Here we are at the birth of a new year. 2016. However you
rang in the new year, you are part of a human field of beings entering into a
new experience. So far, 2016 may seem the same as 2015. Who knows how it will
unfold? If you are like many others, you have made or are making some new years’
resolutions. I liked an email I received recently suggesting that we reconsider
our resolutions as goals. Rather than trying to do what we are making ourselves
do, or feel we should be doing, how about pausing, looking inside, and
listening to our hearts? What is your heart’s desire for this new year?
For me, I am holding the vision of completing editing and
publishing my book, The Breath of Life:
An Introduction to Craniosacral Biodynamics. I understand that, in
numerology, 2016 is a year of completion. The digits in 2016 add up to 9. 20 +
16 = 36. 3 + 6 = 9. Or 2 + 0 + 1 + 6 = 9. No matter how you do it, the number
is 9. In numerology, 9 relates to completion. The number following 9 is 10,
which adds up to 1. Therefore, 9 ends a cycle. I don’t claim to know much about
numerology, but I appreciate that these numbers somehow may be supporting me in
completing this project, perhaps even in having this desire to complete this
year!
While the number 2016 may be meaningful, what I see as
significant isn’t really about it being a new year; rather beginning a new year
represents for us the potential of any new beginning. From my experience with
prenatal and birth therapy over the years, both as client and therapist, I am
aware that our tendency in times of new beginnings is to revisit or re-enact
our first new beginning in this life. How we experienced our birth, or even our
conception, can profoundly affect how we embrace transitions, endings and
beginnings in our lives.
How do you start
your new year? How do you move into new projects or approach new goals? I
Through my own therapy, I have been able to develop
awareness of this pattern, which enables me to make choices to support a
different ending. I have also healed through learning how this pattern first
developed. My mother used to tell me that, when I was being born, she was fine
with the labor pain because she knew it meant the baby was coming. At some
point, however, the doctor said, “I’m just going to give you a whiff of
something.” She was completely knocked out by this drug, which of course
affected me as well. The point in my process where I tend to lose touch with
time relates to when the anesthesia came in to interrupt my birth process. Although
I still sometimes notice this tendency, it is much milder than it used to be. I
celebrate now when I am preparing for one of my too many trips away from home and
find myself easily, spaciously getting organized and packed. The acceleration near the end rarely happens
now. When it does, I have a different relationship to it. I acknowledge this is
my birth pattern arising and reassure the little one in me that we are not
being born right now and that there is no anesthesia coming in.
Prenatal and birth experience can affect us in different
ways. A child whose conception wasunplanned and unwanted may find it difficult
to find any authentic desire to start something new later in life, or may need
to push through their fear of being judged and rejected in order to accomplish
anything. Induced birth can also have the effect of interfering with one’s own
sense of timing. Birth assisted by forceps, ventouse or caesarian section,
while at times life saving, may also affect a sense of being able to complete
on one’s own. There may be a feeling of needing to be rescued. Babies who have
been stuck in the birth canal, may feel like giving up, getting depressed for
no apparent reason. The obstacles seem like too much struggle to surmount.
What happens for you when you make new beginnings? How do
you feel about this time of year? How do you set goals for yourself? How do you
move towards them? This is a good time of year to observe ourselves and our
tendencies in transitions. Awareness is the first step in healing, so just
asking yourself these questions may take you a long ways! Listening to your
heart can further help smooth the road ahead.
With all of this in mind, I wish you ease, creativity,
happiness and delight in this new year! I’d love to hear how it is for you.
Thank you Cherionna for your new beginnings blog. Sheila Spremulli here. Having a working (but in park) website, for the past several years, I am able to fully relate to entering the cyber world slowly. The slow pace, partly due to knowing, only dimly, what my next professional unfolding steps would be, is picking up as I completed APPPAH PPNE certification program in August and my training with the Haden Institute for Spiritual Direction will be finished in April this year. An unexpected turn, in being performed by my life/plan, was being trained as a Veriditas labyrinth facilitator. I am able to relate to your descriptions of the possible hallmarks of birth interventions. I deepened into living my birth pattern during my APPPAH's congress presentation in December of 2015. I was prepared for things speeding up as I got closer to presenting. In setting goals for new beginnings in 2016 I am again considering submitting a proposal to present at the BCST/NA conference in September, Rooted in Wholeness, Branching out in Possibility. In my APPPAH presentation I explored the 4 embryonic developmental crisis (defined by van der Wal) by delineating four copyrighted patterns (derived from the Chartres Labyrinth template) I discovered while preparing for the APPPAH conference. I also assigned a cardinal movements of birth to each of the petals on the rose at the center of the Chartres Labyrinth. In being performed, like a "Spirit Embryo" (Klocek), by this year's 'resolutions' or heart goals, I am feeling the pull of my birth pattern of waiting as my mother labored till the last minute while entertaining friends before they all four rushed in the car to the hospital where I was born 45 minutes later.
ReplyDeleteYes,wanting to slow down this rushed at the last minute birth pattern shows up, at times, for me. As I think about submitting my BCST/NA proposal, however, what I am working with, or rather what is working on me now, are the cardinal movements of birth patterns: descent, flexion, engagement, internal rotation, external rotation and birth. I am descending into the possibilities of what the work wants, how it might relate to the BCST process, practice, and practitioner. There is a certain flexion needed. For me, as a spiritual director in training, that means a kind of bowing of head (prayerfully) to discern the way forward. Writing a proposal means a deeper engagement into my own lived or and lack of experience of BSCT, my ideas of blending BSCT with labyrinth practice and whether that may hold meaning for conference goers. I have already, in considering whether to even submit a proposal, rotated 180ยบ and turned myself inside out (van der Wal's fourth embryonic crisis). Now as I get closer to actually writing a proposal, I have to align my head and my heart toward moving forward authentically ( i.e. internal and external rotation). I thank you again for this little bit of blog space to unfold my proposal intentions as each creative beginning is a birthing of life. Many blessings on you and your work. It's gratifying to know of others being performed as the birth their lives.
Sheila, Thank you for your candid comment! I'm sorry I have just seen it now, some months after the fact! What a journey each moment can be and so powerful to understand each step in terms of the birth journey. Bowing your head reminds me of a prenatal phase of folding (what Jaap van der Wal speaks of as bowing) in the fourth week, bringing heart to heart center as the nervous system grows. Welcome!
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