Why Birth Opens Us to Mystery with the Baby Whisperer

Introduction and Welcome

Britta: Britain, Hello folks, and welcome to transformed by birth, a podcast about the rite of passage of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood. I'm your host. Britta Bushnell, author, mythologist, childbirth educator and an all around deep diver with a side of goofball. I'm so glad you're here today. We're talking about connecting with your baby before birth. So grab your comfy beverage of choice or take us along for a walk as we connect with my friend and baby whisperer Sufi air tour. Before we begin, we start the way we always do, by lighting a candle. If you want to join me, please do or just take a breath as I light mine, I'm lighting today's candle in honor of the inner emotional world that goes far beyond the physical.

Britta: Okay, folks, we are leaning more heavily on the woo today. While I love dipping my toes into the mystical, I tend to swim in the waters of the psychological more than the metaphysical, and maybe that's my Capricorn nature, but the fact that I just said I'm not typically drawn into the metaphysical realm and then blamed my astrological sign tells you what you need to know about my relationship with the esoteric. What can I say? I like my feet planted firmly on the ground while also loving to explore what doesn't make rational sense to me. But here's the thing, many of us have a sense of our kids before we conceive them, or we feel connected to them in really profound ways while pregnant. And that Apollonian, linear, scientific part of me may write that off as making zero logical sense, but, but, but does that mean that we're feeling that, that what we're feeling or thinking or knowing isn't actually true? I don't know. This is the question for me and my guest today. Is the person I wanted to venture into this more ethereal territory with because this woman is grounded as as you know AF, as they as the cool kids say grounded AF, while also tapped into something I can't name. Sufi ertur has been a full spectrum doula and assistant midwife since 2001 she's writing her first book, birth and the Middle Way, and is a practicing baby whisperer. She does pregnancy baby and toddler readings as well as conscious conception consultations. Sufi is tapped into the inner world in birth and new parenthood, there's a lot of focus on the physical and outer world, but Sufi works with birth and postpartum clients to reflect on the inner world from a Taoist perspective and how that shows up in daily life. Because let's face it, the inner world shows up at birth and in postpartum, if we can name it and if we can see it ahead of time, it may not surprise us as much later on. So I am so excited to have my friend, my colleague, this wise woman, help hold my hand folks as we walk into the metaphysical and the esoteric just a little bit. Ooh, Sufi, this is going to be fun, but I'm also feeling the edge on my skin. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for being here.

What Is a Baby Whisperer? Sufi's Path to Mediumship and Birth

Sufi: Oh, thank you. This is a great opportunity to do better and get clearer about what it is I see, hear and feel through this amazing journey.

Britta: Oh, okay, I love this. So we got to go there really quickly, because we got to first explain, like, what is a baby whisperer? And what is this that you do? I mean, you're you do some art that just blows my mind, as well as some readings. So walk my skeptical ass into this realm and talk to me about what we're talking about.

Sufi: I was right there with you, like in the beginning, as an assistant midwife. I I knew about mediums and I knew about, you know, psychics. I have a lot of them in my family, and I'm like, Yeah, I don't think so. That's not for me. And then, you know, I if you're with midwives, and if you're at the gates that I call being at birth and death is being at the

Britta: gates one. 100% oh gosh, right. Big gates.

Sufi: Big gates, things start to happen. It's not just me, but a lot of people don't talk about it. Midwives, everybody, we all want to be taken seriously and but I just couldn't argue it with it anymore. I would be at a birth, breathing for hours on end, and I just started to see hear and feel things that were hard to explain. And I'm not the only person. Other Other doulas come to me. Other moms have experiences. I've had dads say to me, I don't want to hear anything. Woo. I don't want you reading us. You can be our doula. But then that same dad is sitting behind me during the pushing stage, sobbing because he felt his ancestor step into the room and has to ask me, Sufi, what's happening right now? So I just want to right, yeah. I just want to be an ambassador, a representative.

Britta: I love that. I love your your kind of other stuff.

Britta: Yeah, you're speaking to that, that part of us, I mean, and I think the skepticism is, is normal, and there is something on the edge that, that when we're standing on these precipices of life and death and transformation, that kind of does, you know? And I hear myself saying this, and a part of me is rolling my eyes already, before I even the words come out of my mouth, but that we tap into a different stream, like there's, there is something more happening that we can feel, hear and know on a different kind of level.

Sufi: Yeah, and I'm not original. You and I both have in common that we've lived in many cultures. Every other culture but ours has some communication or understanding around connecting with babies in this way. I have birth clients right now. They're Brazilian and Costa Rican, and I don't have to explain things that in our American modern society we call Woo. Woo. There's just a whole mythology and history in their culture around that, and that's sadly missing from our modern la culture, modern American woman culture, yeah, yeah.

Britta: Or in the that over culture, because there's so many micro cultures throughout this country where things still exist in a different way. But when we think about that over culture, that that messaging and expectation culture, it's missing there, yeah, yeah. And yet it, while it might be missing, it's also longed for by a lot of

Sufi: people, completely there it. There's an ache for it, and the doula can bring that into the room, but as doulas, sometimes we get a little bit of backlash, or we're categorized. I had a dad say to me, he was relieved I didn't show up with Birkenstocks, and you know? And I was like, okay, you know, I get that. I'm, I'm a doula, but I'm an unusual doula, yeah, I bring in the grounded brass tacks, yeah?

Britta: And while, while being connected deeply to another realm, yeah, so let's, let's talk about that kind of tapping in and that connection to something that is other that, you know if, if you're doing a reading or or tuning into something else that's going on, like, like, what? What does that mean? Because it, I have a feeling it sounds even still somewhat mysterious to some folks listening. What? Like, what does, what do you do in in that, like, if somebody hires you to do a reading, so, like, if we, I imagine that there's ways that these inner intersect your doula work and your readings, but there's also ways that you hold them separately. So let's, let's absolutely parse them apart a tiny bit for right now, and tell me a little bit about your like readings. Like, how do you what? What is it you do? And why would somebody come to you? Well, it

Readings, Mediumship, and the Slideshow: How Sufi Does a Reading

Sufi: began with mediumship, and I was, you say medium and it freaks people out, but it just for me, it's in mediumship, you have many attributes you see here, feel things, but not every medium sees, hears, feel things. I. I'm very visual, so for me, in a reading, it's like a slideshow. So I would be in an interview for to be a doula for someone and they're pregnant and their baby's communicating with me, sending me pictures, images, feelings, and I can't say anything, because I don't want to freak anybody out. And what happened was, at a birth, I had this after my own birth, and at a birth, I had this whole experience or awakening where my client's grandmother came through, and all of that. I've spoken about that a lot, but I just didn't know what to do with it. And I would see, hear and feel information. So when someone hires me, I really like to keep the doula work and the reading space separate. So often people will come to me for conception work. I was greatly inspired by Janine Parvati Baker. She wrote the book, you know, right? Yes, yes, yeah. So, and what is it? The conscious conception is the book, yeah. So it was like, what's this about? Really, like, what's this about? But it was a opening for me to even consider it. So, when people come to me for readings, for toddler readings, sometimes it's profound, and sometimes it's just the little things. You know, little things like toddlers will communicate simple things their experiences during the day, things like simple things, like a toddler was like, I don't want that sour yellow thing again. And they had just given the toddler a lemon slice, you know? So I, I hope, to validate that what moms see here and feel from their own children is real. Past life stuff comes into play. I always tell people, Look, the most important lifetime is this. Lifetime like this is where you can make change, take action. But there's a reason. Princeton is now studying what kids are saying between three and four about what they remember about their past lives and in readings that kind of comes up because some women, I had a friend who was afraid to have a second baby, but she couldn't understand why, and she had a past life regression by somebody else, and then she had this full launch or experience of something that happened a long time ago, and then she could understand that she's safe now. She could have a second baby, and she didn't have to fear anymore. So when I started to see that be medicinal and help, I was like, you know, we got to talk about this. I don't do past life regressions. But I certainly it's part of the reading space, because the babies bring

Britta: it in, because it may show up,

Sufi: and they show up. Are trying

Britta: to do that or not. It may, it may show up.

Sufi: Yeah, yeah. Even in labor,

Britta: even in labor. Okay, say more about that, if you can. What do you mean that? Like that, that something may show up in labor that doesn't seem to make sense, but shows up in your consciousness.

Labor Land, Trance, and What Comes Through at the Gates

Sufi: Well, no moms will be in a trance. So if you're, if you're lucky enough to have space, and if there's you know, space

Britta: and respect and patience around you. Yes, yeah.

Sufi: And it's not just at home birth. I just like I've had a beautiful birth experiences with clients unmedicated at St John's and cedars, no problem. And the nurses know me, and we try and set up a trance space. Because whether you believe it or not, they call it labor land. I call it it is trance. So when moms go into trance, you know, things can come up. Sometimes they'll see their mother who passed away, and there'll be a flood of emotion, or labor will stop completely, and then we have to have a conversation. I love what this midwife said to me once she said, how you birth is how you'll die. Birth and death walk hand in hand. And again, I was like, what? That's so dark, like, what? But it's so true, I always have to have a conversation with clients before they deliver about any grief in the room, because it will show up in one way or the other.

Britta: Yeah, yeah. I love, I mean, I'm thinking about I remember. A birth I was at at Cedars. You and I are both in Los Angeles, so we're speaking about hospitals that are are in our our world over here,

Britta: but I remember we're very lucky.

Britta: And it was, I mean, it was a medicated birth, it was a long birth, and it was absolutely a otherworldly kind of psychic trip, even you know, so back to your point that it doesn't matter necessarily where it is, there's folks who are going through a transformative journey, even with the support of meds, can have a very esoteric kind of experience.

Sufi: Yeah, during the pushing stage, I see a whole move.

Britta: That's exactly the time I'm thinking about. When I'm describing this particular birth, I'm like, oh, yeah, that was, that was a, it was a trip, yeah, yeah.

Sufi: And I include that in the birth log. So I write a whole birth, you know, synopsis. But I and I asked them, I'm like, do you want me to include what I see during the pushing stage? And they're like, yeah. Most of them, most people are like, yeah, yeah. It's great, sure, yeah.

Britta: Do you think people say yes and want that in part because of that hunger for the other that we're missing in some of this modern over culture that we are, you know, living within. Do you think people, mom for that?

The Hunger for the Divine Feminine and Connecting with the Numinous

Sufi: Yeah, I think women, especially men too, but women especially, we're so hungry in our society for that, for those little pieces that bring us back into our divine feminine and who we are, because as women we are. We're the portals. We're so juicy, but we're not letting ourselves be juicy. Let's get juicy, and let's get into those people. Everybody loves the book The Red tent, oh yeah. But I have clients obsessed with what kind of stroller they're going to get. And my work now I'm a very different doula. My work now is like it's, you know, Dr Michelle odont would not work with people unless they sat around the the piano with him and sang Old French songs. Yeah. He was looking for, is there a release of control? Can they go with the flow? So my work so much now is to yes, do all the nitty gritty and talk about the things we need to talk about, but then go a little deeper, and it's not even Woo. It's about getting to know my clients. I don't care what faith you are, I just am thrilled if you have a faith, and if you have some some collaboration with the mystery, and if you don't have some collaboration with the mystery, then I'm going into nature with you. We're talking about nature, connecting you to the earth, universe, all of that. I work with pregnant women. I have this meditation I created called tree meditation. And because women are so porous and they need energetic protection, kind of or boundary, and this whole tree meditation thing I do with them helps them with that, but they didn't even consider that I had a client recently say, I'm just feeling everybody's stuff. What do I do

Britta: because of that porousness? I'm hearing it a lot. I mean, I use that terminology about myself, with regard to the news, as as being super porous, where I have to sometimes be like, Ooh, I'm too porous. I need to to hang on a second. Similarly, even with the kind of media that I'll consume, yeah, when I'm feeling porous, extra porous, I have to be mindful of those kinds of boundaries, which a lot of us don't necessarily think about that as a boundary, but it absolutely is, where it's like, what am I? What am I in ingesting? We think about our our food diet, like, what is what is going in our mouths, but what is going in our psyche? What is going in our heart, what is going in our nervous system, and all of those things matter. And I love that, yeah, like, Michelle odont will be like, Hey, we're saying we're going to see if we can step into this flow, or where you're holding, holding that space and talking about nature, or. Or or some kind of numinous, something that the that other, that place on the other side of the linear, you know, in my work, you know, I talk through mythology a lot, and I often will talk about that, which is that artemisian side, which is that wild, that untamed, that mysterious, that is part of the medicine that our psyches and our bodies and our nervous systems need in birth and postpartum that the Apollonian over culture doesn't Revere. I mean, it's kind of the conversation you and I are having right now, where the the I feel, the debate inside my own being, of the make it make scientific sense, down in my head, tell me this all makes sense, while at the same time going I know that when I'm outside, I'm connecting with the numinous. I'm connecting with patterns and beings and and energies that are more vast. Even if the word god or goddess may not land for me, it doesn't mean that's just, you know, baggage from from past religion, stuff that's been passed down to me from my parents. And I'm like, Oh, wait, I can't, I can't go that. But the numinous, the other, the ethereal is still there it is. And birth and new parenthood open that up in a really big way. I mean, I felt that they did, oh

Sufi: yeah, oh yeah. I had, I'm a little allergic to the word God myself, just because of my background

Britta: and B, and that's why I was like, oh the god,

Sufi: oh, yeah, but highest source universe works for me or creator, there's something I just want to speak to that, because nobody objects to the fact that we all feel there's something everybody agrees on, that we just all have different names for it, right?

Britta: I mean, there's even if it's just mother nature or the world or the universe, like there's so many different ways.

Prove It: Skeptics, Scientists, and the Energy of Opening

Sufi: Yeah, yeah. You know, some of my toughest readings are clients who come to me like, prove it. Prove it. You know, that's really that's really tough, because I so want to prove it. It doesn't always work. I mean, a full transparency, I had a reading this week. I gave her money back. I was like, I'm not going to take your money. We're not connecting. If I don't get three yeses right away from what I'm seeing. And again, I'm just not going to I give them the choice, we can reschedule, or I'll give you your money back. And she's, she said she's going to reschedule, but it there was a little bit of like, This can't be real, but I want a toddler reading Well, the situation too was that her toddler, she was there was separation anxiety going on, and the toddler screaming, and as a mom, she's feeling torn. And I just think, yeah, in another space and time, it may flow better. It may not. But when we come into this energy and engaging the mystery, if you come at it with prove it, show me you're holding so tight to what. And we all have free will, so you get the gift of being just how you are. And if you're holding so tightly to you know, I'm not going to believe this or jump in until it's proven to me. Then that's kind of what you get to experience. And, you know, I get into prove it a little bit with myself. And, you know, I had one, had one fertility reading. My whole office filled up with bees. I can't explain that. I'm not a Bee Whisperer, but lately, the bees are coming around. Now, is there a hive in my backyard? No, but on this day and a couple times now, I don't know how they do it, they fill up my office, and bees will like I'll start getting messages from bees. I know people. There are bee whisperers. I'm not a Bee Whisperer, but I just start to notice the signs and symbols, and that's where I start with people. I'm all about grounding. I ground every day. I'm always working on my humility. I'm always understanding. I'm. Special. I just practice this a lot, and I've been at the gates a lot, birth and death, birth and death. I just start looking at nature. What have you experienced in nature that's been like, Oh, that's weird.

Britta: I love this. And I love the the speaking about kind of that energetic of, prove it is sort of an energy of closing and mystery. Is a lot about opening,

Sufi: trust and yeah, play, play,

Britta: play, openness, curiosity, and a lot of that is what serves us really well on the threshold of great change, is that curiosity, is that openness? Is that that dance with this doesn't even make sense? And I have you know, I've been working with families for a similar amount of time as you and I noticed that people find themselves surprised by the things that pop into their psyche, into their consciousness, into their awareness while pregnant, where it can like, almost skirt under the guard of prove it to me, whether it's in dreams or motifs they're seeing or repetitions of things. I saw another this. I saw another that you know. What are you? I mean? Do you? Am I alone in this, or is this something you see as well? And how would you expand on that of what you see?

Sufi: Yeah, you know, I my, it's interesting because my scientists, my clients, who are scientists and lawyers, when I went into I'll just say this, and I know a lot of doulas agree with me here, because I've talked about it before. Lawyers are great birthers, but they're my lawyers, and I have a scientist that who's giving birth in the fall that I'm working with, and their pregnancy is really shocking to them, because I always tell them, you can't birth with your head. You have to birth with your body. So let's play. Let's look at this. But they'll come back and it'll be pregnancy fills them out, fills out an area that had been closed off for a while, and the dreams and they start because I say it's okay to them. I'm like, Just tell me what you're dreaming. I'm not a dream I don't do dream analysis, but our dreams during pregnancy are potent, right? Yes, and that's a great place to begin. And we just start having the conversation, and more often than not, because they can trust me, I won't judge them. They're being given permission to play interest. Baby will start communicating I don't like that person. And the way it feels like, you know, mom will say, baby doesn't like my brother. And I'm like, How do you know that she goes every time around my brother? Now my chest falls like there's a dip. It's a dip in energy. Can be very subtle. Or even when babies Earth side and we can see baby doesn't like or is agitated around a family member, sometimes, you know, babies also are feeling so much energy. Oh, my God, we can't we probably don't have enough time to go into the whole equine thing, because horses brought me to this piece where horses and babies, they're because you and I both love Deborah Raul, and I've been riding with Deborah Raul and Deborah magic woman, amazing, brought me into the world of natural horsemanship. There's a beautiful communication in the subtle world, in nature, and it's with babies. And yeah, so my scientists and lawyers, I'm talking to them from these places, and I love hearing from them. And lawyers have the easiest births. Dare I say I've never seen an easy birth. I've just seen easier births than some, and there's, I haven't figured out the lawyer piece yet, but I keep noticing it, and I'm all about observing the patterns. Now I'm obsessed with patterns.

Persimmons, Onions, and Conscious Conception: How Babies Communicate

Britta: Yeah, how about you? I love I love patterns, and I love that often parents are seeing patterns where, you know, they're noticing things, I mean, even even simple things. I mean, I'm remembering with my first that a pattern like the kind of food I was I was drawn to, which may sound. Like, Oh, that was that's called a craving, Brita, but was it a craving, or was it something that was a message of some sort, being requested, or, I don't know. I mean, is it? But I sometimes say I had a persimmon pregnancy and I had a grapefruit pregnancy and they they were just things that my body said yes to go ahead.

Sufi: I had a client who had an onion pregnancy, and the baby, I didn't know she was eating onions like apples, but the baby said to me, can you ask mom to stop eating onions? Like we're in the prenatal and I'm talking, and I just hear baby like, no more onions. And I was like, Are you eating onions? And her the dad's like, Oh, she eats them like apples. And I've never met a pregnant woman who ate onions like apples, but she craved that. Yeah, so interesting. I love the food stuff.

Britta: I love the food stuff. And I mean, and, like, my first born absolutely loves persimmons, like, loves persimmons. And it feels like a way that I had a connection with him and his preferences before he was born, yeah, yeah, he was, I don't know he was letting me know, like, order me up a bunch of persimmons, please. I like those things. And fortunately, I was pregnant during during persimmon season, so I was able to really indulge that desire, but it also makes me think of some of the work that you do with conscious conception, and where there's a connection, and I want you to explain this to me, but where I'm Talking about feeling like I had a connection with my my child in utero around like what it was that he wanted through this persimmon thing. But you also connect with folks around prior to conception, what is? What is a conscious conception session or reading? You know, it's

Spirit Babies, Conscious Conception, and the Soul's Transition

Sufi: many things. It used to be. I had the toughest time in the beginning because it it's really tricky. Nowadays, I tell people this kind of reading is many parts. It's It's part it's part intuition, it's part consultation, it's part investigation. I can't tell you how many women say to me, when I started drinking mountain valley spring water, I got pregnant. But what's that about? It's not about mountain valley spring water. It's, you're drinking spring water, and it's a balance of minerals, you know. And there's a reason it all in the old days, women would say, oh, must have been something in the water. She had six kids,

Sufi: so been something in the water. That's great.

Sufi: I'm investigating all of that with my clients in a conception reading, what are you doing with plastics? You know, I'm doing very and then we go into the the connection. Sometimes mothers are getting signs and symbols. I don't always get the signs and symbols that they're getting, but sometimes baby will show me or say, Oh, I have brother here with me. He tried to came come through, but he changed his mind. And so I'm going to jump in, but tell mom, brother's going to come next. But I have a hard time with spirit baby readings. I struggle because I'm a stickler for validation. Hence, I've studied with some mediumship teachers that are all about hardcore validation. I don't want to waste your time. I want to bring through details there's no way I could know. And I bring that rigor into my spirit baby and all that, but spirit baby's tough. It the book spirit baby was written by a medium Walter mckichen, and I don't always agree with some of his stuff. Abortion comes up. I've done readings around abortion, and I have very specific views on that. I had young women come to me worried that they were going to go to hell because they had an abortion, worried that their baby hated them. And I'm going to say right here, I don't get that from the babies. I It's when you have a soul perspective, it's there's more leeway. It's not, there's not some. Dogma in my experience. So spirit, baby moms want to talk to me about their miscarriage. Another thing I find fascinating is if they miscarried under eight weeks gestation, I don't get a real soul attachment there, not really. This is why I won't do pregnancy reading till women are 30 weeks gestation. I just get more info. It's because there's all this transition time of the soul. There's a whole thing I experienced with all that. But preconception readings also are talking about, I feel your husband's not on board. I feel like your husband doesn't want to have kids and is struggling with his own childhood and doesn't want to deal with that. And when he has a child, he's very afraid of that, and baby tells me to tell Dad, it's going to be okay. And I know that dad is Dad's going to have an experience where he's hanging out with kids and he's going to come around and get on board, but he doesn't have to fear his childhood so messages like that, and sure enough, that mom texted me a few months later, oh, my husband's been teaching guitar to an eight year old, and he now is on board and wants kids or clients come in and say, convince my husband that we should have get pregnant, or they have all sorts of questions. We don't have time for it today to get into all of that, all of the other stuff, yeah, there's a taste. Yeah, it's,

Britta: it's absolutely a taste. And, and I want to, I want to pivot a little more into your work as a doula. Now, rather than as since we kind of partitioned your skill set, and you said you don't necessarily work with them entirely intermingled, there's a way in which they both, I'm sure, do influence one another. Yeah, because you're walking, you're walking a path of holding somebody through portals, and so they're they're gonna connect. But I'm thinking about your the book that you're writing, and your work with Taoism and the middle way, I'd love to kind of have you speak a little bit about that and what that means to you, like, what? What does your your working title is birth in the middle way. And tell what? What's the middle way? What are you talking about?

Birth in the Middle Way: Taoism, Flexibility, and Releasing the Outcome

Sufi: It's driving me crazy. It's social media. You know, people trying to get click baits. And what's driving me crazy in doula world? And in part, I why I love and always send my clients to your class, because your class, my clients come back to me, truly prepared for birth, and they're not terrified of the hospital. They're just grounded, and they're ready for what so I understand in many other states, we're not, as proof we're they're not. There are many things going on in other states and hospitals that are are not great and are very old school, but I now want to be the poster child for do not get into a hysterical state about having to birth on your back in the hospital when, and I'm talking about Los Angeles when I'm having I work with three doctors at Cedars that have let my clients push on all fours. This was unheard of 10 years ago. Even there's there's progress being made. I want to give people hope, because what drives me nuts, what I never want to hear anymore, is, why couldn't I birth like that woman? There's beautiful shares about women having natural birth, free birth, tide pool birth, oh, my god, I'm so into that. It's so much fun. But I have to say, the people I work with, I've attended over 500 births, 40 of which were home water births as an assistant midwife, not everybody gets the sparkly birth like that. Not everybody wants it. Some people feel better in the hospital, and I don't want them terrified going in, and there's no need for that. I have so much say and control in the birth room with my clients, because I've built trust with medical staff. I send a note to any doctor I work with ahead of time introducing myself, I set up everything we need to know do in the prenatals. It's just no more fear mongering, and it goes both ways, you know. And I don't want any woman, because after my birth, I felt like I failed, and I went into a terrible postpartum. At home, I failed. Oh, you know, I got gestational diabetes. I failed. There's too much of that, yeah, and so, and

Britta: there's a lot that is being reinforced in that through our access to media, yeah, of a particular way, often in social media, that can set up those expectations or those ideals in a way that can we can really use against ourselves. So So you started answering my question about what birth and way is, and I think I have a sense of where you're going with this, but I want to bring you back to thank you. What is that that birth in the middle way, in regard to what it is you're speaking to,

Sufi: what we resist persists.

Britta: One of my favorite lines,

Sufi: I had a client. She's like, No men should be at my birth and if no men with a mustache should come into the birth room. I said, Well, you know what's going to happen a man with a mustache is going to come in the birth room. She's like, you're so funny. Sufi, sure enough, pushing stage, I hear knock on the door. We'd ask for towels. Smooth birth. I jumped behind the curtain, and sure enough, there's a man with a mustache with a bunch of towels. What I try to educate clients is that, like, let's play with your resistance. Where are you resisting? Let's make let's make a peace with the C section. Let's become friends with the C section, the epidural. Let's have strategies understanding birth in the middle. Way is, I'm trying to work with clients to be as flexible and and not not assume they know how they're going to do it and embedded to an outcome that they really don't know till they're in the room, you don't know what it's going to be like till you're there. So have grace with that. And my whole work is working with clients, understanding ideas about Taoism. And I'm not a Daoist. I'm not an expert. I just love lots about it. You and I both have experience with Buddhism and all of that. I just bring that in because in any place in life, how we do anything is how we do everything. And I just want to be a mirror for clients like, Ooh, this is interesting. You said this, oh, let's investigate that. Because when I don't want too many surprises during the labor, I want smooth sailing.

Britta: Yeah, it's it's really interesting that you're saying that, you're saying that, because what's coming up for me is, you know, we, we work in this field that has a lot of surprises and expected a lot of in part because it is a portal moment. It is a portal passage. There's, there's a lot about it that is beyond the linear control of our understanding of logic and and to do lists and bullet points and all of the things that give us a sense of control In our world. And this is a place where that that illusion of control gets popped, because it's so so much of that portal place and and that's where I think you and I align really well in our work. Is that that idea of of that flexibility, and I love what N Chem nadefo talks about around resilience, being like bamboo, that flexibility but strong, yes, where it's not brittle, where it's so solid that it's like, this is how it needs to be. But if there's any pressure on it, it snaps bamboo bends, yeah. And there's an element of facing birth that requires us to be in that bamboo place, which also is how parent, what parenthood asks us to do as well and life. And then that makes me come full circle to your final statement, which was about how how we birth is how we live. How we live is how we birth. There's so much about like, like hardships that I'm currently facing in my life. And I work, been working with a therapist, coach, mentor, person who was like, Wow, you're really in like, a postpartum period. Brita, wow. Good thing you know a lot about navigating the postpartum and. I was like, Oh, my gosh, of course.

Sufi: Yeah, absolutely.

Britta: Oh, I'm in a postpartum period. Of course I am, and it but it takes me back to what you're saying, that there's things about my birth thing journey that I'm still utilizing and leaning on and learning from that are connected to how I live my life, and some of those also were things I learned in my yoga life prior to giving birth. So it's all inter connected, if that makes sense. Yeah, I always say, like

Sufi: I'm still working and chewing on my birth, you know, my kids, 22 and I, I'm in a postpartum phase, the empty nest. All of that.

Sufi: Me too. We've talked about that though, yes, so

How We Do Anything Is How We Do Everything: Birth, Postpartum, and Life

Sufi: I know. But you know, I look at my birth and I was like, Oh my gosh, my birth was so me, like, I can be impatient, and I can get I get bored easily, and I can start reading a book and just skip to the end. And so I started to see like that comes up a lot in my life, and I don't want to die that way. I don't want to just skip to the end. And in my birth, I called my own C section because I could hear the D cells. I think it's the right move. I think I did. I did a great job, but it took me a long time to get there. But, um, you know, I It's yeah, how we do anything is how we do a lot of things and understanding that, and using our postpartum and our birth to inform the rest. Also, as a mom, now that I have a 20 something, I look back, and I would just want to share with parents like, thank goodness there's so the village does raise your kid good or bad. There's a lot of bad, I know, but there's good or bad. You're not alone in it. And a lot of things I thought were not going to be good. And I was sure, because I didn't do X, Y and Z, it wasn't going to be good. My kids, awesome. You know, it worked out. And I can't take 100% credit for it, it was other people. It was my community. You're not alone, and it's not forever. I have so many, I call it buying insurance. I have so many clients that are like, I've got to have this kind of birth. I've got to have these products. I've got to have this postpartum, and then my kids going to be a genius. That's a terrible weight on the babies. The babies aren't comfortable with that. They don't want perfect parents. They want parents that can connect and relate to what it is to be human.

Britta: Yeah, that that quest for perfection really gets in the way. I mean, for in my in my book, transformed by birth ideal number eight, and I address eight cultural ideals, is what I call them. And number eight is that quest for perfection and exceptionalism, that idea that that a perfect exists, that that if we just know enough or purchase the right things, or hire the right people, or do enough of the deep work that it will all go the way we want it to, and it Yeah, being birth, postpartum, labor, parenthood, You know, I there was a part of me that felt so good about my early parenting, like, Ah, I really, really liked my early parenting. And we were really, you know, focused on the organic foods and the all the things. And we really were focused. And then when my second born was five months old, and my first born was not yet three. My older one was diagnosed with type one diabetes, and we went from not ever using like over the counter medicines to being in a daily connection, relationship with insulin and I in many ways, especially with hindsight. I mean, it was traumatic and it was really hard, and I'm not undermining or or belittling that for myself, but that experience was a parental awakening for me that brought me into a more humble reality of my own humanity. Yeah, and I've heard that I'm.

Sufi: Grateful. Yeah, yeah. You know, similarly, my son struggling with epilepsy at early age. Thank goodness he's grown out of it now. But and me being engaged with the hospital system in a whole different way early on was a great education, you know, I just, it's, it's just fascinating what teachers and what teachings these experiences are. And, yeah, yeah, no.

25 Years at the Gates: How Birth Has Evolved

Britta: So you've, you've been a doula for a lot of years now, like 25 Yeah, wow. You're on a milestone here, a milestone number. What, what? How has, how has your understanding of birth evolved in those 20 years? And how do you think birth has evolved in those 20 years? I have

Sufi: so much hope and excitement for the progress I've seen at St John's and see at St John's and Cedar Sinai and other hospitals Kaiser Westwood, I am so I think every midwife and doula that was in those board meetings at St John's, giodita on a Paula, you know, change happened. It's been slow. What's made me sad are the doulas who are still being educated or radicalized, I'm going to piss some people off here. I feel, in my early education as a doula, I was radicalized and to see the system as the enemy, which I love that story, I love the matrix. But I found getting kicked out of the hospital was not serving my clients. Would not serve my clients and some of my favorite doulas have been kicked out and banned from hospitals when they would have been of great value. So I recognize and honor all the doulas and midwives who just jumped in, stuck with it, because change is happening. And so I want parents to know that there is more. Is it perfect? No, because it's a system, and any system, that's why I'm like, don't read so many books. It's not about you. You need to learn your baby and learn you. Who are you as an individual, who's your baby as an individual? Sprinkle in some books and all of that, and but yeah, I feel things are going in a great direction. And I do, I only attend one birth a month now, but you know, I love to have the space I can really get in it with clients, and not have to worry about colliding births and all that.

Britta: I love that and that you have that, that privilege at this point in your life to be in a place where you get to hold your own boundaries for your own capacity, which is also really important. So how can folks find out about what you more, about what you do and connect with you? I also would love to be able to point people to your beautiful art, like, what, where, where can folks find and see what it is that you do.

Where to Find Sufi and Her Work

Sufi: So I had this call. I call it soul cartography. I have so many readings now and managing that, and then with the birth and other things I'm doing, I've had to put the artwork on on the back burner a little bit.

Britta: Are you still doing any of the art while you're doing the readings? Or No?

Sufi: No, no, no. But they can go on Facebook under soul cartography to see it. It's there still. I will pick that up again later, but it's a form of mediumship. And yeah, and that was lovely, but I haven't had time, especially with writing now, which is so fun, but if for deeper dives, you can find me on sub stack under at the gates and Instagram, spiritual life of babies. Yeah, Facebook, spiritual life of

Britta: babies, yeah, and then your website

Sufi: is joy. Joynavigation.com, that's right.

Final Question

Britta: Joy, okay, so Sufi, I like to end with one question that I ask every guest, which is, if there's one thing, and I know one is a hard thing to narrow it down to, for all of us that have lots of opinions about lots of things, but what's one thing you feel passionately about that you want new or expectant parents to see, hear, feel or know during this profession? On period of their lives.

Sufi: What? What is, what the profound I think I kind of spoke to it like, don't buy into the hysteria. You know, pick a good doctor, pick a good midwife, but don't, don't go so deep and know where your social media is coming from. You know, I've had clients send me social media stuff like from other states that don't make sense for where they're birthing. So less social media get more into you and more time in nature. And don't get too dogmatic about the outcome.

Closing

Britta: Love it. Thank you, Sufi, beautiful. It's wonderful to have you. Thank you for joining me, and thank you, thank you, and thank you listeners for sharing this time with us. If something shared today impacted supported or moved you. Please share this episode with a friend. I produce this podcast myself, and your support makes it possible to show a little love for the podcast and these conversations. Please follow rate and review. If you'd like to continue the conversation, please join us on Instagram at transformed by birth. I look forward to being with you again on the next episode of transform by birth. Now let's gather what we want to take away from this episode with Sufi and breathe it in with an inhale and with our exhale, I'll blow out our candle until next time bye, friends bye.