How do we birth when the boy keeps crying wolf?

I am in my car driving have some music on,
My little one is in the back telling me about his day , 
my teenager is next to me and we are making plans, 
google maps is talking to me, 
a text comes through and the message plays (I’m a midwife I need to listen to it) 
I hear the indicator ticking,
I am watching the road, the pedestrians, 
I am aware of red lights, road rules,  
My phone rings, 
I see advertising signs, 
I’m thinking about what to make for dinner and if I remembered to hang the washing out. 
We get home…
I feed the cat 
The dog
Hang the washing (I’d forgotten)
Make the dinner 
Sweep the floor
15 emails have come through…

My brain and space is stretched to capacity. Every sense is full. The incoming information is constant. The dance is like 90’s electronica dance music except there is no ecstasy in this one. One day I had 15 emails about a shared lunch at my sons school, who was bringing what etc. It’s great that there is easy and quick communication it’s just that there is so much of it. I switch off.

Except I cant switch off. I support my little on off to sleep then spend some time creating some internal order in my being after the chaos of my day. Coming to a place of feeling semi-settled but not spaciousness. 

To survive my day my brain and mind need to be ON, switched to staccato. The constant input is the boy is crying wolf all the time – i.e. my nervous system is jumpy – and my body thinks the wolf is coming all the time, flight or fright , eyes wide open, on alert .Cortisol driven, linear in my process. Adrenaline is driving the waka (boat)– oxytocin is well blow decks. 

The pace of my body , the needs of my body slower than the demands of my external life. 

I birthed Nimai my first son 20 years ago. I had hyperemesis (severe morning sickness). There were no cells phones. We lived in the bush in Australia. I lay and breathed and vomited and breathed . 
In and out, 
belly rise and fall. 
In and out, 
belly rise and fall 
I birthed and mothered with spaciousness . I dropped into baby rhythm easily . 
In and out 
Belly rise and fall,
Feed 
Sleep
Change 
Feed 
Sleep
Change 
In and out 
Belly rise and fall. 

Michel Odent has written a lot about our capacity to keep reproducing a species. Questioning what is happening to our abilities to give birth and mother / parent with relative ease. 

Birth and early mothering requires us to be in our bodies. To honour the pace of our bodies (which is often substantially slower than the staccato of the mind). Our bodies are big receptive listening devises, our breasts leak milk when our baby wakes to feed and we are at the supermarket. Yet how do we drop in and parent in these squishy receptive bodies when we are receive and dance in continually humming chaos?

Love making (how the baby is made) also requires us to be in our bodies (if you want to really enjoy it). It’s really hard to relax into the moment if the kids are fighting outside the door and your worried about burning the pasta sauce. 

There is incredible power and intelligence in the pleasure of our bodies and in our bodies themselves. 

One of the advisors for Hitler counselled for keeping people separate from the pleasure of their bodies. His rationale was , Those that don’t feel pleasure in their bodies are disconnected from their bodies, when people are disconnected from their bodies they are less likely to trust themselves therefore they are easier to control . The Organised religions in the west have done a magnificent job of this over the last few hundred years tampering with women's relationship to their own bodies. 

The modern day disconnect is our pace and information overload. Our high adrenalized systems . It keeps us plugged in and numb. 

As a biodynamic craniosacral therapist I listen to the rhythms  in a client’s system. The flow of the cerebral spinal fluid, the rocking of the cranio bones and the sacrum, the movement of the liver and the heart. When a system is happy all the systems are doing their own dance in alignment with each other, like a massive ball room full of dancers all in rhythm to different dances. 

Perhaps as much as we support birthing people to get ready for birth by providing information, discussing informed decision making and sharing information about self-care and the positions and exercise that might help , do we also need to address our disembodiment , not only for the birthing person but for care providers. How do we tone down the calls for wolf  and support our nervous systems? 

In a culture that values mental intelligence over the intelligence of physiology many birth givers have not yet learned to trust or have lost trust in the intelligence of their own bodies yet in birthing trusting one’s body is a crucial step in being able to yield into the sensations of labour. 

Perhaps when we support birth care providers it is not only important to consider how they are getting enough pay, meals breaks , education and collegial support but also how they be supported in turning done their wolf cries, (supporting their nervous systems and lowering adrenaline levels) how can we support each other to be in our bodies? To be able to utilise the big intelligent listening system? To be able to physical ‘hear’ when a woman is ready to birth her baby?

When we are disembodied we are separated from our big listening devise, we cannot hear, we have lost the beat 
We have lost the beat of birth 
We have lost the beat of our bubbas
We have lost the beat of the labour rhythm 
It has become an awkward dance. 

However for some birth givers , the act of giving birth offers an opportunity for them to get back into alignment with their bodies beat

Breath in and out 
Belly up and down
Waves come and go 
Baby sleeps and wakes. 

As a care provider to be dancing in the beat of a woman’s labour can be ecstatic. But it requires us to be in our bodies – to be able to hear the beat. It also requires us to be flexible in capacity to dance. As a care provider/ birth support person sometimes we might hear the beat first and be able to supporting the birth giver into their own rhythm. 

The birthing person also needs to be able to hear the beat and be flexible with their capacity to dance and to be invited back into the possibility of their ability to dance.

As care providers to be able to support others to dance to their own rhythms we need to care for our system, otherwise it can be like trying to teach the tango when we don’t know the steps. I wonder how many modern midwifery schools teach birth tango ? How many teach sensuousness – i.e. to be in and listening with our senses. How juicy would a sensuous tango ( or any other dance) teaching midwifery school be ? 

To address, compassionately, how we support birth, the birthing person, the family and the care provider perhaps we need to consider;

How do we support ourselves to be in our bodies in a delicious way ? 
How do we resources back to the intelligence of our bodies? 
How do we allow for and create the opportunities to ‘hear’ our bodies and to be able to ‘hear’ from our bodies. 
How do we create opportunities for spaciousness and going at our bodies pace? 
Exploring what is our relationship with physical pleasure? Do we experience physical pleasure and if not why?

Some potential ways we could do this might be

Dancing – especially where there are no prescribed steps to follow .
Non-linear movement , or any type of movement .
Watching natures rhythms - waves, wind , the movement of our own breath
Recognising the wolf calls (adrenal alerts) – and minimising them if possible 
Turning the sound of for messages/ emails
Prioritising quiet, unrushed time like lounging about 
Exploring what feels physically pleasurable- the breeze / sun on our skin, eating a beautiful meal , beautiful fabric in our clothes. listening to beautiful music, singing, swimming, showers, baths, smelling delicious things . 
Nature bathing – i.e. immersing ourselves in nature .
Making love, with our self or others 
Exploring what makes our oxytocin flow. 
Prioritising what feels lovely. 

May we all be able to experience comfort, joy and pleasure in our bodies.
May our bodies be once again heeded with the reverence they deserve .
May we find spaciousness.
May birth and mothering come to be a delicious experience.
May we step into our power and our pleasure.  
May we be able to tune out the wolf cries.
May we be able to find our inner wild wolf.