Why can't I just tell myself not to worry about birth?
You might be asking yourself, “why do I need to do a Hypnobirthing course?” If you’ve come to one of my free tasters or read this blog post, you’ll know that FEAR causes all sorts of issues in labour. From pain and discomfort to a slow down in surges, which ultimately leads to birth being more difficult.
So it’s vital that you let that fear go and approach birth feeling calm and relaxed.
Easy right?! Just don’t fear birth. Got it 👍🏼
Weeeell….it’s not quite that straightforward.
If you truly want to change your mindset, it’s important to know what’s going on up there (in your brain) and how it all works.
The Conscious mind
Scientists believe that your conscious mind makes up around 10% of your mind’s operational power. It’s the rational, logical and thinking part of your brain. It’s constantly gathering information about the world around you and it allows you to perform critical thinking. It’s the home of your willpower and the place where you think, “yeah! I’m gonna make that change”.
The Subconscious mind
Around 90% of our mind’s power lies in the subconscious. It is immensely powerful and controls the majority of your body’s functions (ie. breathing, digestion). Its primary role is to keep us safe, so it will do anything to ensure our survival. It’s the realm of our emotions and it’s where our habits and beliefs are formed and held. It’s not rational and can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s imaginary. It simply accepts what it is told or shown as the truth…you then automatically think, feel and behave in a way that is consistent with that truth.
You might be surprised to know that most of the time our actions are controlled by the subconscious mind. Yes, even when we think we have all the conscious willpower in the world to make a change, our subconscious mind is often dragging us back into old behaviours and old ways of thinking.
It’s the reason why your attempt to eat more healthily or give up chocolate only lasts a couple of days. It’s why we find it so hard to establish new habits. Because as soon as we break away from our established patterns of thinking and doing, our subconscious thinks we’re in danger and brings us firmly back to the status quo.
So while you might rationally understand that you need to let go of the fear of birth, you’re only really engaging your conscious mind with that thought. Unless you change how you feel at the subconscious level, all that rational thinking will go out the window once you’re in labour.
To really change your deep and hardwired beliefs (the kind that have you believing birth is scary) you need to go deeper and convince your subconscious that it’s all ok.
How can you do that?
On a Hypnobirthing course we use guided relaxations (or hypnosis), affirmations and visualisations to help your subconsious mind learn new messages and feelings about birth.
This can’t be done overnight. It takes regular and frequent practice using specially written scripts to engage the subconsious mind.
Investing in a Hypnobirthing course with a qualified instructor will encourage you to put in the practice and start changing your mindset about birth. And a confident and strong mindset gives you the best chance of having the awesome birth experience you deserve!
Hypnobirthing nerd. Tea obsessed. On a mission to help you feel informed, supported, and respected so you can boss your birth…however it happens.
