Total Transformation

It has occurred to me in such a magnanimous way today out of seemingly nowhere, that I am undergoing the most profound and ultimate transformation of my entire life. I am reminded of this truth when I look to my navel and see that it now protrudes substantially from my core, that my belly has stretched in ways it has never known before in order to house the growing love being inside of my body. The emotional and physical flares that arise in the way of stuffy noses, tiredness, sensitivity, extreme joy, blissfulness and heightened sexual energy, all of which comes in waves and reminds me that I am amidst change. My mind is morphing with the hormones and the additional heart that is growing inside of my body. My mind may be having some conflict, which is creating these physical and emotional reactions, but nonetheless, my mind, my body, my emotional landscape are all changing in every single moment.

It is surreal to think that as I type this, as sit here thinking about life in the current state of now, that I have within me, not just one heart, not just one brain, but two of each. My body and spirit are feeding and giving life to another human being in this very moment. It feels slightly superhuman and absolutely divine as there are no other words to identify with right now. It feels like the idea of unison has been achieved and is happening all now. It was the united love and intimacy that brought this about. It is the joint wishing for this amongst an altar to Shiva, Ganesh & Paravati. It is the manifestation of our love on our wedding day, which allowed for this divine act of creating new life, creating a third life out of two.

It is only now that I am ready and prepared for this. It is only now that I am able to completely give of myself this transformation, this life changing process. It is only now that I truly love myself, that I found true love in another, which has prepared me.

I am learning lessons in each moment. I am learning how to be more kind to myself, to be more generous and gentle with who I am. My energy comes in waves and, sometimes, I just need to take it easy. This self love and compassion is growing daily which I know I will need once I give birth and am responsible for another. The fierceness of love and loyalty I feel for my husband is growing stronger and stronger. There is nothing greater to me in this world right now that the two of us, and our child that is growing inside of me, it is my family that takes complete priority above all else. It is in the ability to convert my own research and knowledge of food and nutrition that I am now able to easily create healthy meals for us. This may sound trivial and if this were the younger version of me speaking, she would have been outraged that I would even consider this to be so huge, but it is. I am nourishing myself, my husband, our child, our life with prosperity and healthy in mind.

It’s Thursday. I’m 23 weeks pregnant. I will never again be who I am in this moment, and it has never felt more true than it does now.

Pregnancy Yoga and Flexibility

Youtube is a rich source of great information. I use it for so many reasons including exercise. Now that I’m pregnant I’ve come to find the niche of Pregnancy Yoga and Pregnancy Pilates. These are like godsends. Short and compact exercise routines that I can just pop on and follow along to. I’ve practiced enough of both Yoga and Pilates to feel confident in my poses and in how I am supposed to hold my body and my breath, so following along with some beautiful pregnant woman is great.

I did get a little cocky and thought that since I handled those butterfly stretches so well, that I’d be able to easily handle painting my own toe nails this evening. Shaking my head. This must be where some things translate and convert easily and then others are drastically different and it’s just not going to be the same, like when you try to freeze cheese and it comes out clumpy but you can freeze soup and it’s all good. Horrible example, but I’m on the cheese end.

Although I did manage to paint my own toenails, I also enticed a ridiculous amount of heartburn because I was bending so much to be accurate with my polish. Was it worth it? I’m not exactly sure at this moment because I’m sitting here typing with terrible heartburn that feels like it is corroding my entire throat even after a big swig of antacid. Yay!

I am glad though that I am flexible enough to still be able to do it, if it weren’t for the heartburn I would have a much better outlook onto this. Thankfully my years of paying attention to my body have paid off in some ways.

Thankfully my husband was kind enough to finish off the second coat of my toenail polish. He’s definitely my one.

Heartburn I Loathe You

Yes, this entire post is dedicated to heartburn.

I understand from researching it that heartburn is something that effects some 2/3rds of pregnant women. I also understand it’s from a surge of hormones coupled with a continuing diminishing of space inside of my body to make room for the baby and it’s growth. Okay, fine.

What I don’t understand is the reason why we get heartburn anyway. I already know I can only eat small meals through out the day. I already know that my organs are making way because it’s harder for me to be move around and bend. I already know how this is, so what is the biological signal this is flagging?

When pain is triggered it is a flag to stop doing whatever you’re doing. I get this, it makes sense. But heartburn? Really?

I read ways to try to minimize it which included not to lay down, bend, and not eat much. Okay. Okay. As for remedies milk doesn’t seem to help for too long, I am not usually an over the counter medicine person but now I’m hitting the antacid liquid like it’s my job, I don’t even really mind the thickness nor the strong licorice taste now because I know it brings some relief and I find comfort in that.

Nesting Much?

They say that before you give birth there is this nesting phase that occurs. It may be hitting us a smidgen early, at least in the kitchen department. In the past two weeks we have now added a food processor, a slow cooker with three different dish sizes, an electric grater & slicer, a new glass toaster, and a some new knives. It’s like every gadget that is available and useful to make all things kitchen easier have now been added into our lives.

Learning how to use all of these it’s it’s own process and today I’m learning via experience on how to use the slow cooker. My first meal should be ready within the next couple of hours and is Mexican inspired. I love Mexican food and am grateful that it has finally become trendy enough here in Australia that I can get a lot (but not all) things that remind me of the goodness of the California Mexican cuisine I grew up with. I don’t always like to buy the premade versions of things though because I just never really know what some of those ingredients are, and of course I know that if I did actually make it myself I could create a huge savings, which brings a strange sense of satisfaction like I’m one upping the premade guys.

I love the idea of doing something once, turning it on, knowing that it’s all going to be okay and not burn, and then have a meal ready at dinner time. This is very exciting to me. I know that once the baby comes along we will need to truly maximize our time efficiently and this seems like a sure fire way to get into gear to cut down on time in the kitchen. Honestly I don’t really like to spend much time in the kitchen anyway. I do have a strong penchant for healthy, tasty, fresh, and wholesome foods, so by that very nature I am wind up in the kitchen more than I would like just so I can eat well. It’s also super important to me to be able to provide healthy meals to my husband. Obviously this is naturally extending to the family we are growing as well.

Another kitchen gadget that I’ve gone on a test run with today is the food processor with the skinny grating option. WHOA! Can I just say that I finely shredded 500 grams of cheese in less than a minute and it’s lovely, light, and smells divine! We’ve been buying shredded cheese in packets at the supermarket lately to save on time, but it’s always a little weird. I know they add some kind of anti-caking substance to it, so I assume that’s why, but there was no way that I was going to really grate by hand all that cheese, it just wasn’t going to happen. So the freshly grated cheese with the Mexican inspired slow cooked meal should be a winner tonight on this winter evening.

All of this is just practice and conscious habit forming to prepare us, to prepare me for the very near future. I embrace it. I certainly would never have guessed that I’d be so excited about kitchen gadgets as I am. Interestingly it kinda goes with every other thing in my life right now that I would not have predicted ten years ago. So wild how it changes, but I love it.

The Name Game

What’s in a name? Is it the name that makes the person or is it the person who makes the name? Does the vibration of the name really matter? Does the numerology really play an important role in that vibration? Does giving a child an “older” name weigh heavily on them? Does having a name that starts with an “A” automatically make them first to be called up and hence more available for leadership?

When we thought we might have a girl, we had already decided on a name that we both liked and that we felt could be a part of our life easily. However, now that it’s certainly a boy, that task has become a paramount effort! We’ve sat with these names so far: Alister, Alec, Riley, Theodore/Teddy, Abraham/Abe, Apollo and are still looking. I love when the name has some kind of significance. Would naming our child after Abraham Lincoln who was one of the greatest American Presidents who abolished slavery and forever changed the history of my homeland too big of a name to step into? Or would it lead to inspiration because Abraham Lincoln was such a stand out character and led his life with such high integrity?

My hope is that we will raise this child in a way that he is confident in who he is, regardless of his name. That he will be creative, generous, kind, strong, and gentle. That he will be a mixture of both my husband’s characteristics, mine, and of his as he develops them himself. That he will carve out his own sense of self in this world and be uniquely who he is. Inspiration comes from all areas of life and can also come from the name that one is given at birth.

It’s amazing how different it is to think about boy’s names versus girl’s names. There is a sense of weight that seems to be involved that wasn’t with the girl names. Is it because I had a father who developed a very tough shell in part because his name was a typical girl’s name? Honouring that “boy named Sue” complex that Johnny Cash famously sang about. Perhaps there is a sense of importance based on a name given as to what they will do in the world and how they will impact it.

Hopefully this name will come along and become apparent that it is the name of this being growing inside of me.

The Love Glow

I appreciate my body, I appreciate the way that I look, I am super grateful that I have such a nice physical structure and appearance. It’s hard to say this to other people without feeling like I’m coming off as being stuck on myself, or conceited. This hasn’t necessarily been the easiest turn of events to get to this stage though. Through the head on collision, I was transformed as I had to build myself from what felt like the ground up. I had to rework my own sense of self, the perception of who I was, which definitely included how I looked from outside as well as inside.

Having to rebuild myself was likely the best blessing I’ve ever had in my life. It is one that has forever changed the course of my life because I now have well and truly fallen in love with who I am inside and outside. It hasn’t been an easy road, and I certainly would not recommend getting into a major car accident to achieve these results, but since I have I can clearly see the silver lining in it all.

Since I now I have a true love for my own self, I then attracted that in the outside world in the form of the most amazing, loving, supportive partner, who is now my husband. Since I now have that true love for myself, I allowed the possibility of us bringing a child into this world, something that I was not keen on earlier in life. Since I cultivated this deep sense of love for me, I have discovered how truly feminine I am and that I don’t have to necessarily shed off the protective masculine exterior way of being in the world that served me so well while working years climbing the corporate ladder. It’s like I get to take that fierceness, that ambition and now apply it to all of my life rather than focusing just on career. It’s brilliant. It’s working wonders for me as well.

After the car accident, which I’ll nicely refer to as the “divine intervention”, I had a series of different people helping me recover – facial doctors, general doctors, surgeons, physical therapists, acupuncturists, massage and bowen therapists, therapists, and of course a psychologist. The psychologist was very helpful for many reasons, but one of which is she reminded me of the importance of getting ready every day, even if there wasn’t anything scheduled. What a boost this is and has become a mainstay of my life. I enjoy the process of getting ready, of adorning my body with beautiful clothes that make me feel good, with doing my hair, moisturizing my skin, putting on makeup, it feels great.

Coupling the good feeling of getting ready and being prepared for whatever the day brings, along with this sense of true love for myself, and now the corresponding love from my husband, as well as the love that is being mutually exchanged with this baby growing inside of me and I have become an incredibly attractive woman. I look at myself quite objectively when I say this and also when I look in the mirror, because all of this is what it is in this moment and is destined to change. I just truly appreciate the amount of love that I have in all of these areas and how that love is made manifest by creating this beautiful glow of femininity. This is the stage where I wish everyone was able to cultivate this kind of overflowing love because being bright and shiny feels oh so good.

Embracing the Feminine

For so much of my life I have been rather yang, strong, masculine, directed. Even when I haven’t been attached to a corporate job, I’ve taken on my life like it’s been a serious role. I have been incredibly direct, ambitious, hard headed, and overt. I had a challenging childhood which is actually classified as being traumatic, and I’ve come to peace with it. Thankfully I have been hard like this because I needed to be in order to do things differently from the life I had been born into.

Now that I am pregnant and expecting my first child later this year, the more feminine side of me, the yin, the softer, gentler, more subtle aspects of me are starting to emerge. Starting may be an understatement because there are days where it feels more like a crashing tide of change where the feminine is taking the space. I have never felt more beautiful, or more like a woman, or more like this incredibly powerful being as I do right now.

I can only imagine that this gets stronger as I get closer to giving birth, and even moreso after I actually am caring for this child that has been created out of love. Having experienced what it’s like to be very yang, and now embracing the yin and the feminine side of who I am, I know this will equip me to the best and whole person, mother, partner, citizen, being that I can possibly be. I recall that when I was younger my prayers always ended with “and please help me to be the best person I can possibly be”. Having that thought, coupled with the action I have taken in my life to accomplish this and it’s all happening. I am that.

The feminine energy is so lovely too. When my husband and I were first dating I told him very clearly (in a super yang way) that I needed him to hold the masculine space because I needed to hold the feminine space. I knew I needed it, and that was the first time where I actually voiced it so clearly. What a blessing that I was able to recognise that. By having my husband hold that yang space, it allowed me to develop my own yin, feminine space and because of this we have both benefited greatly by becoming our whole selves.

I am going to be an amazing mother. I am an amazing wife and partner. We will create such an amazing and creative family and I am thrilled to be on this journey. I embrace the feminine with who I am and allow it to help me grow in ways that I haven’t yet experienced, for the good of all.

Learning through Experience

I often say that the only way I know anything or have learned anything in life is because I have experienced it myself, first hand. This is how I operate in the world. I need to do something on my own, with my own hands, using my own body, with my own thoughts, in whatever environment I am in, so that I can learn and be in it to gain from it what it is. I am like a sponge in that respect, I take it all in, everything I can around me – the people, the smells, the culture, the overall feel of the energy around and I do my best to find myself amongst it all.

Since I definitely have some empath kind of traits where I take on the feelings of those around me, accompanied with the understanding that this is how I learn, I have found myself in many bizarre situations. I have learned so much about life and about what I want based on what I don’t want, which has been based on my own personal experience!

Perhaps this is also why when I’m in a new situation or environment that I am so open hearted and open minded when I am there. I embrace it all and then sort it out. Wouldn’t it be great if I could just learn by others stories, which I do to an extent, but truly, the deep learning for me is in the doing. It always has been.

 

Tap Dancing on my G-Spot

This feels wildly inappropriate for me to share outside of with my husband but I’m doing it anyway. The baby that is growing inside of me (at 21 weeks now) is sitting very very low. So low that it feels like he is constantly tap dancing on my bladder. This baby is definitely a mover and shaker and is constantly on the go, already, full of energy and activity.

Recently in the last few days, the tap dancing, has been the feeling that I get when my g-spot is being stimulated! I’ll be sitting having a conversation and all of a sudden get the feeling like I’ve just been flicked constantly in a spot that is typically all about pleasure! Today I was walking through the grocery store and it was wild! Let me be clear that it isn’t like concentrated, rhythmic rubbing of the special spot, but like flicks, which must be kicks or kung fu fighting moves being practiced inside here!

Since I am clearly aware that all things in life change and that is the nature of our existence, I am just trying to enjoy it while it is like this. My husband and I made the most of it today and all I can say is that maybe this little guy is like a wingman at the moment.

Yes, totally and completely inappropriate, but it’s what it is!