By Lori Mork

10 years ago, I became a Yoga Instructor. I was blessed to train under some of the best gurus in the industry, and also attend and watch some of the most amazing classes to strengthen my own teaching practice. This story is one that I have taken with me in life, but it also pertains to the birthing space and the birthing person. It’s a story that I share with my clients and has become one of their most powerful tools in their birth.

Picture this. A hustling and bustling jam-packed downtown Vancouver Yoga studio. A room filled with 25 bodies at the prime dinner time spot of 6pm. Post busy workday, often this class had an aura of stress, heaviness and minds racing. 

Karen (the instructor and still someone I hold in such high regard for being for one the best yoga mentors I have had) sat in silence on her mat at the front of the room. Hitting her chime was often the way she started her classes. Gaining everyone’s busy minds and attention but it was this class she was just sitting. A rarity for the 6pm Power Vinyasa Class (this means strength, movement, flow, standing, building up heat, and intensity). She instead invited everyone to START the class in Savasana. AKA Corpse pose. Lying flat on your back on your mat, sinking deep into the ground, finding calm. 

She continued to speak softly and in a very quiet tone “This is YOUR PRACTICE. YOUR MAT. You are in YOUR SPACE – this is YOUR BODY, YOUR BREATH, YOUR CHOICE OF MOVEMENTS OR STILLNESS, AND YOUR CLASS.” “I invite you to listen to your body, your mind, your heart, and give it what it needs. At this moment, today.” “Block out the external noise around you. The thoughts, emotions, and pressures to DO or BE.” “On your mat you are in your BUBBLE, PROTECTED from all of the external NOISE.” “So, I invite you to use this practice for the next 90 minutes to give your body what IT NEEDS.” “As I invite you to progress into other poses, you might choose to stay in shavasana, or move freely and totally different from what I am instructing. Don’t fight this, instead give yourself permission to BE, to surrender to the sensations of WHAT YOU NEED!” 

I’m a visual person, ADHD, often distracted in Yoga (work in progress). So, as I looked around the room, I noticed one man that took Karen’s permission and instruction and went with it. He stayed in Corpse pose – THE WHOLE CLASS. 90 minutes. I watched his breath. He wasn’t sleeping. He was inward-focused. Doing what he needed today at that moment. I looked around the room (ADHD Lori again!) and noticed almost everyone doing very different movements. Letting their breath guide them in very different ways. Postures that looked very different from mat to mat. People that had taken Karen’s instructions for the day and each of them went so inwardly focused that they were truly in their own bubbles. Karen spoke very little in this class. Her movements were quiet, her instruction minimal. But everyone moved from pose to pose, in a way that worked and felt right for them. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t what they were being TOLD to do. Each person seemed to find their own inner guidance to move and BE. 

At the end of class as everyone packed up their mats and thanked Karen for an amazing class, the gentleman who didn’t move out of corpse pose came over to where Karen and I were standing and whispered quietly to Karen “Thank you. Today was a day like no other for me. I struggled to come to yoga. I sat in my car in tears before, and almost didn’t come. The thought of having to find strength in a Power class or even be in some routine of sequences overwhelmed me. I was struggling in mind and also body to even move. But I showed up. Your words gave me just what I needed. Permission to listen to my body and give it the gift of what it was asking for. Stillness. In your silence I was able to listen and actually hear the breath around me. Almost as if that breath was giving me lightness and healing energy. In that stillness and quiet I was able to send my own breath where it needed to go to heal my body. I was able to clear my thoughts and just be in this present moment in my own body.”

I told you in the beginning of this blog that this hasn’t left my mindset almost 10 years later. I use this in my practice of being a Birth Doula at every single birth. As a Doula I am not there to entertain you. I am not there to force you into positions, or tell you how or when to breathe, move or push. I am not there to keep your mind busy or distract you. 

As a Doula I am here to remind you to stay” protected in your bubble”, on your “yoga mat”.

To remind you that the tools you need to birth your baby are not in any tricks or methods, the tools aren’t what anyone else can provide you with.  

To birth your baby, you do not need anyone’s “help”. 

You merely need focus on what your body is telling you to do. To not just go inward, but to have outside energy that supports what YOU need to do. A room that you can pull energy from when or if needed, but not leave your MAT. Your body, your space inside. Listening to the cues of what your body needs in each moment, with each breath. 

Not worrying about anything or anyone else around you. Distractions or outside noise kept to a minimum…. I am here as your Doula to PROTECT YOUR SPACE FOR YOU! To shield you from anyone thinking they should come in and “help or fix you”. 

To keep those away who doubt your ability to birth your baby. 

To keep the air and energy around you only with that of complete trust in your own ability to know what to do.

To say very little, to do very little. 

YOUR BODY, YOUR BABY, YOUR BIRTH, YOUR BUBBLE! I invite you to learn this tool in pregnancy and bring it with you in full force during and post delivering your amazing baby. 

It’s YOUR YOGA MAT, the birth space. No one needs to come on to the mat. No one needs to tell you which poses to come in and out of, or how to breathe. 

During birth you can JUST BE and let yourself do what YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO DO. 

Happy Birthing!

Lori