Journey into motherhood

My first birth, 17 years ago, was a very traumatic experience for me. That experience left many wounds to heal. I had to go through a deep journey of healing and recovering. It was hard, mainly because I was alone on that, but it was definitely worth it. It makes me start holding women circles here in Finland too, later on, mother circles as well, even teaching traditional postpartum, so it put fire into something that needed to be born too.

While doing this process, many questions came to my mind, not only about me and my process, but also in general, about the world and the society, by example: How is it that motherhood is so isolated in society?, why the pregnancy time is followed by just ”measuring” only, without any deeper support?, why is that birthing can become so violent and cold in hospitals? how come that the mother can get to be considered as not knowing anything about birth or about breastfeeding from the “system” when actually, the knowledge is in herself? Why women should give birth and recover as quickly as possible? Why we are asked to be, as soon as possible after birth, like nothing would have happen? Why nobody talks about that?…

For a while, I thought, that I might be more sensitive towards this issues because of being an immigrant in Finland from South-America, but with the time I came to realize, that the same feelings were shared for most of the mothers I met, no matter their origin.

It was clear for me, before getting pregnant, that there are many things wrong in our society in terms of unequality, climate crises issues, poverty, racism and so on, but my first pregnancy, birth and postpartum experiences made me realize, that there is something really wrong in the way that society “understand” motherhood and that this was in direct relation with the other problems of our society.

It is not right that becoming a mother happens through a negative or even traumatic experience. It is not right that a new life, a baby, is born to an environment surrounded by fear, stress and suffering. A society that doesn’t respect, value and support motherhood and the journey of the mother, is showing that has not any understanding about society’s well being, because the experiences of a human being in the womb of the mother, the experiences during early childhood that mothers are holding and, later on, for their teenager children, determine, very strongly, the kind of adults that this children will become, in another words, the kind of society that we will have in the future. When we talk about a society that supports and value motherhood we are talking about a society that is valuing life, a life supported by care.

This sustainable way of thinking, it was the way of thinking of our ancestors. They understood and lived in connection with nature, with the cycles, sensing the connection among human beings and the importance of living own life considering own survival and well being, but also, if not mainly, considering the surviving possibilities and well being of the future generations. In those societies motherhood, and womanness in general, was greatly respected and supported for the whole community.

During my personal recovery journey I did a lot of research as well. My traumatic experience brought me back to time, even before my first pregnancy, and finally I realize that, actually, every birth of a woman start in the moment she menstruate for the first time. In this moment her womb wakes-up, and with it, the ancestral memories of her own mother line.

How in her mother line women lived their womanness, it is an information that is transmitted from one generation to the other, from womb to womb. The kind of experiences present in the mother line, the feelings and believes about menstruation, ovulation, sexuality, women-body, sex, pregnancy, birth, motherhood, all of that, influences own self at a cellular level and became the way we are as a woman.

It might sound really hard the fact that we are carrying the information of the very challenging  experiences of our women-ancestors too, but this is because we are nature, and that is how nature develops and creates the new, by getting nourishment and information, in how to survive, from what it is already, because under those strategies for surviving that our ancestors had no choice to use, there is the possibility to find the tools and the strength for ourselves. We have to also realize, that something, at least, our ancestresses did really well, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.

The problem is not that there might be a wound, something to heal, the problem is how do we get to heal, in this case, the mother line that is manifested in our lives through our own body.

We live in a society that lacks connection with nature and lacks of real connection among human beings as well. In the way that this society is built, there is no space made for the woman’s journey towards and through motherhood. In this society, we women, are supposed to live all this huge, challenging and transformative processes in solitude and silence, because they are ”just this women’s things”, they are a kind of non-important and just this inconvenient situations that women have to go through, to suffer through, because “that’s how life is for them”,” it’s normal”. Well, how wrong! Society has forget in this thousands years of patriarchy and specially over the years of neocapitalism influences, that every women’s motherhood journey, has an enormous impact over everything around. In the womb of a pregnant woman, in the arms of a mother, is the future of all of us, because the babies of today are the adults of tomorrow, they will make the decisions when we are old. In a young girl that starts her menstrual cycle resides our future. Mothers are the soil from where future rises.

A girl that become empowered, supported and value from her first menstrual bleeding, that gets the tools and the space to find herself, will make a very different journey through womanhood, and if she decides too,  into motherhood during birth and during life that the one who is not. And I am not talking  about birthing easily or not, I am talking about the strong connection with own nature, with the strength and power, the connection with birthing power, that will always protect and hold one birthing experience, no matter how medical or difficult end up to be, and that will give you also the power of resilience when needed.

So, what I am proposing, is to create again the space for us women to make our journey, to become aware of the society where live, open our eyes, our senses, listen to our needs and start creating changes, because as a women, we have the capacity to hold spaces for transformation. Let’s shut down the noises of patriarchy, that has hurt us all of us, not only women, and get back into our bodies, into the wonder of our biology, the wonder of our nature. Let’s notice our needs, notice the symptoms that our body arises, so that we know what needs to be healed and empowered. We need to reconnect with this sense of amazingness, when realizing the wisdom we carry in our cycles and in our bodies incredible capacity and courage to be wide open and vulnerable, to bring life to this side of the reality. This amazingness is in every woman, independently if she decides to become a mother or not, or if for any reason would not give birth.

My way of doing that, in my own life and working with other women, it has being through recovering the journeys, rites and ceremonies of passage deeply inspired and with huge respect for our ancestors traditions, during the times of big changes and transformation. Also by creating communities among women, through the trainings I propose. By speaking/writing about this issues. Everyone can come up with their own ways, this not about following a one and only tradition, but mostly about finding your own voice.

We need to heal and we can heal despite of patriarchy, because we know, we are awake now, we can right now start to value and celebrate what we are. We face what has to be faced, we cure what needs to be cured and all the acceptance and recognition that we might not get from this system around, we can start to give it to each others, by gathering, seeing, listening and supporting each others, in daily life, at the shop, on the street or wherever we are.

Allow yourself to get into your body and trust in your own experience. Know that you are the carrier of an amazing wisdom, that is inside of you, to be discovered by you. And share it with others through your own authentic expression, in your own authentic way.

With hope, love and respect,

Gabriela Ariana

2 thoughts on “Journey into motherhood

    1. Thank you, i appreciate your comment, blessings for you too.

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