This section felt pretty familiar. After reading through New Focus and having gotten through most of the video I’ve learned a whole lot about relaxation and about my own body – and how to relax it.  We’ve also already started the Internal Work (which I promise I’ll write about!) and that has helped me explore relaxation a lot.

So this section of the video, which deals further with relaxation, and how tension can cause unnecessary pain, was pretty intuitive at this point.   I liked the discussion on the types of tension – Conscious, Unconscious, Structural, and Stretching.  Plenty of practical suggestions help you learn how to release each type of tension.

Practice and conditioning are urged in this section and I really agree with that.  It takes practice to explore the different types of tension, and to learn how your body responds to things.  Repeated practice will help you condition your body to relax.  Practicing the Pink Kit skills will help you identify and release tension quickly.  This section of the video went more deeply into how to breath and release tension in specific areas of your body.

Working on general relaxation as well as specific places is also a good idea – I think you should take time every day to work through relaxing your body and mind, and affirming your body and knowing you have the skills and resources you need to have a good birth   I know I’m enjoying having my Pink Kit skills and awareness build more every week!

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It’s also good because we get to see women using the techniques we read about. That’s really helpful to me.

Scott is frustrated because he feels like the written material is repetitive, and thus decided not to read the two pages on breath in Essential Preparations since breath was covered pretty extensively in New Focus. I find reading all the material helpful, however. I can almost always take something from it.

I find repetition on something like breathing to be quite helpful as well. Reading about it and practicing it over and over means it’s going to come naturally to me during labor. I also want it to come naturally to a coach because I know for a fact that having a coach breathe with me has been helpful in labor.

I liked the video segment on Breath, which is what we watched last night. It was good to see the demonstration. The video covered directed breathing. One bit showed focusing the breath into the sacrum area (and showed exactly where that is). Just like the section of New Focus that talked about breath into the pelvis I found this section on breath into the sacrum very helpful.

I’ve been thinking about directed breathing all morning after watching the video last night. I’ve had a bit of a queasy tummy (isn’t that supposed to be gone in the first trimester???!) and spent some time on the couch focusing my breathing around to relax.

As I’ve practiced breathing and relaxing through braxton-hicks contractions and when I’ve gotten stressed in the past few weeks I’ve noticed I have a tendency to pull my belly muscles in. So it has been good to focus on consciously relaxing those and throughout my pelvic region. The Pink Kit has been so helpful in bringing my awareness of that tension and relaxation to the forefront of my mind. I enjoy practicing throughout the day and internalizing the skills, because I know they’ll be with me in birth.

I’ve also been able to share with Scott about things like my tense belly muscles so he can help remind me of that during labor. I certainly don’t want to make things even more tense down there when a contraction is already squeezing – I want to get the rest of my muscles out of the way so my uterus can do its work effectively and with less pain for me :p

So the breathing and tension exercises have been nice for me, as has the increased awareness. I also like that when I’m focusing on that I tend to focus on the baby. And I like the feeling of preparing for birth, which is becoming more and more urgent as we get closer to the time he’ll arrive.

Our next section is on the Bony Pelvis and we get into the nitty gritty of anatomy. Scott has assured me he’ll read that section since we’ve not covered it yet And then we’ll work through that portion of the DVD this week. I’d actually like to get through the next couple of sections or three sections this week as they’re all inter-related. And I’m eager to learn the Pink Kit skills so I can begin being aware of those things and practicing them throughout my days too

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We are actually getting through it though and both of us are actually reading the materials. Reading separately and then going over together in the evening seems to be working well for us. Having the books in .pdf format is nice too.

Aside from the logistics and laughter (which isn’t a bad thing ) we’re still working through the initial part of the PK, which is breathing. Last night we went over using breath to relax different parts of the body.

I particularly enjoyed one exercise and found it helpful. I’ve done practice with directed relaxation and breath before – where you breath in deeply and focus on relaxing one area of your body (sometimes after you’ve tensed it first). But this PK activity suggested breathing through relaxation in your pelvis – feeling it open up and expand as you breathed into it.

I liked this exercise (not sure how much Scott got out of it lol) because I think it’ll be a good focus to have during birth, and even now during Braxton-hicks contractions. I want to keep that area open and relaxed so my body and baby can do the work they need to opening up and navigating through all the muscles, bone, and cartilage that sit in the pelvis. I’ve been practicing it throughout today and can honestly say it’s never an area I’ve focused on opening during my relaxation practice. I’m glad for the practical ideas and well-written materials that come with the Pink Kit :p

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