Neil Sattin.com

I had a really inspiring weekend.  An inspiring bus ride down to NYC and back (16 hours in all!), an inspiring time with some of my friends, and an inspiring time meeting Steve and Erin Pavlina along with a bunch of other like-minded souls - which was the ostensible reason for my trip.    I think that Steve and Erin’s message actually ends up being very simple:  do what you love to do - that which feels like it’s in alignment with your life’s purpose, contribute value to the world, and the world will contribute value back to you.  You’d think it would be easy to figure out what you “love to do” and what’s “in alignment with your life’s purpose” - but that isn’t always the case.  Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since you felt passionate about what you were doing that you forgot what it even feels like?  Maybe it’s because you WERE following your dream, but something came up (like an injury, for instance) that stopped you in your tracks, and now you need a new dream to follow?  Whatever the reason, is there a surefire way to figure out what you love, something that’s in alignment with your life’s purpose?  You betcha!

In the Law of Attraction and the Best Days of Your Life, I talked about how the memory of a past event where you felt happy/enthusiastic/passionate was useful in summoning up the kind of feelings that you’d want the Law of Attraction to amplify.  Take a moment and think of something from your past, a time when you just felt so amazingly good, happy, inspired.  Really picture yourself back in that moment, and get into the way that you felt at that time.  You should feel the feeling, an actual physical sensation along with some of the emotion from that moment.  Now, when you’re trying to figure out what you “love to do” - that’s the feeling you’re after.  You want to feel like THAT when you’re doing what you love to do, and you want hints of that feeling when you just think about doing that particular thing. 

So when you consider whether or not something is “what you love to do” and you don’t feel “that feeling” - what does that tell you?  I see a couple of possibilities:

1. You don’t love to do that thing.  Just face it!
2. There’s a sliver of alignment in what you’re considering.  Try to identify the aspect that is, in fact, in alignment with what you love to do.  As you think about the different components of that thing, notice how you’re feeling - when you find the one or two that resonate with you, you will actually FEEL something, an emotion that compels you to take notice.  Take a moment and let it sink in, because you just unearthed an important component or two of “what you love to do”.

Here’s a recent example from my own life.  In our attempts to develop some additional income streams, my wife and I have been considering opening an organic donut business here in Portland, Maine.  One thing after another lined up, so much so that the universe seemed to be sending us a message, something like “MAKE DONUTS!”.  And yet we still were uneasy about the decision, not because of any risk involved in starting up the new business, but because something was gnawing away at us - the realization that when we thought about getting up every morning to make donuts and when we thought about living/breathing donuts for the time that it took to get the business really rocking, we didn’t feel that spark of joy, the spark of doing “what you love to do”.  And yet something about donuts was calling us:  what was it? 

Upon further consideration we noticed a few key elements.  These were the things that, when we thought about them, caused us to feel “that feeling” that I was talking about earlier. 

• Social Contact with other people - love it!
• Entrepreneurship - being our own boss - absolutely!.
• Working with a friend to bring about our mutual success - definitely dig that!

So those are components that we would look for as we contemplate other ways to open up new streams of income.  But when it came down to the “making/living/breathing donuts” part, which would represent a significant amount of time and energy, we weren’t feeling it, and that made the decision easy for us.  OK, maybe not easy.  It wasn’t an easy decision.  However, we know that we want to spend our time doing things that make us feel the fire of joy and passion in our lives, so as soon as we recognized that the central aspect of this new potential occupation was NOT something that gave us that feeling, we knew what choice we had to make.

You can spend your whole life making safe choices, the choices that don’t exactly feel right, that don’t make you enthusiastic for living, but that almost certainly will put food on the table.  As we talked about in Law of Attraction: The Compound Interest of Your Life, whatever you choose will most certainly grow.  So why not make choices that are truly rooted in what makes you feel excited to be alive?  Those choices will grow as surely as the “safe” choices grow - and you will find yourself immersed in doing what you love, smiling back on the time when you found it to be so confusing.

Another obstacle that we face, I think, is when we have a clue about things that we love, but we have no idea how those things are going to generate income for us.  It may simply be that the right opportunity to apply “what you love” hasn’t come about yet.  So what do you do in that situation?

In order for your opportunities to grow, you have to be giving some energy to what you love to do.  Giving energy to things that you love to do will actually create more opportunities to do other things that you love to do - perhaps things that aren’t even part of your current frame of reference.  So pick something and give it at least a little bit of dedicated time - especially if you’re in a situation where you feel like you’re unable to devote any time to the things that are most important to you.  You need to do more than stoke the flames, you have to actually feed the fire.  As the “compound interest” kicks in, your golden opportunity WILL arrive - you just need to be watching for it.  If the universe is watching (and I’m pretty sure it is), then it will start sending opportunity upon opportunity your way as soon as it sees that you’re on the path of doing what you love.

With all of our Hypnobirthing training (five three-hour classes), I still experienced a bit of confusion about what I was actually going to DO when my wife was in labor.  It was helpful to hear the experiences of the other couples in our Hypnobirthing class (there were three other couples, and all of them had due dates prior to ours).  So while it’s pretty obvious what the woman in labor is supposed to do (use your techniques to get relaxed and stay relaxed), I thought I’d tell you a little bit more about my experience as the Hypnobirthing Birth Partner, in hopes of helping you figure out what you’re going to do - especially if you’re like me and you’ve never been through this kind of thing before.

Important Stuff before Labor begins:

Preparation time!  Apart from the obvious things (getting a bag packed, making a list of everything else that’ll need to come with you to the hospital, etc.), your job as Hypnobirthing birth partner is to assist the Hypnobirther in her preparation.  Create space in your lives so that you can listen to the Hypnobirthing CD (the affirmations AND the Rainbow Relaxation exercise).  Generally my wife and I would listen to the CD before bedtime, and I would do light-touch massage during the affirmations, then climb into bed along with her for the Rainbow Relaxation.  I felt like the more light-touch massage we could do the better, because the more that we did, the more that my wife seemed to respond to it.  Your ability to relax works just like any skill - it gets better with practice.  So keep practicing, and enjoy the generally relaxed state that will permeate your life!

We also experimented with my inducing a hypnotic state, using the scripts provided by our Hypnobirthing instructor.  It was easy to do, and my wife was definitely relaxed and hypnotized, but for us this didn’t seem like an important part of the process.  I think that some couples might do this part more than we did - it’s really going to boil down to your personal preference - whether the Hypnobirther needs help to actually GET relaxed, or whether she feels like she can do it on her own.  Going through the scripts is a great trust-building exercise - for both of you - since you will be learning to trust yourself with hypnosis, and see that you are capable of getting your partner to a deeply relaxed place if it becomes necessary.  You might also find some techniques that are useful for you - so try everything offered at least ONCE. 

The basic purpose of all the preparation work is these three things:

1. The Hypnobirther develops her ability to get relaxed and stay relaxed, while also using the affirmations to reprogram herself for a positive birth experience.
2. The Hypnobirthing birth partner develops experience with light-touch massage, inducing relaxation, and responding to the needs of the Hypnobirther.
3. Both people learn what works and what doesn’t, so as to figure out what will be the chief “tricks of the trade” that you’ll use when labor begins.

Now You’re in Labor - what does the Hypnobirthing Partner do?

Along with attending to basically whatever the Hypnobirther needs (food, a drawn bath, the bookshelves dusted), here are the things that I did with my wife leading up to and including our trip to the hospital:

1. At one point I got into the bathtub with my wife, sitting behind her and doing light-touch massage on her arms, legs, and head.
2. I helped my wife get from place to place.
3. As surges got more and more intense, my wife needed my participation during the surges.  You have a “birthing companion’s cheat sheet” with a bunch of phrases, techniques, and suggestions of what to do when.  I chose ONE phrase (”Breathe up, up, up, up….now let it out, down through Boober” - our baby’s nickname was/is Boober).  I think that one phrase that works for the both of you is all you really need, so don’t get overwhelmed with all the choices on the cheat sheet.  Try a few out for size, before labor begins (role play a surge or two with the Hypnobirther), and choose whatever feels right.
4. If you find one of the phrases to be completely ridiculous, keep that one as an option too.  Laughter helps the birthing process, and if you happen to get a laugh with your one-liner delivered at the right moment, it’ll be worth it.
5. Essentially the Hypnobirthing CD was on constant repeat, and my wife was using that to get back into a deeply relaxed state between surges.  I was just doing light-touch massage to accompany her relaxation.
6. As we went to the hospital, and walked to our room at the hospital, my wife and I would stand face-to-face during surges, and she would drape herself over my shoulders.  I would support her physically, and use the aforementioned “Breathe up, up, up…” line to keep her focused on her breathing during the surges.
7. At the hospital - guess what?  It was more of the same!  The ideal Hypnobirth is “long, slow, and boring” - it’s great to remind yourself of that because it takes away any expectation of having to be entertaining, or of things needing to be dramatic.  In my first Hypnobirthing article (link is above), I mentioned that Jessica, our hypnobirthing instructor, met us at the hospital along with our midwife.  Jessica took over the verbal “Breathe up, up, up…”, and the two of us were on either side of my wife, offering her physical support during surges, and light-touch massage between the surges.  While there’s not much pushing involved in a Hypnobirth, the midwife was there to guide my wife as to the appropriate time to bear down.  It was very helpful to have a midwife who had attended other successful hypnobirths - she contributed to the overall supportive, calm atmosphere of just letting things happen at their own pace.
8. Oh yeah, and I got cups of water for everyone when they were necessary.  Staying hydrated=very important.

All I had to do was focus on my wife’s comfort and relaxation.  The rest, literally, comes naturally.  Then you have a baby in your arms - and the real excitement begins!  Stay tuned for my article on overcoming your cluelessness about what to do with a baby - a review of Harvey Karp’s video “The Happiest Baby on the Block” - which was probably the most important video I ever saw before my son, Dashiell (aka Boober) made his appearance.

I hope that this has helped you in your thoughts about how to best prepare for your upcoming Hypnobirth, and what it’ll actually be like when labor arrives.  Figure out what works for you, and then, when the first surge comes, fall back on what you know works.  It’ll all happen the way it’s supposed to happen, and you’ll both be nice and relaxed, which is the perfect way to experience such a beautiful, life-altering moment.