Cultural Ideals That Impact Your Birth, with Britta Bushnell

Do you have a need for control and certainty? Are you a perfectionist? Do you highly value knowledge and technology? Do you resist things getting wild? Do you strive to do it all? If any of these resonate with you, you’re going to want to pay close attention to this conversation with Britta Bushnell. Check it out.

What we talked about:

• The need for control and certainty
• Get out your Mad Libs
• Artemisian vs. Apollonian characteristics
• The veneration of intellectual knowledge and technology
• Curiosity as a balancing energy
• The reverence for order over wild
• The vilification of pain
• Maybe pain isn’t all that bad
• The glorification of independence and the go-it-alone mindset
• Do you know how to receive?
• The adherence to innocence
• Parenting as the ultimate “adulting”
• The denial of death
• The quest for perfection and exceptionalism
• “Only things that are perfect have value?”
• Looking at birth as an opportunity for growth

Helpful resources & links*:

• Transformed by Birth, Cultivating Openness, Resilience, and Strength for the Life Changing Journey from Pregnancy to Parenthood, by Britta Bushnell
• Transformed – a podcast about transformation with Britta Bushnell
• Artemis and Apollo
• Baby on Board Mad Libs, by Molly Reisner ?

Related Birthful Episodes:

• The Purpose of Childbirth Pain, with Rhea Dempsey
• How Will Birth Transform You? with Britta Bushnell
• Healing Your Birth Story and Birth Trauma, with Pam England

About Britta Bushnell

Courtesy of Britta Bushnell

Britta Bushnell, PhD, is a wife and mother, veteran childbirth educator, celebrated speaker, mythologist, and specialist in childbirth, couples, and parenting. For the last 20 years, Dr. Bushnell has worked with individuals and couples as they prepare for the life-changing experience of giving birth. Her work with parents has been enriched by her doctoral work in mythology and psychology, her years spent as a co-owner of Birthing From Within, as well as her dedicated study of solution-focused brief therapy, storytelling, and sustaining sexual vibrancy and helping romantic partnerships thrive even during parenthood.

Learn more at brittabushnell.com, or join the conversation on her private Facebook group Transformed by Birth Community, as well as on Instagram (@brittabushnellphd) and her Facebook page(@brittabushnellphd).

Title music: “Vibe Ace” by Kevin MacLeod, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).

Sponsorship music: “Air Hockey Saloon” by Chris Zabriskie, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).