This persistent doing, proactive, go get ’em energy is what some have termed “the Yang”, the masculine energy, or from a more biological perspective, it is us living in our sympathetic nervous system: every day in the fight or flight. This is the world we live in. It’s not your fault, but it is your choice. Now that you are with child, your Divine Feminine, “the Yin” is awakened and emboldened.
The parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) is working hard to give you and your baby time and space to grow, physically, mentally and spiritually. You’re building your psychical womb. This energy is introspective, reflective, still. It is the Being as opposed to the Doing. To me, rest, in this case, is about choosing to bow to stillness and anything that connects you to you. We need space and time to live in our new body. We need space and time to learn about this new person – that is the growing baby and also the burgeoning new woman you are becoming. My personal advice to all pregnant women is “don’t do anything you don’t want to do”. Be as self-indulgent as you like. Discover and embrace the things that give you juice. Educate yourself about you!
The parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) is working hard to give you and your baby time and space to grow, physically, mentally and spiritually.
If these oppositional concepts like Yin and Yang pique your interest, I encourage you to look them up and explore them further. Having a deeper understanding of what it means to “rest” certainly changed the way I perceived and experienced downtime but even more so how I train my clients.
We can teach our bodies to rest even when we are simply going about our day. Is your exercise practice winding you up or does it give you and your body the space to wind down, to tap into the Divine Feminine? I spend as much time educating mothers about their minds as I do about their bodies in the only Prenatal Pilates classes that also offer Birth Education I have come across in my region.
For me, movement is my passion and motherhood my inspiration. At our Pilates Studio, Umoya, we’re excited to be launching Amandla Mama Workshops in the next few months. Amandla is a South African word which simultaneously means power, strength and competence. It captures the ferocity and stamina of what’s required in birth and parenthood both physically and mentally. Not to mention that it encapsulates how we want any person who does a class at our studio to feel – powerful. The workshops are equal parts education and a feel-good workout, which will hopefully enable women to tap into the innate knowledge and power within them, passed on through every generation of women who came before them.
For you, reader, every moment of every day as a mother you are levelling up, even on your worst days. There is a cacophony of hormones, a transference of DNA, things that are regenerating, originating and disassembling within you physically and spiritually. Your body is not only growing a new human, but you are also preparing to become a mother, which is an utterly transformative experience.
Your body is not only growing a new human, but you are also preparing to become a mother, which is an utterly transformative experience.
I don’t think any adult genuinely wishes to be a child again, because there is a part of us that appreciates and respects the journey we went through to become an adult. It was hard, it was filled with angst and conflicting feelings. It was also liberating and freeing. It was adolescence. And now we have matrescence, the transition from maiden to mother. Since learning about this term through the work of Amy Taylor Kabbaz, I am having a love affair with it. I constantly learn more about this feminine odyssey and Rite of Passage.
Let’s reframe and cheerlead women through pregnancy. Let’s fearlessly talk about the good, the bad and the swollen without fear of judgement. Let’s educate ourselves, our friends and our daughters of the magnificence of the mother. All mothers can step into themselves and their enhancements with confidence, steeled by ancient knowledge shared in the community of women.
Faye is the creator of Umoya Pilates Studio in the Inner West of Sydney as well as 2 beautiful little humans. You can connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.
