13/02/2024
"Mindfulness practice offers us another way of approaching our childbirth experience and, for that matter, any challenging experience in life. Through mindfulness practice we can learn to hold whatever we are experiencing in the present moment in a space of open acceptance to things as they are, even if those things are unpleasant—and, yes, even painful. In that space of open acceptance, we find freedom, the freedom from endlessly struggling to escape from the unpleasant or endlessly grasping for what is pleasant. Right in the moment we find we have a choice, a choice not about whether to experience pain, but about our relationship to that pain or how to interpret it. This is the difference between pain and suffering. It is sometimes said about life that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. This can certainly be true about childbirth. It is important to be clear here. Practicing mindfulness does not make the pain of labor go away. That's neither the intention nor the goal. Rather, mindfulness helps us find an accepting, non-reactive relationship to the intense physical sensations we are having in the present moment, a relationship we might not have known was possible."
— Nancy Bardacke, Mindful Birthing
