The goal of prenatal yoga is not to have a shiny happy pregnancy, or to become the perfect super mom. It is not to make sure you have the 2-hour, natural, pain-free birth of your dreams.
Yes, we are vibrational beings, and yes, we attract experiences with a similar vibration as our thoughts and beliefs, just like tuning a radio station. Positive thoughts help to draw positive experiences – we know this. And yet, sometimes we worry; we have negative thoughts and self-doubt darkens our outlook.
So, how do we navigate between positive thinking and acknowledging reality?
Think of awareness like a light switch. There’s nothing to be afraid of; no evil lurking in the act of illuminating our truth. You can’t turn a switch on and fill a room with inky dark goo. You can only turn a light on, and shed light in the darkness, thereby replacing it.
Same thing with our fears/negative thoughts/worries.
I am sometimes scared of this darkness because I’m afraid if I acknowledge it, it will get more powerful. Have you ever felt that an honest conversation turned into a bitch fest? And instead of walking away feeling better, you walk away feeling worse? And so the next conversation you’re even… well… bitchier? If all we’re doing is looking for the bad, we will always find more dark rooms, for sure.
Prenatal Yoga invites us to make a different choice. Once we have been honest with ourselves about whatever darkness we’ve found – fear, anger, sadness – once we have shed the light of our awareness upon it, by sharing it, putting words to it, or in some way letting it take form in the world, then it’s easier to replace it with different kinds of thoughts: to find them, ask yourself what would be the thought that will bring me closer to being the mom I know I am? What will I teach my baby by this thought? How does this thought make me feel?
Try these for starters: I am whole. I am divine. I am connected to my source.
So here’s how it would look to turn the light of awareness on our darkness:
1.) You feel anger: Write about its cause in a journal – it won’t be pretty. Or, if it’s appropriate, tell someone calmly why they made you angry, simply for the sake of expressing it (tell them you don’t want an apology right now, you just want them to listen). Then, ask yourself: how can I transmute this feeling into unwavering steadiness behind my intentions on my path to motherhood and beyond? Write those thoughts too, and experience how the vibration of anger can become the vibration of power.
2.) You feel sad: Cry. Weep. Put on the saddest song you can think of and sob. Then, focus on the love that allows you to feel such deep longing. Find some gratitude for that profound gift, the loss of which caused such sadness. Know that this love need not be attached to any particular form or situation. Hold it in your heart as the vibration of love, that is still very much within you. It will attract more.
3.) You may feel afraid of how you’ll handle labor. Talk about it to your doula, or birth prep teacher, or someone else knowledgeable who’s on your side. Then, allow in the wisdom of those who have dedicated their lives to understanding this journey. You will begin to replace the negative thoughts with affirmations of the truth of how natural this is process is, how your body knows how to do this. Think and speak from this vibration of wisdom when you can.
By looking at the “bad”, you can transform the anger to power, so your desires will have a greater chance of manifesting.
The sadness can become a recognition of the deep love you feel, a love that will help you be the mom you want to be.
The worry will dissipate in this recognition of being part of something bigger: this ocean of consciousness, holding us, moving us gently forward in a process of ever expanding awareness.
If we look only for the good, we can miss out on the potent power that lies within our darkness.
The goal of prenatal yoga is remembering that WE are the source of power, wisdom, and love!
