A little over ten months ago I gave birth to my fourth child. Childbirth, in my experience is both incredible, and incredibly intense. As one of the nurses I once went to commented: “It’s called labor for a reason!” In this most recent birthing experience of mine, there were a few complications, one of which scared my husband and I. The monitor hooked up to my belly, monitoring the heart rate of our yet unborn son, suddenly showed a severe drop in the baby’s heart rate. I was already in labor for close to eight hours and quite exhausted. While labor was progressing, my baby was hardly making any movement down the birth canal. So, when his heart-rate dropped, and the accompanying sirens in the birthing room sounded, my husband and I naturally panicked. The sirens alerted all of the birthing staff and we suddenly had about 4 doctors and 3 midwives in our birthing room. The baby’s heart rate jumped back up (thankfully!) but the staff was discussing what next steps to take. It was decided by the head doctor on staff to allow my labor to progress naturally. Frankly I just wanted my baby out and I was ready for any necessary options to get that result. We trusted the decision of the medical staff and once they left our room my husband and I had our eyes glued to the baby heart monitor, as if staring at it would keep our baby’s heart rate where it needed to be.
A few minutes later my midwife came in to check on me. She asked if I was feeling the pressure of the contractions. I nodded. She looked into my eyes and understood that my response had little to do with my contractions and much more to do with the stress and anxiety that I was feeling. I could have never expected my midwife to respond to my feelings in the way that she had and what she did next took me by quite the surprise. My midwife gently placed her hand on my cheek and told me to close my eyes. I nodded and, trusting her, did what she asked me to do. She then told me to envision myself in my most comfortable and favorite place. That was easy, I chose the beach. Once I found and was in my favorite go-to place, I saw it clearly in my mind’s eye. I could literally feel the wind in my hair. I did not pay much attention to the words my midwife was saying next, but I do remember her soothing tone. I kept my mind on the beach, with the breeze blowing through my hair and my clothes. As the visualization exercise was coming to an end, my midwife told me to listen very carefully to what she was about to say. She instructed me to ‘look for a light’ in my vision. I did. I found a light. She then told me to stand at the other end of that light and to gently start speaking to my yet unborn son. She was leaving me and instructed me to stay focused and to not speak with anyone else but my son; not to her, and not to my husband. I chose to listen to her. I felt calm and at peace. There was little else I could do, anyhow, and doing what she asked me to do felt good and right. I sensed my midwife’s departure from me while I kept my eyes closed and focused on my vision. I started to speak to my yet unborn son. I told him that he had an incredible family waiting for him; that his siblings were amazing and that he would love our home. I smiled as I spoke these words to him, and believed that he could hear me. I continued to feel calm and at peace.
In what felt like only a few minutes later, my midwife came into my room to check on our progress. My eyes were still closed and I opened them when she came near to me. Upon checking me, it was clear to her that the baby’s head had descended and that my baby was ready to be born. A few minutes later our beautiful, healthy son entered the world and my arms. It was amazing!
Ten months later I am still in awe of the visualization my midwife led me through and for the incredible impact it had on my birthing my son. Visualizing our end goal can be incredibly powerful. When we can clearly visualize and see what it is that we really want, we are so much more likely to seeing the reality of that vision in our own lives. Whether we realize it or not, we are creating our own reality all of the time. We choose our thoughts and our feelings, the end result of which shows up in the reality of our lives.
What can you do to change or create your reality? The first step is to envision what you want that reality to be. Is it really that simple? The idea is, yes. Putting it into practice, however is a bit more challenging. Here are a few steps for helping you make your vision a reality.
Step 1: Focus on what you really want. For this step it is really important for you to get clear on what you really want. Be sure that this information is coming only from you and is not what other people might want for you or are telling you might be good for you. Take the time to think and be honest with yourself about what it is that you want for yourself.
Step 2: Describe your vision as if you are already living it. If your vision is that you are a successful graduate of the university or program of your choice, view yourself as that graduate. If your vision is of you owning and running a successful business or having a successful career, view yourself as that successful business or career person. If your vision is of you in a loving, happy, and fulfilled relationship, view yourself as the person in that relationship.
Step 3: Visualize it & Believe it. See this vision in your minds eye. Embrace, believe in, and enjoy this vision. Have fun with it. Write it down, draw it, and pin it up somewhere where you can see it to keep your vision clear in your mind’s eye.
Step 4: Allow yourself to be led by this vision. Believe in the vision and allow it to guide you and your next steps. Once our vision is clear, the steps to creating that vision flow out of us and become clear too.
Why does this work? Because the energy we project is the energy that we also invite in. The perspective in which we approach the world around us will project back to us what we choose to see. If we project fear and anxiety, we draw more fear and anxiety to us. When we are negative, we tend to see and experience things as negative and invite more negativity into our life and our world. And when we respect ourselves and view ourselves of deserving, happy, and successful, we invite more of that deserving, happiness, and success into our own lives. This increase in happiness and success, leads to us having less patience for negativity and failure to the point where we rarely, if ever, allow that negativity to enter our lives again.
So start with what you want, envision that want clearly in your mind, believe in it, and then start living it. You are more in control of creating your reality than you might realize.
Enjoy and be in touch to let me know how you creating your vision and reality is working for you. Please also be in touch if you require any support with this.
In support and admiration,
~ Jenny
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