Day 6 - Chain

A month-long writing challenge exploring the theme of "Being Myself"

This is the latest instalment of the 21 day writing challenge I’m doing with Megan Macedo, writing every week day in February. One of the directives is to avoid perfectionism and publish your pieces to your audience, so here we are. I hope the series provides food for thought. Thank you for being here.

In my work as a postnatal doula, there’s a point, usually around 11 or 12 weeks postpartum, where I detect a very definite shift in the mother. It’s not that anyone’s getting decent sleep yet, or that there aren’t still ups and downs, but there’s some sense of emergence, of a little more brightness. I find the expression of this very interesting: mums generally need to nap a little less during my visits and start sorting cupboards, tidying gardens or going for short walks. Ground work. Spring is not there yet but it’s on the way.

When I see this, I know the work has worked. It’s less about me than the offering, the facilitative practice of doula’ing which helps people travel a bit more lightly. When I see women a year or years later, I still feel the resonance of our work together. I am grateful that I got to offer my care for them and I know it still matters.

I remember reading how health is conceived in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) over a longer time period than I was used to. In TCM the postpartum period is seen as vulnerable and it’s viewed as highly important that a mother rests and is cared for so as not to experience challenges years down the line.

I can’t imagine it’s possible to prove that one distant thing could be connected to another; as individuals, we can only hypothesise. But I feel sure, without hard evidence but the knowledge of the mothers I’ve been able to support, that being shown care and given help when the ground is so shaken under us can set us on a different path. I don’t think it’s too wild to say that a good or bad experience could affect us years into the future.

My body is constantly having curious experiences where jaw pain is resolved by relaxing my pelvic floor, or where my permanently hunched up shoulders feel entirely different through a practice that only touches my feet. There is a vastness within and outside of us. Connections are nuanced and mysterious and I don’t need hard evidence to see and feel them every day.