"Pushing" through Challenges

I would like to share a personal note about the power of Zentangle. One month ago today, my baby girl was born! As wonderful as her arrival was, I spent most of the day before her birth in excruciating labor. As any mother knows, true labor can be agonizingly painful and only gets more intense as labor progresses. In the childbirth classes they teach strategies to make labor easier, or at least more tolerable, but no one talked about Zentangle as a way to get my mind off the pain! Tangling worked for me as a distraction from the pain and to keep me from watching the clock (timing contractions was my husband's job). Although I wasn't able to devote uninterrupted attention to tangling, I did work on a tile for blissful intervals every four to seven minutes. I chose some of my favorite tangles and I didn't have to think about what to do next. It helped me relax my body and focus my mind elsewhere. I believe the mind has the power to overcome and push through physical challenges. My experience was that tangling made labor easier to endure. If Zentangle can help me through childbirth, what other challenges can I "push" through?
- CK

"Between Contractions"

created 12.24.11