We’ve been thinking about action and consequences here this week with my kiddos.
It’s got me thinking about birth … and how we don’t get to do-over any specific experience. You can have another baby and have a healing experience but you can’t do-over the pervious experience … which is why its so important.
But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Let’s go all the way back for context.
As a child I remember my mum saying, “Sorry doesn’t make a dead man alive,” and I have found myself repeating this phrase through my own parenting. I find myself wondering why it has stuck but it did because, whether you agree with it or not, the lesson it instilled was that some things are unfixable or unrepeatable even if you apologise. Being sorry is part of the process but sorry doesn’t erase the consequence. This is where the conversation about impact versus intention is really key.
Now fast forward to me as a first-time mum with a toddler, learning about how to set boundaries and raise an emotionally healthy child. Some of the things that I read included: if your kid spills milk or if something has gone wrong, you can do the rewind and have a do-over, which definitely has its benefits and avoided many tantrums… as a first time mum, I was just trying to figure things out, and I assumed anything that kept cortisol at bay was alright.. right?
I’m not saying it doesn’t have its place but eventually I saw that it made my child think that mistakes could be done over and therefore the consequence erased.
That is something I have had to work on in my parenting in the years since: to try and figure out how to find the medium because some mistakes or some actions cannot be done over. We can feel emotions around them but we cannot rewrite what happened.
Yes if a drink spills, you can clean it up and try again but you are not going to get the same liquid into that cup. It doesn’t mean that you have to be grumpy or rude about it but it does mean that you have to understand that something has fundamentally changed. You cannot do over the exact moment.
When you think about birth, its the same. You can birth a baby and have a whole set of experiences, and whether you never have another kid or go on to have 10 more, none of those can be done-over to rewrite the others.
This is such an important piece because we plan for weddings, we plan for birthdays, we plan for graduations but we don’t plan for birth. We don’t spend the time investing in our resources, our body, and our mentality for one of the most incredible days of our life and we are never going to be able to do it over. You cannot have a do-over in birth.
I love Kemi Johnson. She is the most incredible birthworker and activist and she has a phrase that says, “Babies are only born once.” I love it because it’s so deeply true… and the impact on birth for that baby will be felt throughout the rest of their life. It isn’t just one day that is done and forgotten. The reality is that the beliefs you pick up when you are entering this world are beliefs that shape your entire existence. The reality is that the way that birth unfolds will impact the healing through postpartum, the bonding with parents, and the trajectory of a child’s life. It’s a big responsibility and Kemi speaks to that so beautifully.
This week, thinking about consequences, do-overs, and boundaries with my own children, I have been reminded of our earlier years and the lessons that came when I tried to pretend like you could rewind mistakes and avoid feeling.
I truly believe that one of the only ways we can heal and process birth experiences is through allowing them to be felt and witnessed. In birth debriefs I will use a variety of techniques, from reframing and listening to silent counselling and sometimes EFT. This is because when we allow our body to metabolise the experiences we’ve had and ourselves to no longer lock in that energy, we are able to continue with life. In this way postpartum changes, parenting changes. I know because not only have I seen it work with clients but I have felt it in my own body.
This week my family had a really big event and my children have been actively avoiding their feelings and showing me exactly what happens when this happens: the outbursts, the uncontrollable emotions, the anger, the dissociation, and the rollercoaster that feels so big. This is because we are avoiding sitting with sadness or frustration or hurt or confusion.
Rather than trying to do it over, rather than trying to erase what’s happened and pretend like everything is fine, if we can be okay with just sitting in the messiness and accepting that we don’t get a do-over (and that sorry doesn’t make a dead man alive), we can be sorry. We can have apologies but it isn’t going to change what has happened. Sometimes apologies aren’t necessary.
When we can sit with all of these feelings that make us so beautifully human, we can then begin to process, move forward, and plan for birth, postpartum, and parenting in a more wholesome supported way as a society.
So those are my thoughts for tonight. As ever thank you for reading.
With love,
Rohana
