Pregnancy: be your biggest cheerleader and celebrate the magical journey you’re on

Beautiful mum-to-be, I celebrate you. I see you… 

Can you see yourself? Do you believe in yourself?

If not, this is ok and you’re not alone, I promise.

Society has instilled fear into pregnancy culture by sharing negative stories through the generations. There’s far too much talk of the challenges and of things that don’t go to plan.

Pregnancy and birth have become a medicalised process, a conveyor belt of baby delivery. The result is that women have lost touch with the ancient wisdom that empowers pregnancy and birth to be a beautiful, sacred passage of maiden to mother. 

It’s time to change this!

Yes, there’ll always be challenges but you don’t have to be defeated by them. 

Choose to navigate challenges with ease and flow so you feel your absolute best during your pregnancy and motherhood journey.

Choose the holistic, mindful approach to pregnancy so you can:

• find moments to celebrate every single day during your pregnancy and motherhood 

• learn to love yourself unconditionally, know your worth, know that you’re everything to your unborn baby and to your family

• make friends with your pregnancy challenges, emotions, sickness, pain or discomforts

• feel emotionally and spiritually prepared for motherhood (even if this isn’t your first baby)

• feel like a Pregnant Goddess!

You’re absolutely worthy of self-love, self-worth and self-trust.

You’re doing such an amazing thing day in, day out. What’s more magical than growing a little person inside you? So, be your biggest cheerleader!

Celebrate you and release the Pregnant Goddess within you! Reconnect with your ancient wisdom!

There are two key elements to help you achieve this. Within each element there are many mindful ways to help you celebrate yourself, so you feel calm, confident and connected to yourself and your baby during pregnancy, birth and motherhood.

Try the exercises below. The more you practice, the more magic you’ll find during your pregnancy journey.

Element 1: trust your body & instincts

This piece is huge. This is about you going inwardly and blocking out the noise around you including the negative pregnancy, birth and motherhood stories friends and family love to tell you; the conflicting advice about safe food and exercise; the opinions of medics and midwives that don’t sit right but you go along with because you trust them; the marketing companies trying to sell you unnecessary baby products and so on. Listening to the external noise can make you feel fearful, anxious, overwhelmed.

Instead, remember you’re on your own pregnancy journey! Look within your heart to decide what to believe and what you truly desire. Yes, there are millions of pregnant women in the world, but this doesn’t mean that you should “just get on with it”.

Nobody else knows your body, or how you feel, like you do. You’re living your own experience and have had your own, unique life experiences to date that have influenced how you feel today. This means that your feelings and emotions are valid.

Your body knows exactly what to do to grow your baby and is doing it without you even having to think about it. When you acknowledge this fact, you feel in tune with your body and you trust your instincts. This takes practice but you’ll know it’s working when you no longer feel that you need a second opinion and when you “just know” something is right.

1. Journal prompt: “What external noise do I wish to block out (eg. what are people telling me that I don’t agree with)”?

2. Enjoy a regular guided body scan meditation – when your body is relaxed & you know how to recognise tension, this is when you can truly tap into your intuition. 

3. Ask yourself at various times every day, “how am I feeling? Do I like feeling this way or do I desire to respond differently?”

4. At the end of each day, recap on how you’ve been talking to yourself. Has your inner voice been unkind, rude, critical or judgemental about any aspect of your life or appearance? Remind yourself that you are your own best friend & you deserve every kindness. When you speak kindly to yourself, your self-esteem receives a boost and you connect with your intuition.

Element 2: deeply bond with your unborn baby

It’s too easy in today’s busy world to continue rushing around doing your pre-pregnant things, but have you ever considered that your unborn baby can sense your emotions in the womb?

When you’re calm and relaxed, your unborn baby feels this too. You both feel happier and you feel deeply bonded. All your baby needs is to feel safe & loved. For your baby to feel this, & for you to form a deep bond, the ironic thing is that you must prioritise yourself and your self-care!

 This is about choosing to hold space for yourself, listening to your body and, of course, trusting your instincts. This is about appreciating that pregnancy is a chapter of your life and you won’t need to slow down forever (unless you choose to). This mindset is deeply beneficial for the emotional growth of you as a mother, and your baby. 

When you prioritise yourself, you feel more connected with the physical and emotional changes you’re experiencing. You naturally feel connected with what your body’s doing and why. This keeps you focused on your baby, how they feel in the womb and what you can do to enhance their developmental journey inside you.

1. Journal prompt: How can I make my baby feel safer and more loved in the womb?

2. Journal prompt: What can I do more of every day to be kind to myself?

3. Close your eyes, place your hands on your bump and imagine a cord from your heart to your baby’s. As you breathe in, feel love from your baby’s heart to yours. As you breathe out, feel love from your heart to your baby’s. This is a beautiful energy exchange.

4. Several times a day, stop what you’re doing to consciously give your bump a rub and say hi to your baby. Tell them what you’re doing or how you’re feeling. Your baby is your new best friend!

Keep being amazing, keep celebrating yourself now and always so you find the magic in your pregnancy, birth and motherhood journey. The more you open yourself to self-love, self-trust and kindness, the more magic you’ll see. 

Sending you lots of love & light, beautiful Pregnant Goddess.

Words by Michele Akester-Marsh

Michele Akester-Marsh is an Intuitive Pregnancy Coach with a vision to create a ripple effect of more love & kindness in the world. This starts with unconditional self-love during pregnancy so you trust your instincts, bond deeply with your baby & are emotionally prepared for motherhood (even if this isn’t your first baby). Michele believes that motherhood starts during pregnancy & that your pregnancy choices today define your baby’s tomorrow. You are invited to download her free gift to you, “The Pregnant Goddess Playbook: 7 secrets to blossoming into the mother you dream of being” at www.micheleakester-marsh.com/pregnantgoddess

5 tips to encourage mindful parenting

Picture the scene: children calmly and quietly playing with their wooden blocks while I cook a nutritious dinner from scratch. Sounds too good to be true? I agree. Before having children my husband and I used to discuss how we wanted to raise a family. Being mindful – both in the sense of being ‘present’ with our children and also of our impact on the environment – always came up in as key considerations for us. Needless to say the idyllic life we dreamed up has yet to come to fruition. I have often actively encouraged our toddler to watch television so I could have a few minutes to do something. I’m also frequently on my phone. And, let’s not kid ourselves, a lot of plastic has entered the house in the last couple of years.

However, even though our idealistic dreams haven’t exactly panned out I still think those early chats were important and have helped me navigate parenthood in a more mindful manner. Here are some other things I’ve picked up along the way that make the journey slightly smoother:

1. Stop comparing yourself to others. Social media tends to just show the good bits, and that’s fine, but it’s important to remember that no-one lives like that 100% of the time. No, not even that totally perfect family on Instagram. We all have bad days, weeks, months even. If you’re feeling like you can’t compete, do yourself a favour and take a break. Focus in on your family. It’s totally fine to have days where the biggest achievement is getting everyone fed. 

2. Take the pressure off. This is true for any age but especially so if you have a child under one. Social media, family, friends – when you’re parenting there’s a constant stream of people telling you how it should be done. Even if you’re taking on the advice of the first point it can still be hard to block out the unsolicited advice from well-meaning friends and family. You can politely tell them you’re fine doing things your way or you can just smile and nod and completely ignore them. Either way, you do what you think is best for your family. Take a deep breath. Relax. Then just take the pressure off yourself to do things a certain way. Before the baby was born, you were adamant you wanted to use cloth nappies but now you find you just can’t keep up with the washing? Use disposables. You can always switch back when things feel a bit easier. Your baby isn’t interested in the wholesome activity you planned? Just being with you in the world is enough for them right now. You are enough. The games and activities can come later.

3. Absence makes the heart grow fonder…or more tolerant to playing tractors. This won’t be for everyone but I was surprised at how much easier I found it to be truly present with my child when I also built in time to be absent from them. This is partly because I can dedicate the time to do at least some of the tasks that would otherwise be buzzing round my head constantly; but it also just that it turns out I have a limit on how long I can make ‘brmmm brmmm’ noises for. Even if you aren’t able to have time away from your child it can be helpful to mentally dedicate time to different activities ie time when you’ll encourage your child to play independently/watch tv so you can get things done, time when you’ll attempt to do chores that they can ‘help’ with and time when you’ll fully commit to being in the present and doing something with them.

4. Do things you like doing. Obviously your child will have their own interests and preferences and probably the older they get the more set these will be. However, it’s much easier and much more enjoyable to parent mindfully if you actually like what you’re doing. So try and find activities that you both like, find books you enjoy, crafts you both like, tv shows you can watch together (CBeebies has some great ones. Don’t get me started on Bing though). Also if someone gifts your child a present you hate just get it to the charity shop immediately. Our village gives the children really generous Christmas presents which is lovely in theory. This year our 6-month-old got a singing bear. It lasted one day in the house. 

5. Get outside. I don’t know what it is about nature but it really has the power to calm and reset. Indoors there are so many boundaries: ‘no, you can’t touch the oven, it’s hot’, ‘no, you can’t put your toothbrush down the toilet’, ‘please stop pulling all Mummy’s socks out of the drawer’ etc. Outside is so much freer. It’s liberating for both of you. Let them dig in the dirt. Discover worms. Sniff the flowers. Hear the birds singing. Watch them as they explore the world. 

The above all focus on ways to help you feel calmer and more present with your child. Parenting mindfully in terms of your impact on the world will look different for different people. The big one for me though is to make use of charity shops and second-hand websites. Children wear clothes and play with toys for such a short time before they’ve outgrown them that second-hand items are frequently in excellent condition. Also don’t bother buying your children presents for the first couple of years when they don’t really get what’s going on. Believe me, they’ll get more than enough from everyone else.

Words: Rebecca McCandler

Rebecca is a mum and freelance writer. She lives with her husband and two small sons in Indre et Loire, France. The family moved there from the UK in 2020 and you can follow their journey both on Instagram and Youtube at Living in the Loire.