MM Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the new ‘buzz word’ in offering a clear, relaxed mental health. Here, doula Riga Forbes tells MM how mindfulness can offer a core of stability as you make the transition into parenthood.
How mindfulness can help in pregnancy
Life can be stressful. Yet in pregnancy, a woman needs intervals of regular relaxation to facilitate her body’s intensive work of baby making. Many of us have relentlessly busy
lifestyles, and the idea of slowing down or switching off from our constant schedules or the flood of stimuli around us can actually be scary. Fears of boredom or of losing our threads of connection to modern life might be daunting. The practice of mindfulness is not
alluring to the mind that seeks to be busy, yet gradually and incrementally it can begin to show us a little more about the relationship between ourselves and our thoughts. Because they are not inseparable. In this way it is a remarkable resource, because as we practise, not only do we start to receive the nourishment of deep relaxation, but we also learn how to notice our thinking processes, rather than simply following and believing them. And somewhere along the line it also
activates the possibility of our minds becoming less busy, allowing us to give more of our full attention to our lives as they are, in this present moment - so that we can truly live them.
A work of art in progress Emotionally, pregnancy can be an intense time too, and having a quiet space to witness our feelings, to experience them as they are, without judging them or being overwhelmed, can also be very liberating. It can help us to feel calmer and more empowered and to develop compassion for ourselves, whatever state we are in.
36 Modernmum
This approach could not be more needed or relevant than today, when pregnant women are managing full-time work and families, and the accumulated stress and tiredness in body and mind can have a detrimental effect on our overall well- being. We need to slow down in pregnancy in order to keep up with the work of art in progress inside us. This is even more significant when we
consider that stress has its roots in fear and that if we, as women, carry these responses and their associated hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol, into the birth room, they can hinder our birthing process at a physiological level. What is especially important about keeping calm and maximising positive emotions in labour is that, firstly, it makes the experience more comfortable, and even enjoyable, because the mind and therefore the body are able to relax and open more; secondly, it promotes the release of our key birthing hormones, which enable labour to progress steadily; and thirdly, it helps protect us from potentially stressful influences in our environment. In very simple terms, relaxation is a
woman’s best birthing tool, and it will support her and her partner in so many ways throughout the entire perinatal year and beyond, into family life. By establishing a mindfulness practice, a mother can access her ability to relax more whenever
she needs to, thereby reducing her own stress levels - because, as we work with meditation, we not only address the physical tension in our bodies and our breathing, but we also develop more awareness of the inner realm of our thoughts and emotions, where stress is generated.
Labour of love Mindfulness practice can allow us to witness our inner narratives, trigger points, ideas and feelings, both positive and negative, in an unidentified way, so that we can observe these internal conversations and beliefs without reacting to them. So, for example, if we encounter inner thought processes that could lead us into a state of anxiety, it becomes possible for us to watch and listen to our experience without necessarily succumbing to our habitual cycle of stress responses to it. A pregnant woman can use this in
pregnancy to alleviate fear she may be holding around the coming birth, just as she can use it in labour to reduce fear and discomfort and to let her body do its extraordinary work.
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