 40’s I NEVER had in my 20’s, I started developing some severe perimenopausal symptoms and this hideous back pain that has me in bed now (by the way, I caved and took some Tylenol…couldn’t think anymore). I have had a uterine biopsy, pelvic/abdominal ultrasound, x-ray, cultures, and blood tests. Nothing unusual. I am waiting for an MRI, but being in Canada, unless I fork out the cash to pay for it out of pocket (yes, I have private insurance that will cover it, but having a largish family, that dent would be sorely missed in the interim), my appointment is in May of next year, I kid you not. So this happy, healthy, in shape person has been, within the space of a few months, transformed into a badly anemic, agony suffering, and I’ll admit pretty depressed person. I could run 21 K without a problem, now I can’t walk without wanting to faint and am breathless after 2 stairs. I used to fling my kids around and could assume yoga positions that would rival a contortionist, and now can’t even sit for more than 5 minutes without whining. Why? Why would my pain be increasing if I haven’t run since the pain began? A human being can snap a bone and it will heal within a matter of weeks. I’ve had my tonsils ripped out of my throat, and it healed no problem, but it makes me tired to speak now. And no, it’s not age, because chronic pain is much more prevalent in people under fifty or sixty. Logically it would get worse and worse into the senior years if our bodies went kaput after a certain time. But it doesn’t.
This is what I have gleaned from reading Dr. Sarno’s book The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain, and I imagine this message delivered personally to all those whose health has been checked thoroughly to rule out serious disease (because sadly, that does exist), but continue to suffer, by this kindly great-grandfather type, patient and chock full of wise experience: Your conscious mind presents itself to the world in one way (a good person who tries to do the right thing, or a perfectionist, or a “type A”), but at the expense of the expression of your unconscious mind, which is like a tantrumy 3 year old vying for attention. In order for your conscious mind to reign supreme and maintain your good image and thoughts of yourself, your ratty little subconscious “must” be stopped from wreaking emotional havoc. The body (specifically the brain) acts as a mitigating force between the unconscious mind’s repressed intense “negative” emotions and the conscious mind. Basically, the body creates TMS to distract you from harsh emotions, namely rage, that threaten to injure the image you have of yourself and ensure the world has of you. Sure, change your diet, get exercise, and you’ll find healing in one form or another. Until….
For example, here is the plight of regular mom: sure, you love your kids and would die for them, but there’s a bit of a taboo about moms saying, “I’m feeling goddamn resentful of my brat today, who didn’t leave my boobs alone all night and now I’m angry and exhausted and wish he had an off button.” No, instead you LOVE breastfeeding and BELIEVE in the beauty of attachment parenting (and you DO…just not every freakin’ second, but you don’t like to admit it to yourself or others). It’s all about the kid, after all, and you try so hard to be a great mother. So you repress those “unacceptable” feelings of anger, and you have a chronically sore neck and skin break outs. You may get on top of them with herbs and homeopathy and diet changes. But if you are a sufferer of TMS, which, though it feels physical is entirely psychological, guess what? Something else will creep up. Dr. Sarno has seen it time and time again.
My first reaction to the kindly doctor’s message was, “You’re a quack, Sarno! You’re saying this pain is potentially all in my head?! That I have a raging psychotic three year old inside who, because my body checks her expression, causes me all these horrible symptoms?! Boo!!!!” Sarno’s reassuring answer is “No, it’s not all in your head. That would be demeaning for sufferers to believe that of themselves. I trust the pain is extremely real. But it’s not harmful, and you are not really injured or ill if all tests have come back normal. Look back at your history.” And I sheepishly have to say, maybe the guy is right. I mean, it wouldn’t hurt to try his method, right? It’s cost free, and the greatest risk is that nothing will change. There’s also a chance I might heal. It’s not like I’m eschewing seeing my family physician (who is AWESOME) to keep on top of things. So why not? And what is the good doctor’s method, you may ask? It is to emphatically shift belief gears, to know on a deep gut level, that there is nothing seriously wrong, that the pain is simply TMS, a sensation brought about by a harmless, slight deprivation of oxygen to the paining area. It is important to know the symptoms are born of psychological reasons, namely the body’s kind attempt to repress the socially unacceptable emotions of rage, shame, grief, etc. One does not have to change one’s personality, or to go into a fit of primal screaming, but to simply be aware that repressed emotions are the root cause of the suffering. Not the every day rages we feel (though they certainly exacerbate pain), but the ones we don’t know about or are loathe to admit to ourselves lest they ruin our Polly Anna image. It means talking to our brains and saying, “Hey, Brain, I know what you’re doing! I know you’re trying to create subterfuge, but guess what? I’m in control now, and it’s not working. In fact, since we’re communicating here, why don’t you send some extra oxygen over to this hurting place?” When our conscious minds have full access to all of our psyche and can process things honestly, perhaps the culture of unconscious minds will shift to be less needful of reacting with rage to things. But for now, it is what it is, and we are quite underdeveloped in that realm.
Sarno asks us to take time daily to reflect upon these principles, that by going over his instructions, the brain will “get” the message, and stop feeling the need to repress the emotions. It takes time, but for many, just reading his books have evoked a cure, the message of empowerment that strong a medicine. Pretty cool. And he insists, for all those naysayers, this is not a placebo effect. It is real, clinical medicine, simply created by the mind. In fact, he believes it is usually the back surgeries and physiotherapy for the boo boos that are placebos. He warns that if you are a sufferer of the psychological condition of TMS, something else will start hurting eventually, until the brain stops interfering with the unconscious emotions. More of his instructions: When the sufferer feels safe to do so, knowing on a cellular level there is nothing actually wrong, she MUST assume all regular activity. To baby one’s back or allergies or tummy is to acknowledge that what’s going on is physical, and it’s just not. Stopping therapies that focus on structural healing is also important, or obsessing about what’s causing allergies, etc. is crucial. Here is where I differ from Sarno and would argue with him: he believes giving up one’s chiro, acupuncturist, osteo, physio, homeopath etc. is important. This may be true if all these people were doing were trying to affect a structural cure (he is a medical doctor, after all, so is interpreting energy medicine in a very earthy, clinical way, which it isn’t always). But from experience I believe much of this work is deeply energy based, and creates access to the somato-emotional links that are behind many health issues. I think this approach, however, must be intended by the client and the practitioner, which is how I enter into receiving and giving bodywork. I call my massage table “The Confessional” and have mopped away rivers of tears of grief and anger that create space and resources to access greater energy for healing. That’s just my two cents.
So that’s Sarno’s work in a nutshell. His books are a few hours read and much food for thought. I’m willing to give it a go, so I have been starting a Rage Diary, as instructed, to write down my life pressures from where I began ’til now. I look around globally at my many doula sisters on Facebook, and regard the beautiful nurses I get to work with in hospitals as a doula, and I am deeply saddened by how much many of them suffer from chronic physical ailments. So many nurses are barely functional from back pain. Many doulas and midwives too, myself now included as one of those “back pain people”. I’ve been thinking about the root of that in relation to women working within this technocratic birth culture, and I have a bit of a whackadoo theory if you care to hear me out. Maybe it’s pain talking, maybe it’s real. It’s just a thought.
Birth used to be women caring for women almost exclusively. Medicine came along and usurped that, desecrating the traditional knowledge female healers and midwives had. The archetype of the Sacred Feminine was destroyed in many ways quite effectively, turning many practitioners of midwifery, herbalism, and ceremony into stake fodder. This is a historical truth. During “The Burning Times”, a period of about three hundred years, generated by The Crusades and The Inquisition (Ah, Religion), millions of people were murdered, the vast majority of them women. So much knowledge has been heartbreakingly lost. The dedication of Anne Freye’s book Holistic Midwifery Part I is to those lost midwives, and I have known many a birth worker, even medical ones, to feel the ancient tug of a heartstring at these words:
To my sister Healers
Witches
Wise Women
Midwives
Who for hundreds of years
Were burned and tortured and died by the millions as your children looked on.
To those who locked arms and walked into the sea
Rather than submit to the inquisitor’s torments.
For the wisdom that went with you Mostly unwritten, but never forgotten.
For all you knew and shared
The care you gave
And the courage it took
To continue in the face of truly
Overwhelming odds,
For your strength; a source of continuing inspiration
To you, dear Sisters,
I dedicate this book.
Parts of this process of the domination of patriarchal knowledge over women’s bodies can obviously be seen in our hospital birthing culture. And I don’t mean that patriarchal has to do only with men, it’s just an approach, a paradigm. You just have to witness this once to see evidence of this belief system in action: a woman, perhaps a mother of several children, yells, “The Baby is coming!” only to be examined by an often young childless medical resident,confined to a place and position she’d really rather not be but submits for the sake of this clinician, found to be a number of dilation, station, and effacement, deemed that it is clinically improbable that she could feel a baby heading for her vagina at this point in time, and told “No, your baby is not coming yet.” (then Doula catches the baby who falls out in one push about a minute after the resident walks out the door). Subtle evidence of Power Over Birther is everywhere, no matter what positive things we say about technological advances, justified by how it’s all so much safer for Mom and Baby.
Now clearly while I have some issues with it, I don’t want to knock the advent of a patriarchal participation in childbirth, because many advances have created the opportunity for more living mothers and babies. I feel that our home births are safer now because if things go south fast, the trusty hospital with excellent surgeons and technicians can get us out of a pickle and save us and our babies if we so choose. Medicine has much to share in terms of knowledge and support of the birthing process and for healing sick mothers and babies, and many midwives keep up to date with medical skills so they are better prepared for emergencies. Many doctors are curious about “older” ways of baby catching, and are open to learning from midwives who practice more traditionally. All good stuff when applied properly. So when used in balance, the marriage of Matriarchy and Patriarchy can be a wonderful thing in any given birthing room, no matter who the practitioner. One doesn’t need to usurp the other, though essentially it clearly culturally leans strongly in favour of a more masculine approach. For now. We’re working on it. By being a normal birth advocate, I’m not saying we should get rid of Medicine and that all women should birth at home. Not at all. But witch hunts aren’t entirely over. On both ends, now. Until that stops and we value both sides and create a good partnership, mothers and babies suffer. Until then, there is much to emotionally process.
Anyhow, this is to say in my infinitely tangential way that I think many female birth workers carry around a lot of rage not just for the authority over women’s mysteries that were taken from them beginning centuries ago (call it an ancestral grudge), but also because of the here and now atrocities that are performed sometimes. And I think it causes them pain. We see women push massive babies out of of their pelvises and most heal up just fine. We see Cesareans, being cut deeply into the body, and they usually heal without too many lasting effects. Epidural needles are jabbed into a sensitive place, perineums are cut, and while for sure there is risk of injury, MOST of the time, people end up reasonably physically okay. Is the fact that birth workers are on our feet a lot, lifting things, running around, etc. REALLY at the root of why we have so much pain, as the stories of birth workers with pain believe? I mean, that’s all in a day’s work, and our ancestors had it a lot harder, eeking food out of fickle Earth, not having any time to chill in front of Facebook, not having chiropractors and Tylenol, etc. Yet doubtfully they suffered chronically and physically as we do.
Here is where I can suddenly see a caged, rabid 3 year old in a fit of rage dying to come out and beat people up: as a doula, I am probably one of the most diplomatic folks you know. A lot of doulas and midwives are. I’m told time and time again, “Wow, you see the good in everything.” And on a conscious level, I actually do. I stand by my feelings that there is not a lot of healing in contempt of different birthing “camps”, and that by building bridges between a Matriarchal and Patriarchal approach to childbirth, we can create happier parents, better outcomes, etc. I absolutely do feel that every woman has the right to choose the best birth for her if she can, and deserves love and support for those choices, even if they’re not the choices I would make. I take offense to many hospital routines that impinge upon the normal process of birth, but don’t think it’s done out of malice. I try very hard to understand where that side is coming from and have compassion for their position. And I think I truly do succeed with a full heart. I work hard on being a conscious person, looking for Higher Road choices and regarding people with love.
But it probably means there’s some pretty heavy anger build up lurking too in the psyche of the conscientious birth worker. Because our conscious minds are not the same as our unconscious minds. I try NOT to project anger and judgement onto situations, and I think the situations fare better for it. That is one level of living. But the anger that naturally ensues from witnessing perceived injustice or abuse HAS to go somewhere if there is no space to process it in the moment, because higher consciousness actions must occur to heal a situation. So apparently that repressed energy is going towards creating strong physical pain. Just watch night shift nurses clutching their backs and shoulders between treating patients, especially if there’s an attending doctor they’re not too fond of yet can’t rear up against for fear of losing their job.
As I said, I am keeping a Rage Diary, and I encourage my doula trainees to keep one too, if they might want to prevent their health and quality of life from being harmed by unprocessed anger. Anyone suffering from chronic pain that has not been diagnosed as a dangerous disease might want to do so too. I can see my “good” self struggling all the time with projecting myself into the world as a decent, loving human. And that’s fine. Projecting rage onto someone doesn’t help anyone. But I’m real too. And if I don’t own my emotional reactions and give that 3 year old a safe, loving space to tantrum, I won’t be able to continue my work. Even when I write my blog I’m conscious of everyone who might be reading, and try not to create too many waves. I think there are probably doctors, nurses, midwives, friends, my mom, clients, religious conservative folks etc. who are reading this, so I have to be “good” and not create waves. But this is probably not helping my pain much, as it makes me less “real”.
If you only knew how many times, when repression breaks through and rage sets in, that I want to rant, “Do you know what I just saw that fucking douche bag do to that baby?!” Or how sad i get sometimes when, after explaining all the benefits of breastfeeding to a client they end up formula feeding from the get go because despite my Herculean efforts, they have no faith in their miraculous breasts or would rather enjoy the freedom of bottles and formula more. Or how I feel that I want to hurt someone when I see rushed fingers “making more room” for Baby to come out (because God forbid those hands can’t be sat upon with patience), thus contributing to perineal pain and trauma I see my poor clients suffering terribly with when I visit them at home. Or when my family know I’m suffering and the house falls entirely apart without my ability to participate in its upkeep. My conscious mind accepts these things and processes them through lenses of compassion and understanding…my unconscious mind, like all unconscious minds (and we all have them), gets right pissed off. And that’s okay. It’s got to go somewhere, right? So from now on, instead of pretending I’m a saint who is not enraged by things and can simply let things flow off the loving aura of my conscious self, I’m going to own it down and dirty in a little black book (but NOT like Stuntman Mike’s black book, if you’ve seen the film Death Proof!!). And I pray this will help to heal the pain my body carries to try to prove in futility to itself I’m not an illogicial, irrational, walking human dichotomy like everyone else.
If you made it to the end of this long ramble, thanks for listening. It was good therapy.
by MotherWit | Jul 14, 2012 | Uncategorized
I am so looking forward to teaching the MotherWit Birth Essentials Intensive, Part 2 tomorrow. I LOVE teaching childbirth ed.
I think teaching from the perspective of a doula is very useful to clients, as we are in the field, seeing lots of of different types of births and clients from their prenatal visits, to the labour and birth, to the postpartum debrief. We are for the consumer, not biased towards making them embrace one approach to birth over another. I remember when I was taking my own prenatal class over 20 years ago, very pregnant with my first baby. I had decided upon a home birth. I got no end of public guilt tripping and fear mongering from the nurse who was teaching the class, a nurse who seemed very out of touch with anything “real” about birth at all, aligned simply with what she knew from her medical perspective. My husband and I ditched after 2 days and read Spiritual Midwifery instead.
As doulas, we are used to supporting everyone, and have worked hard to hone our skills in diplomacy and support. We spend endless hours with our clients in our prenatal visits, getting to know them and explaining the birth process to them in ways they can understand. It is easy to accept our students wherever they’re at, without judgement, trusting they have the wisdom to deal with however their births unfold. Our tone is usually personal and friendly, as we have a lot of experience engaging and drawing out all different kinds of people. As doulas, we strive to keep the environment of a class warm and nurturing. Tea and cookies will almost always be found in our classroom.
As a doula trainer, I make it a point to make hospital based prenatal classes a part of my students’ curriculum. There is valuable information to learn from a different perspective from the way I’ve taught my doula students myself, but also, I think it is crucial to learn first hand what their future clients’ heads are going to be filled with, for better or worse. We have been witness to some pretty intense statements made in a well meaning way, but without awareness that these statements are quintessentially disempowering to the pregnant people being taught.
For example, a doula will probably never say, “You think you won’t want an epidural now, but just you wait ’til the pain kicks in,” as an intro to a 2 hour lecture on anesthesia (without about 2 minutes focus on breathing). We also don’t tell our clients not to hire doulas (obviously) because fathers can do everything that a doula does (sure, sleep deprived, inexperienced, frightened and emotional…that’s an awful lot of pressure to put on a dad and projects unrealistic expectations on him, setting the stage for him to feel potentially like a traumatized failure if things don’t go as they had planned). Also, we will never say that natural birth is the only way to go. We honour choice. We will not show birth videos from the 70’s with shirtless fathers in satin running shorts and elevator music in the background with a mother having a very unrealistic silent birth. We get real about what birth sounds like. Neither do we make the focus of figuring out labour progress by staring at a clock, as we’ve never known a clock to announce to anyone where they’re at in labour. We prefer mothers and their partners to check in and observe feelings, behaviours, physical and emotional indicators.
One thing we like to emphasize to our students is their innate sheer ability to birth in most cases, regardless of what personal choices are, and that hospital statistics don’t reflect women’s abilities, only a culture. Sometimes that little whisper of motherwit in a woman’s ear, that reminder that she comes from a long line of maternal ancestors who clearly birthed quite well in most cases to get her line established, is all she needs to hear to awaken her deep, ancestral, body knowledge. The ability to inspire is the educator’s most powerful tool. As educators and supporters of hospital birth, doulas emphasize that doctors are amazing at ensuring things are okay and intervening when they’re not. We want confident women who can put some trust in their environment. But we also ensure they know that while their doctors are experts in dealing with pathologies, they are not usually experts in supporting labour or knowing what is needed to get through a normal birth unmedicated if this is, indeed, what a woman wants. It is unrealistic to expect their doctors or even nurses to play that role to help them deal with their labours. In fact, many doctors have never hung out with a woman throughout her whole labour, watching it play out with the woman’s own personal nuances. And sadly, most nurses just don’t have the time. Medical staff are there for safety purposes, and to receive the babies women deliver. We’re about finding ways to prepare our students to get through the parts the doctors don’t necessarily see or register, like “THE WALL”, the ebbs and flows, and the sensuality of labour, giving them as many resources as possible in case they have nobody else there to support them. That requires a different, non clinical focus, and our class is about helping moms and their partners navigate their way through this primal dance, no matter how it plays out, without worry. Doctors are there to worry about the clinical stuff, leaving parents emotionally free to do their labour dance thing.
A doula-led prenatal class tries to keep a focus that is truly on outlining the information as best we can, supporting choice, providing lots of ideas on coping, diffusing fear surrounding the hospital environment and potential interventions (you need to be relaxed in your place of birth), preparing for feeding and caring for a newborn (or two) and inspiring excitement. I can’t speak for all doula/childbirth educators out there, but more of our students end up giving birth normally than in other classes which cater mainly to a hospital birthing clientele. I suspect most doula/educators have similar experiences. This excites us to no end. And no, we don’t get all the hippies either 🙂 We simply promote a more inclusive paradigm. This makes people feel safe. Not pushovers, as we emphasize patient’s rights in a big way. But hopefully more serene.
