Transition
When a woman is in labor, about to deliver her baby, there’s a period between the contractions and the birth itself called “transition.”
It’s the hardest part of the whole thing. It’s the part where the woman most wants to bail out and call the whole thing off.
What women don’t often learn about labor, though, is that labor isn’t about the pain—it’s about the power.
It’s about the power of the female body to do what it was designed to do.
(I obviously realize that not every woman gives birth in this life. Just stick with me here without going into exceptions.)
And one of the most prominent, deeply ingrained things women learn from society is how impossibly difficult and painful childbirth is. So difficult and painful, in fact, that women are basically told they pretty much aren’t up what’s presented as inevitable, godawful pain.
First time out
Before my first birth I went to all the childbirth classes and read beaucoups of books. I was prepared. I was excited. I wrote my birth plan and passed out copies to my midwife, my doctor, and to the hospital. I was planning a “natural” childbirth.
What I was entirely unprepared for once labor began—because nothing I read and not one of the many childbirth classes had informed me—was the incredible power of the contractions.
I had NO idea.
I was entirely unprepared for the power of my body to do what it was trying to do.
So I interpreted this overwhelming power taking place inside me as best I could at the time—I interpreted it as pain.
And when we interpret something as pain, we resist the pain… which makes total sense, of course.
But the problem with resisting pain is that this resistance makes us tense our body, which makes the pain all that much stronger.
Second time around
In the eight years between giving birth to my first child and my second, I learned something that changed me to the core of my being.
See, it just never sat right with me that the sensation of the contractions that ushered in my first child’s birth was such a surprise—I was unprepared both mentally and physically for the power of them.
I’d never learned that being in transition was me standing just outside the door to the other side. The side I was trying to get to.
But why didn’t I know this before?
I’d gone to the classes, I’d read every darned thing I knew to read at the time. I’d talked to other moms.
I was a natural type, a hippie kind of girl, a vegetarian at the time. I was committed to a “natural” birth.
I never heard about the power of those contractions, though. I knew about the timing of them (“five minutes apart means go to the hospital!”), and supposedly I knew about their purpose.
But I guess I didn’t at all know the purpose of contractions.
I never heard the simple truth—that those contractions existed to expel the human being from my body, which required immense power. The entire point of contractions is their power to do the job.
So with my second childbirth I did my level best to flow with the contractions instead of steel myself against them. I’m not here to tell you that this was at all easy. It was, however, a helluva lot easier than pushing against them.
“Transition” was still “transition” that second time around. It was nowhere close to being comfortable or pleasant. But once I understood the power of my body, I was able to flow with the power, more or less, rather than fight against it.
And once I knew to trust what was happening and to trust the power of my body, my entire life changed.
Once I learned to flow instead of resist, my entire life changed.
We’re in transition
I believe that just like with childbirth, the whole point of life right now isn’t just that it’s hard and painful.
The point is that it’s powerful. And we’re powerful.
I’m talking about authentic power, not power by force or might.
The kind of power that is nature itself. Innate. Of the divine.
The kind of power that made it possible for my body to expel two entire human beings.
This is a big deal.
When I realized the freedom in riding that power instead of pushing against the force of it—what felt like pain and only pain the first time around, I was a tiny bit closer to letting go of the part of me that thinks it needs to be in control.
Where we’re headed… maybe
We’re crossing a bridge from the old way of needing control, which causes us to push against everything ever, to the new way of being, which means allowing for the power of just being.
But it feels like the bridge we’re crossing is immense.
There’s pain, there’s confusion, we’re disoriented, and we’re having quite the labor experience.
We’re learning to unlearn some things, such as the conditioning that’s told us all along that we can’t handle difficult things and should therefore trust someone to tell us what to do—and that we should just find something to take away our pain, or even the entire lot of what’s difficult. And that someone else, outside of ourself, has to provide that relief for us.
We’re becoming aware of our own power. I’m talking about the power within our mind, as well as the power in our incredibly resilient, capable body and psyche.
What we’re going through in the entirety of humanity right now is very much like a woman going through labor.
We’re in transition.
And ironically, not pushing against the pain makes for less pain.
Maybe we weren’t up to it in centuries past, I don’t know?
But I believe we’re ready now.
