Featuring:
k.d. lang
Jack Kornfield
Elizabeth Gilbert
Jill Bolte Taylor
Snatam Kaur
Rick Hanson
Seane Corn
Mark Nepo
Joseph Marshall III
Malidoma Somé
Robert Peng
Tami Simon
And many more!
Will you make a commitment to no longer abandon yourself and your present experience? That no matter what thought, feeling, emotion, or sensation arises, you will offer it a home within you, setting aside the conclusion that it is a mistake, a problem which must be fixed, or evidence that something is wrong with you?
Begin with a sacred pause, touching whatever is there, and state your intention to stay close. Offer a heartfelt “yes” to your experience and allow it to be exactly as it is, cutting into the momentum of billions of lifetimes of turning from the orphaned ones knocking on the door of your heart. Call off the war with yourself, and see that arguing with reality will only ever lead to suffering for yourself and others.
From this ground of seeing and allowing, you could then enter into the most radical act of all: to meet whatever arises in your experience with what Rumi calls a mighty kindness. While it seems so simple, it is in fact a revolution in practice. Open your heart to your rage, your shame, your despair, and your sadness, gently holding and cradling it as you would a sweet little baby, unconditionally receiving it as a raging expression of reality exactly as it is. See that it, too, is path—come only to awaken one of the qualities of love within you.
It is through this wild kindness that you may finally see just how much space there is around your experience, how whatever appears—while very vivid, colorful, energetic, and even disturbing—is luminously transparent, and not nearly as solid as it seems. It is in and through your intimacy with your embodied, present experience that it will self-liberate, without any effort on your part, into the pristine, primordial awareness and love that you are.
The fear of being abandoned. The terror of being lonely forever. The anxiety of being utterly dependent upon another.
The panic of unbearable vulnerability and exposure. The dread of the looming death of yourself and everyone around you.
These are the great fears that come as you wake, as you fall asleep, and as you dream through this life.
In your willingness to take a risk, to feel everything, to truly allow another to matter, and to expose yourself to an eternal sort of heartbreak, you come face to face with the most devastating fear that you’ve ever known, but have never been able to articulate: that you are loved.
For when you are truly loved, when you are entirely seen, when you are fully held, it is the end of your world as you know it. Things will never be the same. You will never again be able to pretend that you are other than precious and whole as you are. The implications of this are dizzying if you let them all the way in.
It is so exhilarating to be seen and held in this way, but it is also terrifying as you are fully naked now, utterly raw, and achingly wide open. Even the breeze as it passes you feels as if it might be too much, for it goes right through your skin to touch your heart. A sunrise, the longing of a little baby, the autumn leaves, looking into the eyes of your lover – you may never be protected again. The particles of love are interpenetrating your entire sensory world and you are just not sure your heart and nervous system can take it.
You are free to be who and what you are now – no longer tied to a past you thought you wanted, no longer bound by the limited, willing to risk it all for love, and free to be the fearless wildness that you are.
Bliss out on baby, mi amor. Love your chichis. Admire your soft curves, your delicate belly, and the way you require intentional care. Everything deep comes to the surface as you pour sweat, milk, blood, and tears onto your sheets. I want your postpartum to feel blissful, so here are five tips to help you make that happen.
1. Make a postpartum plan.
You can’t plan exactly the way the birth will pan out, but you can plan the details of your postpartum support. Bodywork, meals, laundry, and childcare for your other children are some things to consider. Use this book as a guide to feel into what nonnegotiables you’ll need in place during la cuarentena.
2. Don’t DIY postpartum.
There’s a time and place for self-reliance. Postpartum ain’t the time. Postpartum traditions are community centered. Once you know that you’re pregnant, surrender to other folks holding you. Waddle that ass to circles with like-minded familias who you know would be down for mutual support. This is why we have the Indigemama community and so many other comunidades who are dedicated to saving our lives.
3. Shift your mindset.
One of the biggest internal challenges I see postpartum people go through is the mental chatter that puts a wall up, barring any chance for outside support. When we’re socialized into struggling and then rewarded for doing things on our own, it’s easy to feel guilty asking for help. You might be distrustful of other people’s capacity to fulfill your needs. How many times have you heard women say, “If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself”? This belief sets postpartum people up for anxiety, stress, depression, and overwhelm. If you want postpartum done right, you have to feel in your body that you are worthy of being venerated; you must feel that you are deserving of being held.
Paying homage to you is paying homage to nature itself. Give your potential supporters that opportunity to connect with creation.
4. Repeat after me: affirmations, affirmations.
It’s easy to feel ashamed to ask for what you need. It’s normal to feel guilty when you see how hard people are working for you. Give yourself a pep talk: I allow myself to be cared for. I accept this help. I trust that I can be held without lifting a finger. I surrender myself to the love and labor of others. I soften and allow myself to be carried. I want you to do this every moment that you need it. When you affirm that you’re doing the right thing over and over, then eventually it becomes second nature.
5. Support your romantic relationship.
Postpartum is stressful AF! Those of us with multiple children can tell you that the little ones tend to take precedent over romantic relationships. But after a while, that really weighs down a union. Plan relationship goals. When will you start to date again? What’s the plan for one-on-one time? Who are the people who hold you and your partner(s) up as a sacred union? What baggage can you each decide to let go of now? What support can each of you get individually from healthy older couples who are content with each other? What can you appreciate about each other during la cuarentena? What words do you need to say to each other when the going gets tough? Nurturing a healthy, loving relationship with each other when you’re parenting children is a practice of discipline.
This excerpt is from Thriving Postpartum: Embracing the Indigenous Wisdom of La Cuarentena by Pānquetzani
Pānquetzani
Pānquetzani comes from a matriarchal family of folk healers from the valley of Mexico (Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlaxcala), La Comarca Lagunera (Durango and Coahuila), and Zacatecas. As a traditional herbalist, healer, and birth keeper, Pānquetzani has touched over 3,000 wombs and bellies. Through her platform, Indigemama: Ancestral Healing, she has taught over 100 live, in-person intensives and trainings on womb wellness. She lives in California. For more, visit indigemama.com.
Perhaps love is not something you need to seek any longer. That it is not something you will finally get more of one day, just as soon as you pray enough, meditate in the right way, forgive better, accept more deeply, finally ‘let it all go’, rest as the ‘witness,’ stay in the ‘now’, and become a perfect spiritual person.
Friend, you will never find more love, for love is what you are. It is what your organs, your nervous system, and the cells of your heart are crafted of. It is forming as your arms when you hold another, as your words when you speak kindness, and as your tongue as you taste the honey-nectar of the beloved as it arrives by way of your sweet lover.
Allow yourself to receive the benediction of pure presence, for it is your birthright. It is wired inside you and longing to erupt from your totally out of control heart. For when it does, an avalanche of grace is unleashed, sending love stories, wild music, and sweet poetry into the stars and supernovas, seeding the galaxies with your unique light.
You thought that as you awakened, you would feel less. But you are seeing that love continues to ask you to feel more. There was an idea that as your heart opened, your vulnerability would lessen, but you are more raw and tender now than you’ve ever been. You wondered if as you grew spiritually, you would be more detached, not care quite so much, and rest as the “witness” of your life from beyond it all. But, alas, you care so much you are burning up inside.
Something new is being born in you, but something else is dying. Everything you thought you needed is falling away, but what it is being replaced with is not yet clear. You are between the worlds, dancing between broken and whole, with light and dark being weaved within you.
You are so open it is almost as if a certain kind of sadness has come to permeate your life. Even the light in the snow, the color in the sunset, or the wind passing is almost too much; you are not sure you can let it in all the way. Even the orange and the red in the sky, if you let it come inside, might take you to the ground. There is a sense that you could die of astonishment at just how much grace is here. There is a purple that has never, ever come into being until now; give everything to know it. It is so precious here. The beloved is pouring colors throughout this dimension so that she may evoke her qualities in your body and through your senses.
You know that things will never be the same again, but you still do not know what is coming next or even where you are, or what is truly being asked of you. This unknowing groundless ground is your home now, and the creativity and the intelligence here are overwhelming. Yes, things are colored by a certain fragrance of sadness, but it is a sadness the mind could never know, for it has nothing to do with something being missing. It is a sadness which is pouring out of your overflowing heart. You are willing to give your heart to others and to this world, for you are seeing that this is why you have come here.
