As we draw near to the end of this course we will be looking this week at your relationship with the world in relation to how you are seen and heard. How the world perceives and receives you versus who you actually are or could be. This is especially important as we draw near to completing this second transition into life outside the womb. As we have repeatedly seen, babies are far from helpless blank slates at birth. At the same time, in their newness, openness and the altered neural state that occurs for both mother and baby, there is also deep imprinting that takes place during this window of time. This week we will be exploring your first sights and sounds in the context of how that shapes who you believe you are and your place in the world.
At birth a newborn's vision is not fully developed so that they can see somewhere in the range of 20 to 40 centimetres. However, this is the perfect distance to focus on their mother / caregivers' faces. As we saw last week this is important in the bonding process and it is not separate from what else is going on in the environment.
Although they cannot see far, they can hear much further. They have been hearing sounds throughout their life in the womb since possibly as early as 16 weeks and by the third trimester they can hear sounds outside the womb even though still muffled by the amniotic fluid and mother's body. Their eyes by contrast, open around 27 weeks for the first time. At birth they recognise familiar voices including their mother and other close family members and show a preference for these known sounds. However, what is less commonly talked about is how they hear and interpret other sounds and comments made about them during this time. During regression adults are able to recall many details of their birth including accurate remembering of conversations by people in the room. My hypothesis in this is that although the baby cannot speak and takes time to understand speech, they are powerful energetic beings who are hearing, feeling and sensing the whole energy field and interpreting this. Later in life we can put words to this. The words that are heard are understood on a deep energetic level and can go in especially deep during this open vulnerable time.
This energetic experience contributes to the formation and strengthening of neural connections in the brain. The newborn bay is building a meaningful picture of their world and who they are in it using these early visual, auditory experiences and other sensory experiences such as touch and smells. This will become embedded as part of their identity and personality for years to come.
We will be exploring this in this week's live call which will form part one of a two part ritual transition from a deeply held identity of wounded baby to empowered adult.
Reflection Questions:
1. Take some time to consider how do you feel when you put your self in a situation that is 'out there' in the world? This might be posting on social media, going into a shop to talk to someone, meeting a new friend, chairing a business meeting, imagining speaking at an event- or something else that is something you wish to do or already do in your life. How do you feel, is it easy, smooth or do you brace yourself before hand? What is the dialogue you are running as you do this?
2. In the above situations, how do people generally receive you. What do they say about you? What do you expect them to say? Is it the same or is there a mismatch?
3. How were you received at birth? What was spoken about you? What did you feel?
4. Are there any parallels or patterns you can spot that are repeating here?
Bring your answers to the call and we will explore deeper and work with this theme.