It is my birthday this week and I have been contemplating what we each go through when we are born. We are imprinted from our earliest memories and from stories we are told about our origins.
For example, some aspects of my birth were less than calm. The labor was difficult for my Mum. I was her first, and she had toxemia. The doctors were trying to protect her welfare by inducing me early. Apparently, early wasn’t for me! When I did finally make the journey down the birth canal, there were lots of nervous people: doctors sharpening their scalpel for a possible surgery, family impatiently standing by. I was in effect poisoning my Mum. Thankfully, the birth happened in time, with both mother and babe normal and healthy.
Later in life, I became aware of some kind of imprint around having to be careful not to hurt people. Not just an imposter feeling but of being a danger to the people I love. No wonder I was a shy kid.
A New Circuit
While as coaches we don’t probe into every personal trauma, a lot of our work is repatterning the emotional circuitry that people acquire, one way or another.
For me, I had a professionally facilitated rebirthing experience. An opportunity to relive and re-feel what my birth was like and how it affected me.
It began with holotropic breathwork to put me in a peaceful open state, and a guided visualization of being in the womb. A lot of sensations right there! My coach actually made a makeshift womb with his scissored legs so it was even more visceral. Squeezing my way out of the warmth into this tight canal. Getting stuck and feeling something like scared… and then a new memory of confidence that it would be okay. Suddenly free and on the move again… and I am out!
Whatever had been the actual scene in that London hospital, in this new pattern the room was warm. Welcoming. Loving. Delighted. My coach touched his music player to surprise me with one of my all-time favorite tracks: Joe Cocker singing ‘You are so beautiful’. Let me tell you, that is a way to be brought into the world! I was bawling tears of joy.
Confident around Fear
The new imprint from that experience has truly stayed with me. While someone’s nervous energy can still trigger echoes of that old feeling of being a danger or being trapped in a tight space, I do feel fundamentally welcome in this world. I know in my bones that I am loved. A circuit has been completed in me such that fear, when it arises, now also reminds me of my natural confidence.
What You Can Do
You don’t need to do as dramatic a process as I have described here. Stale imprints of feeling will arise in the natural course of living. Memories or stories that inhibit your full self-emergence. For one or two of the most habitual, take the time to follow the painful feeling into a new circuitry. Inner to every limitation, your body already knows who you really are. Follow that to complete the circuit. From trapped to free, even in a tight spot. From feared to welcomed. Or whatever it is for you.
I’m interested in hearing what experiences you have in this regard.
All the best,
David Lesser