Becoming pregnant and having a baby is a really big deal, whether it is your first baby or your fourth baby. As your family grows, the difficult parts might shift and change, but challenges will arise – of that we can be certain. How can we face these stressors over and over again and still find our feet beneath us? Can we actually emerge stronger, not in spite of the adversity, but because of the adversity in the first place?
Pregnancy and Postpartum are Stressful
Pregnancy and postpartum are stressful! There are physical, emotional, and social changes happening to the pregnant person. The reorganization of internal thoughts and external behaviour/expectations is occurring at a rapid pace, and often this occurs without any acknowledgement, mentorship, or support from wise others.
The physical changes to the pregnant and postpartum body often occur in ways that we have little control over. We have physical pain and discomfort as our body’s ligaments loosen and our constipation worsens; we may have headaches, nausea/vomiting, acid reflux, pelvic dysfunction, hemorrhoids, abdominal separation, carpal tunnel, and rib pain – to name only a few. We may also experience emotional stressors as we struggle to keep up with the onslaught of changes – our relationships with our partners may change, and perhaps with other family members as well when we realize that we may have to set new or stronger boundaries due to the precious new life that is about to enter the family.
Vulnerability in Pregnancy and the Postpartum
We are also more sensitive to feelings of vulnerability in pregnancy and the postpartum. Feeling vulnerable can bring up a sometimes-forgotten history, and our bodies may remind us of earlier times when we felt unsafe. This can look like increasing hypervigilance to danger and being more reactive to perceived rejection or slights. We may even start to experience more anger, sadness, guilt, anxiety/fear, and embarrassment. Conversely, we may also become hypovigilant as a way of coping with the anxiety of vulnerability and our resistance to any shame we may be experiencing. We may find ourselves numbing out with addictive behaviours, such as watching TV, scrolling, shopping, etc., and we may also become more emotionally disconnected from our own inner experiences, and subsequently, from our loved ones as well. Finally, planning for maternity leave often means facing financial changes, increasing our overall burden of stress during this time of our lives. This is all occurring while we are also experiencing “baby brain,” which is a time of high neuroplasticity in pregnancy, where energy is shifted away from the frontal pre-cortex and towards the parts of our brains associated with empathy and bonding.
Now, imagine all these physical, emotional, and intellectual changes are occurring and you have had a stressful or traumatic labour/birth where things might have deviated from your birth plan and events may have rapidly changed. Maybe decisions needed to be made without all the pertinent information, and now you are sleep deprived and your brain cannot process and store the stressful events that just occurred. No wonder we can feel destabilized in the postpartum! As our ability to cope crumbles, trauma can enter the postpartum experience.
Hardships are inevitable experiences of being human, but Viktor Frankl believed that we can find meaning and growth through our suffering. What does this mean and how do we get there? Enter R E S I L I E N C E.
What is Resilience?
Resilience is a concept that seems to be gaining some traction lately, but what exactly is it? A resilient person can adapt, recover, and function during times of adversity. They also have an increased tolerance for ambiguity, meaning that they can tolerate uncertainty and unpredictability, as well as conflicting information and competing demands. Resilient people tend to be more optimistic, accepting of stressful circumstances as they are unfolding, flexible with their thinking and problem-solving, assume the position of responsibility and authourity in their life, and they have a solid support network. They can also think ahead to make flexible plans for dealing with future challenges.
Four Steps to Build More Resilience
So, how do we build resilience as we enter this high-stakes phase of life where we so desperately want to get it “right” for the sake of our children? The good news is that resilience is a muscle we can develop and strengthen!
Step One is to Increase Psychological Capacity
The first step is to increase psychological capacity, and this can be accomplished by increasing your awareness about the realities of what the postpartum will be like. The more reality differs from our expectations, the more that we tend to emotionally resist and struggle in the postpartum. One way to learn more about what to expect with a newborn in the postpartum is to offer your help to those in your life that are currently experiencing, or have already experienced, the newborn stage. Interview them and ask them about the areas where they struggled as new parents. Often people will easily share the good parts of the newborn phase, and you may need to dig a bit deeper to locate the struggles and hardships. Another way to learn more about what to expect in the postpartum is to sign up for a class that outlines what to expect in the baby stage – excellent classes in our community are All About Baby (prenatal class), Interior Health’s Baby Talk Parenting Classes (postpartum class), and the Prenatal Breastfeeding Preparation Class through the MotherTree Collective. Not only does this give you a more accurate view of what to expect, such classes can also increase your self-efficacy and confidence for early parenthood. Learning to trust yourself increases feelings of competence!
A second way to increase psychological capacity is by increasing coping capability through emotional regulation. It seems surprising (at least to me!) that emotional regulation means turning towards the distressing feelings and allowing yourself to accept and feel them. When we allow ourselves to accept the hard things that are happening, as well as to embrace our emotional/cognitive responses to these hard things, it actually allows for change to occur. When we decrease our resistance, it increases our psychological flexibility and we can more accurately see what is happening in real time. Our perspective pans out, and we can more easily see where we can influence change in any given situation. We also tend to have more optimism for the future when we focus on the areas we can control. Creating a gratitude practice can also increase optimism.
Step Two is Body Work to Decrease the Stress Response
I would argue that for most (all?) people, it is also essential to support your body in accessing the parasympathetic nervous system through this process. Physiologically, you cannot be stressed and relaxed at the same time, which means that you cannot have your sympathetic nervous system (fight-flight-freeze) and your parasympathetic nervous system (rest-digest) firing at the same time. I have found that mindfulness practices are the fastest and most sure-fire way to allow your body to kick out of the stress response and back into a state of regulation. Certainly, practicing mindfulness when we are stressed is crucial, and this becomes easier when we make mindfulness part of our everyday experience and practice when we are not stressed. By doing so, you pre-emptively increase your ability to stay regulated even before stressful events occur. Although not an exhaustive list, mindfulness activities could include meditation, prayer, yoga, and spending time in nature.
Step Three is Developing Shame Resilience
A lot of shame can arise when we fall short and become dysregulated. This is where we can do the hard work of developing what Brene Brown refers to as “shame resilience.” Again, mindfulness is a key component of shame resilience in that it is important to recognize shame when it arises and understand our own personal triggers around it. This allows us to keep perspective and to appropriately attribute accountability, either for ourselves or others. As well, Brown reminds us of how important it is to pull shame out of secrecy, so it loses its power over us. We do this by first recognizing it and then speaking about it to trusted others. We can also counteract shame by heaping self-compassion onto ourselves; Kristen Neff reminds us to practice self-kindness instead of self-judgment, common humanity instead of isolation, and mindfulness instead of over-identification.
Shame resilience locates a person on a continuum from fear, blame and disconnection on one side to empathy, courage, compassion, and connection on the other. We can continue to challenge ourselves to move ever towards empathy. This might be a lifelong healing journey, but what a legacy to leave our children!
Step Four is Building Strong Community
Building community is one way to increase shame resilience, as well as to amplify overall resilience. Build your social support networks! Locate the people in your life that love you and feed your soul. Then find ways to integrate them into the rhythms of your life. A good activity to do is to draw a series of circles with yourself located in the middle.
Then place those that you trust and who have the most influence in your life in the closet circle next to yourself, working your way out to the furthest circle where you will place those names with the least contact and/or influence over you. It is important to remember that you have full authourity to place the people in your life in whatever circle feels the best to you.
Just because your mom might live down the block does not mean that she will exist in the circle closest to you. However, you might put your best friend who lives in another province in this circle. Remember, you can also move people in and out of these circles of influence as well, as their locations are not fixed throughout time. It can be helpful to complete this activity periodically to readjust for what feels the best for you at any given time.
Find a Trusted Therapist
Turning towards distressing feelings can sometimes feel overwhelming and especially in the beginning when we have a lot of feelings/thoughts bottled up inside. For some people, it is very important to find a therapist to support you through this turning-toward process.
Conclusion
To summarize, it is never too late or too early to begin to develop your postpartum resilience muscle. Step one is to increase your psychological capacity by: (a) learning about early parenthood to better align your expectations with an expected reality, and (b) using acceptance and mindfulness to increase emotional regulation and the capacity to create effective change. Step two is engaging in activities that calm the nervous system, and these could include prayer, meditation, yoga, and walking in nature, to name a few. The third step is to build more shame resilience by openly sharing feelings of vulnerability and shame to a trusted other, as well as engaging in an internal dialogue that is self-compassionate. Finally, the fourth step is to create a robust and supportive community around you that is full of people who are available for both emotional and practical help in the postpartum and onwards. Resilience can help you cope with the unfolding of the postpartum around you, and create a meaningful experience even when things are hard!
Bibliography
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Laura Cavaliero
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