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Second birth - first birthing experience

My second pregnancy has been quite different from my first one - both in the way it felt and the way I could acknowledge it, given that I have a toddler at home, keeping me busy. Yet, having been through it all once before, I was naturally more relaxed and didn’t worry as much (at least once the critical first few months had passed).

But one thing I knew immediately after my first birth (by cesarean)- if I ever have a child again, I’d love to deliver naturally.

Now, as the pregnancy progressed and I started thinking about birth again, I knew I wouldn’t make the same mistake of being too set on one way of delivering. I needed to accept whatever the baby chose to do and it would be alright, no matter what. Yet I became more and more anxious and impatient as my due date approached and passed, the days went by and felt reminded of what had happened with my first child, particularly when we started talking about an induction at the hospital.

I was glad, they had to start the process differently, applying a gel instead of giving me tablets this time because I had previously had a c-sectiion. Having to stay glued to the CTG for 2 hours after the gel was applied, I couldn’t help it and felt a deja-vu. But all the more surprising that around 1.45 PM while listening to the endless sounds of the CTG, I felt a little plop and it seemed that my water broke! I tried to remain calm but this was a good sign and meant that my body was ready. I could literally feel the more amniotic fluid I lost, the more contractions I got. Since I felt very hungry we made sure to catch lunch even though hospital food is always a little difficult to enjoy but they offered a vegetarian meal at least. Afterwards we got pizza for the hubs and a latte for me at the hospital cafeteria. At around 3pm there was a Spanish speaking lady at the table next to us laboring heavily, getting up every few minutes and clinging to her partners’ arms. I watched her thinking, hmm is this you in a few hours? But already at this early stage I could feel that you really have no say in this - your body takes over and you just go with the flow because there is no other way... It’s really fascinating...

About an hour later we found ourselves back at the delivery station with fairly heavy contractions and they started writing another CTG- I wanted to scream - stop these machines but somehow I needed to save my energy and focus on going through the waves that were starting to shake my entire body. 

While breathing and visualization techniques really helped at the beginning and I could breathe through the intensity I started seeing that I could not do much when the real heavy hitters came in. I barely felt like I could catch my breath and only focused on gathering my strength in between contractions to get through them. What a great relief when the midwife told me I was 8 cm diluted already - my biggest worry was that the contractions hadn’t been effective. 

And it seemed that my baby’s heartbeat was shaken with every contraction too, so again, a bit of a deja-vu (as this was what led to the c-section with my firstborn) but fortunately the process had gone further this time and the stress on the baby wasn’t as bad so they brought us to another room around 7pm for the actual delivery. By this time I felt like I was in a tunnel or a trance like state and was running on auto pilot. Someone told me it’s like a tractor driving through your body and while it may feel like that at times, to me it felt a lot more layered and coordinated. It was a very humbling and powerful experience when this primal force just took over and pressed the baby through the birth canal. You feel like there is so much more out there than we usually notice. 

I could feel the head coming very early on but it took many, many contractions (each and every time you think, this must be the last one), lots of screaming (I had no idea I could scream like this - almost wish we had recorded some of it) and later on rather than channeling the energy into screaming, pressing with all my strength, everything I had in me, to finally have the baby crown... 

A doctor came in, the midwife jumped in and out of the room, I really didn’t care, you just pull together everything you have in you and try to push this baby out. While I was standing up most of the time, my legs were so shaky towards the end that they gave me one of these birthing chairs towards the end. 

The last contraction felt like I was going to burst but finally there he was - what an amazing feeling to have the baby earthside, complete exhaustion combined with exhilaration and the best was that he could snuggle up with me right away. They let the umbellical chord pulsate and we could simply be together. Bliss in the middle of the hospital environment- a very different experience from what we had 2.5 years ago. We could see the placenta and even though stiching me up took forever, I felt at peace with how this little man got to see us for the first time. He started nursing right away and has been very good at it ever since. 

Don’t get me wrong, a c-section is a great invention when it is really necessary and can definitely save lives but for me, I felt like this was a much more engaging experience that helped me gain confidence in my strength as a woman again. Birthing is powerful and I do believe that the narrative around it in our society can be misleading and only increases the fear and anxiety that women tend to feel. Every woman I have spoken to remembers these intense moments so well, even if they happened 60 years ago - birthing is one of moments in which we are the most alive, so let’s cherish that!

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Yin Yoga: a life saver during pregnancy

My second pregnancy has been very different from my first one where I felt really, really energized up to the very end of the third trimester. Really, the tiredness and exhaustion only kicked in when I went past my due date then. And here I was taking things for granted, assuming that it would be the same way the second time around.

But I had to learn that things can be very different: the first trimester was extremely difficult for me and I really felt the hormonal shift more than I remembered. Mood swings, nausea, exhaustion, feeling depleted, frustrated with the changes in my body - you name it - in short, I was really struggling. What made matters more complicated was that my doctor told me that thing may not go smoothly, so given my previous experiences, I was very concerned. But fortunately things became better towards the second trimester and yoga has certainly played a huge part in this. While I mainly focused on meditation and some easy kundalini kriyas during the first trimester (the only thing that kept me half way sane), yin yoga became a life saver for me over the past few weeks. 

It may well have to do with having to keep up with a -two-year-old toddler at the same time as being pregnant but I have to find ways to combat fatigue and yin has proved to be the best way for this! For those of you who are not familiar with it: yin yoga is basically a very slow, deliberate form of yoga in which you don’t do any super active poses but rather get into the asana slowly and then deepen their effect through long holds, sometimes 5-10 minutes. I have been intrigued by this style for quite some time and when I got pregnant, I started reading up on it. 

So what happens during pregnancy is that the hormones (first and foremost relaxin) increase your flexibility and this is where we should be careful: as we are so used to yang styles of yoga that we tend to overexert ourselves even in yin yoga. This is where my internal works starts: allowing yourself to acknowledge that there are limitations that we need to respect and at times taking a step back and not going as far as we might think we could normally do.

I can only recommend any pregnant goddess trying this style of yoga - you won’t regret it! And do combine it with yoga nidra which by the way is supposed to replace deep sleep (my teacher told me 20 minutes of this type of relaxation can help you catch up on 3 hours of deep sleep).

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One night - three yoga studios, a great experience

As I mentioned before I really like the concept of the long night of yoga and have supported the project since it was initiated a few years ago. I think it's a great opportunity to venture out and explore new studios and areas of the city that you don't usually get to. Yet, having so many options of different classes can be challenging too as you really have no way of getting to them all. That's why my friend and I decided to stick to three studios and make sure we still have downtime in between the classes. The first studio we went to at 5pm was Amienias Werkstatt in Müllerstrasse, in Glockenbach. The studio is slightly hidden in the back but thankfully they had put up a sign on the street. It was very crowded and seemed like every spot was taken for Budokon yoga with Kathrin. I liked the feeling of the studio, a little bit of shabby Charme but also nicely arranged with lovely changing rooms and bathrooms (didn't see any showers though) and the class was really intriguing. Budokon is a hybrid of vinyasa yoga and martial arts but the teaser that she gave us was mainly introducing some basics which basically boil down to a very slow type of vinyasa where every movement is very deliberate and mindful- something we should all try following in our practice. As you might know from experience, the slower you do your sun salutations, the harder and more sweaty they get, so we got a goof work out in and would be interested in seeing more of this new trend in the future. Our next stop was yoga garden, a mainly English speaking studio in Rumfordstrasse, not far from Gärtnerplatz. We were really impressed by the nice location - a lush green patio in the middle of the city and it even featured a swing - what a cool place to chill before or after class. A Canadian lady, the owner of the place greeted us warmly and told us a bit about the kids and family yoga they offer- I decided I have to bring my little son here! The class we came for was called iyengar yoga but we were in for a surprise: it took some time until the teacher arrived and the class was very different from all other classes I had taken before. At times it felt messy, funny but also really engaging- certainly not very 'iyengarish' but who cares - she had us fly and laugh so I enjoyed myself! Her style is called cosmic yoga - she used beautiful kundalini music by the way and you could tell that she has quite some experience, having studied and taught in India. After this interesting class we decided to take a break, get a drink at gärtnerplatz and decide about our next move. I had been very curious about this studio called santosha in Giesing but it's always been too much of a hike. So we decided to hop on the subway and join their yin yoga and meditation offering as a nice cool down for the evening. At santosha you could sense that the owner and the teachers really love what they are doing and there was a lot of attention to detail. I loved the lamps which were radiating sunshine even as it was getting dark outside and although the yin class only lasted 45 minutes, it really helped me let go and recharge as promised! I was ready for bed by the end of that class but since we were there already we decided, it would be too bad to miss her guided pranayam and meditation practice to conclude the yoga evening. And it was a good decision to stay- a wonderfully grounding, calming class. Just thinking of it now makes me really relaxed and blissfully ready for bed. Santosha is certainly worth the trip and since she was so sweet to invite us for another trial class, we'll surely return soon. Sat nam and namaste - thanks for a great experience and new yoga inspiration. Never stop exploring 😇🙏🏼🙋🏼👳🏻‍♀️

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#yoganacht #munich #greatexperience #yogallnight #grateful

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Train Art 🎨

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Ridding ourselves of our armor

Getting inspired by Max strom's 'a life worth breathing' here. And interestingly enough it ties in exactly with what we were talking about this morning! We would like to create a women's network that helps tearing down these artificial walls separating the wealthy from the poor, the fashionable from the hippies or the working mums from stay home mums. Stay tuned for more on this. Basically it's about leaving our shell by shedding your fears and becoming emotionally available. We all learn to protect ourselves from negative emotions throughout our lives by simply stopping to feel too much, we become less and less attuned to our hearts and follow our minds and the notion that our brains will know what's right for us. But if we decide to dare to be more open to following our intuition, we realize that things may fall into place and we feel more at ease. Yet, even though I personally have experienced this on multiple occasions, it is still very difficult for me to simply follow the flow and stop resisting by involving my head. A recent development is causing me to question this flow and what the universe is trying to tell me. But deep down I know if only I learned to listen more closely, it would start to make sense. So what I'm focusing on is embracing the uncertainty and letting nature unfold on its path. We can learn so much about this 'being in the moment' from our kids. After daycare my son tends to get completely excited about playing in the woods with the other toddlers and they simply can't imagine that there is anything in this world that could be better than this particular moment! Precious! When finally getting him on the subway, he loves smiling at everyone sitting close by and starts chatting with them, no matter what color, style of clothes or age they might be- I treasure this time as you usually never have such easy access to people and it's just amazing to see how their mood lightens up and they can't stop themselves from smiling ;-) so this is what max Strom means when he says, shine from the inside and your light will be recognized...so pure and raw, makes me tear up when thinking about it.

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Night of Yoga 2017

I have been following this project ever since it started two years ago. I was pretty pregnant then and picked more quiet, meditative classes so I look forward to trying some different ones this time. I actually planned on teaching 108 sun salutations last year but then we double booked the weekend and ended up being out of town.

It’s such a fun idea that speaks very much to the way I look at yoga: there is so much out there and I’d like to try it all! No, seriously, a friend and I have been doing some ‘yoga hopping’ over the past year and we have found some amazing classes and wonderful teachers of all kinds of yoga styles here in Munich. So while we are engaging in some version of yoga night every week, this event is great because it aims at precisely that: trying out different studios and teachers and finding some new inspiration. 

And the best is: in the spirit of yoga it does not happen for profit but rather the organisers use the revenues to sponsor yoga for less privileged groups such as yoga in prison, yoga for refugees, yoga for people with eating disorders etc. Let’s face it not everyone can afford a yoga class even if 15-18 Euros does not sound a lot to many of us, it is a lot of money for most.

I’m very pleased to hear it has been growing exponentially and that there are a lot of new cities taking part this year. It always takes place the Saturday after the summer solstice which is June 24 this year. Check it out and see how many different studios are participating. I will make sure to get my ticket starting in Mid-May (I believe it’s the bio supermarket vollcorner that sells them) and then take some time to figure out a plan what I’d like to attend - obviously it’s tempting to try as many places as possible but for a good, rewarding experience, I’ll stick to 2-3 at most. Probably those I have been curious to see anyway. Will make sure to keep you posted.

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Getting there - still have moments where my ego mind takes over and I want to know...

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So what’s the deal with the hips?

Coming from a very hip opening focused yoga class, I have been thinking about the releasing effect and how a lot of our old emotions are stored in the hip area. So why is that? Just read an interesting article explaining that we tend to curl up into fetal pose when something challenging happens, drawing in the knees seems to be something we naturally do to protect ourselves from outside influences. And similarly, when we are stressed out we tend to grind our teeth or clench the jaws so releasing the jaw is in many ways related to releasing the hip area. 

So because we accumulate negative emotions in our hips, they get tighter and tighter and releasing them becomes harder. So not a big surprise that students often have to start crying or feel deeply affected by a hip-focused class. So intriguing how body and mind are so closely linked but we seem to have forgotten all about it.

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The White Tantra and other shenanigans in Rome

 I'm still trying to sort my thoughts so bear with me. This weekend was the first one I spent without my son! And I have to admit it was a bigger deal for me than for him. He went away to see the grandparents with his dad and had a blast. I went to Rome to meet a friend and go to the white tantra with her. We stayed at the Villa Matissa in Trastevere and it was a perfect choice. The hotel/guesthouse has a bit of a family vibe to it and in contrast to some of the Romans you meet (particularly in restaurants etc.) was very nice and made sure he could accommodate our needs, spoke good English and just generally made you feel at home. The best thing about the place is their backyard that features a big garden including a fountain with fish and even a vegetable garden, right in the middle of the city. What a luxury! We got to enjoy breakfast outside in the sun and have a view of the most beautiful flowers in spring time. But back at to the event we came for: the white tantra has nothing to do with what a lot of people associate with tantra, meaning it's not sexual at all. It's basically a full day meditation workshop during which you are supposed to clear out all the subconscious garbage you have collected. The way this is done is through different kriyas that you do while sitting right across from your partner and sometimes together with your partner. Yogi Bhajan started this type of workshop and it is held every few weeks at a different location across the globe. Since he passed away a few years ago, they show his instructions via a video and have one of his students as the facilitator. It is held in English but there are local translations so it was also an opportunity to hear some Italian, what a beautiful language! And the people were great too- there were quite a few yogi smokers and everyone was having espresso during the breaks 😅👳🏼‍♀️ No, seriously they were friendly even though many of them did not speak English whatsoever. Very different from some of the rude service you encounter when roaming Rome as a tourist. We started by singing guru ram das with live guitar support- a nice way to ease into this event. Now as for the kriyas, I believe the way it works is that they pick different ones for every event and we were lucky this time. There was only one kriya that lasted 62 minutes and that was the last one, a yoga nidra- inspired type of chanting while lying down. The biggest challenge was to find the space to lie down because the room was so packed... Let me start in the morning- we had to be there at 7 am for registration and of course, the Italians only started showing up later - we didn't start as 8 as planned either but I guess Italian yogis are just Italians, too. We started with ang sang wahe guru, first 31 minutes silently listening to the mantra and then after a break, the same mantra again but including the chanting and a different mudra. I felt the power of the mantra and realized that it really helps and the time passed so much more quickly as we were chanting. It did get very loud in the room when everyone was chanting loudly but there was also a great energy to be felt. The third kriya featured a mudra that was kind of challenging to me- focusing on the tip of your nose and then holding your pointer fingers right at the point where your eyes only focus on them, I felt like I was going to be cross eyed or glancing over and got a bit of a headache during those 31 minutes. So I was relieved when we broke for lunch 🍴. Lunch was interesting and probably a little unusual for the hotel kitchen. It was mainly raw but also cooked vegetables, some rice, some soup and some bread as well as lots of fruits. But it wouldn't be Italy if there wasn't some pizza 🍕 to be found as well. I enjoyed that! The baked apple without any sauce or dressing was also a different kind of culinary experience... After lunch everyone felt a bit sluggish and I was afraid of a very challenging kriya to keep us awake and sure enough they had something interesting in store for us: a partner kriya where we interlocked our arms and that way supported each other. We were chanting har, har gobinde, har, har mukande and it was very intense but also fun as we had to keep the eyes open and many of us kept laughing because we kept messing up on the lyrics. After some minutes everyone heard a lady scream and cry very, very loudly and she was close to me so I couldn't help but observe the facilitators huddle up to discuss but I guess they decided to let her cry it out. Seems like there were some powerful things happening to her... it scared me a bit but overall the experience and especially this kriya was very soothing and positive for me. I felt truly supported and could send my friend some good vibes. I would even say I recognized myself in her or rather could see some of her views and experiences much more clearly. The second last kriya was also great, because we got to sit back to back with our partners, something we should do more often, resting your spine against the other person's spine really helps in supporting each other, especially after 7 hours of sitting on the floor in easy pose (something even the most ambitious yogis find difficult)... we chanted the same mantra and after 31 minutes you kind of got the hang of it. While my expectation had been to get more physically challenging kriyas, these were mentally challenging and 31 minutes can seem extremely long while you are in it but looking back, it was a pleasant experience and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to try something different and work on clearing some of the clutter that we accumulate through every day life. I feel much clearer and think that I am more firm on some of the choices I have made for my life. I realized for instance that traveling is still a lot of fun and I enjoy exploring other places but I am also super excited to be heading home and seeing and hugging my little man and his dad, even if they might be asleep once I get there.

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Life is so colorful 🤗

In living color

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How to be a yogi but still give a shit

Even though I was not quite sure about it, I went ahead and downloaded the book 'The Universe has your back' by Gabriele Bernstein last week. 

Even though she sometimes may come across like a little much, something intrigued me about this spirit junkie as she calls herself and now that listened to the entire book, I am glad I picked it up. 

She's very honest about her experiences and I have been drawn to it because she is using all kinds of Kundalini meditations. Yet, I would not have said I'm blown away by her insights. It's all been kind of obvious. Nobody said it was easy but I just haven't seen the revolutionary nature in any of it. Until I got to the part of how to deal with what's going on around you. A lot of yogis and spiritual gurus I have seen tend to withdraw from their surroundings and mainly focus on their journey inwards. And I'm sure there are good reasons for that. First of all there is so much negativity out there that it can be overwhelming and secondly it seems unrealistic to simply change people's attitudes by saying, come from a loving place...

So what I really like about Gabriele is that she doesn't say she's got the solution here but basically admits that we have to work with our fears. It's the first step to acknowledge them and identify what triggers us and why. She uses gun violence as her personal example. Her advice is to honor anger and outrage and use the reasons as your very own teachers (very much like people that don't agree with you or that you seem to have an issue with for whatever reason) but then as quickly as possible come back to a place of love and serenity. 

What a beautiful thought - I have been trying to apply these principles and while I wouldn't say they always work, it's certainly starting to have an effect on me. A deeply positive one! More to come. 

For the time being, I am super excited about attending the white tantra event in Rome this weekend. Sightly scared too, as with everything we have never done before, but very anxious to see what it's like and what effect it will have on me.

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My current 90 day meditation practice

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Keep up and you will be kept up!

Yogi Bhajan

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Stop comparing!

Lately I have found myself struggling and I guess after the first excitement of being back in the job has worn off, this is what was bound to happen. Don’t get me wrong, I continue to enjoy what I do but it’s more the fact that I feel like there is never enough time and I am not devoting enough time to what I enjoy the most: being with my family, quality time with my partner, yoga and meditation but also blogging (i.e. trying to change that as I’m writing this) and having conversations with friends. My good friend sent me a card for my birthday that inspired me to write this, see picture below.

Why is putting yourself first so difficult? It’s all about prioritization, I know that, but really putting yourself first is a hard thing to do, as paradoxical as it sounds but we fall into habits of wasting time on things that may not be beneficial to us, e.g. the other day I got stuck on this website profiling ‘successful’ mothers all of which have a great career, kids and wonderful family lives. The intention of the website is great, showing some positive role models, giving others inspiration and simply sharing insights, maybe some tips and tricks. Yet, it was probably the mood that I was in - my inner voice kept telling me: look, all these women are doing great and they are working full-time, they have two kids or more and some of them even live in another country where things work quite differently. But instead of simply appreciating what they do, my mind started comparing and constantly telling myself, oh you are just not trying hard enough, you need to do better. Fortunately, thanks to my yoga training, I observed this tendency and forced myself to stop. But how do you stop these kind of negative thoughts that are putting yourself down? It’s certainly not easy and takes a lot of practice. My meditation practice helps a lot with that as it gives me the space to focus on redirecting my thoughts and trying to let go. I also think that dynamic movement and breath are good catalysts for these kind of feelings.  At the same time, it may be worth listing the things you do, the people you surround yourself with and consider how much energy you are getting from them? We do have a choice here.

So how do we decide what is really good for us? I believe our intuition tells us and we have to unlearn to suppress our feelings. Unfortunately a lot of times we learn to just 'suck it up and go with it’ and I’m not saying this kind if attitude does not have its merits but too often we end up doing things with a stomach ache, we are continuously stressed and worry too much. Last night, teaching my yoga class I could really sense how stressed some of the students were and my intuition told me to change up the class a little to make sure we could let go of some of these feelings that don’t serve us. After class, when I got home, I realized that I hadn’t felt this happy in a while, so again, I am just so glad to have the tools to hand to balance all the rest, it’s simply about making room in our lives to use them!

Off to my mat - sat nam!

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Mummy musings

Balance - finding balance between effort and ease, between job and family, work and play, stress and fun, food and drink, coffee and tea, veggies and chocolate, Social Media and meditation, time and money, sickness and health.

Juggling so many things is quite an undertaking and the more I speak to other mums the clearer it becomes to me: most of us are struggling and we need more community. I am a strong believer in community and supporting each other along the way. There are many reasons why the sense of community is something that we are missing in our daily lives: big cities fostering anonymity, extended families are often far away, demanding jobs stretch us in all directions, increased digitalization has estranged us from face to face interaction... So what's the solution to the demands of this day and age? As always there is no silver bullet but only an approximation of where we could be heading, how we could try to make up for some of the things we are currently lacking. I guess many of us have come across a very intriguing but also very apparent scientific study that found that the root of our happiness lies in fulfilling relationships. And I'm not just referring to romantic relationships. See more  What is intriguing but also scary is the fact that the relationships we have with our parents very early on in our childhood, seem to matter so much, it's not even funny. Soooo, no pressure there, to use some yoga language here - 'adding on'...

Given that we have such a huge responsibility as parents, it's all the more important that we support each other and help each other out in times of need (for instance when our children or we ourselves fall sick or we have an urgent commitment at work). I know there are online and offline support groups but I'd like to find a way of bringing them together. What do you think? Is that a thought that has potential or is it something we should have started in 1999 and we're way passed that by now? In my opinion a closely knit local network could address some of the biggest challenges we face: emergency daycare and parents AA-type support/exchange on problems we are experiencing every day. Topics could range from breast feeding support to how to handle potty training for a 2-year-old, finding your true north as a mum (or a dad for that matter), find daycare/babysitters etc. etc.

At the same time, the one thing that working mums and dads are lacking is TIME, so in some ways, it would need to be a highly efficient network that doesn't make you waste as much time on useless things like Facebook and the likes (yes, I'm very much guilty of that). Yet, I always believe that if something is really important to us, we keep coming back to it, whether we have time or not. Lack of time is often used as an excuse not to have to say - not a priority for me right now. So I'm very curious to find out if such a network would be a priority for parents...