Creating Awareness and Empowering a shift in Global Consciousness
WELCOME
It is TIME for a REVOLUTION in the way we THINK & CREATE!
It is TIME to create JOY & EMPOWERMENT rather than PAIN & STRUGGLE! TOGETHER we can move mountains and shift GLOBAL consciousness to LOVE rather than FEAR
This is an email that I received from someone that reads my blog. Her story and her quest are worth a few minutes of your time.
Hi Lynne!
Thanks for responding to my comment! I’m reaching out to you today in hopes that you will help me with a cause that is very near and dear to my heart. At age 36, I was diagnosed with mesothelioma just 3 ½ months after my first and only child, Lily, was born. I was given just 15 months to live unless I underwent a drastic surgery to remove my left lung. Miraculously, I beat the odds and I’m still here eight years later.
Asbestos is not banned in the US, yet it’s the only known cause of mesothelioma. I was exposed to asbestos through my fathers work jacket when I was just a little girl; my diagnosis came about 30 years later. Once diagnosed, most patients die within 2 years. I am one of few survivors who openly share their story and work to spread awareness regarding the dangers of asbestos.
In honor of upcoming Asbestos Awareness Week (April 1-7), I have created a webpage dedicated to raising awareness. I would love it if you would be willing to share it on your blog to help educate and protect your readers from this preventable disease!
In 1983 Monty Python included this 'hospital birth' sketch in their hilariously funny satirical film "The Meaning of Life"! In this short three minute clip they sum up everything that is wrong with high tech medicalised birth. In the thirty years since this film was made, this situation has only become more exaggerated so that the 1983 parody looks more like real life in a modern birthing suite!
The more technology used, the less human the experience!
In this wonderfully predictive sketch, the mother, father and baby are shown as the least important elements of the birthing process. The most important elements being the doctors, the machinery and the money making potential of each procedure!
In their eminently funny way, the Monty Python team demonstrate how modern birthing methods frighten babies, depress mothers and marginalise fathers. They highlight the insanity of many routine hospital birth procedures and emphasise the inhumanity of 'isolating' babies from mothers!
I find it astonishing that over 30 years ago, they had so accurately observed the growing trend of over medicalising birth in such fine detail, highlighting in case you missed it;
the accepted superiority of the doctor
the notion that women are not qualified to birth their own baby
the inutility of high tech machines
the power of the hospital administrator
the administration's concern for profit over quality of care
the lack of knowledge by all concerned
the insensitivity of the hospital environment
the unnecessary number of birth attendants
the bright lights and loud noises of a birthing suite
the frightening environment the baby is first born into
early cord clamping
rough towel treatment of the baby
clinical post birth medical checks
isolating babies
keeping the mother helpless and powerless
separating babies from their mothers
This short video perfectly demonstrates what I have been researching and writing about for the last two years in regards to "The Hidden Dictatorship" and Birth!
I urge you to watch and share so that more people can see through the art of comedy, the tragedy that is unfolding everyday in delivery suites around the world!
I am sharing with you today an excerpt from the new book that I am writing with Binnie A Dansby. In Chapter Five we look at 'The Hidden Dictatorship" that is currently influencing the choices we make!
Most people do not question the democratic structure under
which they live, choosing to believe that essentially, both governments and
corporate organisations, on the whole, act for the benefit and well-being of
the people. One reason why they don’t is that they have been programmed by the ‘powers
at be’ not to. For most people it is much easier and safer to stay ignorant of
these hidden machinations. Although the
evidence is all around us, we choose not to see it!
For instance, most people do not know that;
·At the beginning of the twentieth century, The
Rockefeller Foundation, as a means of improving their tarnished image, donated
vast sums of money to medical research and education, forever changing the
direction of medical knowledge towards a pharmaceutical application and away
from herbal medicine and natural healing techniques.
·The international pharmaceutical giant, Bayer
was once part of I G Farben, the organisation that conducted human medical
experiments at Auschwitz during the Second World War.
·Pharmaceutical companies sponsor ongoing Post
Graduate Medical Education, specifically biasing the curriculum to recommend
the use of their medications or treatments.
·Medical Professionals receive financial
incentives and perks from the Pharmaceutical companies to promote their
products.
·US government agricultural policy and corporate
decisions in the 1970’s have directly contributed to the global obesity epidemic
of today.
·The financially powerful food industries of
Great Britain and North America have systematically supressed numerous reports,
discredited books and quashed government policies that have;
ostated clearly that high levels of sugars in a
person’s diet leads to obesity and other related diseases
orecommended limiting advertising & other
promotional activities used by the food industries to encourage us to eat more
and more unhealthy food
oproduced guidelines to limit people’s intake of
sugars
oshown that children are no less active now than
they were 30 years ago although childhood obesity continues to increase
The Food Industry continue to refuse to take responsibility
stating that each individual is responsible for their own food consumption and
blame lack of exercise for the rising levels of obesity.
Knowledge is a form of power and we have the means at our disposal to source great amounts of knowledge. A simple search on the internet will produce all manner of facts, figures, opinions and stories. Each of us need to WAKE UP to what is going on out there and start to make choices that are much healthier (mind, body & spirit) for both ourselves and our families!
Stay tuned as this is only a taste of the information that will be available in our upcoming series of books called 'The Wake Up" Series!
If you like what you are reading then please share with others and also sign up for my monthly Inner Sense Newsletter.
Surrender is the process of letting go of that which we no longer need! Letting go of our RESISTANCE. Letting go of FEARS. Letting go of PAINFUL emotions. Letting go of thoughts or actions that cause negativity in our lives.
Resistance is our response to deeply held FEARS. What we most resist is what we most need to heal or change. I am sure you have all had the experience of wanting to do something new to create change in your life, only to find excuses, blocks, obstacles and ways to avoid the task or issue completely? To surrender your old thoughts, beliefs, habits, friends, job, and lifestyle that no longer serves you does NOT mean that you are weak or giving up! It is actually the opposite! It takes great COURAGE to face up to our FEARS, fight our resistance and create something new. Why Surrender???
Surrender is a CATALYST for personal CHANGE Surrender allows us to to be REBORN into a new consciousness, a new way of being! Surrender brings a great sense of FREEDOM to your life. Surrender brings you into CONNECTION with the universe, other people and most of all yourself!
Surrender & Birth
Surrender is an ESSENTIAL part of achieving a natural birth!
When a woman trusts her body, releases her fears and allows her body to do what it has been created to do, then natural birth is the usual result. You can also take it one step further and fully surrender yourself to the physiological process that is birth. It is in this state that ECSTATIC Birth becomes possible!
I experienced fear and resistance to the innate power in my body during my first child's birth. I had never experienced anything like it and the intensity brought up very deeply held fears about life and death. It wasn't until I surrendered to this power that my baby was able to be born, breech and beautiful!
Most women experience fear in childbirth at some stage of the process and enlightened support understands how to allay those fears and encourage the woman to fully surrender herself to the birth. In most cases, the medical model of birth only serves to create more fears and resistance with all of its protocols and high tech management of the process.
It is time the Medical System surrendered its control over a process that is at its heart natural and one of life's miracles!
The first part of this article is an excerpt from my June Newsletter - Inner Sense News
If you would like to sign up to my montlhy newsletter please log on to my website and enter your name and email address!
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW about ecstatic birth by Lynne Thorsen
“There is a secret in our culture, and it’s not that
childbirth is painful, it’s that women are strong.”
― Laurie Stavoe Harm
When most people think of the words
ecstatic and birth in the same sentence they
think that it is some trumped up myth by a
bunch of hippies on drugs!
It’s not the reality of birth!
Currently, birth is surrounded by
an aura of FEAR, propagated by media
portrayals, reinforced by the authoritarian
medical system and cultivated by global
corporations profiting from current birthing
practices.
Most adults alive today have been born
through pain and struggle. The majority
of modern women are rendered helpless,
hopeless and powerless as the obstetrical
machine assumes control over their births
and triumphantly hands them their baby.
Most people believe that they have no
choice! We have been programmed to
distrust our own anatomy and fear the
innate power that resides in every cell.
Increasingly, many women report being
left with physical and emotional scars after
highly interventionist medical births. The
result is women who feel disempowered,
manipulated and abused by insensitive
and authoritarian medical professionals.
They express feelings of loss, failure and
a deep desire for more. The incidence of
post-natal depression is increasing, as are
behavioural conditions in children such as
autism, ADHD and excessive violence in our
society. There are a number of scientists and
psychologists who are suggesting that there
is a link between traumatic birth experiences
and these conditions.1
WHAT IS ‘ECSTATIC BIRTH’ THEN?
Ecstasy or ecstatic is defined as an
overwhelming feeling of happiness or joyful
excitement and can involve an experience of
mystic self-transcendence.2
Therefore it is an experience of birth that
transcends a normal state; a physical and
spiritual transformation, producing lasting
sensations of joy, excitement and happiness.
This indicates something more than just
being relieved or happy to receive a living
baby at the end of a traumatic medical birth.
There is a growing number of women
and couples who choose to be the authority
in the birth process. They avoid or adapt
the medical model to birth naturally and
ecstatically.
My first baby was breech. The system
recommended a caesarean. I did my research
and decided that I could birth her at home
with an experienced midwife.
I will never forget the euphoria I felt at
the moment of her birth, triumphing over
the system and discovering my inner source
of feminine power. It was transformational
on every level. It was so incredible that I
vowed that I wanted to help other women
experience that ecstasy too!
WHY ARE NATURAL BIRTHS
‘ECSTATIC’ AND MEDICAL BIRTHS
NOT? The physiological system of natural birth
(no medical intervention) is exquisitely
designed and balanced. There is a gradual
development and intensification during
labour that allows the mother to expand and
open her body and for the baby to adapt and
participate in the process.
Natural labour is divided into three stages:
1. Expansion and dilation of the pelvis
and cervix,
2. Pushing and birthing
3. Placenta delivery, uterus returning to
size, blood loss stemmed
Each stage is augmented by the ‘cocktail’ of
birth hormones that is gradually released
into the mother’s bloodstream to produce
the muscular contractions required, regulate
blood flow and activate emotional responses
in the mother’s brain. They also cross the
placental membrane to benefit the baby.
These hormones include oxytocin, beta-
endorphins, catecholamines and prolactin.
The production of all four types of hormones
builds gradually in both the mother and
baby during labour, peaking at the moment
of birth.
The most significant of these hormones
is oxytocin, which is vital during every
stage for optimal functioning of all the
components necessary for a successful
natural, ecstatic birth. According to
Professor Sue Carter, oxytocin is the
hormone of love and is connected to the
sensations of euphoria, ecstasy, well-being
and security. Oxytocin levels are highest in
humans during social contact, sex, orgasm,
pregnancy, natural birth and breastfeeding.3
The beta-endorphins are the body’s natural
pain regulators, providing relief for both
mother and baby as the intensification
of energy and sensations progressively
increase. The catecholamines, adrenalin and
noradrenalin, are there to increase levels of
excitement and muscular effort required to
stimulate the foetal ejection reflex at birth.
Prolactin, in combination with oxytocin
produces the feelings of love, tenderness
and protection associated with motherhood
and is present in breast milk. According to
Michel Odent, prolactin ensures that the
mother will direct these feelings towards her
baby. The levels of oxytocin and prolactin
remain high after birth in order to eject
the placenta, contract the uterus, initiate
breastfeeding and promote attachment and
bonding between mother and baby.4
The key to the optimal functioning of
this cocktail of hormones is the balance,
regulation and perfectly timed release
during natural labour. Unfortunately the
medical model of birth interferes with this
synchronicity. It is unable to replicate this
naturally occurring phenomenon.
Synthetic oxytocin, commonly known
as Pitocin or Syntocinon, used to induce
labour and to expel the placenta, does
not produce the same effects as natural
oxytocin. It does not cross over to the brain
to produce sensations of ecstasy and love. It
is continually administered by IV drip and
cannot be regulated like natural oxytocin.
It suppresses natural oxytocin production
and increases the length and intensity of
contractions, causing both maternal and
foetal distress.
If the mother is feeling unsafe or
unsupported her fear and anxiety levels
increase, which creates tension in her body.
This tension opposes the releasing action of
labour, and pain is the result. This is known
as the ‘fear-tension-pain’ syndrome5. It can
be triggered by fear of birth, moving from
the security of the home environment to
the hospital, encountering insensitive or too
many medical personnel or being subjected
to invasive or restrictive medical procedures.
In response the body will produce too
much adrenalin/noradrenalin in the early
stages of labour. This increases muscular
tension and reduces oxytocin and beta-
endorphin production resulting in even
higher levels of pain. Administering
synthetic pain relieving drugs through IV
or epidurals further inhibits the natural
production of oxytocin, beta-endorphins
and prolactin. It also restricts freedom of
movement, causing discomfort and the
inability to use gravity and movement to
assist in the progression of the baby through
the birth canal.
The natural system of birth is rendered
useless by medical interventions resulting in
the cascade of further interventions and the
possibility of a caesarean section.
WHY CHOOSE AN ECSTATIC BIRTH?
The benefits are numerous and long lasting.
1. Your baby is welcomed in love, joy and
excitement.
2. Post birth recovery is faster,
breastfeeding easier and there are lower
rates of post-natal depression.
3. You experience the emotional and
spiritual transcendence of a truly
co-creative experience.
4. The transformational experience of self-
empowerment.
5. The long-term emotional and physical
health and well-being of both mother
and child!
MY 5 TOP TIPS TO CREATING AN
ECSTATIC BIRTH
1. Knowledge is power
The key is understanding and developing
trust in the natural birth process and your
own body. • Research everything you can on ‘ecstatic
birth’ or ‘natural empowered birth’ • Read natural birth guide books. Check
out these authors:
o Dr Sarah Buckley, Ina May Gaskin,
Michel Odent, Sheila Kitzinger,
Frederic Leboyer • Read Childbirth Without Fear by Dr
Grantly Dick-Read • Read or listen to other ecstatic birth
stories • Attend informative seminars or retreats
• Watch empowered birth films
2. Release your fears
Attend workshops or have individual
therapy sessions that are designed to
release your fears about birth. Consider:
• Hypnobirthing
• Breathwork
• Guided visualisations
• Independent birth preparation classes
• Natural therapies; acupuncture,
kinesiology, reflexology or NLP.
3. Prepare your body, mind and spirit
Preparation is the key to success. I
recommend: • Researching
• Workshops and classes
• Breathing and visualisation techniques
• Pre-natal yoga and exercise
• Maintaining a healthy diet
• Herbal supplements or homeopathic
remedies • Perineal massage
• Acupuncture, reflexology and cranial
sacral osteopathy • Rest and adequate sleep
• Sexual stimulation
• Meditation
• Affirmations and prayer
4. Surround yourself with enlightened
support
Everyone who is present during the
birth will cause an effect and positive,
strong, enlightened support is essential. It
is important to realise that it is
challenging, although not impossible,
to find the support you need within the
traditional medical system.
I strongly recommend: • Hire a doula or independent midwife.
• Choose supporters, including partner,
who fully understand, trust and respect
your wishes. • Choose medical personnel carefully;
ensure they support your choices! Know
your rights! • Choose the most supportive
environment for you to achieve an
ecstatic birth. • Use physical support such as birth
balls, birthing pools, conscious
breathing, hypnosis techniques or
massage during the birth,
5. Consciously co-create with your baby
Acknowledge that your baby is conscious
and communicating: • Communicate non-verbally with your
baby during pregnancy • Listen in and communicate with your
baby during labour • Welcome your baby and treat them to
skin on skin contact in their first
moments • Delay cord-clamping to allow the
maximum cord blood transfusion for the
baby’s well-being
My experience and research has shown me
that ‘ecstatic birth’ is not an aberration – it
is the genetic blueprint and birth right of
every woman. It is time to change the story!
Lets take the opportunity to create a new
paradigm; ecstatic birth – a new future for
birth and society!
1 Dr Roy Dittman - Brighton Baby, David B
Chamberlain- Windows to the womb, birth and
the origins of violence 2 http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/
ecstatic 3 The healing power of love – Oxytocin, Professor
Sue Carter, www.stephenporges.com 4 Gentle birth, Gentle Mothering – Dr Sarah J
Buckley, Ch 2 ecstatic birth, One Moon Press,
Australia, 2005. 5 Dr Grantly Dick Read, Childbirth without Fear
Something you can do to Change the World
When I was pregnant with my first child, I learnt about the benefits of delaying clamping of the umbilical cord until it had stopped pulsating. My understanding at the time was that it was beneficial to the baby to transiton to being born and for their immediate health and well being. My husband and I chose to delay clamping until some 5-10 minutes after birth for all three of our children. It is only recently that I have learnt and begun to appreciate the HUGE impact that allowing the transfusion of all the cord blood into the baby, has on the physical and mental potential of an individual.
This is not just about the first minutes or months of life, this has an impact for the rest of their lives!
Why?
A baby's blood before birth is constantly being pumped through the mother via the cord and placenta. At the time of birth, 30% of the baby's blood is outside of its body. The cord then pulses to return all of that vital blood containing Oxygen, red blood cells, white blood cells, iron & other nutrients and stem cells back to the baby, nourishing them abundantly and providing them with all they need for their first minutes, days, hours, months and even years when it comes to optimal brain development and health.
It seems incredulous to me that our revered medical system has remained so ignorant to the effect a simple act like immediate cord clamping has on limiting our human potential.
This is definitely a case of nature knows best as you can find no other mammallian species that will sever their young's cord until after it has ceased pulsating. Why then do human's, supposedly sitting at the top of the food chain, perform this devasting act on its most vulnerable?
The scientific and social evidence is now coming to light about this issue, however people are notoriously slow to change habits, therefore if want to create global change quickly, we all need to participate in the change.
How?
A pediatrician called Alan Greene, has in conjunction with other groups, started a campaign called Tick Tock. He believes that we can significantly change the world in regards to human intelligence and physical health by allowing each baby that is born to enjoy the benefits of receiving its birthright, cord blood. Waiting a mere 90 seconds after birth before clamping the cord will allow the baby to recieve a significant percentage of this nutrient rich blood. Waiting even longer will allow them to receive all of it. Optimal cord clamping can be achieved for all types of births, vaginal, caesarean, home, hospital, water etc.
There are two calls to action which are highlighted in the below video of a TED talk that he gave.
1/ Request optimal cord clamping (cord has stopped pulsating) for all your loved ones
2/ Share this information with everyone you know and are on your social and business networks
This is the power of the people! Please Share this with your world!
WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
Birth impacts the life you go on to lead and therefore impacts society because society is the sum total of all the individuals in it!
Babies born into fear and struggle become people who live in fear and struggle.
Babies separated from their source (mother) in their first moments on earth become people who think they are alone and have to do it all on their own. Instantly they have lost connection to the concept that WE ARE ALL ONE!
Strong beliefs are formed in those first moments!
It is up to us to help change how the next generation is welcomed on earth
When I started writing this blog over a year ago, I was convinced that I wanted to change the consciousness around birth so that babies can come into the world in joy and ecstasy and mothers can harness the power of the divine feminine to enhance their lives. NOW I realise that it is much more than that.
I have a vision of a world where people live in harmony, corporations only produce and promote products and services that are for the good of all and nature is respected and sustained!
I realise now that my mission is to EMPOWER CHANGE!
Visit my revolutionised website and sign up to receive Insights and Infomation direct to your inbox so that we can do this together www.lynnethorsen.com
