Birth story clearing
Your birth story began long before you knew you were pregnant.
In some ways, we begin our birth narratives as children: picking up on the stories of our mothers, aunts, community members, and friends. Over time, we gather more birth narratives from books and media, then our friends’ birth experiences, and subconsciously integrate them into our beliefs. By the time we are pregnant or begin contemplating pregnancy, we already carry a whole host of beliefs about and associations with birth: some positive, some negative, and some in between.
These stories and beliefs make up our birth landscape. If we don’t do the work of untangling our own stories and beliefs about birth from the ones we have (often lovingly) taken up for others, we carry them into the birthing space.
Examining, evaluating, releasing, and rewriting the narratives we carry into birth is part of the sacred work of birth preparation.
In birth story clearing, I walk alongside you in exploring the stories and beliefs that make up your birth landscape. I hold a safe space for you and the stories you carry. Together we do the work of honoring and releasing the birth narratives and beliefs that are not your own, so that you can enter your pregnancy or the birthing space rooted in your own identity and story.
How does birth story clearing work?
Birth story clearing is story work, where your role is as storyteller and mine is as space-keeper. I provide sacred space in which we can, together, explore your internal birth landscape with gentleness, openness, and curiosity.
We begin by looking at what you know of your own birth story, and other birth stories in your family and lineage.
From there, we examine messages you have been given explicitly and implicitly about birth, beginning in childhood and working our way up to now.
We may examine and unpack other birth stories that have impacted you, whether from your community, media, the news, or a loved one.
As we explore the birth stories you are carrying and the beliefs you associate with them, I make use of somatic tracking (bringing awareness to the sensations in your body) and breathing techniques to help you listen to your inner voice, sit with uncomfortable emotions and sensations, expand your sense of safety, and release any shame or self-judgment you may be carrying.
Once we have developed a better picture of your internal birth landscape, we can begin to determine which stories and beliefs are truly yours, versus those you may have been carrying for others. We then begin the work of honoring and releasing.
FAQs
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For birth story clearing, I meet with you for a ninety-minute session. For some people, one session is enough, but if you carry significant familial or generational birth trauma, you may benefit from multiple sessions to do the work of clearing and releasing.
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If you are preparing for birth or pregnancy and want to engage in the spiritual and emotional work of preparation alongside your physical preparation, birth story clearing may be a supportive supplementary practice.
If you find yourself afraid of or apprehensive about birth, frequently remembering your mother’s, sister’s, or friend’s birth story and fearing a similar outcome or circumstance, then you are carrying the emotions and energy of someone else’s birth story. Often we do this out of love: we want to minimize the pain of the people we love, to hold space for them and ease their suffering. But without realizing it, we have taken on this suffering as our own, and we carry the associated emotions and energy—whether fear, anger, grief, or something else—into our own birthing space and experience. Birth story clearing can help.
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No: birth story clearing can benefit anyone who finds themselves carrying birth stories and beliefs that are not their own. While most people who pursue these sessions are preparing for birth themselves, we all carry birth narratives and the energy and emotions attached to them.
If you find yourself afraid or apprehensive of pregnancy and birth, but unsure whether that’s because of your own preferences or because of the experiences of others, a birth story clearing session may be supportive for you.
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Birth Story Medicine is a supportive therapeutic technique for integrating one particular birth story: either your own, or one that you were present for (such as as a partner or a birth worker).
Birth story clearing is for untangling the many birth narratives and beliefs you are carrying, in particular those for which you were not present but which have unknowingly contributed to your beliefs about birth.
Where Birth Story Medicine integrates a past birth story, birth story clearing untangles others’ birth stories and beliefs from your own, clearing the way for you to show up—in birth and your day to day—wholly present.
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Birth story clearing sessions are virtual and conducted over Zoom. If you are based in central New Jersey and would like to meet in person, let me know and I can book a space for us.
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One ninety-minute session is priced at $155.