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The Energetic Space Between Us

The Energetic Space Between Us

The energetic space between us relates to the Field of energy that permeates all space. Our emotions have energy tones and frequencies that set the tone in our spaces. Attuning to our energy field is a means of being conscious and connected to our emotional needs as humans. This attunement, or lack thereof, is the science of birth psychology. As we become more aware of our emotions and needs, we can become a better society. This talk is about compassionate birth practices for a more peaceful world. Our birth stories and time in-utero set the stage for our mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being for the rest of our life. Please See Transcript Below

hello dear listeners of APPA my name is
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Christianna Deichmann I am the director of
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education at APPPAH the association for
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prenatal and perinatal psychology and
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health I wear a lot of hats during my
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day and these different roles at times
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I’m a psychosomatic therapist a cranial
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sacral therapist (craniosacral therapist) a massage therapist I
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am a mother a daughter a wife a friend a
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colleague
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and despite all these different hats
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that I wear they all have one thing in
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common
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each of these roles I carry a relational
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space with other human beings and that’s
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what I’m here to talk about today the
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energetic relational space
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between you and I
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Lynn McTaggart describes it in her book
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The Field
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it’s an invisible
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energy force yet it’s all around us
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it’s even if you watch Star Wars and you
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hear of the force the force be with you
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perhaps you can tune into it just now
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just feel your body
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and notice what you feel like
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early on in my life I was always keenly
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aware of this energetic space that I
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held Within Myself
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and what energy was in my space from
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others
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it was a gift and a curse and in the
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earlier years of my life I unconsciously
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spent a lot of time staying busy not
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slowing down enough to tune into this
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energetics energy field and if I did
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slow down I didn’t enjoy feeling the
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pollution that had been stockpiled in my
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space
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but I didn’t realize that the pollution
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I was carrying wasn’t just mine it was
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pollution that had gathered over the
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ages from family members that came
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before me from interactions that my
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family members had with others in their
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energetic relational space
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I was finally forced to confront this
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pollution in my space after the birth of
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my first child Audrey
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and that’s why I’m here today to share a
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compelling personal story of suffering
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compassion and hopefully you will find
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Hope
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like I have
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but first I want to segue just for a
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moment and I want to have you reflect on
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two different images and just notice
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what happens into your body or what
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happens in your body when you notice the
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images the first image is sourced from
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Dr masuru emoto’s water crystal
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experiments Dr Emoto was a Japanese
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researcher who claimed human
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consciousness has an effect on the
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molecular structure of water and one of
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the experiments he did was to place
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different written words on water to note
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the effect it had on the molecular
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structure
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so
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first look at this picture and just
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notice what you feel
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the words he put on this water bottle
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was you are beautiful
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and he famously said words are the
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vibration of nature therefore beautiful
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words create beautiful nature and ugly
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words create ugly nature this is the
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root of the universe
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so now for the second image I’m going to
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put you put up here is the image the
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words here
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or you disgust me
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you disgust me
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and I’d like for you to just hold that
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image
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and notice
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how it makes you feel
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or if there are any differences from the
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first images
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and I just want you to carry these
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images in your hearts and Minds for the
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time being well we take into
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consideration the reality of the world
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we are in just now
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today the world is changing so fast
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every second it’s impossible to keep up
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there is an old way of thinking and a
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new way of thinking the buzzword
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everyone hears now is consciousness
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being aware but how does this apply to
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today’s talk about bird psychology and
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the old way of thinking we treat the
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birthing parent the mother while
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regarding a baby as a developing being
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with an immature nervous system a being
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that cannot feel think for itself or
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truly understand the happenings going on
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around it
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an interesting Paradise Paradox envelops
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of Hades though we have this societal
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misconception that babies can’t feel or
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sense yet most of us have witnessed
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moments when babies radiate a sense of
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innocence and Purity from their beings
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so much that it’s contagious when you
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gaze into their eyes you share a moment
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of connection
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what is this phenomenon
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it’s the energetic relational space that
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babies carry it’s their blueprint
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this is what I want to highlight today
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for me the relational energetic space is
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at the heart of first psychology and
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bringing awareness to this relational
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space are what Lynn McTaggart so
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famously coined as the field is the very
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essence of conscious thinking
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every human being in the world is
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impacted by birth psychology every
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energetic imprint we are exposed to In
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Utero is stored in our bodies and it
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shapes how our bodies and psyches come
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into form so every action every thought
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every field tone in a baby’s space
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matters
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did you know the human eye can only
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detect point one percent of the
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electromagnetic energy around us
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I like comparing this to a cell phone
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we’re all familiar with cell phones have
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you ever thought about how Wi-Fi
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actually works when you pick up the
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phone call a friend it’s instantaneous
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and yet the vibration of our voice we
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can’t see your voice
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but we understand somehow it’s
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transmuted into Data that crosses an
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energetic field
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of space and time and it transfers over
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to the other person’s phone across the
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country or the world and instantaneously
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we can be in connection with that person
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despite distance
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are the physical reality that we cannot
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see
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so I want you to recall those water
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images that I showed you just a few
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moments ago
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and I want you to think about what this
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means for a baby growing inside of a
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medium of water because the fetus is 90
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water
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what shapes are we imprinting upon the
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molecular structure of this developing
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being by the words and emotions we are
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carrying in our energetic space
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and let me with that question let’s just
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take a pause and consider some really
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startling statistics that are here in
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the United States where I happen to
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reside but a lot of these statistics
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coincide with other areas of the world
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as well
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in the U.S according to the CDC one in
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54 children had a diagnose diagnosis of
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autism
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by the age of eight in 2016.
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and a 10 increase over ADHD cases were
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also recorded
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since then we’ve seen steep increases
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increases of both autism and ADHD not
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only in the U.S but globally
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and interestingly enough the average
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American that takes prescription
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medication takes four medications a day
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45.8 percent of the U.S population in
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the year 2016
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was recorded as taking a prescription
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drug that’s almost half of the U.S
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population that uses prescriptions
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today in 2021 60 66 of U.S adults take
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prescription drugs and out of those
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numbers 18 of children aged 0 to 11 use
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prescription drugs 20 27 of adolescents
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aged 12 to 19 use prescription drugs
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most of these drugs fall in the bracket
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is either stimulants or deep presence of
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the autonomic nervous system
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and alongside of this news of where we
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are with medication in today’s world
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Kamala Harris kicked off the first ever
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maternal Health call to action Summit in
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January 2021 they released data that one
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in five women will suffer from a
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maternal mental health disorder like
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postpartum depression
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and maternal depression is the most
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common complication of birth yet in the
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U.S most women are never even diagnosed
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and those that are less than 15 of them
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will even receive treatment for it
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according to the mom Congress statistics
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one in seven women will experience
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depression during pregnancy
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37 of anxiety and depression has risen
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in our teenage girls who are one day
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going to have to who one day may suffer
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from postpartum depression
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the United States has the highest
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maternal mortality rate of any High
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resource country black women are three
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times more likely to die in childbirth
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than white women in America
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considering these statistics what type
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of energetic relational spaces are
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babies entering into in this planet
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I wonder
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I know what it was for me and for my
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children
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but there’s hope
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and I know there’s hope because my own
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personal story birth psychology saved my
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life it moved me to shift my state of
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being in my autonomic nervous system
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this energetic space I carry into
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relational Fields with others
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I changed my career path in my late 30s
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after having two children of my own and
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After experiencing firsthand what is
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happening to women babies and families
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in the world
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my energetic relational space I carried
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around from as early as I can remember
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I was high functioning overachiever yet
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I was falling apart on the inside
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my family was broken and had been broken
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Generations before
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and when I got pregnant I had no idea
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what was in store for me I took a
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prenatal education class
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okay and I read a book What To Expect
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While expecting
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nothing prepared me for what I was to
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encounter
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and I ended up having a c-section
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because my daughter was breech
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and so many afflictions ailed her for
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the first seven years of her life from
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colic anger explosive temper tantrums
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that would have
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an hour and a half duration chronic ear
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infections gut issues eczema behavioral
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issues night terrors bathroom challenges
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inexplicable fears the list kind of goes
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on and on and it was very stressful
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yet she’s This brilliant little girl
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who’s full of life love and smiles and
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I’ll put a picture of her now
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when she wrapped her fingers around mine
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for the first time her hot little breath
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brushed against my skin
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and I was Swept Away by unconditional
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love
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and an energy took over me like I had
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never felt before
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I would do anything for this little girl
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of course all these hardships we endured
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in our first couple years of life sent
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me over the edge
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I had a mental physical emotional
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spiritual breakdown by the time she was
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four I woke up with four slip discs in
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my cervical spine and I could not
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function
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I was headed for another downward spiral
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I wasn’t getting answers from the
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classical ways of modern medicine I was
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given heavy narcotics and the option of
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back surgery but no answers as to what
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was causing my suffering
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this is when I discovered the field of
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Earth psychology
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and knowing what I know now I wish we
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had this curriculum that we have at
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Apple in every medical school every OB
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GYN track every school health class Even
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in our public school system because
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bringing awareness to the energetic
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relational space we carry through the
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states of our being and our autonomic
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nervous system
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what we call polyvagal Theory this is
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what we can put to work in our life with
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simple tactics such as timing taking
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time outs mindfulness breathing
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teaching this to our elementary children
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such a young age
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all of it about regulation of how we
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handle stimulation in our bodies
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and skipping forward to today
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after I went through such a healing
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Journey with cranial sacral therapy
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Supreme perinatal psychology studies a
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host of somatic-based therapy trainings
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I’m completely rewired you can say I’m
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born again in my autonomic nervous
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system thanks to the knowledge for
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psychology and somatic therapy practices
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now I’m on a mission to save the planet
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and more to the point change how we view
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birth and babies because I discovered on
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my path of learning first psychology
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is how to master the energetic
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relational space between human beings
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and so far we’ve been driven by
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disconnection
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rather than emotional connection
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for me birth psychology is about the
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human biological imperative that we are
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meant to be in connection with together
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in connection with one another
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and you might be wondering but I’m in
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connection with people all the time
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and this is where I paint you a picture
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of a story of my daughter’s birth
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through the lens of information I glean
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from birth psychology
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and I’m gonna ask you are you really
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connected can you be more connected more
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aware
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can you change patterns that are
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entrenched in your nervous system
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when I got pregnant
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I had so much hardship in the beginning
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I didn’t think I could handle having a
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child due to my financial
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situation at the time my job I was
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barely meeting my own emotional and
15:43
psychological needs I was scared and
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alone
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and I didn’t realize that I had this
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little being growing inside of me
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marinating and the energy of my space
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heart math was lost to me I had no idea
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that my baby attuned to my circadian
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rhythms and the my heartbeat
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so that’s the case now I know why she
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was so frenetic when she was a little
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baby
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but just to pause and consider what it
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felt like her for the day of her
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C-section
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I had inexplic explicable rushes of fear
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and panic throughout that morning and
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especially when I was on that operating
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table ready to receive my epidural
16:28
I never communicated with her in fact I
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had been communicating with everyone
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around me my family my best friend who
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was there I wasn’t speaking to her it
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was as if she must have been in a corner
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by yourself people were talking about
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her and around her but not to her
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and there is no gentleness about a
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C-section
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when I was on that table in this
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fog of ambiguity fear
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I was being rocked from side to side and
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I realized now gosh what did she go
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through
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when their doctor put his hands inside
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and ripped her out of my stomach
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out of my womb
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and then she was quickly you know sent
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over to the nurses
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pricked and prodded washed she screams
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so loud I still see her face that
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wrinkled face of her utter her screams
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after all of this I felt like a huge
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failure
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I was exhausted distraught I was a mess
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by the time my daughter was four years
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of age
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all the while
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now I know
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that this energetic physiology in my
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body is what Candice the internationally
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recognized neuroscience and
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pharmacologists so famously coined as
17:59
the molecules of emotion
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if I just consider for my little baby’s
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perspective how she was handled what she
18:06
felt I came to realize she was born into
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an energetic war zone here in the United
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States of America
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all because of stress
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and the level of stress that I carried
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in my family carried
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and just how we carry ourselves in our
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normal day in day out work environment
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on the surface she was getting all of
18:37
her physical needs met yet so much more
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could have been given to her
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and this is where I remind myself of
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this image I showed you earlier
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you disgust me
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that’s what I think of now because if I
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was consciously treated the way she was
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treated at her birth and even in the
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womb I would definitely hold the message
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in my heart space that I must be
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something worth hurting
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I must be something worth targeting for
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suffering
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because
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we’re not conscious of our birth rituals
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and what we put our babies through
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so now I’m just gonna invite you to take
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a pause take a moment to breathe
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breathe into your being
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fill yourself with just some self-care
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and I want you to think about what I
19:40
just described
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are you getting a sense that my daughter
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and I were truly connected
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just consider for a moment that my
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relational space and hers they were next
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to each other but we were miles apart
19:56
from the inside
19:58
she was alone and I was alone
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and I had been throwing all of my
20:04
emotions
20:05
into the relational space between us
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I was polluting the space
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there was no Bridge
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and for me this is where birth
20:17
psychology
20:20
builds hope for the world
20:22
it is a bridge it was the bridge that I
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was able to build from my heart to my
20:27
daughter’s heart and along the Journey
20:29
of deepening my awareness I became
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enthralled with the energetic aspect of
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human beings
20:35
we are pockets of energy
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Bruce lipton’s biology of belief Candace
20:42
purse molecules of emotion Francis
20:44
Mott’s Universal Design of creation
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Thomas verny’s book The Secret Life Of
20:49
The Unborn Child Bliss goes on and on I
20:52
stand on the shoulders of giants people
20:55
who went before me and pioneered all
21:00
all this awareness so that I could come
21:02
become more conscious birth psychology
21:04
helped me understand my emotions and
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where they are coming from and what are
21:09
emotions they’re Natural Born energetic
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rights that are entitled to every human
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being
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they are about connection purpose
21:18
meaning Joy Freedom they’re bubbles of
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life-giving energy and they are the
21:23
essence of our soul
21:26
and so when I consider the events as of
21:28
late that are happening these acts of
21:30
inexplicable violence you see in the
21:32
news polarizing politics systemic
21:35
disease anxiety depression I no longer
21:39
look at a person and think why are they
21:41
this way
21:42
rather I wonder what happened to them
21:47
what energetics are in their relational
21:51
Fields what kind of pollution was put
21:56
there and what kind of bridge can we
21:59
build to connect to their heart
22:02
to their emotions
22:05
to their soul
22:08
so I’m inviting everyone today who’s
22:10
listening
22:12
that we can change this world together
22:14
and I’m reaching out holding my hand out
22:17
to you building a bridge through birth
22:19
psychology sending an invitation
22:22
I want to know more about you and your
22:25
story
22:26
I want to be with you in your passion
22:29
that is the essence of compassion is
22:33
being with
22:36
thank you
22:37
2023 is apa’s 40th anniversary and my
22:41
wish is that the world comes to know
22:43
what compassionate birth practices are
22:45
and how they impact every single being
22:47
on this planet I hope you are moved to
22:49
take action look at our website
22:52
burstpsychology.com explore signature PP
22:55
e program we have so much free content
22:59
available to those who are Seekers I
23:01
promise Apple will open doors for you
23:04
and build countless Bridges to the
23:06
hearts of all those who encounter your
23:10
energetic relational space
23:13

Babies Experience Betrayal at Birth In Our Culture

Babies Experience Betrayal at Birth In Our Culture

Science now shares a profound truth that babies are sentient, conscious beings who have the potential to shake down the very foundations of societal ills engrained in our economic, political, and spiritual structures. This truth remains largely unknown to humanity, and yet it carries the greatest potential for all mankind. In order to cultivate this truth and allow our children to mature into adults who can create stability, growth and connection within our communities, we must first eradicate birth trauma by dispelling the current technocratic birthing practices. Bringing awareness to the population at large of the true nature of children and how they function is key to making this goal a reality. The premise of birth trauma lies in betrayal, and to truly comprehend it, we must first come into relationship with our own experience of betrayal. So, with this essay, and for future audiences, I intend to explain my own embodied experiences when I have encountered treachery from those I trusted most. I will connect these similar embodied experiences to my son’s sense of betrayal he experienced during his gestation period, birth, and breastfeeding experience; all experiences tainted for him by my ignorance of his conscious, sentient nature. Knowledge of what is causing betrayal in our most vulnerable population is the first step to shifting the world.

Ray Castellino documents the essential steps for setting up a birth passage free of trauma and betrayal in his article, “Being with Newborns.” If any rupture in this sequence occurs, then an infant experiences betrayal. This type of overwhelm has definitive and resolute outcomes in the hardwiring of a child’s nervous system that impacts their behavior, neurodevelopment, emotional states, and belief systems. In sum, every child needs two parents who are loving and nurturing of each other, are well prepared physically, emotionally and spiritually for the welcoming of new life, and are capable of developing a felt sense and awareness of the new soul’s presence (Castellino 1996). With this magical elixir of mutual support, consciousness, connection, and joyous welcome, a child will flourish and grow in health and love. The horrifying reality, though, is that 98% of children born into this world experience some form of trauma (Castellino 1996). This tragedy is evident in the national and global crisis facing our children’s health and overall state of being. As Wendy Anne McCarty states in her 2008 article “Investing in Human Potential in the Beginning of Life: Key to Maximizing Human Potential”:

[A] much more silent crisis is brewing all across America relating to our infants and children. We see an alarming rise in prematurity, low-birth weights, surgical births, autism, ADHD, childhood aggression and depression, asthma, overweight and obese children, attachment disorders, learning disabilities, and use of psychiatric drugs to manage children’s conditions, as well as a rise in the number children in foster care, adolescent homicide, child abuse and teen pregnancy (Glenn, M. & McCarty, WA., 118).

From reading Castellino’s article, I recounted the stages of both my pregnancies, only to realize that most of the crucial steps he outlines were missed. My children were deeply betrayed, and I see the same outcomes in my children as I see in myself, patterns of behavior afflicted with anxiety, anger, depression and physical suffering that ultimately stem from betrayal I incurred during my entry and upbringing in the world. When I turned inward and began to come into relationship with this knowledge, a sense of horror swelled from the center of my stomach and tightened like a frozen ball of ice. In moments of true despair, grief, abandonment, and betrayal, when emotions overwhelm me, existential questions always arise. Why must we have pain and suffering? Why has God forsaken me? Why must the world be this way? Why is coming into existence so excruciatingly painful? Who made the world this way? Why do we turn a blind eye to the atrocities facing mankind and our Planet? How can we stop apathy and despair?

I decided to jog my memory for times when I was most overwhelmed, and I looked to what caused these episodes initially. In my twenties, I will never forget the grief and betrayal I experienced when the father of my firstborn left me. I remember the last encounter we had when he broke the news that he was leaving. I didn’t feel much in that moment, it was the moments after ground zero that were devastating. Metaphorically, I can compare it to a meteor striking the Atlantic Ocean—an immediate contraction of the liquid body absorbing the impact occurs, releasing forces of equal and opposite direction to encapsulate and counter-oppose the impact. Once a point of neutrality arises, the energy disperses outward sending shock waves of equal momentum throughout the field of time and space around the site of impact. The first few moments after my partner declared his new life, confusion whirled in my head, thoughts bounced round and round, leaving my body cold and numb, as if all the energy in my body went into absorbing the news. I turned to go in my house. My legs were moving, but they felt far away, like my head was disconnected and miles apart. It felt like nobody was home, my body was vacant. I crawled onto my bed and curled up into a ball. My stomach churned and I squelched the urge to vomit. I laid there listless, complete apathy settled in my bones.

The impact of the separation lasted for weeks. Moments would come over me and I would sob so hard, my body would violently shake. A wave of heat would swell from my pelvis, up my spine, and spread from my neck to my face and ears. The tears of sadness made me feel so forlorn, so alone, and forgotten. I doubted my self-worth, my existence. Who could I possibly be? After the initial shock wore off, I remember the obsessive thoughts that took over my life. Thoughts of him consumed me and I would imagine over and over how I could contact him, what I would say. I would beg and plead inside my head with make believe conversations I would have with him. These little fantasies were reruns on auto pilot, endlessly churning. My appetite disappeared and in its place my stomach twisted in knots. I suffered from reflux and “fire” tongue. I felt anxious like I couldn’t sit in my own skin. I had to move and keep busy. I could go all day and night without food, just water, and even that was not appealing. After a couple of weeks of this hypervigilant anxiety, I then started to slow down. I had very little energy. I would lie on my couch on the weekends watching movies all day. I no longer wanted to move. I didn’t even want to think. I just felt like a blob that would fade into the shadows. I had no purpose, no drive, no passion. My body felt heavy and dull. I was forsaken. I had been betrayed.

Science is now revealing to us that these embodied emotions originate from intricate chemical and electric reactions taking place in the neuroendocrine pathways. In other words, trauma has specific repercussions that manifest in our behaviors. Ray Castellino documents shock affect characteristics in the physiology, behavior and energetic fluid fields of neonates (Castellino, pg 7-8). I like to explain development as a continuum, everything from the starting foundation affects the hierarchal levels. The embryo begins in a fluid field with the building blocks of blood, neurons, and energy. When overwhelm or trauma enters this fluid field, it creates roadblocks, or little pockets of energy that get absorbed into the tissue field. These energy pockets get cut off from the system and begin to act like black holes sucking in solids and energy, building their own inertial systems. This form of disconnection causes neuronal pathways to be less connected. The whole point of development is to grow a brain that is connected from the bottom up and from the top down.

The human brain is the only organ that is not fully developed at birth. It begins developing at day 40 after conception. The neocortex is the seed for the genesis of neurons, which will explode throughout gestation and for the next ten years of life. The primary factor governing this growth in the fetal brain is feedback from the mother by means of nutrition and stimulation at the physical, emotional, energetic and spiritual levels. Only the brain’s basic structures are present at birth (Melillo 2015). Paul MacLean coined the term, the Triune Brain, to explain the three functional hemispheres of the human brain: the primitive (reptilian), limbic (mammalian), and new cortex (neomammalian). The base of the brain encases the brainstem, or reptilian brain, which controls all of our most basic functions and is the seat of our subconscious mind. The middle brain, or limbic system governs our emotions and is the reactive part of us that initiates “fight or flight”. The cerebral cortex controls all of our higher-order conscious activity, and is what makes us regulated, conscious, and compassionate humans (MacLean 2009).

The brain builds from stimulation. Positive stimulation in a safe, supported, and loving environment allows for growth; whereas, unsafe, disconnected, non-supportive environments result in a body that is in survival mode, or “fight or flight,” battering away at overwhelm and trauma. Ray Castellino’s checklist for being with newborns in a co-creative field was largely missed with both of my pregnancies, and the evidence remains in both of my children. I would not have been able to comprehend Castellino’s shock affect characteristics if I had not witnessed for myself Dr. Melillo’s Brain Balance program. I conducted the evaluation with my daughter shortly after having my second child in a traumatic hospital setting. I saw from him patterns that I saw in my first child. I intuitively knew something was going on that was beyond my awareness. I had to find out what was causing his stress and erratic behaviors. He couldn’t breastfeed and he slept for hours and hours. So I decided to test my daughter. The assessment tests from the Brain Balance program revealed that she had deficiencies in all seven areas of brain growth:

  • Motor: muscle tone, coordination, and strength
  • Sensory: correlating to the five senses of touch, smell, taste, vision, and hearing
  • Emotional: ability to control and display emotions at appropriate times
  • Behavior: acting appropriately and social interactions
  • Academic: abilities required for learning and retention
  • Immune: tendencies toward allergies and chronic illnesses
  • Autonomic: self-regulation of body functions

After taking these tests, Castellino’s remarks on trauma ring true for me, “Stressful and traumatic events during prenatal life and birth imprint both the baby’s body and the baby’s psyche. Traumatic imprints overlay the true self and profoundly impact the emerging person and how they will be later on in life. Body structure, movement patterns, sense of self and lifelong strategies manifest from these early traumatic imprints” (Castellino 1996).

When I think of my son when he was conceived, I felt his presence and I welcomed him with an open, loving heart. I wanted him more than anything, and I had held a place for him for almost two years prior to his conception. When I told my husband that I was expecting, he panicked and lashed out in fear. He did not want the burden of a child on his shoulders again, the lifelong commitment, the financial consequences, the physical and emotional toil that children always bring. He quickly became furious, and I withdrew into myself—building a wall to ward off the world of betrayal that existed for me, and always had from the earliest days in my own childhood experience. I lashed out in anger directed at my husband. We fought for the first five weeks of my son’s development in utero. Our marriage almost ended. In the deepest moments of despair, my stomach would be coiled in knots, my appetite gone, confusion at the helm—sobs would rock my body as I lay wide awake at night with my husband in a different room. When I recall those moments and take into consideration another sentient being was experiencing every moment right there along with me, my heart breaks. I did not know to even talk to my son and assure him that this was not his fault. I wish I would have been aware of him and all his capabilities.

With these regrets, I will refrain in this paper from sharing his entire birth story and the countless ways he was repeatedly betrayed by the doctor, by the hospital system, by our culture, by his caretakers. The layers of betrayal run deep in a very condensed period of time. He was ripped from me during a cesarean operation. The doctor was losing him, because he was stuck in a transverse position and the contractions of my uterus were clamping down on his head that was wedged in my bicornuate shaped womb. He was resuscitated immediately after removal and raced off to the NICU. When he and I were united a day later, he could not breastfeed, and he screamed out in pain all through the night. He and I were both so frustrated. Now, when I consider just one moment of deep betrayal I experienced in my life and I compare it to my son, I wonder what in the world he was experiencing in his first few months after arriving into this world. It took weeks and months for me to recover from a broken heart, how my son survived makes me marvel at the resiliency of human nature. He fought through a tongue-tie surgery where I left him alone with a doctor and nurse to burn his skin attachment off with a laser. He underwent surgery at 9 months to reconstruct his penis from the hypospadias defect with which he was born. In hindsight, remembering his behaviors and his crying patterns, I am certain that babies experience betrayal in the same way all other humans experience it. Babies are not a different species.

What I look to now is the knowledge that these ruptures can be repaired, and most importantly that brains can be rewired. Resiliency can prevail through the phenomenon of neuroplasticity. Nerves form synapses/connections through repeated stimulation. The phrase “use it or lose it” rings true in this incidence. If you know how to stimulate the areas of the brain that are underdeveloped, then they can grow again in a secure and supported environment (Melillo 2015). To use my metaphor mentioned earlier of black holes, these underdeveloped areas in the brain are places where inertial fulcrums are present, organizing and isolating pockets of trauma in an energetic sense. Axons and dendrites of neurons are missing in these areas of “black matter”. Somatotropic therapy coupled with proper sensory stimulation is just one path for how neuroplasticity and integration can occur. Direct manipulation through fascia work, massage therapy, and osteopathic practices can help eliminate this stagnation of energy. The field of pre and perinatal psychology integrates a diverse set of therapies from polarity, EMDR, breathwork, birth regression, psychoanalysis, somatic trauma resolution, interpersonal biology, bodywork, and attachment therapy (White & Rhodes, 2013). Science also now shows us that epigenetics can be changed through diet, movement and stimulation.

In conclusion, I must share a fascinating story about Albert Einstein’s autopsy on his brain after his death. He donated his body for study in the name of science. Dr. Melillo outlined this story in his book Disconnected Kids. Einstein is considered one of the greatest minds of all time, but as a child he was far from brilliant. In fact, scientists now agree that Einstein had a significant learning disorder that today would be diagnosed as ADHD and/or dyslexia. He did not speak until he was around age seven and did poorly academically all the way through college. When he failed to get into graduate school at the age of twenty, he became a clerk in the Swiss Patent Office. He never gave up his cerebral pursuits, though. Just six years later he published the first draft of his scientific Theory of Relativity, which won him the Nobel Prize ten years later.

So, what turned the mind of a child who couldn’t pass the grade into a veritable Einstein? The answer is neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change and grow through stimulation, a term that was created by Dr. Marion Diamond. When Einstein’s brain was examined in 1955 by Dr. Marion Diamond, it was roughly the same size as most brains and had the average number of brain cells. However, they discovered that his brain possessed an enormous number of connections, or synapses, between brain cells, and more astrocytes, which are cells that nourish the synaptic junctions (Melillo 2015). At one point, we would have credited this to Einstein having good genes, yet we can now see it was the result of the unique way he used his brain (Diamond 1964).

Einstein passionately played the violin and piano. He once explained, when he was stuck on a mathematical problem, he would sit down and play music and envision his problem until the mathematical equation came to him. Put another way, listening to music (the sense of hearing) stimulated playing an instrument (physical activity), which is a right brain activity, and concentration on the equation (mental activity), which is a left-brain activity. Doing so on a repetitive basis not only strengthened the electrical connections between the left and right hemispheres, but new connections grew. Combined, they increased his brain power. As early as 1966, Diamond and her team demonstrated that putting young rats in a stimulating environment rich with challenge and new experiences increased glial cells. They discovered the same results when they placed elderly mice in an enriched environment: increased astrocyte numbers and complexity of synaptic connection had a direct correlation with better cognitive performance (Diamond 1964).

This story demonstrates how healing takes place in the present time, not in the past. History always repeats itself until transmutation occurs and something new is created. This new creation then becomes the next point in history. Now is the time to create a new story for our children, a story that dispels betrayal and replaces it with connection and love.

References

Castellino, Ray. Being with newborns. Santa Barbara: Castellino Training. 1996.

Diamond, Marian C.; Krech, David; Rosenzweig, Mark R. (1964). “The effects of an enriched environment on the histology of the rat cerebral cortex”. The Journal of Comparative Neurology. 123: 111–119. 

Glenn, M. & McCarty, WA. “Investing in human potential from the beginning of life: key to maximizing human capital.” Journal of the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health23(2): 117-136, 2008.

MacLean, Paul D. The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions. New York: Plenum Press, 1990. Print.

Melillo, Robert. Disconnected Kids: The Groundbreaking Brain Balance Program for Children With Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Disorders. New York: Penguin, 2009.

White, K. & Rhodes, J. (2013) Summary of trends and influences in pre- and perinatal psychology. Position paper, Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health.

Trauma Recovery: Repeatedly raped as a young child

Trauma Recovery: Repeatedly raped as a young child

Chronic Symptoms need Prenatal and Perinatal Somatic Dynamics in order to heal

This gut-wrenching story is one of hope, renewal, and faith. All in all, the treatments went on for almost a year—a testament that this type of medicine is a slow-working antidote that aims to reconfigure the underlying neurobiology causing chronic pain, anxiety, and depression. Symptoms are never isolated. When a person seeks treatment for a chronic issue, there is usually always a story that points to their childhood and multiple symptoms they are managing.

So it begins…The Intake

A woman in her early 50s emailed me to ask if she could try craniosacral therapy. Since the onset of the COVID lockdown, she had been experiencing paralysis in her arms and hands at random intervals 2-3 times a week. When the paralysis kicked in, she became overwhelmed with anxiety, pain, and fear. She had started EMDR therapy as a last resort after years of therapy, but after a few months her symptoms seemed to be progressing. Her psychologist was worried that the EMDR therapy was making her symptoms worse and did not know how to help her, so she suggested this form of energetic healing.

I invited her to come in for an intake session. The first 30 minutes entailed listening to her story. Her mother was a severe alcoholic when she was growing up, despite coming from a family of means, her father was unsure how to cope with his wife’s distress when she was diagnosed with cancer when their children were all under the age of 12. Although her mother was very ill for a time, she never passed, rather she lived on into her 70s until she died of emphysema. Growing up, her mother would send her off to spend summers with a family friend. While she stayed with him, he repeatedly raped and brutally assaulted her. Over the years, her siblings knew something was wrong, but no one ever said or did anything. She slipped into a state of depression. Luckily for her, this family friend died in her early teens. She went on to college and became a bit reckless. She met her husband shortly after, only to discover he had weird sexual habits. After years of enduring manipulation and mental abuse from him, he cheated on her with a close friend in a tight-knit community. The shock rocked her and disconnected her from her friends and church family. She had given birth to two children early in her marriage. The birthing experience was traumatic for both deliveries, but she devoted everything she had to them and became very spiritual over the years.

While listening, her body was vibrating, super tight and restricted. Her stomach felt like it was in knots. She had a team of doctors and was taking multiple prescriptions to manage an array of symptoms. Heavy does of Ambien was her only hope for sleep. I helped pace her during the storytelling by calling pauses and allowing emotion to rise and flow in its natural rhythm like a wave peaks and then dissipates. This concept was foreign to her, and took some time to adjust. She had extreme difficulty settling (that would carry on for two months before she could experience her first “settling” in her body). It was difficult for her to not clutch her hands and clench her legs together.

Education of the Autonomic Nervous System and the Role of the Vagus Nerve

I explained to her the states of being that were governing her autonomic nervous system. I explained how the “body keeps the score”—a famous phrase by Peter Levine, the creator of Somatic Experiencing Therapy. I told her that we would have to build out a sense of safety first in her body before we could explore her past trauma. We would focus on the Health in her versus discussing her painful trauma. I explained that she would need to set an Intention for the work. She obviously did not want to feel fear and anxiety. So, I asked what she did want to invite into her life in place of anxiety and fear. This concept was foreign as well, she had only thought about ridding herself of pain and fear. She thoughtfully stated, “I want to feel peace.”

Embodiment Exercises and Path to Healing Earliest Trauma

I asked her to feel three points of contact she was making with her body at that moment in time. This technique is a way to help a person become more present and embodied. She named her butt, her back and her thighs. We continued along this line of inquiry for a few minutes until I noticed she was able to stop clenching her legs against my sofa. I asked her what helps her to settle. “Walking behind my house in the woods.” I asked her to lie on the table, and from there I asked her to describe the woods to me. She painted a picture of the tall evergreen trees. I asked if she ever touched the bark and if so to describe it to me. She could hear the pine needles under her feet and see birds in the trees. The cool air on a sunny, cloudless day filled her sense of being. She enjoyed the open space and the air against her skin. I could sense her body starting to show rigidity and become taut beneath my fingers. Her kidneys felt like rocks energetically and began to throb. I could feel this hardening in my own body. By working to ground myself and track my own cerebrospinal fluid movement, I remained settled and searched for the health and vitality pulsing through her veins. I could sense her vulnerability on the table, so I continued to ask her questions about this scene in the woods and widen my perceptual field. After about 15 minutes, I could sense her body discharging heat and icy cold, it would flip like the toss of a coin.

On her own accord, she revealed that praying helped her to settle. She described a chair in her room where she would always pray. It helped her feel connected to God. I asked her what it felt like in her body when she prayed. She was not sure since she had never thought about it. Becoming aware of your body and felt sensations is the journey to consciousness. I asked her to journal this upcoming week between sessions what she felt in her body when she prayed and what she noticed in her body right before the onset of an anxiety attack when her hands froze. I wanted her to build her body-mind connection, like you would work a muscle in the gym.

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Becoming More Alive the Benefits to Craniosacral Therapy

Little did either of us know that ten months of treatment would ensue before she felt capable and free to live her life. The duration of her treatment, she had to remain on disability. After two months of seeing me every week along with her psychiatrist and psychologist, she felt peace in her body for the first time. Eight months after treatment, she could truly feel her legs. She said she had never really felt her legs like she could feel them now. You may not think that feeling your legs is a huge accomplishment. But, you see, her perpetrator would pin her legs down and put a pillow over her face while he raped her. She would try to fight him off but could not move her legs or her arms, she would suffocate under the pillow, helpless, full of rage and fear. Kicking and screaming to no avail. No outcome. Security was robbed from her, a sense of peace violated violently.

Her healing journey took less than a year. It required courage and dedication. Before she got better, she got worse as her memories left her body. But she learned how to express her rage and not suppress her fear and anger. She built a sense of knowing in her body, and how to work her vagal brake. We pendulated between somatic exercises and craniosacral therapy. Each session would bring surprises. We delved into her birth, her deepest needs of her Inner Child. We pulled in Polarity Therapy by Randolph Stone, the Inner Child Journey by Robin Grille, pre and perinatal somatic psychology from my teacher Kate White, and biodynamic craniosacral therapy I learned from Kate Klemer.

Experiencing your Intention

When she was too sick to come to my office, I treated her from afar. At times, she couldn’t even get on a zoom call, so I would work on her remotely with her in my mind’s eye. We walked through the Valley of Death together. She was never alone. When she got activated, we slowed the pace. When she needed time, we integrated. When she felt discouraged, we invoked the presence of God in her body and by her side through meditation and mindfulness. She touched peace and truly experienced it. Now, she has resumed a new career and has a whole new lens on life. I hope she can go on and help others with the wisdom she has gained through her pain. I truly witnessed her journey. She rose from the ashes, transformed.