When I was in labor, I learned an interesting lesson. Such a good lesson that it has stuck with me nearly 8 years later:
*Surrendering to pain is the quickest way to resolve it*
I approached my labor with sheer stubbornness (as I do with many things I want). I wanted a home birth because that’s what I was most comfortable with. I would pep talk myself in between contractions telling myself I could handle more pain and then would brace myself when another contraction came.
After hours + hours of using this “brace yourself” practice, my midwife told me I needed to sink into the pain, not fight it. Shortly after I surrendered to the intensity, my little boy was born. To be honest, I was a bit upset she hadn’t told me that little tip hours beforehand, but maybe the lesson wouldn’t have stuck with me so strongly had she spilled the secret earlier.
Most of my life I had resisted intense emotions, fought against pain + saw these hardships as weaknesses. But they’d always come up, years later, with guilt or pain attached for not dealing with it sooner. So after my transformative labor experience, I now practice surrendering to pain + big emotions instead of suppressing them. I use the word practice because I still have the habit of resisting. My moon is in Capricorn, so emotions are a little tricky for me, hehe.
When I work with my patients, I aim to address the emotional aspects of their health conditions ~ ie. what type of emotional stress is causing their back to go out, or what emotional habit is causing a rash to flare up, etc. This is where the magic happens.
So many of us want to keep our inner worlds locked tight + neatly packaged … so when we get close to breaking the lock or unraveling the thread, there is a phase of resistance we have to move through. This is where the “surrendering to the pain” trick comes in. Honestly, its my favorite part about the treatments. I love helping my clients process old emotions in a gentle + supportive way. That’s where transformation happens.
Next time you're experiencing pain, give yourself some space to surrender to it. Don’t try to block it, let it fully take your attention for a moment. Take it a step further and use a supporting flower essence blend or acupuncture to help unwind it from your cells that hold memories.
And if you’re wondering what the whole moon in Capricorn thing is all about, we have an in-house astrologist at the SAN Center that can pull your natal chart + show you what sign your emotional self is in so you can better understand your patterns. She sees people in person and virtually! Check out Juliana and discover what’s in your stars.
