Hypnobirthing Visualisations -When women recount to me their own experience of birthing, from a hypnotherapy point of view one thing that particularly interests me is her experience inside. I like to ask...
Where did you go?
What emerged that surprised you?
Did you notice any specific metaphors?
Was it a feeling, a visualisation or something else?
Birthing Trance
Many women recount a trance like state during birthing which, given the right conditions, naturally and effortlessly emerges. Hypnobirthing facilitates a birthing mother to fully maximise this natural state - I discuss this in a little more detail here.
It’s when you are in this ‘trance’ or state of ‘self-hypnosis’ that the unconscious mind can come online and begin to allow useful metaphors to emerge – the unconscious mind LOVES metaphors! Think about when you’re going to sleep, just drifting off. Your conscious mind quietens and things (seemingly unrelated things) feelings, thoughts and imagery just begin to surface? Well it’s rather similar to this.
I’ve worked with clients who claim to have not a shred of imagination, they perhaps work in roles where creativity is not required and yet, in a state of hypnosis, the metaphors which have emerged are the most colourfully creative and often surprising for them.
Between a ‘Rock’ and a ‘Shark’ Place
When I attended a Hypnobirthing Practitioner course a few years ago, the recorded hypnosis script provided to prepare for managing surges was beautiful. It was poetic, it was soft and gentle, it initially appeared to be everything any birthing mother would need to help her manage her surges. It contained the guided visualisation of standing on a cliff top overlooking rolling waves and the suggestion of being able to sink to the bottom of the seabed to rock gently back and forth whilst the rolling waves continued and subsided overhead. It’s a lush piece of writing – yet it didn’t fit right for me.
You see, sitting at the bottom of that ocean with the waves overhead, my imagination became concerned about those nearby cliffs and I didn’t feel safe. Wondering if it was just me, I asked a fellow Hypnotherapist and Fertility Specialist, Jay Kelly, what her thoughts were on this - for her, it was sharks.
Full and Complete Ownership
The lesson here is that we are not all reading from the same map. Our own experiences fill in the gaps and arranges our own experience inside. It’s important that a birthing mother allows her visualisations (or whatever it is) to just emerge naturally - that she has full ownership of them. Whether it’s at sea, on land, in the sky – a place you have been before, or a place you have created. It could be a visualisation, a colour, a feeling or something not even tangible enough for you to describe. Whatever it is, it is important that you own this and it belongs to you.
Useful and Relevant Unique Metaphors - Hypnobirthing Visualisations
Your unconscious has this wonderful ability to create useful and relevant metaphors to work for and with you. You need no help with this, nobody needs to tell you what you should be experiencing inside. In response to this, I create a track for my Bespoke Hypnobirthing course clients which facilitates a birthing mother to develop her own metaphors and tools for managing surges (contractions). It makes a few suggestions for the unconscious to either accept and develop or reject and facilitates your unconscious to allow the right metaphors to emerge for you.
Below is a short 5 minute excerpt from this audio hypnobirthing visualisations preparation track. The complete track is available as part of a complete set with my Bespoke Hypnobirthing Package.
5 Minute Sample - Developing Surge Resources for Hypnobirthing
*Important - Do not listen to this track whilst driving.