I gave birth to my second daughter without pain. She came teaching me that things can be that simple and un-traumatic. Everything is totally ok. There's nothing in the way. That was a pretty big shock, really as up until then, I had experienced my adult self as underlyingly unhappy. Not as always miserable, but when nothing was activating my emotional volatility, I was just a bit irritated and unhappy.
I recall vividly going back to the birth preparation class reunion with the physio at the local hospital to tell them that it had all worked and I'd had a great birth, with no pain, wonderful, expansive, deep knowing bliss and connectedness. They didn't just not want to know, they couldn't even hear me. They were talking about their trauma and caesareans and mastitis and weight gain and I might have been on another planet.
I didn't realise how profoundly true that was and has been ever since.
Two years later I was at a yoga festival and heard a woman talking about natural birth and she was describing birth as I had experienced it. I spoke to her and she invited me to come and have a session with her at The Centre For Human Transformation.
I spent 20 years working with Rachana and her husband Daricha learning about rebirthing, deep tissue bodywork, active meditation, energetic healing, women's wisdom and shamanic understanding. We started the College of Spiritual Midwifery, which she still runs.