Your Body Is Powerful?
- May 16
- 2 min read
I’ve been feeling a bit haunted by a recent post I shared of the “Your Body Is Powerful” card on Instagram. Not because it isn’t true, or because the reminder isn’t something deeply welcome during pregnancy and labor, but because, like all the cards, it isn’t the full picture. Sometimes these words can feel painfully untrue.
A client, like others before her, recently emerged from the birth of her child feeling traumatized. A birth that had the potential to leave her with a profound sense of her body’s power instead left her feeling as though her body was somehow broken or failed her.
I’m not a stranger to this feeling. I tried unsuccessfully for years to conceive a child, but in the end, it was something my body in this lifetime could not do. Does that mean my body is not powerful? Does that mean I shouldn’t have tried?
Here is my conclusion: The Wisdom of Birth points to all of it. Inside the deck, we have the “Birth Is Messy” card and the “Grief” card as well.
Should I be unable to experience my body’s power and strength simply because she could not birth children? What about everything she does every day to faithfully sustain my life? Should women who give birth by unplanned cesareans be left feeling their bodies are somehow flawed? What about the strength it took to carry that child, to make difficult decisions along the way, and then recover from surgery?
The truth is, I don’t want to override the hard feelings either. Birth is messy, and there can be enormous grief in anything that does not go according to plan. If that is the moment you are in, and the thought of your body as powerful brings up nothing but a painful sense of contrast, then that is yours to feel. Your card at this moment might be, “Breathe”, or "It's Alright to Cry".
This deck offers nothing if not utter permission to be exactly where you are.
And if and whenever you want to draw “Your Body Is Powerful” again, or even for the first time, she will be right there waiting for you.
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