Instinct

How many of us listen to our instinct?

I mean, really listen and tune out the wonders of modern technology?

There are many times I 'know' things and later find out I was correct, but doubted myself at the time, or allowed doubt to prevent me from saying what I thought.

I was on-call as back up for a fellow Doula, and we hadn't gotten around to me going to visit the mum. We had merely talked by email so that I was clear on her birth preferences, and I had given some information that might be useful. However, I kept thinking how much I would like for my fellow Doula to have this experience as it would be her first. I couldn't shake that I would never meet this mum....

So, I am elated to have heard the joy and buzz in my fellow doula's voice as she quickly called me to say I was no longer needed on call. I can't wait to hear all about it and help her debrief :)

There have been previous times in my life where the 'knowing' was really strong. When I was pregnant with my first child I was never happier in my own body. So much so that I walked past an office being refurbished and 'knew' that an accquaintance was never going to start the job she had been offered. I spoke to her about two weeks later and she told me her job offer had been withdrawn. There were many more occassions like this during that pregnancy and I began to realise that being totally in tune with myself allowed me to tune in to other senses we don't normally recognise in today's world.

It's taken many more years to start listening more and to learn to have faith in myself and my body. I am becoming more and more holistic in my approach to life, whilst remaining grateful to the scientific advances of the last 150 or so years. My own childbirth journey, as well as the journey I have travelled to become a Doula, has led me back to instinct, and the fact that women have innate, animal instinct we have suppressed for far too long. 

I'd like to share with you one of my favourite brands - Faith In Nature very reasonably priced, smell gorgeous and have wonderful customer service so far. I feel really good getting out of the shower knowing that I'm not putting man-made ingredients on my skin. It's a little thing but it's made me feel good. As most mums reading this will appreciate we usually put ourselves at the bottom of the priority list but I'm inisiting on having these lovely products.

Cooking is not my forte but we do try not to buy any processed foods, and if there is anything remotely pre-prepared that it has the purest of ingredients. I'm not totaly organic, but try my best to use the best foods I can. And now I'm thinking about the medications we put in or on our bodies. I am very concerned about the ingredients contained in vaccines and all over the internet we can see both sides putting forward their arguments. Both my children have had all their immunisations to date, mainly because I did not have access to the information I do now and because with each injection neither of my children suffered much of a reaction. We all seem to cope well with them. But I can't help feel guilty that their cells may now have undesirable chemicals attached to them. Sixteen years ago my instinct was very concerned about putting 3 immunisations into my little baby's body at once, but back then the average person didn't have access to the internet like we do today. It's hard to find unbiased information, so I'm going to listen to my instinct on this topic as well as with the rest of life.

Instinct, and research-based evidence.