Midwifery for The Soul: Awaken to your Fierce Feminine in the Depths of Darkness and Trauma

By Jennifer Summerfeldt

Midwifery For the Soul: Awaken to your Fierce Feminine in the Depths of Darkness and Trauma gives voice to a ferocious feminine version of the mythical tale of the ‘hero’s journey’. Taking the reader through the tumultuous landscape of darkness and trauma as an initiation to awaken to one’s divine feminine soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Summerfeldt Coaching
• Release date: Dec 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781999497231

Jennifer Summerfeldt

Jennifer first and foremost, is a mother of three incredible human beings. She holds an MA in counselling psychology and is a Certified Canadian Counsellor with over 17 years of experience in maternal health and psychology studies. Located in Edmonton, Canada, she uses her expertise and voice to help advance the dialogue on motherhood, trauma-informed care, and feminine healing. Her deep desire is to inspire women and mothers to come home to their hearts and awaken to their soul. Jennifer shares her knowledge and expertise with a variety of transformational counselling programs and services: Healing After Birth Book and Program: A unique counselling program and book that helps mothers heal unresolved emotional pain associated with their past birthing experiences. Learn more. Healing After Birth Workshops for Professionals: This two-day workshop is delivered as a speaking event. Focusing on trauma-informed perinatal mental health. The event includes both education and experiential activities to help integrate the material shared. Learn More. Sacred Story Keepers: This blended program is a trauma-informed Doula training. The program includes an online portion and a live two-day eventto help integrate the material shared. Learn More. ​​ The Foundational Program for Effective Healing: A therapeutic online program for soulfully-driven women who want to take their healing to the next level. This program serves as a foundational tool for your healing journey teaching you how to incorporate a 10 step process outlined throughout. Learn more. Healing After Birth Podcast: A podcast that includes interviews by professionals in the field as well as, mothers who share vulnerably about their healing journeys. Learn more. With more than 20 years of experience, her knowledge is vast and supported by extensive training and credentials: - An MA in Counselling Psychology (MACP) - A Certificate as a Trauma Recovery Counsellor - A Certificate as a Grief Support Counsellor - Basic training in EMDR - A Certified Canadian Counsellor (CCC) - Two years of graduate studies in performance and sports psychology - A former student of direct entry midwifery - A certificate as a Holistic Nutrition Consultant When Jennifer is not in her office or leading group workshops or presentations, you can expect to find her spending time with her family, close friends, or creating jewelry.

Book preview

THE INVITATION

Come.

Walk with me if you dare

Into the interior landscape.

Let’s call it soul

The world that exists behind the veil.

Inanna.

Peel back the skin

Layer upon layer.

As we expose the soul

Of your existence.

Ashes.

Nothing left, yet everything

Is alive in this terrain.

You know the place.

Knocking.

Ignored for some time now

Distracted by the world out here.

Excuse, after excuse

Exhausting.

Opening.

Down the channel

A birth canal.

Towards the light

Dar la luz.

Grey.

A whisper of a call

Dim upon entrance

Awaiting your return

Always.

Dance.

Upon the hills of pain

The tears of opening

The light of dawn

Is here.

And you ask.

What is soul?

‘I don’t know,’ said the Mind.

‘I know,’ said the Soul.

Maybe it is all make-believe.

Then again, what isn’t?

I don’t really know how to write

grammatically speaking.

I know how to soul-speak.

Where rules are broken

The imaginal comes alive

Myth becomes reality

Reality becomes myth.

Aren’t we just living

In a fairy tale anyway?

How do you keep your heart open while in hell? Says my dear friend.

This is the quest, isn’t it?

This book is an invitation to read these words with an open heart, let them penetrate and take them in, slowly, like sipping on a fine wine; it is meant to be savoured in all its complexity. If no stirring occurs, then let it go and move on. But know that even a stirring of what some may consider negative is a stirring of sorts, and carries with it a message.

This message is for you, and only you.

I invite you to listen.

Listen to the nuances, the in-between, for the clues that are woven throughout. There is a knowing that is eternally available to you. This knowing lives in the depth of your ‘being’.

I call this place – the soul.

The ego speaks from analysis and criticism, whereas the soul ponders and dwells.

I invite you to dwell upon these words.

We are about to go on a journey together, into the underbelly of human suffering and trauma.

We are about to enter into soul territory.

This is not love and light; this is gritty and dark.

This is a landscape that is alive, well and ever present. The womb of existence, full of watery emotions and sensations.

No human has escaped trauma-land.

True, some of us are more acquainted with this lived being that resides in our bodies. However, being born earthbound is a promise of wrestling with trauma.

Some call this human suffering.

Others call it the great curse.

Few risk to call it what it is – trauma-land.

Soul-writer Caroline Myss: ‘If the path of awakening is not for you, go back to the kitchen and peel potatoes."¹ In other words, stay asleep. We are dormant for a reason, and until that veil is lifted, we can stay naïve to the carnival we call ‘life.’

Denial is contagious.

But for those of you who have seen behind the curtain of illusion, For those who know that there is a deep under current to our lived experiences,

For those who know evil exists, To those who crave soul territory…

This book is for you.

Put on your seatbelts and be prepared for the unveiling of trauma-land. No niceties. No pretty lace. No curtailing. No spiritual bypassing. To awaken, to claim your soul, you must pass through this gate.

And for the few who have magically by-passed trauma-land, may you use your love and untethered soul for inspiring more love on this planet. And may you learn and listen from those who have had to find (and fight for) their light in the depths of darkness. May you continue to wake up to the soul that you are; you are not allowed to remain asleep.

If trauma is a major catalyst for spiritual awakening, and you have somehow managed to be protected from this beast, then I imagine you hold a special unique power that lies in the heart of hearts – use it wisely my friend.

I speak to and for those of us who have not been protected from trauma. I share a story, one of both lived experience and studious study, that begins to highlight this terrain. These words are coming directly from the soul to yours. As I unravel my own story, I also unravel the collected gifts of stories many have entrusted me with.

I am witnessing my own soul’s quest as I lay down these words to integrate all that which has come and gone. I choose to share with you dear reader, a soul story which includes part journal, part poetry, and part ponder. And I hold hope that it inspires something within your being.

I have faced many deaths, and the one constant that has not perished in the chaos is my Soul’s voice. Each time I come back to the familiar, which expresses itself with pen and paper.

Out of desire, generosity, and a will to be alive, I share with you my experiences, a blueprint and a framework that has greatly helped me navigate my own internal chaos. Without these sacred teachings (not from a text), I am not sure how I would have found my way through the dark night of the soul - an internal landscape of dank despair, debilitating pain and the quicksand of grief.

How does one speak to these matters – the experience of emergence out of dormancy and the slaying of the beasts within? How does one speak in a manner that ignites a familiar knowing within the other, in a way in which you can almost feel the living terrain and the magnificent power within?

I call this power – Soul Force.

The offering is one of hope. Hope that the sharing of my personal encounter with depression, melancholy, darkness, PTSD, despair and grief; and my courageous endurance and tenacity to find my way, will somehow inspire other Souls who are stricken with such pain.

You may be able to witness the transformation of the caterpillar to the butterfly. Yet you cannot know deep within your core what that experience was like for the butterfly. You can witness one or a thousand births and never know what that felt like for the mother. What I write about throughout these pages, is not an intellectual process, as it can only be known through experience alone.

Each labor is unique to a woman, and each soul birth (a journey of inner transformation) is unique to the individual.

Therefore, part of what I am weaving throughout these pages is what I consider to be a spiritual framework, inspired by my soul’s quest using instinctual birth as a guiding metaphor. This birthing symbolism can assist with the navigation and understanding of your internal soul’s experience with trauma, loss, pain, grief, and internal chaos.

In my experience, these sacred teachings about the cycle of life helped to inspire courage, determination, purpose, and a way through the immobilizing mess of grief, despair, and inner turmoil. The philosophy shared throughout these pages became the grace under fire that was so desperately needed. I speak about both my personal and perceptual experiences. As I was both the experiencer and the Witness to the experiences.

I learned to be the midwife of my own Soul’s birth.

May I be so bold as to say that we all need to be midwifed in this holy way, and we all need to be the Midwife to our own Soul’s awakening. I am honored that you have chosen to venture deeper into these murky waters and birthing tides. It is my deepest hope that in the end, you too will find the courage, faith, determination, and trust in this process of inner transformation.

The book is divided into two parts. The primary section is more recent musings that take you twisting and turning through the landscape of the gory and the glory. It is infused with soulful poetry and journal entries. It flows, but each section could be read on its own.

Take your time and read it as you would any creative poetic piece.

Part two guides you through the metaphor of instinctive birth as a transformative process. I chose to unpack the Holistic Stages of Labour and Birth, written and told by my wise and dear friend and mentor, Whapio Diane Bartlett. This paradigm of birth and midwifery has continued to be my guiding spiritual metaphor to understand human experiences of transformation and pain.

TERMINOLOGY

The System – This reference refers to the human body, including the mind, spirit, and soul. The system is the part of yourself that functions daily as you move through the world. It is fluid with life force and thrives when we are in harmony. The system is comprised of the brain, the nervous system and the energy system. Our system is encoded to thrive and survive. Learning how to work with your system in a healthy and optimal manner will provide you with the experience of grace and peace.

The Soul – From my point of view the term soul denotes the aspect of our ‘self’ that is energy in action. The soul is what we contact when we move our attention to the interior world, the landscape that exists in the realm of the imaginal. There are many players and parts in this territory that move us and animate us. The Soul, for some, is the part of our human experience that experiences it all. Non-linear, non-logical. Sacred and expansive. The soul is elusive in that we can only hypothesize about its existence. However, many agree upon the term and conclude that there is a ‘soul’. One may also relate to it as consciousness, or awareness. Although we cannot deduce with certainty that the soul exists, I sense that it does. And I experience the soul as a creative life force moving itself to be expressed and known. Every time I fully embody an experience, I connect to the soul of being. For the purpose of this book, your experience of Soul is all that matters.

Trauma-Land – Denotes our human lived experience on earth, the notion that earth has been, and will continue to be, a playground full of chaos, destruction, pain, oppression, abuse, supremacy, and wounds. Seeing our lived experience through this lens is indeed challenging. However, the premise is to first accept what is and has been relentlessly unfolding for eons.

A Soul Wound – A psychological and/or physical wounding due to having endured something horrifying, terrifying, or deeply disturbing that fractures your connection with your soul.

A Collective Soul Wound – A generational wound that has not had the opportunity to heal. This wound lives in the psyche of your family, community, and environment. As such, due to epigenetics and cellular memory, you may feel the collective soul wound. Resulting in the need to heal not just your primary wound, but the collective wound.

The Mystery – That which is divine in nature, unknown to the human, rational mind, and consciousness. Part of the whole.

The Pain Body – Similar to soul wound, the pain body refers to the energetic imprint that is carried within your field – both physically and energetically. The pain body includes your genetic imprints, which would have been coded while in the uterus.

Consciousness – The part of ‘you’ that is aware that you are aware, that you are aware.

PART ONE

BACKWARDS & Beginnings

[When] a trauma such as a disaster or major loss occurs and no parental help is available, there is no comforting or mirroring by a parent or other attachment figure. No systemic self-soothing or empathy is available internally or externally with any consistency. Chaos and instability follow. Dissociation or freezing occurs. This can lead to a sense of nothingness or emptiness

~ Carol Forgash

DYING

Hallow sacred eyes

Decaying body

No more

No one.

Nothing matters anymore

But each moment

That arises in the

Moment, that it arises.

Death awaits

Calling your name.

If only you could surrender

Into the supportive

Embrace of death.

Agitated by the fight

To live for what?

I could see my eyes

My Fathers eyes

Looking back at me

In your eyes.

The tale I am about to share has its origin before I can remember. I know that some of the wailing and howling during those somber nights came from grief before time. There is no possible way that the amount of energy that came from my soul’s cry was from this lifetime alone.

I thought back to my childhood to try to remember when I first noticed the gloomy constrictive, dark shadow that surrounded me. There were moments during my prime teen years that stood out as junctures in time that could have fed into my melancholy. Yet, it was before then that I was haunted with self-loathing, hatred, and despairing thoughts. Although I write from a place of embodiment and wholeness, as I mended together parts of my fractured soul, I can still sit in the muck of that voice.

Let’s give that part a name – The voice of inner destruction. I know her well.

By the not so ripe old age of eleven, puberty presented itself as an initiating encounter with disgust and confusion of self, body, and being. Floating back even further I grasp at flashes during infancy and toddlerhood, with a sense of having been orphaned energetically, as my mother dealt with the death of my biological father. I am haunted by the image of having been passed around like popcorn, with no place or person to offer safe haven to rest within and upon. Craving a bosom that did not exist.

I asked my inner landscape, ‘can I go back even further,’ to a lineage of pain and hardship? And images of rape, burnings, brothels, queens and starvation lurked within my internal world. In particular, a scene appears like an impression within my mind’s eye, and it is set within a date and time that my present I, cannot conceive of.

A woman in a barren kitchen; a large man slamming her around. Gruesome, the scene jumps, and he slices her throat because she spoke and spat in his face. She laid in his evil arms to die. Further back yet, fires and nooses float around in my field of awareness. Dangling feet. Grey images. Cold, distant and horrifying impressions of womanhood.

Today I find myself staring into the fires and imagine (remember) what it felt like to die in those flames. My sense of body dissolves, and it is as if I became one with the fire; my cells merging with all that surrounds, perhaps an ancient knowing about the dangers and liberation that can arise from the flames. Or just a dark twisted imagination.

Are these fabricated images, I ask myself?

Did I make them up,

Force them to the forefront?

Who really knows and who really cares?

How do we differentiate between imagination, magical thinking, and the imaginal realm? Jung calls the imaginal realm, soul territory.

I am told (I forget by whom) that unfinished grief can last lifetimes and when the soul finally releases it from that guttural place, although eventually being liberated, one can only feel