‘Surrender to what is.
Let go of what was.
Have faith in what will be.’
Sonia Ricotti
The process of pregnancy, birth and motherhood has opened my heart to the ability to surrender. This has been a process that has not arisen easily, but through an almost forced surrender upon me. Pregnancy, birth and motherhood are not the only avenues through which we can experience surrender, as many things that challenge a person during life can be perfect opportunities to express the power of surrender.
Surrender is yielding to what is. It is a process of non-resistance. We naturally associate negative connotations to the process of surrender as it suggests, on a superficial level, weakness. The truth is, however, that surrender is actually incredibly powerful.
Surrender has an innately feminine energy. In a society that applauds the masculine, we have lost touch with the silent, strong power of surrender. I have been, like many, raised within a society and a system that has praised and encouraged the masculine. The masculine is a powerful energy, of an active, forceful, unrelenting nature. It is the energy of continuously doing, never giving in, and never expressing weakness. It is the energy of achieving, climbing higher, pushing yourself to your limits. It can even arise as aggression. We all experience many years of conditioning to believe that this is the only way forward, and the only way to deal with challenges. We are indoctrinated to ‘fight’ adversity of all forms.
The feminine energy, on the other hand, has predominantly been masked by the masculine energy, which we have been groomed to admire. The feminine energy resonates with surrender, yielding, calm and just being. What I was to learn through my own personal life experiences is that the art of surrender, and the act of non-resistance, can be some of the most powerful abilities that we have – both men and women. The moments when we are brought to our knees, in despair, can be the moment of greatest transformative change. In these moments we need to fall deep into the feminine energy of surrender. It is through surrender that we discover our greatest power.
I have had time to reflect on my own approach to the birth of my two daughters. Both births, in their own unique way, were opportunities to experience the process of surrender. It did take two births for me to truly understand the meaning of surrender. It was only after the second time around that the penny dropped and a true understanding of the power of acceptance lit my mind. The process of understanding the wisdom of surrender, was far from natural for me, and almost required an inability to do anything else but that.
Throughout both pregnancies I was in information collection overdrive. I was determined to know everything that there was to know about birth. It was as though I was the first woman ever to give birth to a child, and that the more knowledge I had, the more power that I would have over the process. The book pile grew along with my belly. Innumerable books on birth overran my life. No question was to remain unanswered. I was going to birth the way I planned, and I was going to find all the information in the towers of books engulfing my home.
Birth itself managed to teach me something beyond anything in the books. As the labour progressed I found myself shifting automatically out of the thinking mind and into the primitive mind. The primitive mind knew how to birth. The primitive mind could connect with a collective feminine knowing. The primitive mind through un-knowing ‘knew’. Surrendering to the power of the process of birth aligns the birthing woman to the power of life itself, the universe itself. It is life force at its peak.
What became apparent was that there was a dissipation of the attachment of how to birth. There was surrender to the innate knowing of how to birth, that arises at the right time. No mental construct of what particular outcome of the birth that I had become attached to, could have changed the process. The power, energy and experience came from beyond any ‘knowing’. It is as though the power of the universe flows through the birthing woman – as microcosmic experience of the appearance of the universe. The primal mind was no longer shackled and robbed of its force by the knowledgeable, thinking neo-cortex.
Through the power of surrender the primal mind lights up, and the universal feminine knowing flows. Surrender combined with a faith in the force that moves the universe is a power beyond any.
Affirmations to assist with surrender during birth
I trust in my body, and the process of birth
With each contraction my baby is being brought closer to me
Relax, breathe, I need not do anything extra
I open like a flower, bringing forth new life
I surrender into the experience of birth
Everything is unfolding as it should
The life giving force of the universe flows through me
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