Lifelong Birthing--What's Your Story?

Yesterday, while reading about writing, I came upon an interesting concept. The author was trying to get her audience to write about themselves, from the beginning of their life--to tell about their own birth and research what the world was like on that day. She continued saying that over the span of a lifetime, people have the potential to have multiple births on a different level. If we define a birth as a life changing event such as a career change, a death, an illness, a divorce, a tragedy, an incident that brought about significant change in one's life path we recognize the breath of new life as a welcome renewal to our journey here on earth.


I continued to read shorts that students of this author had written about their "births" and found them fascinating. I realized that most people I know on a deeper level have had this experience. Possibly even describing themselves to be quite different after the event. What is your story? One of mine, obvious to those that know me, would be when our family left in 2004-2005 sailing. I often say, "Before our trip..." or "After we got back...." as reference points. We all were "changed" or "refreshed" through that experience. I feel so fortunate we were able to show our kids that taking risks, following through, and succeeding at them can be so empowering.

Initially, preparing for our departure seemed a monumental task. Like a pregnancy, we planned, prepared, bought, constructed, sold, and planned some more. There were many tears, conversations about fear, and moments of sheer disbelief that we could pull it off. But when we left Oregon, we had no doubts in our minds that we'd have the adventure of our lives and no matter what happened, we'd never regret it. And what a time we had.

Then, incorporating ourselves back into our busy American lifestyle was a difficult task that took time, just as adjusting to a new child. We were hesitant because we had formed a bubble of safety, commraderie, and dependence on one another that we treasured. We were also critical of material things, cars and gas, and overabundance of everything. But soon we quieted and learned to appreciate community, neighbors, friends and family again. We clearly had all matured and put the memories of those 8 months, like photos of a new baby, in a precious place in our hearts to look back to whenever we need them. As time passes and we get further away from that time together, I look forward to birthing like that over and over again.