Prenatal yoga, thoughts from my weekend.

I just had an amazing weekend at Blooma's prenatal yoga teacher training.  The ladies were amazing.  Pregnancy is beautiful.  Birth is incredible.  I just can't put into words how truly beautiful.  I know I haven't been blogging much.  It's hard to think of the next entry to write after linking to the incredible sadness of the tragedy that happened to Kristin and Andy.  I have to thank Stevie Joy from the bottom of my heart, and her mama Kristin.  Stevie's short life has had such a profound effect on so many people, myself included.  It was with her on my mind that I went into my prenatal yoga teacher training and I just know that it is because of this tiny beautiful little girl, and her sweet mama, Kristin, that I am going to hopefully be able to help women who have gone through a loss in the past, or maybe in the midst of one.  It's through Kristin's real, raw words on her blog that I feel like I experience just a tiny fraction of the incredible pain she must be going through.  Love and prayers to you Kristin and Andy.  It is my hope that someday when you make Stevie a sister that you will be uplifted by the amazing women of Blooma, as I and so many others have been.  

I am truly passionate about working with pregnant women.  Such an amazing time in their lives.  It is my honor to help them to learn to trust their intuition and to surrender and trust their bodies, their bodies that know perfectly how to birth their babies.  I am excited to hopefully teach prenatal yoga sometime in the not too distant future.  And I am hoping to start the process of becoming a postpartum doula, and then someday a birth doula, but I need to wait on the birth doula stuff since the unpredictability of birth doesn't mesh well with my life situation currently :)

Anyway....

I think some people think prenatal yoga will give them this perfect birth.  But what I really think prenatal yoga does is to help you accept the perfection of the birth you are given, regardless of whether it goes according to your plan.  I read that somewhere and I like it (not an exact quote as I am not sure where I read it... Gurmukh maybe?).  To be honest, my 2nd birth was very close to my idea of 'perfect.'  I wouldn't change one thing about it.  It was exactly the way my son was supposed to come into the world.  Prenatal yoga helped me to trust in my body, to surrender to the process of birth, and to just get out of my own way and let my body do what it knows very well how to do.  It helped me to reprogram myself- to breathe deeply in the midst of overwhelming sensation instead of doing the whole 'fight of flight' thing of holding my breath or taking shallow breaths.  It helped me to relax, instead of tensing up and causing unnecessary pain.  Here's my thing- birth is INTENSE.  It's overwhelming.  It's a lot of work- emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  But birth is the most freaking awesome thing there is.  It's through the intensity that one can experience the most amazing experiences ever.  Birth is life changing.  I venture to say that no matter what your birth is, it WILL change you in some way.  If, through prenatal yoga, I can help just ONE woman really experience the amazingness of birth.... to truly BE present at her birth instead of trying to run away from it.... well then it's totally worth it.

Lots of Love!
Linz