There are no rules in labourland
Labourland is the place you go when you’re in labour (particularly unmedicated labour):
As oxytocin flows…
As contractions intensify…
As endorphins soften the world…
As focus and energy turn ever inward and down…
You enter into labourland.
Image description: a black and white image of a newly born baby being held up by a pair of gloved hands. The baby is wet and their face is scrunched up, like they’re about to cry.
It’s an altered mental state, a deeper place within, where the neocortex (language, executive function, logic, reason, etc) goes off-line and you connect with something much older than yourself.
Within this ancient liminal space, this place of in-between, there are no rules.
There are no rules about how to behave or not behave.
There are no rules about how quiet or how loud you can be.
There are no rules about how to move or not move.
There are no rules about what you can and cannot do with your own body.
There are no rules about how many fucks you give.
In this space, if you choose to claim it, YOU are sovereign.
Labourland is yours. You’re the ruler. You can move and say and sound and do what you need to get through.
Some part of you, no matter how small, no matter if it’s with great confidence or great fear, needs to claim it, to say “Yes!” to it, to give yourself permission to go there.
To do what you need to do to get through.
And from the lens of the regular-everyday-world where there are So. Many. Rules. (spoiler alert: turns out those rules are made up too but we’ll talk about that another day) this place can seem wild, out of control, primitive, ferocious. It may feel surprising, unseemly, or undignified.
The invitation as you prepare for birth is to take that lens off. To begin to reframe this space as one of incredible power, where you can open and allow that power to flow through you, to give yourself permission, before the first contraction is even felt, to dance with that power however you need to.
Questions for pondering:
How might you begin to say “Yes!” to this experience before it begins?
What do you need from yourself to give yourself permission?
What might you do now to practice - to begin to embody the “no rules” mindset?
Want doula support that celebrates you as you step into your power and sovereignty? Let’s talk!
