Picture Your Cervix as a Turtleneck Sweater

When I did my pregnancy yoga teacher's training, one of the teachers told us, "sometimes, you only get one shot at them." Meaning, sometimes they only come to your class once and you never see them again. But you never know what you are going to say or do that might effect their birth. It was a lesson to listen to those intuitive hits we get.

Well here's my best one shot wonder story yet. I teach pregnancy yoga once a week at the YMCA. The boot camp teacher, who was pregnant, who has never been able to make it to my class, came up to me one day in mild alarm. Her first birth was a C-section and she really wanted a VBAC.

"I'm getting nervous about the birth," she said. "Can you hypnotize me right now to feel no pain?"

"Well, I teach class in 5 minutes...."

"Come on. Can't you just zap me."

"You'll be fine." (Reassuring tones) "Just picture your cervix as a turtleneck sweater. It looks like it will never fit over your child's head, but it does. It stretches easily and effortlessly."

"Ha. A turtleneck sweater. Hey that's a good one..."

A few months later, she shows up back at work with a little baby and tells me that the turtleneck sweater metaphor is what got her through pushing. I had totally forgotten by then.

She said, her husband, an anesthesiology resident, would like to thank me.

You are very welcome.

Try by Not Trying

In hypnotherapy I see all kind of people, but they fall into two main categories, one category will melt into my couch at any such suggestion. The other kind will feel more tense if I tell them to relax because it implies that they have to do something--to try. So for these roughly 50% of people, I use a different approach. It is amazing how much better results I get when I tell them they don't have to try, but just allow. Gravity is one force that we are all subject to and it will help us, if we allow it. If we don't allow and resist gravity for too long, it will eventually force us down to earth--but that is a whole other topic.

I have several pregnancy clients right now and one of them told me that when she took her Hypnobirthing class she felt frustrated because she didn't feel she got as deeply hypnotized as some of the other couples in the class. "And I was trying so hard," she said.

When I realized that she was a trier, is when I gave her permission not to try--in fact, not to feel any pressure to listen to anything I was saying because her unconscious mind was hearing it all and she could just drift and float away. If was after this, in our last session that she got very very deep. I'd say she got to somnambulistic state. Not that depth matters so much for hypnotherapy--some people don't feel they are deep, but they are very receptive and the therapy works and that is what matters. But for medical hypnosis, depth does matter somewhat because the deeper you go, the more hypno-anesthesia is in the body.

I'd say that the same try by not trying concept applies to birthing, even if you don't use a hypnosis for childbirth method, labor is a naturally hypnotic state. If you feel that you are fight-flight mode, or are trying to figure out what to do--or how to do it "right", this is when you need to think about giving yourself the suggestion: "Try by Not Trying." This will allow you to escape into the hypnotic or trance state some people call Laborland.

The truth is that the body-mind knows what to do. It has a check list of things that is already doing and has done since day one without your having to tell it. The conscious mind just needs to get out of the way. This is not a loss of control. In fact, when you are overloaded and in fight-flight, you have a limited number of options and responses, but from a calm place, you are able to be more flexible, make better decisions and be more open to spiritual promptings.

The Curse of Eve

When I was pregnant I took a Hebrew Class. I had been wanting to learn another language, but never thought of Hebrew because of the different alphabet. But when I heard that a man in our stake would be teaching it through the Institute, I felt inspired to go.

I was actually the best in the class. I have a gift for languages. I know this. But I was surprised that even with my forgetful pregnant brain it came so easily for me. I haven't gone beyond beginning Hebrew since then because well, I had a baby and haven't had time to take any classes. But it was good for me. I can read it and recognize it being spoken, although my understanding and conversation skills are limited to phrases like: "Are you a teacher?" "No, I am a student" and "The world is my laboratory." This gets me in good with lots of Jews in L.A. That and "can I use your bathtub?" and "what a beautiful violin."

My goal someday is to read the Bible in its original Hebrew. But I'm getting way off course here. I was talking about Eve.

Lots of Christians believe that childbirth is supposed to be painful. That it has been since the dawn of time and that it is because of the curse of Eve. Didn't God curse her for eating the fruit by saying he would increase her suffering in childbirth?

Well, actually no. God didn't say that. Those are the words translators chose when translating the Bible later, at a time when the conditions surrounding childbirth were particularly awful. The Hebrew word etzev is translated to mean "labor, toil and work." It is used 16 times in the King James version of the Bible, but when it referred to childbirth, some translators interpreted it to mean "pain, sorrow, anguish or pangs."

And if you read Genesis in the original Hebrew, God never curses Eve exclusively. He used the same wording when speaking to Adam as to Eve.

Yes they would work hard in the real world outside the garden. They would have to labor and sweat and toil. And all of those words apply to childbirth--thus, the term labor is appropriate. But no mention is made of pain in any of the original Hebrew writings of the prophets. The Curse of Eve idea originated some time after 200 A.D. when contempt for women and women healers like midwives led to some pretty bad conditions for women. That is quite a long story which I won't cover here. But Marie Mongan does a good job with the history of Childbirth in her book Hypnobirthing, if you want to check it out.

I find this a fascinating example of how one word, translated incorrectly can effect the state of women so much and become embedded in modern Christian thinking.

That's why I love being part of a religion that encourages us to find things out for ourselves. Personal revelation. It's where it's at. I think this is the biggest misconception of Mormons and adherents to any religion--is that we are automatons, blindly following. But clearly, some people are--because that misconception didn't come from nowhere. Let this be a call to all you who consider yourselves thinking women. If you haven't questioned and at least examined your options for birthing besides the one where the doctor tells you what to do, now is the time.

I hear to many regrets about first births from people who just didn't know there were other options. Think of this birth as your only birth. And consult with the Lord. He cares how and where you will bring his spirit into this world.