Your Birthing Space Is An Energy Field

By Michelle Gilley, CPM, BSM

Effectively holding space for someone during childbirth requires invitation, communication, observation and adaptation to what is needed moment by moment. Holding space could be the presence or absence of any number of actions. For example, a support person may be sitting silently nearby or they may be providing hands on support. Either scenario may be equally supportive depending on the desires of the birthing individual. When you think about who you are inviting to hold space for you during birth it can be helpful to visualize it. One option is to visualize yourself or the birthing space as having an energy field. 

Ideally someone entering your energy field is guarding, contributing, and energizing that field with what is helpful to or desired by you, the owner of the space. When this functions well, you can picture the energy field or circuit of energy flowing powerfully. When the space holder is not a match for that role you could envision the field of energy being disrupted, stagnant, overshadowed, or disorganized in some way. You can use your imagination to create a picture in your mind that makes sense to you. Maybe the energy field is a ball of energy and it grows or shrinks, changes color or has sound that changes based on the impact. Or maybe the energy field is organized like a grid or maybe it looks like water or clouds or the effect of wind blowing. 

Now imagine the energy of the people you are considering inviting to your labor or birth. What happens when their energy interacts with your energy? Is your energy frazzled, diminished, distracted or does it feel aligned, focused, supported or strengthened? How does your visualization change based on impact? An exercise like this can be helpful when you are choosing support people for your birth. It is normal and common to have complex feelings about who you are inviting. If this has been difficult, a visualization like this might help you put aside decision distractions such as perceived obligation, worry about people feeling left out, previous promises they could attend or what might seem fair or unfair to them. At the end of the day, your birthing space belongs to you. You get to decide who you want to invite to support and invest in your birth experience. 

Below are some incredible images from the NASA Image & Video Library to give you ideas for creating your own visualization.