Becoming quiet, going within, eliciting the relaxation response, and accessing inner peace is even more crucial during these stressful times we are in. Multiple studies have the benefits of meditation and the relaxation response. This response reduces the impacts of stress and inflammation within the body, and reducing stress is one of the recommended actions to take to help strengthen your immune system.

In this special replay episode, Michelle has created this guided imagery meditation to help you mitigate the stress and fatigue that most all of us are under, reconnect with your own inner wisdom, and return to love. This meditation is more spiritual than religious in nature. In order to help each person listening find space for their own belief structure as it relates to their personal relationship with their higher power, Michelle refers to the Divine as God, as Creator of All That Is, as Source… What is comforting to one, may not be for another. Michelle encourages you to please use the name for God or Creator that resonates for you while listening to the meditation.

“There is a part of you that is your inner knowing, your own inner wisdom. This wisdom comes from the Creator and has been within you always. Often we forget to listen to it, or even how to listen to it. The beauty is you can remember how to listen. You can learn to trust yourself once again. One way to do that is to go within… relaxing the body… quieting the mind…. The mind doesn’t have to be perfectly still, it is simply listening for the voice that speaks to you with compassion, with love instead of fear or consternation or judgment… You can find that compassionate voice, you can remember the love that is there for you,  and you can return to who you really are.” —Michelle Smith

As a gentle reminder, this guided relaxation recording audio is for just that, relaxation purposes only. It does not constitute medical or mental health advice or treatment, nor does it imply a specific outcome during pregnancy, birth, postpartum, or beyond. Please avoid listening to this guided meditation while engaging in an activity that requires your full attention. Please stop the podcast and return to it when you can be safely seated or reclining in a supported position. Unless you are the passenger listening to this guided meditation with headphones on, for everyone’s safety never listen to it while driving or riding in a vehicle.

Having a student doula that is completing their required number of births for certification can be a great option for families looking for additional education and support that doulas bring to expecting families. However, Michelle cautions parents against paying a student doula for their certifying births—especially if they have little to no experience attending births or caring for postpartum families—at the same rate as a seasoned certified doula.

"A certifying doula has much to learn about birth itself; supporting families; advocating; attending births in different settings: hospitals, birth center, or home;  navigating horizontal violence; disparities and inequities in birth; secondary posttraumatic stress; pregnancy and infant loss; postpartum mood disorders; and doing their own self-work. It just isn't as easy as, 'Hey, I did my doula training, and even though I have attended 0, 1, 2, 3 births'... They can't bring the same value as someone that has been in this profession consistently and actively attending births or supporting families postpartum for 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years. It just isn't possible."—Michelle Smith

Michelle chats with Gina Alemán about being a doula, providing postpartum support and education to new families, and the Dancing For Birth program. Together, they discuss the benefits of movement and dance for pregnancy, birth, postpartum, babies, and healing trauma. Gina shares how Dancing For Birth helps birth partners to feel better equipped for labor, as well. 

"A big part of the time that I spend with the participants and my clients in these classes, the Dancing For Birth classes, is 'How can you reconnect to your instincts and how can you awaken your instincts?'... You start to be more connected to your body. You start to understand what feels good and what does not. And, you start to understand that you can trust your body."— Gina Alemán

Michelle discusses how she has observed that the hormonal surges in pregnancy can impact a pregnant person’s emotional state at pivotal points in pregnancy, especially at 35-36 weeks. 

"And part of this phenomenon too, instead of it being a physical nesting, it is a more mental-emotional nesting. And so, part of that overwhelm can also be how am I going to balance going back to work and having a new baby? How am I going to balance caring for 2 children or 3 children? And it's like everything hits." —Michelle

Michelle shares encouraging positive affirmations for parenthood that begin with focusing upon your breath and connecting heart to heart with your child.

Juliet Michaels shares insights with Michelle into the multiple advantages that chiropractic care brings to babies and their mothers during pregnancy, labor, and the postpartum year. Juliet explains how gentle the chiropractic adjustments are for expecting mothers, babies, and children and how this care differs from that a non-pregnant adult would receive. Juliet provides guidance regarding signs to look for in your newborn that signal that your baby, and you, would benefit from chiropractic care.

Amy Gendron. AP shares with Michelle the ways in which Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture support families during postpartum recovery. Amy explains the vital importance of nutrition to nourish, support, and rebuild the body after birth and the role placenta encapsulation can play in that. Together they stress cultivating community and putting a plan in place to receive non-judgemental help and support after the baby is born.

Michelle talks with Amy Gendron about the incredible advantages Oriental medicine can provide throughout a woman's lifetime. Oriental medicine's very tenet it seeks to maintain health and treat the whole person versus focusing on just a set of symptoms. Michelle and Amy discuss the ways that Oriental medicine is a powerful adjunct to a woman and her partner when they are ready to conceive a child, throughout each trimester of pregnancy, during labor, postpartum, and beyond. Amy explains how acupuncture can help bring a woman into balance by addressing blood quality, stress levels, and stimulating the immune system. Stress is a major contributor to pregnancy complications. Oriental medicine helps mitigate pregnancy symptoms and ease the transition into motherhood. It supports the recovery and replenishment of a woman in all aspects from the many depleting factors of pregnancy and birth.

April Dawn shares with Michelle the benefits of bodywork: massage, reflexology, acupressure, healing touch for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Their conversation explores the ways that our body stores memory and emotion within our very cells and how trauma can be released through bodywork. April also shares the powerful stories that brought her to birthwork. Together they discuss the selfless gift that adoption brings to families.

Michelle has a conversation with Stephanie Smith, E-RYT, PRYT regarding the benefits of yoga for pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and beyond. Stephanie explains how yoga not only prepares the physical body for the stress and rigors of birth but the emotional body as well. She explains the connection between our breath and the reduction of the flight/flight stress response. Stephanie shares how her yoga practice helped her to set healthy boundaries with others during her pregnancy and keep a sense of ease and calm when her plans for her daughter’s birth did not go as she had envisioned. Together, they discuss how yoga can prepare, protect, and enhance the healing of our pelvic floor during the childbearing year. Stephanie also shares the benefits of a Yoga Nidra practice, which is especially vital after the baby’s birth as it invokes the relaxation response and turns on the parasympathetic nervous system—the rest and restore part of our nervous system.