A Story To Be Told

The power of writing your birth story

“The dance of renewal, the dance that made the world, was always danced here at the edge of things, on the brink, on the foggy coast.”

― Ursula K. Le Guin

Last week was the completion of my eight-week somatic birth writing and storytelling group, Birth and The Pen. A workshop series that has been in my dream world for quite some time and behind my eyes, waiting somewhat patiently to come into form.

Over the past few years, I have been working towards harnessing a new why, a new way of being with my work. This why that has shown up in many ways through lived experience, through witnessing other's stories, and through learning wisdom and teachings from those who share their knowledge in hopes of change. This pull became even more noticeable after I became a mother. My initiation, although powerful, was also complex, complicated, and quite scary. Before I was ever able to utter a sentence about what I had moved through, I lost my voice, my grounding, and my orientation. An inevitable loss that I now know is a huge part of the journey, but because of the lack of words in our culture around childbirth and motherhood, I fell into utter shock and, at times, even paralyzing despair.

Despite feeling partially prepared and understanding logically that any transformational experience of this kind would be disruptive and require time to regain stability, what truly caught me off guard was the growing importance of embracing my birth story, processing it, writing it, and having others bear witness to it.

Before this inner beckoning to sit in my story was able to move towards creation, the call for it lived in my body the way most of my knowings do. It tapped on the window of self; it pushed the edges of my bones; it laid in the bottom of my throat and hid behind the fogginess of my eyes and longing in my heart. A story needing to be told.

Tami Lynn Kent, an author, and women's health physical therapist, writes, "Reviewing your birth event completes a creative cycle." Words that, for me, couldn't have offered more truth. Without telling my story, my experience felt open, raw, and, in some ways, incomplete. As if there were so many lessons and insights into myself that I didn't have time to see because I was thrown into the well of mothering.

It is almost like missing some of the most important aspects of a medicine journey or another whole body-altering experience: the integration. For the initiation into becoming a mother, no matter what your journey looked like, is nothing less than a psychedelic experience. An invitation, an entry point into the inner workings of your being. And goodness, there is a lot to be revealed.

The first person to hold my birth story was a woman named Kate White. Kate is a Somatic trauma resolution therapist, Biodynamic craniosacral, and Advanced bodyworker specializing in prenatal and perinatal therapies. All to say — a goddess, a teacher, a healer. What I found in the telling of my birth story, besides a calling for a memoir (more on that later), was that behind the pages was a mountain's worth of grief that I had been trying my hardest to tuck away. In addition to finding what was missing in my experience and the ability to name it, I also tapped into what worked, what supports were in me and all around me that I could not see, and strength and power in myself that I somehow easily bypassed.

These findings of my experience of becoming a mother were desperately needed, and I had no idea. I had no idea what I had to shed and what I also needed to let in and receive.

As I made space in myself for these insights, my story into motherhood began to change slowly, as stories often do. My relationship with my experience began to shift, my awareness began to widen, and the summoning to help others write their own stories began.

A few months ago, the pull to begin the group finally outweighed the scary and complex emotions that come with beginning something new. The first thing I wrote while I anxiously was sitting in the Zoom space waiting for the group members to join was:

I am sweaty.

I am nervous.

I am trembling.

And I am doing it anyway.

Because I believe in the need and the heart of my why.

And although those feelings lasted throughout the eight weeks, what was to be found was so much more than I ever anticipated.

Some things that were revealed after sitting with women sharing their birth stories:

• It is never too late. The returning to your story, even years and decades after, is still profound and healing.

• So many of us never get the chance, the time, the space, to revisit some of the most powerful, most challenging, and most life-transforming changes that we, as birthing bodies, go through to become.

• When we give space for our body to share our birth story, it knows exactly where to take us.

• Many of us feel alone and long for more connection around our birthing experiences and motherhood, yet we feel isolated because there are not enough spaces to have "real" conversations.

• Being witnessed and cared for as we open our hearts with vulnerability and truth heals generations.

• Hearing another say, me too, or having an eye gaze that speaks you are not alone helps to bring in more softness and wholeness.

• Having the felt sense of being believed is deserved and holy.

• Honoring what didn't get to happen, honoring grief, and honoring sorrow can be beautifully held in a container of mothers.

• The wisdom shared through voice, body, and intention lands differently in the bones.

• Each time we return to a part of our story of becoming, we are invited deeper into the well of who we are.

• The sharing of our birth stories is not only medicine for ourselves but for all birthing bodies.

• As mothers, there are so many more stories to be told, and often never get the chance to be. Stories that are held in our own bodies, stories that have been held in our mother's bodies, and stories that have been held in our grandmother's bodies — stories of childbirth, of loss, of miscarriage, of abortion, of adoption, of infertility — all stories that deserve a voice, all stories needed to break the silence.

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After returning to my own birth story this time around, what I was able to connect with was all of the different parts of me that came together to move through becoming a mother. I was able to connect more deeply to the woman I was before pregnancy, what she was like, and what she wanted me to remember. I was able to connect with the life-carrying woman who was doing the best she could and who felt scared and triggered. I was able to connect to the surrendering woman who had to figure out her relationship with trust and her body. I was able to connect with the laboring woman who felt powerful, fierce, and frightened. I was able to connect to the fractured mother, whose body needed mending and whose heart felt broken while it also exploded with love. I was able to connect to the new mother who felt so alone and lost for words but always knew it was all so much more than just her. I was able to connect to the mending mom, who put the pieces together and found ground even when she couldn't see her feet.

Each time I return to my story of becoming a mother, I get closer to my heart - to me and all of the stories that continue never to be spoken.

May we honor our stories of becoming a mother.

May we honor our stories that have yet to be written on becoming a mother.

May we honor our body’s stories on becoming a mother.

May we honor all the stories that came before on becoming a mother.

May we honor all the stories that will come after on becoming a mother.

May we honor the words yet to be formed and the sounds yet to be heard on becoming a mother.

If you wish to connect around ways you can write or tell your birth story, either 1:1 or in a group space, you can contact me here.

In deep gratitude for being here and bearing witness to a part of my story.