Perhaps

one of the greatest days in a man’s life is the day that they come to terms with themselves. It is the day they discover who they are through a self-birthing process. The nature of self-birthing is probably the same as that of the original birth.

I remember taking my wife some time back in 2011 to a hospital for the birth of our son. No one had trained me for this. I did not know what to expect, save for the stories that I had been told about what happens in the birthing process.

There’s Always Pain

I put on a strong face but inside my heart was pounding as it imagined the unknown. The labor pains began but the baby took a while to be birthed. Soon enough, the medics decided to operate on her and enable the birthing process.

I was not allowed into the theatre but I can tell you that moments before the operation, my wife was under some considerable pain that came in spurts. It appears to me like the birthing of any kind is never fun and adventurous event. It is always punctuated with pain, discomfort and probably upheaval.

Birthing Ourselves

Perhaps the most important thing that we can do for ourselves is to take us through our own birthing process to bring forth for this world a manifestation of a child of God. This is what the world desires the most.

I know that in vary many traditions, there are things called the rites of passage. They vary from one community to another. The idea behind that is that a child will leave childish ways and become a mature and responsible person of the community, able to contribute to its development.

Things Are Still The Same

Well, the world has developed ever since through leaps and bounds, and such as cultures are being eroded with the so-called modernism and technological development. Let me say this: That the human race has principles of development that will always remain analog no matter how much we develop as a people.

The aspect of rites of passage is an integral part of the growth of a society, the manner in which it’s done notwithstanding. In other words, for us to mature, especially at the individual level, there will have to be a “rites of passage” of sorts that we shall have to go through.

What Determines our Birthing

Each of us has to oversee their own birthing process ostensibly because each of us is unique. Our own process is determined by several factors:

1. Desire:

There will always be something inside of us that will be dissatisfied with the status quo. It is that searcher in you that will lead you to a journey of self-birthing. This desire can either be channeled by inspiration from the inside or it can be imputed upon by an outside force. Becoming who I am today has been for the most part a result of those two forces working on me.

2. Uniqueness:

You are different from just about any other person on the face of the earth. Therefore, your birthing will speak to your own unique proclivities. It will seldom be a common way that someone else conducted their own birthing. It, therefore, does not result in self-birthing if you copy and paste someone else’s birthing process. You have to uniquely bring yourself forth.

3. Calling:

We each have a calling. Central to our own birthing experience is the need to discover and deploy our purpose on the face of the earth. Apart from this, there is basically no need whatsoever for self-birthing. In fact, self-birthing will almost always result in someone owning a big portion of their purpose in life. Purpose is not something we are attracted to, rather, it is something we are birthed to.

4. Passion:

The things that we care about the most will be connected to our own birthing experience. I care a lot about people. Any birthing that I keep going through will increasingly feed my passion for equipping people. Self-birthing should always result in something that you are passionate about. This birthing will, of course, negate any experiences and qualifications of the past. That’s why you can be a trained doctor but end up a motivational speaker. A birthing of passion took place.

5. Ability:

Birthing yourself will also be connected to what you can do, not what you cannot do. At times, what you cannot do is something within your field of passion, so you can go and learn to do it. However, even before you learn something outside of your ability, there are some things that are already within your ability to accomplish. These things will also determine your self-birthing. Those that are outside of your ability can only be achieved through that process of giving birth to oneself.

6. Crossroads:

For a human to give birth to themselves, there will have to be an element of crisis in their lives. Unfortunately, we do not want to welcome problems in our lives. In an incredible book, The Road Less Travelled, Scot M Peck offers:

“What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one. Problems, depending upon their nature, evoke in us frustration or grief or sadness or loneliness or guilt or regret or anger or fear or anxiety or anguish or despair…”

“Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure.

You can see clearly how critically important a crisis can be in the birthing of yourself. Even though we tend to run away from problems, they will invariably provide an opportunity through which we can do our own birthing. As such they say that there is a silver lining in every cloud.

In your cloud of crisis, the silver lining has to be the self-birthing that you go through in that you end up coming out a totally different person.