The Imperative for Self Care

Over the past couple of weeks I have engaged in some truly beautiful self care time.

Life has been particularly, achingly demanding over the past few weeks. I have perhaps never had so many demands on my time, from so many sources, and yes, of course the cacophony of barely explored voices from my inner world is part of that picture as well.

I have rarely felt so strongly the immediate effect that self care has. I remember before having children, I could not nap for less than a couple of hours without it feeling satisifying. Now, a few minutes curled up in the couch watching the clouds can equal that feeling of satifaction. A half hour doze is heavenly, and a two hour nap now- I begin to slip into trancendental states!

This stress I have been under has had it's alchemy, it's magic. It is a trustworthy filter: that which is truly important, I will hold to. All else falls away. It has given me permission (which is a funny, externalizing way of putting it, rather than being reflective of the stepping into a greater alignment between my internal and external world, which is what the process actually is) to let go of the things that are demanding, sometimes almost deafening in demand, and meander down paths less demanding but so much more vital, more important. I leave the washing piling up, and instead play in the fairy house with my children. I put the phone calls off and lay down in stillness for the twenty minutes I have to myself. I buy wonderfully organic, local, balanced food according to my well thought out meal plan, and then get takeaway because the baby is teething and I would rather comfort her (and support myself) than provide the most nutritious meal at the cost of a whole bunch of stress and disconnection.

In the Healing Your Birth: Returning to the Heart after Birth Trauma course I have created*, one of the weeks deeply explores the concept of self care. We look at how we regard and either disconnect or connect to our bodies after birth trauma- and ultimately, whether this is a message of love, compassion and presence, or of anger, wounding and walking away from our essence of creative being. We learn techniques to communicate in ways that our voice will be truly heard, and we look at self care rhythms.

It's certainly difficult to get self care time as a mama. The logistical issues surrounding support, child care, financial limitations and other things like this can be a barrier, but so too can the barriers inside us- the feelings of not being worthy, of sacrificing our needs or putting them last because that's what we have been conditioned to accept what a mother does- and to be very honest, sometimes because it's easier than having to fight to carve out time for ourselves.

One of the most important lessons I have learnt, courtesy of the wonderfully yummy teachings of Kaya Jongen and Lisa Bogle, is that self care does not need to be exclusively solitary time, or at least time away from the children. In fact, in the early months and years, sometimes time away just isn't practical or relaxing.

There is so much we can do, in the moment, to nurture our selves, without being away from our children; and then when those solitary times do arise, we can also dive right in. If we can move past rigid ideas of what self care has to be, we can move into a more expansive, creative idea of potential: what could it be? What would work for me, right now, in this moment? What will raise my vibration, centre me, create a shift?

Self knowledge, openness and an inquiring mind are all keys.

In the self care week of the course, we create a self care manifesto (I call it my "Keep Life Shiny" list). It's a list of daily non-negotiables, practical self care items that, even when the emotional terrain is challenging, give moments of lightness. It's an incredibly important commitment to make to ourselves, to value our own self care enough- to go beyond our culture of blame and externalization- and ensure we are beings that take responsibility for our wellbeing.

Here's what's on my Keep Life Shiny list currently (and it's a fluid list, as something becomes stale I weave in something new that is more resonant):

Each day, I:

• drink a cup of coffee and scroll through instagram (after morning tea is over and the kitchen cleaned up)
• light some incense, put on some mantra music and check the daily reading from Aquarius Nation (when my partner leaves for his afternoon/evening job)
• listening to a podcast whilst doing the housework after the kids are asleep (my favourites at the moment are Slow Your Home and Conversations with Richard Fidler) 
• do some kind of writing, even if it's just a few sentences
• get help from all the family in ensuring all housework jobs are done each day, because once it mounts up, it is so much harder to catch up

What's on YOUR Keep Life Shiny list? What's your non-negotiables? Let me know in the comments!

*If you would like to know more about the six week (one morning a week) course, or be kept updated where I am with it's release, please email me at earthysammi@gmail.com, or call me on 0418950793

Copyright Sammi Cambray/Sacred Whisper Bellingen 2016

Sammi is a holistic doula and birth counsellor, and is the publisher of Sacred Whisper Bellingen

Ph: 0418 950 793

Grounding into the Narrative of Birth

If you are a regular reader of the Sacred Whisper Bellingen blog, you would know that I have been working on a six week immersion for integrating traumatic birth experiences.

She's arrived earthside- Healing Your Birth: Returning to the Heart after Birth Trauma is now running as a pilot program, and I will soon be offering it to the wider community. It is a beautiful meeting of the Sacred Living Movement's Sacred Loss: Healing Birth Trauma course, written by Corrine Laan, and my own processes and work as a holistic doula and birth counsellor. I feel very inspired and humbled by this work moving through me. And I also see the vital importance of holding space for mamas who have experienced trauma in the birthing process- coming to wholeness as a mama creates healing and clear space for the next generation. What we need now are awakened, conscious humans. This work is a small but important part of that.

I am a certified Healing Birth Trauma Circle Leader

The first week of this course is called Grounding into the Narrative of Birth: Embarkation. We explore mental health, create a container for clear expectations and communication and safe space, deepen our ability to listen in a truly wise and open way, and share our birth stories. We also chart the birth- the charge moments, the highs and lows, the peaks of the experience in a peak experience. We begin to tell our stories- to explore our narratives.

What is the narrative of birth?

On the most simple level, it is simply a conveyance of the chronology of the birth, the facts, perhaps the feelings. But any woman who has given birth, or approaches birth, knows that it goes much deeper than this.

Birth will awaken parts of us we didn't know were dormant inside us. It will agitate any part of us that is raw, and sometime soothe us in ways we didn't even know were possible. It will allow us to traverse strange and wonderful lands. It will take us to the edge, again and again, and reveal that beyond our edge there is both the void, and more space yet to travel. It can leave us more whole than we ever imagined, or leave us broken.

The narrative of birth is all of this: the deep sensuality of birth and how we met it; how we were held (or shamed, or unheard); the lessons, both new and deepened, that it teaches us (and again, both those lessons that served us and those warped lessons that don't); the way birth initiated us into motherhood- with energy or with grief, trauma or empowerment. It's a story but a story far too profound and complex for words alone. It can be told in words, but only partially. It can be danced, but only partially. It can be sung, or painted, screamed, torn, brought to a relational field-- but only partially. We will tell it forever, in many different ways.

We cannot control the trajectory or outcome of birth; we have a massive job in overcoming social conditioning around the shaming of women's bodies, the fear of birth and the medicalisation of our reproductive systems; and so we cannot ever prevent all birth trauma. But, given the healthy faciliation of a physiological birth process, with a woman clear in her intentions and supported by warm, knowledgable and skilled caregivers, giving birth can become a superbly empowering event. The narrative this woman would take into her motherhood and her wider life will serve her and all those around her in the most positive, nourishing way.

But what if the birth giving was horrible? Traumatic, haunting, isolating? What of that narrative?

Something I have seen in my work, is that there is a deep parallel between giving birth, and healing from birth. Both are a manifestation of women's power and strength and above all the feminine energy of giving love in the most amazing ways. Over and over, the women I see come out of birth feeling broken, traumatised and disconnected are the ones who discover a strong sense of wholeness, strength and connection during their healing journeys.

In healing we have to go to those raw places and confront them (much like the physical and emotional intensity of giving birth). In this we write a new story- instead of shutting down, the very act of striving to heal allows us to rebuild strength, trust, wisdom and self love. We can return to the heart, ever so gently.

Birth is never just a narrative of just a few hours, but a whole lifetime, and it's one of those rich and potent times that the narrative of our lives- the way we perceive our lives- can be rewritten. Whether that sacred rewriting happens during birth or during integrating a traumatic birth, the pathway to initiation is there regardless. In this I trust.

If you would like to know more about the six week (one morning a week) course, or be kept updated where I am with it's release, please email me at earthysammi@gmail.com, or call me on 0418950793

Copyright Sammi Cambray/Sacred Whisper Bellingen 2016

Sammi is a holistic doula and birth counsellor, and is the publisher of Sacred Whisper Bellingen

Ph: 0418 950 793