What is dangerous is teaching women to doubt themselves before they even begin. I remember a woman I cared for who had been told (repeatedly) that essentially, her body was a problem waiting to happen. Not dramatic fear-mongering as such... just raised eyebrows, risk language, contingency plans stacked on top of contingency plans. By the time labour began, this woman wasn’t afraid of birth itself, she was afraid to trust her own instincts. Every sensation came with a question mark, every decision felt... outsourced. That is until, somewhere deep in labour, something shifted. This woman stopped asking what she was “allowed” to do and started doing what her body was prompting her to. She moved, she adjusted, she roared. She said no when no was right and yes when yes mattered. No textbook had told her how to do that, her body did! Afterwards she said, “I didn’t know I had that in me.” But she did. It had always been there. Mainstream birthing culture wants you to believe that birth is something to be managed, predicted, and controlled. It teaches that risk is everywhere and that safety lives solely in protocols and projections. Of course informed choice matters. Of course professional wisdom has a place. But fear-based decision making leaves no room for a woman’s inherent courage, strength, and resilience. When decisions are driven by perceived risk rather than lived reality, something vital gets lost. The solution is not ignoring medical knowledge or pretending birth is always simple. The solution is clinical information alongside self-trust. Professional guidance alongside embodied knowing. Strength that is flexible, not reckless. Birth becomes safer when women are supported to tune-in to themselves, not when their confidence is gradually dismantled with every new appointment. Here’s the proof: I have been a midwife for many years. I have watched women walk into birth doubting everything and walk out changed by what they discovered in themselves . I have seen an internal fierceness rise up in women who never thought of themselves as “strong”. I have seen them own the room, own their choices, and do things they once believed were beyond them. Not because everything went to plan, but because they stayed internally aligned.

Birth isn’t something you conquer. It’s something you surrender into. One of the most powerful moments in labour is a phase called transition. It's the moment where your nervous system taps out. Where every part of you yells "I can’t do this anymore". Which is kind of true. THAT version of you can’t. Because the version of you that tries to stay in control? She doesn’t make it through transition and the reason is this: Birth doesn’t respond to force. It responds to surrender. Learning to surrender during birth (any type of birth!) is what allows the present version of you to give way to a stronger, wiser, and more powerful version of you. One you might not have noticed before, but she's been there a long time. Waiting for her chance to surface. And she's in there, trust me! I've seen these versions of women emerge during birth hundreds and hundreds of times over. It's probably the entire reason that I have been doing this for more than 17 years. The Power of Surrender is just 1 of 10 modules inside Aligned Birth - a program I personally wrote to prepare you for the parts of birth you can’t rehearse. In it, we explore how resistance (physical, emotional, mental) can actually make birth harder… and how learning to surrender can unlock an inner strength that many women wrongly assume they don't possess. This work is about: • stopping the fight with your body • understanding how resistance amplifies pain • learning how to yield instead of shut down • staying regulated when things go sideways For a very short time, I am offering to personally coach you through The Power of Surrender and help you apply it to your birth: your fears, your control patterns, your nervous system. Not a course. Not more breathing techniques and mindfulness. Actual mindset coaching. For a puny NZ$49. If surrender scares you, good. That’s usually where the work is. Comment SURRENDER to step in. (photo credit to Alex Hockett: https://unsplash.com/@ahock)