I know I’ve said it before, but sometimes yoga is better than therapy for me. Without even telling her that this week has been one of the most emotional weeks of my pregnancy (and that I’ve really been struggling with it), our instructor focused today on letting experiences and emotions flow through us without claiming them, or judging them. I am not my anger - I am not my frustration or my impatience or my fear. They are pieces of a moment, which I can either cling to and make part of who I am becoming, or I can let them go and move on to the next moment. I needed this today. Needed like I can’t even describe. This week has been.. hard. Hard in a my-daughter-deserve-better-than-me kind of way. Hard in a I-just-want-to-fucking-call-my-mother kind of way. Hard in a I-give-up kind of way. Hard. I don’t have many hard weeks - hard days maybe, but not hard weeks. But here I’ve been, dragging it out, letting the spiraling sorrow become who I am, not what I am going though. Thank god Tom kicked me out of the house to go to yoga today, because that cycle needed broken.
Taking the idea into a tighter focus on birth though, it’s so powerful to realize that we can not fight our way out of pain and fear - we can’t force ourselves into happiness. In labor, we yearn for control, we let our thinking brain be the task-master, shouting orders of “I should be dilating faster! I should be walking! I should not be so loud!”, instead of surrendering to the moment, and accepting that this contraction could move baby down, and I could stay in this position because it feels right, and I could just feel this contraction instead of fighting it. This moment is not who I am - this pain is not a part of my body that can not be changed. Every should is us clenching onto something, and every could is a release. And lord knows, a laboring woman needs all the help releasing that she can get.
Alright - enlightenment over, now I need to focus on bending over and untying my shoes. You would think yoga would help with that…
