Yesterday I spent the day with Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa and her husband Gurushabd.  I took part in one day of a four day intensive Kundalini yoga training course at Semperviva here in Vancouver.

It was an incredible day (starting with a morning meditation at 5:30 AM and going until 3:45 PM with some serious discussions, meditations and Kundalini yoga).  The reason I went was to prepare mentally for labour and delivery of our new baby.

Gurmukh has become my “yogi guru” over the past few years and I have tried to take any opportunity I can to attend workshops with her here in Vancouver or go to her studio, Golden Bridge, in Los Angeles when I’m there.  I am not a very religious person but her teachings and Kundalini yoga itself is very spiritual.

The teachings of kundalini go back to the origins of yoga over 2000 years ago which is spritual, with the phsycial results being a by-product of the spritual journey of yoga.  It’s interesting because as a westerner I always did yoga for the physical side of it.  Kundalini teaches you to seek happiness and to let go of pain and suffering.

Through various meditations and what you might call “intense calisthenics” (think of pressing your palms together above your head while seated and holding them there for for 11 mins…not so easy or doing squats for 8 minutes while chanting).  Through these calisthenics you are condtioning your mind to push thru the pain.  If you can overcome the pain and turn off your mind which is stopping you in the first place, you can do anything.  You can push past any pain life may throw at you.  And then become truely happy and some may say “enlightened.”

I started doing Kundalini yoga when I moved to Vancouver and it was an amazing tool to help me deal with the pain and heartbreak of losing my mother.  Through my practice with Gloria at Semperviva I started becoming interested in Gurmukh and her teachings.  I also became familiar with her passion and teachings in natural childbirth and prenatal preparation.  She has a fantastic book I recommend to any newly expecting mother, Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful: Experience the Natural Power of Pregnancy and Birth with Kundalini Yoga and Meditation.

Before I even got pregnant with Stella I attended a workshop with Gurmukh and her teachings put me on the road to a successful natural childbirth and happy baby with Stella.

While yesterdays’ workshop was not focused on labour preparation it was a fantastic reminder to me that I have all the physical power in the world to birth this baby I’m carrying.  I just have to continue to strengthen my mind in preparation.

A few tips about natural birth for all those mothers or soon to be mothers or maybe some day will be mothers…

You are equipped with all the physical tools you will ever need to birth a baby.  Women have been doing it for many many years.  We women were made to have babies.  It is our soul purpose on this earth (all my feminist friends please do not get up in arms…I know we have a ton of other reasons for being here but biolgically speaking, this is our purpose..to procreate, carry a baby and deliver the baby into the world and then nurture it to adulthood).

Our bodies have been conditioned and primed our entire lives to give birth.  We have all the tools we need to birth a baby.  What we some times lack is the confidence in our bodies and the mental capacity to push thru the “pain” of delivery.

Somewhere over time we’ve lost that ability or perhaps forgotten our given strengths as women.  I don’t remember the birth of Stella as a painful experience.  Yes there was pain but there was always this mental strength that told me that the pain (labor) would deliver me a beautiful healthy baby.

It’s the same in Kundalini yoga, the pain of the meditations still the mind and deliver us to a better clearer place.

I would recommend kundalini yoga to anyone who is fearful of labor and delivery but who would like to have a natural childbirth.

My last piece of advice that I give to anyone who asks me about natural childbirth is that you can do anything for 60 seconds.  That’s how long a contraction is.  There’s a beginning, middle and an end to each contraction.  Just like a bell curve.  There are no surprises on that front (yes, your body may not always cooperate and their can be complications but generally speaking, labour is very rhythmic).  If you can focus on those 60 seconds and getting thru them and take each contraction as it comes forgetting the last one and not thinking about the next one, you will be just fine.  As labor progresses they will come faster and more intensely but YOU WILL get a break between each contraction.  Focus on the end game, a beautiful healthy baby and you will be succesful.  Push thru the pain.

I hope my one day with Gurmukh and her wonderful blessings will give me the mental strength to have natural childbirth again but also the ability to be flexible and adjust to whatever may happen with our upcoming birth.

Writing this post has really helped me prepare even further for our upcoming “labour journey.”

As I close I want to share with you my favorite song from Kundalini yoga.  It’s a wonderful lullaby to sing to your baby each night and one that I often have used to calm Stella as she heard it sung to her even inutero.

“May the long time sun shine upon you.

All Love surround You.

And the pure light within you, guide your way one

Guide your way on, Guide Your Way On….

Sat Nam”