PAIN, Stillness, and Silence

As a birthworker, I see over and over again that some of the best ways to cope with the physical pain of birth is to connect movement and breath, to slow down the breath and move slowly, feeling one’s way into the sensations, rather than resisting them… using sound, whether external music or internal toning to bring comfort and resonance into the places that ache. I am often encouraging my clients to drop deeper into their bodies, make more sound, and move through the places that ache.

Last month, I spent eight days in silence in a meditation retreat. It was the hardest retreat I have ever done…partly because I wasn’t anticipating the teachings to be so deeply rooted in such Monastic Buddhism, which I found hard to wrap myself around in a coherent way that complemented the rest of my life. And partly because I had spent the previous several weeks tending to some persistent anxiety, and the quiet and stillness didn’t allow me to move and sound and write and sing…my usual means for moving through places where I tend to feel stuck, achey and stressed.

During the retreat, I began my moontime. As my blood came, with it came the usual painful cramping. Though I have healed SO much in the past years, I still struggle with the pain of endometriosis. But after all these years, I know how to tend to myself on these days; with heat and movement, sounding and herbs, laying in bed and letting myself exhale and unwind through the monthly surges. 

Well, I found myself invited into silence…and stillness. Silence and Stillness…and Upright for hours and hours.

At first, the “feminist”, the one who vows to always deeply listen to her body, in me retaliated. She wanted to leave and return to her bed and rest and give herself what her body needed. I could have easily done this. But instead I acknowledged her…and invited her to stay. There was something here for me. Pain, as always, my teacher. As I sat with my pain, with my body, with my impulses, in silence and stillness, I began to notice how rather than getting inside the pain and moving with it, I got to practice being with it more objectively and observing it. 

I began thinking about how some of the quickest and most GRACEFUL births I have seen are with mothers who labor quietly, who contract in the night, in the dark, turning inward, one breath at a time. Often care providers, including myself, are totally surprised when they suddenly start to push, without having roared or bellowed or made the usual sounds we associate with more active labor and transition.

So I gathered the Spirit of these mothers close. And I sat, on my tush, in silence, in stillness, and labored my way through my menses…with grace. And I was pretty blown away. I felt contained. I felt held. I felt capable in a way I haven't experienced before…capable of staying and rooting, of finding my way when all my usual tools are gone…all the things I usually think define me. 

Now, does that mean I will likely labor quietly and still while bringing a baby into the world? Definitely not. I am a loud, emotive, and highly expressive woman. Speaking, sounding, moving, and breathing are all essential tools to the ways I cope, heal, move, live, and love. However, I do hope to bring more moments of stillness and silence into my toolbox for moving through Pain…and LIFE.

Perhaps on this solstice, this time of gestation, of honoring the still, quiet darkness…there is an invitation to get curious about other ways of dealing with life, in all its pain and contractions, in all that we are called to deeply listen at this time. 

And sometimes practicing something new is all we need to show us that we can stop a pattern and break into a new way of seeing in the dark.

For inside the wisdom of Silence and Stillness, enormous GRACE is birthed.