“Surge” is another name for “contraction.” A gentler name that describes the rhythmic uterine muscle actions that bring humans earthside. They are the only rhythmic muscular actions that we are afraid of. And it makes sense that we are afraid, because they hold the power of life in them. A power we don’t understand. And humans don’t like it when we don’t understand.
But with that power, I cannot help but imagine that there is wisdom in those surges, that we can learn things from them that are valuable to our lives, and that we should interrogate our responses to them.
How do we respond to the problems in our lives?
Might our responses to those surges be similar to how we respond to other hard times in our lives?
If we run from our problems, then we might meet surges with a flight response—and the resulting adrenaline will leave us in pain.
If we suppress our problems, we prepare ourselves to ask for an epidural the minute we arrive at the hospital. And so, we don’t feel the surges…
…but we also don’t learn from them.
I believe that the hardest times in our lives are also the most fertile grounds for growth and transformation.
The term “rock bottom” signifies just that. When we think things can't get any worse, we somehow muster the strength to use our suffering to transform.
Birth is like that too. Just at that moment of transition, when our cervix is close to fully open, many of us declare that we are done. The surges have gotten so intense that we refuse to move forward. We have hit the rock bottom of birth.
But then, the most beautiful of all events occurs. Our uterine muscles gather up the last bit of strength and they bring our baby to us. A new life comes out of what feels like mush and rubble and sometimes even suffering.
And if we let ourselves feel that, then we too will be transformed.
By learning how to respond rather than react to each surge in early labor, and then how to surrender to the waves of transition that leave us no choice but to become mush, we begin life as a parent with a newfound ability to meet our triggers in life with thoughtful response rather than irrational reaction.
And each time we do that, we grow.
We transform.
And we awaken the parent inside of us, a parent who will guide our children to respond rather than react and to learn from their triggers too.
We break the generational patterns of suppressing rather than learning from emotions.
And we transform the world.
Birth is powerful. Own your power.
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