Opening to self-confidence during pregnancy

Self-confidence is important for you during your pregnancy.

A crucial part of retaining your self-confidence is to know your own needs and wants. You need to be in tune with how you feel physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. You also need to know how to communicate your needs and wants to others.

When you become pregnant, your transition to motherhood requires you to open up in profound and life changing ways.

Your body must open physically to support new life. Open to more blood flowing through your veins, open to housing more tissues in the form of the placenta and baby, open to more hormones influencing ... well, just about everything. Open. Open. Open.

Then at term you surrender to your body’s wisdom and open like you’ve never opened before.

Emotionally you may often feel vulnerable, with tears flowing, temper flaring and seemingly irrational ‘must haves’ flying. Because your sensitivity is heightened you can become emotionally overwhelmed in situations that normally would be non-issues for you.

This is a normal, natural and necessary part of your pregnancy journey ... you are opening to be the guardian of another human life. This role means you need the self-confidence to allow yourself to open to constant emotional clearing.

We have a CD set to help you not take things to heart. Click here for full details.

Energetically you open too.

Many women experience a heightened intuition during pregnancy. For some, if their intuition has been lying dormant and untapped, suddenly a new world of vivid dreams, coincidences, hunches and other body sensations, come to the fore.

Many women discover a cornucopia of inner resources to draw upon during their pregnancy and this in turn can help build self-confidence and wonder.

All this wonderful openness has a flip side too. Open also means that your usual protective boundaries fall away. You are like a sponge taking in whatever words, thoughts, beliefs and suggestions are around you. 

This is great if those around you are positive and aligned with your birthing ideals. It is not so good if those around you are coming from a place of fear and their birthing ideals are incongruent to yours.

When you are pregnant everyone, including that well meaning stranger in the queue behind you in the shop, has advice for you on what you should be doing and how you should be doing it. With all this openness being a pregnant woman’s nature, it is easy to be swept away with other people’s wants, needs, shoulds and should nots.

To nurture your self-confidence make it a priority to spend conscious time with yourself exploring your inner world. Take the time to regularly check in with yourself and how you are feeling, where you are at, and what you need and want. Actively spend time anchoring in with your inner sense of balance and grounding.

Here are 3 ways for you to tap into your inner resources and explore your needs and wants so you can retain your self-confidence.

1. Throughout your day, ask yourself, "Does this conversation, invitation, situation, decision bring me closer to my ideal birth or further away from it?"
Choose wisely where you spend your time and energy. Sometimes retreat is your best option for the preservation of your reserves. Surround yourself with people and situations that nurture your mind, body and soul.

2. Name your feelings
Look at a list of emotions. What stands out? What do you resist? This helps takes some of the intensity out of that overwhelming yet unidentified feeling of ‘tension/pressure/uncomfortable/yuck’. Once you have identified a feeling you are a step closer to expressing it. "Express" not "repress" is the vibrancy of life.

3. Journal Writing
This opens you up to converse with the subconscious and superconscious minds. Write some dynamic questions at the top of your page and let responses just flow onto the page. Don’t censor yourself. Write with the intention of connecting with your inner world to bring insights into your awareness to help you with your daily life and self-confidence.

Here are some starter questions:

• What in me wants to be expressed today?
• What am I doing that I don’t want to do?
• What am I not doing that I want to do?

May you have the self-confidence to be in tune with your wants and needs so that you retain your self-confidence throughout your pregnancy.

Melissa Prince. Bodyworker | Wholistic Life Coach | Doula Birth Attendant | Mother of two.

Melissa helps women who value creativity and compassion to nurture themselves and gain clarity to thrive in their personal and business lives.

Click here to visit Melissa's website.

Melissa is also one of the 14 inspiring women who appear on our "Confidence for women CDs". 

PS: from Confident Woman Editor: A Doula (according to http://www.bellybelly.com.au/articles/Pregnancy/doulas-what-is-a-doula) is someone who offers emotional and physical support to a woman and her partner before, during and after childbirth. A Doula (also known as a birth attendant) believes in ‘mothering the mother’, enabling a woman to have the most satisfying experience that she can, from pregnancy and into motherhood. This type of support allows the whole family to relax and enjoy the experience too.

Copyright Melissa Prince, 2010.
NB: Any information contained on this site is not provided as an alternative to the obtaining of medical advice from an appropriately qualified practitioner.

Comments

[Rachel Green]

Managing self-confidence and hormones at the same time isn't easy for any woman, least of all when there is a new baby as well. Thanks so much for reminding us of how important it is to stay tuned in with ourselves, Melissa.
Blessings,
Rachel.

[Kiera Pedley]

I had a Doula, then went on to train to be a Doula. Doulas make such a difference during pregnancy and birth, my second birth was an empowering, healing homebirth - and my Doula really helped make that happen.

Kiera