The worst thing about having a miscarriage isn’t actually the process of releasing the pregnancy, it’s the way miscarriage robs the unsuspicious joy and excitement from the next pregnancy. I was super anxious through the first trimester of pregnancy with my first baby. Hyper aware of every sensation in my womb, checking for blood every time I peed (which was often!) and generally making myself crazy. I made a vow that if I was to get pregnant again in future my intention would be to simply enjoy it, because even if I was to miscarry again, wouldn’t it be better to have celebrated the weeks that were?
Joy became my practice last year. A practice in the sense that I had to return my mind and body to this frequency again and again. There were two things that I found helped me to stay more steadily in the Joy lane. One was to simplify. This meant reducing any outside noise and returning to my internal guidance (again and again) This was something I knew would be really important for me when it came time to birth.
In the spirit of simplicity, I didn’t pee on a stick. I knew I was pregnant and I didnt want any exterior thing to distract from my inner knowing. AND I knew that pregnancy could dissolve tomorrow so seeing those blue lines did not serve as any confirmation or comfort for me. Somehow this small act allowed me to celebrate, it was liberating to know that I knew. And I wanted to embrace being in the mystery of the first trimester.
The other thing that I realized I needed to stay in the Joy lane, was to s l o w down. This was not comfortable. On paper, I was a huge proponent of rest but when my body was asking me to slow down even more, I didn;t like it. This meant radically adjusting my expectations of what I wanted to do work-wise, it meant swapping my yoga and dance for gentle walks on the beach, pulling back from girlfriends and even the way I played with my toddler. Slowing down made me feel like everything was coming to a hard stop and that felt scary
I had to tell myself (again and again) that Slowing down, doesn;t mean stopping. (Another thing that would become important during the birthing process.) And while I feel this to be true, two things can be true at once. Many parts of my life were coming to a hard stop, never to return and a whole new way of doing and being would emerge.
During those first months of relative solitary confinement, of slow days where nothing ‘got done’ where I felt perpetually hungover I sat in the void of not knowing. Somehow, slowing down enough to feel all there was to feel, was liberating. A divine release ,a letting go, a surrender.
To know, in fact, we don;t know.
I had no choice but to embrace being in the mystery, to know the unknown.
The first trimester, especially after miscarriage, can be a real mixed bag of emotion. For me, a mini dark night of the soul. Trepidation, anxiety, relief, dread, joy? There is an internal quickening, a rushing as new cells are created minute by minute. Looking back it made sense for me to remedy this with as much slowness as possible and stripping away anything extraneous. Although being in the discomfort of doing less (as the body does soooo much invisible work inside) wasn’t always ‘nice’ it gave way to this surprising resource of Joy. This sunshiney quality feels more Tre, more real than all the shadowy feels that arise during the first tri.
With my training wheels on, I practiced riding in the Joy lane. And 12 months down the track my Solstice baby is showing me that this Joy energy, like the sun, is what sustains all of Life. All the doing can only be sustained when bolstered by this quality of lightness. An infinite resource that we get to draw upon.
Simplicity > Slowness > Joy
