shifting the fear-tightening-pain cycle

[Shared via Newsletter May 12, 2025]

Dear Ones,

In these turbulent times we are living, I’m pondering questions and deeply listening within. 

What is medicine?

For the majority of my life, I had never really thought about this question - it seemed self evident to me. Medicine was a substance - in liquid or pill form - that one took to get better, to fix the condition one was suffering from. 

Where does one get medicine from? 

Outside oneself, from a medical professional, in a white coat, who would evaluate my condition and write a prescription to get medicine that one would pick up at a pharmacy. Or, medicine that’s over-the-counter, that I could pick up at the pharmacy.

How does my life change if I embody a more expansive view of medicine?

What if I see myself as an integrated, dynamic, ever-evolving being held in the web of life? Viewing emotions as messengers? And my body as an intelligent system also sending me messages - nudging me toward a more full and spacious life?

10 years ago, pregnant with my child, I picked up wisdom from a teacher along the way - from the Yogic wisdom tradition - educating me on the fear-tighening-pain cycle. When we have fear, our bodies clench, restrict, and tighten. And we’re often not breathing. And the result is deep pain. In childbirth, the goal is to birth a baby from the human body that needs to open to create room for the baby in the birth canal. This yoga teacher explained how the body is designed to open in labor and if we’re able to shift our fear to trust we can loosen, receive and have less pain.

I was able to experience this during the birth of my child with a natural childbirth. Not because I’m some kind of superhero but because I was in denial and not fearful or full of thoughts like “how in the world is a baby going to be born out of my tiny vagina! It’s hard enough getting a tampon in and out some days - how does a baby escape through there?!”

My denial of being in labor came from my desire to control. Which was a tool I relied on to cope with my anxiety. You see, it was three weeks prior to my due date and I had an important job seeing my students through graduation and the end of the school year. My child was scheduled to arrive June 20 - not at the end of May. 

So when I began laboring the evening of May 30, 2015, I calmly breathed through my contractions. I thought to myself: “These are just Braxton-Hicks contractions! I’m not in labor; it isn’t the time.” Over the course of the evening, the contractions became more and more close together and more and more intense. I got on the floor of my bedroom in the “tabletop position” on all fours and breathed. I cried out with primal moans. I asked my spouse to get out of bed and rub and push on my lower back with all his might to counteract the pressure on my lower back. Through this all, I breathed, swayed my body as it wanted to move and exhaled and moaned. At one point, my spouse thought “I better call the nurse line to check in and see what they recommend.” As he was on the line with them, the nurse heard a wave of contractions through my exhale and moaning. She recognized the intensity of sound and asked my spouse: “How quickly can you get to the hospital? Do we need to send an ambulance?”

Apparently I was in labor. This was for real.

In hindsight, it’s clear that was the case but in the moment, in my mind, I was telling myself that “These are just Braxton-Hicks contractions! Relax. Take it easy and just breathe.” Since my mind didn’t get in the way of what my body knew how to do, I went with it - and received - I went with the flow and allowed my body to soften and loosen. The pain was sharp and in waves but it was tolerable.

As we zoomed down Cedar avenue speeding through red lights, I was grateful that it was the wee hours of the morning and there were few other cars on the road. My spouse was grateful that we had just taken a tour of the hospital and parking situation so he knew where to go. 

When we arrived in the parking garage there was a lone wheelchair sitting empty. “Shall I get the wheelchair for you?" He asked. I wasn’t able to speak much at this point and he answered his own question and wheeled it over to the passager side of the car. As soon as my bottom hit the seat of the chair, my water broke and I was soaked. 

He wheeled me into the labor and delivery dept and it was thankfully empty. After signing a piece of paper I had no capacity to look at - let alone read- a nurse took my hand and slowly guided me into a room. She was coaching me to breathe and relax- which was for an earlier stage of labor than I was. I recall finding her guidance irritating and I felt she wasn’t accurately reading the situation.

As soon as I entered the delivery room, I stripped off all my clothing. I got on my hands and knees on the hospital bed with my bare bottom up. At that, the nurse was able to see how much I was dilated and that our child was crowing - “I can see hair!” she said. The nurse signaled to her team that yes indeed, I was in a very different stage of labor than she initially assessed. Within moments, a calm and competent OB walked into the room apologizing “I’m so sorry, I didn’t get a chance to brush my teeth!”

The OB coached me on timing pushing with contractions and our child was born within a few minutes.

 I share this story to illustrate how interconnected our emotional systems and physical systems are. I’m not an advocate of denial. But in my case, my defense mechanism was an extremely effective tool for not allowing my emotions and mind to get in the way of the flow of life. 

Through this experience, I’ve learned how the fear-clenching-pain cycle is Truth for more than just the birth experience.

Fear is heavy in the air right now. What are your practices for shifting from the fear-clenching-pain cycle to the trustfulcuriosity- receptivity - open and expansive flow state of being?

How do you define medicine? What nurtures and nourishes you?

In Root and Soar Together’s vision of: cultivating peace within all phases of life, I offer medicine for these times.

Through my apprenticeship with life - and embracing her cycles - I’ve learned–and continue to learn–from teachers and guides of how to be with death and dying and sorrow from what Francis Weller calls the five “Gates of Grief” how to tend our grief, healing practices and sacred medicines to cultivate life anew.

Are you curious?

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Come experience the healing power of being in brave spaces in community with others who are sharing authentically from the heart. Being a witness. Experiencing being present, aware and awake in the moment. to another's pain - without the role to fix or manage. To just be. See. Witness together.