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, my experience as a mom of twins has evolved into 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 an extensive study of 7-year cycles in the field of spiritual biography. But 11-year cycles carry biographical significance too.
In astrology, the concept of 11-year cycles refers to the Sun’s movement and influence. 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 affect 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 focus on 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 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, scrambling to fill the roles 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 it 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 during COVID-19, leaving 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 had fun, 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 whether they would ever graduate from 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 significant sources of gratitude now.
Above all, I’m grateful that the twins’ birth brought two beautiful souls into our family. We only thought one baby was coming, but I will always be thankful that we got two.
Many angels 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 expressing her gratitude for having me as a mom and for how I had strongly advocated 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 pursuing rigorous academic programs — one in nursing, and the other in Chemistry research. They’ve made lasting friendships, found their passions, and 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 profoundly 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 leap, sometimes painful, forward. And I’m adoring seeing my daughters come into their own and make their way in the world as caring, intelligent, thoughtful people. I offer a specific course on how to map your sacred biography, as I have described in this post.
Intention
Sacred Self-Healing relies on intention and frequency. Intention directs frequency to bring about healing. The universal formula for healing is:
Intention + Frequency = Healing.
In this expression, “frequency” refers to the specific healing modality being applied. Setting an intention is particularly beneficial when utilizing self-healing methods such as frequency and forgiveness. This post covers more information on the power of intention.
Beneficial Frequency
Beneficial frequency refers to natural vibrations that synchronize biological and Earth systems, to support overall harmony. For instance, visible red and blue light from the sun are beneficial frequencies because they regulate circadian rhythms. Likewise, Earth’s Schumann resonance is a naturally occurring frequency that aligns internal and external rhythms for health. This post discusses beneficial frequency in more depth.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness, like love, is seen as a high-frequency energetic state connected to compassion and gratitude. In contrast, emotions such as resentment and anger are thought to have lower frequencies, constricting rather than elevating well-being. Forgiveness helps elevate energy, promote emotional healing, and support physiological balance. Science hasn’t measured the frequency of forgiveness, but studies show that forgiveness can improve heart and brain patterns and help the body work more smoothly. Forgiveness brings balance, healing, and peace—both emotionally and physically. This post delves deeper into forgiveness.
The bucket theory
The bucket theory simplifies understanding symptom reactions with MCAS. Imagine your body as an empty bucket you don’t want to overflow. Reactions to various stimuli fill the histamine bucket at different rates, forming the total histamine level (how full your bucket is). More histamine means more symptoms. By managing triggers, reducing exposures, and taking medications and supplements, you can control your bucket’s level.
Know your typical symptom progression
Understanding your symptom progression during a flare is key to developing your rescue plan. This post discusses how to recognize symptom progression so you can be prepared to address them.
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Check out these circadian health tools!
I’m an affiliate with Bon Charge, a company that makes tools for circadian health, and you can receive 15% off your order with my coupon code BETSYL.
Bon Charge offers tools such as yellow– and red-tone blue-blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, PEMF mats, infrared saunas, and EMF-blocking products.
Sign up for the SSP!
I’ve found the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to be the most helpful bottom-up healing strategy if your nervous system has been overloaded with toxic exposures, including mold or non-native EMFs, chronic infections, concussions, stress, or trauma. The SSP is a passive listening therapy based on Polyvagal Theory that helps heal nervous system dysregulation. Many people with MCAS and other chronic conditions have nervous system dysregulation stemming from infections, toxic exposures, concussions, and trauma. The SSP is an easy-to-use app that lets you listen to specially filtered music for 30 minutes each day as part of a 5-hour cycle. Studies show the SSP has a profound effect on mental health and chronic conditions. Here’s a short podcast describing the Safe and Sound Protocol.
You can sign up for the SSP here!
Heal your mind!
While the SSP is a bottom-up, somatic therapy for healing the nervous system, the Sacred Self-Healing Method I offer is a top-down nervous system-healing modality that focuses on cognition, attention, perception, and emotion, using the mind’s higher functions. The SSP and the Sacred Self-Healing Method complement each other and together produce lasting results. Here’s a short podcast on my self-healing practice.
I provide one-on-one in-person and remote chronic illness and caregiver coaching, as well as Sacred Self-Healing Sessions based on the Sacred Self-Healing Method, a proven, novel co-creative healing modality detailed in my Books.
Order my books!
Here’s a short podcast highlighting my five books.
My latest book, Living In The Light: Healing with Forgiveness, Sound, and Light, is all about the tools that have been most helpful for me to heal: forgiveness, sound, through nervous system retraining using the Safe and Sound Protocol, and light, through entraining my circadian rhythm with the energy of the sun. Living In The Light is available here!
Rocks and Roots chronicles my solo backpacking journey on the Superior Hiking Trail and my efforts to overcome nervous system dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome symptoms to complete the 328-mile hike successfully.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method ebook is available here and in most ebook retailers!
The Sacred Self-Healing Workbook is available for purchase here!
Betsy’s first book, Sacred Self-Healing: Finding Peace Through Forgiveness, is available here
Companion Recordings
The companion audio recordings of chants, guided meditations, and sound healing demonstrations that accompany the Sacred Self-Healing Method are available for free on my YouTube channel here
What do you think?
I’d love to have your reply below!
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.
