Lessons from Our Amniotic Ocean

During our time in the womb we float in an amniotic ocean, supported and fed directly by our environment. We may appear to be still and passive, but our lives are full of motion, learning and interaction.

So many during this pandemic period are struggling with an extended time of reduced activity, staying at home, working less or limiting social interactions. While the changes accompanying this virus can be challenging in many ways, the relative quietude can be reminiscent of our time in the womb. It can once again be a time of motion, learning and interaction that may not be in the form we are used to.

For some our prenatal experience was relatively peaceful. We felt welcomed, safe and well-nourished. For many of us, life in the womb was not so wonderful. We may have come as an unwelcome surprise for our parents. What we received via the umbilical cord may have included toxic chemicals from pollution or parental substance abuse. We may have bathed in stress hormones due to our mother’s overly demanding, unsupportive or dangerous life. We may have gestated during a war, in a field of extreme poverty, violence or racial/ethnic discrimination.

The cultural trauma we were born into was also infused into our womb world. Our physiology developed in response to what we were exposed to before birth, preparing us for the world we would soon be learning to walk in.

We Can Do It!

All of us, regardless of the traumas and toxic environments we floated in before birth, have emerged. We were born. We have survived. It can be helpful in times of challenge or doubt to remember that we have already survived unsupportive circumstances. Chances are, we can do it again.

When our world appears to be in chaos, or in the hands of psychopathic maniacs, or in danger of being destroyed by our own human greed and short-sightedness, or we feel threatened by an organism that appears to be demonstrating its potential to kill us, our earliest experiences from the womb and early childhood may come back to haunt us. We may feel weak, small and powerless to evoke change.

Fear can be all-consuming as we revert to a defensive kind of shut down, becoming depressed, hopeless and despairing. Or we may react with anger, resisting external authority however we can, like we may have wanted to resist the forceps or doctor’s hands at birth, or the amniocentesis needle or toxicity in the womb.

In times like these it can be helpful to remember who we are. Remember your current age. Remember all you have already accomplished and succeeded at in your life. Remember those who love you and those you love. Remember what you value, what and who supports you. Although you may resonate with the little one you once were, and that little one is inside you, it is not all of who you are now.

Taking Inventory: Who Am I Now?

This time of pandemic pausing can be a useful time to carry out inventory on yourself. What strengths do you see yourself as having? Which of them might have emerged from your early life and what you needed to deal with back then? What can you appreciate about yourself? What can you feel grateful for?

It can also be useful to acknowledge what you perceive as your weaknesses. These are aspects of yourself that need extra care and attention. You can engage your strengths – and yes you do have some! – to support and nurture those parts of you that need extra help. Most likely, in these challenging times, these parts are crying out for help. Most likely, you can help them! One way to help may be to ask for support from others – partner, friend or professional therapist. Unlike in the womb where support is supposed to just automatically be there for us and we may have learned that it is inadequate, as adults we can ask for what we need and develop ways to receive it.

The tendency for most of us is to identify with these “weaker,” struggling, little one aspects of ourselves. Becoming the little one that you were deprives them of the support of the adult you are.

This is a time that demands us to look at ourselves and our lives in new ways. Perhaps it is time for a new birth in your life. Who are you becoming? Who do you want to become? What is your intention for this next phase of your life? And how can you support that intention?