Reorienting Birth

Birth is a powerful and complex experience that can leave deep imprints on a person’s nervous system, psychology, and overall development. These early experiences can influence how we respond to stress, relationships, timing, and challenges throughout our lives.

In our context, an imprint refers to a pattern of behavior, emotions, and thinking that a person experiences as automatic or beyond their conscious control. Some imprints are constructive, supporting resilience and flow in life, while others may create repeating difficulties or limitations. This training explores both what a healthy developmental process looks like during birth and what may occur when disruptions happen during different stages — and most importantly, how these imprints can be reoriented and transformed.

Examples of birth-related imprints may include feelings such as:

• “I can never come through.”
• “I never have enough time.”
• “Things never happen at the right time for me.”
• “When I am under high stress, I push myself to work hard, but then I get sick or exhausted and cannot complete what I started.”

The Six Stages of Birth

The training explores the six developmental stages of the birth process:

• Start – the period shortly before birth (approximately the week before labor begins)
• Soft Birth – first-stage labor; the stage of gradual expansion
• Transition Stage – the transition between first-stage labor and second-stage labor, when the uterus begins working in a different way
• Hard Labor – second-stage labor
• Delivery – the birth itself
• The First Days After – just after the delivery, and the days that follow

For each stage, the teacher demonstrates the work, and students then practice on one another under teacher supervision.