I’ve started using this mantra with families:

I am showing up to the birth that is happening

Not the birth I had etched into my mind.
Not the birth my mom wants me to have.
Not the birth the nurse hopes I’ll have.
Not the birth I heard about on that podcast.
Not the birth my friend had.

This can feel so counterintuitive when you’ve just been coached to prep and plan and envision your body birthing your baby. And not one ounce of that preparation is wasted, because it got you to this moment, the moment your body is actually activated and all those processes you studied and heard in stories over and over are now happening to you.

Why is this mantra so important and what can we learn from this birthing posture for our life right now? Our pandemic life?

The way that birth flows is the free passageway of oxytocin to move from your brain to the rest of your body, generating uterine contractions that dilate your cervix and push your baby down. We know that oxytocin can be blocked by the secretion of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol when your body goes into fight/flight/freeze.

Love cannot flow through us if we refuse to surrender to it.

This doesn’t mean handing over your birthing choices once you’re in it, not at all. What I am talking about is that internal willpower that either flows with reality or fights it, especially when reality looks different (not harmful, different).

As I watch mothers birth their babies and see how their bodies engage this internal battle (a wince of the lip here, a scrunching of the shoulder there, followed by deep vocalizations and a limp body as she consciously moves with the contraction instead of against it), I walk back into my daily life reminded that while I am not birthing a baby, I am making near constant choices to flow with reality or to dig my heels in against it.

I’ve been sad lately. Like, probably circumstantially depressed, as many of us are as we navigate the ambiguous losses of this season in isolation. I have been in a metaphorically LONG pregnancy in regards to figuring out what this new life post-full time ministry looks like. I had hoped to launch effortlessly into greener pastures, but the pandemic disrupted all of those processes and prospects.

The shifting landscape around me is so constant and so foreign, I can feel the waves of anxiety and stress wash over me.

And my own home, my body, has softened and expanded and broken out as a response to the stress, becoming a foreign land to me. I find myself trying to somehow finance an entire new wardrobe of clothing without in-store try-ons or reliable income. Can you relate?

It’s been difficult to locate myself. Who am I without a team to pour into? Without a reliable paycheck? Without moving in the world in my old body? Without human connection for weeks on end?

Surrender to the birth that is happening.

I fight with this reality everyday. My life looks nothing like how I thought it would six months ago. So much of my self-concept feels fuzzy and raw and vulnerable with all of the reliable go-to’s of affirmation suddenly gone.

There are moments, like a prenatal appointment with a new family, or a phone conversation with a dear friend, that fill my lungs with air and remind me that I am still there, tucked inside this squishier frame. For a fleeting moment I actually believe what I know cognitively to be true, that my circumstances do not define me.

Maybe it’s turning thirty, maybe it’s COVID, but I am experiencing a very different evolution of myself that is hard to reconcile with the past. Sometimes I take a deep breath and imagine my arms opening wide up to gather all the versions of myself into a big hug, and to make room for this new iteration. There’s room for you here, too.

The extremes are so staunch that it’s very easy for me to taste the bitter cup of resisting reality: the lethargy, the hopelessness, the depression. And then on the days when I can lovingly look at myself and say Hey Erin, you’ve never been unemployed in a global pandemic before. You are just 9 months into launching a business. Can you be kind to yourself? Can you nourish yourself? Can you move your body? Can you call a friend?

In many ways, my life feels like a fresh postpartum period right now. I measure success in millimeters, not feet. I applaud my choice to drink water, practice gratitude, go for a walk.

On my best days, I am showing up to the life that is happening.

Not the life I envisioned when I felt stuck in my last job.
Not the life that some very curated Instagram accounts seem to live.
Not the life that others might assume I would be living right now.

The life that is happening.
The chronos of this time where God hides in plain sight.

God comes to us disguised as our life.
+ Paula D’Arcy

May God come to you disguised as your life. Your pregnancy. Your birth. Your postpartum. We are always in a process of gestation, birthing and recovering. May we be ever so kind to ourselves in the unfolding of it all.