Being a Mother is a Gift to the World with Gayle Peterson, PhD

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have some fun.

Hello and welcome.

I am Alexander J. Johnson and Today's guest is Dr. Gail Peterson. Dr. Peterson is an international expert specializing in prenatal and family development. She trains professionals in her prenatal counseling model and is the author of An Easier Childbirth, Birthing Normally and Making Healthy Families. Her articles on family relationships appear in professional journals and she is a featured expert in popular magazines such as Women's Day, Mothering, Fit Pregnancy, and parenting. Welcome. Welcome, Dr. Peterson.

Well, I'm very happy to be here and glad to be talking with you now.

Yes, me too. And I appreciate your work. As we were just talking briefly have your books and very excited about all the pioneering work you've been doing for a while. So thank you for helping us all out on the journey.

You're welcome. Also, I should mention there is a website by the same name, makinghealthyfamilies.com and on there are many articles. There's about 600 articles for parents that parents have asked. Some are about pregnancy and childbirth. Others are about 2 year olds, 3 year olds, newborns, discipline, teenagers, grandparents, and whatnot. So people should feel free to browse the free articles there as well.

That's fantastic. That's amazing. So these are all questions that parents have asked you over the years.

Exactly. And you know, they're the common ones that come up over and over again. So if they put it in the search, they'll probably find what they're looking for.

That's fantastic. So how long have you been doing this? I'm just curious, how long have you been helping make healthy families?

Well, you know, 35 years is really when I first started working with pregnant women and developing the prenatal model. So out of that came the books and the training for professionals. And then, let's see, it was in the 1990s, I just more and more wanted to really help people understand. Also, not only can you look at what supports a woman in birth and what makes for a healthy approach to birth and makes it the best kind of personal growth experience, but also parenting, that there are actually known processes of families that are known to create healthy families and to help people navigate the different parenting phases of parenting. And so I wanted to write that book so that people would be looking at their family of origins and what kind of a family they want to Create, you know, so you often talk about, what kind of a birth would I like to have? You know, what kind of a family do you want to have? You know, this is something that's really within your grasp to have some influence over by, you know, intelligently looking at, you know, your own family dynamics. And that's what the book is about. The first three chapters are helping people identify the patterns that they came from. And then with their partners, they kind of look at choosing the patterns that will be most useful for them.

Right. And that's so important. Right. I mean, it sounds like it's common sense, but so many people don't actually ask that question, what do I want for my family?

Yeah, because it's just so, shall we say, you know, sort of unconscious, you know, imprinted with. And unless you're really unhappy with it, if you really had a very troubled childhood, then often people actually have the advantage of knowing that because they actually are looking at, okay, I didn't like this. This was painful. I don't want to do it that way. Okay, so how do you want to do it and what goes into that? Because that's something you have to look at too, because many times people will just go the other way, but. But not really find a healthy middle ground, particularly in things like discipline with their children. But at any rate, these people who have difficult family situations often have a head start because at least they know what they don't want to do.

Right. That's good. So there's a benefit of having a childhood that wasn't ideal. So now you know what you want.

Yes. In every generation and every family, even if you had wonderful relationships with your parents and so forth, still there's going to be things you want to do differently. That's part of individuating. It's part of being in your contemporary times and making your own way. So there's always going to be things that you kind of want to improve on.

So what would you recommend a couple is wanting to start a family. Like, what work would you have them do before they got pregnant to create a healthier dynamic or one that they truly want?

Well, you know, that's what the first three chapters of the Making Healthy Families book is centered on, is looking at the blueprints in your family of origin, and particularly in terms of parenting, really, particularly around philosophies around raising children and philosophies around discipline, and also looking at how you make room for a child in a family in your relationship. And I could say a bit more about that because it is sort of one of the first things couples face.

Right. It's a whole new dynamic, having a new child.

Yeah, well, in a sense, that first year, I mean, you're not going to get too much into discipline in the first year. Not that much yet. But what comes up in the first year, of course, is the attention and the bonding which is so important of parent to child and both mother and infant, father infant. And basically in families, what researchers find are pretty simply there's three possibilities. When you have a baby. An entry into the family like this, of having a child is one of the most significant stressors you can have on the relationship and on the family is the entrance, a new member, so to speak. So this new member, this child, there's three possibilities. Either you can not have much room for a baby because there's so much going on in your life and so much going on between the couple that they really have trouble fitting a baby in. Maybe they get help, but still it's hard, not just with work, but maybe because they like to have a very active social life, a very active life in general or travel or whatever. And children can grow up in families where there really isn't much room for them and there isn't that much focus. Now that was more true and we're probably swinging the other way now. And many people may have come from families like that. So then there's the other side of it, which is the other side of the spectrum, which is the couple becomes very, very child focused and stays that way. Not just, you know, when the baby's born, but it's all about the child. They don't take time for themselves, they don't have their own needs. Especially if you have a stay at home mom, doesn't have her, you know, just everything is for the baby. The baby, you know, stays in the bed. Sometimes dad, for example, might sleep in the other room for years because they're so focused on the baby and the baby being okay and the baby having what it needs and so forth. Well, that is really what we find is an overburdening responsibility for the child because the child ends up carrying the couple. Because they start looking to the baby for their own self esteem or to the child for their own self esteem rather than to each other as their main supports. That would be not having any room for the couple. So then you look at, obviously the middle ground is that, remember your couple relationship is the garden in which your children grow. So they're going to gain a lot from a couple that is well connected, that does love each other and does spend some time nurturing their relationship, not to the expense of the child, but to the balance of it, so that they do have some time together so they don't forget to share with each other what their days were like or what their lives were like when they were away from each other with the baby. And also that they do take some time in that first year, depending on what the couple feels like, maybe in a month or two or whenever they feel like it, find somebody who they really trust that can be with the child while they go out and have dinner alone and really establish that couple connection for the sake of the child, really for the whole family. But it benefits the child even though they're taking time from being just with the child. So that's really the main thing. I think that couples going into it have to realize that, yeah, they are going to have, in that first year, they are going to have to carve out time for the relationship, which includes oftentimes carving out time for sex. You know, it's not as spontaneous anymore. You really have to kind of plan or semi plan it, you know, kind of sense, okay, when is going to be a good time for us to spend some time together, when we won't be interrupted. How is this going to work? You know, so it really is something that couples have to be conscious of, of staying a couple and not becoming overly child focused. So those are the two extremes. But the middle ground is really what we want to see in making healthy families is room for every member to grow and room for the couple to stay connected even as they connect to their child and their children.

Yeah, that's great too. And I love that you're saying that it's important for the child's health for us to be. I mean, we're teaching our children essentially how to be an adult and how to be in relationship.

Right. And how to love, you know, to get all the love in the family. Right. You know, that's not particularly. You know, that means somebody's hurting if other people aren't getting it from each other. You know, the love has to flow back and forth between people. And children get a lot out of hearing their parents. How do I say it? Hearing one parent say something positive about the other that's genuine, like, oh, this is a wonderful dinner. You cook so well, or your mother cooks so well, that kind of thing. Or your father cooks so well, or just any kind of compliment that is genuine and is spoken from a husband to a wife or wife To a husband is really that child feels that energy and feels that as the natural thing to do as well as they grow up. So that's a very important thing, is to communicate the positive feelings you have to your partner and really verbalize them in front of your children.

So I'm curious on your thoughts on women, you know, because you have this baby and it becomes all consuming, and you love the baby and you want to be with the baby. What stops women from actually giving that love and appreciation and the attention that's needed in her relationships?

What stops her from giving it to her partner? Well, nothing stops her from giving it to her partner other than, you know, whatever is coming up for her individually. And I mean, what would that be? It would just be, I guess, succumbing to. Maybe that's what they saw in their family blueprints that, you know, once they become a family, no longer, you know, sometimes what happens for couples is the couple, you know, they're having a great relationship and then they become a family. And suddenly the blueprint starts to come alive, you know, in their mind. Where I wasn't alive before, it was just like, I'm with my friend, I'm with my best friend. I'm, you know, that kind of thing. But then the children come, and before you know it, it's, well, you know, mothers do this and fathers do this, and then without realizing it, that's something that could hold someone back from expressing positive things to their partner would be their own. They didn't see it in their family of origins, and they might have also seen antagonism. The other thing that can happen is, especially sometimes for fathers, they can feel very left out. And rather than including themselves or expressing their feelings or talking to other men about them or talking to their wife about them, just as their adjustment. I really miss our time alone. But that's the way it is. It's an adjustment. But instead of talking about it, they might just start to withdraw. That's not an uncommon pattern that happens with father sometimes where they feel sort of blindsided by the mother's attention to the child and the fact that they have less attention for them, which is true. Just as you have less attention for yourself. This is true. Having a child in the first year, and even as you adjust to it in the first year, even two years, you really do make some sacrifices. And that's not to say you're a martyr about it. It's just what you've signed up for. And you know, there will be, you know, the payoff you know, hopefully of the family and the. And the love and the connection and the life, you know, that you're enjoying and going to enjoy as your children grow. But you do have to sacrifice the old life. It's not going to be the same. You're not going to be able to spontaneously just, you know, go to a movie or, you know, go to dinner or visit a friend or take off for a weekend. It's just not going to be the same.

And what do you recommend to kind of honor this transition? Like, how does a woman prepare for motherhood and how does a man prepare for fatherhood? Is that something we can prepare or we just jump into?

Well, you know, I think it's. I guess it's, you know, prepare almost sounds like, well, if you prepare it, then you won't have any difficulties. And I don't think that's true. So I don't want to say you can prepare for it and then it's just a breeze, because that's just not really possible. It's like anything, there's a learning curve. So I'm trying to think of a better word than prepare. I think be knowledgeable about the life cycle. Change. It's a change in the life cycle. It's a maturation, really. And you want to be this person, these people who are making a family. And that's a commitment. It's not something you can go back on. You know, it's a commitment in that sense. We all grow up when we have children or we all are challenged with growing up because you just can't do just everything you want when you want to. So how do you prepare for this? I don't think you can really prepare for it so much as know that it's a new. It's a new phase of the life cycle, that it's going to go in a positive direction, that it won't. That there'll be some difficult times, but they won't, you know, they'll balance out and. And you will adjust to it. And then once you adjust to it, because it is an immersion experience, you know, it is total immersion. I mean, once you adjust to it, it's. It's. It's like it was always like that. And, you know, so, you know, I think that first year, I mean, some people adjust, you know, just in the first few months, and some people, it feels like a whole year before they really, really feel like they're solid. I think the most important thing in terms of, you know, as you would think of preparation is something that I have in an Easier Childbirth. It's a chapter with exercises on Mothers are people too. Fathers are people too. When you become a mother, you don't lose your personhood. So if there are things you do, you will still be doing them and you still want to plan on doing them. Just probably not as often. I mean, hypothetically, anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So in the book, there's a worksheet of balancing out your own interests and, you know, being able to see that I'm making this up. But, you know, somebody, you know, say they work out, you know, two hours a day or something. I don't know if that's their fashion or whatever. They're not going to be doing that. You know, that's not going to be the time for that. But maybe they work out twice a week, or maybe they work out even once a week. You know, it doesn't go away if you just maintain a little bit of it. Whatever it is, whatever it is that you're doing. Your interests don't just disappear, but they have to be balanced with the needs of the child. And the other thing, in terms of, I think what couples can do and fathers and mothers can do in preparing, if you use that word, is to know. And those are other exercises that are in both books. Making Healthy families and in an Easier childbirth is preparing, you know, to ask questions you know, of. What did you. What. What did you like about your childhood? You know, what did your mother do that you like? What did your mother do that you didn't like? You know, what did your father do that you like? What? You know, what do you. How do you want to be as a father? How do you want to be as a mother? What. What's most important to you? And different things come up for different people based on their blueprints. So then they're discussing it, and that's what's important, is just they're discussing it, not that they know when they're going to be perfect. There's no perfect parent, and there shouldn't be and there can't be, and that's not what it's about. So any more than there is that you have to have the perfect labor, perfect birth. You deal with life as it comes and just staying present with it. And being aware means that when you're looking at childbirth and especially early parenting, you're aware that you're opening up to the last 20, 30 years of your life at the same time that you're opening up to your future in a way that you hadn't before. Because things come up about being parented that were not. They weren't things you were focused on before you decided to become a parent or were pregnant, but now that you're focused on them, you know, things that you thought you figured out. I've had clients come in over and over again. Moms come in and, you know, say, well, I thought I worked out this stuff with my mother 10 years ago. Why is it coming up again? So the thing that you want to realize is it's going to come up again because your relationship with your mother is very powerful, you know, positive and negative and. And so it's going to come up and that's a part of what you use as you become a mother or father, your relationship with, what it was like with your father, what it was like with your mother. And so mothers and fathers are very much making, in that first year, they are very much making an identity of how they want to be as a father or as a mother. And the way that they can do that in the most aware way, the only way to prepare, is to answer those questions about, you know, what was life like when you were growing up and, you know, what was your relationship with your father, you know, was it close, was it remote? You know, how do you want to be with your children? You know, how. And because then like, let's say somebody grew up with a remote father, you know, a woman or a man, and they want, but they want their children, they see it differently, they hurt from that. So they want a warmer connection. Well, then they're actually going to have to do things that may actually feel unnatural to them because they didn't see them done and they didn't experience them growing up. Like spending time as a father with a newborn, spending time with your one month old, whereas your father never did that. He didn't even like, maybe see you until you're, I don't know, a year or two. But actually getting used to the idea that fathers do well to spend primary time with their babies, even if it's a couple of hours, even if they don't have a lot of time, if they're working or whatever, if they're able to take two hours on the weekend and be the prime source of comforting that baby, even if they don't have breasts and the baby is breastfeeding still two hours, they would be able to hold that baby rocket, but be able to struggle with it, because the struggle is part of the bonding. You know, it isn't just, oh, it's all fun and that's my bonding with my child. If that's the way it is, your bonding isn't going to go so deep. The bonding is going to come from the hard times, too, and the difficulties. So if fathers can take two hours on a weekend to be without mom, give her a break. And I'm talking early on, even the first trimester or whatever, then they get a sense of more confidence that, okay, the baby cries, but I can comfort it and I can walk around and I can show it the baby things, even if it's very small. So from the ground up, they're starting to bond through these experiences, not just the nice, easy ones.

That's great.

I love that.

That's very inspiring and empowering that it's going to be uncomfortable and we're going to have to do things that may seem uncomfortable if we are committed to fulfilling on our ideal vision for who we want to be as parents, and that that's actually where the growth and bonding and love come from. That's awesome.

Exactly. Yeah. So you're really watering the plants then.

So then we can look at challenges as like a benefit, like, okay, I'm growing, moving through some uncomfortable stuff, and I'm grow in many ways.

Exactly. And that's the same thing that women do in a sense in childbirth, working with the pain and labor is just working with it. If they plan on doing a natural birth or anything like that, then they work with the pain and it comes and it goes, and then they're right there, very aware and present when the baby's born, which is really sort of the high of it. They get something out of that.

Right. So I'm curious on the birth part of it as well, how does a woman start to create her vision and create the birth that she most desires? Do you have any recommendations for.

Well, I guess the first thing is you start with your own philosophy. Some women, some women don't want to deal with pain and labor any more than they have to. So they plan on an epidural, which is fine, but you can't have an epidural even until, what, about 4 centimeters or something. So they're going to have to deal with pain. And I think that's the first thing that is important for women to know what the reality of birth is, what it is and what it isn't, what medicine can do and what it can't in some sense. So they'll still have to deal with pain. They'll still have to understand how to go with that flow of contractions as long as they need to. And then for women who want to birth naturally, they'll have to also learn how to stay present with the intensity of the more active or the more intense contractions as they build. So, first of all, starting with the philosophy knowing what you want, then you choose your providers accordingly, right? Obviously, if you want a natural birth, make sure you're going to somebody who's supporting that. Doulas are good no matter what, I think good to have as support people. But, you know, as far as. And then, you know, setting out whatever. You know, when you say birth plan, I mean the plan is really to follow the labor wherever it takes you. See, I think that is really the healthiest thing. It's not, you know, after you pick your people, you pick your place. If it's going to be, you know, hospital, birthing room, home, whatever you get your things in place for, you know, what you imagine you want, right? Whether it's a natural birth, medicated birth, a home birth, you do your homework and really establishing that, okay, that's fine. And that's done early in the pregnancy, usually. And then you set that aside and then you have to start looking at, okay, I am not in control of this. I don't know exactly what my labor will be like. I have to open to the unknown. I have to stay present with what my body, what my body brings, what nature brings, you know, what the baby brings. And so it's very important that women not feel like they're trying to, you know, have a certain birth. And if they don't have it, you know, they failed or, you know, something like that, it's ridiculous. You know, it's really about, you know, doing your homework just in terms of getting your providers in order. But then you really have to go with the flow because that's going to give you the best outcome. If you had a complication going with the flow and being able to breathe through your fears and so forth, that's going to give you the most. And being able to harness the pain in a way is what I really encourage women to do in their preparation even early on, is to be able to breathe through the contraction, stay with it, and really, as it gets more powerful, they're really usually yelling through a contraction in a very powerful way. And then it's gone. It's like the wave that comes and then it washes to sea and it's calmer and it can sink down and they can relax. But then another contraction comes and it builds and it builds. So I do this kind of a visualization with women that I prepare for labor. And also they can also do it from the book. They can read it into a recorder and actually practice going with the intensity and power of my voice or their own voice, so that they're really meeting the intensity on a different level. And when it becomes pain, they're really meeting it and just washing it right through their body. It's really washing it through. And their focus is really on that, you know, and if they need an intervention, if they need help in the process of whatever kind, then they should get it, you know, and it's not a matter of that. They're controlling the process. They can't control the process. It's autonomic. So my preparation that I use in my books and my model and that I train practitioners and is really addressing the concerns that come up around the pregnancy that the woman has that are specific to her, that another person might not have. For example, if one woman, her mother had lost children in childbirth, and so that came up for her, she was later. So it was before she. She was born, but she knew about it. But another woman, that wouldn't come up so much, you know, but it comes up. So the pain, then, in a sense, just bring. See, I think the pain is really what it's doing is it's also bringing up women's anxieties that are specific to them. If women associate, okay, you know, my mother had babies and then my father left that family, and my father left when I was, you know, one year old or two years old or whatever, then that's what's going to come up for them, whether they're aware of it or not. And it's better in that sense to be aware of it, to let it come up before the birth. Because in that hour when I do the birth visualization or, I'm sorry, the birth counselor interview, or women do the questionnaire in an easier childbirth, those kind of things come up. What are the things that come up around your relationship with your mother? What happened in your family? Were there any traumas that came up in family life that you project onto which you don't realize, but you are holding back because you think it's going to be hard for your marriage or who knows what? So if you can identify these ahead of time, and you either write them out, you journal them, you talk about them, you work with them in the hypnosis, which I have a chapter in the book about, then, and those things lighten up, you see, and then all you really are dealing with is the pain Physically. So I think what people don't understand and people who talk about hypnobirth or this kind of thing, it's not just a hypnosis for pain. It's not about that. It's really the pain brings up whatever the individual issues are in the woman's history and in her family life and in her both conscious and unconscious expectations. So if you want to flush these out more, then in that hour or in the questionnaire, women can actually begin thinking about all these things that may be a little bit in the shadows. Well, if they can express those and that anxiety gets expressed, then that isn't a part of the pain. And then you're just dealing with the physical pain. Not all these anxiety issues that are there, you know, and are real, you know, and are actually individual. And so that's why, you know, an individual hypnosis tape works so much better than some kind of, you know, than a generalized one. Usually because of that, because the woman has her own concerns and some of them are common concerns. Like a woman might wonder about how her child is going to adjust to this baby or something like that. And those things can be addressed in some ways, but it's very good if the woman can flush out these normal anxieties, which are anxieties of the life cycle, of that part of the life cycle. And if that can get addressed more, then they're going to have less anxiety come up around pain. It's just going to be dealing with the pain. I love that.

I've never heard that before. That's so great that we have to kind of do our emotional and mental house cleaning and heal that work inventory. Yeah, I call it.

Yeah. In my book, in the appendix there's a, there's a list of, you know, certain women's birth inventory. And that's what I call it is, you know, what is your birth inventory? And there's usually anywhere between four and six or seven things that come up. And sometimes, you know, if women have had cesareans in the past and they're hoping to have a vaginal birth, obviously that's one, you know, things like that, you know, are obvious. But if it's a first time moment, you know, it can be things like, you know, I didn't get along with my mother or I didn't, you know, you know, like I mentioned before, something will happen to the family once the baby comes or my mother had postpartum depression, well then that's a heaviness on the labor itself because the labor is the transition. And over and over again, studies have showed that, you know, perception of pain, dealing with pain, coping with pain, has so much to do with the psychology of what's projected, interpreted onto that pain. And so that's what we're trying to do is sort of discharge as much as possible anything that's. That's hanging out, you know, so. And by the way, that doesn't mean there aren't positive, you know, things that people experience as well, you know, from their mothers or their experiences or whatever. But you don't. They don't usually bother you, you know.

So we're talking about complications.

Yeah, they're not things that would cause you anxiety. So we're really looking for the things that women would carry anxiety towards motherhood and maybe even in a little bit of a hidden way so that they have the chance to imagine what they could do about it. Like, even with one woman was having her fourth child and very clearly stressed about, how am I going to handle four? And so we talked about it and how she would handle Flora and how it could be different and what you could do differently and what kind of help she could get. And all this kind of thing helps. And then in the visualization, we put in those reminders that this can be different this time because of this, because of this that you're doing, which are all very true things, which then helps her to guess what. Relax.

Right.

You know, the autonomic nervous system goes, okay, now I can just let things flow, you know.

And so how. Talking about the relaxation, how important is that during our birth to fully relax?

Well, when you say fully, I mean there is going to be some tension rise as the contraction, as an intense contraction comes, like a wave building. But what you want to be really sure about as you deal with the physical pain of labor is the release in between. And really the release is almost more important because if you release and you let go in between a contraction, then it's going to rise. Your tension will rise as you breathe. And it's bound to, to some extent. But if you're breathing or even sound, yelling out sound because sound is really breath, if you're not in a panic, you're really just doing these long guttural sounds or whatever is a release of its own. But then the wave comes to shore and you rest and your baby rests, sinking deeper and deeper down in between. Each and every contraction can just rest. And then the visualization kind of lets a woman rest. So she practices this and develops a sort of tracing in her brain about the rhythm of the labor and the resting in between and the release in between. So, yeah, it can rise and you breathe and you breathe and you breathe and the baby's coming right down. But then the wave comes to shore and you rest and your baby rests and you let go and you feel, you know, your, your husband's there and your doula or whoever, and you bring people in that are there in a calming, a real way that is calming. And it gets kind of conditioned before the labor. If you use the birth visualization correctly, it can get conditioned more easily. And so many women tell me, yes, I just kept watching that waves come to shore. Just kept, you know, the waves coming to shore, it's coming to shore. It always did. The contraction always ended. And then they, you know, and there's so much release and there's so much time to relax and in between, if you're not worried about the next one, you see. So that's the really staying present, staying with, staying with the process just as parenting.

Right. And you have a cd? Do you have a CD on this, the visualization?

Yeah, I do have a cd. One side is a relaxation in the pregnancy and works with kind of going inside during the pregnancy itself. And then the last, or the other side or the other track, rather, since it's a cd, the other track is a birth visualization with some suggestions for finding your own sort of ways of coping with the things that matter to you. It's more indirect, based on indirect hypnosis, Ericksonian hypnosis, which is really a much more effective hypnosis than regular. You know, when people say hypnosis for pain, and they're just going to imagine the pain wash away or this or that. You know, the statistics are, is that it doesn't work very well. You know, it works for some women, not very well for primagravitas. But, you know, if you're dealing more with acknowledging pain and meeting it and. And just as you acknowledge a real powerful wave that's coming in from the shore, then it comes, it splashes to shore, it ends. So you just keep in the rhythm of it. It's much more effective. It's a much more effective hypnosis.

So you're just feeling the pain and being willing to be with the pain rather than trying to wash it away.

Right. You want to, you know, something I talk a lot about with women is washing it through. You using it to wash through, to help the baby move right down. So, you know, the contraction is building and building. And I actually do a session with women Individually, where I pinch them under their knee, or rather on the top of their calf, because then they know they're dealing with real pain, and they can tell me, and they can see for themselves. And it's really one time learning. So I'll increase it to the point of peaking, and I'll coach them to breathe and breathe and breathe right through. And you hear them sh. Really breathing right through the pain. And it really harnesses the energy of the contraction to go right through, helping the baby come deeper and deeper and deeper down. And then the wave comes to shore, always splashes to shore, releases, relaxes, you see it, and then there's that rest. So it really is meeting the pain with breathing. And it often, often, often does become a yell or a sounding of some kind for women, which is good. It expresses it. It gets it out. It keeps them writing it. They're in it. They're just really in it. But then when they're not in it, they're not in it.

Right.

So I remember this experience with my second child having this really intense contraction, and I'm breathing and yelling through it, and then it just kind of goes away. And then I started singing. I didn't even mean to. And the other women, you know, I've done that as well. It's just like. Because you're just reflecting where you are, you know, and it used to be very, you know. No, no. To sound like you were in pain and labor, you know, but the truth is, if you. If you're just, you know, you know, really just yelling it through and yelling it out, and it's an expression, and you're breathing because that helps you breathe. The diaphragm help push down about 70 pounds more. When your diaphragm is engaged in, like, sound, it'll give you much more of a push, you know, right down, helping the baby come down. And then, you know, it's done. You're just, you know. You know, that's what it feels like. It feels like what it sounds like, and that's okay.

And so we got to give up our inhibitions.

Right.

To be able to scream and do all of these things.

Yeah. You know, when people say screaming, I mean, I guess it could be. It could be an accurate description for somebody hearing it who doesn't have any idea about, you know, what the process is about. Oh, my God, the person's screaming, whatever. But, you know, if you know the process and you've heard a lot of birth yells, it's really more of a yell, you know, it's like, you know, if you're going to take a deep breath and you're going to, you know, yell across a meadow for a dog or something, you know, it's like that. I mean, you're really. You're gathering up the energy and you're yelling it through, you know, and that helps you travel through. It really releases. It really releases you from really. How would I say it, Tightening your body against the pain.

Mm.

Because otherwise, you know, what are you left with? You're left to repress, and you're left with tightening your body against the pain and just enduring, which is really miserable.

Right.

And it's probably, you know, likely to be quite distressful to your body and to the baby. There isn't the breath coming through. There isn't the breathing. It's just really a looser body. If you're able to release through the pain, and then in between, you can just relax. Fully relax.

Yeah, that seems to be the key. Right?

Yeah. So really, release is really my favorite term. And yes, in between the contractions, you can fully relax, but you really want to release. Just breathe and just feel that releasing. Really washing it right through.

Awesome. That's very cool. I felt like you were guiding us through the whole birth journey.

That's what the birth visualization. And there is that CD that is the generalized one. I've trained people in different areas, so there are people who are using my model. And basically, if somebody is able to, you know, I wrote the book, and I did create the. Even the generalized CD for people who couldn't afford or had access to the model so that they could, in a sense, do it themselves. And in the book, as you go through the workbook, An Easier Childbirth, the eighth chapter is the visualization chapter, which is actually a whole transcript written out. And in it are blanks for you to fill in, you know, things that are appropriate for you. And so if you listen to the CD and you get the tempo and the cadence of it, and then you fill in your own, you can actually even make your own if you're very diligent and you enjoy this kind of thing, you know, because you would, you know, tape it or, you know, record it, and you would. Would read your own script then. And then you would use it to relax, too. And it would be about 40 minutes, 50 minutes, something like that, in the last six weeks, month of pregnancy. So I wrote that for people to be able to actually do the model, and it is more work to do it yourself. If you went to somebody who's trained and in my model, it's just a four session model. So the first session is the interview, just asking you all these questions about your life and your expectations for parenthood, the family you came from, certain points about childbirth that you believe in, history of childbirth in your family, that kind of thing. And then the, the birth counselor is trained to come up with a birth inventory of your issues and then create an individual. You know, they're trained in this method that I've developed, and they actually make that tape for you or that CD or whatever. And that can be done by phone. It can be done, you know, because I often will send women a CD after talking with them on the phone for the hour. So those two hours, the birth counselor interview, then you make the tape with the woman there, or you make it and send it to her. And then the next session is usually oriented towards the practice with dealing with pain, because by then you've addressed a lot of the psychological stuff and you're just looking at the pain and coping with it physically. And there's a chapter on that, how to do that, and the exercise as well. And then the fourth session is a postpartum session to really integrate the power of the experience once the baby is born.

Right. Do you have any tips on that on the postpartum portion and thoughts on postpartum depression and kind of how to work with that? As you know, we focus a lot on the birth, and then it's kind of like, okay, now we have the baby, what do we do?

Yeah, well, to some extent, postpartum depression may be predictable based on a woman's history of depression or anxiety or really intense anxiety about becoming a mother and real disruption in the mother, mother, child relationship growing up. So to some extent, women, if they are concerned because their mother was depressed or they have a sister who had a baby and had postpartum depression, they want to look at that and see, am I afraid of this? Talk to a counselor. What, what will I feel? And even try to anticipate it somewhat. But sometimes, and it depends on the sometimes it's just mild and adjustment issues. More when the baby comes, they will find their way, especially if it's mild postpartum, because of the change in hormones and just the fluctuations and the loss of things. Again, if they've anticipated this change in their lives and they have some things set in place, it's going to feel better to them than if they don't. So those are all things that they can be thinking about ahead of time. And as it comes up, I mean, right away, women need to. To really feel okay about getting help around any feelings that come up afterwards, including the birth, which has to do with postpartum depression to some extent. For women who don't process it or aren't given an opportunity to process it, which is one of the reasons for the postpartum interview is really to see that whatever happened in the birth really, I mean, you gave birth, that's the most important thing. And then you really looked for ways that. That really worked no matter what went on. So working with their feelings again at the time, they really should honor their feelings, and it's a huge change in their lives. So, I mean, support groups are really important groups for moms and. And groups for dads, you know, other people who are sharing kind of the kinds of things that they might be feeling so they don't feel so alone with it or, you know, that kind of thing. Because, you know, most women, I think it's. I'm trying to remember the percentage if it's 50% or more, do have blues, you know, they have some kind of postpartum blues when the hormones shift, you know, it's just huge, you know. So, you know, I think you should expect to reach out and get support from, you know, your family and cry if the tears are coming up because, you know, it's just. That's a release. So that kind of thing should be expected. That is very normal, but doesn't mean that you shouldn't also seek help if you feel that it continues or that you just want to talk to somebody.

Right. Yeah, I love that too, because it's very much. As women, we're very strong and independent nowadays. So to be willing to ask for that support may be challenging. To just start preparing before the birth that, okay, it might be uncomfortable for me to ask for help and get support or get counseling, but. But being open and willing to do it, I think is so important.

Yeah. And really, if you have a good couples bond, that can be talked about ahead of time, too.

Yes. I feel very blessed to have an incredible husband who is already amazing and going to be. Oh, my gosh, I'm sure there's amazing men out there, but I've got to say, my husband is going to win, like, the best husband ever award.

That's wonderful. That's going to help you. Even in labor.

I feel like I have an angel on my side. So very, very blessed. I'm curious about how does a woman stay connected to herself and her desires while still being an amazing, supporting, loving woman? It seems like a lot of women lose sight of kind of their dreams and their desires.

Well, yeah, that was. We touched on that a bit earlier on, is that your interests are still your interest. You don't become a mother and lose being a woman. You're a woman first. And you add motherhood, right? So that's very important that you don't just become a mother and then you're a mother and nothing else. Because that's a role. That's not a, you know, that's not you. Motherhood is something that is a part of you. It's not the whole you. The whole you is bigger than that, you know, and you do have. Women do have needs. And really it's like I said about the parents are the garden in which the children grow, the couple's relationship. Well, the same is true if the mother isn't taking care of herself. She can't give to a child. She can be there, right? She can go through the motions, but that child is not going to get the emotional connection because the mom isn't connected to herself. So it's very important that women are able to give themselves what they need. And who knows what that's going to be. I mean, they have to be open to acknowledging what, you know, I mean, some women, you know, they go into having a child and you know, it's just so. It's so easy and you know, it's just. Most of it is, you know, even though of course there's always difficulties, maybe nighttime or whatever, but overall they're just, just loving it, absorbing it, feeling healed or wonderful in it. And another woman won't be feeling that way. She'll be feeling like she lost herself. And what is she doing? She needs adult stimulation. And I'm saying these are two extremes. Clearly there's people in the middle usually. But the point being that a mother infant bond is just that. It's a mother infant bond. It's not an infant bond. It has to include the mother. Each mother has to know what she needs and discover it and find it. I've talked to some women who just need some time away. Even early on. They need a couple hours to themselves a day or who knows what. But they have to work that out because then they can come to their children with, you know, more enjoyment, more openness, more love instead of resentment, you know, and they should never feel. What's the word? Guilty about what they're feeling. They just have to identify for themselves, okay, what do, what do I need? What does my baby need? How do we balance this, this in a way that is going to give my, my baby a good, you know, a good babyhood, you know, growing up developmentally. And it's going to be able to give me, you know, happiness as well. And, and you know, usually in the middle somewhere, there's a lot of happiness that comes with bonding with your baby. But then maybe some women get, you know, overwhelmed, you know, if they don't get it, you know, some time off on the weekend or whatever, then they need to be able to honor that, not feel bad about it.

Right. And try to force ourselves to be something that isn't working or do something that's not working.

Yeah. Because you see, it's a relationship and it has to work for you too.

Because as we were talking earlier, we're teaching our children how to be an adult and how to take care of ourselves. If we're not taking care of ourselves. Right. Then we're teaching a child to not take care of themselves.

Right.

Interesting. So fascinating. So I have one more question before we wrap up. In our culture, it seems like we really support and celebrate career over nurturing the family.

Yeah, I write about that in my book In Making Healthy Families. Yeah, Placing. Right. I'm sorry, I didn't wait for your question. No, it's awesome.

I was just going to say how can we celebrate, how can a woman celebrate being a mother as a valuable contribution to the world and to the community and just address whatever you want to address on this topic would be fantastic.

Yeah. The best thing in terms of looking at your family and making a healthy family is putting love in equal place to work and to economics. So that the value of a mother's taking care of things because if she is a stay at home mother and she wants to be, and that really suits the family fine, she has to be appreciated in it and not devalued because it doesn't make money, right?

Yes, totally.

So one of the ways that women use, and probably still, and still do, I want to say less so, but I'm not sure that that's true, is women, if they weren't making money, they often felt like they didn't have a right to make the major decisions in the families. So if they weren't making money, they couldn't spend money on child care. I've had mothers come in with these problems. They don't feel that they should spend money on themselves, on anything other than.

Just.

Whatever the family needs or whatever. So you really want to be careful if you are a woman who especially if you're a woman who used to work and you're not, you could be susceptible or vulnerable to a feeling, well, I'm not making money. I shouldn't make these decisions. Or if your husband's making a decision about his work and whether he's going to work Saturdays or travel or this kind of thing. And there's choices around family and time and what's valuable. Clearly, if you're starving and you have to work, then you've got to. There's more of a pull there. But if there's more choice, and it's a choice of taking a promotion that's really going to really stress a young family or not, then that should be taken into account that maybe this isn't the best time for this promotion. Maybe I wait for the next year rather than just, oh, my God, I got to do it. Opportunity is knocking. Well, yeah, but your opportunity to be a family and be together is only now, in this first year is really the foundation, a big foundation for family. So if somebody were to do something to disrupt that or disrupt their ability to bond by being absent a lot, it would take a toll. And so that recognition, that's what I wrote that chapter about, is the recognition to place value on love and caretaking and the developmental needs of not just children, but the whole family to be a family. There are things that could really be destructive to that. Right. So it's sort of an awareness, really. Right.

I love that you said the year, the first year is kind of the foundation. So really, really asking the questions, the important questions of the health of the family.

Exactly, exactly. Because that's where you start establishing patterns of communication, of interaction, the process, that decision making, how you make decisions, whether they're based just on pure economics, work, career advancement, or whether they also balance that with, where is your family right now? Is it a good time for this? Will the kids be able to adjust to this? And there are different times, but it'll have a different impact. But if you're somebody who's going to be leaving the first year of life, you know, I mean, right there, you're going to have a big, big stress on your marriage. And that's already the foundation of your family. So, you know, you want to think about it. Not just, oh, of course it's a good thing. And it isn't necessarily a good thing.

I love it, too, because I feel like you're addressing the. Because everyone wants to make a contribution to the world and, you know, as you have kind of. Of making healthy families, is A contribution to the world. I mean, literally changing or helping. Having healthy families for the next generation can change the world. That's like super inspiring.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're raising children who can love and be loved and they value the balance. And again, most of this is balance. You look at discipline. All questions around discipline on my website, all about balancing love and limits. Love and discipline. You just need a balance of that. I'm sorry, I was trying to say when you discipline, you need a balance of love and boundaries and consequences. Well, it's the same thing in the family. You need a balance of addressing the economic, work, career concerns because they're also individual in the family. Individual members who want to advance a career, which would be good for the family. But then there's also the family needs for connection, you know, and bonding and especially in that first year.

Right, Very cool.

So if children grow up in a family like that, then they see, you know, they grow up kind of understanding the balance and the balance of, you know, in a family, all members need to be able to get their needs met. It isn't at the expense of one or another so much, which oftentimes it used to be in. Sometimes when women get depressed, it's often the mother who is really over sacrificing.

Yeah, right. It's important to get those needs met and not over sacrifice.

Yeah, exactly that balance.

Fantastic. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for all of your wisdom and information. It was super inspiring, super empowering. I love it.

Well, thank you. Thank you for being so enthusiastic. I know.

It's so great though. I love it. I just can't get enough of this stuff. It's so wonderful. Can you share where people can find more about you by your books, the CD we talked about, the article?

Yeah, they're all available on Amazon. I mean, all of the books and the CD and all is really the simplest way. I mean, I know they're available other places, but Amazon is pretty easy and they're available digitally as well. And then the website is available for. Actually, the website I should mention did win an award from the American association of Marriage and Family and won an award for benefit to families in 2006. So it really is a very good site for parents to find answers to questions. In the nature of what I've been talking to you about, if people like what they hear here and they have questions about parenting, then they can go there and find questions that are similarly answered in the comments Approach to balance that we're talking about here. And also people who are interested in the prenatal training programs and becoming prenatal birth counselors either. I've trained therapists. I've trained childbirth educators, doulas, midwives who work with birth. These people can actually take the training program. It's an online program that is available through the website. There's plenty of information on that. And there's three different levels they can take of the training.

That's so great. And so it's makinghealthyfamilies.com exactly. Fantastic. Love it. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you for all your inspirational work for me personally and for all of those people that will listen to this and be empowered by your work. So thank you. Thank you.

Well, you're very welcome.

And have a wonderful day.

You too. And email me, let me know where this might show up.

Perfect. I will, definitely. Thank you so much.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess.com until next time. Keep rocking it and have an awesome day.