Favors From the Spirit World

I have this circle chart of my ancestors that hangs on my entrance wall. I taped it up with masking tape about 7 or 8 months ago, and a few months back, one corner of it started to fall down. I pushed it back up for several days, then the whole thing eventually came crashing into the middle of the hallway. After repeatedly taping it up I got a flash of inspiration. Maybe they want attention. I stared at the names there and the empty spaces.

"Okay," I said. "I'll give you three hours this week. But I want a favor in return."

So I did. And they did me the favor I asked. I won't go into details, because this is not a genealogy post. But, lately, they have been throwing themselves in my hallway again. Maybe it's just the life of masking tape, but it's not a bad reminder to pay attention to people in my life stream and listen for what they might have to tell me. I am still not sure what it is yet. But here is something that happened recently.

My daughter is getting old enough to have real conversations on the phone--and because of our situation, every other weekend, that is how we have to talk. A few weeks ago, when she called me, she was so sad. She was crying and telling me how much she missed me and sang me a little song about how sad she was, but couldn't finish because she was crying. It was heartbreaking, but also kind of sweet that we were able to communicate so well on the phone. I sang her a little song back and then told her to sleep well. The next morning I called and she said, "Mommy, I am done crying about you." Ha! I had to laugh. Everything looks brighter in the morning, doesn't it?

Well, last night she called me, past her bed time. She sounded tired but happy. As she was hanging up, she said, "Mommy, I have lots of angels that watch over me when I miss you."

She said it with so much confidence that it made me smile. "I know you do," I said.

I just re-taped the chart today and spoke all the names of my ancestors out loud (a lot of Marys and Johns) and started to give them my "I'll give you an hour if you give me a favor" spiel, but then I realized that they were probably doing more for me and my little girl than I even know.

Yes, that is my angelic daughter who told me the other day that reading scriptures makes her happy when she is sad. She can't really read (that I know of)... but it works for me.

Constant Nourishment

Photo by Shannon Flores

In the temple we are reminded of the need for constant nourishment to both body and spirit. Constant nourishment for the body is something you are going to be reminded of regularly from your care provider if you are pregnant or nursing, but constant nourishment to spirit is not in every care provider's list of questions.

One of my favorite quotes in Gurmukh's book, Beautiful, Bountiful, Blissful, is this:

“Women need to nourish themselves because the well being of their family depends on them being healthy and strong. Every time a woman does something to elevate herself, her family benefits.”

I think everyone of us knows this to be true, yet we still sometimes don't do the things we need to nourish and elevate ourselves. I have thought of plenty of examples of things women can do to nourish their spirit while pregnant, from reading scriptures and going to the temple, to enjoying baths, taking a photography class, gardening, reading good literature, meditation, dancing and much more. What I would like, however, is more personal examples of this from readers. How did your nourish your spirit during pregnancy, or during the postpartum period? And what effects did you see--both immediate and long term?

Momma Frequencies and Baby Antenae

Last week I used hypnotherapy on a mother to help her feel calm every time her baby cried.

It came about by accident. We were chatting and she wanted me to practice hypnosis on her. She is already preconditioned and knows that hypnosis is very relaxing, and she wanted that feeling. She told me that she felt so much anxiety every time her baby cried and she felt like it was making her grouchy and impatient at her other child and her husband, etc. She said her first baby was a joy and never cried. She felt rejected by her baby and annoyed by him.

I told her that we could use hypnotherapy to reprogram some of her unconscious anxiety. So, as soon as he went down for a nap, I went over to her house. Since she was already used to hypnosis, and was severely sleep deprived, she was about the most hyper-suggestible person I have ever seen; she went into the hypnotic sleep state in about 30 seconds. Once there, I used some empowering, happy imagery and helped her mind create some anchors to trigger the same peaceful calm feelings when she was conscious.

She came out feeling happy, but I didn't find out just how well it worked until later. She called me the next day and told me that she had her best day as a mother the day before and that they were having a great day again. She also told me that she had been sleeping better.

A few days later, I went to her house to pick something up and spent few minutes hanging out with her and her awake baby, who was not crying. Something was different about him. He looked like a different child.

"Yeah. He doesn't cry anymore," she said.

Interesting.

I am not taking any credit for doing anything to the baby, but I could totally sense that the frequency my friend was putting out was much different than the one she had been previously sending. She was so calm and peaceful and happy, and the baby was picking up on it. I saw her again today and it's totally amazing. She's got this fantastic smile that feels unforced now, and a magnetism that she didn't used to have.

I am amazed at all the things that hypnotherapy can help women with. I initially went into the program thinking that I wanted to help moms and babies, both with birth and working through fears and other issues, but I never thought of crying anxiety. I guess because it didn't happen to me.

Next she wants me to help her like housework--another thing I wouldn't have thought of. I can't wait to see what else mothers need and want. I'm making a list. If you could reprogram your subconscious behavior in one area, big or small, what would it be? I can't wait to hear your thoughts.

God's Timetable

This week I was thinking about God's timing and His plans for each of us. I am constantly thinking about this and trying to surrender to Him. For the last year or so--or maybe my whole life--I feel that surrendering to God's timing means that I have to be patient. Waiting for what I want, or waiting to find out what God's plan is, or waiting on other people is extremely difficult for me--or has been, until recently. Maybe it is all that meditating, but I have begun to be pretty Zen about it. So much so that I now wonder about the flip side. I realized that there have been just as many times in my life when God has asked me to do something faster than I felt ready. And I wonder if I have been as willing to jump in without fear or hesitation?

When God is operating in this mode with me, He usually gives me the inspiration about what He wants me to do at 10:30 p.m. the night before. Maybe this is so I don't have too much time to think and get nervous about it.

At times like this, this is how my discussions with God have gone: "No way. You want me to do what? Oh Man. Really? Why? I can't do it. I don't want to do it." This is usually followed by a calm feeling of "Yes you can, I will help you."

Now that I think about it, though, even at the times when the inspiration seemed sudden and I felt unready, it may have actually been the end of a long period of active waiting, and not sudden at all. Hmm. I will have to think more on this.

C.S. Lewis only sort of jokingly said in The Problem of Pain, that it's pretty easy to know when inspiration is from God because it directly contradicts what we want. I know plenty of women who wanted to serve a mission, but felt literally pushed by some force into their future husband's path. A friend of mine said that right after she had her first baby (it was a difficult pregnancy with nausea so severe she blacked out) she felt like she was supposed to have another baby right away. She didn't say anything, but when her husband said the same thing to her, she admitted that she felt it, too. Who knows why these first two souls needed to be so close in age, but I admire them for their faith.

I don't always know why the Lord tells me to do stuff until much later, but when I do get the A-ha I can't say enough about how great God is. Once I heard a guy get up and bear his testimony about how every now and then the veil lifts a little for him and he gets a glimpse of how "not random" everything is. I will never forget that testimony. It made perfect sense to me. It is in those moments that I can say to myself and to everyone with the utmost confidence that "Everything is going to be okay."

I am in the confidence of more than one friend who has, for the first time, decided to ask God about the timing of their next baby. Even though they have received their answers, they still look a little scared. So, I just thought I'd put this out there, no matter what your situation, everything is going to be okay.

Mother Issues During Pregnancy

Me and my mom, circa 1980-ish.

My mother's birthday was yesterady. My daughter and I put up her picture, ate some cake and sang Happy Birthday to Grandma in Heaven. With my little girl so happy about the cake and the singing and all, it was impossible to feel anything but fun. Now, a few days later, I am sitting here thinking about her and about how I am about the same age as she was in that picture and my girl is about the age I was then.

It is still sometimes strange to be on the other side of the mother-daughter bond. In a way it is healing. Hope Edelman says in her book Motherless Mothers,

"For many motherless women , the experience of caring for one's child also doubles as a form of self care.... Being an attentive loving mother brings the spirit of an attentive loving mother into the room, one who simultaneously nurtures the childlike self that had to manage without adequate nurturing in the past. " (p. 13)

It's so strange, because many motherless women fear motherhood, because they are afraid that they won't know how to nurture or be a good mother. I was one of these. But when it came down to it, once the morning sickness was over, it was the opposite. There was nothing I seemed better suited for.

I have been surprised to find that many more women than I knew are in the motherless tribe with me (in fact, several of my collaborators also fall into this category), either because of death, abandonment, or mental illness. Their mothers may be alive, but didn't nurture them. This is a heavy thing during pregnancy. Pregnancy brings up all of our stuff:

"Grete Bibring, MD was one of the first medical researchers to call attention to this phenomenon....Pregnancy, Bibring concluded is a 'developmental crisis' that affects all expectant mothers. By 'crisis' she meant a turning point in a woman's life that creates psychological and emotional upheaval, leading to a new stage of maturation. Throughout this process, normal psychological defenses loosen, and unsettles or incompletely settled conflicts from the past bubble up to the conscious level. That's a main reason why mother issues come up during pregnancy, for all women." (Edelman, 37-38)

I have come to believe the viewpoint that pregnancy is 9 1/2 months long to give us time to work through our issues so that we can be more spiritually ready to handle the much more much evolved soul that is coming to us.

So, whether you are motherless or not, know that if stuff is coming up for you, it's a part of the process. I have often said that being pregnant without a husband was no big deal, but being pregnant without a mother was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. Yet, though it was a crucible, all the work is worth it. At the end, when I become a mother, both that instant and then slowly, over the first few months of her life, the huge hole that had been in my heart, filled in.

We are now able to make "Grandma in Heaven" part of our lives without the sadness that was there before. The birthday cake is one example. Other times, when we want to invite her to dinner, we light a candle and put it in her spot. I also keep lots of pictures of her and my other ancestors around the house, too. Phoebe sometimes talks about them being her angels.

If you don't have a great relationship with your mother and still want to have that nurturing grandmotherly vibe in your child's life, here are some other ideas that I have come up with. I have recently started talking to my daughter a little bit about the Heavenly Mother. She knows that her symbol is the tree, and so I encourage tree climbing, where appropriate.

At the Los Angeles Temple

Another mother figure that I am teaching Phoebe about is Mother Earth. The term Mother Earth may be derived from some connection with the Heavenly Mother's silent role in the creation, but I don't really know. I keep them separate, because it gives her one more mother figure. Also, if she views the earth as a mother figure, then by teaching earth-consciousness, it's a good parallel to reinforce the duty to honoring parents.


I'd love to hear your ideas or experiences.

"Did your vagina, like, fall off?"

This is a funny story. Sort of.

A few months ago, when I was monologue-ing about how poor maternity care is in the United States and how much better it is in so many countries, one of my collaborators told me that it is much worse in some places. She pointed out that in some parts of Brazil, the c-section rate is 89%. Gasp! Now remember to exhale.

We lamented over our many fellow sisters Saints in Brazil who we believed were being led like lambs down the path of increasing unnecessary interventions that eventually ends at the knife. I was in a fury for a few days and I even vowed to have this book translated into Portuguese.

Later, I discussed this statistic with another friend and neighbor who is a doula. "Can you believe it? 89%!"

According to my friend (who knows everything or purports to) the c-section rate is that high in Brazil because women there are told that if they give birth vaginally that their vaginal tract will never be the same and sex will never be as pleasurable. Thus, most of these c-sections are elective.

Then she told me a story about a Brazilian woman she knows who came to this country and when she got pregnant wanted to plan her c-section, but her doctor (good for him or her) said, "What? Why? There is no reason for a c-section." Rather than switching doctors, she listened and had her baby vaginally.

Later, when her family and friends heard that she had given birth vaginally, they were shocked. Jaws dropped, and one friend said, "Oh my gosh, did your vagina, like, fall off?"

Okay, that is funny. At first. Then it's sort of sad. What is even sadder is that until not that many years ago, I used to believe something similar. Luckily, God sent me the people and experiences I needed to set me straight.

It is interesting to me how belief systems change. Most of us have had limiting beliefs such as this at different times in our lives--such as where babies come from, or what falling in love is like. But we eventually let go of limiting beliefs and replace them with new ones. We all have about a million beliefs, not just religious doctrinal beliefs, but beliefs about how people view us, how our children are/should be, what is the best kind of diet to eat, what constitutes a good deal, etc. In John Stienbeck's novel, East of Eden, the narrator's mother refuses to believe in airplanes. The fact that she had seen them, didn't matter.

Since I am studying behavioral science in hypnotherapy school, I am very interested in the process people go through when they do let go of beliefs and adopt news ones. I'm still processing it--maybe gestating is a better word. But one day, for sure, I will deliver it as a blog post.

Getting back to vaginas falling off, I would really like someone who has lived in Brazil recently to chime in and corroborate or refute some of this and maybe throw out some ideas on how to help our Brazilian sisters.

Some hot mommas in Brazil. Okay, I have no idea if any of them are actually moms. But if they are, their c-section scar doesn't show in a Brazilian bikini.

Heart Hypnosis - My Own Invention

Last week on my way home from hypnotherapy school I stopped by to spend a few minutes with a friend. We'll call him my special friend. It was late and he had fallen asleep before I arrived, so my call woke him up. He came to the door looking sleepy and immediately led me to the couch where he started to drift off back to sleep. Laying next to him, not at all sleepy, my mind started to flit around. I was relaxed, but I wanted to talk or practice hypnotherapy on someone. In the past, I might have been a little frustrated to not have things go how I wanted them to go that night, but I have become much more like water and flow with things. So I thought, "Well, this is what I've got to work with. Let's see what I can make of it." I realized that I was lying right next to his heart area and so I decided to try some heart hypnosis, which I made up at that moment.

I started to mentally project positive suggestions right into his heart. I didn't say anything out loud, so I wasn't sure it would do anything on a subconscious level, but knowing about the suggestibility of water, I knew it would do something on a cellular level.

I mentally suggested things like: "You will sleep peacefully, easily, effortlessly. You will feel calm and relaxed. Your heart is open to ---. Your heart will soften toward ---. You are open to ---." I don't exactly remember what I suggested, but I did this for a while, until he started to snore. That is when I extricated myself from the cocoon, covered him up with some blankets, turned out the light, and went home.

Several days later he called me and said, "What did you do?"

I jokingly said that I hypnotized him into a deep sleep. (Once you start hypnosis school people are afraid that you are going to use magic on them or something, so I sometimes play along.)

"No really. Did you do something to me?"

"Well. Yes. Sort of. I did some heart hypnosis. Which I just made up. Why?"

"Because after you laid down next to me I felt strange things start to happen in my body. It was like I felt my energy changing. Not in a bad way...."

Woah.

He asked me again, "Were you consciously doing something?"

I told him that I was consciously projecting positive suggestions into his heart in an effort, I suppose, to effect/change his energy. And he had just confirmed that it worked. Or, it did something. Woah!

This was powerful confirmation to me of what I am learning, especially after just writing my mantra post and this post, about the Lord's law of health.

I'm guessing my friend attributed these energy changes to me because I was there, but it made me wonder if he feels his energy shift or change when I am not there but am praying for him. And if he does feel it, I wonder what he attributes it to?

Then I thought of all the people who have prayed or may be praying for me that I don't even know about. From now on, whenever I feel a surge of happiness, well-being, or experience a miraculous events turn of events, I will make sure to say a silent thank you.

Prebirth Experiences - Guest Post from Buscando La Luz

Last week I started digging through blogs looking for epidural, cesarean, and other stories we're short on. In my quest, I stumbled upon this blogpost by Sarah Hinze sharing two adoption "prebirth experiences" (PBEs).

In a typical prebirth experience (PBE), a parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or grandparent, etc., receives communication from a child before she is born, or in many cases, before he was even conceived. These unborn children at times can warn, protect and enlighten us through the veil. However, they appear most often to announce it is their time to experience mortality--their time to be born on earth.

Sarah Hinze has been studying and gathering PBEs for two decades, has authored a book on the subject, and become an expert in the field. Discovering Sarah brought my mind back to some of the PBEs I've been privileged to experience--all of them in dreams.

Last summer, I enjoyed reading Barbara Bishop's Segullah piece, "Dreams as Gifts of the Spirit." When she said, "Unfortunately, many LDS Church members also show indifferent or suspicious attitudes toward the personal revelation that comes from dreams," I was thinking... Huh? Really? Doesn't everyone believe this stuff? I was quick to agree with Barbara Bishop perhaps because dreams have played such a prominent role in many of the most important relationships and decisions of my life. One of those dreams has blessed my life many-fold.

When oldest daughter was about 15 months old, I had an intense dream. I had just barely drifted off to sleep when I plunged immediately into the scene. I was chasing my daughter playfully and quickly turned around, clearly aware that someone was running up behind me, with my arms outstretched to a little blonde toddler boy who was smiling and laughing as he ran toward me. My eyes flew open immediately, and I said to myself, with a gasp, "Who the heck was that?!"

So we started thinking about welcoming another baby into our home, thinking that little boy was going to come to us. My second daughter came instead. Maybe she cut in line? Who knows? But the dream served the initial purpose of bringing my second daughter to us about 10 months later.

Then, when I had finally allowed myself to consider welcoming a third baby, I wondered whether that little blonde boy would be coming next. As I struggled with fears and worries about his upcoming home birth, I found peace in recalling my dream. A friend of mine, Linda, had posted a few weeks earlier about a dream she had about her own son (very similar to mine) which had given her peace. I'm grateful she posted about it because I think it prepared my mind to remember and have faith in my own prior dream. I knew that my baby boy and I would survive his birth because I had already seen us a few years older in my dream. Even when he came out with a head full of dark hair, I still knew it was him... as his ever-lightening hair attests.

Then, in January, I got thrown into the pit of despair--or the Emergency Room of a local hospital with a very miserable, possibly very sick baby boy. If you had seen my face then, you probably would have thought the world was ending, 'cause that's how I felt. My mom actually said she was suddenly overcome with a horrible, unexplainable feeling of dread and gloom just when I was feeling my worst. I had even allowed myself to entertain worries that his leg would have to be amputated. But two things (among many tender mercies) aided me through that time of fear and uncertainty--the priesthood blessings my husband had given us declaring that he "would be healed," and my years-ago dream. I knew he would live to be a running, laughing toddler because I had already "seen" it.

I had no idea all those years ago that a 10-second dream would play such a starring role over and over in the future. But it has. God knew then, as He always does, that I needed to see my son way back then--and not just as a baby but as a growing little boy. God is good.

I'm eager to dig further into the realm of PBEs and hopefully meet Sarah Hinze (she's not far from where I live). All of this has reaffirmed to me that each child was once a unique immortal spirit, eagerly awaiting birth into mortality. They are precious gifts. And they have probably loved us from the other side of the veil for far longer than we are aware.

In the second adoption PBE Sarah Hinze shares in her blogpost, the author ends with this stunning account:

Four years later, we had just moved to Germany, and were having our family dinner. John interrupted the conversation and loudly proclaimed: 'And Mommy, and Mommy, when I was upstairs, I saw you married!' All conversation stopped and I looked at John to respond to him, but before I could say anything, he blurted out 'And I said HURRY UP!' John had just turned four year old and still remembered his pre-earth life.

Have you experienced a PBE? Have dreams played a significant role in the important decisions of your life? Please share your stories.

The Mantras We Use

I am now three months into hypnotherapy school. I haven’t written much about it because I have wanted to process and learn what I’m talking about before I talk about it. I feel like I am there—at least on the topic I would like to write about today. But first, because there are still many myths and misconceptions about hypnosis (perpetuated mostly by stage hypnotists and old-school psychology texts) I will first explain what hypnosis is:

Hypnosis is a hyper-suggestible state that allows one (a hypnotherapist, lets say) to access the subconscious mind and reprogram subconscious programming that is no longer working for you (i.e. fears, phobias, bad habits, addictions, low-self esteem, etc.)

I don’t think we realize how much of our behavior is subconscious (or unconscious--I am using the terms interchangeably), and by that I mean we don’t consciously process it. Some people estimate that 90-95% of our behavior is unconscious. I know what you are thinking. No way. But I will give you a simple example. Humor me and fold your arms across your chest.

Now notice which arm is on top. Now switch them. Did you feel the hesitation? You had to consciously think about doing it the other way. Now, if I told you that you had to do it the other way from now on—that everything depended on it—how long do you think you could do it, using will power, and logic alone? Maybe half a day? Ever tried not crossing your legs all day? It’s extremely difficult to change unconscious behavior with will power alone.

Now let's use a more pertinent example as it relates to fear. Let’s say I had a bad experience with a dog as a child and my subconscious mind, in an effort to protect me (because that is what the mind does) programmed in a fear of dogs. By contrast, my neighbor shared her young life with a furry pal has positive subconscious associations with dogs. Now let’s say that my neighbor and I are both hanging out and a dog walks into the room. What happens? She walks up to the dog smiling with her hand out, while I slowly side step out of the room. Neither of us processed this behavior consciously. We just did it. It was unconscious.

That’s why hypnotherapy is such an effective tool for helping people with behavioral changes, because it works on a subconscious level.

But the state of hypnosis or hyper-suggestibility is not something that only your hypnotherapist can induce. Hypnosis is caused by an overload of message units to the brain, or basically—stress. This overload triggers the fight-flight mechanism and if you can’t fight, you escape into a disassociated or hypnotic state. Because we live in a pretty overloading world, most people are in a state of hypnosis several times throughout the day and some are “in state” all day for days or weeks at time. Some are in state for years.

Hypnosis happens while driving, just before sleeping, between snooze buttons, while watching a movie, and any time you feel like you are a little spaced out or when time suddenly warps. Love is a hyper-suggestible state. So is that feeling of being in “the zone” when playing sports. In all these hyper-suggestible states the mind’s filter is open and messages can easily enter the subconscious mind and effect your programming. The question is, what kind of messages are getting in? In a clinical setting, with a hypnotherapist, the suggestions are positive and targeted toward your presenting issue. But if you are just out there in the world in a hyper-suggestible state, the suggestions you are likely absorbing or giving yourself are often negative. If you are playing sports and have lots of happy endorphins flooding your body, the messages going in are more likely to reinforce happiness and strength and the ability to handle obstacles. That’s why exercise is so good for the mind as well as the body.

Now that you know about suggestibility and how certain situations can make you more suggestible, you should understand why the mantras we use are so important.

The origin, or ancient definition of mantra is literally: mind vibration, or mind tool. Mantras are literally a tool we can use to train our mind. For meditation purposes, mantras are usually a sacred utterance. While mantra mediation is extremely powerful, (because it also works on the subconscious level), I am not going to talk about mediation in this post. It deserves many separate posts. For now, I am just talking about self-talk, and the term mantra can apply to any phrase we repeat over and over.

We all have mantras whether we know it or not. Here are some that I hear from pregnant women and new mothers all the time, that I would like to invite you to stop using.

-I have a hard baby.
-I’m terrified of labor.
-I can’t handle pain.
-I don’t want to end up with a c-section.
-I don’t have enough milk.
-My baby doesn’t sleep.

The mind is very powerful. If you suggest these things to your mind (or to your baby's), they can become realities. Even if you really want to have a peaceful, vaginal birth, but you frame it in negative terms, such as "I don't want a c-section," your mind has to think of the negative first, so unconsciously, you are programming in the opposite of what you want. Here is an example: Don’t think of a blue tree.

You thought of a blue tree for a half second, didn’t you? I know you did. Because in order not to think about something, the mind first has to imagine it to then not think about it.

I was thinking about some really cool mantras we have in our religious culture. Particularly, I kept hearing the young women theme in my head. I haven’t recited it in years, but it came back easily.

“We are daughters of our Heavenly Father
who loves us and we love him.
We will stand as witnesses of God
in all times, in all things and in all places
as we strive to live the young women values, which are:
Faith,
Divine nature,
Individual worth,
Knowledge,
Choice and accountability,
Good works
and Integrity....”

What a great mantra.

Here’s another one I use:

“If there is anything virtuous, lovely,
of good report or praiseworthy,
[I] seek after these things.” (Articles of Faith 1:13)

Call them affirmations, call them whatever you will--but make sure they are positive, especially when you know you are more likely hyper-suggestible.

Don't worry about the idea of “vain repetitions.” As long as something is mindfully repeated, it is not vain repetition. In fact, repetition is one of the first laws of learning. For example, the temple ceremony is the same every time, but we are encouraged to go often. Also, within the ceremony, there is much repetition. That’s because God knows that repetition helps us learn—because he made us. (That's also one reason we have church every week and not once a year.)

For the most part, I like to keep my mantras short, so they fit in one breath. Here are some examples.

-Love as Christ Loved
-Be Still (and know that I am God) Psalms 46:10
-Power, love and a sound mind. (2 Tim 1:7)
-Happy, Healthy, Holy
-Peace, stability, freedom

Suggestability and Children

When you are dealing with children, you should know that they are suggestible to everything. Their critical mind--the filter that protects the subconscious--doesn't form until about 8 years old. So everything that a child hears and experiences goes directly into their subconscious and becomes part of their programming. This starts at conception.

If you are pregnant, you are likely talking out loud or internal to your baby all day anyway. But in case you were wondering, they can hear you--and they believe everything you tell them.

Here is a great mantra we use in yoga to prepare both mom and baby for birth:

Head Down,
Chin tucked,
Back to Belly,
Hands on Heart.

On the right day,
at the right time,
my baby will come down
easily and out
of my wide open cervix.

Now that my daughter is three, I taught her a fun mantra that she can do on her own anywhere. it has arm movements that go with it. The words are:

I am happy. I am good.
I am happy. I am good.
Sat-a Nam, Sat-a Nam, Sat-a Nam, Ji.
Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru, Ji.

(Sat Nam means: I am truth, truth is my identity. Wahe means literally “wow” or “praise” and Guru means: “that which brings light to the darkness.” Ji is a term of endearment.)

It is a fun mantra to chant, and it is totally impossible not to be happy while doing it. It is a good one for self esteem and protection against negativity.

[On a side note, I have witnessed that every now and then, when she’s in a mood, my daughter will change the words and start to sing, “I am mad. I am mad.” The first time I saw this I was sort of challenged by it, but then I realized that she is just doing aloud what all of us do privately. So when she’s chanting a different mantra, I make sure to tell her that all feelings are okay, and we let ourselves feel them. But once they have served their purpose, we let them pass. If they stay too long, we use the mantra to clear them away.]

Here are a few more short mantras for pregnancy and birth and beyond:

-I look forward to birthing with joy and ecstasy.
-Thank you body. Thank you baby. I love you baby.
-Happy I am, Healthy I am, Holy I am.
-I am grateful that my body already knows how to birth/breastfeed/nurture a child.
-Let go, and let God.

What are some of the mantras you use? What are some you plan to let go of? I’d love to hear your comments or experiences. If you listened to any hypnosis CDs or affirmations, what worked for you and what didn't? I am thinking of making my own hypnosis for childbirth CD with a spiritual angle, and would love any input.

Spread the Word

Like this button? Busca made it to help spread the word about this project. So if you are excited about this project and want to tell everyone about this blog or about the forthcoming book or documentary, go ahead and paste the code below to add this button to the sidebar of your blog or to your website. Here's the html code:

<a href="http://thegiftofgivinglife.blogspot.com/"target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnWulKQIFvqj5JhkVyk9RLzUNyUBxpfO4toy4OzC4BNDXg_wQ0axE5e41F12CRJakPKdPmJTTtoK8hcKbdVOMR3ix0Jlenqk4h_v5372_3gDby5htF_hLs1x0cgFlbixDOqe3mUqwOljc/s1600/Screenshot_3.png" /></a>

Thanks to everyone who has already contributed or helped in some way. There is so much more to come.