Squeezes and Hugs

A couple of weeks ago, I celebrated the 6th anniversary of my daughter’s birth which was preceded by a 54-hour labor. I am blessed and grateful for the entire experience, not only the actual birth of her body through mine but also the intensity we both experienced through the labor. Yes, it was hard and there was so much beauty. We were held by an incredible feeling of trust that I have for the process as well as the support and wisdom of our midwife to understand that this was the labor that served her journey best and we just participated in it. She needed to take her time, she had a really short cord. She’s still the same way, she takes her time.

I am so grateful to our doula for capturing her birth on video and I decided that this was the year to share it with her. At the end of her birthday, while sitting in her bed, I brought in the video camera and we watched the 5-minute clip on the little 2×3 screen.. Watching her watch her birth for the first time was really cool and one thing that really struck me about her experience of it was her curiosity about what she was doing immediately after birth, her recovery while laying on my belly. She was waiting for her to start crying. Also since she knows that we did not know if she was a boy or a girl, it was fun for her to witness that moment when we found out. It went so fast that I had to rewind it and I told her, “I just lifted your leg.” It was shortly after that moment that she started crying, so she was complete with the video.

What does all this have to do with squeezes and hugs? When labor begins, we are in the uterus, surrounded by muscle, which is all we’ve known to hold and sustain us for this 9-month journey. This loving muscle begins to contract and then relax and then again, all the while gently moving us toward something but we don’t know what. There are times when we have a cord wrapped around part of our body, often our neck, so these squeezes might become difficult to manage if it lasts a long time. Once we leave the uterus, we continue our journey out into a muscular tunnel, still experiencing the squeezes. Then it happens, we pop out or maybe slip out but we are now in a completely different place. We could feel stunned or maybe want to scream.

I see the birth experience as an analogy of how we journey through our lives. Whether it be completing a project, getting a job, starting or ending a relationship, losing a loved one, dealing with financial issues, making a geographical move or even sometimes just deciding whether or not to get out of bed, there is an energetic squeeze that we feel pulling us or pushing us toward something.

Squeezing, even as a neutral word, conjures up images of force so what I’d like to do is reframe it, to take this opportunity to just pivot from what feels like a squeeze and feel it as a hug. To give it trust, hope and maybe time, to allow the energy to shift. We can see our lives’ experiences and journeys as one hugging fest after another all the while pushing us forward to the next thing.

Hugs bring us joy, laughter, support, kindness, connection, all the things that we deserve to experience. There will always be squeezes so my question for you is how often can you turn a squeeze into a hug.