Positive associations with birth through popular music

When I was pregnant, I used to LOVE listening to my affirmations CD in the car. It filled me with effortless self-belief and made me feel strong about my labour, as well as passing some otherwise very boring time on long journeys!

Of course now, I'm no longer pregnant, but the boring long journeys still take place...it got me thinking about the messages that we take in during driving; when we're on Level 4 of our learning ladder, 'unconscious competence', our subconsious takes over in a state of trance, we drive, unknowingly, and unwittingly take on new information and knowledge.

Not affirmations for me anymore, but pop music...and a few of those that I've heard of late I think would be equally useful for pregnant women approaching their labour day, as they have been for me as I've transformed my life to set up a new career and emerge a new business. The positive, powerful associations created in my mind, comparing them with pregnancy and the lead up to birth:

Roar! - Katy Perry - such a powerful, almost feminist anthem, which to me sound like a woman afraid, who teaches herself to believe, let's no-one get in her way, believes in herself and comes out swining against a world who tells her birth is a certain way. It's not, she knows it...hear her ROAR!:

"...So I sat quietly, agreed politely, I guess that I forgot I had a choice...

...You held me down, but I got up (HEY!), Get ready 'cause I’ve had enough, I see it all, I see it now...

...I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire

'Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar

Louder, louder than a lion

'Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar..."

Let it go - theme from Frozen - I heard this for the first time when I was about to teach my first Lesson 2 - teaching my couples to take any concerns and simply 'let them go'. Understand that they can control what they can, learn and make decisions based on factual information, and just let go of anything else that is bringing them down, getting in the way of their experience...'let it go!'

Especially loved the last verse and chorus; I envisage this to be a mum who's had a negative first (or more) birth and is not content to let this be her lasting memory of how her children arrived in this world. Or, a woman subjected to negative stories, and worried about her own impending birth:

"My power flurries through the air into the ground

My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around

And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast

I'm never going back, the past is in the past

Let it go, let it go

And I'll rise like the break of dawn

Let it go, let it go...

...Let the storm rage on!"

I could go on, but there's too many songs out there that be drawn into my theory.

I'll leave you with one final memory of song with my own experience; when my little girl was born, Adele's 'Make you feel my love' was CONSTANTLY on the radio...and it makes me think of her every time I hear it. A positive, loving message, assurance of my love for her and my desire to protect and love her always...mirrors my feelings for her perfectly:

"When the rain is blowing in your face,

And the whole world is on your case,

I could offer you a warm embrace

To make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear,

And there is no one there to dry your tears,

I could hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love.

I know you haven't made your mind up yet,

But I would never do you wrong.

I've known it from the moment that we met,

No doubt in my mind where you belong.