The Feminine and the Redefinition of Pain in Childbirth

Since the beginning of our known society, women have been subjected to the language and dominance of the unhealty masculine energy. From what has been told and what we can interpret, in the time when women played an important role in society and were respected as intermediaries between heaven and earth, wisdom was transmitted orally. That was how women wove stories, shared them, and lived them day by day.

When that feminine wisdom began to diminish due to the imposition of masculine power, we stopped communicating through stories, imagination, dance, and songs. We were forced to stop being consistent in feeling, thinking, and doing in order to adapt to the emerging patriarchal society. Women who experienced this shift had no choice but to teach their daughters to lie in order to survive. From there, we forgot who we are, lost sight of the original feminine project, and, in short, no longer truly know ourselves.

In this era of humanity, the 21st century, we are being called once again to discover who we are and what is characteristic of the feminine energy.

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To begin this discovery, it is first important to recognize that we are different from men. We cannot pretend to be the same as them. We cannot ignore that the feminist movement has helped women awaken from the slumber they were in, but unfortunately, the principles of feminism are based on a masculine foundation. This has led to a deception, making us believe we have freedom, when we do not. Let me explain: now we can study, work, and travel, but we also bear the same obligations as our grandmothers and the women before them. We have been led to believe that we are superheroines who can do everything, which has fueled resentment toward the masculine and gradually leads to self-aggression.

Essentially, we are two beings, almost two different species, with specific emotional and physical characteristics, with different languages. This is not about competing with men—that would only continue the violent language that dominates our world today. It is about recognizing ourselves as different beings, with other qualities and capacities—not better or worse, simply different.

When we understand this difference between men and women, we will comprehend the importance of knowing ourselves through our own language. Exploring the unknown within our own interior.

But what does all this have to do with re-signifying pain? Well, let’s start from the premise that we have been sufferers from the moment we entered this masculinized society. Our life cycles have been considered sources of suffering throughout history; simply because we are considered the "bearers of original sin", we must endure the pains of menstruation, childbirth, and menopause. In other words, our entire life is an eternal "valley of tears," and we are usually treated as "the Lord’s servant."

To set aside this historical burden, we must remember our original project as females. We can start from the visible to make it easier. If within our bodies there is a sacred vessel that only women possess—the womb—and this vessel is a symbol of creation and creativity, we are called to create. Yes, and I don’t just mean a reproductive function; it’s not just that. It means that we must gestate ideas, give birth constantly, illuminate the path for those around us, develop art, and, for those with that vocation, be mothers, guardians of human beings—both those we give birth to and those around us.

This characteristic shows that we are carriers of inner strength. We have no power over anything, we control nothing, we are not concerned with resembling the Divine. We have strength; we carry that which we neither control nor dominate, which is simply given to us to develop in this plane, and we are One with the Divine.

Since we control nothing, fear of the unknown arises. If you have everything under control and always have an ace up your sleeve, you do not worry because you believe you dominate whatever comes your way. The point is that we must learn not to control, to allow ourselves to be guided by the force given to us by Divinity. We cannot use this force the way men did; we must change the course of history if we want humanity to heal the ills that afflict it.

In many situations, we can feel this force, but we are still at the beginning of the path, rediscovering what we have forgotten for centuries. One specific situation in which this uncontrollable, creative force can be felt is during labor. Undoubtedly, women in the transition phase, about to reach full dilation, feel a terrible fear as they perceive an immense force within their wombs pushing to bring the baby into the world. It is common to hear women in this stage saying they feel the urge to push, and pushing needs inner strength.

If we become conscious of this inner force, we can begin to re-signify the pain of each of our cyclical processes.

The early meaning of "pain" in English focused on concepts of punishment and hardship, Nowadays it's connected to a physical sensation of suffering, something everybody wants to eliminate in order to be feel good. Therefore, we always seek to silence the pains that afflict us. But what is pain if not an alert? Of course, if your head hurts, you know something is wrong—you need to stop, rest, silence your mind. If your hand is burning, it warns you to remove it from the fire. Pain is a mechanism the body uses to communicate something.

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However, women’s pain is culturally imposed. Our emotions are tied to hormones, which influence the behavior of the entire organism. We are highly sensitive beings, and we have allowed ourselves to be influenced by culture. We have been told that our cyclical processes are painful, and nothing less than the Bible stating “with pain you will give birth to children” has caused a tremendous problem for us. Childbirth pain is the only "pain" that signals a physiological process is going well. Instead of painful, I rather call it intense. It allows us to be present, here and now, to navigate this sublime rite of passage.

Our womb has been mistreated throughout history, and we have lost connection with that magical initiatory cave. As a result, we experience cycles with pain. But in this moment of humanity, women have awakened to that sensitivity again, and it is vital to reclaim self-knowledge of our bodies and cycles. To re-signify menstrual cramps, not by erasing them but by feeling and transforming them. To re-signify childbirth pain, embracing it fully as we enter the unknown. To re-signify menopause as a process of direct connection with the divine, not as a moment of decline or illness. We must understand that pain (any kind of pain) requires calmness, silence, and stillness to dissipate.

Focusing on the intesity of childbirth, which reveals a moment of absolute strength, we must remember that the masculine model of medicine seeks to remove pain, preventing us from feeling. Everything points toward analgesia or anesthesia to make us insensitive.

It is possible that childbirth allows a woman to enter a typically feminine darkness. A woman who fears childbirth intensity probably fears the unknown more than the pain itself. Therefore, it is necessary to surrender to the mystery, giving everything without expecting anything in return, while keeping hope that there is a reward: the birth of a new being.

What are the options for navigating childbirth pain? We could re-signify that pain by thinking that instead of contractions, we have expansions. Feeling these expansions as waves that come and go, floating until the next wave arrives, we might navigate the birth ritual more calmly.

This pain, manifested as fear of the unknown or fear of death, dissolves if we are strong, if we feel supported by the healthy masculine with whom we must coexist, share, and love instead of conflict. By embracing birth as a death/rebirth, we can emerge strengthened and wiser, experiencing the intensity while knowing we will come through it. We must “die” as daughters, as working women, as intellectuals, as we were before pregnancy, to be reborn as mothers, as custodians of a new being. This does not mean surrendering our lives entirely to motherhood’s sacrifice. No. That has been the pattern imposed by a masculine language throughout history.

From the feminine perspective, the sacrifice of motherhood is the sacred duty of nurturing, feeding, guiding, and teaching. To do this, we must be prepared, having knowledge and wisdom to pass on. Moreover, the teacher is called to be a constant learner, meaning that while engaged in this sacred duty, we must continue to grow as women, lifelong students, developing constantly.

Thus, childbirth is one side of the coin; the other is death, which should not be seen as loss but as the release of experiences we no longer need to carry, allowing us to become custodians of a new being who has arrived and needs love, attention, and total care while growing and learning to develop independently.

Pain and pleasure are intertwined. Let us remove the phrase “with pain you will give birth to children” and believe instead that we can give birth with pleasure, truly feeling. Feeling the waves, the expansions, and understanding that if they hurt, it is not suffering but simply a pain that will go away. Perhaps it is the many anesthetics we have received that exaggerate our perception of pain. Those who have fully felt experiences in the past, never suppressing them, likely do not suffer—they simply feel.

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If we can navigate the rite of passage of childbirth from this perspective, we will rediscover the Divine strength within us. Perhaps then humanity will reach a moment in which women reconnect with Divinity, experience bodily sensations without labeling them as physical pain, live spiritual life without soul pain, and embrace fluctuating emotions with continuous serene joy. We are spirits who descend into form, into a body designed to enjoy, not to suffer. Let's allow ourselves to experience more pleasure instead of focussing in the suffering all the time.

This text has been written from the core, felt and expressed from there. In conclusion, I would like to leave a poem—a subtler, more feminine language—that transports us to another dimension, allowing us to re-signify the pain:

Woman

The woman welcomes all that surrounds her

She holds it in her sacred vessel

She releases it with the changing moon

She empties and fills, endlessly

She knows the cycle of life and death

Within the mysterious, unknown darkness

She gestates life to bring it forth

The woman feels the sway of her sacred vessel

Cycle after cycle, she senses its undulating movements

And when her body is ready to receive a spirit

Her vessel prepares to open

So that from the dark cave, light may emerge

In this journey, the woman floats and dives among the waves, without fighting them

She flows like water, surrendering to the unknown

Through her sensations, she lets the Force within arise

And allows herself to rediscover what it means to be united with the Divine

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Note: Women have feminine and masculine energy, as men have masculine and feminine energy as well. We live in a dual world (day - night, light - dark, cold - hot, sound - silence, etc...). What I believe is that both energies can also be split into healthy and unhealthy and our societies have been living in the unhealthy for a long time. Masculine energy in its healty mode is necessary for all of us, as much as healthy feminine energy too.

Written by Carolina