Last month marked my twin daughters’ 22nd birthdays, and I’ve been reflecting on my experience of their birth and the 11-year cycles that circumscribe my life as their mother.
Eleven years ago I wrote “Blessings of Homebirth” published at Mothering.com, when I was still trying to make sense of my experience of birthing surprise twins.
And over the last eleven years since then, my experience as a mom of twins evolved to being their caregiver. This post shares some of the forgiveness opportunities, trauma healing, and identity shifts that have occurred during these two 11-year cycles of my life.
Table of Contents
11-Year Cycles
I’ve done a lot of study of 7-year cycles in spiritual biography work. But 11-year cycles carry biographical significance too.
In astrology, the concept of 11-year cycles refers to the movement and influence of the Sun. The Sun goes through a cycle of approximately 11 years, known as the solar cycle or sunspot cycle. During this 11-year cycle, the Sun’s activity fluctuates, leading to variations in sunspot numbers, solar flares, and other solar phenomena. And every eleven years the polarity of the sun switches, known as the Babcock-Leighton Model (no relation to the Leightons in my lineage, that I know of).
The solar 11-year cycle is significant in astrology because it is believed to have an impact on human consciousness and collective events. Some astrologers associate specific themes or patterns with each cycle, based on observations and historical data. Astrology is somewhat subjective, so these associations are based on the interpretations and beliefs of the astrologer.
Astrologers often pay attention to the peaks and troughs of solar activity within the 11-year cycle and analyze how it may influence individuals and society. If you’re interested in exploring astrology, I recommend consulting with Jeff Linzer.
Reflecting on my twins’ birth
Back when I wrote the piece for Mothering.com I still held unprocessed feelings and trauma from the birth event, most of which I didn’t even know were there.
It took years of talk therapy, trauma work, and forgiveness practice to tease apart the parts of the birth that were surprising, cool, and empowering from the parts that were scary, traumatic, and didn’t go as I’d hoped.
Forgiveness Opportunities
I published the following forgiveness story in my latest book about the process I went through to separate out some of the forgiveness opportunities from the birth event:
When my husband and I took Bradley Childbirth classes in 1998, we learned how important it is for a laboring woman to feel a sense of safety, for her environment to be peaceful, quiet, and dimly lit, and for her to be able to focus inward. This allows the hormones of birth to flow naturally at the right amounts to facilitate the best outcome for the baby and mother.
Studies have shown that a chaotic environment can actually stop a woman’s labor, and so in the birth plan I wrote and shared with my midwife, I wanted my home birth to be private, peaceful, and quiet, with only my husband and the midwife present. After the baby was born I planned to have the space and time to bond quietly with the baby, to begin nursing, and to be cocooned from the outside world for a time while we got to know each other.
I had asked my mom to take care of our son during my labor, to attend to his needs while I gave birth. But it had not occurred to me to tell her my birth plan. We were all caught off guard when I birthed surprise twins before the midwife or my mom arrived. My mom got there first, and she took my son downstairs because he was frightened by the noises I was making. Shortly after that, the midwife arrived, wide-eyed, and she worked quickly to check us all over and make sure we were okay. The hours that followed were a blur of trying to nurse and bond with the babies, struggling to push out the placenta, and vomiting repeatedly from the copious adrenaline in my system.
I was unaware that my mom had called my dad and sisters to come over. She was excited about the twins’ birth, and she knew that the babies needed to be kept warm by loving arms. I was grateful to have my mom present at the birth to help with our son. It was touching that my dad was one of the first to hold our daughters skin-to-skin to keep them warm. And my two sisters jumped in to share baby equipment with me and get me what I needed. But I was angry that our midwife, whom we hired to help maintain boundaries, arrived too late and was off her game. Had I given birth in the hospital, she would have shielded us from visitors until we were ready to receive them. But as it was, she was not there when my birth happened, and if anyone had asked me at the time whether I was ready for visitors, I would have been too out-of-it to answer truly.
I continued to experience strong painful contractions and to vomit for hours after the birth. The confusion I felt having extra people in the house was the opposite of what I had hoped to happen in my birth plan. My sisters chatted excitedly in my bedroom while I lay partly naked on the floor nearby trying to pass the placenta. The distraction, combined with my physical exhaustion, disrupted my hormones and made it difficult for me to pass the large placenta. My birthing instincts were telling me the environment was no longer safe. I had birthed the twins easily in a squatting position. But, because of my exhaustion I was trying to push out the placenta lying down, making my body have to work extra hard against gravity. After two hours when I finally pushed out the 8.5 lb. placenta we learned it weighed more than the two babies combined.
Despite my twin daughters’ birth being unassisted, uncomplicated, and empowering, I carried grief about the event. In the years that followed, I could not shake a feeling that I had done it wrong. But it was not until twenty years later when I pieced together how events had unfolded, that I realized I was angry at myself for not being clear about my wishes with my family members. And I felt embarrassed that they had witnessed my most private physical acts while I was naked and vulnerable. By the time my twins were twenty years old, I had done hundreds of rounds of forgiveness on my grief about the birth experience, including my anger at the midwife. But I could not figure out why parts of my grief and anger were still present.
When I finally found the heart of the issue, I began forgiving myself for not being adequately prepared for all that unfolded that day, and I experienced the Holy Instant. I forgave myself for not anticipating how the birth would go, for not being prepared for surprise twins, for not telling my family members how much I needed and valued my privacy, and for judging myself a failure. While this part of my birth experience had remained unhealed for twenty years, I had judged myself and beaten myself up for somehow doing it wrong. Once the healing occurred, I no longer felt any trace of judgment and I was grateful that this healing could erase decades of suffering. By bringing my guilt to the Holy Spirit, I felt whole again, and I saw myself as completely innocent. This Course In Miracles quote sums up the experience perfectly:
“The holy instant is the Holy Spirit’s most useful learning device for teaching you love’s meaning. For its purpose is to suspend judgment entirely.” – ACIM, T-15.V.1:1-2 43
From Sacred Self-Healing Workbook, pp. 41-42
Healing birth trauma
In Yoga, the 11-year cycle is about intelligence, or the ability to manifest your thoughts, the capacity to act on what you know, and evaluating the result of your choices. – source
Aside from applying forgiveness to my daughters’ birth, there were some parts of the birth that were actually traumatic, despite being prepared for a homebirth, and physically having it go well. This gets into the emotional experience, which, with any birth, involves a coming apart to make way for the new.
I experienced feelings of abandonment because the midwife was not there when the twins were born. No matter how I spin this detail in a positive light as a chance for me to realize my power as a birthing woman, there was still a part of me that felt alone and scared. Of course, my husband was there, and he scrambled to fill the role of midwife and partner simultaneously, and he managed what he could from the outside. But on the inside, there was a moment when I realized I was giving birth on my own, with no other feminine support present, and I felt angry. And because the birth was such a whirlwind, and I immediately needed to focus on caring for two infants at once, those feelings got buried.
My preparation and the birth hormones in my body carried me through the event physically intact. But my mind held onto lasting feelings of abandonment, betrayal, anger, guilt, embarrassment, and unworthiness. I ruminated on why the midwife hadn’t been there. What had held her up from arriving on time? Didn’t she care about me? Was I unworthy of care? Did I have Karmic ties with her that were playing out past-life conflicts? Didn’t I deserve to have support during birth? Did I do something wrong?
These negative (and irrational) thought loops were running in the back of my mind for years before they began to surface for healing. And when the thoughts and visceral feelings of abandonment and betrayal began to spill out I knew I needed help. Over several years I did talk therapy, somatic experiencing, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), art therapy, and many other healing modalities to bring healing where it was needed in my psyche.
Eventually, I learned to notice trauma surfacing in real-time, and I developed my own methods for addressing them using the Sacred Self-Healing Method. Trauma healing is never really finished, and now when it surfaces, I use a combination of EFT, EMDR, sound healing, and forgiveness to address the packets of energetic trauma that arise in my body or mind. And so, this 11-year cycle was about using my intelligence to bring healing to negative thought patterns, and choosing healing instead of staying in the trauma response.
My identity as a mom morphed to being a caregiver
In yogic numerology, the number 11 is associated with mastery of learning. It is the capacity to select a successful strategy from complex, competing factors. This cycle is one of learning, completing, expanding knowledge, and uncovering methods that reveal your purpose and path. – source
Yet another aspect of processing the legacy of my twins’ birth was bringing healing to the way my identity as a mom changed during the second 11-year cycle of their lives. After the birth, I was a completely overwhelmed, sleep-deprived, and exhausted mom. And I gradually recovered my center by the time I published the story of their birth.
But, when my twins turned eleven (there’s that magic number again) my role shifted from being a mom of young kids to being their caregiver because my twins both became seriously ill. And they weren’t just sick, they were sick with complex chronic neuropsychiatric illnesses that defied diagnosis, and left them ravaged by constant nausea, bedridden, racked by anxiety, and isolated.
When they first got sick I was in denial. I had breastfed them (twins!) for three full years. How could they possibly have chronic illnesses when I had given them such a good start in life?
But whether I had nursed them or not made no difference to our reality. They were sick, very sick, and I was initially powerless to help them. Our pediatrician correctly diagnosed one of the twins with PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Strep), but it was several years before we found helpful treatment options. The other daughter was finally diagnosed five years later with MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome), but by then she had suffered so much.
My daughters missed an average of 3.5 years of in-person high school, compounded by distance learning when COVID-19 raged, causing them to miss out on significant psychosocial learning experiences. They were often physically too sick to leave the house and relied on me for their connection to the outside world. When they were able to leave the house it was mostly to attend doctor appointments, though occasionally they experienced fun things like hanging out with a friend or attending a concert.
So, my role in the second 11-year cycle of their lives revolved around keeping them alive, and I felt the burden of caregiving acutely. At times we didn’t know if they would ever be able to graduate high school, socialize, or live independently.
Gratitude
In numerology, “11 is also associated with spirituality, creativity, and innovation.” – source
We have much to be grateful for, and I want to highlight some of my big sources of gratitude now.
Above all, I’m grateful that the twins’ birth brought two beautiful souls into our family. We only thought there was one baby coming, but I will always be grateful that we got two.
There were many angels that helped us to survive life with twins. The midwife had community connections that brought loving arms into our home to hold the babies so I could take a shower or spend an afternoon with my son. She also introduced us to a client of hers who had experienced the loss of a pregnancy, which brought mutual healing when we connected.
I was constantly starving while nursing twins and that first year my parents paid for a housekeeper to come to our home a couple of times a week to make me breakfast and do our laundry. And that literally kept me alive.
In the second 11-year cycle I was pushed past my coping limits as a caregiver to attend to my daughters’ needs. I am grateful I learned to be a strong advocate for their care. Because I had twins with chronic illnesses I developed skills I never would have needed with healthy kids. And ultimately the tools I gathered in my self-healing toolbox helped me to deal with my own chronic illness, and led me to develop the Sacred Self-Healing Method.
My most deeply affirming moments of gratitude have come when my daughters have reflected the love I’ve tried to give them. For her high school psychology class one of my daughters wrote an essay where she told me how grateful she was to have me as a mom, and how she appreciate the ways I had advocated strongly for her and literally kept her alive. A few years ago, my other daughter told me she had learned how to make phone calls to her health care providers and to push them to serve her better from listening to me make hundreds of phone calls to her medical providers. These are the memories that make my heart swell with appreciation.
Now my daughters are both attending private colleges and pursing rigorous academic programs — one in nursing, and the other in Chemistry research. They’ve made lasting friendships, have found their passions, and have learned to manage the many challenges their illnesses continue to bring while living fulfilling lives. I would never hope for any child to go through what they did. But because they are surviving such horrific illnesses they have immense empathy, and both of my daughters have become staunch advocates for those with disabilities. They have learned how to ask for accommodations and to thrive despite the limitations of their illnesses. And they have given back to their communities in manifold ways.
This second 11-year cycle of mothering my twins was about the hardships of caregiving, the heartbreak of having sick kids, and creatively finding the treatments and resources so that my daughters could thrive. It also coincided with my spiritual awakening, and the last eleven years have seen me earn advanced degrees, write and publish two books, create the Sacred Self-Healing Certificate Program, and innovate my offerings to serve those with chronic illness and their caregivers, to teach forgiveness, and to provide Sacred Deathcare services to anyone wanting to approach death from a conscious, loving perspective.
This 11-year cycle has been the most fruitful time of my life, and also the hardest. My spirituality blossomed because I needed it to carry me through difficult times. For that I’m also deeply grateful.
The third eleven-year cycle
Who I am now as a human, mom, and Sacred Healing practitioner has been shaped by the last two 11-year cycles of my life. As I begin the third 11-year cycle of mothering my twin daughters I’m offering classes that share my hard-won skills, continuing to write and share the Sacred Self-Healing Method, and looking to the ways I will grow spiritually and creatively. I’m thinking about how my consciousness will evolve as I continue to practice forgiveness. I’m watching for periods of expansion when my soul takes a giant and sometimes painful leap forward. And I’m adoring seeing my daughters come into their own and make their way in the world as caring, intelligent, thoughtful people.
Intention
The Sacred Self-Healing Method is the legacy of the last two 11-year cycles of my life, and it’s built on the power of intention to create energetic movement.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method relies on the power of intention. Intentions are more than goals, but your co-creative participation in your life path and healing. By setting an intention you add your desire to be a partner in your destiny, in combination with the seen and unseen forces at work in the Universe. Whether you are setting an intention for a successful root canal, for finding a great new job, or for a business meeting to go well, the act of putting forethought about the outcome into the process can be a powerful tool.
Intention is the driving force behind any energy healing modality, from Reiki to sound healing to prayer.
The universal equation for healing is:
Intention + Frequency = Healing
The “frequency” part of the equation is whatever healing modality is being used.
Intention can be used in health healing, job search, fitness, relationships, and pretty much everything.
This post has more information on the power of intention.
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If the ideas in this post resonate with you then you might be interested in learning about my offerings. I offer Sacred Self-Healing, coaching, meditations, and frequency healing classes, and I would love to connect with you!
I offer an online Sacred Self-Healing Biography class for examining your life events to find recurring patterns, universal themes, and archetypal significance. You will map your life’s trajectory on paper, engage in guided meditations to revisit 7-year, 11-year, and 21-year cycles, learn about mirroring and planetary significance, and you will use your innate creativity to express and find meaning in your life themes while using the Sacred Self-Healing Method to bring healing to your life through the light of forgiveness.
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Healy is an individualized specific microcurrent device (ISM) that runs beneficial electrical currents directed by an app on your phone. Healy can be used to magnify your intention and to get the most out of your life. Check out this post for more about Healy. And this post for some tips and tricks for Healy.
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Disclaimer
The preceding material does not constitute medical advice. This information is for information purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, cure or treatment. Always seek advice from your medical doctor.
