Returning With Sheila Kamara Hay: Ecstatic Birth
This post includes some of my adorable opinions about childbirth in our western world. I by no means want to disrespect any woman who desired/desires mainstream medical intervention, for whatever reason. Only you know what it right for you and I completely revere this truth.
In my first pregnancy, though I walked out of the hospital with a healthy baby girl, delivering her came with a lot of unnecessary medical intervention that left me with a ton of guilt and regret. As many women experience, the birth process is an entire world unto itself that seems to all too often blatantly disregard the desires of mom. With this as my reference point, about halfway through my second pregnancy, I could no longer disregard the dread I was feeling about my upcoming delivery. I was studying with Mama Gena at the time and she referred me to Sheila Kamara Hay. In one amazing phone call, Sheila turned my entire world around and put the power right back in my hands. As fate should have it, when I went into labor with my son, I was thrown many medical curve balls. This time, I met all of them with buckets of right-brain brilliance and ultimately arrived at the birth of my desires.
Sisters, to be blunt, the western world’s perspective towards childbirth SUCKS. While I am on-my-knees grateful for all of the lives allopathic medicine saves, way more often than not, it disrespects women and disconnects them from a power and a process that will never have any words.
Thankfully, Sheila is organizing and leading an indomitable group of feminine leaders who are putting the “P” back in childbirth. She has a tele-summit just around the corner with the HOTTEST lineup of pleasure and birth gurus. If you are interested in a view that leaves a woman’s esteem intact no matter what happens during her birth OR know a pregnant woman who desires this information, DO NOT miss this summit. She generously extended a $100 discount for Volver readers (coupon code: VOLVER.) It is my GREAT pleasure to introduce Returning With Sheila Kamara Hay of Ecstatic Birth:
In this moment what is your top brag, top gratitude and top desire?
I brag that I have created an incredible course for women to learn how to connect more deeply with their bodies and that I’ve got a roster of teachers that are my heroines in the worlds of sensuality and birth. I’m so grateful for the enthusiasm and outright LUST this material is being received with, like the world is truly hungry for this information- on how a woman can reclaim childbirth from our cultural heritage of pain, fear, and victimization and create a new one full of joy, pleasure, and empowerment. I desire to have over 300 registrants for this ground-breaking series.
If you had all the women in the worlds ear for one minute, what would you want them to know?
I would want them to know that there is a whole other way to birth than what we see in the mainstream media. I would want them know that childbirth has an enormous capacity for transformative pleasure and that this is a rite of passage to motherhood.
What was your inspiration in creating Ecstatic-Birth
My inspiration was my own personal experience, wanting to create a birth that was full of love and joy and pleasure and not really knowing how. After experiencing one medicalized birth, I decided that if I was ever going to do it again it would have to be completely different. And I researched everywhere, read everything, practiced all kinds of things, worked my ass off to create a birth that was beautiful and powerful and zen the second time around. The third time, I knew I could do it, so I wanted to see if I could enjoy it and that was where I put my attention. I learned sooo much through the process that I was inspired to create Ecstatic Birth and share what I have learned.
What was the dumbest thing that you used to believe?
That there was an objective “best” out there- like the “best doctor” or the “best hospital” with my first birth. I now know that there is only what is best for me and that can be different for each person.
What is your vision for the world and how might we arrive there?
My vision for the world is that we see birth as a sacred rite of passage that isn’t separate and distinct from the pleasures of baby-making, but the culmination of it. To arrive there, women need to reclaim and reconnect with their bodies and their sexuality and all the wisdom and pleasure that lie within.
SING. IT. SISTER.
