Episode 146: Helping babies heal from their birth with Shelley Clarke

In this episode, I talk with Shelley Clarke, who is an Aware Parenting instructor, CranioSacral Therapist and Marion Method Mentor. Please note that neither CranioSacral Therapy nor The Marion Method are Aware Parenting. Shelley shares about her experience of practicing Aware Parenting with her three children and how she first learnt about Hand in Hand Parenting when searching for gentle sleep solutions, and then heard about Aware Parenting too. She first found me and my work n 2017 by searching for 'parenting and Psychosynthesis' (I trained and worked as a Psychosynthesis Psychotherapist). She shares about the experience of starting Aware Parenting at different ages with her children, and starting from when her third child was born, as he shared his feelings about his birth. She also did more of her own healing process from her own experience as a baby. She talks about the power of listening to a baby's feelings when being lovingly supported with our own feelings, like she experienced and now offers to parents. From her first baby to her third baby, she became really comfortable with crying-in-arms. Shelley talks about her experience of learning about CranioSacral Therapy and training in it, and how a central part of it is somato-emotional release. As part of that, she has done many birth processes on her own experiences as a baby. She shares about what happens in her work as a CranioSacral Therapist when parents bring their babies with issues related to feeding, sleeping, tension, agitation and digestion. Often the babies will express feelings from their birth during the session. We discuss how Aware Parenting and CST both have a deep trust in the body's innate capacity to heal and return to homeostasis. Shelley shares lots of details about how to be with babies as they are healing from their birth and other experiences. I also reflect back on the time when my daughter was six and had some myofascial treatment and re-enacted her birth experience whilst expressing big feelings - and we discuss how children can also heal from their births, later on than in infancy - and how close to the surface those birth memories are for children as well as babies. Shelley shares an incredible experience of one of her children being a Messenger from Life - this is from The Marion Method, not Aware Parenting. We finish talking about our deep trust in the innate wisdom of human beings and our ability to heal and come back into homeostasis, and the importance of our own inner work as parents so that we can offer a calm presence to support our baby or child's innate wisdom. You can find Shelley and her work at: https://www.shelleyclarke.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/_shelleyclarke_/ and https://www.facebook.com/shelleyclarkemindbodyparenting Her podcast is The Mind-Body Parenting Podcsat.