The Nervous System Is the Real Birth Plan.

Plus, I am sharing my own journey into Somatic Birth Preparation.

They say birth is about contractions and dilation.

But if you’ve been there — really been there — you know it’s about something far deeper.

Birth is psychedelic.It is a portal.It takes you to the edges of yourself, past the edges, and into the places you didn’t know existed.

It will show you the wild, untouched parts of your body’s intelligence.It will also show you every shadow that still lingers in your tissues.

And here’s the truth no one tells you:

Birth is not just a physical event. It’s a nervous system event.

You can plan every detail. You can choose the perfect playlist, pack the perfect bag, and even have the most supportive team. But if your body doesn’t feel safe……it won’t open.

Because the cervix doesn’t soften in fear. It doesn’t ripen in stress. It doesn’t respond to force.

It opens in safety. In trust. In the ancient, wordless knowing that your body was made for this.

“The most important thing you can do to prepare for birth is heal the parts of you that learned it wasn’t safe to trust your body.”

This truth has been the heartbeat of my work for years — and now, in my own current pregnancy, it has become my deepest lived experience.

Birth Is Not Just Physical — It’s Nervous System, Emotional, and Spiritual.

My First Birth — What Safety Really Meant for Me

When I birthed my daughter, Andi, I chose a hospital with a midwife.I had a natural birth. On paper, everything went “well.”

But inside? It was far more complex.

I didn’t know it at the time, but all of my stored sexual trauma was bubbling under the surface. I’d seen this countless times as a midwife — a mama’s labor thrown off by suppressed trauma. Often, there’s no conscious thought about it; the emotions are locked away, but the body remembers.

And my body remembered.

It showed up as:

• Labor slowing down.

• My cervix resisting opening.

• An overwhelming desire to be alone in the dark.

  
  

These weren’t just quirky preferences — they were my nervous system trying to keep me safe.

So I did what I knew how to do.I locked myself in the dark bathroom and labored alone.

And while I did birth my daughter naturally… it came at a cost.

I wasn’t held.I wasn’t loved through the most vulnerable moment of my life. Because I didn’t feel safe enough to be seen in it.

That was my lifelong survival pattern:

Run.

Hide.

Suffer alone.

Get through it.

I didn’t yet know that the same patterns that kept me alive as a child were shaping my birth.

The Science of Why Safety Matters

The body’s survival responses — governed by the nervous system — were designed to keep you alive in dangerous situations. They are primal, fast, and unconscious.

When you feel unsafe, your sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) floods your body with adrenaline. Your muscles tighten, your blood flow moves away from your reproductive organs, and your body prepares to defend itself — not open to life.

Even if the danger isn’t real in the moment — maybe it’s a memory, an old trauma, or a hospital environment that feels sterile and intimidating — your body reacts as if it’s happening right now.

In birth, this can mean:

• Contractions slow or stall.

• Cervical dilation halts.

• Pain feels sharper.

• Your ability to drop into the altered state of labor is blocked.

In contrast, when your parasympathetic nervous system is activated — the state of rest, digest, and receive — oxytocin flows freely. Your muscles soften. Your cervix ripens. Your body opens.

A regulated nervous system isn’t just “nice to have” in labor. It’s the foundation that allows birth to unfold in its primal, unhindered way.

Birth Is Psychedelic

Birth is the original altered state.It’s psychedelic without the drugs.

When undisturbed, your body produces a hormonal cocktail — oxytocin, beta-endorphins, prolactin — that can mirror a full-blown psychedelic trip. Your brain shifts into theta and delta states. You move and sound in ways that are primal and ancient.

It’s a portal — one that connects you to your body, your baby, and something far greater.

And this is exactly why the medical system often works to keep mothers in fear.Because fear snaps you out of that altered state.Fear hands your power over.

From sterile environments to constant monitoring, from tests to timelines, the system is designed to interrupt your primal flow and keep you in the thinking brain — the one that doubts, that obeys, that forgets its wild intelligence.

And yet, the truth is:

Your body knows how to birth.

But it will only open where it feels safe.

My Current Pregnancy — Spirit’s Deepest Lesson

I’ve been on my healing path for many years.I’ve been serving mamas in birth for almost a decade.

And yet, this pregnancy has been the most humbling teacher of my life.

It feels as if Spirit gave me this pregnancy to fully embody what I teach — to live it in my bones.

I have been shown, again and again, where my own nervous system still holds survival. Where I still brace. Where I still run.

I’ve had to go deeper than I ever have before — into shadows, into grief, into the raw, tender places that no one sees on Instagram.

This work isn’t theoretical for me anymore.It’s my lived reality.

I am earning back my own source codes.

I am preparing to birth this baby in a safe and sovereign way — not just for the birth itself, but for the life that follows.

For Every Mother Reading This

If you’ve ever felt fear in your body around birth — you’re not alone.If your patterns have been to hide, to suffer alone, to “just get through it” — you’re not broken.

Your body has only ever been trying to protect you.But now, you have the opportunity to teach it something new.

Birth will meet you where you are.The more safety you can root into your tissues now, the more space you’ll have to open when it matters most.

Somatic preparation before birth isn’t a luxury.It’s birth safety.

If you’re ready to prepare for birth from the inside out

🌀 Work with me 1:1 — My Somatic Birth Prep sessions guide you to regulate your nervous system, release stored fear, and root safety in your body.

✨ Download my Free Nervous System Birth Prep Toolkit — Learn practical tools you can use right now to begin shifting your body toward safety and trust before labor even begins.

🌱 Join me for a FREE workshop on AUG 18th. When The Body Remembers. Meeting the Mystery: Supporting Trauma as it Awakens in the Birth Portal

Birth is more than a physical event — it is a threshold where the body’s deepest memories awaken. In this free workshop, we’ll explore how trauma can arise in labor not as pathology, but as a call for presence and profound healing.

Together, we will:

• Understand how the nervous system carries unresolved stories into birth

• Learn to recognize signs of trauma activation in labor — in both mother and practitioner

• Explore somatic tools that restore safety and agency in the moment

• Reimagine prenatal preparation to include emotional, somatic, and ancestral layers of care

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Whether you are a mama preparing for birth or a birth worker holding sacred space, this conversation will deepen your ability to meet the mystery with reverence — transforming moments of overwhelm into opportunities for healing and trust.

Much love from the Jungle, Demi xx