Scroll down to listen to Birth Affirmations Relaxation Audio.
I almost fully embraced hypnobirthing when I was expecting my daughter, weaving my learning, exercises, self-hypnosis practise and relaxation seamlessly through my daily life.
I almost fully embraced it...
...but one thing just wasn’t quite working for me.
You see, when I listened to the birth affirmations track, to be honest my initial reaction was to cringe. Subsequent listenings transformed this cringe to a sheer repulsion. It was clear that these seemingly lovely affirmations simply were not for me and were probably quite unhelpful for my own hypnobirthing journey.
As a result, that CD and those birth affirmation cards were relegated to an unvisited kitchen draw I affectionately call ‘The Abyss’. I never did the whole ‘post-it notes around the house’ thing in the run up to birth.
So fast forward a few years to me facilitating hypnobirthing with my clients. I had to consider how, if at all, to include affirmations within the recorded and written resources I was providing for the families I work with. It was important to understand why those affirmations hadn’t worked for me and how I could change this to help my clients to get the most from theirs.
Then, one day, as I was mulling over and playing around with a few birth affirmations, a light bulb moment happened. It suddenly became marvellously, simply obvious...
- Lose the Pronoun...
I suddenly realised that pronoun words such as ‘I, us, my, we, you and our’ were the very thing standing in the way of me being able to fully accept and absorb each affirmation.
I’ll explain a little bit more...
Consider these two phrases and how you process each one:
- Think of a pink elephant
- A pink elephant
The chances are that, with each one, you had a similar internal experience. You searched your own internal reference for ‘elephant’ and ‘pink’, and there it was. You maybe even added some extra detail of your own. You didn’t need to be told to think of it, it already happened without you even noticing it.
We are, in our daily lives, constantly searching our own internal reference and it happens so fast we are not even aware of it. Words are very powerful. What happens inside when you consider ‘fear’, or ‘love’ or ‘joy’. The only way a person can fully understand these things is by checking your extensive internal library.
Milton Erikson, the founder of modern hypnotherapy understood this. Prior to his influence, hyposis involved a lot of direct suggestion.
Erikson, on the other hand, often told stories – metaphors littered with well placed phrases, words and ideas to help his clients make significant shifts were more effective than the old style. And why was this more effective? Because people are more likely to resist direct suggestion. Often people don’t like to be told what to do, think or feel... I know I don’t.
So consider these affirmations:
- You trust your birthing instincts
- I trust my birthing instincts
- Trusting birthing instincts
They all achieve the same thing essentially. Scanning reference for ‘trust’, ‘birthing’ and ‘instincts’ to create your own internal reference for what this means for you. However, the first one could be a direct suggestion or command coming from someone else. The second one may be interpreted as a direct suggestion, albeit from yourself. The final one, however, removes self altogether. The crux is, once your internal representation of the phrase has been made, your unconscious knows exactly what to do with it – no pronouns are even required here.
Additionally, removing the pronoun made it necessary to add ‘ing’ to the end of trust - transforming the phrase from happening ‘in time’ to ‘through time’ and suggesting that this is something ongoing and not just occurring in this brief moment.
- Affirmations Won’t Belong to you until you Fully Own Them
Most birth affirmations have been written by someone else, served up on a social media page in a relaxing colour hue all neatly packaged. Listed in a book for you to copy down neatly on a post it note and slap on your fridge door or presented in a handout for you to cut up and stick up in any prominent places of your choosing.
This, in principal, is a fantastic idea. Surrounding yourself with positive messages as you go about your daily life to allow your unconscious to absorb some lovely things. What’s not to love? But the main point here is that they have been written by someone else – not by you.
Firstly, and as already covered in the first point, people often resist being told what to feel or think by someone else – well, directly anyway.
But more importantly, affirmations are most effective when they come from a place of truth. It’s imperative that you to feel an affirmation resonates within you, that you own it, that it speaks to you and that you fully understand it on some deeper level inside.
Of course, this is just a model from my own experience and musings, and if you find that using existing and unchanged affirmations are working well for you, this is excellent news. And if you don’t, I invite you, as I invite all my clients, to sit with each one. Say it out loud, repeat it, whisper it, write it out, ponder it. If it’s not yet resonating with you, play around with the way it’s worded – lose the pronoun, shorten it, lengthen it – do whatever it takes to make it yours.
And if, after all this, it’s still not working for you... ditch it and find others which fit, suit and feel more true to and for you.
I’ve included here a free short audio to be used from about 36 weeks into pregnancy. Many positive messages from a range of popular affirmations are included here, but with no pronouns and no direct suggestion. These are simply ambiguous phrases which, when in a deeply relaxed state, you’re unconscious can absorb and utilise to create an even more useful internal landscape in preparation for your birthing day.