How the Mind Interprets Language to Create Our Physiological Experience...

 Stay Words are created.…Thoughts are thought.…Feelings are felt …The body then responds physically, through hormones and other chemical messengers in response to words.Words create belief systems that produce very strong effects. What we believe to be true at the conscious level is very important, yet what we perceive at a subconscious level is even more important because the subconscious mind creates, maintains, strengthens and nourishes all belief systems.The subconscious mind does not think or reason, it only responds to thoughts and feelings created by the words we think, speak and hear. Our subconscious beliefs will ultimately affect our self-esteem, health, choices and behavior; therefore they have the potential to determine a woman’s pregnancy health and birth experience. When an expectant woman’s beliefs are positive and empowering ones, the results will reflect that, therefore the words she uses and hears need to be positive and encouraging. Altered States of Mind Affect Language Processing an altered state of mind is one (that naturally occurs) in which we become more suggestible and are more easily affected by our surroundings and words that we hear. We enter an “alpha” state, engaging our subconscious mind more quickly, allowing us to react automatically in the moment. Our conscious mind takes a little break and we are “in the zone”.

We need to be very careful of the language that we use with expectant mothers since they are in an altered state of mind; much more suggestible.Words can paint mental pictures, change behaviors, and alter symptoms or sensations. This phenomenon can be demonstrated by thinking about eating a lemon. Try it. Think about eating a lemon, smelling it, biting into it and remember what a lemon tastes like. You may have made a face, experienced salivation or even jaw pain. The subconscious mind does not think or reason, it only responds to thoughts created by the words we speak and hear.

Words used are important in helping moms deal with fears and built-in anxieties about treatments, findings, cost, inconvenience, loss of control, major life events, threat of loss or disfigurement and alien environments. Have you or a family member experienced a situation where the words used by a health care provider caused a change in your feelings, good or bad?
Suggestions should be positive and affirming, clear and specific, firm, believable, rich in imagery, and beneficial. Suggestions should avoid anger or blame. In other words, avoid saying, "How could you do something so dumb?" Avoiding any negative words like "pain" and "hurt."

All of the suggestions above become “waking suggestions”, and can create instant effects for the person hearing them, but the ones on the right create a much more positive effect. When working with expectant parents I do my best to maintain the most healthy attitude for their baby’s upcoming birth.

I like to use Hypno-birthing Terms with clients and other aspects with my own family. I believe words are a powerful influence in everyone lives. We use language to describe our life experiences, and we use language to help us create our future experience. When positive and encouraging words are used to define or create an experience, we can expect the outcomes will more than likely be positive. If the words used are negative or discouraging they may undermine an experience altogether. Each of us attaches our own personal meaning to the words we hear and read, and the images we see, through a process called association. When expectant women watch birth videos that depict negative experiences, or when they hear, or read scary birth stories, their subconscious is being imprinted with the feeling behind the words used to describe the negative experience. Their subconscious may then associate the scary feeling, with the language that was used to depict the experience. I can't tell you how many people have negative associations with childbirth. Many words commonly used regarding labor and birth associate to expectant mothers, so we have changed some of them to create a positive association. If you can use positive words it is helpful to expectant mothers.

• Pressure wave: in place of contraction or labor pains.
• RELEASE and PEACE: These are cue words to bring our moms into a deep state of relaxation and a form of a hypnosis state, creating a loose, limb of the body, and hypno-anesthesia throughout the middle part of the body. They can still talk, walk and change positions in between pressure waves, but will need to completely be relaxed to labor efficiently.

 When we allow laboring mothers to get into their zone of a deep relaxation state that allows their muscles to become soft their birthing becomes easy and powerful within themselves. This allow moms to birth faster and progress to non-resistance, lack of tension and hypnotic pain elimination. In every effort as an authority figure, doula and professional, it is my goal to ALWAYS support, advocate and help execute every desire that deems necessary at a mothers birth. Over the years, I have realized that laboring mothers are so vulnerable during these intimate times of their lives. In most cases, I've noticed how medical staff always try to intervene negatively towards the laboring mother. As a professional that supports, advocates and believes in protecting birth. I can promise to always do my best to not employ the usual natural childbirth comfort measures for pain relief, and encourage movement to be used for descent and positioning of the baby, but not for comfort measures.

Remember, you are never alone in this intimate process. This is your birth to embrace and own it to its fullest! We never want you to forget how beautiful and loved you are by every Doula near and far. Stay positive and be well :)

Warmly,
Natasha