Will I be OK?
I think every parent-to-be, feels anxious at some point about whether they will be OK during their birth. With the current Covid-19 pandemic, there seems to be so much more to worry about.
Your birth can sometimes feel so big that you can’t even see past it, to the fact that you’re actually having a baby. And when you start thinking about becoming a parent, it can be overwhelming.
From the thoughts of will you cope with sleep deprivation, feeding your baby, knowing what they want and how to do it, to the can it really be that bad and what if your baby is unwell?
So you learn as much as you can to try to be prepared, maybe join some online antenatal classes or hypnobirthing. But there is one thing that is always missing, and that’s the feeling that you’ll be ok. Because how can you know?
I’m going to leave these questions for a moment and ask you what may seem like unrelated questions. But it will all make sense, by the end of this article.
Have you ever been in a situation that you thought you couldn’t handle before it happened, but when you were experiencing it, you just knew what to do, almost as if everything had slowed down?
When do you get your best ideas, is it whilst you're working out every possible scenario and slogging away at the problem, or is it when you take a break, have a shower or walk the dog?
It’s as if when your mind is empty, and you're in the moment you are completely ok and know what to do next. The answers to your problems can come easily when you stop actively trying to solve them.
Now, that is because you are designed to live in the present moment, your natural state is this sense of clarity and wisdom. You even have an inbuilt navigation system to let you know when you are out of sync with what is true and real right now.
That navigation system is your feelings. Your feelings let you know about your thoughts in your moment to moment reality.
This is the reason that you can be annoyed at your partner one moment, and then you can feel really peaceful the next, perhaps your cat does something funny, (of course, that is if you have a cat).
The annoying feelings can’t be coming from your partner, because in a single moment nothing changed other than your thought generated reality.
Your feelings don’t ever tell you about who you are and whether you will be ok. These feelings don’t even know that you are expecting a baby. All they point to is your thought generated reality, moment to moment. And this can all change in an instant.
You can fall out of feeling anxious when you realise that right now, all is well. Your feelings are just letting you know that you’re having anxious thinking in the moment. You don’t need to do anything, just let them pass as a storm can pass across the sky. The sky doesn’t need to do anything.
Which brings us back to the question of will you be ok?
Well, you’ve made it this far, so I know you’ve got this. Yes, sometimes you’ll get caught up in anxious feelings, but then just like that you can drop into a space of clarity, calm and wisdom and you’ll know what to do next. You’ve always had this self-correcting system, and it will be there for you when your baby arrives.
Now that’s not to say that you don’t need to learn some practical stuff and do some planning about your birth and how to care for your baby.
But when you are feeling overwhelmed or anxious, just know that the only thing these feelings are pointing to, is your thought generated reality. No over analysing needed!
These feelings will just pass.
If you want to learn more about how you can let go of anxiety, then check out the following blog post…
