How Noticing Your Breath Changes Your Pregnancy, Your Birth and Your Life.

Everyone seems to be jumping on the Zen train and if you know someone who has recently started meditating you might be over it already. New meditators are the WORST. Most long term meditators treat their meditation like fight club - you don’t talk about it. But that can be hard in the beginning when you start to notice the effects of having a clearer mind and you want to tell everyone they have to try it! (Plus there is a growing body of research of the clear benefits - reduced pain, stress, blood pressure and postpartum depression to name a few).

The title of this blog is based on a question I’m asked a LOT and I honestly do try to NOT oversell the practice. You might think that sitting for 5 minutes and breathing slowly is relaxing. It can be but that’s not the goal, but it is a nice side effect.

As you focus on your breathing you’ll soon notice how quickly your attention on your breath is interrupted by random thoughts such as ”did I turn off the oven, “I’m hungry”, “did Paul feed the dog” etc etc. All of this is normal - all you have to do is notice the thoughts arising and gently return your focus to your breath - over and over again. You do it kindly without criticizing yourself. All in all it’s not very exciting at all and you might wonder what all the fuss is about.

The above examples are fairly neutral but the real fun begins when a thought comes up that is accompanied by a challenging emotion. Let’s say you and (insert name of villainous traitor here) had a disagreement in work last week and you lost your temper and said some things that won’t look good on your next review. In a millisecond you are now replaying that disagreement and all of the emotions that went along with it as if it’s happening right now. One thought has now yanked you out of that 40 seconds of peaceful breathing and dragged down a rabbit hole of how much you dislike X…. your job…. what you wished you’d said at the time…and how Claire sided with X and she should know better…. she won’t be getting an invite to the baby shower…But at any point you could have intentionally slowed your roll and went back to paying attention to your breath instead of paying attention to the soap opera playing out in you mind and allowing the anger to gather momentum. But don’t be hard on yourself most people don’t know that we’re the Directors of the soap opera - as well as having a leading role and as the Director we have the power to say “CUT” right when the mental drama begins.

As you begin a mindfulness practice you can start with your breath, or your body, the GentleBirth App or whatever your point of focus is - you start to see how crazy the human mind is and how much of the show you’re actually running.

You’ll start to realize that you don’t have to take the bait with every random thought or emotion you experience. You have a choice in what thoughts you’ll entertain or not. The point isn’t to stop thinking, but to notice what you’re thinking and change how you relate to it.

So while you’re practicing sitting in the kitchen for 5 minutes as the kettle boils, you noticed a potential ‘hijack’ and hopped off that train of thought - that’s a WIN! You just saved yourself from going down that rabbit hole and not feeling very good. This is a brilliant start! But it’s the next part where the rubber really meets the road. With practice you can do that IRL too not just in the kitchen under perfect circumstances.

A month later that work colleague/husband/friend/supermarket cashier does something really annoying and instead of going off on them you see you have a choice in how you respond instead of a knee jerk reaction that won’t end well. You didn’t take the bait - and that feels amazing. It’s like a superpower you’ve just activated. Life will never be the same again…ok yes that’s a bit ambitious. Life will never be the same again at least until you forget to remember that you have a choice - that you can decide not to take the bait - but it feels lovely while it lasts. That’s why it’s called a practice. The more you do it the bigger the benefits and the more often you’ll activate that superpower for your own mental health.

Pregnancy & Beyond

Consider all the negative thoughts that bubble up during an average day during your pregnancy - or even the first hour after you wake up. There’s a LOT happening between your ears that evolution thought was a good idea but in fact can cause more problems than it solves in our modern world. Your brain’s main job is to get your genes into the next generation by any means necessary - that’s why we have to train the brain. That’s why taking a look under the hood at how it all works can be so life changing especially in pregnancy when your extra plastic brain changes structurally in positive ways with your meditation practice (and those wonderful hormones).

What about when your baby arrives and you start comparing yourself to other moms, or you have some not so pleasant feelings about your partner not helping out enough, or how your postpartum body looks? The list is endless which gives you endless opportunities to choose not to follow those thoughts/emotions down that rabbit hole to unhappiness.

Ok - enough from me - when I get started writing about meditation it’s hard for me to stop so I’ll sign off now. Try it as an experiment, see what you think.

Tracy