One area where I feel there is not much support is with the concept of surrender. For more on my own experience of surrender, see my previous article. For many people these days, this word congers up a sense of giving up, resignation or weakness. This is not the kind of surrender I am talking about. Surrendering from a place of strength and power can empower the various stages of the motherhood journey.
For some women this may occur during the fertility stage. Why is it so common that when some women stop trying to conceive and adopt instead, they suddenly fall pregnant naturally? Sometimes the act of trying can actually slow down or prevent the outcome you are looking for.
During labour, a woman is being asked by the birth energy to surrender to the waves of labour and to the opening of her body to allow her baby to emerge. The more resistance to these powerful surges, the longer the labour often takes and the more likelihood of medical intervention occurring.
After the birth, the more stress and worry the mother feels about her milk coming in, how much milk her baby has had, how much weight her baby has gained, how much sleep her baby has had and how much sleep she herself has had, etc etc, can interfere with allowing this natural unfolding of the motherhood journey to flow. Of course sometimes there are good reasons for concern in which action should be taken.
When women bring the quality of surrender to their motherhood journey, they are able to allow the process to unfold with an acceptance that brings strength, courage, dignity and grace.
But this is not easy in a society where surrender is often considered weak and being in control (in our daily lives) is the norm. After all, aren't we the product of generations of "stiff upper lip" and "soldier on"!
During the workshop, I invited the participants to imagine a line across the patio where one end represented complete surrender and the other end represented complete control. The middle of the line was a mix of surrender and control. They then walked along the line experiencing how qualities of surrender and control felt in their body along various points along this imaginary line. They then found the position along the line that they felt most comfortable at that moment in time, which could vary if they did this exercise another time.
The next part of the process was to explore the dynamics for surrender versus control with one individual using EFT with a family constellation style process. So I asked for a volunteer to pick 3 people, known as representatives from the group, one to represent the volunteer herself, one to represent the quality of Surrender and one to represent the quality of Control. The volunteer placed the 3 representatives in various spaces within the circle that we had created which felt right to her. She then sat down and observed the unfolding of the process. I asked each of the representatives in turn how she felt standing in that position. If any discomfort or negative emotions arose, we did some EFT with everyone else tapping along with us until the feelings were released.
Initially there did not seem to be much connection between the representative for the volunteer and the people representing Surrender and Control as they were facing away from each other. During various points of the process, which took about an hour, Control felt happier and "in control" while Surrender felt vulnerable and controlled. At other points, Surrender felt connected to the representative of the volunteer while Control felt left out. Towards the end of the process Surrender and Control came together as two aspects on the same spectrum, united. The representative for the volunteer struggled to look at Control but after some more tapping, was able to do so and there was harmony in the dynamics. At this point I invited the volunteer to take her place instead of her representative and her representative sat down. I asked Surrender and Control to offer the volunteer representative a word of wisdom. Surrender offered belonging and Control offered balance. Some emotion arose for the volunteer as a result of receiving those qualities but a few rounds of tapping allowed her to be more receptive to her receiving those qualities.
At the end of the process the volunteer said "Most of the time I felt the same emotions as those of my representative and knew what she was going to say to the answers of Tamara's questions before she said them! I felt a very strong emotion whilst standing facing control and surrender but after the tapping I felt a release which left my body feeling very light and tingly and also emotional (in a good way)."
Having done this process several times, I find some common patterns repeating. Often the process starts with a disconnection between the representatives or a resistance from the volunteer to accept both Surrender and Control. After some tapping and movement of the representatives, negative emotions arising are reduced and state of peace and harmony arises together with an acceptance and embracing of both parts of oneself.
To find out about the next motherhood workshop, go here. To download a free EFT manual, go here, to learn EFT on a course, go here or to have a one-to-one session, go here.
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