Ecstatic Birth & The Importance of Pleasure with Sheila Kamara Hay

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.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Alexandra J. Johnson, and today's guest is Sheila Kamara Hay. Sheila is the creatrix and visionary behind Ecstatic Birth. She is a mother of three and serves on the board of Choices for Childbirth, a not for profit organization that raises awareness among expectant mothers about their options for childbirth. She has a bachelor's from Yale University and a master's from Columbia University in cultural sociology. As a professional writer and pleasure researcher, Sheila loves cracking wide open her worldview of what's possible in life and passing that knowledge on to other women. Welcome, Sheila. Hello.

Thank you.

So excited.

I'm very excited. I'm very excited to be here.

Nice. Me too.

I'm very excited to have you and.

I'm so excited about our topic and all the work that you do. I'd love to just start off with.

I'd love to hear more about your.

Background and how your birth experiences and just life led you to do the work that you. You do now.

Well, as you mentioned, I have a background in cultural sociology, so I'm very interested in how culture affects the way we live our life. And I'm a writer. And what's most relevant to the work that I do is the fact that I'm a mother of three. And I would say that giving birth to my children directly led me to this path. When I had my first son, he's nine and a half now, so this is, you know, quite a few years ago already. When I had him, I had this, like, very beautiful idea of what I wanted his birth to be like. I wanted natural birth. I wanted a peaceful birth. I wanted a birth where, like, I could really feel the power and wisdom of my body. And the only problem was I just did not know how to create that. And so what I ended up with was kind of like wishing upon a star and, you know, making some choices, but not enough choices that could really support me in that path. And, you know, I like to say that his birth was probably closer to traumatic than ecstatic. So when I got pregnant with my second child, I was like, okay, I'm.

Going to do this again.

It has to be totally different. And at that time, I was studying with Regina Thomashauer, who runs Mama Gina School of Womanly Arts. It's a school dedicated to teaching women about the Art of pleasure. I was studying with her. I was writing for her. I was working with her. I was really immersed in this world of pleasure. And I said, you know what? Let me see if I can use some of these tools to have that beautiful, gentle, peaceful birth that I want to. And I really. I did not leave anything to chance. The second time around, I worked my butt off. I read everything I could. I, you know, took care of my body, food, diet, nutrition, soul healing from the first birth. Everything that I could possibly think of, I did. And I had really, like, a really beautiful then birth. I labored in water. It was very soft. It was very sensual. It was very spiritual. It was, you know, everything I had, I could have dreamt of and more. And when I found out that I was pregnant with my third, I was like, you know what? Now I know that I can do this. You know, I was empowered. I knew that I could do it. I knew I had the tools and the support to do it. I said, let me find out if I can really enjoy it. Again, really studying the art of pleasure at the time, I said, let me find out if I can really enjoy it, like, take it to a whole other level. And what I found was, you know, this was right around the time that Deborah Fiscally was creating the documentary Orgasmic Birth, and some of this information about orgasmic birth was coming. I said, I want to find out more about that. And I really researched how I could make the process of labor and delivery even more pleasurable. And it was, I have to say, laboring with my daughter. I call her my pleasure baby because her labor. I was dancing through her labor. I was as high as I could possibly be. You know, that's not to say I don't want to gloss over birth is a very intense experience. I don't want to gloss over any of that. But her labor, for me, it was. I was higher than I've ever been in my life. I was full of, like, joy and pleasure. And it was really a transcendent experience for me. And I remember afterwards saying to my husband, I don't understand why doesn't anybody know? And I always get really emotional sharing that, because I feel like people don't know. I mean, now there's more information coming out than ever. But if you could have a birth that's like that, where you can have a birth where as a mom, you are so in your body and so in your power and so in your ecstasy, why doesn't everybody know that even among the natural childbirth movement, there's so much talk of surrender. And I definitely think surrender is a beautiful piece, and it has its place, but there's the idea of pleasure, which can take it all even higher. So for me, when I turn to my husband, I don't understand, why doesn't anybody know? It was like, in that moment, it clicked for me that people need to know and I should share my journey and share what I have to offer so more and more people could know that it exists. It's an option. I'm not saying everybody has to give birth in a certain way, but I just want women to know what their choices are and what's available to them in birth.

Wow. That's amazing.

I love it.

And I love that you come from the. You had three births, and thank you so much for sharing each one of them, because it definitely painted a picture of how you can move through the process in a beautiful experience.

Thank you. Yeah. And I also feel like, you know, I'm not a midwife. I'm not a doula. I am, like, an average woman, and I'm an average woman who grew up in this culture where we see images of, like, women screaming during birth and, you know, had a mother who told me how much my birth was, like, a horror. And so I come from this culture where, you know, I feel like I have that voice for the average woman to show her. Listen, you can transcend the culture, and you can have tools and you can create your life and your birth and your mothering in a way to support your vision. That's awesome.

I love it. So ecstatic birth is a pleasurable birth. Can you just talk about for those of the people that aren't familiar with what an ecstatic birth is?

Sure. I think generally in the childbirth movement, the term ecstatic birth is used to express the potential of birth for ecstasy. And that could be physical ecstasy, it could be emotional ecstasy, it could be spiritual ecstasy. It could be all of those things. And I really try to embody all of those things for women when I'm teaching and working with them. For me, it's also a whole other level of being really deeply connected to your body and to your body's wisdom and to the pleasure available in your body. So, you know, not every birth is going to be orgasmic. Not every birth is going to be physically pleasurable or, you know, emotionally pleasurable or. But there are elements in each birth that you can touch on that you can find ecstasy in your birth in all of these different ways. And for me, the window into that is a really deep, grounded body connection. Because when you're deeply connected to your body and its inner wisdom, then you're guided, you're empowered, you're birthing and mothering from the stance of an empowered woman and not a victim.

That's so great. Love it. So what about. You said you practiced a lot and you were just like fully immersed. How would you recommend. I mean, obviously this could be a whole course and teach it and everything like that, but how would a woman prepare for an ecstatic birth? Like, what do you think are the most important exercises, practices that a woman should start practicing before being pregnant and during pregnancy?

Oh, my God, there's so many. I think one of the most important things is for women to really understand what they need, like what they're looking for, what they want. And it's really, it's hard to know. I mean, I think again, culturally, our images of birth are overwhelmingly negative. So I think probably the very first place I would start is I would encourage a woman to really, like, reprogram, Learn about what's possible, learn about, you know, flood your mind with images of beautiful, empowering, orgasmic, ecstatic births of different kind, read birth stories, learn about the different kinds of births that exist in the world, see what inspires you and what turns you on, and just sort of begin that, like cultural reprogramming. I think that's really important because otherwise you're thinking, you're thinking, oh, maybe I'll be lucky and I'll hit that jackpot that some women get. And it's not like that. It's not like, oh, that woman's lucky. I mean, some women are lucky, and that's great. But for the most part, I think if you want to create something different than what exists in the world around you, than what your culture and your medical system are serving up to you, you have to really be clear on what that is, and you have to educate yourself in every way possible. So I think it's a combination of really, really a lot of education. Knowledge is power. I firmly believe in that. And also just like reprogram your mind culturally. So all of a sudden, when you think of birth, your images of birth are empowering images, pleasurable images, images of what you're trying to create. You know, I have, like, if you go to my website, I have a whole top 10 list of tips that it's a one pager that people can just print out and tack on their wall and everyday look at has different practices that you can work on. But there are just so many different ways to approach it. I mean, I think every woman. Every woman's barriers to the birth of her dreams are different. And some practices will resonate with some people and others will resonate with others. So I really encourage also that, like practicing connecting to your body and your inner wisdom to guide you.

That's beautiful. I love what you said, too, the images, because, you know, like you were saying, most of us have in our culture that it's negative images. And there's like a feeling for most women if you ask them about birth and what it is. Like, it's painful and it's challenging and it's horrible and it's traumatic. And the images that flash up for most of our culture, I love that of just like reprogramming our mind and our vision so that it could be joyful. And like you said, as you were describing, you were dancing. That's not a common image for women in birth.

Right?

Yeah.

And, you know, one of the websites that I love, love, love and inspired me a lot when I was preparing is Laura Shanley's website, which I believe is unassistedchildbirth, either.com or.org. but Laura's family has an entire section of her website devoted to images and stories of pleasurable birth. And it's just really, like, amazing to go through that and see what's possible.

Yeah, definitely. So did you have a home birth? Like, were all of your home birth.

Or what was the.

Did you have in a birth center? Hospital.

My first was in a hospital, and then the second two were in a birthing center with a midwife.

And then do you think that because there's a lot of women who would like to have a home birth or midwife, but it might not, insurance might not cover it, or they feel more comfortable going to a hospital. Have you working with women? Can women still have an ecstatic experience in the hospital, or is it really, really, really challenging?

I feel like you can. I feel like you have to fully understand what you're up against, if that's what you're planning. And I don't think I really understood that the first time around. And I think if you're in a hospital, you just have to be careful. Like, if you are educated and aware, you need to find the right practitioners, you need to find the right support team to really help you hold your vision. Because generally the staff at the hospital is holding a whole different vision for birth. And when you are giving birth, a lot of women, myself included, with my first think, oh, I'm going to Be strong enough. I can fight them, whatever. And once you start fighting in birth, your labor is going to stall or reverse. Once you're uncomfortable, once you're angry, once you feel like you're not safe, your labor is going to develop. And so I really would encourage people that are giving birth in the hospital to look at who can stand for you. Are you going to have somebody there that can really stand for you? It could be a spouse, but it's better to have somebody tied into the system there, whether it's your practitioner or if you bring in a doula or somebody that can really stand for you and stand for your vision. Because when you're wide open and about to have a baby, you are so vulnerable, and it's just not the place for you to fight. The other thing with a hospital birth is I absolutely do believe that women can have ecstatic experiences in the hospital. I think you just have to be conscious about how you set up your environment and how you create your connections. You can pretty much train your body to do anything. And so let's say, for example, you. There's a certain piece of music that you love to listen to when you're making love or when you're having some other pleasurable experience with your body. To a certain extent, if you just hear that music, if you're not in an orgasmic situation, it'll still turn you on. So your body has already made the connections between having pleasure within it and that piece of music. So you can consciously bring stuff like that into a hospital environment. You can bring an image into the hospital. You can bring stuff from home. I mean, you have to find out what the hospital's rules are. Every hospital has different rules in regards to the items you bring into a birthing room. But I heard a story about one woman that brought in pink Christmas lights and strung up the whole ceiling with those, so there was this warm, soft, pink glow while she was birthing. You can really be creative. It's not really going to be handed to you in a hospital. You have to create it for yourself. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just more challenging, Right?

And then, so at home, obviously the hospital, you can go in there and be prepared. And I love that too, because I think that's so important. I've heard that so many times that women have gone into the hospital thinking, oh, I can totally do it. And like you said, you're just vulnerable and you're totally in a different state. And it's not. You just need to Be prepared. So I appreciate that wisdom. And then at home you're just naturally comfortable. Do you have any recommendations of how to kind of tap into that ecstatic orgasmic space in home? At the home?

Well, I think a lot of people are talking about now the, the ideal, you know, in parentheses, since you can't see me, my quotation works. Rather, the ideal environment for a woman to birth is very similar to the ideal environment for a woman to make love. So you want to feel really safe. You want to feel comfortable with the person you're with or the people around you. You want to, you know, soft lighting, no bright bearing lights or music or whatever those factors are that help you really open up and surrender when you're making love. It's the same for birth. So you really want to feel safe and comfortable in love because the energy is the same, the anatomy is the same, and your body is opening. And you're really just like when an orgasm is passing through you, you have that same intense, overwhelming amount of energy passing through you at birth. So the more you set up your environment in a way for you to feel totally safe and even turned on, the better it is. I love this whole.

The work that you do and just this idea of ecstatic and orgasmic birth, that pleasure and orgasms and everything is going with birth. I mean, it's like. So when I first started, I mean, I just am six and a half months pregnant. But when I first found out about it, I'm like, that's like amazing. I've never even heard of that before. But it just makes sense, right? I mean, like you said, we have the same organs, that it can be ecstatic. So I just love, I love hearing orgasm and birth together.

I can't remember whose quote it is. I remember someone saying, the energy that gets the baby in is the energy that gets the baby out. And it's so funny because, you know, culturally we think of giving birth as not a sexual experience. It has nothing to do, you know, like, it's like a baby and sex are two very different things. But, you know, if you really sit for a minute and think about it, duh, it's pretty much the end of the same process. I mean, how the baby gets in there and the baby coming out, it's that you're using the same parts of your body, the same anatomy. And it's just like. It's kind of funny actually that that's been lost upon us, that they're connected because they are connected. And it's funny, one of the Women that taught in one of my teleseminars. Her name is Sherry Winston, and I think she's speaking with you as well. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. She was a midwife for years and then realized everything she was learning and teaching women as a midwife was translating into her bedroom for her orgasmic experiences. And now she's a sexual educator. But they really are. It's really one and the same.

So do you recommend if somebody's wanting an ecstatic birth, that they tap into their sexuality a lot more, or how does sexuality play into preparation for an ecstatic birth?

I think to the extent that you're comfortable, I mean, different people have different varying levels of comfort with their sexuality and their body. And culturally, there's just so much baggage around that. I think if you can get over that or if you don't have that barrier within you, I think it's probably the most powerful birth preparation tool you could possibly use is deepening your connection to your sexuality.

And do you think just deepening your connection and your relationship with sexuality will. You don't even have to be thinking about the birth or. I'm trying to.

Yeah, I don't think you even have to be thinking about the birth. I mean, I think you can if you want to make that. You want to make that connection in your body even stronger. But it's really like, for example, if you were to go and study with Sherri Winston and learn how to orgasm better, that's only going to serve you in your birth. I think that a lot of what happens in birth is fear. And a lot of fear comes from just being completely overwhelmed by the amount of energy that's in your body. And probably the only other place that you can have that kind of experience is during orgasm. So when you're opening up to orgasm and deeper and deeper states of orgasm, the energy gets more and more and more intense. How much can your body handle? How much can you relax through before you tense up and you know you're done? It's really the same. And if your body is already trained to be able to handle a lot of energy and to be able to do that without clamping down, without fear, I think that really would serve you in birth. And a lot of people also use this as a tool during labor. I mean, using that sexual energy, whether you orgasm or not, helps your body open up. It helps your labor progress. If you're stalled, it helps with pain management. Clitoral stimulation is a really powerful pain management tool. Some would argue as powerful as some of the drugs you could take, if not more. So it's really. If your body is trained, let's say, for example, to relax when it receives that kind of stimulation, well, that's a tool you could use in labor. If you find your body is getting tense or clamping down, you could use that to help your body relax as well. So, yeah, I really think that that's really getting in touch with your sexuality and even deepening that connection. I really think that's an incredibly powerful tool for birth.

Yeah, I love that too. What you said to. You're giving. You're giving me beautiful images of the energy, like expanding kind of our. Our vessel in many ways to be able to hold that life force energy that flows through us when we're giving birth. And if we're not prepared for it, then it's. It does. It's not. We may be associated as pain. Do you think? Is that what happens? We're just not. We just don't know how to hold it.

So it's.

We just clamp down.

I mean, I think that the intensity can be scary. It can be scary. And I think that there's like a very fine line between pleasure and pain. And, you know, if you're, you know, you read in all the literature that the more fearful a person is during birth and the more they're gripping, the more pain there is. So I definitely think there is a strong relationship there.

So opening up to the pleasure.

And I love the.

Clitoral stimulation as well. I kind of joke with my husband and we'll see how the whole verse goes. I'm always like, we're totally going to do this. And he's like, really?

Okay, well, you know, a much more like, benign way is just kissing, which I'm sure it sounds like you've studied a lot, but kissing opens up your. Opening up your upper lips and your lower lips. There's a connection. So kissing also helps you open down below. Laughter. Laughter is a huge tool for opening up. Also for people that aren't necessarily comfortable with using the pleasure of sexuality, laughter helps labor move along, helps babies come out. And what a wonderful way to give birth to your child than through laughter, right?

Yep.

So, you know, if your husband feels comfortable cracking jokes or, you know, it's just another tool. There's so many tools of pleasure you can use for your birth. Yeah, that's kind of what I want. I want people to know about.

That's so great.

I love it.

Pleasure and laughter. Like, again, you know, these usually don't Go together. People are thinking of laughing. My husband definitely has a clear vision that I'm going to be laughing because I laugh all the time. I'm like, let's hope that there's lots of laughter. That's so great. So I know you talked about that you were studying and you researched pleasure. Can you talk about what is pleasure? Because there's a lot of talk about pleasure and joy and ecstasy and all of these things. But what if you had a definition? What would pleasure be?

I think there's two kinds of pleasure. I think there's pleasure that you can get from the world around you and create, like taking a bite of chocolate or getting yourself that massage that you wanted, or having fun at a party. These are all pleasures that you can go for in the world around you and feed yourself in that way. And then there's the pleasure that comes from deep within. And I think that they're both necessary. And I think it's very like, my image in my head is like a tree. So if a tree was growing and it was grasping for, like, all the water and oxygen through its leaves and limbs, it would not get nearly enough to thrive. There is a certain amount of nutrient that comes from being really grounded into the earth that comes up through the trunk of the tree to feed it. And I think that that's a big, you know, that's a big piece of pleasure, too, is realizing that your body is connected energetically and that you can, without doing anything, experience great amounts of pleasure in your own body and that, you know, that creates that. You know, you need a mental shift for that. You need physical shifts for that. But that's possible within as well. And I think those are both two kinds of pleasure from within and from the outside. And, you know, from within is also like how you look at things, because two different people can look at a situation and look at it differently. One person can gain more pleasure from that situation. One person might not even see the pleasure in that situation, so. Or in that scene, you know, it might be, you know, pouring rain. And one person sees, like, the dirty money puddles, and the other person sees, like, the beautiful flower that's being, like, nourished. It's just. It's like a switch inside our body. And I feel like, culturally, again, we are so trained for the pain. We're so trained not to be pleasure oriented. We're so trained to see everything that's wrong in our lives and wrong in the world around us and be like, baha woo. Like, you know, this world that's just how we're trained. So again, like, for, in terms of birth, you know, there a lot of people talk about, okay, well, how you live your life and how you birth are very strongly interrelated. And I really do think that's true because it's about like perspective and it's about like, how are you oriented in the world around you? How do you deal with a difficult situation, how do you deal with the unexpected? How do you deal with, do you look for somebody to tell you what to do, or are you connected to your own inner guidance in a really strong way? So, you know, I think there's an element of pleasure that comes from really being in alignment with your soul and your inner wisdom. And that's really deep and really grounded and really, really powerful and really spiritual. And I think right now as a whole, women are moving more and more towards that. And it's a connection that I hope with time, more and more women are introduced to and live by and strengthen and something we pass on to our daughters to become even stronger. Because I think just like historically and culturally, that has really been stripped from women as a whole.

So I'm very interested in the pleasure because it seems like a lot of us women are yearning for this, right? We feel there's a new way of living and being as women. But then there's resistance and maybe it's too self indulgent and pleasure is a luxury and I should be working and life can't be fun and pleasurable. So can you talk a little bit about resistance and how do we open up to really enjoying life and having it be pleasurable?

I think that we're kind of like women. I'll just talk about women for now. Women for the most part. This applies to men too, to a certain extent. But, you know, we're kind of trained to be martyrs, especially as mothers to our families, to our babies. You know, like we're trained to take care of everybody else and oh, if we take a little bit of pleasure for ourselves, we think, oh, maybe we're selfish or maybe with that. And you know, Regina Thomasauer, also known as Mama Gina, who I really, really encourage anybody who's listening, who's interested in idea of pleasure, to check out the work that she's doing. It's really powerful. She talks about vitamin P, like pleasure as a vitamin, and it's a nutrient that we're all really, really deficient in. And a woman that has enough pleasure in her life is generous, is loving, has the capacity, has way more capacity to take care of the people in her world than a woman who's deficient in this vitamin. And, you know, women that are martyrs and take care of themselves and all of that, well, they don't have enough to give, or they don't have as much to give, or, you know, if they pull it together to give what they want to give to their family, they end up feeling empty or angry or unfulfilled in some way. So I think it's hard to make the shift because, you know, once you start saying, okay, I need to do this for my pleasure, you start to feel guilty. Like, we're trained in that way to just feel. Feel guilty. But you can take it as research. This is one of the things I love about Mama Gina. She talks about just do it as research. So I would encourage women to play with pleasure in their lives as research and see how that makes them feel and how it spills over into the other people in their life, because it is very scary, and it does feel very contrary to everything we've been brought up to do. But for most people, it's healthier. It's a healthier way to live. And it's a lot like the whole oxygen mask in the airplane model where you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you can put it on your kid, because if you pass out, then there's no one there to put it on your kid. Right. So it's kind of the same model with pleasure as well. Anyone with a mother can attest to, well, if they have a happy mother, their lives are happier. If their mother was happier, their life would have been happier. You know, like anyone that has been in that relationship can know how powerful, you know, the state of mind of a mother can be to a child. And so one of the ways a woman can think about it is if it does feel selfish to turn to pleasure is in this way that it's actually a very selfless act to take care of yourself, to make sure you have enough pleasure in your life so that you can carry your family and your children in the most positive way that you possibly can.

That's so great. And I remember reading on your. I think it was on your blog that you're getting ready to launch an ecstatic birth series. I don't know which one that you decided to go on vacation or something.

And you were like, everything in me.

Was telling me that I should.

Yeah, I was right in the midst of marketing. I think it was the Bodi series. And my family went on vacation, and I was no I'm supposed to be at my desk. I'm supposed to be working. This is wrong. And if I tell everybody and they find out that I'm not at my desk, then they're not going to want to sign up for my series because how could I go on vacation at a time like this? And that's like, you know, that's. We've been programmed, whether we like it or not, we've been programmed the way our family raised us, the way our culture raised us. The more consciousness you have about your patterns, the more you can shift them, and that goes right back into birth prep. So one of the things I really suggest to people is just right now, as you're living your life, pay attention to how you deal with a difficult situation, how you deal with your boss telling you what to do, how you make your decisions, and get some consciousness about what your patterns are. Because all of those patterns are what's going to, like, come into play when you're giving birth. You're going to go down all of your path through all of your patterns. So you want those patterns within yourself to be as healthy as they could possibly be, as empowering as they could possibly be, so that when they do come up in birth, they serve you and they don't work against you.

Right. So becoming aware of them during your pregnancy so that when the. When they do show up in birth, you're not overwhelmed.

And you can deal with them. You know, if, for example, like, one of the things that always comes up in birth, it's just very, very common because of the world we live in, is like, I'm a victim. Help me. Save me. Right? So you're just kind of like grasping at somebody else, save me. Well, if that's your pattern in the way you live your life, well, how can you empower yourself more so you don't feel like a victim helping you empower yourself more? So if you are faced with a difficult situation, you can feel like you are empowered to deal with it. And that might mean surrendering to the hands of somebody else, but at least you are empowered to do the surrendering as opposed to being this victim that somebody else has to take care of.

That's so great. I know for me personally, that's been a part of my process too. Just like realizing how much as a human being and as a woman, just being in that victim spot of like, oh, I don't know the answers. I don't know. Please help me. And it's like, really?

Yeah. I feel like, you know, what for me, I was the perfect example. I, when I got pregnant with my first, I was like, honey, you know, I think I have a midwife. And he was like, well, you know, okay, but as long as you're in the best hospital, you know. And my mother was like a midwife. What is that safe?

Is that this?

And. And I tried to do what I wanted, but within bare parameters. And in retrospect, I realized I was so good at pleasing everybody around me that I didn't take care of myself. So that was like a pattern that became really apparent to me after the fact. And I still say to this day I am so grateful for that birth and some of the stuff that happened afterwards because all of those things were like, they were like wake up calls for me. And people have different wake up calls. It's not always birth, but sometimes it's the things that you find traumatic in your life that are your wake up calls to shift your patterns to live in a more empowering way. Yes.

So the birth, I love this, this idea too of like transformation through birth, which obviously isn't talked about that much, but that you can really. Birth can be used as a way to really step into the woman that you've always wanted to be or step into the woman who you truly are. Can you talk a little bit about that process?

Well, I think it's almost like silly that birth isn't talked about as a transformative experience. Because when you go in as a woman to give birth, the maiden that you were dies. Like you're not this carefree woman with no big responsibilities. Like, that woman is gone. And when you give birth to your kid, you're also birthing yourself as a mother. And it's again, like any kind of transformation. And I think birth is a metaphor for people's transformations in life too. People rebirth themselves, their identities, all the time, their careers. So people, even if you're not actually giving birth to a baby, you can use these ideas for your own rebirth of whatever it is, your birth of a project. But just to go back to an actual physical birth, it is 100% a transformation. You are going through this incredibly intense, primal experience and you're coming out a different person. And I think a lot of times we live our lives for the most part, 90% of the time in our heads. We're rational beings. We have all this knowledge. We can think, we can figure it out with our heads. And what I'm really encouraging is a deeper body connection, because our bodies have wisdom beyond what our rational mind can even figure out. And our bodies. Our bodies integrate the wisdom of our rational mind. So I'm not saying knowledge isn't good. Knowledge is amazing. And your body, when you're listening to your body to make your decisions, will integrate that. So I think what happens, you go into the birthing room as a woman, and especially if you're not. If you're not hooked up to any medications, you're going through a very primal experience where it's almost animalistic. All your barriers are being broken down. There's like a intense, sacred, massive, creative energy running through your body to birth your child. And when that child is born and you look at that child, you are a different person. You have a child to take care of. And I think any mother that has, you know, held their child for the first time will tell you that, you know, you realize, oh, my gosh, it's not just about me anymore.

So.

A lot of this birth stuff 100% carries over into motherhood stuff like, how do you mother your child? How do you take care of your child? How do you, you know, how can you be the mother that you want to be? And I think, you know, in my framework, and anyone can disagree with me, but in my framework, I want to be the most loving mother I could possibly be, but be as fierce as I could possibly be, too. So to have that love for my child, but also to have a fierceness, to take care of my child the way I want to take care of my child, to raise my child the way I want to raise my child, to have that, like, really that strong, solid inner strength to do what needs to be done, even in a difficult situation. And so, you know, like, people always talk about, oh, birth is like a marathon. I don't think birth is the marathon. I think motherhood is the marathon. And, you know, birth is like the, I don't know, 10k or something. It's. It's like a blueprint for how you're going to be as a mother. And you can always shift that blueprint. Of course, nothing is ever set in stone, but the more empowered and in your body and connected to your wisdom and your fierceness and your pleasure and all of those things, you can pull that right through your transformation to who you become as a mother as well. Right.

That's beautiful. I love that, too. Who you want to be as a mother. And, like, in that being fierce, you need to kind of give up what you were talking about, which I know a lot of us women have the desire to please. So being willing to be courageous and fierce and like, no, this is like, stand up for ourselves.

I love that. Yeah, yeah. And then ultimately stand up for our kids. They don't have anyone else but us.

Right. It's very interesting, don't you think? We're in a really interesting time. It feels like maybe. I don't know if it's just because I'm pregnant and I'm going through the process, but it feels like there's a lot of women who are feeling this call to step up into really embodying the divine feminine and motherhood in a whole new empowered way.

Yeah, it really does feel like that. And I have to say, you know, when I was even birthing my second child, so that was six years ago now, and I would just sit on the computer for hours, like, googling birth, pleasure birth, orgasmic birth, ecstatic birth, you know, pleasure and birth, water birth. Like, to try to get any bit of information I could. I remember turning to my husband and saying, like, wow, like, this is. I feel like I'm on the edge of the frontier. There really isn't that much information here. And just since that time, the amount of information that's come out, it can be overwhelming. I mean, there's like a ton of info now, which is great. There's so many more tools for women, so many more sources of support, so many more programs, so many. There's, like, a lot of stuff that women can call upon towards this brave new world that we're all seeing. I think that they can also be tricky, though, because, you know, when you have a choice of three things, it's easy to choose one. But when you have a choice of a thousand things, oh, my gosh, where do you even start? And so that's where I really. I go back to, okay, what's your body's wisdom? What's your journey? What do you need? Like, and connecting to that intuition within yourself, to connecting to your body, your physical body, and feeling out what you need, what your soul needs for your next step, I think is critical because there's just so much information out there, and all of it is great and useful and amazing. But different things will work for different people, and different things will speak for different people. And, you know, one woman might need one thing, another woman might need another, and nobody knows, nobody from the outside can really tell that woman this is what you need. It's up to that woman to really look inside herself and feel her way through.

Right. And I love you said, too, that 90% of our time is spent in our head.

99. There's a lot.

But it's like that balance for me, which I know a lot of women will feel. And I've gotten emails from women who are like, I'm just so overwhelmed. There's so much information, from the nutrition to the birth, you know, just like, there's a lot. And it's. For me, it's kind of. I have 85 books on all of this stuff.

It's just crazy.

And I love to read, but a lot of times I have to kind of step back and, like you said, step out of my head. The knowledge is amazing. But then step into my body and be like, okay, I'm the mother of this child. I know what's best, and I just need to tap into my body more. So can you talk about that? Of why it's important for us to get out of our heads and tap into our bodies and how we go about tapping into. Into our bodies and connecting to our body wisdom and our intuition?

You know, I think every woman that's pregnant that has, like, that pile of books next to her bed, before she even looks at that pile of books, should check in with herself and be like, what do I need right now? And then she'll know which book to reach for. Right? It's not like. I don't feel like I'm saying that mental knowledge is bad. I think that mental knowledge is actually really, really important. I just think that there's a certain wisdom that your body has and you can, you know, the idea of, like, feeling your way through the world with your body, I think is a really powerful one. So, for example, like, you know, sometimes you might have a conversation with someone that afterwards you've got, like, a knot in your stomach. And I know, like, that's happened to me, and I think it's happened to most people where you stop and you're like, wait, why do I have a knot in my stomach? And you think back and you're like, oh. It was that moment in that conversation. It made me feel like this. So that's like a very. That's a very extreme example of how your body is giving you a message. So your body's messages are very subtle. And the more you listen to them, the more you can hear them and the more you can feel them, really. So you could look at. You could stand at a fork in the road, and you can choose. Let's say you're choosing between two practitioners and you don't know this one has these points that are good. You've Made your pros and cons list for both mentally and, you know, all the information with both what the pros and cons are, but you still can't decide. Well, you know, you just get deep into your body, like, get into a really peaceful place, feel your toes, feel your knees, feel your belly, feel, you know, your body all over and just feel like, okay, if I were to go with this one, what does that feel, feel like in my body? Okay, if I was to go with that one, what would that feel like? And feel your way through? And I really strongly believe in that way, like, your body's not going to lead you the wrong way because it's processing so much information for you, more than just your head, and it's including your head. So if you can feel it your way through. In some ways, that requires faith and surrender because we're so programmed to be these mental calculators. But there's so much, just as a mother that's not clear when it comes to your child. There's so much that, like reading a book or talking to this expert or that expert is just not going to clarify for you. And as a mother, you need to really have that strong relationship with your intuition and your body to guide you, because a lot of times the experts won't be able to figure out what it is with your child or guide you to fix that behavior that's not quite right. Or sometimes it's you, you're the one that spends all your time with your child that sees what's going on, that sees his or her patterns, that knows the history like, you're the one. And it's going to be your intuition that guides you to really take care of that child the best way that you can.

That's beautiful. So as you were just talking about that, of nurturing our children and really supporting and being with them that much, I'm curious. It just popped up of this idea of perfection. Obviously, we all know that there is no perfect yet still, it seems like a lot of us kind of have like a perfection tendency or want to have the ideal birth and be the ideal moment. And can you just talk a little bit of how to maybe, I don't know, tame that, work with that, our expectations?

I think nothing is like the antidote for perfection more than becoming a mother. Is just like every grand plan you ever had. This little being is created to challenge you and help you grow in every possible way. And so I think it is, you know, all of us go into birth thinking, oh, I want X, Y, And Z, well, it's not really, it doesn't work that way. It's not really. You can't just order something and get what you ordered. There's always something that comes up and the best that you can do is figure out, well, how do you deal with those things that come up in life? Are you just like, oh boo hoo, look what happened to me, or are you like. Or do you party with it in some way? Can you see the best of it and use that? Can you find the gifts in the curve in the road? Can you do that? And that's a practice and that's a training. And I think to a certain amount, like perfectionism is like us gripping for control and you don't really have control. And especially once you are talking about another being and you are co creating together. It's, you know, you do the best that you can and you empower yourself as much as you can and you support yourself as much as you can and you train as much as you can and you know, you do all of these things, but at the end of the day you kind of have to be willing to party with whatever comes. And as I'm talking, this woman comes to mind who worked with me and she, from the time that she was thinking about getting pregnant all the way through, did everything, everything she could possibly think of to have the most pleasurable birth, pleasurable pregnancy, like she was just a warrior, right? She wanted to make sure she did everything, that she didn't miss anything. And she ended up having an emergency seat section. And she contacted me after her birth and said, hey, can I write a testimonial for my ecstatic birth? I was like, are you kidding? Of course you can. Like, I couldn't wait to read what she wrote. And her whole thing was she did come from a place of perfectionism. But when it came down to it, when it came down to that moment of her birth where the possibility of a C section was in front of her, she felt so empowered and so connected to her wisdom, her inner wisdom and her inner guidance that she had a moment where she stopped, she checked in and she felt without a doubt that that was what she had to do to take care of herself and her baby. And so on the other side of it, yes, she had a lot of grief that it wasn't this like beautiful, perfect birth that she had been working so hard for. But it was like. I don't know how to say it, it was almost like a grief surrounded by ecstasy because she was not a victim she was empowered. She knew it was her decision and she. Static filled grief. And I think there's so much to be learned from that sort of situation. I don't think there's anybody who has gone through something that was not what they expected, came out on the other side, and then was able to learn from that. That will not tell you all the things that they learned from that. So a lot of times when things in life, in birth, in the world don't turn out as we expect, I would say the best thing a person can do is look for the gifts in that, because there are always gifts in there for you. And things do happen for a reason. And I probably would never even be here if it wasn't for that first birth. That first birth set me on this path. So I'm grateful for that. And I always tell my son, I'm like, you are my biggest teacher. Because I never want him to feel like, bad that his birth was hard. I was like, you are my biggest teacher. You are the reason I started this whole thing. And I think that that's one way to think about it is if you are coming from a place of perfection and what you get is not exactly what you expected. To look at that and be like, what can I learn from this? Where are the gifts for me? And take it from there, because that will always serve you to grow as a person in your life. Wow, I love that.

Amazing, beautiful advice and tips and stories. I had goosebumps when you were telling the story of the woman. It's like, really? We can turn any experience into ecstatic if we want.

Oh, my goodness. And she was, she was like a warrior. She really was. And you know, she definitely part of it is honoring your grief, right? For you not to get what you. She was really honoring her grief. She didn't say, oh, it's okay, because I was empowered. Like, she really honored her grief. But in that grief, she found a lot of ecstasy too.

That's beautiful. And I love just as you were just sharing that too, because, you know, it seems definitely for me, there's definitely the wanting to do everything that I can for my child. And then there's also wanting to do everything I can, like, out of here. Fear, like being driven by fear. So a lot of times for me, it's like checking in of like, okay, cool. Am I being driven by fear or am I being driven by true inspiration and just like, you know, desire to serve this child? So I love that too, that you're talking about just the perfection too, that's kind of like an antidote to the fears as well, of really tuning into that. So that was beautiful.

And I really also suggest looking your fears in the eye because a lot of times if you're, you know, oh, I'm going to focus on the positive and reprogramming and all that, but your fears are still there. Just because you're not paying attention to them, it doesn't mean they're not there. And fears can really come into play during birth. And so, you know, for couples to talk through their fears, to really look them in the eye, to think, okay, well, is there any way I can appease that fear? Is there anything I can do ahead of time to make that fear a little bit less, to make me feel a little more comfortable and a little bit less fearful? I really do suggest looking fears in the eye. Otherwise they'll be right there looking at you when you least expect it.

It's fascinating that our fears, like, come up. I mean, it's just. I'm fascinated by the fears that come up for me. And I'm like, this has nothing to do. Like, this is just my pat, like you said earlier, blueprint. Like, this has nothing to do really with the pregnancy. It's just a blueprint that's becoming, like, shining a spotlight on, like, oh, wow, that's always been there, but now it's a different context.

And here's the thing is, you know, you have a physical body, you have an energetic body, and you have all of this, like, body memory from your whole life, from your ancestors, all of this memory in your body that you might not even be conscious of, but that birth energy, when it comes to your body, it's like the major crazy energy. And like, why do people go to energy healers to heal, you know, energetic patterns that are manifesting in their body and physical ways. So in a way, like, that's happening in birth spontaneously and naturally. A lot of spirit stuff. Like if you. Let's say you do have some kind of trauma in your genitals, that'll come up. It'll come up. So you're better off if you're conscious of it, if you're aware of it, you're better off getting the help you need ahead of the birth. Right.

To do the healing before.

Yeah, yeah. So what do you.

There's so many questions that I have for you now. What is your thought on the traumatic. You know, somebody has had, maybe what they experienced was more of a traumatic birth. And they're like, you know, I really want to have an ecstatic birth or move towards that for my next. My next birth. How do you recommend a woman empower herself and heal from the traumatic birth?

I think that woman has to really look within herself because, you know, there could be a zillion one reasons that something is traumatic, and that's not really the same for everyone. So I think first that woman has to look within herself and feel what she needs most in terms of support and healing that piece that she feels is traumatic. So, you know, whether it's a therapist or some other kind of mode of healing what is hurting, I would really recommend a woman look within herself and see how she can support herself in moving through that. And I think that everyone knows when they get to that place, when you get to that place where you feel kind of like a light bulb goes on or like, aha, or I feel grateful, then you start to realize that, okay, you've healed it. You know, Like, I know for me, and I can only share my own story. Everybody is different. But when I got to the hospital in my first birth, I said, you know, within five minutes, I was telling them, I need to push. I need to push. No, no, no. We need to put this monitor on you, and we need to have you come checked and whatever else. And I was. I remember being in the restroom with my husband and pushing, like, just. Just this, like, crazy, primal, intense urge to push. And then they're like, no, no, you have to lie down here. They put me on my back. They strapped me down. They put a monitor on me 20 minutes, and somebody came in, and it was a resident. I said, I don't want a resident to touch me. I want a doctor. And the doctor came in all annoyed that he was being summoned to do something that a resident had to do. And he checked me, and he goes, oh, you're just five centimeters. And in that moment, I was just like, really? I'm just 5 centimeters. And I was like, then I know nothing. And I know nothing in that moment was like. Like pivotal to me, just being like, fine, do whatever you have to do. Like, you know, it was just a very disempowering moment. And I remember after my son was born, this is my first birth, there were all kinds of emergencies along the way and all that. And my husband. I looked at each other and said, thank God we were in a hospital. Right? That was. So this was immediately after the birth then, you know, I'm kind of processing the whole thing two years later. You know, I had a lot of trouble getting pregnant after that birth, for the reason being that my body was just kind of traumatized in a lot of ways. I had a lot of trouble getting pregnant. A lot of loss trying to figure out what was going on. I healed a lot of that and then got to this point where I was preparing for my daughter's birth. And I was reading a book, I think it was. It was one of Ina May's books. And she was talking about how your labor can actually reverse when you get into a fighting, confrontative moment. And it was like, when I read those words, it was as if, like, my whole world shifted. My whole world shifted because as I read those words, I realized that I had been so connected to my body, and I had been so connected, and that when I went into that situation and I started fighting, my body, like, gripped and reversed. And I. Within a day, my eyes were, like. My eyes were bloodshot red with some kind of infection that cleared through within 24 hours. And it was just like this crazy spiritual symbol for me. Oh, I just healed. The way I was looking at the whole thing.

Wow.

And I was back into a place of empowerment. So that's why I just feel like every woman's journey is so different, and it's so hard to say what will be that moment for you when you know that you're okay, but you have that moment, and until you have that moment, you just have to kind of keep checking back in with yourself to see, what do I need now? What's my next step? What does my inner guidance tell me? Should I go see this person? Should I read that book? Should I eat this food? And sometimes it doesn't make sense, but in the end, it will lead you to that place of where exactly you're meant to be, where you understand and you've healed and you feel empowered to move forward.

Beautiful. I totally have tears in my eyes. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much.

I love that.

I feel like you really. You are such a voice for us women to really trust ourselves and to tap into our intuition and find and go on our own journey and that we are the only ones that know.

Using the knowledge of it. That's exactly it. It's like your own journey, and you need to figure out how to navigate that ship.

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for all of your wisdom. Can you share your website? And also you have amazing programs and anything else that you want to share where people can find out more about you, coach with you, work with you.

Thank you so much. My website is ecstatic birth.com, so it's not one word. Ecstatic birth dot com. And I'm actually in the midst of redoing it right now. I have two audio programs on the website that people can purchase and access. One is called the Foundation Series, and it has, you know, just the. Some of the pillars of, like, what does it mean to have an ecstatic birth? What are the conditions you need to. To set it up? I have Dr. Christiane Northrup talking about her experience as an OBGYN and the current medical system and what its limitations are. All the way through some of the top sexual educators talking about how what they do translates into birth. So that's one series. I have another series called the Body Series, which is primarily about your connection with your body and in preparation for birth. And how do you connect to that inner wisdom? How do you connect to that pleasure within and in preparation for birth? So those are two series that I have online. I'm actually also in the midst of putting together an entire digital program for women preparing for birth. And I'm a writer. That's really where my heart is. That's where my pleasure lies. And I'm hoping now that my family just went through a really big move. I'm hoping now that we've moved and we're settled, to be blogging a lot more about this topic and sharing a lot more about the intersection between how you birth and how you live your life and your sexuality and to really speak to people who are birthing babies and birthing themselves or projects in some significant way.

Fantastic. Yeah, that's such an important topic and I appreciate all of your wisdom on it. And just like, having. I always say, because I feel like women, you know, like, you and other women that are sharing on this are like, pioneers and just, like, so courageous. And I know that you're just, like, driven inside of you, like you couldn't not do it, but it's, like, so inspiring that you know. So I honor you and your journey and. And your courage to really bring this forth.

Thank you so much. And thank you so much for putting together this program for women. It's like, it really just goes back to, like, women need to know. Women need to know. And you yourself are a pioneer, too, because you're creating this forum, this series, so that more women can access this information, this information can access. Different teachers can access all the different forms of wisdom and preparation and possibilities. It's there. So thank you. Thank you for the work that you're doing.

Thank you.

Love Fest. Love, Beth. Big hugs.

Big hugs to you too. Thank you.

Thank you.

And have a beautiful day.

You too. You too. Bye.

Bye. I won't be doing a lot. If anything, I'm already like, I'm probably not going to be online at all, actually, for the whole month of October.

So you can sit back and just enjoy the fruits of your labor. That's perfect. That's perfect.

That's the plan.

All right. Definitely keep me posted. And again, I would love that audio file whenever you guys get a chance. And really good luck to you. Hopefully soaking in all this energy and wisdom and all that will surround you during your own birth. So good luck with everything.

Thank you so much and thank you for your wisdom and inspiration, and I will definitely be pulling on your beautiful images and your beautiful stories. So thank you. Thank you.

All right. Take care of yourself. Thanks so much.

Okay, talk to you soon.

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. Keep rocking it and have an awesome day.