The Spark of Life
Last week, I had the opportunity to spend 4 days thinking about birth.
It’s not a topic I’ve spent a lot of time with and was honored to be in a room full of people who intend to make the pre- and perinatal experience the center of their careers. I went into the workshop intending to learn more about babies and, instead, left with deep questions about the way birth impacts us as adults.
Birth is one of the very clear processes in life where there is no regression. You either get born or you do not, you move into life or you do not. It is dramatic, miraculous, devastating, horrific, and peaceful all at once. Birth is one of the most compact and impactful experiences in life.
It is only logical that it would have a role to play in the way that we exist as adults. We celebrate our birthdays and yet rarely consider the complexity of what that experience may have held for ourselves, our birthparents and our families. Just as psychology helps us to understand the stages of growth and development of our psyche, birth has a particular sequence that helps us progress from womb to world.
The stages of birth echo the way in which we experience the many milestones in our lifespans. There are several models but this is the one we worked with from Ray Castellino who is a leader in the field of pre- and perinatal dynamics.
Intention: the desire of the mother and baby to be born
Preparation: the time spent laboring and readying for delivery
Action: the active phase of pushing
Follow through: the baby exists outside the body
Rest or integration: the sacred hour of skin to skin contact after birth
The premise of Castellino’s work is that birth patterns can reveal the force our birth still exerts in the present day. Quirky or disruptive habits can point toward stages of the birthing sequence that were too fast, skipped over, intruded upon or traumatic. These patterns are so ingrained that it’s hard to identify them as something other than our basic nature, but once recognized, disruptions can be repaired and tremendous creative energy can be restored to the system.
It seemed far-fetched until experiences with my classmates opened me to the idea that, even if purely metaphoric, the potential to reclaim agency, and confidence after completing a rebirthing process is powerful. Days later, I continued to feel the rupture that happened at the Intention stage of my own birth had been repatterned.
Awakening the sequence has had a profound effect on me. I sense a new and inherent coherence that is tied to health of the whole system. I feel bolder in my essence and resonate with these early patterns in my clients. I can’t say exactly how this will affect my work but I can say that what will arise from this new territory will be profound.
If any of this strikes a cord for you, I’d be very interested to hear about it. We don’t revisit this territory very often, and yet it is our start and spark of life.
It is such a privilege to be back in circles of learning and growth.