Gestation of myself

So, greetings. If you are a reader of this blog you will know that I have not visited this site in over a year. I was gestating to put it lightly.
I want to share with you the importance of introspection and more importantly the greatness and "ritual" of allowing it to occur in what ever time frame it wishes to gestate. If we as birth advocates and birth workers find it so easily to declare that things must be honored in taking time and coming forth when they dream..IE: babies, thus why do we as women not allow it enough time to gestate, grow and birth within ourselves. Why are we in such a hurry that we are now manifesting thyroid cancer as our number one killer amongst ourselves? Over this past year, I have come to some enormous realizations and sharing for you all regarding the grace we have forgotten to see within ourselves.
I would say that my journey into being a doula and has not only been sorted and a struggle to say the least but also a love hate relationship at best. I have always considered myself to one that battles an inner voice and meaning making machine that dominates my "radio head" constantly in regards to success and where I am at. Comparisons run deep within my being.
"I should be here, or I should have this completed!" Is a constant state of my playback.
I was fortunate to have a blessing in disguise this past year in regards to my health, my relationships, and my entire perspective of confidence. That is what we all attempt to "draw" out in our clients, is it not? How often to we check in with our own confidence in this arena?
My gestation with breaking down my exterior was prompted by a sudden falling out with a dear friend. I went over and over in my mind why she did not "see" all the internal work I perceived I had been doing on myself over the years. How dare she declare to me, my husband, and close friends that I was not doing any type of transformation. Who the hell was she?
Shocked to my core that I had trusted this friend, depended upon her for advice, looked to her for guidance and thus was feeling more exposed and vulnerable than ever in my life. My other relationships dwindled and areas of my life took back stage as I began to obsess over this friendship and the falling out of it all. Where had I lost sight in knowing myself?
The greatest gift we can give one another is the gift of truth....this was what she had given me.
I thus realized I had sooo much of my own confidence wrapped up in her opinion, I had lost my own...or did I ever have one to begin with. I am also someone who functions from a subconscious place of "love me like me and approve of me" a genesis of my birth, and conception I feel.
What a gift to give me the core of my inadequacies in a loving manor that I now see.
We know that as midwives and doulas that our communities are the ones who "call" us forth to do our purpose here on the planet....in all my frustrations over the years of not looking like a successful doula or chasing the midwifery dream, I was doing all of this from a place of unknowing hoping the next certification would bring a piece of the puzzle complete or just one more birth may finally allow the little mountain town I reside in to "see" my knowledge. How could they if I do not acknowledge it first within myself? Am I less of a midwife because I don't have a liscence?
As the push for certification of midwives as CPM gains leverage and options within our legislation I could easily and passionately say that that is the key for me to finally get to were I perceive I am going with all my knowledge and purpose; yet I now know that first the confidence needs to be born.
For all of us offering our guidance to a woman and man during birth, let us never forget that she has not lost her knowing, nor has she lost her confidence in how to birth...she may just need some guidance back to it all. Ask yourself first if you yourself have the confidence of birth, of birthing yourself into being, and do you have your "knowing" intact and never giving it to someone else by choice.
It IS all about what your are choosing to "birth" and what "ritual" you are bringing to the ceremony of life.
Happy birthing to all!