There are certain times in a woman’s life that ask everything of her.
Thresholds.
Initiations.
Moments of becoming.
We define those times and seasons as
Puberty.
Pregnancy.
Birth.
Perimenopause.
All of them ask us to cross from one version of ourselves into another, and every threshold comes with challenge, discomfort and change.
Pregnancy is the threshold of becoming a mother.
Puberty is the threshold of becoming a woman and entering the possibility of bearing children.
Perimenopause is the threshold into the wise woman years, and no longer tolerate bullshit, I know first hand.
These are not small transitions, they are deep transformations, and I assure you transformation is rarely comfortable.
If we think about the cliche of the butterfly in the cocoon, halfway through the process it does not look like a butterfly at all. The caterpillar literally has to disintegrate. Inside the cocoon it becomes almost like sludge before it can regrow into something entirely new.
And then comes the struggle of emerging, the butterfly has to struggle out of the cocoon because that struggle strengthens the wings. Without it, fluid remains in the wings and the butterfly cannot fly.
I often think about this when I think about pregnancy, birth and motherhood.
Or women moving through perimenopause.
Or even the discomfort of puberty.
All of these thresholds bring immense challenge, immense discomfort,immense change.
But what if these experiences are not happening to us, but preparing us?
Labour and birth are one of the greatest initiations a woman can experience. It asks you to touch places within yourself that you never even knew existed.
For many women birth becomes more than physical, it becomes soulful. Spirituality is often an upward experience, soulful is downward. An opportunity to deep dive within yourself.
And this is something I am exploring more deeply through womb wisdom work.
The womb is downward energy.
It is grounding.
It is descending into the body, into the base chakra, into the sacral chakra.
It asks us to go down into ourselves to discover what we truly need in order to move through these seasons of challenge and change. I think about women generations ago, of course my dearest maternal grandmother comes to mind.
She birthed eight children naturally, without pain medication, many of them at home. She breastfed each child for two years. And I honestly never heard her speak about how hard it all was. Now of course, it was a different time.
There was not the toxic load we carry today, she didn’t have the constant information in her hands every second of the day. There was not the stress of seeing what is happening on the other side of the world at every moment.
Life was slower.
But my grandmother also knew hardship.
I remember her telling me it took three weeks by Ox wagon to travel from Johannesburg to Durban. Today it takes just over an hour by plane or about six hours by car.
Our lives have become faster, fuller and louder.
And perhaps this is why so many women feel overwhelmed within these thresholds now.
Because initiation asks us to slow down.
To come back to the body.
To breathe.
To become embodied.
To understand that these challenges are shaping us into the mothers, women and wise women we are becoming.So how do we prepare ourselves for these thresholds?
For many women, practices like yoga become preparation. Holding a posture when it becomes uncomfortable. Breathing through the discomfort instead of resisting it. Softening instead of fighting.
And this is so much of what birth asks of us too. Finding comfort within the discomfort. When you are pregnant and uncomfortable, you instinctively shift positions until you find what supports you. Birth is often the same. It is a movement. Breath. Surrender. Presence.
If we can practise this as women in everyday life, then birth can unfold with more ease, more grace and more empowerment because we feel connected to our own experience and our own bodies.
And the same is true for perimenopause.
When hormones shift, when the veil becomes thin, when we suddenly can no longer tolerate what we once accepted, these transitions ask us to return to ourselves.
To be embodied.
To be in our breath.
To be in our bodies.
Because when we are deeply connected to ourselves, the transition becomes softer.
Not necessarily easy, but less resistant, less disconnected. And perhaps that is what these thresholds are truly asking of us, not perfection, not control.
But embodiment.
Presence.
And the willingness to become.
I have a few spaces available for the womb wisdom workshop, i have changes the structure to accommodate women with young children.
Holding you as you hold so much,
Theoni