Blimey, I think I might be psychic……

I have this dragging feeling in my chest. It kind of hurts, aches, pulls.  I have done yoga with a new teacher this morning, who tells me we were working on my solar plexus chakra, the green one. I wonder, as I’m stirring my tea, whether the dragging feeling is related to that. But it’s not that kind of ache.  Then I realise where I’ve felt it before.  What it is.  It is the ache I got when I had had my babies.  When my baby, waters, and placentas are gone, and the contents of my insides resettles themselves down again.  If I remember correctly, it only lasts a few hours, and it happens a few days after a birth. No one spoke about that feeling, so I don’t even know if it is normal.  But, eight years after my last baby was born, here it is again, in my chest.  Why?

The next day, I’m sat at the breakfast table.  I am talking to my husband about something mundane. It is Christmas party season, so it was probably something around that. And this well of tears forms in my eyes, and I just sit there and cry.  I don’t know why I’m crying. The tears just flow, out of nowhere, and it feels good.  It feels good, and bad at the same time.  It feels like I want to be picked up, be loved and looked after.  And I wonder why I feel like that?  And then I recognise this feeling.  It feels the same as day three baby blues.  And I realise, that it is day three since I left my most recent birth doula job. At first, I just remind myself to text her and see how she’s doing.  Then I remember how I felt the day before, with my chest.  And I wonder, am I feeling her feelings?  

And it seems obvious that I am.  But then my rational mind kicks in.  The one that was brought up in a skeptical, emotionally paralysed world, where science tells us its not possible to connect psychically with others, even though science knows that the world is made up of energy that we are only just realising how little we know about it. But I also remember back to my first pregnancy, when my husband experienced pregnancy symptoms and I didn’t. (Except for back ache.  It’s a real shame he didn’t get back ache!). And I remember the times I have sat with a woman in labour, feeling sympathy contractions.  I remember that only a few nights ago, I was woken with strong lower back sensations, and I thought to myself “she is going into labour”.  I remember how I used to know that my baby needed me, moments before he actually stirred. 

And I am torn two ways.  I am torn between the old and the new.  My old, black and white, pseudo-scientific way of reacting, and my new open minded, curious accepting, way of reacting.  The old part wants to question it, analyse it, work it out, talk to others about it, google it and blog about it (as you can see, it is creeping in here).  It is looking for answers, questioning and judging. But I don’t even have the words to use for the search engine! The new approach stays open to it.  Curious, but relaxed.  It doesn’t need to know.  It doesn’t need to question it and judge it.  It can just observe my excitement, and smile down at myself, like a mother watching her child discover snow for the first time.  This is a self-compassionate, meditative technique that I teach others in my work, to midwives, to hypnobirthing mums, and to anxious and depressed clients.  It’s good to find myself using it. And what is really lovely about this newer reaction, is that it will keep me open to new experiences.  I might find that I have more of these experiences that I can’t even find a name for.  Intuition?  Psychic connection?  Empathic resonance?  

I think I’ll just go onto my search engine and see if I can find the right word for it…….