RECLAIMING SERENITY

JUST BREATHE: Focus your attention on your breath. Envision peace, clarity, and courage flowing in with each inhalation, while fear, tension, and stress flow out with every exhalation. You emit a brightening glow with each breath, until you find yourself enveloped in healing energy. Let this energy enter every nerve and cell of your being — centering you for your reading experience.

The most zealous of all the sperm has nuzzled into your waiting egg, and it's all systems go. Your body (and mind, and spirit) are now pooling their reserves of building blocks to create a new human. How do you feel about that? Thrilled? Terrified? In denial? Whatever your answer is, it is perfect. Pregnancy is the epitome of change, and it's your prerogative to completely freak out (in a good or bad way) over this development. It's strange to have a brand-new person growing inside of you! It's extraordinary! It is an everyday miracle in a global sense, but a cataclysmic shift in a personal sense. You are allowed to break down, whatever that looks like for you. There's no time when it's more socially acceptable to "lose it" than when you find out you're pregnant. And by losing it, you just might find all of it.

Pregnancy can trigger an identity crisis. You are no longer the person you thought you were, but you are not yet the person you will become. It's a time of awesome transition and change, which is always scary. Becoming a mother doesn't mean you stop being yourself — your fun Self, your carefree Self, your sensual Self. What it does mean is that you have the unique opportunity to become the person you truly want to be, the person you're meant to be: a woman who experiences herself as centered, whole, and stronger than she's ever been before, your true Self. During this time, your feng shui, composed of the energy connecting your mind, body, and spirit, is shaken up in the great cosmic maternal martini shaker — and you don't even get to have a drink! But once the head spinning slows, you will find that you have more resources, more resilience, and more creativity than ever before.

It's All Connected

Because you are a holistic being, your mind, body, and spirit are designed to work together in a state of dynamic fluidity, constantly realigning around your optimal balance point. When you bring awareness to this connectivity, you allow powerful change to happen.

Pregnancy is a profound chapter of life, for sure, but it's not the whole story. What pregnancy offers is a chance to get your holistic house in order so you are beautifully prepared for the rest of your life. Now is the time to find your joyful and courageous core. Now is the time to connect with your authentic and best Self.

Eating fried bacon–wrapped pastries for breakfast but thinking happy thoughts won't optimize your holistic connection. Doing an hour of yoga while focusing on the stressful tasks you have to do afterward won't optimize your holistic connection. Removing your partner's action figure collection from the bedroom while panicking about your future ability to breastfeed won't optimize your holistic connection. What will optimize it is becoming grounded in your experience, learning to express your needs, and finding the right kind of support.

Releasing the Fear

"The agony of childbirth" is one of the most pervasive messages in our culture. The first image of birth I was exposed to was a sweaty, red-faced woman, screaming PG-13-rated profanities at her partner while nudging a human out of her vagina in a comical movie. It was hilarious, and horrifying. I've never seen one scripted birthing image in the media that doesn't contain terrified men, yelling — and needles, so many needles! The births that are featured on reality shows are often flush with trauma and "excitement." Anxious voices, screaming, and tears sell, I guess. Peaceful companions, gentle births, and intact perinea are "boring."

The frightful cousins of these traumatic birth images are the harrowing sagas many women relish sharing about their excruciating forty-hour births, emergency C-sections, and bruised babies being yanked from tiny vaginas. Our society is a cultivator of childbirthing fear. Fear that we'll grow a child who is not brimming with health. Fear that our bodies will forget how to birth when the time comes. Fear that we'll make a critical mistake and dismantle our optimal birth.

This fear can turn a self-assured, courageous, and intelligent woman into a quivering mess. In addition to the external bombardment of fear, that little bratty voice within, the inner critic, loves to repeatedly ask, "How the hell is that going to squeeze out of this tiny hole?" Knowing that countless other women have accomplished this feat helps a bit, but the thought still lingers that those other vaginas were somehow ... better at this.

There is another way. There is a healing room within you that holds space for the opposite of fear — hope, courage, and empowerment. These forces are much stronger than fear; they just need some encouragement from you to come forth. When fear of childbirth is exposed to the light of reality, it begins to fade. This opens the door of possibility for your experience to be flush with joy, relaxation, and happiness. And fun! Believe it or not, pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood can actually be...