Lynn told me that the connective tissue just above my belly button is very "fragile." "Everyone's?", I asked. "No, just yours." She also said that anything I do to push it out, to "pooch" my belly will un-do the healing in this tissue and that I HAVE to engage my transverse muscles every time I lie down, get up, cough, go to the bathroon. EVERY TIME. This was the perfect segue into my wanting to explore how I PUSH from the inside of my belly against the split, against the splint, against the world.
We also did a lot of intuitive work together. Lynn put her "Intuitive Hands" on my belly and we work for nearly an hour on the issues and the information that my belly was sharing through her hands. We explored pushing and I realized how I PUSH really hard to make things happen and that I do not trust or allow things to unfold, or to be birthed. We explored my 4 births and I realized that when I was birthing Michael, my third and largest child - 9 and a half pounds with a 15 inch head, I had to work REALLY HARD. Actually, harder than I had ever worked on anything in my life. He was so big. I could feel how big he was as he was coming down the birth canal, and then when he crowned, I truly wasn't sure if I could stay in my body. After I gave birth to him, we were all prepared for my to start bleeding because that is what I had done after my first 2 labors. Crazily, and thanks to drugs, I did not hemmhorage blood, but I did leak out all of my energy. My energy hemmhoraged out of me just like I was hemmorhaging the blood. Lynn felt like Michael had received or perhaps even taken that energy, and that I continue to leak my energy out and Michael takes it. So we did some energetic work to cut the chords and to seal up the giving away of my energy to him.
The image of the placenta then came up - placenta as source of nourishment for the unborn baby and placenta as symbolic inner source of nourishment for me. When I have given birth to each of my babies, my body has stopped contractions as soon as or while the baby is born which has been what has contributed to the hemmhoraging. So I have needed to receive pitocin and other drugs that bring on the contractions to expell the placenta and complete the birthing process.
In midwifery, the placenta is believed to be the best medicine for the mother and that child. A new mother will eat an omelette with some of placenta cooked into to so that she receives this sacred medicine soon after birth. While I buried the first two placentas in the garden with a new bush or tree, I froze Michael's placenta and had it made into medicine in capsules. This is a process that involves steaming it, drying it, grinding it - local midwives, like my sister-in-law, Karin, provide this service. In fact, this is what she wrote on her website:
Taking placenta medicine postpartum has been known to quicken recovery, restore lost hormones, shorten bleeding time, boost energy, lessen postpartum depression and augment milk production. Here's a link to an interesting article at Time.comI realized is that Michael and I have never taken our placenta medicine. I will admit that it was in my freezer for a long time and even moved to our new house only to be put into the freezer there. So I am not at all sure of its quality and I am perhaps even a little squeamish about it! My impulse is that together, Michael and I need to bury it - the dried, and finely ground powder that it is. My hit is to bury it in the middle of the labyrinth, under the huge quartz rock and next to the sage plant. Michael's middle name is Sage so how perfect. I talked with him about doing this yesterday. He lgave me this funny, yet somewhat curious look on his face, and at the same time, agreed. So today, with the full moon as our guide, we will bury his placenta and free us both from the dynamic of hemmhoraging energy and not loving or trusting our bodies, so that we can reclaim our own power and energy, and trust in the beauty and widsom of our bodies.
Lynn and I also explored how I still feel energetically pregnant. She asked me if I wanted to stay pregnant. I recalled how my body didn't want to release the placenta. I loved being pregnant and getting to take really good care of myself without feeling guilty or making excuses. When I took care of myself when I was pregnant, I was caring for my baby. I wasn't being selfish in any way. I could exercise, I could take naps and sleep, I could eat really well, I could be quiet. Whatever I did, it was ultimately for the baby. The placenta was the metaphor for the self-nourishment and self-care that I both gave and allowed myself when I was pregnant. I loved it.
I also loved being pregnant because for those few months, my belly could be big and it was beautiful. Everyone loves a big pregnant belly - mine included. I loved my belly, and I felt really good in my body when I was pregnant. I didn't have to hide it; I could actually shine it out. It was the most wonderful feeling.
Now my big belly is a source of shame. I constantly try to hide it, minimize it, cover it, suck it in, contain it, reduce it. So often, I have experienced someone looking at me, and then my belly, or sometimes even my belly first. That's when I know that it is big, and that I haven't hidden it well enough. More shame.
How can I take care of myself and love my belly - love myself - when I am not pregnant? As many pregnancies as I have had, it is still only 36 months of my life which at this point, is 614 months. So for 36 out of 614 months, I have loved myself and my belly, and taken really good care of myself. The question is how do I love and accept myself and shine out my belly for the next 614 months without it being about my being pregnant or someone else? How do I love and accept myself and love my belly with it being just about me?
This all comes back full circle to pushing. I push out and I don't receive or allow.
So what Lynn and I created is that when I do my daily exercises, that each contraction of the transverse muscle is an internal embrace for my belly. The contraction comes from the inside, not the outside pushing in. I am to contract and pull in - hug my belly and with each contration, I am communicating to my belly that I love it, accept it, trust it. Last night I started this. I can get caught up in the counting to 100, so last night I made up a 10 count little mantra - "I love my belly. Oh, yes I do. WooHoo" and then just focused on the 10 count of 10, rather than on each individual count to 100. This way, I can actually focus on each contraction being an embrace of my belly from the inside out and a pull rather than a push.
This simple shift of focus on this 2 inch fragile section of the split could be the seed for the most major transformation of my life. This simple, this focused. this small. It feels like the mustard seed of faith for my transformation. Simple, but not easy. Small, but huge. Focused, but universal. This fragilityis the source, or perhaps the portal, for my true strength and ferocity. The paradox is present here, and so I am reminded of Carolyn Myss' words, "when paradox is present, Spirit is present too."
The strength is not in the pushing. True strength is in the allowing and the receiving of love and the acceptance. Every time I pooch my belly, I am pushing away the love and acceptance and I re-wound myself. Every time I allow and receive, I am healing myself. I get to practice this in my body, in my belly and in the most fragile area of my belly. I am so honored to be on this journey to heal the split. Thank you.
Suseya!
Sahara
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