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The Yoga of Pregnancy & Childbirth: Strength and Surrender
Yoga during pregnancy is an opportunity to listen deeply to our body, our feelings, our intuition, our growing baby, our deepest self. By listening we deeply nourish our babies and ourselves and connect with a deep birthing wisdom. Yoga and meditation encourage us to go deep within to a deep source of stillness. This deep well of silence underlies all other experience and guides us throughout pregnancy and as we give birth.
Yoga provides a deeply experiential and integrated approach with practical tools for preparing the body and the mind for giving birth. Physically, yoga postures help to develop the strength, flexibility and stamina needed for giving birth. Yoga movement encourages the flow of prana/energy in to help the body adjust to the enormous physical, emotional and hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy. Breathing practices prepare women to use the breath as a rope to hang on to throughout labour. Following the breath leads women to a deep state of meditation.
Many natural birth writers describe the central importance of an altered state of consciousness, the birthing trance or, in yoga terms, meditation. This natural, deeply meditative state greatly enhances the birthing process in many ways. A finely-tuned balance of hormones is released that orchestrates the birthing process. Women are deeply relaxed and receptive and able to accept the birthing process, not resist it. Through acceptance women can let go of thoughts and fears and give themselves over to their bodies that know what to do, to their breath and to a deep stillness within. Meditation is an active process of surrender: not as in giving up but as giving over to something more vast than our selves. Meditation practice helps women birth from a place of trust, safety and even exhilaration and joy.
The most precious gift that yoga and meditation offers to pregnant women is a way to strengthen the spirit. When our body, mind and heart are challenged - beyond what we ever imagined - by the intensity of childbirth, it is our strength of spirit that is our most precious resource. Yoga helps us to fully embrace the intensity of life, right here and now, not only in childbirth but also in all aspects of life. This embracing of life, is meditation in action.
"Life comes through us, simply and gracefully, when
we allow it."
Sarah Buckley
About the Pre-Natal Classes
Pre-natal classes with Anahata include: dynamic flowing movement and postures; pelvic floor exercises; breathing; yoga nidra; sound practices and meditation. The classes are a blend of active movement and subtle internal practices. Women are gently challenged to be as active as they can be, with practices modified to suit all levels of experience and all stages of pregnancy.
The classes are run as a 10 Week Course so that practices can be explored systematically and so that a more personalised approach can be offered. Themes based on the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and space are used to encourage a holistic preparation for birth. Earth gives us grounding and centredness, water the ability to go with the flow, fire our power and capacity to embrace intensity, air the profound tool of the breath, and space is explored as meditative awareness.
Anahata has a deeply inspiring and supportive approach. Her own experience of giving birth naturally has given her a passion to help other women find their own source of strength and surrender to give birth naturally.
Jeannine Parvati Baker
Timetable & Calendar for Pre-natal Yoga Clases
Saturday 9.00-10.30am |
Prana House Level 1/885 High Street, Thornbury
|
| Saturday 11.45-1.15pm |
The Gertrude Street Yoga Studio 202 Gertrude Street Fitzroy |
Booking is essential and early bookings are reccommended as these courses usually book out.
The Prana House class can only be attended in 10 week blocks and can only be started at the beginning of each term. The next course begins Saturday 1 May 2010. Please book on number above.
The Gertrude Street class can be attended in 10 week
or 5 week blocks and women can begin any week - dependent on availability
so please ring to check if there is space, on the number above. Women
in the last 6 weeks of pregnancy can pay casually by individual class.
Workshop Calendar for 2010:
The Yoga of BirthWorkshop: Part 1
The Yoga of Birth Workshop: Part 2
Sundays 2.30-6.00pm
Dates for 2010:
These workshops are not currently being run - please email your interest.
Phone Anahata on 0410 950 606 or email: anahata_love@yahoo.com.au
You have to protect it...
Your most precious birthright,
YOur greatest treasure:
A fully conscious, enlightened [birth]"
Frederick Leboyer
Individual Yoga Programs
Pregnancy is an ideal time to begin or renew a yoga practice at home, as women can intuitively adapt their practice to meet changing needs. Personalized yoga programs are designed to meet individual needs for specific physical conditions, for working with fears and emotional issues and for spiritual deepening. Programs can also be designed for women who are very experienced with yoga and would like to work more deeply during their pregnancy.
The process to design an individual program involves an initial short phone consultation, then a 2 hour one-to-one yoga session to explain and fine-tune the program and then the program is written up fully. I am then happy to answer any follow-up question about the program. I can meet with women in their homes or at a yoga studio.
Cost: $120
This includes: initial phone consultation; 2 hour one-to-one session;
written program and follow-up questions.
"Respect this sacred moment of birth..
This birth, this wave parted from wave,
born from the sea
without ever leaving her."
Frederick Leboyer
The Yoga of Birth Workshops
The Yoga of Birth Workshops are designed to support, inform, empower and inspire women in their choice to have a natural birth. The workshops are unique as they offer a profound and practical approach to birth using the simple yet effective tools of yoga and meditation.
The workshops are offered in two parts which can be taken seperately or together. Part 1 focuses on how best to prepare for birth and is reccommended to be attended early in your pregnancy to allow time to put in place your preparation for the birth - but it can also be taken later. Part 2 is a more experiential exploration of birth and yoga for women in the last trimester of their pregnancy.
Part 1: The Yoga of Birth Workshop: Preparation
This workshop will focus on how best to prepare for a natural birth during your pregnancy. It is a thorough exploration of the physical, mental and emotional preparation needed before the birth date, to feel confident and calm when it is time to give birth.
The workshop will:
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Inform women about our current birthing culture and how best to achieve a natural and empowered birth This includes an exploration of a natural birthing approach to birth and how to apply this whether you choose to have your baby at home, at a birthing centre or in hospital.
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Share information and resources to assist women to find the right support team for the birth.
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Give a practical approach to embracing the intensity, the pain and the power of birth.
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Explore yoga postures, movement, breathing, pelvic floor exercises and meditation to build stamina, strength, flexibility and inner stillness. Includes sequences and practices for a home practice.
- Explore positive and inspiring
ways to prepare emotionally for birth, including a deep guided meditation
exploring fears around birth and deepening your trust in the birthing
process.
The workshop includes detailed handouts and sumptuous afternoon tea.
When: Sunday 2.30-6.00pm
Dates for 2010: These workshops are not currently being run
- please email your interest.
Where: The Gertrude St Yoga Studio, 202 Gertrude St Fitzroy
3065
Cost: $70 (or $120 for two workshops)
Bring: Wear comfy clothing and bring notebook for
notes.
Bookings essential: To book please phone Anahata on (03) 9383 5963 or email: anahata_love@yahoo.com.au
Part 2: The Yoga of Birth Workshop: Strength & Surrender
A powerful and inspiring workshop designed for women in the third trimester. This workshop will be a more detailed and deeply experiential look at how to use the tools of yoga and meditation during birth. We will create an inspiring vision for a natural, empowered and calm birth and will explore practical tools from yoga to achieve that vision.The workshop will:
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Explore how to use the four tools of movement, breath, sound and awareness, in birth. This will be deeply experiential, practising yoga postures, sequences, breathing, sound practices and meditation using birth as a theme throughout.
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Share information about the stages of labour and birth and how yoga and meditation help women in each stage to have a natural and empowered birth.
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Explore meditation as a deep acceptance and embrace of life and of birth, just as it is in this moment. Women giving birth naturally go into a natural state of deep meditation where however intense the moment becomes, they remain anchored in inner stillness. Develop the inner strength and inner resources through meditation to embrace the pain and intensity of birth.
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Help women prepare emotionally in these last weeks before the birth. This will include a long guided meditation imagining a natural, empowered and joyful birth - a very positive and powerful practice just before birth!
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Generate positive birthing energy with uplifting words, images and birthing stories to inspire women to give birth with confidence.
-
Includes handouts and sumptuous afternoon tea.
When: Sunday 2.30-6.00pm
Dates for 2010: These workshops are not currently being run
- please email your interest.
Where: The Gertrude St Yoga Studio,
202 Gertrude St Fitzroy
Cost: $70 (or $120 for two workshops)
Bring: Wear comfy clothing and bring an object that
is special to you (anything at all) that you would like to have at the
birth for inspiration, to place in the centre of our workshop circle.
Bookings essential: To book please phone Anahata on 9383 5963 or email: anahata_love@yahoo.com.au