What Is Conscious Conception? by Laura Swann

My work in Conscious Conception has been born out of the continuum of working with clients in many different ages and stages of life. Like any term there can be a few misconceptions floating around about what it is and what it isn’t. Conception doesn’t have to relate to conceiving a baby. Conscious Conception is an awakening to your divinity and sovereignty as a creative force. Your ability to magnetize and co-create utilizing your unique energy. 

We are currently evolving through a portal that is seeing a huge rising tide of divine feminine awakening. The awakening of the divine feminine is a portal that is going to feel extreme and we will experience resistance and counter to that as we try and heal a lot of ancestral trauma and the resulting wounds that affect the collective. I witness this as a means of balancing that which has become grossly out of balance under patriarchal dominance. A positive shift into the matriarchal to help us to collectively evolve. 

When I work with clients it isn’t always because they are on a path of wanting to conceive a baby. Sometimes they are in a process of birthing or rather rebirthing themselves. Healing and chain-breaking generational patterns in order to live, work, and be in alignment. This notion of conception directly relates to their own self-sourcing power as a ‘creator’ in their own life and what that means for them. Working in this way can have huge transformational effects on a person in every aspect of their life. Some people can have an awakening that comes through ill health or a medical diagnosis and they come to me seeking more insight. Something is triggered in them to go deeper, beyond the physical. My job is to create a container for them to safely explore that and to metaphorically hold up a mirror for them to truly see the patterns that they are co-creating. There is no judgement, just a willingness to see beyond victim consciousness and truly be in co-creation within their lives. To explore the energetic connection between their consciousness and what is manifesting  

One of our primary responses to pain or trauma is detachment. Many clients that I work with have unconsciously been disassociated with their bodies for their whole adult life. It is essentially a survival method that causes fragmentation in our selves. Sometimes it is hard to know where the ‘original’ trauma began. Sometimes it began in our awakening to our biological body changes and how that was met within our social groups, culture, or family unit. More often than not it relates to some form of abuse that the person has endured. Often times this goes much deeper and we can see the patterns emerging from way back in our ancestral matrilineal or patrilineal line. We tend to find that we end up compounding issues by being in a loop of re-enacting trauma and perpetuating it. Perhaps fragmenting our reality more and more simply in a desperate attempt to fit in. Looking for wholeness outside of ourselves. 

Often what I witness is unconscious disconnect from the womb space, the reproductive system, and body. The first thing I tend to do is invite clients into a series of practices that allow them to drop into this space. Like anything this connection can take a while to foster, there can be a lot of blocks and we can bring up a lot to process. This type of work can be very triggering which is why it is all the more vital that we are able to hold it safely and work with it in a way that is gentle and unfolding in a trauma-informed way. You tend to find that the impact of creating the space for that connection is instantly felt. The lifting of a smokescreen creates an illumination that feels liberating 

The model I have developed over a number of years and that I use with my 1:1 clients is Head, Heart & Hara. For explanation’s sake this simple structure forms containers that are expansive and far-reaching as well as interconnected. No two journeys are ever alike and yet there are patterns that as humans we tend to fall into. I like to look at this as a journey of ‘re-wilding’ and I offer clients the space and the tools to do that work with me. I have a very holistic approach and use a variety of methods to connect them to their own inner landscape. For example, we might go deep and do specific meditations dropping into the womb space and the various interconnecting portals that make up this incredible realm or I might invite them to take some time to really get to know their body with various exercises. Even just the act of taking a mirror to look at their vulva can be ground-breaking. Awakening them to thoughts and feelings that they did not know they had about themselves and trying to work out where this arose from. Not that it necessarily matters. The key is feeling safe to explore it. To know that there is no judgement as oftentimes we can feel deep pain, sadness, and rage on the journey to deep self-acceptance and love of this beautiful vessel we have been gifted. One of my personal favourite practices is screaming in a remote place and allowing all that pent up energy out in a safe and freeing way. Sending it back out into the ether to be transmuted.  

The world is full of people walking around with their own pain, shame, and bias trying to tell us whether we are acceptable at our core to them. It can hurt. They will very often be trying to tell us explicitly or implicitly that we need to change so we need to cultivate a radical form of self-acceptance and deeper compassion for other people’s journeys in order to allow ourselves space to feel love. Often what is lacking is boundaries that we did not get taught ourselves. It really is an inner, not an outer work that takes courage and constant practice. It isn’t a process of ‘fixing’ rather creating a space where someone can integrate in order to move beyond. To hold many polarities, nuances, and complexities in a way that allows them to tread the line between their personal truth and how that looks within the collective. What the modern industrial medical system overlooks is the very real need for integrative practices that look at a person holistically and I feel that this is where I and other practitioners bridge a gap. Another huge component in my work is reclaiming ritual and ceremony at rites of passage. 

For those who do want to conceive a baby, again this, like anything else in life, is complex and nuanced. Sometimes they deeply understand that they do want to eventually and that they know that I have some wisdom that can help them do this in a more conscious way. I feel that when we have the opportunity to approach creation from a more consciously activated way, rather than trapped by limiting beliefs we are actually gifting our children with doing the work of chain-breaking our ancestral trauma. This is massive work and not for the faint-hearted. Each person and family dynamic is unique. When someone comes to me that knows that they are ready to conceive or have been trying for some time to no avail we look deeper into what could be happening for them on a level beyond the physical. As above so below. Essentially, we end up doing a lot of shadow work, usually deep enquiry into the matrilineal line ensues. We create a really safe container for what needs to arise. A big part of my work is creating awareness around the power in our monthly bleed, interacting with the lunar cycles and we do a lot of work on embodiment. I tend to send out a lot of follow up information so that once we have opened a door to the work, a client can take it further into their own personal space. So follow up work might include a lot of self-love practice, working with the various portals of conception such as the yoni, vulva, cervix. There are a lot of ancient practices that are having a resurgence such as yoni steaming which I love doing for myself and integrating into my work. Particularly because I have a very deep connection with plant medicine and herbalism. It can be quite a process. For a lot of women, this is a subject that lurks in the shadows of shame and denial and they struggle to connect to body parts that have been treated with disdain or hold mistrust for. Clients generally know what they need and I can work with someone once or on an ongoing basis. 

We are creating a lot more body literacy and body love as we become embodied. On finding out more about how a client landed earth-side we usually uncover a lot of inherent patterning that connects the dots. That awareness once illuminated connects back into every facet of their lives and we harness that to up-level and game change everything. I use the lunar cycles a lot in my work and harness those energies for setting up working with clients. That said, oftentimes alignments come about synchronistically and a client will inadvertently choose the perfect portal for their work. In this instance, there are many tools that I can share that will help them to connect to their own body and then how they can utilise those tools as well as ritual and ceremony when they are ready to invite their soul baby/babies in. 

For some people, I end up being more of a soul midwife – mentoring them through loss and eventually reclaiming their power and welcoming their rainbow babies. This is a very sacred process that requires a lot of fierce love. I strongly believe that the subject of birth and death are intimately intertwined, and we need to be able to go to both ends of the spectrum. To that end, I am a full spectrum doula and work with women through many of the areas that a friend or loved one would have trouble holding space for. 

One thing that is abundantly clear in my work – no matter which area I am working with my clients on – through conception, birth, death or rebirth - is that the people I work with are chain breakers. I feel that a lot of people living in this time are here to raise the consciousness of the planet. Most people I work with are healing deep wounded patterns within their family line and grappling with breaking down some fierce cultural narratives too. I am walking beside them as an initiator, a lighthouse, and a guide. Guiding them towards their unique sovereignty not in hierarchy, simply side by side, human to human in reciprocity. 

As we journey forward into the world of so much polarity and complexity I really feel as though the children we are welcoming in are asking us to chain break and heal so that we can be strong containers for their growth and how they will show up in the world. 

You can find me on Instagram @LauraSwann_HolisticBirthKeeper and read a bit more about me and my offering on my website www.holisticbirthkeeper.com