Life After Birth: Embracing Being Beyond Our History

You have probably heard the quote, “Those who do not remember the past are bound to repeat it.” Alternatively, and perhaps more accurately, Mark Twain is reported to have declared, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes.”

Why is this relevant to the subject of life after birth? In my experience, those discovering that we had life – or experience – before birth and how profoundly that prenatal time can influence us, tend to be sucked into a prenatal history kind of vortex. It may take years to emerge from the mess, if we ever do. Our prenatal history is highly fascinating and seductive, for many reasons. There is, however, a reason for us to be drawn to learn about it. I believe that reason involves our potential to be freed and empowered to live in the way we choose, rather than continuing to unconsciously re-enact our history.

What are you aware of as you read these words? Some will react with indignation. “I have finally started learning about how the toxicity or rejection or struggles or etc. I experienced in the womb has affected me all my life. Why are you taking this away from me?” No, I am not taking anything away. You are no longer a dependent, helpless, vulnerable little prenate! When we learn to differentiate between what happened back then and what is happening in current time, we become freer to make choices and to access what I call our original potential.

Awareness and Differentiation as Keys to Freedom

One of the things we understand in prenatal and birth psychology about babies, including those who have not yet been born, is that they are not able to differentiate between now and then or their own experience and that of another, especially mother. Little ones receiving craniosacral therapy sessions, for example, readily take the opportunity of being with someone who can hold their head, their body and (hopefully) their emotions, to express and re-live their most important history. This usually is their birth and prenatal experience. Their tendency, however, is to fall into the emerging memories and get lost there.

Little ones depend on their caregivers to help them regulate their emotions and activation, and to help them stay connected in present time. If you see a little one’s eyes cloud over, or they stop having eye contact with you, they have gotten lost. It is important to help them re-connect with what resources and supports them in regulating, which is usually mother. Supporting mom in soothing her baby as well as hearing the little one and reflecting the feelings being expressed helps the little one to stay present and process the feelings.

This is also true for people of any age re-visiting their early material. The tendency is to slip into a little one state, where we cannot differentiate between then and now. We may perceive the therapist as scary like the doctor (for example) was back then. We may become lost in overwhelming emotions, losing touch with the resources actually available for us as adults in present time. It is important to support presence while exploring prenatal and birth experience. While historically prenatal and birth therapies have focused on accessing early memories and expressing the feelings involved, we now understand from modern neurobiology that it is important to meet these experiences with a mindful present-time relational focus. Rather than re-visiting and reinforcing old neural pathways related to the history, our intention is to strengthen the neurobiology of presence and present-time perception, which relates to our social engagement nervous system and our ability to be in relationship.

Little ones dissociate in reaction to overwhelming experience. It is important to support little ones of any age to re-associate, to perceive the safety of the present moment and relationship, enabling integration of what happened back then. Once the history is integrated, it is no longer necessary to keep dredging it up. If it is not acknowledged, we tend to re-enact it, finding ourselves in situations and relationships that recapitulate our history. This need not be a life sentence. This is a way our psyche seeks healing. If the old situation/experience is stimulated by current circumstances, we are pressured to meet it again. Hopefully, we can do this with the support of a safe therapeutic relationship, awareness of our current strengths and resources, and a settled, regulated nervous system. Then, the apparent magic of healing can happen. We can integrate and move beyond our history.

If you have discovered your prenatal history and are as fascinated by this territory as I have been for years, please allow yourself to get to know it, but please do this in a way that enables you to remember who you are, rather than just who you were. Awareness accompanied by differentiation is key to your liberation from the clutch of this history.

Being with Each Moment

As we move into a new year, we move once again through a process of birth. The old year is dying. The new one emerges. Who are we now? Each moment we begin again. Who are we now? What choices do you make at this transition point? Are they conscious, based on your deepest heart desires and love? Or are they unconsciously re-enacting what is familiar and possibly not supportive of your well-being?

In this new moment, in this new year, we all have choice. You, too, can be free to meet each moment as it arises. What is important to you? What do you do to support you in letting go of what has been and embracing what arises?

For me, my Continuum practice is most important. This mindful practice involves slowing down and regulating the nervous system, while observing sensations, breath and subtle fluid movement with an intention to orient to what is new and unfamiliar and to recognise and interrupt habits and patterns.

If we want to be truly fluid, we need to return to our natural fluidity. Water that has frozen can thaw. When we acknowledge our history, particularly those traumatic bits that we may prefer to ignore or avoid, we can begin to melt in relation to them. We can free ourselves to meet the moment. Like a snake shedding its old skin, we can dissolve the old and be available for the new. Other mindful practices can also support us like this. The awareness of our earliest development and fluid embryological potential can enable us to use these practices to be aware of and emerge from the hold our early history may have on us.

Craniosacral Biodynamics similarly supports us in being present with what is and letting go of what was in gentle, fluidic ways, with the additional support of a relational practitioner holding and witnessing us. Where we have not had the holding and reflection we needed as little ones, we may need a therapist’s presence to re-learn how to be, letting ourselves learn at a cellular level how it is to be safely met and nurtured.

Notice how it is in your body to read these words. What moves you here? What is new for you here? What impulses or urges arise as you read this? Again, what is important for you? What do you choose?

Will you join me in moving beyond the history of how birth was and allow yourself to birth again, into this moment? Welcome to life after birth!