Healthy Pregnancy - Self Compassion

Self Compassion. . .

What happens if you're already experiencing mental and emotional overwhelm, anxiety, fear, panic and sleepless nights?

Your body has tried to communicate with you and tell you what it needs, but you've ignored it for too long! Now you feel stuck and don't know what to do.

Any experience that was not validated and handled healthily in the moment of occurrence can be stored as trauma in our amygdala. This causes a fight or flight response in our body (cortisol and stress release response) any time our bodies feel threatened in a similar way - thus fear, insomnia, anxiety, and panic!

How do you break the cycle? Enter self-compassion.

You know now better than you knew then. And if you can take some time to recognize how you missed some of your body signals in the moment (without guilt or shame, simply non-judgmentally noticing) and honor them now, you can reset your system and start to minimize the difficult emotional experiences.

If the visceral sensations of recalling stressful events are too much, I would encourage you to seek professional help from a counselor or therapist!

But if you are able, find a quiet place and take 5-10 deep breaths. Do a body scan. Think about your difficult experience - what you felt, thought, feared, and what your body was telling you. Gently acknowledge the event. Tell yourself it mattered. If it feels right, gently touch your body where you feel sensation (stomach, chest, shoulders, head, etc.) Then as you enter into that experience, come along side yourself as a gentle friend, and guide yourself in caring for your body now.

Sometimes showing ourselves compassion looks like journaling out our thoughts and feelings. Sometimes it's taking some time in nature, or a long bath, lighting a candle, praying, or gently rubbing our feet.

In taking time to gently speak to your body that it is safe and begin to notice when your body is speaking, you can reverse the effects of little-t traumas and find more peace in your pregnancy and birth experience!