Everyone warned me for stretch marks, an inflated butt, swollen feet and gaining a massive amount of weight.
But no one warned me for the intense worry that comes with loving a tiny new being that’s growing in your belly more than you love your own life.
So I found 5 ways to reduce or stop the worrying which – unlike the physical things that I was able to prevent most of the time – felt like it was something almost inevitable during my pregnancy.
#1 tap your heart out
Especially the first 3 months were challenging for me in terms of keeping my cool: I had heard many stories about miscarriages and was terrified to loose my baby.
I knew it wasn’t a fear based on facts: it was fear based on thoughts.
So what I did to override those thoughts was tapping with this wonderful vid from Brad Yates, which made me feel amazingly calm & at peace in an instant.
Tapping works with affirmations while you’re literally tapping on points on your face and body. These are acupressure points that are connected to different meridians in the body.
This combination of affirmations & tapping on acupressure points is amazing for releasing limiting beliefs and all sorts of blocks in the body & mind.
#2 find some facts
In that same first trimester, I decided to look up some facts about miscarriages. I simply googled ‘top 10 pregnancy fears’ (this was the only time I googled something about pregnancy!) and got some super real articles with statistics on all my worries. Most of my feared scenarios faded after reading on how tiny the chances were of them actually happening.
I also stalked my ob-gyn with all my worries and she was able to release them with her very down-to-earth answers. Find someone you trust and who knows about the reality of things.
Sometimes we need to show & convince the mind that it’s really not a problem before it wants to let go.
#3 know that it’s not your fear you’re dealing with
This is something one of my best friends Hikari had to remind me of a million times during pregnancy (and still does not that I’m approaching birth): ‘the fear that you’re feeling is not you, it’s collective fear’.
As strange as this might sound, we women pick up the collective fear of all women very easily.
We all know that we women are really great at being influenced by other women’s emotions, worries and fears and for some odd reason make them our own. Even the worries from women we’ve never met are floating around us and are influencing us.
These worries slip into our sub-conscious mind and stay there, pretending to be based on something we experienced ourselves.
But we didn’t experience this!
Think about it: how can we be worried that something will happen that has never happened to us before? Because we deep down believe that if it happened to someone else, it can happen to us too.
So what do we trust instead? Our own intuition. That’s the only place where we can find the real truth about what’s going on. (also this is what Hikari had to remind me of more than once ; )
Intuition feels like a calm knowing, where worry based on collective fear feels like anxiety.
Every time I have alarming thought, I ask myself if it feels like a calm knowing (intuition), which means I need to act on it, or if it feels like an anxious fear (worry based on collective fear), which means I can let it go.
The more you ask yourself this, the more you will know automatically when to act and when to release.
#4 go for a walk
So simple, but so effective. Just walk it off!
Look around you and see all those people who are walking the earth, realise that they were born once too! Experience the wellness that is present in trees, animals, the sunshine and the clouds. Health and happiness are always present around you.
Know that you & your baby are a beautiful part of all that wellness, as you are nature!
And of course walking is a super healthy activity for your pregnant body! It has been my favourite thing because no matter how tired I am, I can always walk, even if it’s super slow and only for 15 minutes. It always makes me feel much better.
#5 talk to your baby
Especially around 20 weeks of pregnancy, I started to really talk to my baby.
The reason was that we had to get an MRI because it looked like something hadn’t fully developed. Which in the end was not the case. Everything was fine, we just had a very pro-active radiologist, so don’t worry ; )
I realised that my biggest worry was that I was hurting the baby by worrying (I know…hormones!) about the MRI. So I started to tell him that all the emotions that he experienced through me, were not his emotions, but mine. They were the outcome of what I was going through at that moment and that he didn’t have to identify himself with them at all.
I did this by placing a hand on my belly and thinking of what I wanted to say to him.
Then I would visualise sending him beautiful golden light and lots of love through my hand.
Now I know this might sound weird to some people: talking to a baby that’s as big as a banana, but if it didn’t help him, it at least helped me to release the worry about worrying to much.
One of the wonderful things this has led to, is a deeper connection to my baby.
From the moment I started talking to him, I felt that I could calm us both down at the same time whenever there was a stressful situation. Because let’s face it, most of us are not immune to stress!
I feel that he understands me now when I tell him that a situation was stressful, but that he doesn’t have to worry. Everything is already all right :)
Bottom line: worrying is not great for your baby & doesn’t actually help make anything better! So find something that helps you to release it, whatever it is. Remember that you are the one who knows your body & baby best.
Have a beautiful healthy pregnancy!
Pics: gabyriva.com
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