Welcome friends to blog number 14…Do let me know how you are getting on.
Today I would like to talk about our Life Stories. Healing our life stories can have a hugely positive impact on our birth. I know I would not be writing this book if it wasn’t for all the support I received during my pregnancy, for all the art I made and how I processed my story. It was my most prolific time creatively and I produced extraordinary paintings which explored many of my unresolved issues… as I later discovered! Difficult life experiences may certainly surface during this time which can manifest as emotional obstacles and yet there is no immediate support or outlet for these experiences.
I found making art was a spontaneous process and a great comfort to me, which definitely supported my amazing birth outcome. Finding creative outlets to express any thought or feeling, however big or small, can really help free the way. So if we take some time to engage with our pregnancy and listen to our thoughts, we can then work towards changing these thoughts from self-limiting to life-enhancing.
Art Making can be a fun way to explore one’s pregnancy while indirectly uncovering this inner world. It also offers us a constructive self soothing ‘time out’ where we can tune into our baby and our body and receive its wisdom.
Exercise – Your Life Story (Autobiography)
Write, draw, paint or sculpt your life story so far.
It may be easier to start by writing it down and then progress to image making.
- Begin with your birth story as it was told to you – or how you experienced it if you have that kind of insight.
Put pen to paper and let it run away with you and don’t stop and think or edit, just stream of consciousness or free flow writing. If emotions come to the surface – they usually do – just let them happen and express them knowing that ‘all of my feelings are safe and acceptable’. What you feel in any given moment is the right way to feel so just let it be. Relax and take a breath. Tears are only grief, a letting go of energy that has often been stored up for years.
- Then write your childhood story as it was told to you.
- Finally, write about your childhood as you remember it. Please don’t judge yourself about how you perceive your experience. I give you permission to say it how you think it was, in your opinion. Whether you think you ‘should not’ say something or question if it was ‘really true’ or not, it is ok. It is the way YOU experienced it and that is what matters now.
When you have finished and allowed yourself to digest its contents, see if you can find any themes that have emerged. Themes such as – I was always trying to help others because that was the only time my parents praised me and the only time I was considered a ‘good girl’. So thought patterns evolved such as ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘My energy is too much for people’, ‘and I am doing it wrong’, ‘I have to please others to be liked’ etc.
- Make an art image about any thought or feeling that emerged in any media. Paint can be very liberating though.
My book, The Art of Birth, goes into all the exercises in greater detail. Do write to me, if you desire, with your revelations after doing any of my exercise.
Have a lovely week and lets hope Spring is really on the way!
Warm wishes,
Alex xx
