You are stronger than you know… my birth experience

“You are stronger than you know”, something I continue to remind our community of and something I recently experienced for myself on a whole nother level 😳

❤

Birth.

What a truly profound experience.

Not just the physical birth itself but the entire journey from conception to each of the trimesters of pregnancy, the waves of emotions, and the energetic and physical shifts, all that your body and mind move through, the anticipation of the birth, the uncertainty, the unknown, the mystery and even the 4th trimester is still part of the birth process.

When you birth your baby, you aren’t just birthing your baby, you are birthing a whole new you.

You are moving through the birth portal, a journey from maiden to mother, a journey of becoming the version of you that is being called forth.

I have found in both my pregnancies and birth, tremendous shifts, awakening, awareness, insights, wisdom, gifts, challenges, resistances, pain, discomfort, fear, uncertainty, intense emotional waves, the experience is truly beyond words but I do my best to express my experience with the intention to share what I learned as well as to help others surrender to the process with more ease and to receive the gifts of their experience.

Even if the birth experience doesn’t go to “plan”, the way you desire, or maybe it’s incredibly traumatic (as was my first), there are always gifts to be received and many lessons that will support you on your journey moving forward.

But often we can get caught up in stories that keep us stuck in a loop, holding you back from fully receiving, learning, growing, and moving forward.

I noticed this with my first birth, the story that “I failed”.

I failed myself, I failed my baby, I felt guilty, ashamed, humiliated, and like I had failed as a mum before I had even really begun.

This story impacted how I showed up in my life and with my new baby. I struggled to connect, I felt disassociated and heartbroken.

I felt like I couldn’t get it, I didn’t know the cries, I worried if he cried too long he would be traumatised and so I was anxiously trying to fix the “problem”, as if there was always something to fix and I worried I was getting it all wrong and that I was a terrible mother.

I would cry every time he cried, I desperately wanted to fix what was wrong� but I didn’t know if I was doing it right.

It was such an overwhelming experience and I felt so alone, so unsupported. Pretty quickly I dove into work and began prioritising work. What I didn’t know at the time was that this was a distraction.

Distracting myself from the deeper pain and heartache.

The amazing thing about my work is that I support others on their journey of healing trauma, healing their inner child, cultivating self-love, self-acceptance, self-worth, overcoming triggers, and shifting their story, and the more I did this for others, the more it helped me to do the same for me.

The more I taught, coached, and shared, the more I learned, implemented, and embodied the teachings, the more I began to heal and shift myself, the more I began to release the story that I was a bad mother and that I had failed.

And the more I began to acknowledge the amazing mother I am and even in the feeling that I had failed and the desire to be better was part of the amazing mother I am. I have such high expectations of myself because I know I can be better, I desire to improve and be the best I can be and I learned to love this part of me.

Not because I’m not good enough as I am but because I deeply value growth and being the best I can be.

Slowly, slowly I began to love all parts of me, I began to have immense compassion for all parts of me and this has become the signature of my work.

To embrace ALL of you, to love ALL of you.
Because all of you is worthy and deserving of love.

I developed the signature saying “All of you is welcome here”, something I remind our community of again and again and again, supporting this truth to become deeply known and embodied.

We don’t have to get rid of anything because we deem it wrong, shameful or not serving. We can lovingly, compassionately meet ourselves and love all of ourselves whilst continuing to grow, evolve and become the person we deeply desire to be.

Not because you’re not good enough as you are, but because you desire to experience something new.

Your good enoughness, your worthiness, is never in question. You are just growing, evolving, trying on something new, opening a new door, entering a new experience, birthing a new version of you…

And it’s all divine.
Who you were.
Who you are.
Who you are becoming.
It’s all perfect.

❤️

If you'd like to read more about my recent birth experience, check out my blog post here: https://www.moniquecarmela.com/blog/you-are-stronger-than-you-know-my-birth-experience

I will be sharing more of my birth experience on my podcast very soon, The Good Girl Unleashed Podcast, available on Google, Apple & Spotify