by Charlotte Baldiviez, Certified Ma Yoga® Instructor
When I started my prenatal yoga training, I expected to learn anatomy, breathwork, movement, and maybe a few new ways to support pregnant bodies through labor and birth. I did learn all of those things. But what surprised me most was how much the training asked me to examine my relationship with the feminine itself.
Not femininity in the aesthetic sense. Not softness as performance. But the deeper principles of the feminine: receptivity, relationality, and reversibility. The willingness to soften enough to listen. The understanding that we are shaped in connection with others. The ability to change direction without shame.
These ideas sound beautiful in theory. In practice, they felt almost radical. I think many of us are living in a world that requires hyper-independence to survive. We are praised for self-sufficiency, productivity, and having the answers. We learn to anticipate our own needs before anyone else has to. We become excellent at carrying things alone. And in a lot of ways, especially as women, we have had to.
There is a very real reason many people struggle to ask for help. Dependence has often been framed as weakness. Needing support can feel embarrassing. So we adapt. We become capable. We become resilient. We become the person who can handle everything.
But somewhere along the way, I think many of us stopped allowing ourselves to be held.
One of the main principles we studied in training was receptivity and the practice of opening up, listening, and receiving guidance instead of forcing answers. The idea that we do not always need to grip so tightly to certainty.
That sometimes wisdom comes when we soften our edges enough to notice what is calling to us.
I realized how unfamiliar that felt to me.
Even in wellness spaces, there can be pressure to optimize ourselves constantly. To “heal correctly.” To have a five-step plan for every discomfort. But receptivity asks something entirely different. It asks us to pause long enough to hear ourselves underneath the noise. It asks us to trust that not every answer arrives through force.
Pregnancy and birth reveal this so clearly. You cannot bully your body into labor.
You cannot productivity-hack surrender. Birth asks for participation, yes, but it also asks for yielding. Listening. Adapting. Responding.
As a doula, I see how difficult this can be for people, especially those who have spent their lives being told that strength means doing everything alone.
So many families are trying to navigate pregnancy and postpartum without “the village” we were always meant to have. Not because they don’t want support, but because asking for help feels uncomfortable. There is almost shame around needing care. Shame around saying: I can’t do this by myself today.
But birth has a way of exposing the limits of hyper-independence. No one is meant to birth alone. No one is meant to recover alone. We are relational beings, whether we admit it or not.
Another principle from training, relationality, teaches that we experience our wisdom and power through connection, to breath, to body, to other people, and to something larger than ourselves.
That resonated deeply with what I witness as a doula. The most transformative birth experiences are rarely about perfect conditions. They are often about connection. Someone feeling safe enough to soften. Someone realizing they do not have to carry everything alone.
I think that’s part of what the feminine really is. Not weakness. Not passivity. But relationship. Interdependence. Trusting that being supported does not make you less powerful.
And honestly, this is what I battled with the most. I like competence. I like answers. I like knowing the plan.
Receptivity and reversibility challenge all of that.
Reversibility feels especially important right now. We are allowed to outgrow old ways of being. We are allowed to realize that survival strategies are not always sustainable ways to live.
Maybe hyper-independence protected us at one point. Maybe it helped us succeed, stay safe, or prove ourselves. But maybe there is also another way to exist now. One that allows for more softness, more support, more honesty about our limits.
Prenatal yoga training reminded me that the feminine is not something we achieve. It is something we return to.
It lives in our ability to listen instead of force. To receive instead of endlessly perform. To let ourselves be changed by connection. To trust that needing others is not failure, but part of being human.
And maybe the real work is not becoming someone entirely new. Maybe it is remembering that we were never meant to do any of this alone.
