61. [WISE MAN] WITH JASON OF RAISING FATHERS - PREPARING FOR THE SACRED ROLE OF FATHERHOOD

Jason Seeman is a fatherhood guide, educator, and facilitator with over a decade of experience creating programs that have impacted over one million people globally.

A devoted father of two and husband of 14+ years, Jason blends personal wisdom with professional expertise to guide men through the transformative journey into fatherhood.

His career spans law, education, and leadership, including serving at Raising Fathers, The Rites of Passage Institute and The Man Cave. His work has equipped him with unparalleled insights into masculinity, identity, and community.

Whether he’s helping men embrace the challenges of fatherhood, designing bespoke rites of passage, or sharing his reflections through Raising Fathers, Jason is driven by a singular purpose: to elevate fatherhood and help men step into this sacred role with confidence, intention, and heart.

I absolutely LOVED our conversation and it is my prayer that every father-to-be would find a mentor like Jason to walk alongside of as he prepares consciously for the most sacred role of Fatherhood.

Website: www.raising-fathers.com

Instagram: @raising_fathers

Email: jason@raising-fathers.com

https://www.raising-fathers.com/truenorth

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Jason: Regardless of what we call it, there is a distinct difference in the psychology and embodiment of who a man is once they become a father versus before they are a father.

And unfortunately, I think if they don't pass through that transition, well, can result in a number of things.

One is that they cling to their old identity and they still see themselves as who they were before and therefore they behave how they did before. They spend their time how they did before.

They expect from their partner what they expected before and she's changed, you've changed, you're not the same people. The points to grow and evolve together and if one does and one doesn't,

that's probably the second consequence is homes suffer, relationships suffer.

Emily: Welcome to Soul Evolution.

Emily: My name is Emily, also known as the Birth Advocate. I am a retired nurse, health coach, women's circle and ceremony facilitator, and the host of this podcast. Here we dive deep to reclaim our rites of passage with a big dose of birth story medicine, intentionally curious conversations with embodied wisdom keepers,

and a sprinkle of polarity as we will hold space for our men from time to time too.

I hope you find nourishment for your soul here.

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I walk you through, step by step, exactly how to prepare yourself, your partner, and your home for the most incredible experience you get to have in this lifetime. Birth is a sacred rite of passage worthy of honoring.

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Emily: Welcome, Jason, to the podcast. I do not know how I found you on Instagram. I really don't. I don't know if it was just the algorithm or what, but you have an account called Raising Fathers, and it struck my interest.

You know, anyone who listens to this podcast would know I interview dads to get their version of the birth story because,

yes, it's an incredibly significant rite of passage for the mother, and I'm obsessed with reclaiming rites of passage for women.

But, of course, there's two people involved here that make a baby. And I have so much compassion for men, too, and this experience that they have and in holding that space and in becoming a father.

And, you know, when I work with couples, I have a special questionnaire for dads, you know, and we go deep. Like, what is your birth imprint? You know, what are your beliefs about birth?

What's your relationship to authority? How do you feel this is going to change you? You know, just, like, we go deep, too. And you have, like, created this beautiful offering, this, this business.

You do all kinds of things. We're going to get into it, but you're.

Jason: You're.

Emily: You're doing the men's side of things.

And I just. It's so beautiful. Everything that you've posted and I've read, I just resonate with greatly. And so I invited you on and you said yes. And it's just a great honor to have you.

Thank you for coming.

Jason: Thanks so much. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. How you feel. Appreciate it.

Emily: Yeah. I would love for you to just introduce yourself in whatever way feels good.

Jason: Thanks.

Yeah. I'm Jason.

I'm a dad. First.

I have two beautiful children.

Atlas, who is two and a bit, and Layla, who is currently,

gosh, almost five. Oh, my gosh, she's almost five. That is amazing.

And my beautiful wife, whose name is Liron, and they are my world. They're just phenomenal human beings. And I start there. I try to start there as often as I can because I think the way we introduce ourselves, there are these avatars.

Right. Right now we're on a podcast, and I'm in podcast mode with you, and that's beautiful, and there's a purpose for that.

But I think to some degree, what the world needs way more of is our Home versions of ourselves and the version of ourselves in our hearts.

And that's part of why I'm the.

My role that I call myself is founding father at Raising Fathers because I think that's a cute little pun and dad jokes are always welcome.

But that's part of why I've created Raising Fathers is ultimately, I want to see a lot more love and compassion and heart centered leadership in the world.

And men are doing great. Don't get me wrong again. I spoke about these avatars a second ago and how we separate ourselves artificially from ourselves in all these different environments.

And I think that the world would benefit greatly if men saw themselves the way women do as mothers, if men saw themselves as fathers in that way.

I think you find for the most part that when a woman becomes a mother,

she's a mom now and she's all these other things too. She's a complex being with so many sides and parts of herself, but she's a mum and that means a lot to her.

And it's part of her central identity and it dictates her beliefs, her, her attitudes, her behaviors, her entire sense of self. And I think for a dad,

in many ways part of our cultural narrative is oh yeah, you're a dad, but you know, you're the, you're the accountant at this firm or you're the this at this place.

The central identity is still based around career or something else. And I think that that has flow on effects on the dad's relationship with himself, with his partner and with the children.

And I'd love to see something like that change.

So it's a little bit about me and my why.

Emily: Yeah, yeah. I read you wrote it takes a village to raise a father, and I would love for you to just expand on that a little more.

Jason: I liked that line. Thanks for acknowledging it.

Yeah.

So when we,

when we start out as a parent, we really only have examples or role models basically from our own father,

maybe uncles or something, and then popular culture.

That's really our blueprint for parenting as a man. And I think,

you know, there's a whole spectrum of childhoods that people have had and I respect all of that. But I think if I asked a room of a hundred people who wants to father exactly how their father fathered, I wouldn't see many hands go up and still shout out to the great dads out there,

including my own dad, who was great. Still, there's a lot I would change, but where do I look for that? And I think traditionally we grew up in Villages where it was a much less individualist culture and we had so much more access to how other people parented where,

you know, and I'm sure we might get to this.

Most men's experience of birth for the first time is the birth of their child. It's the first time they gain any access or knowledge or awareness of it,

and then that carries through to parenting. You know, unless they've had younger siblings, they may have never held a baby before. And so the reason I think it takes a village to raise a father is we don't really have the resources built into our culture to raise fathers, I guess,

let's say organically or by osmosis as they grow up and they grow up in communities.

We're very isolated now. And so I think that need hasn't been removed, but the village has. And part of what I'm seeking to do through a lot of the circle work that I run is create that village.

So I run a online circle and an in person circle.

And I particularly love the in person one because we get together around.

Emily: Yeah.

Jason: And we invite in men who already have kids, but also men who are on the conception journey slash,

are expecting.

And it's kind of free parenting education for them in that they sit around. And when we have our circle, a lot of it is just honest check ins of where you're at right now and what you might need.

Sometimes we bring in a theme and various activities, but it's a beautiful space where men really go there.

And it was very early on where we didn't have dads to be there. I recognized, I was like, this is the best preview into the male experience of parenting I've ever seen.

Because it's just real guys having real vulnerable conversations and going into the detail, you know, because it is a private space.

I thought, gosh, if some guys who aren't dads could just see this, they wouldn't even need to get any formal instruction from them. Just the exposure would have their mind start to tick away and go, okay, how might I experience this or prepare for this or deal with this when my time comes and it starts to normalize all the challenges that come up within the family instead of kind of being behind closed doors and shocking people the

first time they experience it?

Emily: Because it is a rite of passage.

It is a rite of passage. And, you know, I've talked about this in the past as well. What I have, I have. Usually I invite a man on once a season to have a conversation like this, but.

But we often come to that topic of initiation. Right. So women, it's so clear, you know, we. We begin bleeding. We've entered womanhood for men,

you could say, the first time he spills his seed. But like, that's usually done in private, you know, it's not, of course, bleeding is like in private too, but it's not like something that we talk about in society.

Like, when did that boy initiate into manhood? And how many boys are men but are now fathers? You know, like, what is that initiation into manhood? And like,

there's just, you know. And you said it so beautifully too. It's like we don't have the elders very much, like showing us the map.

And I'm very curious. You have a five year old, so it's been five years now since you've had your initiation into fatherhood. And like, what inspired you to like, create this space to write the map and to give that support for people?

So I'd love to kind of go into a couple of things I talked about there. You know, the. The rite of passage, the initiation. I. I read that you actually have like a ceremony, which I love ceremony, so I want to talk about that.

But also that whole,

you know, from boy to man, that dilemma, that conundrum that we're in,

and then, you know, your own story.

Jason: Yeah, thank you. What a beautiful question. And one I'm so passionate about. The work I do outside of raising fathers is with an organization called the Rites of Passage Institute, where we train people globally on this framework and help them implement it in their own life or their organization or their family.

Emily: So we work for men and women.

Jason: Yes.

Emily: I have never heard of this. What's it called again?

Jason: The Rites of Passage Institute.

And it's headed up by someone called Dr. Anna Rubenstein, who's a colleague and a dear friend.

We work together there as well.

Yeah.

So why did I start it?

Honestly, there are a number of reasons that I started it. How I started it honestly was an idea of inspiration struck me and I followed the thread as I think most beautiful things do.

It felt a lot like I play a lot of music and it felt a lot like when a melody or a chord progression comes into my body, it bypasses the mind and it just happens in my hands on the guitar or the piano.

And I go, gosh, that sounds pretty good. And I keep going. And then there's a song. And I feel very much that raising fathers is like that. And it's still in the process of writing itself.

But I'm loving how it's Sounding and the audience is coming, so I'll keep playing.

And in some way, doesn't feel like it's mine, much like the music doesn't. It's just I'm a conduit for that expression.

Emily: Yes. I'm so glad you see it that way.

Jason: Yeah.

Yeah. And then, you know, a bit more into the why,

gosh, initiation is such a topic.

And I think it's quite a serious one because the word is barely spoken about when we hear rites of passage or initiation in kind of modern culture. It's very much a bastardized version of what it really is.

And it's kind of like hazing or some silly challenge that men put each other through and get some marking or something like that. And they say, you know, for example, if someone gets.

Writes themselves off drunk or does something silly or their male peers put them through something challenging that is humiliating. They say, oh, it was his rite of passage. That isn't what a rite of passage is or an initiation.

Initiations are deeply sacred.

And the reason it's been bastardized is there is a thread that does connect those two things. In that part of a rite of passage process is the challenge element,

where whoever the initiate is male, female, boy, dad, whoever it is in the process must go through some sort of process where they are pushed to their limit and question whether they are able to make it to the other side, as that's part of the natural birth, growth, death,

rebirth cycle that all animals go through.

An example we like to talk about is that the butterfly, when it's in its cocoon, it actually turns to mush first and dies. It's the caterpillar doesn't kind of grow wings.

The caterpillar is demolished and then grows anew from its organic matter.

And then the chrysalis phase, where they have to push out of the cocoon and actually try in order to earn this new phase of development.

And I say all of that in terms of the why for raising fathers. Because,

honestly, I think we live in a world of uninitiated men.

Yeah. And it's.

Yeah, it's deeply sad.

I think we. We have a world largely run by men who are in the bodies of men, but in the minds and the hearts of boys.

And so what that means is a man who walks around with boy psychology still thinks that the world revolves around him. He wants a mother to care for him instead of a partner to care for and be cared for by.

He wants all the power and all the toys. He doesn't want to share the toys. And the power.

Yeah. And ultimately, it's about. It's all about him.

And we often talk about at rites of passage is the psychology of a man as the inverse of those things. So a man sees himself as a part of the universe instead of the center of the universe.

He wants to share power in service rather than hoard power for himself.

And he wants a loving partner to be in a mutual loving relationship with, rather than to have a mother do all his things for him.

And there are other dichotomies, but I think we get the picture.

And, yeah, I think we've lost that as a culture. We've lost the process of initiation, and we've lost the recognition that when we move from one life stage to another, yes, we do get more power.

But that power and that freedom and that privilege is in order to serve,

and it's in order to be part of a greater fabric where you now, as an adult, have more responsibility.

And that's why you get all this power and freedom, because you have things to do and it's not about you.

And I've seen for fathers when they don't pass through, and I think, by the way, that the stage of father could be different from the stage of man.

It might be another developmental stage like patrescence,

or we could call it manhood. It depends sort of how you look at the developmental phases. But I think regardless of what we call it, there is a distinct difference in the psychology and embodiment of who a man is once they become a father versus before they are a father.

And unfortunately, I think if they don't pass through, that transition, well, can result in a number of things.

One is that they cling to their old identity,

and they still see themselves as who they were before, and therefore they behave how they did before. They spend their time how they did before.

They expect from their partner what they expected before. And she's changed, you've changed, you're not the same people. The point's to grow and evolve together.

And if one does and one doesn't,

that's probably the second consequence is homes suffer, relationships suffer.

You know, I've joined recently some Facebook groups for dads just to kind of see what the conversation is. And I went partly with the intention of starting to talk about some of these concepts and offer comments on other people's posts and things.

And honestly, like,

yeah, it's pretty sad. I just saw so many people talking about, I split up from my wife X months ago, and she's got custody and. And it was all about breakups and getting the kids and control patterns.

And I was just. I was like, oh, we're going to be talking about fatherhood in this group and, you know, aware parenting and all these beautiful things. And so much was painful.

I just feel for those guys that. Not suggesting for a second that it's all their fault or anything like that, but just that they're in this situation. And that's the conversation men are having on Facebook, in fatherhood groups is once things have just gone too far down a particular track.

So if I could do anything toward bringing a harmonious, harmonious home,

that would be amazing.

Emily: Yeah.

Jason: Time will tell.

Emily: Yeah. Which is why I just. I'm so lit up by the work that you're doing, because, you know what, you're. You're in Australia. But this is a global.

This is a global issue, you know,

and so this whole. It's really. It is that identity. It's the identity shift and the death of the prior version of you. And are you willing to, like, what are you willing to sacrifice in order for that death to happen and have the rebirth and.

And speaking of. And it's so. It's so good to prepare for this ahead of time and not be confronted with it when then you're trying to, like, have this newborn baby and support the mama and, like, there's so much there.

So. So you actually do a ceremony.

Jason: Yeah, yeah. That's about it. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of. Why I try to prep men for fatherhood is kind of through two or, I guess, three channels. One's community through the circle.

One is education through a course that I run that goes for eight weeks. And it's kind of all about this sort of prep and then through ceremony. And ceremony is probably the one that I think the fewest men would go for,

but it's probably one of the most powerful.

And what I do is I've designed this for a few dads now I do design and delivery of the process, all one or the other. So they may want to do it themselves.

And I'll just help them design the structure or I'll design it and deliver.

So let's zoom out for a second ceremony. So the word rite of passage, most people, when they hear it, they'd say R I, G, H, T. It's R I, T, E,

which is short for the word ritual. So ritual or ceremony of passage.

And that's because we want to mark these transitions well. And traditional cultures all around the world independently have created ceremonies to usher people through key life stages, like Child to young adult, marriage,

parenthood, particularly for women,

death is another rite of passage and all these other passages through life.

And even though in each culture those ceremonies look different, and they look very different because cultures are very different, there are common elements that I guess track over each ceremony or experience.

And those common elements are what I use as a base framework to design something that's culturally relevant for that dad,

his family, his story, his life.

And so I'll work actually not directly with the dad because the initiate shouldn't actually have that much awareness of what's going to happen to them. Traditionally,

when rites of passage happen, particularly for the young, the young are taken by the elders. It's not like you're going to get your ceremony soon and let's put on our nice thing and get prepared.

It's you're taken and it's time to go and become a man.

Not in all cultures, but in some anyway. So I don't work with the dad or the dad to be. I ask the dad to be to nominate two or three close people in his life who are males, ideally males who are through the threshold and already fathers, but not necessarily.

And I meet them and I get to know that dad and dad to be. I ask about his story.

I understand the set of challenges that he might be facing in his life right now, or what parts of his character, like you were discussing before,

might he need to start grieving in order to move powerfully into this next phase.

And we'll then design a process that helps him to do that an embodied way. We may talk about it, but we'll try and give some sort of activity or challenge that demonstrates that as an example in a rite of passage ceremony I've run the initiate, the man has quite beautiful hair.

It's like quite a beautiful mane of blonde hair. That's his look and he's a very good looking man and a lot of people compliment him on his hair and his wife loves his hair.

And this rite of passage was before his wedding. So it wasn't necessarily for a father,

although we, we treated it as such because he's going to become a dad soon.

And he was blindfolded and told about the need to remove attachments if we're going to be truly stepping into this new identity. And we effectively convinced him that we were going to take his hair, shave his hair that day before his wedding.

And he went through the emotional process of losing his hair and perceiving himself bald on his wedding day with his wife standing there mortified, who loves his hair more than anyone.

And we just held him lovingly through that to help him understand that he would be safe, he would be beautiful, he would be great on the other side without that thing that he thinks makes him him, because it doesn't.

Until he reached a point of acceptance to say yes, for us to do it, in which case we obviously didn't do it. We left his hair there. It wasn't about taking the hair.

It was about taking the attachment.

So, again, we could just talk to him about the concept of attachment, or we could have him go through a process where he needs to let go of something that's just hair.

It's going to grow back. But for him, it was clearly an attachment because there was a whole mourning process that he went through that signified that. And we can design it in so many ways.

Emily: I love that. What a. What a. What an amazing embodied experience, you know, to go through.

Jason: Yeah. So these ceremonies, they. They basically go through the stages of a rite of passage, which maybe I'll outline briefly for the listeners. Because I guess the beauty of this is you could go and design your own if you wanted to.

The structure is simple. I would say try and get someone who's facilitated spaces before to assist you.

Because the structure is one thing, the facilitator is another. And those in combination make a good experience.

But, yeah, a rite of passage, at least is how we have helped codify it. At Rites of Passage Institute is the following.

There are three main phases. The first is separation. The second is transformation. And the third is reintegration.

So separation.

In every rite of passage, when the initiate is taken, they're taken away from their home or their regular environment, and they're put in another environment.

The reason for that is if we want transformation to take place, we want to do it in an environment where we not. We're not usually spending our time. And perhaps that environment has something unique about it that can help inspire growth for us.

So imagine going to the cave or going on walkabout or, you know, some cultures, they have a big tree where the trunk is hollowed out. And the young girls are placed in the trunk of the tree to sit in meditation and silence for a period of time.

There are so many different ways. Again, the point is finding something culturally appropriate and relevant for you and your time where you're somewhere else. And nature's great, by the way.

Nine times out of ten, I'll do it on land somewhere.

Transformation, I'll come to in a second. And that's the main bit we Think about when we think of a rite of passage, and that's that transformation from one stage to another,

and then there's the return or the integration. And this is a really important piece that most people miss.

If we're going to go through a true embodied transformation, we're going to feel quite porous after the experience, maybe a little open and. And sensitive. And we're also not going to feel like ourselves,

as we're not ourselves. We're a new version of ourselves.

And one of the challenges is that upon returning back after separating, originally, we go home. And if you've ever gone backpacking around the world and had this amazing experience over 3, 6, 9 months and come home a different person from all the relationships, and then you get home and everyone treats you how they treated you before you left,

and their stories happen, changed, and their habits haven't changed, but you've changed, and you find yourself, at first expansive and not really met there, and then shrinking back so that you can be accepted again by your tribe or your community.

We're basically trying to avoid that by having a good integration. And so each community would welcome back the initiates, often with as many people from that community, or immediate, in this case, maybe friendship circle or community through a celebration of sorts,

where the person who's now been initiated gets to be recognized and named, potentially with a new name, or they have a marking of some kind, like a tattoo or maybe something that's less permanent these days, whatever it is for you.

And the community tells you what they love about you, and you share a little bit about your story and your intention for who you are now,

that just helps us to resettle and say, oh, cool, this person, you know, they're not a boy. They're a young man now. And as such, we'll give him different responsibilities.

He'll be treated to a higher standard of expectation, and he'll be given more freedoms within. Within our. Our world.

And so then that middle phase, and tell me if I'm going into too much depth.

Emily: I love it. I mean, I love it.

Jason: Great. I'm. I'm only here for you. So this.

Emily: My podcast.

Jason: Exactly. Yeah. I'm just talking to Emily.

So that transformation phase is where a lot of the work happens. And there are four stages within that one stage. The first is story.

And the reason we tell stories is it's often the role of the elder within the community because this is how we've traditionally passed down wisdom.

So when we sit around the fire or somewhere else in that ceremony, we'll Share stories of how we became who we are today. And perhaps again, if the man's own father is in the circle or someone who represents that for them, they'll start to share some stories about what it was like for them when they became a father.

And that's such a simple way to share wisdom, but so effective, it really lands.

So story sharing is the first element. The second is challenge, which we've spoken about. And again, that can look like so many different things. It might be a long walk.

It might simply be reflecting on current challenges verbally and talking about what's really hard right now and seeking support.

But it should be something where someone is pushed to an edge physically or psychologically or emotionally, to discover that they are strong enough to move through. And even if they don't, they can still move through that challenge,

you know, side thread. But we talk about resilience a lot these days in young people and I think if we had more experiences like this that really push us and help us question whether we're safe, we would discover that we're much safer than we believe we are, especially psychologically.

And yeah, I think, yeah, that's a huge antidote to the sort of, I think, emotional fragility, fragility that we're seeing that bless people in their beautiful hearts.

But I think it's, it's hardship that helps us.

Emily: I agree, I agree.

Jason: Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, challenge is so important. So important, particularly for young people. And the next is vision. So vision is creating a compelling vision for who we're going to be in this next phase of our life.

So in this case as a father and we, we will ask, what is your vision for fatherhood? Who do you want to be? What's this?

What's a version of you as a father that represents what you would want? And sometimes in my one on one work with men, I'll get them to write a letter to their dad,

very simply saying, what am I grateful for and what I seek to repeat in how you parented? And what are some things I won't repeat?

And they don't need to send it to their dad. It's more a reflective exercise,

but it gets to start them, starts to get them thinking a bit differently about who they might become.

And maybe it's an exercise of determining what my values are or what I wish for my child to feel. And therefore, if this is what I wish for my child to experience,

what might need to change within me so that I can be a demonstration or a role model for those virtues.

Because it's all the same, right? I often like to say parenting is the best personal development program in the world.

Emily: The gift that keeps giving, yes, that's era.

Jason: And then finally it's honoring is that last stage. And that's. That can happen as part of the integration as well. But that's where our community tells us what are our unique gifts, spirits and talent, and what do they see in us that they love?

And that's a beautiful part of the ceremony where really, as a man, he gets to be told by the men around him all the things that they love about him.

And that's unfortunately so rare in our culture, particularly amongst men.

But so beautiful.

Emily: So beautiful. I mean, everything you're saying,

I'm just thinking about the woman's side. Like, when I host a mother blessing, I mean, we basically, like, do all of those things within the mother blessing, and then the closing of the bones ceremony is about her.

So, like, if birth is the initiation, and then that six weeks postpartum is like the initial integration, which the integration never stops. But if that's the initial integration, then the closing of the bone ceremony at six weeks is like closing the door of the threshold.

Like you've crossed over the threshold. Now we're calling all the different parts of you back that were scattered to now reweave into the new version of you. I just. I love it so much.

It's so beautiful. So I am. I'm just thrilled that you actually offer ceremony for men, because whether or not so many are coming in hordes and you know that they really want to have the ceremony.

It's just. It's needed. And I. It needs to be normalized, because as you were also saying, this used to be the way that we did things when we would sit in circle and we had elders and would share stories.

It was just. It was the way. And we literally have to recreate it. We have to reclaim it.

And, yes, we just do it, you know, one ceremony at a time.

Jason: And I. I think for the people out there who may or may not be listening, thinking, oh, gosh, that seems a bit weird for me.

The reason we use, you know, what we often call ritual theater. So we'll have the candles. We may even dress differently. And it's to create an embodied experience. These are emotional experiences.

They're not supposed to make sense. They're not supposed to be, quote, unquote, normal for your mind. They're to bring you to a state of liminality where you are going to change because you're in your Feelings, think about a movie, suspend our disbelief in that film.

And we go through this emotional journey with the character.

We do that for a reason in Ceremony. And it's one of the most beautiful parts, once you can let go of the woo woo fears or whatever that might be.

Emily: So, do you know Dr. Rachel Reed? She also lives in Australia.

She wrote the book Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage, and she has named the phases of labor, and it's basically the rites of passage. So you have the preparation, which is like, leading up, then you have separation, and that's when the mother starts drawing more and more inward.

Sensations are present, but they're not real, you know, rocking and rolling yet. So there's separation and then there's liminality where she's like, off in the stars, you know, and then there's the emergence when the baby comes.

And then, yeah, the placental birth. I mean, it's just birth is just the most amazing rite of passage. And of course, a man is witnessing this. And I know that you also offer education around preparing for birth and then how to support the mom.

So I'd love to hear a little bit about your thoughts on that and how you help men prepare for the birth experience and then how to be a supportive partner.

Jason: Thanks. Firstly, just so beautiful hearing about the rites of passage and how it's mapped on it. It makes so much sense, but it's really nice to hear it framed like that.

Yeah, gorgeous.

Oh,

yeah. Men witnessing women birthing.

Gosh.

Where to begin?

I mean, traditionally, right? Traditionally, this wasn't really done. There were the red tents and this was women's business.

So where, you know, we've spoken a lot about what's been done traditionally and bringing it back in in some way. This is more of a modernization piece that men are involved in the birthing process,

and I think it's appropriate that they are, provided that the people who are.

Well, really just that the mum wants that. And I think for the most part these days they do,

but we don't have a map. We don't have a blueprint for it. And you know what I feel like.

Emily: Real quick, I just was thinking, as you're saying that because it has been women's business and it is women's business,

but I feel like men not being present for it has contributed to the crisis that we are talking about when it comes to the initiation into fatherhood. So I feel like this is an important element to coax the healing and the evolution and the expansion of.

Of men and fathers and Therefore.

And therefore humanity.

Jason: Yeah, beautifully said. Yeah. I think as the lines between gender roles become more porous,

we have a responsibility to understand the other gender even better and start to play in the same spaces still as ourselves and our own embodied version of it. But, yeah,

the lines are dissolving. And politically, you can think what you may think about it, but practically, how we choose to show up with compassion is always a relevant question.

And that means understanding the process that they go through if you're going to be a part of it,

and understanding how you can show up, which is so big. And again, there's no real blueprint I've got.

I'll actually bring it because I'm in this space. I have from the hospital,

a little book on,

like, parenting, you know, on. On birth prep, preparing for birth, your birth plan. Here's a list of things we suggest for your go bag. See how, like, immediately it's all funneled within the context of birthing in a hospital.

The go bag, like, and again, no judgment, if that's where you want to go. And if someone listening has birthed at a hospital. Hospitals are a important part of the process, if required,

or if it's your preference, like your body, your choice, 1 million percent.

Emily: Well, just my audience. We're. We're free birthing and we're birthing at home.

Jason: Awesome.

Emily: But, yeah, no, yeah, we love our medical system. When necessary.

Jason: Exactly. Yeah. But we can see how quickly. Right. The assumptions are built into the resources provided, and therefore the choices start to dwindle and diminish at the gate, which, you know, cascade of interventions or conversation.

And I guess I share that because where in that book are they talking about how to prepare yourself emotionally to hold space for your wife or the mother,

which is such a critical piece. And to be completely honest, I learned this through trial and error myself.

I always considered myself someone who could hold space and could facilitate. And I could. You know, I could. I was pretty good at it when it was time for my first child to come.

But this is just another level of holding space that again, unless you've had some experience or some training or preparation,

it can slap you in the face.

And I think the more on the spectrum of birthing,

the more toward the free birthing, home birthing side of things that you are, the greater your capacity to hold space as the man needs to be, because you're inevitably going to be more involved and it's going to be a less structured.

Emily: I love that you said that. And I also,

like, challenge that because in the Hospital.

Let's just name, like, the. The obstetric violence and, you know, what's being done to the woman. And for so long.

Men's role, they're not even. They're like, sitting on a chair in the corner while all of this shit is being done to the mom. And then the issues that she feels towards him for not protecting her or for standing by while they're doing vaginal exams against her will without consent,

it's literally like sexual assault.

Emily: And like.

Emily: And so, like, it's a different way of him protecting and holding this space.

Jason: It's a great point.

Emily: It's a whole different ballgame than, like, the ceremony of birth and holding space and the ceremony of an undisturbed physiological birth. But I just have to say that.

Jason: Because I think that's right. I didn't think about it in that way of holding space. Like, it's almost like you're not just holding. You're like in the space in hospital,

like, interventionist style, needing to potentially intercept.

Completely agree. Like that framing. Couldn't agree more. Thanks for naming it. Yeah. Goodness me,

sure.

Emily: Yeah.

Jason: Some other stories.

Emily: Yeah.

Jason: So, yeah. How do we. How do we hold space? I. I learned through trial and error. For me,

my first birth was happening in this room. My beautiful daughter Layla planned a home birth.

It was during COVID and it was during the first lockdown. So I'm located in Melbourne, Australia, which had the longest lockdown globally, I believe, or the most lockdowns. Some statistic.

We were inside the most.

And yeah, it was during the first lockdown that our birthing was happening.

That meant, you know, we couldn't have a pool because at that time, people were afraid of water or something. What very sanitary aspects of the bath being rented. And.

Emily: Wow.

Emily: Wow.

Jason: I remember it feeling like a legit thing at the time. So I don't want.

Emily: Yeah, right.

Jason: You know, I don't want to bash them too much. I remember thinking, that makes sense. Probably didn't in retrospect. So many things don't. Right.

But we were inside. We were doing all the things. And,

like, what happens for so many women, the first labor is a little slower than,

you know, future births.

This is 2020. And my wife started the laboring process. And,

you know, it's hard to exactly state what was going on other than to say it was taking a long time.

It ends up being about 30 plus hours.

And her cervix wasn't opening at the rate that the midwives. Sorry, I should say we're doing shared care, which in Australia basically means we have midwives coming to the home to facilitate the home birthday from a organization that kind of specializes in that.

And we had a private obstetrician at a hospital with a bed in case we needed it, so that we could go and see that same obstetrician we'd seen throughout the pregnancy in a hospital environment, should we need it.

So he wasn't present at all. The two wonderful midwives were.

And it was. Yeah, it was going quite slowly. And they were kind of started to have some conversations with me privately around we may need to go to hospital for this birth.

And these are from home birthing advocates and practitioners. So I'm definitely listening when they say that, that they recommend we go in for, you know, some intervention.

And I summarize my experience of that birth as,

oh,

a real feeling of disempowerment and loss of control because I saw my beautiful wife, you know, a lot of discomfort and pain.

And I just had this sense that I couldn't do anything about it and that I was helpless.

And my stuff started to come up psychologically. I could just feel obsessive thought patterns coming online as a coping mechanism. Also, there was fatigue, right. But this coping mechanism of just starting to overthink to a degree that felt really uncomfortable.

And my coping mechanism was to distract myself because at that time in my development and definitely links back to how I was raised, the coping mechanism for big emotions or challenging emotions was distraction.

And so I was making the midwives food, I was making teas, I was cleaning up, you know, at every point. So it was a nice space. And I thought I was being productive there and helping.

And, you know, at some level I was. I wasn't, you know, sitting, watching TV or gaming or something. I was there, but I wasn't emotionally present with my wife.

I was running around doing house duties to support the space.

And in the debrief, and as we spoke, you know, many weeks, months later,

I was just running around too much because I couldn't hold. I think at the deepest level, I couldn't hold the chaos.

And she needed me to hold the chaos because she couldn't. She's. Her entire world is trembling.

And the midwives were there and were great. But I'm her emotional partner and she needed me to be a pillar for her to feel safe. And in truth, I hadn't done the training to do that for myself,

so I couldn't necessarily hold it for somebody else.

And I don't say any of that with judgment. That's where I was at. And I think it's where so many men are at. And there's no judgment for anyone who's listening.

We're not taught how to do this. We're not taught, for the most part,

how to hold our emotional bodies as the sort of learned adult and start to reparent ourselves. And as beautiful, tender humans, there's a lot that we go through and a lot we get from how we were raised that carries over that we think is adaptive and positive until a moment threatens that assumption.

And it's these crucible moments, these initiations that really test us. And birth is one of them, probably one of the biggest.

I was tested, so that's a little bit of a guess of my story and what has inspired some of the desire to help other men prepare, particularly emotionally before the birth and parenthood.

Emily: Thank you so much for sharing that. That was. I can tell you have put a lot of thought and, you know, retrospective insight into that. And I'm sure your wife was a big part of you really seeing yourself.

And I'm so glad you guys debriefed. It's so important to debrief these experiences because there are lessons and gifts in it all, and it's up to us to unearth them and to, you know, grab them and utilize them.

So I'm curious then, was the second birth a different experience?

Jason: Yeah.

I love that this happened. And I've just recognized that my son was born right here.

Like,

specific position.

I love that. I just realized that. And we had to move because of the leaf blower out the front. So I'm walking from the space where my son was birthed, which is so beautiful.

Yes. A very different experience.

In the intervening two and a half years,

not necessarily specifically for parenthood, but just for my own development, I went on a journey of self exploration and healing.

I mean, one thing that's worth naming, I think that's important, is during my daughter's labor,

when things were getting tough, and I should probably just briefly wrap that up, she was birthed in hospital with forceps in the end, and that was what was deemed necessary.

And our obstetrician was amazing and very low intervention and works great with the midwives. But again, sometimes the medical system is necessary, and it worked for us, you know, and it turns out my wife's placenta adhered to the wall,

so that needed to be surgically removed because the other methods weren't. Weren't working. So we were super grateful that we ended up in hospital, actually, because of that, because we would have had to.

Yes. All in divine timing and process in reflection.

Anyway, I just wanted to wrap that little bit up. But yeah, during my. My daughter's labor,

when it was about hour 30 or 36 and we're about to go into hospital, I was by myself in the bathroom. Kind of just kind of in those moments you see in the movies where you're looking at yourself in the mirror talking to yourself.

And I just felt so in my stuff, I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, I'm gonna get some support if she's born healthily. That's my commitment.

Because I think there was a subtle recognition in that moment that I wasn't as strong or resilient or capable emotionally as I thought I was. And that I needed to be if I was gonna take care of this little baby in the way that I really wanted to and felt was my.

My privilege to do.

Emily: Well, in there is the initiation. Right. I mean, that in there is the identity dissolving and the new one revealing.

Jason: Exactly.

Emily: Yeah.

Jason: So beautifully said. Yeah. And a few months later, I did seek support.

I found a local psychologist. I did a couple of sessions, and that kick started a journey of other explorations and I started exploring myself. Things like internal family systems and aware parenting and other modalities that encourage us to re parent ourselves individually and learn so much about myself.

Wow.

And, you know, the second time around, things are generally easier, but I'd certainly done a lot of self work and also. Yeah. Debriefing and connecting with my partner around what she needs.

And in a word, it was presence, physical and emotional presence. Um,

and I felt so capable the second time around. It was like a different. An entirely different experience. Um,

at each stage I just.

I knew what my role to play was, particularly from that lens of reparenting, was anything coming up inside of me can be held and right now can be held to the side.

And to really treat my partner like one of the parts of me that needs support and holding. And I know how to do that. Because I've done so many reps for myself, it's now effortless to do it for another person, particularly someone who's going through, you know, labor.

Yeah, it was a beautiful experience. It's just about deep listening,

you know, service and holding. Not through saving or trying to, you know, obsessively do all the things and massage and run the fingers. All of that can happen, but really about attunement.

Emily: Yeah.

Jason: Listening. Yeah.

Emily: I love that you. It's so crucial, the not rescuing or saving. I Mean that's robbing her of her initiation. But just holding,

being present and the attunement like you can you. The veil is so thin in the birth portal. Like if you are present you will know what she needs. She doesn't even have to tell you.

Jason: Exactly. Talk about starting to learn to intuit her needs before she knows what they are is training for having a baby. Because a baby can't express their needs, so needs you to intuit their needs.

So it's this perfect, you know, connection point.

Yeah. And it's, it's funny in that it takes so much work to get to that point. But once we're at that point, it's actually quite simple. It's be sensitive and attuned, listen and nurture and hold and just don't make it about you, bro.

It's that simple. If she needs you to shut the up,

shut up. If she needs you to do that one moment and then talk to her and then shut up again and then talk to her again, do that. You can be.

I remember like what jumper I was wearing.

I now treasure that jumper because the way that she twisted it in her hands and hung off it and ripped at it and it somehow survived. But that's now a special jumper and you can be that jumper.

You can be whatever she needs you to be. That's your perfect role to play.

It just takes some self humbling and some understanding that it's all temporary. And you know, it's, it's actually quite simple by the end of it.

Emily: I think it's really all of that work that you did leading up though, because we as people in the birth space, we need to be clean and clear. Like our energy field must be clean and clear.

And just as you were talking about as raising fathers came through you as a conduit, like that's what we are in the birth space. We are a channel,

we're channeling, we're holding energy, we're not bringing our stuff in.

It's so crucial. And so you get it. I see you get it.

Jason: It's taking some time. And that I'd say is the number one challenge for me in raising fathers at the moment and it's more early stages is women get it, they get it, guys,

some get it.

But there's a long. And what I mean by that, by the way, is understanding the need that men have to learn about this and talk about this stuff beforehand is still something that they're not aware of.

And I think a lot of the damage that men perpetuate in the world isn't through bad intention. I think I have a son. I see who we are in our spirits.

Men are beautiful, beautiful beings, just like women. I think what can happen is it's a lack of awareness that drives a lot of the behavior that is less than ideal and can impact other people.

They just don't know. And when we don't know and we don't know that we don't know,

it just means we keep going on business as usual. And we might not even be aware of the impacts that we are having either in the birth space, on our child, on our broader community.

And so when I talk about birth preparation for fathers,

I think their automatic thought is, well, we have a birth team. Like, we're good, you know, and there's not this recognition of all the subtle layers of preparation at this identity level and in relationship with one's partner that are actually way more essential because you do have a birth team.

I would argue that the details of the birthing process, the physiological elements, are far less important for a man to know about unless he's instrumental in the delivery process,

because there are professionals there to hold that. And yes, know some of the details and know the hormonal stages and all these things,

but really the body's gonna do what the body does. And the bits that you can impact is relationally and with your presence. And that does take training because most of us don't have that skill set already, unfortunately.

And that's the work and the mission. Right. Is to start to change the cultural conversation around this so that fatherhood's treated with reverence,

sanctity.

Emily: Absolutely. And it all, like you were saying, it just. It bleeds right into then fatherhood and supporting this newborn mom and born baby.

So,

yeah, maybe if you want to rift on that.

Jason: Yeah.

Emily: As we close up, talking about how all of this just leads right in then to that most important, like birth. It is such an important day, and it's. It's just a blip on the map.

And then your parent.

Jason: Yes. Oh, my goodness. That's when things really get going. Goodness. Goodness me.

Emily: The skills that you're trying to cultivate within these men and the layers, you're trying to have them peel back. It's so purposeful and intentional for then your next parents. And now you got to support this mama.

Jason: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And that's the huge piece, I think you've said it already is.

The new phase of life is about the navigation of multiple relationships.

We think I'm going to Be taking care of a newborn and you will as a dad, but in many ways you're taking care of a newborn mother and a newborn father too.

And so there are three babies in the house, at least from an identity level. And they all require different care and different focuses to thrive and a lot of energy.

Emily: And we'll also say, like with every additional, additional child, it's the birth of a new family, a new family dynamic, a new family structure. So it's, it's not just the first child that we're talking about, it's every child.

Jason: So true. Actually, the hardest week of parenting I've had was week two of my second born's life.

To paint the picture, my wife had some things physically going on for her that I won't go into the detail of, but that meant that she couldn't sit,

she couldn't really walk, and even lying down was painful.

So she was effectively immobilized.

A newborn, a two week old boy, and my daughter and my son was born during summer holidays. So my toddler daughter, who was two and a half at the was on school holidays.

We were in it, man, and we were sick as well. Like I had a virus of some kind. My daughter had a virus. We're all sick. And you know, it was all happening.

And I was like, I didn't think this was gonna be like this.

I remember people, some people reaching out with all the beautiful messages, how can I support? And some internal frustration coming up going, I'm so overwhelmed right now, it feels overwhelming to text you back, how can I support?

So one little tip I have and we'll go back to the actual question in a second is I call it like five by five. And it's a little prep hack I've thought about for birth because I ended up doing it afterwards.

Which is to think of the five people in your life who you feel most comfortable or at ease asking for help from.

Make that list and write down five practical or other things that you might need support with. Once baby is here on a list that might be dropping off food. Cleaning the house is a big one, like cleaning the home and the dishes and all of that.

Holding you or holding baby for a bit,

maybe it's just social time at that point.

There are a range of things you might, you might need help with.

Make that list in advance and make it with your partner and then contact those five people now, before baby's born, say, hey, I've identified a list of five people who are my tribe who I'd really love to call on.

And you came to mind.

I hope you're okay with this. And this is opt in only, but I wanted to give you a list of things you might be able to help with when baby's here.

That if I feel overwhelmed, I can just send you this like code word help or whatever it is,

or an emoji and the number and it'll be like cool number four emoji. That means drop off meals, whatever it is. I can just like press my save me button and you're one of my five people I'm gonna go to and they'll be that you've reached out.

Emily: Yes. And so like the way I set it up is like,

you know, mother the mother because if the mother's cared for, the baby's gonna be cared for because she's, you know, she's taking care of the baby. So mother the mother, the father is supporting the mother who's supporting the baby.

And then you have your village, like you must have the village to support the father because he cannot do it all. He can absolutely not do it all. And so, yeah, I mean, that's a huge part of the work that I do is making sure that people have their village rallied to support the dad so that he can support the mom so that she can nurture the baby.

Jason: Yeah, beautiful. It's beautiful. Um, so, yeah, supporting mum or all the relationships I talk about, you know, they're all valid. We'll have different ways I talk about it just ended up being this acronym CPR for this new phase of life which I talk about.

I kind of show this Venn diagram of the three of you. So there's mom, dad, baby.

And obviously this applies in same sex relationships too. This is just the context I operate in. And that like a Venn diagram, each relationship has its overlapping element and then obviously the three has in the middle that overlapping element.

And that each relationship dynamic requires different attention or like intention.

And each circle itself requires different things. So there'll be your own self care for you. Mum's self care. Baby can't really self care.

And then the relationships and the C is between dad and baby. And that's for connect that really at this early stage, your job as a dad is just to connect with your bub and love them.

Most of their physio, all of their physiological needs are gonna be met by the mother, particularly if she chooses to breastfeed and all of this.

And there will be a lot of time where mum and bub are together. And there's kind of not much time that you might get with the baby. But there are ways to get that time that a help mom and also help you connect.

So I give some examples of that. Like one great one is Abba younger. Like an oil massage before or after bath time. I did that with my second born and it was the thing I looked forward to each day to massage my baby's body with these oils and it was just the most beautiful,

sensual, connecting experience for us. And you know, physiologically a lot happens when we touch.

That creates all these bonding hormones and it's just beautiful and cute and if it's not your thing, all good.

Wearing baby. This is like the thing I miss. I'm like very clucky.

This thing I miss most about the newborn phase. And early, like first year is wearing baby in a sling or a carrier. It's like a teddy bear hugging you at all.

And then that little head is kind of right here at kissing distance.

I love it. I would do much of my life with a baby on me as possible if I could. I'd even carry someone else's baby right now. Like, I love it.

And again, the baby's hearing your heartbeat and feeling your breath and smelling you and getting all of your beautiful body juices.

Emily: We'll call it Flora.

Jason: Yeah.

But it's such a beautiful bonding experience and it actually allows you because you are kind of on as a dad and this is that family piece. I often talk about the dad as like house duties, nanny and bodyguard or security guard that, you know, a lot of people depending on your culture are going to want to visit mum and bub early and obviously confer with mum first.

But there can be this temptation to be like. Like, let's have the tribe here. And that's awesome. But there's actually a really beautiful bubble that you might want to protect and kind of keep.

Keep people at bay and start to vet who's in and out which may offend some parents and grandparents, but they'll deal with it.

Emily: They'll get over it.

Jason: Yeah.

So yeah. Connection with babies important the next. So that's the C. The P is protecting. And I talk about that between you and your partner. It's to protect your relationship because it's at its most vulnerable stage there where you can end up inhabiting different worlds.

As you passed baby back and forth between you. Maybe you're on different sleep cycles and mum is actually going through a whole process of healing right now. And just like a reminder to not make it all about the baby.

Mom is going through A lot.

And so I just give men some tips and kind of rituals on how to connect with mum really in a space where you get to share without it being a conversation.

It's a one way sharing with each other once a day just to create a rhythm of being seen and being felt by your partner through this transition and some other things.

But really the focus is protect your relationship. It is cornerstone of your home.

And then respect is the last one and that's to respect mum and baby's relationship is they're going to have their own world that's being created between mum and bub.

And it is honestly beyond comprehension for us as dads what happens between them. And that's okay.

The key I think is to not feel like you're a third wheel. Not kind of become jealous or envious or covet that relationship and to give it the space that it needs by respecting it and doing everything you can to facilitate that bonding.

So for example,

one thing I talk about is getting like really across and this seems so small but like really across, across all the housework. You know, if you're like me in my house, we've divided things up like pretty neatly in some areas like I'm kitchen, my wife's laundry for example.

And there's very little bleed over between them. But that's not going to work when mom is needing to rest.

And so if I don't know how to do that stuff, it's really important that I do. Because if she's worrying about that going, gosh, we're running out of baby clothes, we're running out of cloth, the cortisol in her body is going to transfer into the baby and her, she won't be able to fully drop in with her baby if she's worrying about stuff getting done.

So if you need to become a glorified nanny during that time, become the nanny. Like that's how you can serve and respect that relationship among other things. But yeah, really just understanding that's theirs.

Just as you have your relationship with baby, that's your personal relationship. And then obviously the three of you come together and this is in newborns, obviously. 4, 5, 6 come together as you need to, but it's theirs and it's beautiful and powerful.

Emily: I love this CPR that you, that is just so beautifully thought out and obviously you've had the embodied experience and I'm just, I am literally thrilled that you have this offering out into the world.

Jason: Thank you.

Emily: Thank you so much. This is so needed. Oh my goodness.

I feel like we kind of hit all the highlights. Unless there's something on your heart that you want to share, you're welcome to.

And when you're done with that, if, if that is a thing you can please share about your offerings and where people can find you.

Jason: No worries. I think the last thing on my heart to share would be just to the mums who are listening, like, thank you for your patience because it's. I don't want to paint all men with one brush, but sometimes we need a little bit of patience for us to get to where we need to get to to meet you.

And we're just learning. We're learning as a collective and we're learning as individuals. I think as masculinity goes through the journey that it's going on and will continue to go on.

I pray for your patience because we need it. And one thing that turns men off really quickly is being told off or shamed because they carry so much shame and self judgment already.

And when it's reinforced by the feminine, they just,

they get cut off and they run the other way. So just thank you. Thank you for your patience and your loving tenderness.

We need it.

Hopefully things will continue to move in the right direction.

Emily: Thank you for that. I needed to hear that.

Jason: Beautiful. Beautiful.

And I think just the last thing I'll say on my heart is thank you to my wife for her patience.

But shout out to her.

Something I said the other day that I feel like it's going to become a catchphrase is behind every raised father is a raising mother.

My wife is a huge contributor to everything that I do to raising fathers. I'm the face of it, but she's certainly the heart of it. And everybody concept, framework thing, I run past her and we hash out together because this is a team effort and we, we do everything together.

She's, she's my parenting coach. She's the best. She really is. And the best mother.

Emily: Beautiful.

Jason: So shout out to my wife.

Offerings. Cool.

Yeah. So I mean, I understand that you're in the US so some will be applicable, some won't. But yeah, there's sort of three pillars is a good way to think about it.

So community courses and coaching or mentorship.

So the community side, I run circles online and in person. If the online time zone works, we can make it work. If not, unfortunately we can't.

Courses wise, I'm currently running or starts in a few weeks an online live course on Zoom called True north that's designed for dads to be, to prepare for fatherhood. In some of the layers and levels we spoke about today.

And there's the practical side. I have a guest midwife in to do a Q and A session with us and a guest psychiatrist to talk about mental health care during that period of time as well.

Because there's some things I can't touch or that are better run by others.

And so that course is available. I'll be doing more cohorts of that in time, but I'll be focused on once the container opens or I guess closes in two weeks, just serving those men.

And then that's an eight week course and I'll restart it and reopen, open it soon after that.

The ceremonies are a part of that as well.

That's probably part of the community aspect that I spoke about. Again, I can do the design stuff with you. I unfortunately won't be able to fly internationally to run a one ceremony, but I'm there if you need me.

Emily: Some people in Australia will hear this too.

Jason: That's true, that's true.

And then finally mentoring. Yeah, I do one on one support for men kind of in three stages, so pre conception stage and just talking about that journey expecting stage which we've spoken about.

And for dads who are through the threshold and want to talk about fatherhood and seek some support. I'm always there for one on one stuff too.

And you can find me on Instagram at Raising Underscore Fathers and my website is raising-fathers.com so amazing.

Emily: Jason, I think I've said it five times already, but I just, I appreciate you and I love what you're doing and keep going, please.

Jason: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for this. Yeah. What a wonderful, wonderful chat. Yeah, yeah.

Emily: For real. I feel like we could just like keep going because there's so much.

Emily: Thank you for listening through to the end. I do hope you found good medicine in today's episode and that it encourages your own soul evolution. I have a few new offers, both in person and virtual, that I'd like to tell you about.

Beginning in January. January, I will host a free in person perinatal women's circle for anyone trying to conceive, pregnant or postpartum, seeking community and support. There will be a focus on preparing for natural birth and healing from birth trauma.

Children are welcome. You can sign up via my website.

I also now offer a monthly online virtual village circle for families seeking an empowering physiological conception, pregnancy, labor, birth and postpartum. It's just $10 a month or free when you purchase my online course.

So you want a home birth. You can gain access by signing up via my website.

As always, I host Women's Circles once a month at my home in Southern Maine. All women are welcome. For details, go to my website.

I have 20 years of experience in the medicalized system. I let my nursing license expire in 2023 and now I walk with women seeking a physiological, instinctual and deeply spiritual conception, pregnancy, labor, birth and postpartum journey.

I help help prepare and repair for the most expansive rite of passage that women get to experience in this lifetime. It is my greatest honor and sole mission to hold sacred space and witness women as they claim their own inner authority and power.

I am a fierce advocate and guardian of natural birth using the culmination of my life's experiences including my own embodied wisdom when it comes to being a home birthing mother, nearly two decades of experience in our healthcare system and a year long sacred birth worker mentorship with Anna the Spiritual Midwich.

I support births with or without a licensed provider present at home birth centers and the hospital.

I offer birth debriefing and integration sessions for women, their families and birth workers.

I offer therapeutic one to one sessions, individually tailored mother blessings, closing of the bones and fear and trauma release ceremonies.

If any or all of this resonates, I offer a free 30 minute discovery call if you have a birth story to share or if you're a embodied wise woman, witch healer, medicine woman.

I am also interested in sharing your contribution to our soul evolution.

You can book in via the link in the show notes.

Thank you so much for your love and support everyone. Until next time, take really good care.