I’m sitting across from Sam, a new friend and one of the most animated and excitable individuals I have the joy of knowing. Sam talks with her hands. She stares off into space as she talks, the same way I sometimes do, as if she’s reading from an invisible teleprompter that helps her to articulate her consciousness. After she has taken the time to beautifully explain what she means, Sam also listens – like, really listens – and she asks – like, real meaningful questions. And so I’m sitting across from Sam, talking about being a doula, and studying and working with birth when she asks me… why? “I hear that you are doing this work because you’re responding to a need. I can see that need is real. But, if you could sum it up in just a few words or sentences, why do you do what you do?” I stare down at my coffee as I try to figure out, aside from the medical model, aside from the lack of perinatal care, aside from the limiting cultural narratives… why? I close my eyes. “I guess… it’s just so… human. Humanness.” I look up at Sam, her eyes are lit up and she’s gesturing for me to keep going, “Yes! This is great…” “Remembering how human we are. Birth is the divine feminine and masculine together. Just – human. Remembering that this is a part of what makes us human,” I finish, feeling a little unsure and pretty inarticulate. Sam doesn’t seem to mind my less-than-eloquent delivery, in fact she is pumped. In her animated response to my answer, Sam does this… well, thing. She mock-dislocates her shoulder, and pops it back in with her opposite hand as she says, “remember. Re-member.” Apparently this word carries a lot of weight for her right now, and I feel it too. “We are all just piecing ourselves back together,” she says. Re-member. Memory is such a fickle thing to me, personally. I have a terrible memory. I often find myself fighting to remember. But, to re-member. Wow. That is exactly what I see happening when I attend births. That is what I try so desperately to help my clients to realize. They know how to do this already. It is part of their own humanness to know how to labor and how to birth. If they listen, if they trust – their bodies will tell them how to move, how to breathe, where to focus, and what to ask for from their labor support partner(s). Whether it is their first baby or third, they know. Likewise, those supporting them will know too, if they can tap into the ferociously human experience playing out around them. In the throes of labor, if they try to hard to remember in an analytical way (details of all of the books they read, classes they took, advice they got, etc.), then they will be overwhelmed. So this, re-membering, must be different. To re-member is to reintegrate yourself in a trusting, loving way. So much of what I consume related to birth culture is founded in fear and distrust. We either distrust our bodies and are afraid, so we hand over power to the medical model. Or, we distrust the medical model and are afraid, so we expend all of our energy in the countercultural fight for autonomy during childbirth. What if – regardless of our circumstances, regardless of how we choose to labor, regardless of how we choose to live – all we had to do was trust ourselves and re-member? Piece ourselves back together. Be fully human. Re-member. Imagine how empowering that would be.

I see similar themes on the yoga mat. What if we could re-member there, too?

Thank you to Samantha Rise for letting me use our conversation in this post! She is an artist and has a new album coming out this summer that I am sure will contain so many excellent human themes and ideas. Check her out @samantharisemusic on Facebook

birth, doula, Healing, Intention, Loving Kindness, Practice

On Re-membering