One of the workshops that Spirit of Woman conducts is called the Energy of Parenting, which covers the absolute power of positive parenting on the health and well-being of offspring. I was delighted to hear on the Health Report this week (15th March, 2010) a discussion on the power of positive parenting, including positive fathering on, not just adequate mental functioning, but high performance mental functioning.

Based on a study conducted by Felicia Huppert and others, Director of the Wellbeing Institute and Professor of Psychology, and published as 'Parental practices predict psychological well-being in mid-life:…' the discussion centred around how to attain 'positive mental health' or what can be called 'flourishing in life', rather than just 'existing with the absence of a disorder', which is the focus of most studies previously conducted.

What sets this study aside as distinct from others is not only the emphasis on optimum mental functioning, but also the fact that it is a long-term study that follows children through to late adulthood. Commenced in 1946 in England the study followed women since their birth in that year and recorded information, including memories of how their parents behaved towards them up to the age of 16.

Based on an accepted measure of the way that offspring perceive their parents, rather than any objective measure of the parents themselves, the study identified three dimensions of parenting. One dimension is warmth and care, another one is the extent to which the parent is engaged in what the child is doing, or kind of just laissez faire and doesn't seem to care very much, and the third dimension is control. So it looks at the extent to which a parent is very controlling, or over-protective, or intrusive and explores the extent of engagement, such as when they take a real interest in what their child is doing and provide guidance, but not in an authoritarian or controlling way.

The study sought six main areas in which to question the way that psychological wellbeing comes about: autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, purpose in life, positive relations with others and self acceptance.

The study found, i n the main, that the more warm and caring a parent is the better the child on all dimensions. However one unusual finding was to do with autonomy, in that when a mother was very warm and caring a daughter was less autonomous. Or putting it another way – a daughter was very autonomous, assertive and defiant if her mother was less caring in the sense of how warmly she responded to her child, when she had difficulties.

Overall, the study clearly showed that warm and caring parents need to be positive and give appropriate praise, engaged and interested in what the child is doing and to be 'authoritative' rather than authoritarian. That is, rather than being over-controlling and over-protective, they need to give the child a sense of trust, some respect and freedom while at the same time being quite clear about boundaries, about what the behaviours were acceptable and what were not.

Another unexpected finding was one that validates a notion that I have written about in my book "The Essence of Woman". It concerns the importance of positive fathering to his daughter's ability to develop confidence and autonomy as an adult. All previous literature focusses on the mother's behaviour in terms of a daughter's mental health. But this study showed beyond a doubt that the father's behaviour is actually more important than the mother's across all dimensions. So while it was important that the mother was warm and caring, and that affected many dimensions, the father, if he was warm and caring brought benefits across all dimensions. The particular difference was in terms of engagement and control – in other words confidence and autonomy. So the father who was trusting, respectful, appreciative and showed good guidance rounded off his daughter's development by giving her the set of skills necessary to navigate 'the world'. She can engage with people while at the same time maintain her own sense of  self with confidence. The Spirit of Woman blend, Daddy's Girl was designed with the importance of  the father-daughter relationship in mind. If you would like to read the full transcript on the Health Report click here.

Please leave a comment below. I would love to hear what you think.

According to two recent Radio National Health Reports (2^nd November and 9^th November) about one third of all babies being born in Australia are being delivered by Caesarean section, that is a surgical cut through the mother’s abdomen.

There are two main groups of women having caesareans: those who choose it and those who consent to it on medical advice either before or during labour.   Of those, an estimated 18% request it for no medical reason- a recent phenomenon that has increased dramatically over the last decade.    It’s not really well understood why women choose caesarean section without a medical reason. However, a study by the Cochrane Collaboration found that women’s birth choices were heavily influenced by three things:

• previous birth experience,
• their need for choice and control and
• especially their fear of a vaginal birth.

Fear of vaginal birth is very real, especially when women are at the mercy of a medical system using terminology and strategies that induce fear and lack of confidence in their bodies. And a system that promotes women to hand over the responsibility of their contraception, fertility and birthing to doctors, who in many cases are male. Because the mainstream medical system is based in the masculine principles of problem solving, and its main treatment strategies are surgery and pharmaceutical intervention, it ignores the emotional side of medical conditions.

Woman are not counseled when they express their fear of the pain of childbirth, but rather told that the solution is to remove the baby surgically – there is no ‘how come you’re feeling like that, let’s talk about it, let’s see what kinds of things can we work through to help you feel empowered and, how can we help you make an informed decision’.

Caesarean is NOT a safer option!

The truth is that caesareans involve major surgery and according to experts who have had long-term experience with the aftermath of caesareans, they are definitely not a safer option. Apart from the implications of cutting open the uterus and thereby weakening it for subsequent pregnancies, there is the problem of adhesions, which can have life-threatening effects, in the event of  second and subsequent pregnancies.

According to obstetrician David Ellwood, the gravest outcome, Caesarean Scar Pregnancy, can be life-threatening and, with the increase in CS, is on the rise. This is where the embryo actually implants in the caesarean scar and starts to develop within the scar. According to Ellwood, “the gestation sac then starts to disrupt the scar and if it develops for too long the wall of the uterus will actually rupture and the scar will break open, there will be a major haemorrhage”.

Furthermore the pregnancy cannot progress. Again says David Ellwood, the pregnancy “can progress for quite a few weeks, in fact the most dangerous types of caesarean scar pregnancies are those that have been undetected and have progressed to quite an advanced gestation.” Because the baby “couldn’t survive to full term” late-term abortion is then required which involves either an infusion of the cancer drug methotraxate that kills placental tissues, so it stops the placenta from growing and developing, or, by surgically cutting the baby out of the uterus. In the former procedure, the lethal drug has to also circulate through the mother’s system.

Another complication that arises with pregnancies following a caesarean birth can result in the placenta penetrating into the uterine wall and even through into the bladder, because it cannot attach to the scar tissue in the uterus. The inevitable outcome for this condition is that baby must be born by Caesarean Section and the uterus removed at the time of surgery, because there is no way to stop bleeding without taking out the uterus altogether.

Side Effects on Baby of Caesarean Birth

If these are the consequences of surgical birth for the mother, what is the impact on the baby? According to the report, research demonstrates that surgically delivered babies show a dramatic increase in:

• Type 1 diabetes
• Asthma
• Allergies
• Breathing problems

The report goes on to say that in many cases, intervention is often unnecessary and that the markers for foetal distress that determine a doctor recommending a caesarean during labour are often commonly over-exaggerated, causing excess caution in a process that is natural. Doctor’s fear of litigation has been cited for this extreme over-caution.

In my book, The Essence of Woman, I describe how Nature has designed stress into the birth process, balanced by the return of the vaginally-born baby to the heart-field of the mother, as she cuddles her newborn. A close, tight birth canal ensures that every inch of the baby’s skin is stimulated, cleverly planned into the birthing process to trigger the initiation of the baby’s functional systems. These are the systems that will enable baby to exist independently of the ‘mother-ship’ and include the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, nervous and elimination systems.

In a caesarean birth, these systems are not stimulated, resulting in an inefficient ‘start-up’ of the baby’s independent systems. This means that there will be functional deficiencies involving the skin, lungs, stomach, liver, bowel, heart and brain of the newborn.  The health outcomes include allergies, digestive disharmonies such as childhood and infancy diabetes (alarmingly on the rise) and colic, asthma, psychological and emotional problems such as ADD, ADHD, autism, developmental retardation and behavioural difficulties, including autism.

To understand how these health problems arise when a child is unnaturally born, read my book, The Essence of Woman, where the underlying MindBody connections are fully explained in easy readable language.

As women, we need to seriously consider how far away from our natural feminine intelligence we have strayed, when we willingly agree to have our natural processes managed for us by pharmaceutical companies that drive our mainstream medical systems for profit. In most case, this means white-washing the public into believing in the medicalisation of women’s natural reproductive processes, as with the recommended use of HRT for menopause.

Women Have Lost Confidence in Their Bodies

Many women have lost confidence in their bodies. This happens when we collaborate in the management of our reproductive processes with a medical system using toxic pharmaceutical agents that injure the body and downgrade our natural processes.

Use of the contraceptive pill has become commonplace now, and yet it has serious repercussions for the health of women. The dramatic rise in IVF (one in six couples in Australia are affected by infertility, and one in twenty babies – about 10,000 – are currently born using assisted reproductive technology) is a testimony to the fact that women’s fertility is being negatively impacted.

What’s more, the pill has been shown to reduce libido and to contribute significantly to depression.

But it doesn’t stop there. The cascade affect goes on: the more the IVF cycles, the less likely a woman is to conceive. In other words, IVF further degrades fertility and contributes to multiple births, where neither the mother nor the babies receive the optimum nutrition or energy to deliver optimum health for the newborn at birth.

Moreover, research has demonstrated that the natural gender balance is being gradually eroded with 58% of babies being born male via IVF, compared to 51% born male by natural conception.

A study, by the Key Centre for Women’s Health in Society at the University of Melbourne, found:

• IVF mothers more likely than non-IVF mothers to have a caesarean birth
• Three times more likely to seek help from an early parenting centre and
• Babies more likely to be bottle-fed by three months of age

The conclusion of the study was stated thus: “We think that experiencing infertility and the added stress of using Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) has a cumulative effect, eroding women’s confidence in themselves and in their bodies.”

IVF has a touted success rate of 15%. It is a billion dollar industry that is increasing its profits by the day. Currently, there are no quality control standards in place, nor is there any come-back for couples who pay out tens of thousands of dollars with nothing to show at the bitter end, but heartache and a stressed relationship.

Truly, it is a modern day tragedy that seems to have no end in sight.

Continuing down this path can only result in the dramatic devolution of the human race, in terms of both physical and psychological health and wellbeing of the children being born, in this denatured way.   That is unless, as women we stand up and say no, stop and enough!!

It is within our power to find other, more appropriate ways to manage our fertility that does not involve chemical castration, the expunction of natural coital conception and the slicing open of our abdomens to cut our babies from our bodies.

On Friday 21st August on Tony Eastley’s AM morning program on ABC Radio National there was a discussion on the alarming increase in juvenile diabetes in Australia. More Australian children are being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes than ever before. A new report reveals that were 900 new cases notified in 2007.

That represents a 30% increase in the number of new cases since 2000.

This means that Australia has the highest rate of Type 1 diabetes in the world – around 1000 children being diagnosed each year.

The report also looked at the increase in the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and that more Australians are developing the disease at a younger age.

Factors considered to contribute to the increase fell into three categories:

1/ A childhood virus that is part of a range of 17 viruses called enteroviruses – no concrete proof of this as a cause but considered by scientists to be a high likelihood (30% – >50%)

2/ Lack of Vitamin D – this consideration is based on studies, which correlate rates of diabetes in countries with low exposure to sunlight such as Finland and Scandinavia versus countries with high sunlight exposure. Again this is just considered to be a hypothesis – and a simplistic one at that.

3/ Bottle Feeding – early introduction of cow’s milk to the gut might inflame the gut or intestine of the baby and cause a development of an autoimmune response where the immune system attacks the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.

Personally I was alarmed and but not shocked at the statistics.

In my clinical practice, the underlying cause of so many diseases that people present with stem from a digestive weakness.

And, as we can see from the above discussion, many Australians are suffering from an inherently weak digestive system. This means that no matter how high the quality of foods that we put into our bodies, the digestive system just cannot efficiently transform the incoming food into available energy.

Diabetes is the most serious disease outcome of this weakness, along a spectrum of other disorders that effectively sabotage the joy and energy available to us in our daily lives. This gives rise to a vast range of unpleasant symptoms such as sinusitis, chronic lethargy and tiredness, menstrual difficulties, anxiety and stress symptoms, allergies, acne and so on, to mention just a few!

I believe that the scientific approach outlined above leaves out one critical factor that underpins each of the three hypotheses described. That is the crucial mother-child bond that nature built into the birthing and early infancy process, but which is being negatively impacted by unnatural birthing methods, early weaning and premature separation of mother and child through early child-care practices.

The mother-child bond is critical to the baby’s health and relies on primary contact in early infancy and toddlerhood with the mother or primary care-giver. This does not include a mother substitute who divides her time between many children under supervision.

A healthy mother-child bond assures not only the emotional and mental wellbeing of the child but also has a powerfully positive effect on triggering the integrity of the physical digestive system.

A good healthy digestive system needs a natural birth to initiate healthy functioning, and close mother-baby contact through breast-feeding to ensure that the intake of food is associated with pleasure and contentedness.

An anxious baby whose emotional and close-proximity needs are not being met becomes anxious and fearful, setting off an inflammatory process throughout the body that centres in the digestive system. This also weakens the immune system, leaving the baby open to virus proliferation in the gut, as described above.

I wonder whether the fact that Finland and Scandinavia have a more enlightened approach to early mothering, exemplified by their much more time-generous allowance for parenting leave, is not a more realistic reason why there is a lower incidence of diabetes in the young in these countries.

From a Mind-Body perspective, emotional and mental factors cannot be separated from the physical – together they interact to produce either health or disease – and even more critically in the infant, when critical body systems are being kick-started. In fact, the patterns of health or disease set during these early days, are the ones that will persist throughout a lifetime.

Let’s go deeper than the surface when looking for the patterns of a disease that is undermining the health and wellbeing of our people. Birthing practices, breast-feeding and supporting mums to stay at home with their babies for as long as possible, seem to me to be the best ways that we can prevent the rise of this life-debilitating disease that produces its insidious effect in so many areas of our daily life.

My range of flower essences has a blend which might be useful to strengthen the bond, even years later.

In the Courier Mail on the 14th July 2009 there was an article titled “Epidural Epidemic– No labour pain, no bond gain”.

It reported the comments of Dr Walsh, an associate professor in midwifery at Nottingham University in Britain who stated that more women should be prepared to endure the pain of labour because anaesthetic drugs used to diminish the pain and increase the comfort of women undermine the bonding process built into a natural birth.

He described labour as a ‘rite of passage’ and a ‘purposeful and useful thing’ for women, effectively preparing them for the demands of motherhood.

What a refreshing approach -  I have expressed exactly those sentiments in my book The Essence of Woman.

My focus however, was not so much on the notion that women should endure the pain so that ‘the benefits….prepar(e) a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby’, as expressed by Dr Walsh, but rather that nature has inbuilt into the birthing process certain triggers that initiate a crucial series of actions that support best mothering ability and best baby survival capacity. In other words, birthing sets in place biological responses to ensure that mothering and early infant survival rates are optimized.

In fact, nature has cleverly designed the birthing process so that in a natural birth, biological responses chemically, hormonally and psychologically drive the mother to strive for better opportunities in life than she herself had. This is called good ‘old-fashioned’ evolution – and it is nature’s way of ensuring that each generation experiences life in a more optimum way than the generation that went before.

The means by which nature sets the evolutionary drive in place is largely through the quality of mothering. The primary strategy is known as the ‘bonding process’ a which occurs largely at birth due to a cascade of hormones that inflow into the mother’s bloodstream in response to the passage of the baby through the birth canal. The main chemicals involved are the hormones oxytocin and prolactin, which promote bonding and the desire to breast feed, and the neuro-chemical endorphin, which triggers a pleasure/bliss response.

The hormones, at their highest during labour, effectively reduce pain by increasing the mother’s responsiveness and acceptance of her baby – oxytocin not only leads to stronger contractions and therefore a lower risk of internal bleeding, but it also stimulates waves of bliss generating what can only be described as the beginnings of a passionate love affair with her baby.

Endorphins are calming and pain-relieving hormones that people produce in response to stress and pain. The level of this natural morphine-like substance may rise toward the end of pregnancy, and then rises steadily and steeply during unmedicated labors. (Most studies have found a sharp drop in endorphin levels with use of epidural or opioid pain medication.) High endorphin levels during labor and birth can produce an altered state of consciousness that helps women flow with the process, even when it is long and arduous. Despite the hard work of labor and birth, a woman with high endorphin levels can feel alert, attentive, and even euphoric as she begins to get to know and care for her baby after birth. Endorphins may play a role in strengthening the mother-infant relationship at this time. A drop in endorphin levels in the days after birth may contribute to the "blues" that many women experience at this time.

On the other hand adrenaline can also affect a birth. Adrenaline is the "fight or flight" hormone that humans produce to help ensure survival. Women who feel threatened during labor (for example by fear or severe pain) may produce high levels of adrenaline. Adrenaline can slow labor or stop it altogether. Earlier in human evolution, this disruption helped birthing women move to a place of greater safety.

Too much adrenaline can cause problems in labor and birth by:
• causing distress to the unborn baby
• causing contractions to stop, slow, or have an erratic pattern, and lengthening labor
• creating a sense of panic and increasing pain in the mother leading providers to respond to this problem with caesareans and other interventions.
A calm and trusting approach to the impending birth, feeling supported by loved ones and a strong sense of confidence that the labour will be OK, avoiding disturbances, such as unwelcome people or noise and uncomfortable procedures and stimulation of erogenous zones prior to labour ensure that sufficient oxytocin will overcome the excess production of adrenaline.

Under the influence of this hormonal cascade, Mum feels euphoric, touching and gazing at the baby in a bubble of ecstasy and love. The baby responds to the touch by relaxing and regaining a sense of deep safety following the gruelling and painful journey down the birth canal. The more the baby relaxes the more blood circulates freely to the various parts of the body, initiating and triggering the life support systems that are crucial to her post-natal existence.

As Dr Walsh so rightly states, “Emerging evidence shows that normal labour and birth prime the bonding areas of the mother’s brain more that caesarean or pain-free birth”. Furthermore, there is new hard evidence that supports his statement that natural birth prepares a woman for motherhood.

As discussed in my book The Essence of Woman, a woman’s brain is dramatically changed during the labouring process. Research demonstrates that due to the inflow of high levels of hormones, including adrenaline, a woman lays down extra neuronal circuitry that wasn’t there before the birth. These extra brain circuits equip the mother with the capacity for coping with the new demands that having an infant, solely reliant upon her, brings.

His final call was to recommend the National Health Service in Britain to abandon pain relief strategies and instead to encourage women to use natural pain relief methods such as yoga,, hypnosis, massage support from their partners, hydrotherapy and birthing pools.

In the birthing chapter in The Essence of Woman you will read a number of other ways that you can maximize the birthing experience so that it supports evolution rather than devolution.

Needless to say Australian birthing experts labeled Dr Walsh’s comments as dangerous. There is an entrenched view in Australian medical circles that needs swift revision. Currently statistics indicate that 30% of births are caesarean.

That means that there are many children out there who are being deprived of their natural birth-right to optimum health and well-being, designed by nature to ensure not only the survival of the human race but its ongoing evolutionary ‘thrival’.

If you would like to obtain a copy of my book The Essence of Woman go to essenceofwoman.com/
 

I read an article in the Weekend Australian Magazine dated May 16th – 17th 2009, which has profound ramifications for those women (and their partners) struggling with their fertility.

A recent University of Queensland study showed that children born to older fathers have, on average, lower scores of tests of intelligence than those born to younger dads.

Data analysed from more than 33,000 American children showed that the older the man when the child is conceived, the lower a child’s score is likely to be on tests of concentration, memory, reasoning, and reading skills.

A Swedish study reveals further, that the risk of schizophrenia begins to rise for those babies whose fathers were older than 29 and is higher if they are older than 55. The same age factor applies with the risk of bipolar.

Perhaps not surprising if we consider that ageing affects every cell in the body and has no gender bias. Somehow the perceptions around fertility as solely a female issue need rethinking. Men are part of the equation, and not just the pleasure part!

Sperm are not ageless, nor are they bullet-proof. Production of healthy sperm is dependant on the well-being of the man – a poor diet, stress and a toxic overload in the body, due to excess alcohol and smoking, dramatically affects the quality of a man’s sperm. So too, it is now confirmed, does ageing. If the little blighters have no tails, poor motility, are immature or are low in number, a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant are dramatically reduced. Similarly, if she falls pregnant the baby she bears will be less than optimally healthy, regardless of how ‘in the pink’ she is .

Due to the cringe factor, many women take sole responsibility for fertility. Furthermore, it is women who ‘hold the time lines and calendars in our heads, who have to surrender space in our bodies and clear time in our lives’. Women are the ones who have to juggle their careers, or settle for a partner who may be less than ideal because their biological clock is ticking over. Mainstream medicine has long discouraged ‘older’ females from having babies. In this sense and more, women have been long held responsible for the ultimate health of their child.

Tables may turn when women are armed with this information about sperm ageing. No longer does the image of the older man with a younger woman on his arm seem so attractive, if older men are liable to be seen as past their fertility ‘use-by date’ by women.

The stereotype has always been that while older women just get old, men become more ‘distinguished’ with age. Women might find that, when they tune into their feminine intelligence, biologically inscripted to select the genetically best father for their offspring, they might now take age into account as well. Men may be forced to stick with women of their own age, because the biological drive of younger females to conceive under optimum conditions, puts them out into the grazing paddock.

We are in this together, males and females. Let’s stack the deck so that when all the cards are on the table, both genders are realistically appraised, without a bias that puts one on top of the pile, in favour of the other. Goodness knows, in the interests of evolution of the race, each succeeding generation must improve on the one before it.

For that to happen both men and women need to evaluate their health and well-being and make choices that ensure optimum chance for survival and thrival of their offspring, prior to conception.

Healing the Wound of the Mother

We heal our disconnection with our own feminine nature by consciously connecting to the energy of the Mother.

As a woman, one of the first things we need to do, to move towards our own self-empowerment and love our inherent feminine nature, is to acknowledge the Mother within.

Many women do this is the course of their lives in their day to day interaction with their real-life mother, if they are lucky enough to have her around being an active part of their lives.

But not all women have the luxury or the inclination to work through childhood issues in face-to-face interaction with their mother. For some their mother may be deceased, ill or estranged, or in some other way unavailable, to experience day-to-day updates on old scripts that have never had a chance to be rewritten.

As a child you were unable to separate between what you felt that you needed and what your
mother could provide in the circumstances that prevailed at the time. Remember your perception of her as a person has been prejudiced by your lifetime personal relationship with her.

If she wasn’t always able to fulfill your needs, you will have personalised this experience and taken it on as a negative belief about your self-worth. It is this distorted perception – that your mother does not value you or love you enough – that needs to be healed for you to fully appreciate and acknowledge yourself.

In most cases, it is a misperception that your mother didn’t love you enough. Because of your childhood need for total love and acceptance always, you may have misinterpreted many situations as evidence that your mother didn’t care for you.

As an infant, you would not have been able to discern all the factors that may have contributed to any given situation, in which for example, you may have felt unloved. However, this is precisely the time when your psychological programming was being laid down in your neural network.

Many beliefs about yourself stemming from these early developmental days became hard and fast attitudes as you grew up. By its very nature, this ‘programming’ process leads to faulty beliefs being laid down in the circuitry. Regardless of the best or worst intentions of your parents, significant programming occurred, which was a distortion of reality.

As the child morphs into the woman, and especially when she is moving into the Mother phase in her own life, she needs to re-evaluate her beliefs around her mother and the quality of her own mothering.

Sometimes, there is a long history of misunderstandings, resentments, incongruity and dislike that affects a woman’s present relationship with her mother. If these feelings drive your relationship with your mother, or there are unresolved matters that still hurt, you will experience self-esteem and self-worth issues. These will be passed on to your own child, if there are not resolved.

Asking a woman to simply forgive a lifetime of perceived hurt can be a tall order. Often the relationship with their mother is so toxic that it affects them on all levels of being, including the physical. In naturopathic diagnostics, it is recognised that women with bowel problems commonly have a current toxic relationship with their mother. To heal on the physical level requires a woman to clear the old toxic patterning of hurt and resentment that still dominates her relationship with her mother.

One of the ways that I work is to have a woman tap into her Archetypal Mother (her idealised mother) to bring about the healing that needs to take place in her heart. Once her own negative feelings are resolved by reprogramming her deepest sense of lack of self-worth, she can begin her journey of healing. She may or may not feel like resolving her issues face-to-face with her real-life mother. If she can’t face the prospect, connecting to the Archetypal Mother will bring about a subtle energetic shift between her real-life mother and herself anyway. In a toxic relationship, when one party comes to a healing resolution, the other party always feels the benefit of the change, in the ongoing relationship. That is the nature of energetic healing.

There are many ways to connect with the Archetypal Mother. They all involve taking time for oneself, by embarking on an inner journey of self-nurturing. Some will take the path of journaling – making daily entries into a journal for ten minutes a day. Others will do it through drawing, painting or writingor some other creative pursuit. While others will prefer to enjoy quiet meditations dedicated to healing their ‘mother stuff’.

There is beautiful meditation on ‘Healing the Mother Within’ in my book The Essence of Woman
available at Sowelu Centre, 83 Latrobe Tce, Paddington. You can phone an order in to be speed-posted to you on 07 3367 1950. Just remember to add postage to the retail price of $37.00 or you can click here to order online.

What a superb Mother’s Day present for you, your Mum, and your daughter/s!!

2009 is going to be an exciting year with more of the rapid changes that we experienced in 2008 occurring at the planetary level as we swing closer to 2012.

According to experts in the fields of astrology, astronomy, geophysics, and Mayan calender predictions, 2012 is the year that humanity, along with the planet and the solar system and beyond, steps into a New Age of peace, wonder, miracles and awe as the evolutionary shift takes effect.

This is the age when the Feminine Principle comes into ascendancy.

We are currently in transition leading up to 2012, hence all the changes that are happening with such rapidity on a global level. These changes are occurring on every level of existence driven by an evolutionary step up in consciousness, from the energy of the number 1 into that of number 2, according to numerology.

As human beings, on the global level we are becoming more conscious every day, and as a consequence, the old world-view which supported war and aggression, economic inequality, plundering of planetary resources and fear-based government, is losing its popularity and falling away as the resonance changes.

People no longer will put up with these grievous errors in perception, such as the atrocities occurring in the Gaza Strip, and the massive payouts that the big corporate boys at the top are giving their mates at the expense of shareholder. Instead they are demanding openness, compassion, equality, peaceful co-existence and dignified respect for the life process at whatever level of being. This is the energy of the Feminine Principle.

Recently I blogged about a call from a midwife, who is working at the coalface in a big hospital in one of the capital cities in Australia, for women to actively engage in the process of growing their awareness of the birthing process. She highlights the extreme ignorance of many of the women who come into the hospital to have their babies. These women unwittingly pass their lack of awareness along to their children by way of imprinting birth trauma that persists for the life-time of the child.

Aware mothers give birth to aware babies that grow to be conscious adults.

Conscious adults shape the society they are living in for the better.

As women we need to be at the forefront of consciousness change because we are so intimately connected to the next generation and how it creates its own future.

As aware women, we need to help our less conscious sisters to recognise the vital importance of their role as mothers and care-givers in shaping the world of the future.

Many women have told me how much my book has helped them to recognise this role in raising the consciousness of themselves and the planet.

Please pass my book on to your sisters, your friends, your daughters, and your grand-daughters. It’s about handing on the good news so that the whole of humanity can benefit, and the echo is then passed on down through succeeding generations.

It is time we factored our children’s children’s children, and their right to quality life on this planet, into the equation of how we live today, in the recognition that the past creates the future. It is women who have the wisdom and biological circuitry to do that consciously.

The seeds we plant in our children today will be harvested in the coming generations, as they carry the baton forward into the future.

I received an email from a midwife and a kinesiologist just recently. I felt it to be so heart-rending and wanted to share it. She is speaking her truth as she knows it and experiences it and tells the story for many women who can’t articulate their disconnection from themselves.

Thank you Chris.

She says:

Unfortunately the great majority of birthing women do not have a clue about their bodies, pregnancy, birth or mothering. I see it every day where I work in the emergency department of the ………… Hospital in ………… A large percentage have not attended any childbirth classes and have no knowledge of the process of labour. When I ask them what plans they have to assist labour most look at me blankly and say, “ just get an epidural as soon as possible” or just see what happens.

They are anaemic, low in platelets, low in ferritin, have long prelabours (where I see them) and have no chi to labour with. I had a couple from India try to pay me today to let her stay in the emergency department even though she had not started to dilate, was having irregular contractions for 3 hours. No show, membranes intact on her due date. When I told them to go home have a nice long warm bath, analgesic and some nutritious food and a sleep they looked at me as if I was crazy.

Previously I had my own private practice and delivered more than 1000 babies at home and hospitals and had the privilege of being with motivated, informed aware women and their partners. It is another world. I do hope your book will filter through to women and empower them to take the reins, so to speak, for a better world.

What Chris is describing is all around us – women (and men) who are disempowered and disabled because they do not know how to connect with the natural intelligence that is biologically designed into their living systems.

When and as we do take control of our lives by trusting the processes that are inbuilt and listening to our own wisdom rather than that of someone ‘out there’ purported to be an expert, we create a better world. Babies born into awareness carry it with them for the rest of their lives. That is why birthing is such an powerfully formative process and sets the tone of the baby’s life forevermore on all levels of her being: physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological and relational.

And since birthing is the flowering of a woman’s sexuality, it is deeply in her interests to approach the process with awareness and from an informed base. When the experience is a conscious one and the woman delves deep into the well of her ancient female lineage to gather the resources for the birthing process, she awakens a power within her that has been formerly untapped. She has ripened and begins to exude the sweetness inherent in her feminine design.

She can now experience the true depth of her orgasmic capacity and imbue her children with the joys of deep intimacy that they will carry into the next generation. Avoidance of the birth process through heavy medication, instrument-assisted labour or caesarean section robs a woman of her own birth-right, that of being fully a woman.

In the weekend paper today (19/10/08) I read an article on obesity entitled “Obese eat more but enjoy less” A finding based on a study of the brains of obese people found that when they are eating the pleasure centres do not light up like they do in average weight people. The study was published in Science journal and found that obese people may have fewer pleasure receptors in their brains, leading them to have to “take in more of a rewarding substance such as food or drugs to experience the same level of pleasure as normal people”

Built into the healthy body of human beings is a ‘reward’ system that releases the ‘pleasure chemical’ dopamine from the brain and floods receptors giving a feel-good response as a reward for eating nutritious foods that will sustain it. It seems that obese people do not have this system fully developed and it is theorised that their reward centres are weakened, prompting them to eat more to eventually get a ‘hit’.

This piece of research can be translated into energy terms. The desire to eat and the pleasure derived from eating resides in the organ system responsible for digestion – the Stomach/Spleen. This organ system delivers what is known as ‘post-natal qi’, the vital energy that maintains functioning and provides the energy to live, and to do things. When the Stomach/Spleen organ system is under-functioning a person becomes tired, lacks energy and is unable to digest food completely leading, over time, to weight gain. The poorer the Stomach/Spleen function the less energy a person has, the more they will eat and the more obese they will become, further weakening the system.

The integrity of the Stomach/Spleen organ system is determined at birth and is intimately linked to the bonding process that occurs most successfully in a normal, natural birth within minutes and hours of the infants life.

If the birth has been natural and calm, stroking the baby immediately afterwards triggers the digestive system to ’switch on’ and open up in anticipation of the first experience of post-natal feeding. (Of course up until now, baby has been nourished via the umbilical cord known energetically as pre-natal qi). The baby suckles immediately if placed at the breast in the first few minutes after birth. It is the stimulation of the baby’s mouth together with gentle touching and stroking from the mother, that sends signals to the body’s digestive system to start functioning.

Within six hours of birth the natural reflex of both mother and baby to bond is reduced significantly if they are separated. In many hospital births separating mothers and babies is not seen to have any significance and is considered lightly.

In my understanding the practice of separating mothers and babies has contributed to the current epidemic of obesity and diabetes, now being found in younger and younger children and reaching epidemic proportions in the adult population. Interestingly, it seems to me that it is since the so-called ‘enlightened’ days of hospital birthing that these digestive diseases have become rampant.

What is needed is for mother and baby to be kept together for at least the first precious 24 hours after the birth. Many systems are being switched on in the baby’s body-mind that will have repercussions for an entire lifetime. This practice also dramatically affects the child’s psychology as many new nerve pathways are created in the brain immediately following the birth experience. Those pathways tell the infant how safe and loving the world is and persist for a lifetime.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting three-week-old Faith and her mum KP. Faith was born at home and is KP’s second child.

Her first, a boy now three, was born in a hospital setting following a stressful, long labour that was induced. Immediately after the birth, the little fellow was lying passively on his mother’s abdomen after his big ordeal being gently caressed. He was breathing regularly and starting to ‘pink up’ when one of the nurses picked him up abruptly and turned him onto his back in order to “check his breathing”. In response the infant experienced a ’startle reflex’ (shuddered and breathed in sharply) and abruptly began to show an irregular pattern in his breathing. One of the nursing staff then declared that because of the irregular breathing pattern he would need to be placed in intensive care. He was removed from his mother and taken away. Three weeks later mum and baby were reunited and able to maintain full skin contact for the first time through the simple act of cuddling.

KP was intensely disappointed with her first birthing experience. She had been induced because the doctors thought that she might be at risk of infection due to a minor leaking of her waters previously. A full week in hospital however revealed no indications of infection and normal progression of the pregnancy, by now in it’s 37th week. Still, they insisted on the induction. By this stage KP was feeling totally out of control and although she protested, was told that ‘her baby might die’ if she went home and ignored their advice. The labour that resulted was a wild ride characterised by continual interference from the nursing staff to check and monitor progress. KP said later that she felt like she had to perform under this constant surveillance and as a consequence, could not relax into the birth.

It was that experience that prompted KP to have a home birth where she could pace it herself with the help of a trusted midwife, her husband and me, her practitioner through both pregnancies, acting as her doula (support). Throughout the pregnancy KP told me many times that, although she was nervous of the big step that she was taking, provided that she had enough faith in herself and her innate capacity to give birth, everything would be fine.

A week before she was due, KP held a beautiful Blessingway gathering where, supported by her many wonderful women friends, she asserted her clear intention to give birth in a calm and positive environment so that she and the baby had the best possble start to their life-long relationship. We all threaded a bead, along with our own prayer for a gentle passage for the new bub, onto a birthing necklace.

And indeed it was just that. As it turned out this birth was so quick and easy that neither her mid-wife nor I had time to get there! And for some part of the labour KP was alone as her husband had to drop off their three-year-old to grandma’s place. As she was crowning, she managed to text new Dad and tell him to hurry. He arrived home just in time to catch Faith as she was being born. When we got there shortly afterwards there was a warm, calm glow radiating from the room. KP was relaxed and Faith was busy having her first suckle, her little toes and fingers wriggling with joy at having landed safely!

And the warmth and the glow has persisted. The baby is contented, sleeps for extended periods at night, and her digestive system is functioning perfectly. Mum is positively radiating joy, flush with her success and bonded firmly with the newest family member. And big brother likes to get into the act by often giving her fierce cuddles that don’t seem to phase her at all.

The two birthing environments might have been on two different planets. In the first, the power was taken from KP and she was controlled, through her own birthing process, by fear. In the second, faith in her own capacity gave KP the strength to take on whatever circumstance presented itself to accomplish this most fundamental task that she was biologically designed to do.

Welcome Faith and congratulations KP.