The Layers That Shape Our Birth Choices

So much of who we believe we are and the choices we make around birth, is shaped long before we become mothers. Birth choices are not simply about obtaining information or thinking about our preferences. They are deeply personal, layered, complex, and influenced by identity. This is shaped by
the stories we’ve lived, the beliefs we’ve absorbed, the memories held in our bodies, our upbringing and childhood experiences, the messages we’ve received about women, bodies, pain, safety and authority, along with the cultural and societal conditioning around compliance, the collective influences that surround us, and the ancestral threads we carry around feminine power, visibility and worth.

All of this quietly informs the stories we carry and shapes our fears and longings, our self-trust or self-doubt, and the extent to which we feel safe in our bodies. These stories influence how we see ourselves.

How These Layers Influence Birth Decisions

When we approach birth, we carry all of these layers with us.

If we were taught that authority lies outside of us, we may feel safer outsourcing our care and handing over our power, feeling more comfortable with a care provider making the decisions around what is best for our baby and birth.

If we’ve been supported to trust our intuition and inner wisdom and encouraged to act from there, we may feel more confident choosing a path that is paved from independent research and a simple knowing felt in our body, even if this sits outside mainstream expectations.

These layers shape not only the decisions we make, but also how our bodies respond during birth.

A woman conditioned to doubt herself, to not trust her body, may find herself responding with more tension, fear, or resistance.
A woman who trusts her inner authority may find her body can more easily soften, open, and feels safe enough to surrender to the process.

This is not about blame or creating a feeling that we need to be somewhere we’re not.
It is simply awareness which creates the opportunity for greater freedom and choice.

Awareness

When we can see the influences shaping us and can recognise how they have shaped us, we can see our thoughts and emotions are passing sensations rather than rigid truths. We can choose to act with intention instead of subconscious conditioning and make decisions from a place of awareness.

This awareness creates coherence between what we think, what we feel, and what we know deep down.

From that place of coherence, intuition becomes clearer and more readily heard and we can trust it to guide us toward what is aligned for ourselves and our babies.

Our Body and Our Beliefs

Birth is biological, hormonal, physiological and profoundly somatic.
The body acts according to what it knows and believes, not what the mind wishes were true.

We cannot think or talk our way into a “good” birth.

Our body carries the imprint of our stories, whether we’re consciously aware of them or not. These stories influence our hormonal flow in birth, the release of oxytocin, the rise of adrenaline, and the feeling of safety required to surrender.

Even the most well-informed mind cannot override the body’s felt experience.

To birth with trust, we must embody trust, feel it in our nervous system, our breath, our cells, not simply understand it on an intellectual level.

Practices to Support Reconnection

Awareness helps us recognise the stories that shape our choices.
Embodiment allows us to shift how the body responds to those stories.
When awareness and embodiment work together, our choices and physiology can come into alignment.

Birth becomes less about learning tools to manage or avoid fear, suffering or trauma and more about reconnecting to the ancient, powerful, and innate part of ourselves.
It can become a sacred journey rather than feeling overwhelming.

Some simple, sustainable practices that support reconnection include:

• Slowing down and creating stillness

Even a few minutes a day can create spaciousness where intuition can be heard.
Pause. Breathe.
Practices like breathwork, journaling, stillness, walking in nature, movement, or visualisation, depending on what resonates with you, can offer stillness.

• Listening to the body’s sensations

As you use movement throughout your day or undertake exercise of any type, gently tune in to how your body actually feels. Notice where fear or tension lives in your body.
Witness the sensations without labelling them as suffering or discomfort. Simply notice what arises with a sense of curiosity and release what tension you can.

• Questioning inherited beliefs with compassion

As I mentioned earlier, this is not about blame, only awareness. We all do the best we can with what we know, and so did those who came before us.
Gently observe the influences that have shaped you, meeting them with curiosity rather than judgement.
Notice which beliefs nourish you and which ones feel tight or outdated.
Many of these patterns were created to keep us safe at another point in time.
You can thank them for their purpose and release them with love, knowing you now have the wisdom to choose differently.

• Seeking out people who reflect strength and sovereignty

Mentors and aligned community reinforce trust rather than fear.
We rise in the company we keep. Find the people who you can share your journey with authentically, who you resonate with and support you in your growth.

• Remembering that surrender is not giving up

Surrender is a powerful act of courage, to let go, allowing your mind, heart, and body to align without interference.

Returning to the Centre of Who We Are

Birth is one of the greatest mirrors we have, reflecting the deeper truths we hold about ourselves and may not be consciously aware of.

When we birth from the place of our truest, most connected selves, beyond the layers we’ve gathered along the way, it ripples outward into how we mother, how we love, and how we live.

Birth provides a powerful opportunity to reclaim who we truly are, returning to our innate wisdom.