What are affirmations all about?
Affirmations are one of those things that you’ve probably heard of before whether it’s to do with birth or other areas of life. Affirmations build confidence and help you to create new pathways in your brain with the thoughts that you WANT to be thinking. At the moment you may have certain thoughts and feelings around birth because that’s just the way you’ve always thought about it. Our efficient (read, lazy) brains want to take the easiest path and so often this means we think the same thoughts repeatedly.
Affirmations are a way for you to choose positive thoughts and then encourage those to become the norm for your brain instead. For example, if you currently think that you’re a total wuss and you’re not sure if birth is something you can dol, why not try to refocus your brain on a new idea, ‘My body has everything it takes to birth my baby’. Maybe you have a specific worry around something like tearing from the horror stories you’ve been told. In that case try something like ‘My body will stretch to accommodate my baby’. You can create affirmations that focus on your own fears in order to work against them and start giving your brain new ideas. This is a really effective way to combat those fears. You can also find lots of pre-made affirmations for birth just by having a google and seeing what ones you enjoy.
We love an affirmation with a spot of swearing in, one of our favourites is ‘Breathe in calm, breathe out bullshit’. See what conjures up good feelings for you. Print some out and pop them around your house in places where you’ll see them. Next to the kettle, on the fridge, on your mirror etc.Say them out loud to yourself and encourage your birth partner to do that too. They can even make their own too! We can start you off with some free colouring affirmations in the freebies section of the website.
Download those and colour them in, you could use them around your home in pregnancy and then take them into your birth space with you on the big day! As they are colouring affirmations they are also really good at encouraging relaxation and your brain switching off whilst it does a simple task. This is a great way to practise relaxation, making chilling out a regular part of your day to day life, ready to tap into that on labour day!
