Creative Visualization to help achieve the birth you desire

Welcome back to my blog after another slight lapse! I am passionate about teaching women how to visualize their forthcoming birth so that is the topic of todays blog. Enjoy, and your comments are much appreciated.

For me, visualization is the premier technique for harnessing your mind’s power to shape your life and move you towards your desire for a natural, and easy birth. Used in conjunction with affirmations on a daily basis to enhance your experience, and outcome of your visualizations.

It all starts with your imagination. Imagination is your ability to create a vision or an image of how you wish your birthing experience to unfold. Whatever your goal is the technique is basically the same.

This involves visualizing the end result of your goal or desire while you are in deep relaxation (alpha state) during your self-hypnosis practice. Just like affirmations your visualization should be imagined in the ‘present tense’. For example, you are looking to buy a brand new car. You want to imagine yourself in the car, and feel the moment as if it is actually happening right now and not in the future. In other words feel the joy in owning the car, the feel of the steering wheel etc.

Amanda’s tips for effective visualizations
• Take yourself into deep physical relaxation with breathing and progressive relaxation (relaxation response)
• Take yourself to your safe haven, your retreat
• Create a mental screen in front of you like a cinema or large TV screen
• Place it in front of you, raise it slightly, and about 6 feet in front of you
• When you perform creative visualization you project images onto this screen
• Use all of your senses to see, hear, touch and feel the joy of holding your newborn baby in your arms
• Remember the more realistic the visualization process, the better the results

Troubleshooting
If you have any difficulty visualizing you can use a technique called streaming. With streaming you mentally describe what you are seeing. Make the description as detailed as possible. As you describe the image in detail you will find that the image also takes on more detail. This in turn adds to more things to mentally describe, and your image becomes more vivid.

This is not just some alternative hippy idea! There is strong scientific evidence that visualization can be used to dramatically improve your results in sports, public speaking, or anything else, which involves practice. Most athletes today use these techniques with great success. In one study, a
group of healthy five year old children were told a story about a magic microscope that showed how the immune cells in the body fight against germs; they were also shown a film with glove puppets acting out the roles of different cells as policemen fighting off the germs. Saliva samples were collected before and after the story for analysis. The results showed that the saliva samples taken after the story were full of immune substances at levels found when fighting an infection (Shapiro, 2008). Therefore it is an ideal way to practice for your ‘labour of love’ before the actual event.

“Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”

(Albert Einstein)

It can be confusing when there are many terms bandied about such as visualization, guided imagery, and mental rehearsal. These are three terms, which are often integrated under the one umbrella described as ‘visualizations’. However, I use them to describe three slightly different things.

• Visualization – using your imagination to create a vision of a goal or desire you wish to achieve such as a natural calm birth
• Guided Imagery – is a directed visualization script guiding you on a path towards attaining the natural birth you desire. You can read it until you are familiar with it, record it, or ask your partner to read to you during your self-hypnosis sessions.
• Mental Rehearsal – Mental rehearsal refers to using our mind to ‘replicate’ the experience of actually giving birth easily and calmly. In your mind you rehearse the whole labour and birth process exactly as you wish to think, feel and behave during your labour.

You can combine your affirmations with your creative visualization to create a more powerful effect. As you are imagining your goal, simply repeat your affirmation mentally, as many times as you feel it is necessary.

Do not be discouraged if your do not feel you have mastered the technique initially, give it time, and keep practicing. Remember, you did not master driving your car straight away or any other skill, which requires some practice. Creative visualization can be such a powerful tool when used during your self-hypnosis sessions that just five minutes a day practice can undo years of negative thinking.

Ref:
Shapiro, D. (2008) Your body speaks you