The Aware Parenting Podcast

In this short episode, I talk about birth themes - these are themes that we can experience during or soon after our birth and that can get repeated during our childhood and then during our adult life, each time being an opportunity to heal from the original event and receive reparative experiences. I share examples from my own life and my family's life. I also offer some bigger picture perspectives about the relationship between our early experiences and our callings (this part isn't Aware Parenting).

I have two offerings if you're wanting support to help your baby heal from stress and trauma - The Aware Parenting Babies Course and The Aware Parenting Babies Q and A Vault. You can find them both on the Aware Parenting Courses page of my website: www.marionrose.net

In this episode, I talk with Shelley Clarke, who is an Aware Parenting instructor, CranioSacral Therapist and Marion Method Mentor. Please note that neither CranioSacral Therapy nor The Marion Method are Aware Parenting.

Shelley shares about her experience of practicing Aware Parenting with her three children and how she first learnt about Hand in Hand Parenting when searching for gentle sleep solutions, and then heard about Aware Parenting too. She first found me and my work n 2017 by searching for 'parenting and Psychosynthesis' (I trained and worked as a Psychosynthesis Psychotherapist).

She shares about the experience of starting Aware Parenting at different ages with her children, and starting from when her third child was born, as he shared his feelings about his birth. She also did more of her own healing process from her own experience as a baby. She talks about the power of listening to a baby's feelings when being lovingly supported with our own feelings, like she experienced and now offers to parents. From her first baby to her third baby, she became really comfortable with crying-in-arms.

Shelley talks about her experience of learning about CranioSacral Therapy and training in it, and how a central part of it is somato-emotional release. As part of that, she has done many birth processes on her own experiences as a baby.

She shares about what happens in her work as a CranioSacral Therapist when parents bring their babies with issues related to feeding, sleeping, tension, agitation and digestion. Often the babies will express feelings from their birth during the session.

We discuss how Aware Parenting and CST both have a deep trust in the body's innate capacity to heal and return to homeostasis. Shelley shares lots of details about how to be with babies as they are healing from their birth and other experiences.

I also reflect back on the time when my daughter was six and had some myofascial treatment and re-enacted her birth experience whilst expressing big feelings - and we discuss how children can also heal from their births, later on than in infancy - and how close to the surface those birth memories are for children as well as babies.

Shelley shares an incredible experience of one of her children being a Messenger from Life - this is from The Marion Method, not Aware Parenting.

We finish talking about our deep trust in the innate wisdom of human beings and our ability to heal and come back into homeostasis, and the importance of our own inner work as parents so that we can offer a calm presence to support our baby or child's innate wisdom.

You can find Shelley and her work at: https://www.shelleyclarke.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/_shelleyclarke_/ and https://www.facebook.com/shelleyclarkemindbodyparenting

Her podcast is The Mind-Body Parenting Podcsat.

In this episode of the podcast, I talk with Nicole Moore, international facilitator and trainer of Birth Into Being. We discuss how we met many years ago through Elimination Communication, which Nicole went on to make a film about. She talked about watching the video Birth as We Know it and the huge effect it had on her and her calling as she got completely swept up into Birth Into Being. We talk about one particular scene of a woman giving birth in water and how powerful and beautiful it was. Nicole explains what Birth Into Being is - a philosophy and healing modality which helps people create new imprints in their limbic system, replacing those that were formed in the very beginnings of life. This can be particularly powerful for women before giving birth. She also shares how it ties in perfectly with Aware Parenting. She also talks about the wider social context within which she sees this work and the vision and potential for bringing babies into the world with imprints of being deeply loved.

You can find out all about Nicole's work and Birth into Being at www.birthintobeing.com and www.birthintobeing.com.au

In this episode, a P.S. from the last one, I share about my journey of healing from being premature in an incubator for 5 weeks and the modalities, practices and choices I've found helpful, including: Psychosynthesis ~ Roberto Assagioli, Rebirthing, Holotriopic Breathwork ~ Stanislav Grof, Polarity Therapy ~ Dr Randolf Stone, Watsu, Alexander Technique, HypnoBirthing ~ Marie Mongan, Private Subconscious-mind Healing, giving birth and not being scared, holding my babies, co-sleeping, having them close, listening to my babies cry in my arms and heal from stress and trauma when all their needs were met, Buteyko breathing ~ Konstantin Buteyko, and The Marion Method.

This is one of the most powerful conversations I've had! In this episode, I talked with Roma Norris, a Hand in Hand Parenting Instructor who was born at 32 weeks and was in an incubator for 5 weeks. I was born at 30 weeks and was also in an incubator for 5 weeks. We talked about a lot of things, including when we first realised that our experiences as babies had affected us, the effects we've experienced as a result, the healing we've done, and the feelings we've felt. Please note that we talk in depth about terror, panic attacks, painful physical symptoms and suicidal thoughts. However, we also share about the profound healing and transformation we've experienced and the super powers we have as a result of our experiences. We share suggestions for both adults who have had similar experiences, as well as parents of babies and children who were premature and how they can support deep healing.

You can find out more about Roma's beautiful work at: http://romanorriss.com/

In this episode, I introduce the new series on the effect of the pre and perinatal period of us as babies, children and adults. This fits alongside the upcoming publication of my book, The Emotional Life of Babies.

In future episodes in this series, I'll be having conversations about healing from stress in utero, birth and the postnatal period for babies, children and adults, and the effect of not healing can have.

I share about my own journey of realising how much my birthing experience, being born at 30 weeks and in an incubator for 6 weeks, affected my childhood and teenage years, and how, over the decades after that, I reconnected with feelings of grief, loneliness, powerlessness, terror, and the deep pain of my experiences not being understood.

I talk about the difference between healing from the effects of our birth in adulthood compared to healing whilst a baby or child, with the support of our parents.

I include the work of people like Stan Grof, Thomas Verny and Michel Odent, and the powerful effects their work had on me and my understanding of what babies experience.

I share about HypnoBirthing and Calmbirth, and the huge shift I made from being terrified of giving birth to being completely calm during birthing. I talk about posterior birth and The Lifting Technique by Janie McCoy King, who wrote Back Labor No More!

I also explain how I supported my son to heal from his very fast posterior birth on the day he was born.

I talk about the will work of The Marion Method and how the timing of our birth can also continue to affect us later in life and the patterns that can continue.

In this short episode, I talk about the relationship I've observed between accumulated feelings and nightmares. I offer two hypotheses and share some observations that parents and Aware Parenting instructors have shared with me about feelings and nightmares.

My Sound Sleep and Secure Attachment with Aware Parenting Course is now available.

You can find that on my website: www.marionrose.net

or directly at: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/sound-sleep-and-secure-attachment-with-aware-parenting-course/

In this episode, I talk about my own recent experiences of lots of little stresses accumulating, the raging and crying that followed, and how it affected my sleep.

I compare it to when I didn't get to complete the expression of some bid old feelings from the past a couple of days later, and waking up grumpy, with those feelings still at the surface.

I liken this to what babies and children experience, both in terms of the effects of lots of small stresses, and also what can happen to their sleep when we listen to some of their feelings but they don't get to express all of the feelings.

I also share that my Sound Sleep and Secure Attachment with Aware Parenting Course is available.

You can find that on my website: www.marionrose.net

or directly at: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/sound-sleep-and-secure-attachment-with-aware-parenting-course/

The sleep series has nearly finished! I have loved recording it!

I'm so delighted that Sarah Mason came back on the podcast. Sarah is an Aware Parenting instructor and came to talk about babies and sleep in episode 132. This time she shared about toddlers and sleep. She talked about how she shifted beliefs in relation to bedtimes, and the effect that had. She also discussed the importance of us as parents tending to our own needs and feelings in relation to bedtimes. She brought in the understanding of the ways as parents we can unwittingly suppress our toddler's feelings during the day and how that affects sleep. She also shared so powerfully and movingly about her own inner healing in relation to her own early experiences and the profound effect that had on her daughter's healing and sleep. She included the powerful story of how her daughter healed from an early experience of being left before sleep (before Sarah knew about Aware Parenting). She talked extensively about the power and importance of mothers honouring their needs and how that can affect their toddler's sleep.

You can find out more about Sarah's work at https://awaremum.com.au/ and https://www.instagram.com/awaremum/

In this episode, I talk about how our own capacity to be present in our bodies with each particular feeling affects our capacity to be present with our baby or child as they feel and express that feeling. I share about the cultural effects on which feelings are welcomed, and how we can become more comfortable to be present in our bodies when we're feeling particular feelings, thus affecting our presence with our baby or child's feelings. I also relate that to a child's experience of being unconditionally loved. And finally, I explore how these are connected with sleep.

If you want to find out more about Aware Parenting, I invite you to come to my website at www.marionrose.net. You can also sign up for my emails, including about my sleep course 2.0, there on my website.