I immersed myself in the Ecstatic Birth Training Sessions audios during my pregnancy and I also had private coaching sessions with Sheila to work through my fears, hang ups, intentions, desires, and more around birth. We did energy practices. I cried. We talked about what was possible. And I came to realize that an ecstatic birth, whether of a child or a project, is one where we know we’ve shown up with our whole selves and where we feel empowered.

I gave birth to Penelope Ann Watts 9/15/15 at 12:36am. While many aspects didn’t go as planned it was, in fact, ecstatic. And I’m so grateful to Sheila for the work that she’s doing in the world and for offering it to me. The simple use of the term ecstasy along with birth is a revolution. I’m humbled by the process. It blew my heart wide open. There were moments I thought I was going to die.

 

Let’s play for a moment and explore birthing your creative project, business, or new version of yourself with pleasure. What would that look like?

Much like the conception of a baby, it all begins with desire. Do you want to launch an abundantly successful business that also supports the underprivileged? Do you want to revel in your creativity and write that bestseller you know is in you? Can you bring your vision into focus? As you revel in your desire, you are gestating. You are now pregnant with your creative child.

Before I sat down to write this post, I fantasized about my desires. What did I want to share here? How could I be of service? I had many visions of what it would be. Guided by my inner wisdom, I began to write.

For many, the path to a physical or metaphorical birth is wrought with infinite decisions. How can you navigate those choices? Your inner wisdom must be the light that leads the way. There is no one else like you on the planet. No one else that has your unique life experiences, your feelings, your thoughts.

The way to connect to our inner wisdom is through the body, its language of sensation. Take a moment to close your eyes and breathe and simply notice the sensations vibrating throughout your body. Those sensations are your inner wisdom communicating with you. The more you can consciously feel into your body as you navigate your path, and move towards what feels good, the more aligned you will be your deepest wisdom.

As you take action towards your dream, labor begins. The rhythm of labor is a perpetual contraction, expansion, contraction, expansion… So is life.

Whenever you hit a rough spot on your journey to your desires, a moment that makes you hesitate or doubt your capacity to achieve what you want, that is your contraction.

In the physical world of childbirth, contractions have been given a bad rap, but they are not inherently a bad thing.  Contractions are the work that you have to do to open to get to your next expansion. {TWEET IT}  Each contraction allows you to open wider, to allow more energy to flow through you, to prepare you to birth your baby.

Similarly when you are birthing your creative projects, the bumps you hit along the way have gifts for you, to prepare you to become the person who can birth that desire.

The more we can understand that challenges are simply a part of the process, a part of our growth journey to take us to our next expansion, the more we can drop our resistance.

In the physical process of labor, resistance disrupts blood and energy flow, causing the body to work harder for labor to progress, which in turn causes more sensations which can be translated as pain.

When we birth our creative projects, this is true as well. If we fight against the rough spots rather than accept them and look for the gifts, it can take us on a path of suffering which derails us from the process of birthing our desire.

In the Ecstatic Birth prep I do with clients, we play with the practice of pleasure to support them through moments of intensity in birth. The tools I share here in my Top Ten Tips for Creating an Ecstatic Birth – such as breath, movement, loving support – are also tools that can be used to flow through moments of intensity in birthing your creative projects.

As I began to write this blog post, I felt a huge contraction. My words weren’t flowing as I’d hoped. My deadline was approaching. I reached for some tools of pleasure. I connected with my body. I called a friend. I danced. Then I sat down and wrote this. It looks very different than what I had expected. Does that mean I have failed? I hope not.

I see too many accomplished women- writers, business women, artists- who feel like failures because they are not measuring up to their ideal. I see too many women having beautiful, wonderful, primal births feeling like they’ve failed because some aspect of the birth they had didn’t measure up to their fantasy.

There is a culture of rampant perfectionism in our world that is deeply dangerous to our own personal process. The births you have, with your babies, with your creativity, are exactly the births you are meant to have. If they aren’t exactly what you want, trust that there are gifts in there for you, for your next expansion on the journey of your life.

My first childbirth experience was way more traumatic than ecstatic, but it was this birth that propelled me on my path. It was a huge contraction on my life’s journey, one that drove me to find another way to birth my babies. Along the way I have discovered more flow, more pleasure and more light in my life as I continue to expand as a woman, an entrepreneur, and a mother.

For more information on the interconnected nature of life, love, and birth and to receive The Essential Keys to Ecstatic Birth, my five-day primer on birthing with pleasure go to ecstatic-birth.com.