Beyond the To-Do List: The Inner Work of Becoming a Parent

Introduction and Welcome

Britta: 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's episode takes us into the nervous system and things we can do to support ourselves as a bodied being going through this rite of passage. So grab your comfy beverage of choice or take us along for a walk as we gain insights and tools for navigating the daily stresses that often plague the journey from pre conception through parenthood with my guest Patty Quintero, who is a grounding force of nature. 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. Today's candle is an invitation into a moment of mindfulness.

THE INNER TRANSFORMATION OF PREGNANCY

Britta: There's something that happens during pregnancy that goes beyond the physical changes. Everyone can see, yes, your baby is growing, your body is changing. But there's also this quieter, deeper transformation happening, a shift in consciousness, an awakening to parts of yourself you maybe didn't even know existed. Some days you feel more connected to the universe than ever before, while other days, you feel completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the change. While culturally, we seem to have endless resources for tracking baby's development and preparing for labor, we tend to spend less time gathering tools for navigating the profound inner journey that's happening alongside it, the spiritual, emotional and consciousness shifts that come with family building, those often get overlooked in favor of focusing on the physical and practical. But what if the inner transformation is just as important as the other transformations occurring? What if pregnancy, birth and early parenthood are actually invitations to expand not just our families, but our entire understanding of who we are and how we move through the world today.

INTRODUCING PATTY QUINTERO

Britta: I'm excited to welcome Patty to the show. Patty and I both dove into birth work from the diving boards of our yoga mats as yoga teachers at Yoga works and I also recently learned that we both also have a past in early childhood education. I was a preschool teacher, Patty was a kindergarten teacher, and Patty has gone so much farther than the days of when we were Yoga works teachers, kind of concurrent teachers, and have known each other beyond what we knew when we were in that yoga studio. Patty is now a Vedic meditation teacher and founder of uma mother, a platform dedicated to supporting the consciousness expansion that happens throughout pregnancy, birth and postpartum life. With over 25 years experience, she's guided hundreds of mothers through the transformative chapter, offering classes, workshops and retreats that blend ancient wisdom with practical tools. What I love about Patty's approach is that she helps families navigate not just the logistics of having a baby, but the profound spiritual journey that comes with creating new life. Hello, my dear friend and welcome.

Patty: Hello, Britta. It's so good to be here and share the space with you.

PATTY'S GROUNDING PRESENCE

Britta: It's always wonderful to get to sit across from you. You do have this grounding energy. I can hear it even in the tone of my own voice, that being with you, I'm speaking a little slower, I'm moving a little I mean, I'm always moving a little fast, but there's just this energy that you bring that I think those who work with you also feel it's like, oh, can I have some some Patty energy to like, Can Can we like, can you rub off on me a little bit? And I just there's a way in which you exist in the world that is healing. So simply by being in your presence, and I hope that those listeners today can feel that too.

Patty: Thank you.

THE JOURNEY TO SPIRITUAL CONNECTION

Britta: So I want to kind of understand and know how'd you get here? How did you get to the point where you have this, this ability with your body, with your energy, and I don't mean your whole past story of your journey, but like your your spiritual connection to this work and to yourself and what it is that you offer and why, to the families you work with

CHILDHOOD SEEDS OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Patty: I do think that this is something that has felt so natural and inherent in me. I could say clearly from childhood, not, not necessarily the maternal link. I think there definitely was a maternal bone in my body that was very, very present and maternal, just inspiration and yearning from a very young age. But there also was something about me sitting sometimes, you know, I'd sit on like a pillow, and I just chant to the birds, and I think all these efforts of in the play World of being a child were ways that I was connecting with something bigger than myself, and where I felt this unity with something and a presence outside of this body. And so the crumbs were there. From the beginning, they started to become more enlivened as I went along my path, working with children, getting a master's in education. I think even you know, having studied film and theater, was a little bit of a remembering of the future, knowing like, oh, somewhere I'm going to be speaking to others, or I'm going to be holding space to educate, and I'm going to be on a stage. And it wasn't really on the stage of a play, but it was on a stage of a yoga class, or meditation, as a teacher conference, as a teacher and and even as a little little girl, I would play that I was teaching all the kids movement and jumps. And so the the seeds of meditation, the seeds of yoga, which really, you know, the word yoga is so much more than what we look at yoga as in the West. You know, yoga is a state of consciousness. It's that state of consciousness of unity with small self and big self. So to answer your question, I think these there was a thread that was weaving all of this together from a very young age, and then it was as I got pregnant. It really was expanded, because there was even though I was teaching prenatal yoga before I was pregnant, then I got pregnant, and it was just the practice that I felt so drawn to, because it was a practice of self awareness. It was a practice that slowed me down. It was a practice that invited me into the transformation, not only on a physical level, but on a much bigger plane in all in all planes.

FOLLOWING THE DHARMIC PATH

Patty: So I definitely find that those that that's what started to drive me in and then, you know, the my own births, and the do having a doula, and then teaching people and being a renegade doula. And it just was the dharmic path and dharma, something that changes throughout our life continuously, because we're always evolving. But it was so clear. And, you know, Britta, I resisted it in so many ways. It was like, No, I'm the advanced yoga teacher. No, I'm this. I kept, kind of like shunning it away. And when I finally just opened my heart to say yes to all those doors that were being tapped on, it took it kind of took itself. It started to grow in itself. So

Britta: I love that, yeah, and I think that a lot of folks listening probably can relate to the energy of having things tap us on. You know, to knock on the door that we may or may not yet be ready to answer, but we're hearing the knock on the door, and sometimes we got to open the door.

ANSWERING THE CALL TO MOTHERHOOD

Britta: And I think about my own journey. I was teaching yoga, as you know, at the same studio where you taught, and I was like, I don't know. There's something missing. It's not quite it. What do I want? And I was like, the only thing that kept coming loudly in the the consciousness, or in the voice of the universe, or however, in you want to say it was you want to be a mom. Yeah. Hmm, you want to be a mom. And I didn't know. Then I kept thinking that I needed to figure out my life's path prior to becoming a mother. Little did I know that answering that call would actually open the door to what my my professional path would be. And it's, it's interesting how there's those breadcrumbs, and now I can look back and see the whole line of breadcrumbs that I was following, right?

WHEN NATURE STARTS TO SHAKE

Patty: And you and I know, working with mothers and parents for so many years now that this, as soon as one steps onto this path, all systems start to get reckoned with, outdated behaviors, irrelevant relationships, jobs that are going to start to decay because they are no longer relevant for the next chapter, things happening in one's house, relationships, restructuring. It's almost like the ground starts to shake when nature's expanding herself, right? And so sometimes the reminder to someone who's on that path is you don't have to have it all figured out, because the chess pieces are going to start moving on their own. And this is one of the reasons why I've found that the foundation of this journey is that ability to continually unstress and continually remove, you know, old layers of identity, so that you can really have clear ears and a clear lens of perception when you're on that path, because the transformation is inevitable, because that's all that's ever happening. That's all that's ever happening, no matter what path you're no matter what path you're on, a path of change, yes, but when another human is coming through, you know, things start to shake. Nature stops whispering and starts to really kind of shake. So it is. It's nice to hear your story of having that knowing and also kind of feeling, the resistance and surrendering to it, because that's such that that's one of the main, main things that we have to do when we are stepping onto this path of motherhood and parenthood, absolutely.

THE PULL OF INTUITION

Britta: And I think it's really common for folks to feel that, very common to feel that and to feel that intuitive pull that may not even be familiar, yeah, like that, that pull of, what is that my intuition like? I don't even know if I know how to listen to my intuition yet, but it starts to get louder when in that that process of family building, and it's one of the things that I think about when I work with clients, and what I've seen in the years that I've been in this field like you, is that there's also this kind of spiritual awakening. I mean, I'm bristling at my own word choice, because I don't want it to sound too airy fairy and out there. But there is this like awakening, this curiosity, perhaps is another way of saying it, or a grabbing of our hearts and souls that says, figure this out now. Work toward your own growth, for the betterment of the universe, for your child, for yourself, for your family, and it it feels important in a new way, yeah, which makes me think of what it is that you do with families? Yeah, yeah.

CREATION, MAINTENANCE, AND DESTRUCTION

Patty: You know, as we're saying, we can kind of look at it like there's and a lot of the times in Vedic psychology, or in the Vedic worldview, there's a mention of the constituents of nature that are continually pushing the movie forward, that are keeping the river moving to the ocean. So we can call that evolution, and there's creation operator and there's maintenance operator and there's destruction operator, and none of them can hold pull position if we want to keep that river flowing, the river of evolution and of growth and expansion. And so when creation is coming in, if there's been a pattern of stagnation and things that are irrelevant, patterns that are irrelevant, those patterns are going to be blown out of the water so that creation can come through. And this is why we feel this, you know, like the example of the being in the cocoon and feeling the breaking out of that of that chrysalis in order to stretch your wings out, those growing pains are very real. They're real physically, they're real emotionally, they're energetic. They're real in every department of our life. And so as we speak, it's important to acknowledge that it's very real. You know, we feel it in our bodies. We feel it in our relationships. You know, we just feel it at so many layers. And the invitation is, how can I have a curious, compassionate, playful lens with this chapter of my life, which is such rapid expansion, it feels like a long, long year, but it's very, very rapid, very rapid.

EXPANSION INCLUDES DESTRUCTION

Britta: But it's also not just expansion. There's also destruction.

Patty: And that's why I mentioned the three of them, because I'm like, that's in there. And destruction is a part of evolution and part of that expansion. You know, my hair is not the same hair I had before. My skin is not the same skin. It happens at the micro level and at the macro level always. And so for creation to come through, there has to be some destruction. Just like when we are done with our gestation process, we are going to give birth, and it's going to feel like an eruption, and it's going to be there is some dissolution of one state of life into another for child and for parent, and so, yes, it's so important that you highlight that when we're talking about expansion, there is always an ending of something to go into The next chapter. It's like when you're reading a book, you're finishing that chapter to go into the next and we don't want to necessarily rush to the end of the book and read the end and make sure everything turns out okay. We want to enjoy the movie. We want to enjoy the story. And the story has a lot of peaks and valleys, and that's what makes a good story.

THE STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS SHAPES THE JOURNEY

Patty: And so the work that I really feel driven to do at this point in my life is, yes, so important, as you said, the physical aspects to support the physical body, the nutritional, you know, support systems. But before all of those, what is the consciousness state of the traveler? Because that's going to shape the lens that you're looking at this journey through. It's going to change. It's going to shift your ability to stay curious when those hurdles come up and when those growing pains comes up, come up. It's going to allow you to be more playful with the experience, and it's going to allow you to actually not look at the experience through a telephoto lens, which happens when we have a lot of stress chemistry, but it's going to suddenly create a wider aperture for you to look at the whole chessboard and be a little less in the Oh no, and be a little less in the of course.

Britta: And so that's accessible as we begin to practice cleansing the body of stress, not only on a weekly basis, but on a daily basis, because pregnancy in itself, is is a lot of stress on the body. There's the stress of holding another human, all the fluids, another organ, just such a magnitude of change happening in the body. So even just that, that's before you even leave your house, yes, or get your bed, before you even get up in the morning, those parts are already transpiring, already happening, and they are added stress. And that's not to say what happens when we leave our home, or if we look on social media or on the news, those add even more types of stress, and so you really have some expertise and specialization in helping folks navigate their nervous systems.

VEDIC MEDITATION: A SIMPLE, EFFORTLESS PRACTICE

Patty: Yes, the and the and the main practices that I offer, and there's so many, because there's many paths to regulate your nervous system. And the truth is, we're not formulaic. No one is the same. No one has had the same histories. We're so unique in our individual states, that there's not one right way for anybody. But what I have found is that a practice like Vedic meditation, which is a daily practice, twice daily practice, is so simple and effortless, which actually is challenging for people, and we'll get to that, but it's a way of squeezing the sponge daily, twice daily, so that you're showing up in a more relevant way, so that the chest piece isn't being driven by all the stressors of last year or when you were five or when you were 10. But there's a way to take out the garbage daily, so that you're showing up with a fresh lens, with a fresh lens of perception, so that you're actually upgrading the chemistry in the body so the organs can have better functionality.

THE PHONE METAPHOR

Patty: It's a little bit like when you think of your cell phone. My cell phone has so many tabs open that when my kids actually look at it, they're like, Mom, what are you doing like do you ever, do you ever close your to ever close your tabs?

Britta: I know mine. Mine asked me that question too.

Patty: I don't, I don't, and I could probably have an assistant to help me manage my whole phone. But nowadays, these, these phones, are very, very adaptable, and that's a great example, because we want to be adaptable like that. We want to have a threshold for change of expectation and triggers and challenges and physical challenges, so that we're not reactive, but we're more interactive with all of this. Because if like that phone that has so many tabs open, I too have the tab of the last conversation. What happened to me when I was 10, what the person just said. Then what begins to happen is I am shaped and guided by those experiences, by that external locus of control. That's what's guiding this body and this person, instead of flipping that lens inward into that more spacious and expanded state of consciousness, which is the unified field of consciousness, which is we can talk about that, but which is there for all of us beyond all the layers of stress. It's not like I need to go out and find that place. Where does it exist? How can I get to it? It's always there. It's behind all those layers and layers and layers and layers of stress. So this is a practice that is not about taking you to a place that you're not already but instead it's about revealing a state that is so deep beyond those layers of stress that is your essence.

FINDING NEUTRAL AND RECHARGING

Britta: Yeah, and, and, I think all of us need in our own bodies. If our bodies are those phones, we need to close tabs. We need to close the apps and find neutral, find ground, come back to what that is, whether it's this particular practice that is what you teach and align with so strongly, or for somebody else, it might be something completely different, right? But it's the acknowledgement and the practice of what helps you return to that state to find that place. Yeah, because that phone has only so much capacity on its own, but if you turn it down and plug it in to a greater source of energy, then it recharges and it functions more adequately.

THE ADULT TIMEOUT

Patty: So for us, what that looks like is if I close my eyes and sit comfortably and allow this body to de Excite, to cool off, not focus, not concentrate, not tell it what to do, not follow a path. All of that is wonderful in its ways. But if we actually sit and we allow this body to de Excite with a very simple technique, then what begins to happen is we're creating an arena for all those stressors to be heard. Because they want to be heard. They're like little children, like they want to be heard, and so we're giving we're giving them space to be heard. We're giving them space to come out. Sometimes I tell my students that it's a little bit like an adult timeout in the healthiest way. The purpose of the timeout, quote, unquote, is for parents to say, wow, this person is not able to self regulate right now, and supposedly that timeout is going to help them. Whether that works or not. That's irrelevant to what we're talking about, but we don't have that right. Our time out is we get on the phone and I'm, I'm saying, I do it myself. We flip and we start flipping. And it's, it's a distraction from what was bothering us.

Britta: Oh, at best, right? At best, it's a distraction because it can actually activate 100%

Patty: it's designed to activate, it's designed to get, it's designed for that. Yeah, all has its purpose. So we're gonna, we're not going to say that that is, is what we're running away from. What we're going to say is, how do I become invincible to this? How do I Excuse me? How do I interact with these new with this technology, with the abundance of it and not be reactive to it, or, you know, indoctrinated by it. The only way to do that is if I have, if I have a wider lens to look at it and, you know, be inspired by it, chuckle at it, but it doesn't identify me anymore. I'm not looking for fulfillment from whatever it is that I'm seeing, because twice daily, I'm actually tapping into that inner well of fulfillment, which is infinite and which is always there. Because fulfillment from the outside. You know, when we open our phones and we escape a little bit, which is really delicious and fun to do, whether it's a movie, whether it's the coffee, whether it's the phone, whether it's whatever it is, whatever their place, they all have their place. But who's the witness? If the witness is their lens is being shaped by what it's told from the outside. You are this. If you do this, you are better. If you look this way. You know you are better. If you have this kind of birth, you are better if you're this kind of a mother, if that's what's ruling my inner compass, then I'm going to always be seeking validation from the outside sources. And this is so essential for parents. Yeah. So essential.

RITES OF PASSAGE AND TRANSFORMATION

Britta: Yeah. This sounds like it has particular relevance, during the rite of passage, time period of this, I mean, of any rite of passage, frankly, because there's so many that we go through in our lives. It's not just pregnancy, birth, new parenthood. There are many. You know, I'm you and I both have adult children. There's a rite of passage in that in its own right, absolutely 100% menopause. Okay, that's that's another one, but there is something about this period of time that is ripe for acknowledging this the the tantalizing nature to change our sense of self through looking at the projections coming toward us in the in the world. Yeah, it's an it's an amplified curve of all the waves of transformation that we'll have from birth to when we drop our body. This one in particular, the unique the uniqueness about it, the magnitude about it that you are going to now be growing another human in your body, another organ in your body, and carry that human and live with that human, and birth that human, and then feed that human, and then find your own roots. It's massive.

NOT ANOTHER TO-DO LIST ITEM

Britta: Well, and I don't, I'm I'm hearing all of this, and I'm also thinking to myself, Okay, are listeners now wondering, great. Now I have to add tending to my spiritual self, also to my to do list that feels ever lengthening like talk about that.

Patty: Yeah, yeah. And so I love what you said earlier about the spiritual awakening, because we can demystify that by saying whether the word is spirit or the word is energy, or whatever it is that you believe animates this body, and whatever it is that you believe is animating the body that's growing inside of you, we can remove the word spiritual if that feels more adequate for different people, there's a massive transformation, right? So even on the physical level, it's to think, what am I doing to help upgrade this, this body and mind that is growing so rapidly and is faced with so many new hurdles, physical challenges, mental challenges, relationship challenges. What are we doing? Like we spoke about the phone, to upgrade this, to help de Excite. We know that that if there is a lot of heat and if two people are just at it kind of and there's no de exciting, there's really no way to find resolution. We can see it. We see it now, all you have to do is turn on the news, this side against this side, and both saying, one is right, one is the other and no one de exciting. There's very little space to find inner action. And, you know, creative solution and innovation and unity points when we don't de Excite. This is why I gave that example of the timeout. That timeout example is like, oh, this person needs to de excite so they can see everything more clearly. The the person who's stomping their you know, the kid who's stomping their foot because they got something taken away, we all need to do the same, you know. So where are you finding time of non doing. Because, yes, yoga practice, moving the body surfing, taking walks, conversations with friends also important. But there's a doing aspect. There is there a space of non doing in your day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go horizontal for sleep, what we call sleep, where is the body having an opportunity to de excite so that it can remove stress, gain deep rest and reboot, so that when it opens its eyes, it is interacting with life with a full tank, with greater adaptability, with a creative lens and a shift of perspective often that comes when we take a second and we pull away, and that's what we're getting at.

THE BODY AS A SPONGE

Patty: It's Yes, is it a spiritual awakening? Awakening? It is. But let's get even more. Let's talk about the gross body relating to the physical body. The gross body is on continuously and every sense in your body is paying attention as soon as your eyes open. What do you see? What do you eat? What did you see on on Instagram? What did you see on Google? What did you hear on the news? What did that person say to you? The body's just soaking and soaking in like this beautiful sponge. It's just the most sophisticated instrument. It's just soaking in and soaking in. And now you have another human that's growing in, so it's soaking into them. Chemistry, chemistry, where is there a point that we actually let those senses release the stress that they accumulated? Because, if not, you're carrying it continually, and you know who you take it to. You take it to sleep with you. And everyone is like, sleep is so important. You need to get sleep. And you take all those stressors to bed with you, and then you lay down, and you're like, Bing, eyes open, toss and turn, nightmares, body having twitches. That's stress release. The body is going to do anything to adapt and and process, process, try and process, and it's happening in sleep. So, and we're in a cult. We have a culture of sleep challenged humans, we do.

INSPIRATION NOT STRESS

Britta: And, you know, I think that whenever we hear these things, instead of taking the lens of like, oh my gosh, I'm doing it all wrong, and what did I do? I think you and I can highlight we didn't know the things we know when we had our children, when we were pregnant, I definitely did not know what I teach now, right? And that's happened. That's gonna happen because we have

Patty: Yeah, and we weren't the people then that we are now. That's that's part of our own evolutionary path, yeah. And if you're listening to this now and you're feeling that way, let it be inspirational instead of create more stress. Now I need to do this instead think. Now I get to do this. I get to prioritize little windows of time where I tend to de exciting and undoing, knowing that this body is going to work to heal itself and adapt, if I just let it do that, like the example of the phone.

MOMMY NEEDS A TIMEOUT

Britta: I love that it's and back to your I was giggling a little bit inside when you were talking about the timeout, because I didn't use timeouts with my children. Neither did I when I was raising them, but I did use them for myself. I would say to my kids, guys, Mommy needs a timeout. I mean, I would say that frequently, and what that meant was I needed to take space. I often if I had an impulse to punish or or have some kind of like interaction with my kids. What that usually was communicating to me is that I was dysregulated. They clearly were too, but if I wasn't able to support and handle their dysregulation, it meant that I wasn't regulated. I was in a place of stress, where stress was my guide in that moment, and in order to be able to kind of check in and find and access the part of myself that wanted to be a really good mom and handle whatever meltdown was currently happening in the way that I aspired to. I actually had to put my oxygen mask on first, and that meant not putting them in a timeout, but putting myself in a timeout. And exactly I did it frequently.

THE FINE LEVEL OF FEELING

Patty: And how intuitive of you. There's that fine level of feeling inside all us. We can call it intuition. We can call it charm. We all have it. But what's prompting that? What's prompting that is it overload of stress. Because what prompts the overload of stress may prompt something different than telling your kids time I need a timeout. Sometimes it's something that's a little more aggressive or something that then we have to clean up and regret having done. We've all been there because that's what we are. We're human, and we're not we're not selling perfection. But what? But what we get to start to practice is, how do I interact when there's a change of expectation, which there's going to be many along your pregnancy, many through your birth, and many throughout your parenthood journey.

CALMING THE HORSES

Patty: So how can I interact with those changes of expectation, like you said, taking that moment? You know, I'm a child of the 70s, and I remember hearing watching commercials that would say, when you feel you're going to shake your kid, put them down and count to 10. Yeah, that was a little bit that's again, it's a call to action. It's a call to say, hey, something is going to happen. And we've all felt that. In parenthood, I have felt it. I have felt moments as a single mother with challenges, and even in married I've felt those challenges of like, Whoa, I could be the person I don't want to be right now. Yeah, and so meditation and these techniques are not going to say that's good, that's bad. They're simply going to illuminate who how are these horses pulling the cart? Let's calm the horses down so we could have a more evolutionary interaction with what's happening. And that's not always available to us when we're driving the car, when we're with the kid, when the baby's crying, when we get the news, you know, from the midwife or the OB. And so having a practice as a foundation when you're going to step on this beautiful challenging, and, you know, very unique experience of calling yourself a parent. It's a game changer. Yeah, it's it's necessary so that, because we know that there is no greater teacher than a child, and that those teachings start before you're even pregnant. They start before you're even pregnant.

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN YOUR OWN PSYCHE

Britta: Yeah, which, again, I think circles back to why it so often feels for folks who've maybe never even had a conscious spiritual quote, unquote, air quote. Thought in their life suddenly are like, Ooh, I'm questioning this, and I'm thinking in this way, and I've got this expansion thinking it. It has to do with that. It is such a graduate program in your own psyche, life, spiritual journey, you're going to be asked to confront yourself, your perfectionism and your imperfectionism, and what's going to help you, what's going To help you through that, and your sense of control, and, you know, all the things, all the things, all the things and and it changes throughout every stage, right?

DOING THE RESEARCH WITH A CLEAR LENS

Patty: Yeah, so, and sometimes even it's the path of embarking on preconception and going through the hurdles, or going through it all and realizing, you know, actually, this isn't for me, wonderful. What a wonderful you did the research. And that's really all we're doing. We're doing the research. So the researchers job is to make sure that the lens that they're doing the research through is as clear as possible and as updated as possible, so that we're not functioning on all of the old patterns that are probably not relevant for us in this stage. The lessons all relevant, all relevant. But who do I get to show up as today? And because you're growing so rapidly in pregnancy, it's it's that daily practice, I think is a game changer. Yeah, that I love.

LOSING AND FINDING PRACTICE THROUGH MOTHERHOOD

Britta: I mean, all of this, you know, I came from, I came into motherhood from a practice perspective. My practice was, I mean, I did Ashtanga Yoga the day I went into labor with, with my first born, you know, on the mat in Chuck Miller's class at Yoga works on Montana Avenue. I mean, I practiced it that morning, very, a very modified practice, and although still quite strong, and then just before midnight, went into went into labor, but the idea of practice was kind of rooted into my body and my life, and because the idea of practice at that point also associated to this mat and this place and these teachers that when I had my baby, I felt like I lost my practice to a certain degree, And I actually really missed feeling something anchoring and grounding me and I and at the same time, because, and this goes back to some of the first things you said, because my understanding and definition at the time of What yoga was felt so connected to that Western approach you were just talking about, of that Asana based perspective of what happens on the mat, that I had this sort of Self flagellation, this self blame about leaving the practice until I started actually expanding my understanding that actually my mothering was a practice, the most spiritual practice you will ever take on.

Patty: Yeah, and I started asking.

EVERYTHING IS YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Britta: I started answering people, because my whole community at that point was was Yoga works. And people would say, Oh, are you back to yoga? I said I practice yoga every day, because I was speaking about it in regard to what it was that yoga meant to me. Now, absolutely that, and that is what I say to mothers, this is your spiritual practice. A lot of mothers, when they are in early postpartum, are like, you know, I don't know if I can get my meditation in here. There number one mother's program, you get it in when you can, whether it's 10 minutes here 20 minutes, you know, there's no rigid attachment to the when sometimes it's at 3am

EVOLUTION NOT REGRESSION

Patty: but to your point of everything you're talking about that is something that we hear beyond even the yoga mat. When are you going to be back? When will you be back? And this is another thing, when people bring up the idea of like, Oh, my baby's having a four month regression, I invite everyone to shift that word, because knowing that we are never going backward. We really never we're always evolving. We're always expanding. We're always evolving. All of us are on that same path right the river to the ocean. It just happens at different stages, and sometimes rivers have a little more curves and a little more rocks than others, right?

THE CLINGING TO THE EVER-REPEATING KNOWN

Patty: And so good metaphor, you know, I know you do the and so the the clinging to the way it was is what brings the suffering for so many things, the clinging to the ever repeating known. Everything about pregnancy is walking toward the unknown. Everything about birth and motherhood and parenting is stepping into the unknown, and that's where the greatest things happen, the ever repeating known. Eventually, the vultures of destruction are behind that ready saying, Okay, it's time to evolve. It's time to evolve. And if we're like, no, then it just there's suffering that comes. And so that example that you gave about Ashtanga, which is such a beautiful practice, but if you're not familiar with Ashtanga, it's quite masculine, it's it's pretty rigorous, and it's counted by breaths, and it has a method to it, which feels really good, yeah, but it's unknown.

Britta: Speaking of you know exactly what you're gonna do. There's no surprises, and you're getting which can be comforting, at times, comforting, very comforting. I'm a Cancerian. I am the queen of comfort, creature comforts.

STEPPING INTO THE NEW CHAPTER

Patty: But when there is a new chapter coming or a transformation coming. There's newness, right? There's something new in that chapter, and that's what we're facing when we step onto that journey to birth. We're facing a lot of new things, and it doesn't mean we're not going to grieve. Or, you know, you miss the community that you are with, because it's beyond just the practice. You missed the routine, you missed the familiarity of it. And so we honor those things to some degree, but what we realize is we start seeing life in a really different way, because we've grown a lot and trying to force yourself into those genes, and I'm using that metaphorically and literally a lot of the times, brings unnecessary suffering. Yeah. And so to be able to have that lens of curiosity, to be able to be like, Okay, let me try this. And you know, none of that identifies me. That was then, this is now. And maybe there'll be a little bit of that in here, but maybe I'll start doing some different practices. That's what we're aiming for. And we kind of look at that in the grand scope of everything right now, we could all use a little bit of that creative intelligence right now. We could all use a little a little bit of those, that ability to find shared experience and unity points with people and experiences that we normally wouldn't and that's accessible when we are not ridden with stressors and in distraction mode and stuck in doing mode, 20, well, 12 hours that we're awake. Yeah, I

MOMENT MEDITATION

Britta: Yes, yes, yes, all of this yes and it, it you just triggered another memory for me from my motherhood journey that feels relevant to this conversation, so I'm going to bring it in. But my younger son practiced taekwondo for years with an absolutely, phenomenally wonderful teacher, and this teacher would end his taekwondo classes every single time with and I actually hear it in his voice with moment meditation. There's no moment of meditation, it's just moment meditation. And I hear it in Edison's voice in my head. And he would do this with the students, some of them kids, some of them adults, and even as a parent, especially when, when my son was young, I mean, he went all the way up to Black Belt. So he ended up, you know, driving himself and getting there when he was older. But I would sit there waiting for the class to be done, and I would hear Edison say moment meditation. And it was an immediate anchor of dropping my phone, dropping my baggage, dropping my thoughts, and I could find my way into it at other times in my day, even just imagining those words off of Edison's lips. So it doesn't have to be this huge hurdle that we have to figure out how to cross. No, you know, we have so many things in common. I just have to point out that my youngest son is also into martial arts, and his their teachers also say things like that. So one more Unity Point. Add it to the list, or unity, point to to expand the love between us.

WIRED FOR BLISS

Patty: Yes, it's right. It's not about being complicated. It's, you know, we see children do these things. What is daydreaming? What is daydreaming? Daydreaming is this body and mind trying to find its way to greater bliss. That's what we are wired to do. From the moment we land here, find our way back home. The Bliss field is home. We are an extension of the bliss field. We are an extension of that infinite well of consciousness and every single thing that we do is me trying to find a way to greater bliss, whether it's reaching for the coffee, reaching for the channel changer, reaching for the meditation, watching the sunset, a big inhale, it's it's like there's How can I get to greater bliss, and some of the things that we choose are more evolutionary, and some are not. That depends on the state of consciousness of the individual. And so what you just described was a gift that the sensei gave your son with a reinforced word moment meditation. And to them, they already knew that those words that you said, I don't know if it was moment of meditation or moment meditation.

Britta: Moment meditation.

Patty: There was no of it was moment meditation, right?

Britta: Hear it that way.

THE MIND VEHICLE

Patty: That was somewhat of an English mantra. That was a mind vehicle that put that physiology like, oh, it's safe right now to actually tune in. It's my cue. It's my invitation to tune in. So everything that we're referencing right now is the importance of having practices beyond all the things that we're going to, beyond all the planning, beyond the nursery, beyond the vitamins that you may or may not take, beyond the birth team, beyond all of that. The importance of carving out time to check in here, to check not in here, but what really is in here, this, this well of energy and intelligence and knowledge that we have, because we're going to get so many you need to you should? You need to do this? You did you? You know, and we're going to take that information and say, Thank you for the information. And then where are we going to check? We're going to check here.

SELF-REFERRAL: A MOTHER'S GREATEST SUPERPOWER

Patty: Self referral is a mother's greatest superpower. But we have to be able to hear it. We have to be willing to hear it and and and paying attention to it and prioritizing that inner voice, which I refer to as the fine level of feeling, because it's always there. It's what says yes to those things. It's what we feel when we watch a sunset or take a walk, like if you're walking right now listening to this, you know it's the it's the rustling of the leaves. It's the bird that landed on that on that branch. It's those little moments of nature saying what honor your bigness. You are all of this. It's not the universe. You are the universe. You are the universe. So how do we come back to that bigness, to that ability to be like, This is my movie, and I don't have to rush to the end to see how it ends. I just have to walk around it knowing that, wow, this movie is here for me, by me, and for me.

THE ACTION OF REVEALING

Patty: And so when we're able to do that, we can listen to this and be like, Yeah, I know all this, but what is, what am I doing to actually feel it? And that's the action of meditating, or that's the action of finding a place of non doing, which sometimes helps to reveal that

Britta: I love that, yeah, that reveals it that, the revealing of it, the listening matters, matters so much.

BRINGING MEDITATION TO BIRTH

Britta: And I'm thinking about the fact that you you are also, or have been, a very busy I know you're taking on fewer clients these days, but a very busy doula, and that doula work and your meditation work have have grown up together or come together, are being woven together in different ways. And I'm curious how you find folks who make a commitment and do a practice how it supports them in labor, because we've talked about parenthood and we've talked about pregnancy and labor is often what folks are focused on, right, right? They're thinking about, how do I do that? And so much of what you've been sharing in our conversation feels like it also relates to birth. But I want, can you pull some of those threads for our listeners?

THE PEAK OF THE MOUNTAIN

Patty: Yeah, well, we think of birth as the, you know, the peak of the mountain. If we're looking at a mountain, we oftentimes look at birth as the peak of that mountain. And a lot of the times we have what is going to help me get up that mountain and what's going to catch me on the other side, both relevant and both really important in the work that we do as a birth doula, I've definitely focused more on getting up the mountain, getting people up the mountain and through that peak, and I do some some support on the other side, but I oftentimes help them plan the team that's going to help them on the other side, which is so essential also. So I just want to highlight for anyone who's on that path that it's, yes, the opening act is the actual birth, but it is only the opening act, right? It does not define us. It can shape our experience on the other side of the mountain, definitely, but it will not define us. It's part of our story.

PRIORITIZING AN EXPANDED SELF

Patty: So how do we bring this this philosophy and this idea of prioritizing a more expanded self, a more awakened lens of perception?

Britta: Oh, I love the way you just said that. Thank you. Yeah, okay, I'm with you very with you.

THE GAME-CHANGING PRACTICE

Patty: How do we bring that, right? Well, in the work that I do, in the classes that I teach, I mentioned the importance of meditation. I speak specifically to Vedic meditation, because it is what I practice, and what I practice is what I can most I teach. You know, when you practice something, you're living it. You're feeling it. I have felt how it revolutionized my life, even after the decades of teaching yoga and trainings and practicing many different techniques. This is a technique that for me as a mother, as a teacher, was a game changer. It was incredibly simple. It was, it became a non negotiable daily practice like you, you know, empty your bowels, you brush your teeth, you meditate. It was less about, I need to be here. I need to do this. I need to have this voice. It was like, sit down work, to sit for about 20 minutes, follow the technique and done. And so I mention this, although I understand that there's people landing in my nest that are coming from many different areas, and if they are interested in learning Vedic meditation, I refer them to another colleague who might be in the city that they live, or if they're here, they learn in person with me, which it's taught in person, You know, molecule to molecule, as I was taught, as my teacher was taught by his teacher, that's one of the techniques that I suggest. Again, if someone else has a different technique, I think it's wonderful, like I've said, and like you've said, there are many paths to this destination, but I really do encourage that practice of de exciting and and and moving from wave form to ocean form as something that someone should put on to their daily practice. And just as you're going to take that prenatal vitamin, if you take one, or just like you're going to take your chlorella, or whatever it is, do your practice?

Britta: Well, there's go ahead finish because, because it's, it's re engineering you.

RE-ENGINEERING YOURSELF

Patty: It's re engineering everything that you're going to experience. It's gonna, it's gonna affect your blood pressure, which is really important when you're pregnant. It's going to affect how you digest your food, because there's less stress in the body. It's going to help decide. You know, as you're picking your birth team, what? Who's picking the birth team, someone who's overloaded with stressors and watched Hollywood movies and maybe is, you know, hasn't really unpacked all of their experiences. If that person's choosing, they're going to choose relevant to that, which is totally fine, that's part of your movie. So I like to invite people to say, Hey, this is a chance for you to polish the mirror daily, polish the mirror so that your choices are relevant to now, to who you are with, to what you are doing, to the person who is growing inside of you. And so there's a claiming of that. And for some people, it can be a little bit scary to actually walk toward the unknown that way. And there's no forcing. We all know that we are perfectly on the path that we need to be. And so I always say, if polishing that mirror leads you to door A, door B or door C on your birth, that's okay, because you know what's best, and that's when I said the word self referral are the greatest thing that a parent could harness and nurture. That's what I mean. Nobody knows better than you. My work is to help them, you know, sweep the path, and have a practice that sweeps the path, that upgrades the psychophysiology daily so that the choices being made are their choices, not someone else's choices.

Britta: Yeah, I love that. And the that place of de exciting, might there be some times in labor, where we get excited, yes, where the nervous system becomes excitable, yes.

JUMPING INTO THE RABBIT HOLE

Patty: So to kind of walk toward that peak, like the mountain I was talking about, forgive me, I lost track, and I didn't get to labor. So we know that we're planning a climb. We know that we're walking toward this marathon, and it's going to be unique with, you know, its landscape will be unique for each and every one of us. And we know that when we get to that point, there's a place where we go in the rabbit hole and we let go of, you know, the rains, and we we have some tech, we have our breathing, and we have our birth team, and we, we, we might have learned that a doula is going to be a game changer, and if we don't, then we have a partner, maybe that we've trained to be our doula or but you know, we've really selected a team that is listening to us, that honors our wishes, that we were informed we're ready to go. We've done the work when we jump into that rabbit hole, we're jumping into the unknown, and our greatest tool there is not only what we've already learned and the team that we've we've created to support us through that journey, but the willingness to keep coming back to the breath, the ability to let nature take the wheel there, right kind of like in our meditation when we sit in this meditation, we close our eyes, we don't control, we don't force, we don't push effort, we don't focus, we we think our mantra as faint and innocently as possible. That's how that's part of the technique, just like that when you enter birth and you're entering that river, because it's going to have its like intensity to it.

ADAPTABILITY THROUGH CLEANSING STRESS

Patty: What can we refer to? We can refer to those places of self regulation that we've practiced, the breath, the movement, you know, we've set the environment, and we've already been cleansing the stressors in our body, so that when we show up for that marathon, the body has adaptability, because we know that when birth hits, every drawer in that cabinet is going to bust open and there's like, some dirty socks in those drawers, yep. And that's why we do the work that we do, right? The work that you do Britta is all about these beautiful stories and the mythology of the different identities that we're going to relate to as we travel, travel that path, and so sometimes it's inviting that side of us that is dark and that it's crying, and that is, you know, moaning, and that is, you know, the the what we sometimes called ugly, which is not ugly, but it's just a raw, primal sense of self. What's going to allow me to actually access that is feeling more connected to my body. Is feeling more connected to my breath, other than practicing all the tools of breath and yoga and movement and moaning before you even get to that place, we role play before we get there, so we feel familiar with doing that. But who is showing up for that party? Someone who has prioritized removing stressors, removing stressors, because stress will get in the way of the opening that needs to take place, and that opening can push us to the you know, we'll be pushed to the edge, and the body will respond more, more in a more relevant way when there's less stress.

BEYOND GOOD AND BAD

Patty: And I want to end by saying that sometimes means making decisions that you did not expect you were going to make. So really removing the good bad, we put on a more sophisticated lens. There's less of good, bad, right, wrong, should, shouldn't when you actually begin to transcend daily those words don't have as much power to them. What's relevant at the time is what we follow.

Britta: And how did you describe that? What were the words that you used about the self listening? You used a very particular phrase, self referral, self referral.

Patty: Self referral is being able to thank you for all the information. Everyone, doula, partner, midwife, OB, thank you. Let me check in here. Yeah, let me check in here. But what's in here is this a body and mind full of stressors, or is it up updated with the new operating system, operating system that can my process, that can process, and can shift gears and can pivot through those changes of expectations, which are oftentimes inevitable in labor, yeah. We know in life, life, yes, labor, is a condensed, consolidated, intensified version of life. It's a whole life cycle in itself. There's a there's a there's a kind of like passing of batons in labor. You know, your baby's going from this galaxy of fluid, ending their life in order to enter this life, and you are shedding the skin to step into your mother roots, and like the butterfly and like you beautifully tell stories in your amazing book, there is a breaking there's growing pains to that. And so if I if the state of consciousness that I'm in is like, okay, these growing pains, these what we call contractions or surges, are actually my body functioning optimally. Then there's a I can interact with that in a more evolutionary way, instead of a like, oh gosh, okay, you and I, I know could keep going, and I want to wrap up and, well, I don't want to wrap up.

FINDING UMA MOTHER

Britta: I'm going to wrap up because you're you have things you need to do and want to do, and I do as well. And listeners have only so much energy and time, and I know that you have offerings and ways to connect with you outside of this podcast. So I'd love to hear what, how can folks find out about you and what you're offering?

Patty: Well, my company and and, you know, sometimes I call it a company, sometimes I call it an organization. It's really uma uma mother. Is the full name, but we reference, we reference it as Uma. Uma is my company that offers education through preconception and pregnancy and postpartum. And really it kind of like floods into into perimenopause and menopause, because that's what's relevant to me. So we graduate into those stages, but But within that, I offer in bloom, which is a pregnancy birth prep course, integration, which is a postpartum course, and we are going to be launching an education platform that will be online for mothers of those stages to access education and classes and yoga and guided relaxation and interviews with experts like yourself, and that platform will have a sister podcast to highlight some of the intimate stories that I feel so, so privileged to be a part of as those with when you come on and share your Your beautiful background and stories and Vedic meditation, I teach to everybody. You don't have to be a parent. I love teaching it to parents, because I feel like it's the generations of the future that are starting to get the parents on board and upgrade. So I feel like that practice is triple fold when you practice it as a parent, because it reaches your children and but I teach it to all individuals, and I teach that in person here in Los Angeles, that's great.

CLOSING QUESTION: ONE THING TO REMEMBER

Britta: Okay, so I like to end with one question, which is, what's one thing that you feel passionate about that you want new or expectant parents to see, hear, feel or know during this rite of passage of their lives

Patty: that there is not one way. There's only your way, and the journey to and through parenthood will be much more enjoyable and celebrated if we can actually prioritize that upgrading ourselves. You know that that old you know put your oxygen mask on is really, really, really relevant always, and there's not one right way. And you know your children are your greatest teachers. And so when we embark on this journey, any parent, anyone who, in this in this incarnation, has chosen to be a parent, or by default, found themselves parenting, you've chosen a high point of evolution and of expansion, because there is nothing that will expand you more than birth and parenthood.

GRATITUDE AND CLOSING

Britta: Thank you so much, Patty. It's always such a deep pleasure and joy to get to sit with you and to drink in your wisdom. Thank you so much.

Patty: Thank you. Thank you for having me, and thank you for making this beautiful space, and thank you listeners for sharing this time with us.

Britta: 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 transformed by birth. Now let's close the way we always do by gathering what we want to take away from this episode with our inhale and with our exhale blowing out the candle until next time bye, friends.

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11:06 AM

TRANSFORMED BY BIRTH PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Episode: Consciousness, Meditation, and Nervous System Support with Patty Quintero

Introduction and Opening Ritual

Britta: 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's episode takes us into the

Hang on. I got to redo that because I'm realizing.

Sorry, Chris, let me try that again.

Today's episode takes us into the nervous system and things we can do to support ourselves as a bodied being going through this rite of passage. So grab your comfy beverage of choice or take us along for a walk as we gain insights and tools for navigating the daily stresses that often plague the journey from pre conception through parenthood with my guest Patty Quintero, who is a grounding force of nature. 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. Today's candle is an invitation into a moment of mindfulness.

The Inner Transformation of Pregnancy

Britta: There's something that happens during pregnancy that goes beyond the physical changes. Everyone can see, yes, your baby is growing, your body is changing. But there's also this quieter, deeper transformation happening, a shift in consciousness, an awakening to parts of yourself you maybe didn't even know existed. Some days you feel more connected to the universe than ever before, while other days, you feel completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the change. While culturally, we seem to have endless resources for tracking baby's development and preparing for labor, we tend to spend less time gathering tools for navigating the profound inner journey that's happening alongside it, the spiritual, emotional and consciousness shifts that come with family building, those often get overlooked in favor of focusing on the physical and practical. But what if the inner transformation is just as important as the other transformations occurring? What if pregnancy, birth and early parenthood are actually invitations to expand not just our families, but our entire understanding of who we are and how we move through the world today.

Introducing Patty Quintero

Britta: I'm excited to welcome Patty to the show. Patty and I both dove into birth work from the diving boards of our yoga mats as yoga teachers at Yoga works and I also recently learned that we both also have a past in early childhood education. I was a preschool teacher, Patty was a kindergarten teacher, and Patty has gone so much farther than the days of when we were Yoga works teachers, kind of concurrent teachers, and have known each other beyond what we knew when we were in that yoga studio. Patty is now a Vedic meditation teacher and founder of uma mother, a platform dedicated to supporting the consciousness expansion that happens throughout pregnancy, birth and postpartum life. With over 25 years experience, she's guided hundreds of mothers through the transformative chapter, offering classes, workshops and retreats that blend ancient wisdom with practical tools. What I love about Patty's approach is that she helps families navigate not just the logistics of having a baby, but the profound spiritual journey that comes with creating new life. Hello, my dear friend and welcome.

Patty: Hello, Britta. It's so good to be here and share the space with you.

Patty's Grounding Presence

Britta: It's always wonderful to get to sit across from you. You do have this grounding energy. I can hear it even in the tone of my own voice, that being with you, I'm speaking a little slower, I'm moving a little I mean, I'm always moving a little fast, but there's just this energy that you bring that I think those who work with you also feel it's like, oh, can I have some some Patty energy to like, Can Can we like, can you rub off on me a little bit? And I just there's a way in which you exist in the world that is healing. So simply by being in your presence, and I hope that those listeners today can feel that too.

Patty: Thank you.

The Journey to Spiritual Connection

Britta: So I want to kind of understand and know how'd you get here? How did you get to the point where you have this, this ability with your body, with your energy, and I don't mean your whole past story of your journey, but like your your spiritual connection to this work and to yourself and what it is that you offer and why, to the families you work with

Childhood Seeds of Spiritual Practice

Patty: I do think that this is something that has felt so natural and inherent in me. I could say clearly from childhood, not, not necessarily the maternal link. I think there definitely was a maternal bone in my body that was very, very present and maternal, just inspiration and yearning from a very young age. But there also was something about me sitting sometimes, you know, I'd sit on like a pillow, and I just chant to the birds, and I think all these efforts of in the play World of being a child were ways that I was connecting with something bigger than myself, and where I felt this unity with something and a presence outside of this body. And so the crumbs were there. From the beginning, they started to become more enlivened as I went along my path, working with children, getting a master's in education. I think even you know, having studied film and theater, was a little bit of a remembering of the future, knowing like, oh, somewhere I'm going to be speaking to others, or I'm going to be holding space to educate, and I'm going to be on a stage. And it wasn't really on the stage of a play, but it was on a stage of a yoga class, or meditation, as a teacher conference, as a teacher and and even as a little little girl, I would play that I was teaching all the kids movement and jumps. And so the the seeds of meditation, the seeds of yoga, which really, you know, the word yoga is so much more than what we look at yoga as in the West. You know, yoga is a state of consciousness. It's that state of consciousness of unity with small self and big self. So to answer your question, I think these there was a thread that was weaving all of this together from a very young age, and then it was as I got pregnant. It really was expanded, because there was even though I was teaching prenatal yoga before I was pregnant, then I got pregnant, and it was just the practice that I felt so drawn to, because it was a practice of self awareness. It was a practice that slowed me down. It was a practice that invited me into the transformation, not only on a physical level, but on a much bigger plane in all in all planes.

Following the Dharmic Path

Patty: So I definitely find that those that that's what started to drive me in and then, you know, the my own births, and the do having a doula, and then teaching people and being a renegade doula. And it just was the dharmic path and dharma, something that changes throughout our life continuously, because we're always evolving. But it was so clear. And, you know, Britta, I resisted it in so many ways. It was like, No, I'm the advanced yoga teacher. No, I'm this. I kept, kind of like shunning it away. And when I finally just opened my heart to say yes to all those doors that were being tapped on, it took it kind of took itself. It started to grow in itself. So

Britta: I love that, yeah, and I think that a lot of folks listening probably can relate to the energy of having things tap us on. You know, to knock on the door that we may or may not yet be ready to answer, but we're hearing the knock on the door, and sometimes we got to open the door.

Answering the Call to Motherhood

Britta: And I think about my own journey. I was teaching yoga, as you know, at the same studio where you taught, and I was like, I don't know. There's something missing. It's not quite it. What do I want? And I was like, the only thing that kept coming loudly in the the consciousness, or in the voice of the universe, or however, in you want to say it was you want to be a mom. Yeah. Hmm, you want to be a mom. And I didn't know. Then I kept thinking that I needed to figure out my life's path prior to becoming a mother. Little did I know that answering that call would actually open the door to what my my professional path would be. And it's, it's interesting how there's those breadcrumbs, and now I can look back and see the whole line of breadcrumbs that I was following, right?

When Nature Starts to Shake

Patty: And you and I know, working with mothers and parents for so many years now that this, as soon as one steps onto this path, all systems start to get reckoned with, outdated behaviors, irrelevant relationships, jobs that are going to start to decay because they are no longer relevant for the next chapter, things happening in one's house, relationships, restructuring. It's almost like the ground starts to shake when nature's expanding herself, right? And so sometimes the reminder to someone who's on that path is you don't have to have it all figured out, because the chess pieces are going to start moving on their own. And this is one of the reasons why I've found that the foundation of this journey is that ability to continually unstress and continually remove, you know, old layers of identity, so that you can really have clear ears and a clear lens of perception when you're on that path, because the transformation is inevitable, because that's all that's ever happening. That's all that's ever happening, no matter what path you're no matter what path you're on, a path of change, yes, but when another human is coming through, you know, things start to shake. Nature stops whispering and starts to really kind of shake. So it is. It's nice to hear your story of having that knowing and also kind of feeling, the resistance and surrendering to it, because that's such that that's one of the main, main things that we have to do when we are stepping onto this path of motherhood and parenthood, absolutely.

The Pull of Intuition

Britta: And I think it's really common for folks to feel that, very common to feel that and to feel that intuitive pull that may not even be familiar, yeah, like that, that pull of, what is that my intuition like? I don't even know if I know how to listen to my intuition yet, but it starts to get louder when in that that process of family building, and it's one of the things that I think about when I work with clients, and what I've seen in the years that I've been in this field like you, is that there's also this kind of spiritual awakening. I mean, I'm bristling at my own word choice, because I don't want it to sound too airy fairy and out there. But there is this like awakening, this curiosity, perhaps is another way of saying it, or a grabbing of our hearts and souls that says, figure this out now. Work toward your own growth, for the betterment of the universe, for your child, for yourself, for your family, and it it feels important in a new way, yeah, which makes me think of what it is that you do with families? Yeah, yeah.

Creation, Maintenance, and Destruction

Patty: You know, as we're saying, we can kind of look at it like there's and a lot of the times in Vedic psychology, or in the Vedic worldview, there's a mention of the constituents of nature that are continually pushing the movie forward, that are keeping the river moving to the ocean. So we can call that evolution, and there's creation operator and there's maintenance operator and there's destruction operator, and none of them can hold pull position if we want to keep that river flowing, the river of evolution and of growth and expansion. And so when creation is coming in, if there's been a pattern of stagnation and things that are irrelevant, patterns that are irrelevant, those patterns are going to be blown out of the water so that creation can come through. And this is why we feel this, you know, like the example of the being in the cocoon and feeling the breaking out of that of that chrysalis in order to stretch your wings out, those growing pains are very real. They're real physically, they're real emotionally, they're energetic. They're real in every department of our life. And so as we speak, it's important to acknowledge that it's very real. You know, we feel it in our bodies. We feel it in our relationships. You know, we just feel it at so many layers. And the invitation is, how can I have a curious, compassionate, playful lens with this chapter of my life, which is such rapid expansion, it feels like a long, long year, but it's very, very rapid, very rapid.

Expansion Includes Destruction

Britta: But it's also not just expansion. There's also destruction.

Patty: And that's why I mentioned the three of them, because I'm like, that's in there. And destruction is a part of evolution and part of that expansion. You know, my hair is not the same hair I had before. My skin is not the same skin. It happens at the micro level and at the macro level always. And so for creation to come through, there has to be some destruction. Just like when we are done with our gestation process, we are going to give birth, and it's going to feel like an eruption, and it's going to be there is some dissolution of one state of life into another for child and for parent, and so, yes, it's so important that you highlight that when we're talking about expansion, there is always an ending of something to go into The next chapter. It's like when you're reading a book, you're finishing that chapter to go into the next and we don't want to necessarily rush to the end of the book and read the end and make sure everything turns out okay. We want to enjoy the movie. We want to enjoy the story. And the story has a lot of peaks and valleys, and that's what makes a good story.

The State of Consciousness Shapes the Journey

Patty: And so the work that I really feel driven to do at this point in my life is, yes, so important, as you said, the physical aspects to support the physical body, the nutritional, you know, support systems. But before all of those, what is the consciousness state of the traveler? Because that's going to shape the lens that you're looking at this journey through. It's going to change. It's going to shift your ability to stay curious when those hurdles come up and when those growing pains comes up, come up. It's going to allow you to be more playful with the experience, and it's going to allow you to actually not look at the experience through a telephoto lens, which happens when we have a lot of stress chemistry, but it's going to suddenly create a wider aperture for you to look at the whole chessboard and be a little less in the Oh no, and be a little less in the of course.

Britta: And so that's accessible as we begin to practice cleansing the body of stress, not only on a weekly basis, but on a daily basis, because pregnancy in itself, is is a lot of stress on the body. There's the stress of holding another human, all the fluids, another organ, just such a magnitude of change happening in the body. So even just that, that's before you even leave your house, yes, or get your bed, before you even get up in the morning, those parts are already transpiring, already happening, and they are added stress. And that's not to say what happens when we leave our home, or if we look on social media or on the news, those add even more types of stress, and so you really have some expertise and specialization in helping folks navigate their nervous systems.

Vedic Meditation: A Simple, Effortless Practice

Patty: Yes, the and the and the main practices that I offer, and there's so many, because there's many paths to regulate your nervous system. And the truth is, we're not formulaic. No one is the same. No one has had the same histories. We're so unique in our individual states, that there's not one right way for anybody. But what I have found is that a practice like Vedic meditation, which is a daily practice, twice daily practice, is so simple and effortless, which actually is challenging for people, and we'll get to that, but it's a way of squeezing the sponge daily, twice daily, so that you're showing up in a more relevant way, so that the chest piece isn't being driven by all the stressors of last year or when you were five or when you were 10. But there's a way to take out the garbage daily, so that you're showing up with a fresh lens, with a fresh lens of perception, so that you're actually upgrading the chemistry in the body so the organs can have better functionality.

The Phone Metaphor

Patty: It's a little bit like when you think of your cell phone. My cell phone has so many tabs open that when my kids actually look at it, they're like, Mom, what are you doing like do you ever, do you ever close your to ever close your tabs?

Britta: I know mine. Mine asked me that question too.

Patty: I don't, I don't, and I could probably have an assistant to help me manage my whole phone. But nowadays, these, these phones, are very, very adaptable, and that's a great example, because we want to be adaptable like that. We want to have a threshold for change of expectation and triggers and challenges and physical challenges, so that we're not reactive, but we're more interactive with all of this. Because if like that phone that has so many tabs open, I too have the tab of the last conversation. What happened to me when I was 10, what the person just said. Then what begins to happen is I am shaped and guided by those experiences, by that external locus of control. That's what's guiding this body and this person, instead of flipping that lens inward into that more spacious and expanded state of consciousness, which is the unified field of consciousness, which is we can talk about that, but which is there for all of us beyond all the layers of stress. It's not like I need to go out and find that place. Where does it exist? How can I get to it? It's always there. It's behind all those layers and layers and layers and layers of stress. So this is a practice that is not about taking you to a place that you're not already but instead it's about revealing a state that is so deep beyond those layers of stress that is your essence.

Finding Neutral and Recharging

Britta: Yeah, and, and, I think all of us need in our own bodies. If our bodies are those phones, we need to close tabs. We need to close the apps and find neutral, find ground, come back to what that is, whether it's this particular practice that is what you teach and align with so strongly, or for somebody else, it might be something completely different, right? But it's the acknowledgement and the practice of what helps you return to that state to find that place. Yeah, because that phone has only so much capacity on its own, but if you turn it down and plug it in to a greater source of energy, then it recharges and it functions more adequately.

The Adult Timeout

Patty: So for us, what that looks like is if I close my eyes and sit comfortably and allow this body to de Excite, to cool off, not focus, not concentrate, not tell it what to do, not follow a path. All of that is wonderful in its ways. But if we actually sit and we allow this body to de Excite with a very simple technique, then what begins to happen is we're creating an arena for all those stressors to be heard. Because they want to be heard. They're like little children, like they want to be heard, and so we're giving we're giving them space to be heard. We're giving them space to come out. Sometimes I tell my students that it's a little bit like an adult timeout in the healthiest way. The purpose of the timeout, quote, unquote, is for parents to say, wow, this person is not able to self regulate right now, and supposedly that timeout is going to help them. Whether that works or not. That's irrelevant to what we're talking about, but we don't have that right. Our time out is we get on the phone and I'm, I'm saying, I do it myself. We flip and we start flipping. And it's, it's a distraction from what was bothering us.

Britta: Oh, at best, right? At best, it's a distraction because it can actually activate 100%

Patty: it's designed to activate, it's designed to get, it's designed for that. Yeah, all has its purpose. So we're gonna, we're not going to say that that is, is what we're running away from. What we're going to say is, how do I become invincible to this? How do I Excuse me? How do I interact with these new with this technology, with the abundance of it and not be reactive to it, or, you know, indoctrinated by it. The only way to do that is if I have, if I have a wider lens to look at it and, you know, be inspired by it, chuckle at it, but it doesn't identify me anymore. I'm not looking for fulfillment from whatever it is that I'm seeing, because twice daily, I'm actually tapping into that inner well of fulfillment, which is infinite and which is always there. Because fulfillment from the outside. You know, when we open our phones and we escape a little bit, which is really delicious and fun to do, whether it's a movie, whether it's the coffee, whether it's the phone, whether it's whatever it is, whatever their place, they all have their place. But who's the witness? If the witness is their lens is being shaped by what it's told from the outside. You are this. If you do this, you are better. If you look this way. You know you are better. If you have this kind of birth, you are better if you're this kind of a mother, if that's what's ruling my inner compass, then I'm going to always be seeking validation from the outside sources. And this is so essential for parents. Yeah. So essential.

Rites of Passage and Transformation

Britta: Yeah. This sounds like it has particular relevance, during the rite of passage, time period of this, I mean, of any rite of passage, frankly, because there's so many that we go through in our lives. It's not just pregnancy, birth, new parenthood. There are many. You know, I'm you and I both have adult children. There's a rite of passage in that in its own right, absolutely 100% menopause. Okay, that's that's another one, but there is something about this period of time that is ripe for acknowledging this the the tantalizing nature to change our sense of self through looking at the projections coming toward us in the in the world. Yeah, it's an it's an amplified curve of all the waves of transformation that we'll have from birth to when we drop our body. This one in particular, the unique the uniqueness about it, the magnitude about it that you are going to now be growing another human in your body, another organ in your body, and carry that human and live with that human, and birth that human, and then feed that human, and then find your own roots. It's massive.

Not Another To-Do List Item

Britta: Well, and I don't, I'm I'm hearing all of this, and I'm also thinking to myself, Okay, are listeners now wondering, great. Now I have to add tending to my spiritual self, also to my to do list that feels ever lengthening like talk about that.

Patty: Yeah, yeah. And so I love what you said earlier about the spiritual awakening, because we can demystify that by saying whether the word is spirit or the word is energy, or whatever it is that you believe animates this body, and whatever it is that you believe is animating the body that's growing inside of you, we can remove the word spiritual if that feels more adequate for different people, there's a massive transformation, right? So even on the physical level, it's to think, what am I doing to help upgrade this, this body and mind that is growing so rapidly and is faced with so many new hurdles, physical challenges, mental challenges, relationship challenges. What are we doing? Like we spoke about the phone, to upgrade this, to help de Excite. We know that that if there is a lot of heat and if two people are just at it kind of and there's no de exciting, there's really no way to find resolution. We can see it. We see it now, all you have to do is turn on the news, this side against this side, and both saying, one is right, one is the other and no one de exciting. There's very little space to find inner action. And, you know, creative solution and innovation and unity points when we don't de Excite. This is why I gave that example of the timeout. That timeout example is like, oh, this person needs to de excite so they can see everything more clearly. The the person who's stomping their you know, the kid who's stomping their foot because they got something taken away, we all need to do the same, you know. So where are you finding time of non doing. Because, yes, yoga practice, moving the body surfing, taking walks, conversations with friends also important. But there's a doing aspect. There is there a space of non doing in your day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go horizontal for sleep, what we call sleep, where is the body having an opportunity to de excite so that it can remove stress, gain deep rest and reboot, so that when it opens its eyes, it is interacting with life with a full tank, with greater adaptability, with a creative lens and a shift of perspective often that comes when we take a second and we pull away, and that's what we're getting at.

The Body as a Sponge

Patty: It's Yes, is it a spiritual awakening? Awakening? It is. But let's get even more. Let's talk about the gross body relating to the physical body. The gross body is on continuously and every sense in your body is paying attention as soon as your eyes open. What do you see? What do you eat? What did you see on on Instagram? What did you see on Google? What did you hear on the news? What did that person say to you? The body's just soaking and soaking in like this beautiful sponge. It's just the most sophisticated instrument. It's just soaking in and soaking in. And now you have another human that's growing in, so it's soaking into them. Chemistry, chemistry, where is there a point that we actually let those senses release the stress that they accumulated? Because, if not, you're carrying it continually, and you know who you take it to. You take it to sleep with you. And everyone is like, sleep is so important. You need to get sleep. And you take all those stressors to bed with you, and then you lay down, and you're like, Bing, eyes open, toss and turn, nightmares, body having twitches. That's stress release. The body is going to do anything to adapt and and process, process, try and process, and it's happening in sleep. So, and we're in a cult. We have a culture of sleep challenged humans, we do.

Inspiration Not Stress

Britta: And, you know, I think that whenever we hear these things, instead of taking the lens of like, oh my gosh, I'm doing it all wrong, and what did I do? I think you and I can highlight we didn't know the things we know when we had our children, when we were pregnant, I definitely did not know what I teach now, right? And that's happened. That's gonna happen because we have

Patty: Yeah, and we weren't the people then that we are now. That's that's part of our own evolutionary path, yeah. And if you're listening to this now and you're feeling that way, let it be inspirational instead of create more stress. Now I need to do this instead think. Now I get to do this. I get to prioritize little windows of time where I tend to de exciting and undoing, knowing that this body is going to work to heal itself and adapt, if I just let it do that, like the example of the phone.

Mommy Needs a Timeout

Britta: I love that it's and back to your I was giggling a little bit inside when you were talking about the timeout, because I didn't use timeouts with my children. Neither did I when I was raising them, but I did use them for myself. I would say to my kids, guys, Mommy needs a timeout. I mean, I would say that frequently, and what that meant was I needed to take space. I often if I had an impulse to punish or or have some kind of like interaction with my kids. What that usually was communicating to me is that I was dysregulated. They clearly were too, but if I wasn't able to support and handle their dysregulation, it meant that I wasn't regulated. I was in a place of stress, where stress was my guide in that moment, and in order to be able to kind of check in and find and access the part of myself that wanted to be a really good mom and handle whatever meltdown was currently happening in the way that I aspired to. I actually had to put my oxygen mask on first, and that meant not putting them in a timeout, but putting myself in a timeout. And exactly I did it frequently.

The Fine Level of Feeling

Patty: And how intuitive of you. There's that fine level of feeling inside all us. We can call it intuition. We can call it charm. We all have it. But what's prompting that? What's prompting that is it overload of stress. Because what prompts the overload of stress may prompt something different than telling your kids time I need a timeout. Sometimes it's something that's a little more aggressive or something that then we have to clean up and regret having done. We've all been there because that's what we are. We're human, and we're not we're not selling perfection. But what? But what we get to start to practice is, how do I interact when there's a change of expectation, which there's going to be many along your pregnancy, many through your birth, and many throughout your parenthood journey.

Calming the Horses

Patty: So how can I interact with those changes of expectation, like you said, taking that moment? You know, I'm a child of the 70s, and I remember hearing watching commercials that would say, when you feel you're going to shake your kid, put them down and count to 10. Yeah, that was a little bit that's again, it's a call to action. It's a call to say, hey, something is going to happen. And we've all felt that. In parenthood, I have felt it. I have felt moments as a single mother with challenges, and even in married I've felt those challenges of like, Whoa, I could be the person I don't want to be right now. Yeah, and so meditation and these techniques are not going to say that's good, that's bad. They're simply going to illuminate who how are these horses pulling the cart? Let's calm the horses down so we could have a more evolutionary interaction with what's happening. And that's not always available to us when we're driving the car, when we're with the kid, when the baby's crying, when we get the news, you know, from the midwife or the OB. And so having a practice as a foundation when you're going to step on this beautiful challenging, and, you know, very unique experience of calling yourself a parent. It's a game changer. Yeah, it's it's necessary so that, because we know that there is no greater teacher than a child, and that those teachings start before you're even pregnant. They start before you're even pregnant.

The Graduate Program in Your Own Psyche

Britta: Yeah, which, again, I think circles back to why it so often feels for folks who've maybe never even had a conscious spiritual quote, unquote, air quote. Thought in their life suddenly are like, Ooh, I'm questioning this, and I'm thinking in this way, and I've got this expansion thinking it. It has to do with that. It is such a graduate program in your own psyche, life, spiritual journey, you're going to be asked to confront yourself, your perfectionism and your imperfectionism, and what's going to help you, what's going To help you through that, and your sense of control, and, you know, all the things, all the things, all the things and and it changes throughout every stage, right?

Doing the Research with a Clear Lens

Patty: Yeah, so, and sometimes even it's the path of embarking on preconception and going through the hurdles, or going through it all and realizing, you know, actually, this isn't for me, wonderful. What a wonderful you did the research. And that's really all we're doing. We're doing the research. So the researchers job is to make sure that the lens that they're doing the research through is as clear as possible and as updated as possible, so that we're not functioning on all of the old patterns that are probably not relevant for us in this stage. The lessons all relevant, all relevant. But who do I get to show up as today? And because you're growing so rapidly in pregnancy, it's it's that daily practice, I think is a game changer. Yeah, that I love.

Losing and Finding Practice Through Motherhood

Britta: I mean, all of this, you know, I came from, I came into motherhood from a practice perspective. My practice was, I mean, I did Ashtanga Yoga the day I went into labor with, with my first born, you know, on the mat in Chuck Miller's class at Yoga works on Montana Avenue. I mean, I practiced it that morning, very, a very modified practice, and although still quite strong, and then just before midnight, went into went into labor, but the idea of practice was kind of rooted into my body and my life, and because the idea of practice at that point also associated to this mat and this place and these teachers that when I had my baby, I felt like I lost my practice to a certain degree, And I actually really missed feeling something anchoring and grounding me and I and at the same time, because, and this goes back to some of the first things you said, because my understanding and definition at the time of What yoga was felt so connected to that Western approach you were just talking about, of that Asana based perspective of what happens on the mat, that I had this sort of Self flagellation, this self blame about leaving the practice until I started actually expanding my understanding that actually my mothering was a practice, the most spiritual practice you will ever take on.

Patty: Yeah, and I started asking.

Everything is Your Spiritual Practice

Britta: I started answering people, because my whole community at that point was was Yoga works. And people would say, Oh, are you back to yoga? I said I practice yoga every day, because I was speaking about it in regard to what it was that yoga meant to me. Now, absolutely that, and that is what I say to mothers, this is your spiritual practice. A lot of mothers, when they are in early postpartum, are like, you know, I don't know if I can get my meditation in here. There number one mother's program, you get it in when you can, whether it's 10 minutes here 20 minutes, you know, there's no rigid attachment to the when sometimes it's at 3am

Evolution Not Regression

Patty: but to your point of everything you're talking about that is something that we hear beyond even the yoga mat. When are you going to be back? When will you be back? And this is another thing, when people bring up the idea of like, Oh, my baby's having a four month regression, I invite everyone to shift that word, because knowing that we are never going backward. We really never we're always evolving. We're always expanding. We're always evolving. All of us are on that same path right the river to the ocean. It just happens at different stages, and sometimes rivers have a little more curves and a little more rocks than others, right?

The Clinging to the Ever-Repeating Known

Patty: And so good metaphor, you know, I know you do the and so the the clinging to the way it was is what brings the suffering for so many things, the clinging to the ever repeating known. Everything about pregnancy is walking toward the unknown. Everything about birth and motherhood and parenting is stepping into the unknown, and that's where the greatest things happen, the ever repeating known. Eventually, the vultures of destruction are behind that ready saying, Okay, it's time to evolve. It's time to evolve. And if we're like, no, then it just there's suffering that comes. And so that example that you gave about Ashtanga, which is such a beautiful practice, but if you're not familiar with Ashtanga, it's quite masculine, it's it's pretty rigorous, and it's counted by breaths, and it has a method to it, which feels really good, yeah, but it's unknown.

Britta: Speaking of you know exactly what you're gonna do. There's no surprises, and you're getting which can be comforting, at times, comforting, very comforting. I'm a Cancerian. I am the queen of comfort, creature comforts.

Stepping Into the New Chapter

Patty: But when there is a new chapter coming or a transformation coming. There's newness, right? There's something new in that chapter, and that's what we're facing when we step onto that journey to birth. We're facing a lot of new things, and it doesn't mean we're not going to grieve. Or, you know, you miss the community that you are with, because it's beyond just the practice. You missed the routine, you missed the familiarity of it. And so we honor those things to some degree, but what we realize is we start seeing life in a really different way, because we've grown a lot and trying to force yourself into those genes, and I'm using that metaphorically and literally a lot of the times, brings unnecessary suffering. Yeah. And so to be able to have that lens of curiosity, to be able to be like, Okay, let me try this. And you know, none of that identifies me. That was then, this is now. And maybe there'll be a little bit of that in here, but maybe I'll start doing some different practices. That's what we're aiming for. And we kind of look at that in the grand scope of everything right now, we could all use a little bit of that creative intelligence right now. We could all use a little a little bit of those, that ability to find shared experience and unity points with people and experiences that we normally wouldn't and that's accessible when we are not ridden with stressors and in distraction mode and stuck in doing mode, 20, well, 12 hours that we're awake. Yeah, I

Moment Meditation

Britta: Yes, yes, yes, all of this yes and it, it you just triggered another memory for me from my motherhood journey that feels relevant to this conversation, so I'm going to bring it in. But my younger son practiced taekwondo for years with an absolutely, phenomenally wonderful teacher, and this teacher would end his taekwondo classes every single time with and I actually hear it in his voice with moment meditation. There's no moment of meditation, it's just moment meditation. And I hear it in Edison's voice in my head. And he would do this with the students, some of them kids, some of them adults, and even as a parent, especially when, when my son was young, I mean, he went all the way up to Black Belt. So he ended up, you know, driving himself and getting there when he was older. But I would sit there waiting for the class to be done, and I would hear Edison say moment meditation. And it was an immediate anchor of dropping my phone, dropping my baggage, dropping my thoughts, and I could find my way into it at other times in my day, even just imagining those words off of Edison's lips. So it doesn't have to be this huge hurdle that we have to figure out how to cross. No, you know, we have so many things in common. I just have to point out that my youngest son is also into martial arts, and his their teachers also say things like that. So one more Unity Point. Add it to the list, or unity, point to to expand the love between us.

Wired for Bliss

Patty: Yes, it's right. It's not about being complicated. It's, you know, we see children do these things. What is daydreaming? What is daydreaming? Daydreaming is this body and mind trying to find its way to greater bliss. That's what we are wired to do. From the moment we land here, find our way back home. The Bliss field is home. We are an extension of the bliss field. We are an extension of that infinite well of consciousness and every single thing that we do is me trying to find a way to greater bliss, whether it's reaching for the coffee, reaching for the channel changer, reaching for the meditation, watching the sunset, a big inhale, it's it's like there's How can I get to greater bliss, and some of the things that we choose are more evolutionary, and some are not. That depends on the state of consciousness of the individual. And so what you just described was a gift that the sensei gave your son with a reinforced word moment meditation. And to them, they already knew that those words that you said, I don't know if it was moment of meditation or moment meditation.

Britta: Moment meditation.

Patty: There was no of it was moment meditation, right?

Britta: Hear it that way.

The Mind Vehicle

Patty: That was somewhat of an English mantra. That was a mind vehicle that put that physiology like, oh, it's safe right now to actually tune in. It's my cue. It's my invitation to tune in. So everything that we're referencing right now is the importance of having practices beyond all the things that we're going to, beyond all the planning, beyond the nursery, beyond the vitamins that you may or may not take, beyond the birth team, beyond all of that. The importance of carving out time to check in here, to check not in here, but what really is in here, this, this well of energy and intelligence and knowledge that we have, because we're going to get so many you need to you should? You need to do this? You did you? You know, and we're going to take that information and say, Thank you for the information. And then where are we going to check? We're going to check here.

Self-Referral: A Mother's Greatest Superpower

Patty: Self referral is a mother's greatest superpower. But we have to be able to hear it. We have to be willing to hear it and and and paying attention to it and prioritizing that inner voice, which I refer to as the fine level of feeling, because it's always there. It's what says yes to those things. It's what we feel when we watch a sunset or take a walk, like if you're walking right now listening to this, you know it's the it's the rustling of the leaves. It's the bird that landed on that on that branch. It's those little moments of nature saying what honor your bigness. You are all of this. It's not the universe. You are the universe. You are the universe. So how do we come back to that bigness, to that ability to be like, This is my movie, and I don't have to rush to the end to see how it ends. I just have to walk around it knowing that, wow, this movie is here for me, by me, and for me.

The Action of Revealing

Patty: And so when we're able to do that, we can listen to this and be like, Yeah, I know all this, but what is, what am I doing to actually feel it? And that's the action of meditating, or that's the action of finding a place of non doing, which sometimes helps to reveal that

Britta: I love that, yeah, that reveals it that, the revealing of it, the listening matters, matters so much.

Bringing Meditation to Birth

Britta: And I'm thinking about the fact that you you are also, or have been, a very busy I know you're taking on fewer clients these days, but a very busy doula, and that doula work and your meditation work have have grown up together or come together, are being woven together in different ways. And I'm curious how you find folks who make a commitment and do a practice how it supports them in labor, because we've talked about parenthood and we've talked about pregnancy and labor is often what folks are focused on, right, right? They're thinking about, how do I do that? And so much of what you've been sharing in our conversation feels like it also relates to birth. But I want, can you pull some of those threads for our listeners?

The Peak of the Mountain

Patty: Yeah, well, we think of birth as the, you know, the peak of the mountain. If we're looking at a mountain, we oftentimes look at birth as the peak of that mountain. And a lot of the times we have what is going to help me get up that mountain and what's going to catch me on the other side, both relevant and both really important in the work that we do as a birth doula, I've definitely focused more on getting up the mountain, getting people up the mountain and through that peak, and I do some some support on the other side, but I oftentimes help them plan the team that's going to help them on the other side, which is so essential also. So I just want to highlight for anyone who's on that path that it's, yes, the opening act is the actual birth, but it is only the opening act, right? It does not define us. It can shape our experience on the other side of the mountain, definitely, but it will not define us. It's part of our story.

Prioritizing an Expanded Self

Patty: So how do we bring this this philosophy and this idea of prioritizing a more expanded self, a more awakened lens of perception?

Britta: Oh, I love the way you just said that. Thank you. Yeah, okay, I'm with you very with you.

The Game-Changing Practice

Patty: How do we bring that, right? Well, in the work that I do, in the classes that I teach, I mentioned the importance of meditation. I speak specifically to Vedic meditation, because it is what I practice, and what I practice is what I can most I teach. You know, when you practice something, you're living it. You're feeling it. I have felt how it revolutionized my life, even after the decades of teaching yoga and trainings and practicing many different techniques. This is a technique that for me as a mother, as a teacher, was a game changer. It was incredibly simple. It was, it became a non negotiable daily practice like you, you know, empty your bowels, you brush your teeth, you meditate. It was less about, I need to be here. I need to do this. I need to have this voice. It was like, sit down work, to sit for about 20 minutes, follow the technique and done. And so I mention this, although I understand that there's people landing in my nest that are coming from many different areas, and if they are interested in learning Vedic meditation, I refer them to another colleague who might be in the city that they live, or if they're here, they learn in person with me, which it's taught in person, You know, molecule to molecule, as I was taught, as my teacher was taught by his teacher, that's one of the techniques that I suggest. Again, if someone else has a different technique, I think it's wonderful, like I've said, and like you've said, there are many paths to this destination, but I really do encourage that practice of de exciting and and and moving from wave form to ocean form as something that someone should put on to their daily practice. And just as you're going to take that prenatal vitamin, if you take one, or just like you're going to take your chlorella, or whatever it is, do your practice?

Britta: Well, there's go ahead finish because, because it's, it's re engineering you.

Re-Engineering Yourself

Patty: It's re engineering everything that you're going to experience. It's gonna, it's gonna affect your blood pressure, which is really important when you're pregnant. It's going to affect how you digest your food, because there's less stress in the body. It's going to help decide. You know, as you're picking your birth team, what? Who's picking the birth team, someone who's overloaded with stressors and watched Hollywood movies and maybe is, you know, hasn't really unpacked all of their experiences. If that person's choosing, they're going to choose relevant to that, which is totally fine, that's part of your movie. So I like to invite people to say, Hey, this is a chance for you to polish the mirror daily, polish the mirror so that your choices are relevant to now, to who you are with, to what you are doing, to the person who is growing inside of you. And so there's a claiming of that. And for some people, it can be a little bit scary to actually walk toward the unknown that way. And there's no forcing. We all know that we are perfectly on the path that we need to be. And so I always say, if polishing that mirror leads you to door A, door B or door C on your birth, that's okay, because you know what's best, and that's when I said the word self referral are the greatest thing that a parent could harness and nurture. That's what I mean. Nobody knows better than you. My work is to help them, you know, sweep the path, and have a practice that sweeps the path, that upgrades the psychophysiology daily so that the choices being made are their choices, not someone else's choices.

Britta: Yeah, I love that. And the that place of de exciting, might there be some times in labor, where we get excited, yes, where the nervous system becomes excitable, yes.

Jumping Into the Rabbit Hole

Patty: So to kind of walk toward that peak, like the mountain I was talking about, forgive me, I lost track, and I didn't get to labor. So we know that we're planning a climb. We know that we're walking toward this marathon, and it's going to be unique with, you know, its landscape will be unique for each and every one of us. And we know that when we get to that point, there's a place where we go in the rabbit hole and we let go of, you know, the rains, and we we have some tech, we have our breathing, and we have our birth team, and we, we, we might have learned that a doula is going to be a game changer, and if we don't, then we have a partner, maybe that we've trained to be our doula or but you know, we've really selected a team that is listening to us, that honors our wishes, that we were informed we're ready to go. We've done the work when we jump into that rabbit hole, we're jumping into the unknown, and our greatest tool there is not only what we've already learned and the team that we've we've created to support us through that journey, but the willingness to keep coming back to the breath, the ability to let nature take the wheel there, right kind of like in our meditation when we sit in this meditation, we close our eyes, we don't control, we don't force, we don't push effort, we don't focus, we we think our mantra as faint and innocently as possible. That's how that's part of the technique, just like that when you enter birth and you're entering that river, because it's going to have its like intensity to it.

Adaptability Through Cleansing Stress

Patty: What can we refer to? We can refer to those places of self regulation that we've practiced, the breath, the movement, you know, we've set the environment, and we've already been cleansing the stressors in our body, so that when we show up for that marathon, the body has adaptability, because we know that when birth hits, every drawer in that cabinet is going to bust open and there's like, some dirty socks in those drawers, yep. And that's why we do the work that we do, right? The work that you do Britta is all about these beautiful stories and the mythology of the different identities that we're going to relate to as we travel, travel that path, and so sometimes it's inviting that side of us that is dark and that it's crying, and that is, you know, moaning, and that is, you know, the the what we sometimes called ugly, which is not ugly, but it's just a raw, primal sense of self. What's going to allow me to actually access that is feeling more connected to my body. Is feeling more connected to my breath, other than practicing all the tools of breath and yoga and movement and moaning before you even get to that place, we role play before we get there, so we feel familiar with doing that. But who is showing up for that party? Someone who has prioritized removing stressors, removing stressors, because stress will get in the way of the opening that needs to take place, and that opening can push us to the you know, we'll be pushed to the edge, and the body will respond more, more in a more relevant way when there's less stress.

Beyond Good and Bad

Patty: And I want to end by saying that sometimes means making decisions that you did not expect you were going to make. So really removing the good bad, we put on a more sophisticated lens. There's less of good, bad, right, wrong, should, shouldn't when you actually begin to transcend daily those words don't have as much power to them. What's relevant at the time is what we follow.

Britta: And how did you describe that? What were the words that you used about the self listening? You used a very particular phrase, self referral, self referral.

Patty: Self referral is being able to thank you for all the information. Everyone, doula, partner, midwife, OB, thank you. Let me check in here. Yeah, let me check in here. But what's in here is this a body and mind full of stressors, or is it up updated with the new operating system, operating system that can my process, that can process, and can shift gears and can pivot through those changes of expectations, which are oftentimes inevitable in labor, yeah. We know in life, life, yes, labor, is a condensed, consolidated, intensified version of life. It's a whole life cycle in itself. There's a there's a there's a kind of like passing of batons in labor. You know, your baby's going from this galaxy of fluid, ending their life in order to enter this life, and you are shedding the skin to step into your mother roots, and like the butterfly and like you beautifully tell stories in your amazing book, there is a breaking there's growing pains to that. And so if I if the state of consciousness that I'm in is like, okay, these growing pains, these what we call contractions or surges, are actually my body functioning optimally. Then there's a I can interact with that in a more evolutionary way, instead of a like, oh gosh, okay, you and I, I know could keep going, and I want to wrap up and, well, I don't want to wrap up.

Finding Uma Mother

Britta: I'm going to wrap up because you're you have things you need to do and want to do, and I do as well. And listeners have only so much energy and time, and I know that you have offerings and ways to connect with you outside of this podcast. So I'd love to hear what, how can folks find out about you and what you're offering?

Patty: Well, my company and and, you know, sometimes I call it a company, sometimes I call it an organization. It's really uma uma mother. Is the full name, but we reference, we reference it as Uma. Uma is my company that offers education through preconception and pregnancy and postpartum. And really it kind of like floods into into perimenopause and menopause, because that's what's relevant to me. So we graduate into those stages, but But within that, I offer in bloom, which is a pregnancy birth prep course, integration, which is a postpartum course, and we are going to be launching an education platform that will be online for mothers of those stages to access education and classes and yoga and guided relaxation and interviews with experts like yourself, and that platform will have a sister podcast to highlight some of the intimate stories that I feel so, so privileged to be a part of as those with when you come on and share your Your beautiful background and stories and Vedic meditation, I teach to everybody. You don't have to be a parent. I love teaching it to parents, because I feel like it's the generations of the future that are starting to get the parents on board and upgrade. So I feel like that practice is triple fold when you practice it as a parent, because it reaches your children and but I teach it to all individuals, and I teach that in person here in Los Angeles, that's great.

Closing Question: One Thing to Remember

Britta: Okay, so I like to end with one question, which is, what's one thing that you feel passionate about that you want new or expectant parents to see, hear, feel or know during this rite of passage of their lives

Patty: that there is not one way. There's only your way, and the journey to and through parenthood will be much more enjoyable and celebrated if we can actually prioritize that upgrading ourselves. You know that that old you know put your oxygen mask on is really, really, really relevant always, and there's not one right way. And you know your children are your greatest teachers. And so when we embark on this journey, any parent, anyone who, in this in this incarnation, has chosen to be a parent, or by default, found themselves parenting, you've chosen a high point of evolution and of expansion, because there is nothing that will expand you more than birth and parenthood.

Gratitude and Closing

Britta: Thank you so much, Patty. It's always such a deep pleasure and joy to get to sit with you and to drink in your wisdom. Thank you so much.

Patty: Thank you. Thank you for having me, and thank you for making this beautiful space, and thank you listeners for sharing this time with us.

Britta: 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 transformed by birth. Now let's close the way we always do by gathering what we want to take away from this episode with our inhale and with our exhale blowing out the candle until next time bye, friends.