Faark The Shoulds (& Alchemising Education)

QuantiMama

"Faark The Shoulds" plus little sister podcast, Alchemising Education - Inspirational, practical, transformational conversations from QuantiMama.com's wife and husband team, Jodi & McGill together with their 'sister from another mother' Curious QuantiMama Kerri on High Vibe Birth, Parenting, Relationships and Life. It starts with noticing the "shoulds" in your life; what that means and how to remedy that programming to live honestly, authentically and embody pure love and most importantly, master the ability to 'fark the shoulds'. Join the fun; be challenged, be inspired, get curious, be entertained by this refreshingly honest and intoxicatingly insightful smorgasbord of conversations, peppered by the odd swearword and abundant with seed sprouting and lightbulb moments. Check out QuantiMama's courses: High Vibe Birth; Take The Leap (to Homeschooling); countless other awesome offerings.

  1. 5d ago

    Alchemising Education - What Happens When Kids Plan Their Own Day

    It’s relatively easy to build an education philosophy in theory. Children should think for themselves. They should develop confidence, capability and self-leadership. Learning should respond to the individual rather than forcing the individual to respond to the system. Most of us can nod along with that. The harder question is what happens when you actually build a place around those ideas — fill it with real children, real families, competing needs, unfinished work, muddy feet and the inconvenient reality that giving young people agency means they may not do what the adults had planned. A little over a year ago, Jonathon Zalunardo joined Alchemising Education as he and his family were preparing to launch Apogee Australia, a family leadership centre on the Sunshine Coast. The vision was already clear. What they didn’t yet have was the thing no amount of planning can manufacture: evidence of what that philosophy would become once children began living inside it. Twelve months later, Apogee has grown from zero enrolments to close-to-full days — and the theory has been thoroughly tested. What has emerged is less a new educational method than a deeper understanding of what self-directed learning actually asks of adults. Because saying we want children to think for themselves is one thing. Resisting the urge to organise the thinking for them is another. One of Jonathon’s biggest shifts came when he realised that even inside a deliberately alternative environment, he was still arriving with the day mapped out. The children were being offered freedom — within a structure the adults had already decided. So they changed it. The daily plan increasingly became the children’s responsibility. And with that came the part of autonomy that is much less Instagrammable: choices that don’t work, time that appears to be wasted, plans that fall apart, and the opportunity to experience the consequences without an adult rushing in to optimise the lesson. That is where this conversation becomes less about Apogee and much more about trust. Not blind trust. Not abandoning boundaries or responsibility. Jonathon describes an environment with clear expectations, shared responsibility and deep respect for the physical space and the people in it. But within that framework, children are given something traditional education often talks about more readily than it relinquishes: meaningful ownership. The results challenge some familiar assumptions. Behaviour management becomes far less central when children are regulated by the environment and invested in the community they belong to. Mixed-age learning begins to look less unconventional and more like ordinary human life. Responsibility stops being something adults teach theoretically and becomes something children encounter because the space genuinely depends on their participation. And the parent’s role shifts too. It is one thing to ask a child what they think. It is another to build a relationship in which their answer can actually alter what happens next. That distinction runs through Jodi and Jonathon’s conversation: between giving children a voice and giving that voice consequence; between protecting them from every poor decision and allowing experience to become part of the education; between raising compliant children and developing people who can increasingly lead themselves. For families looking at alternative education, homeschooling or self-directed learning and wondering what it looks like beyond the philosophy, this is the useful part. Apogee is no longer an idea waiting to be tested. It is a working model that has spent a year being shaped by the very people it was designed for — and the biggest lessons have come not from tightening the framework, but from becoming clearer about where adults need to loosen their grip. Because if the aim is to raise children capable of directing their own lives, eventually we have to give them something real to direct. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Loved this? Come deeper. QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family. Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com Preparing for birth — wherever you are High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices. → quantimama.com/highvibebirth Planning for postpartum Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation. → quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery Questioning school or considering homeschooling? Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first. → quantimama.com/take-the-leap Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

    Alchemising Education - What Happens When Kids Plan Their Own Day
  2. Oct 14

    Alchemising Education - How to Find Mentors for Your Homeschooled Kids

    One of the quiet panics that can arrive with homeschooling is the idea that if you take your child out of school, you now have to become the school. You need the curriculum. The answers. The resources. The expertise. And increasingly, perhaps, an AI prompt ready to generate whatever lesson comes next. But what if the parent’s job was never to know everything? In Episode 70 of Alchemising Education, QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiMama Kerri explore a very different model of homeschooling and child-led learning - one where parents stop trying to provide the entire education themselves and start paying closer attention to the people, places and possibilities already around them. Because a child’s next teacher might not look much like a teacher at all. It might be the people running the local hobby shop who are generous enough to answer a teenager’s hundredth question about remote-control cars. A musician who understands that learning to sing requires emotional safety before it requires technical perfection. A blacksmith willing to share a craft with a curious young person once a week. Or somebody you haven’t met yet, who happens to know the thing your child has suddenly decided they need to know. The skill, then, isn’t collecting experts. It’s discernment. Jodi and Kerri talk about recognising genuine interest, finding the right mentor rather than simply the most qualified one, and creating community-based learning opportunities that fit the actual child in front of you. They also make room for something adults are notoriously bad at: allowing a good opportunity to be refused. One of their sons was offered what looked like the easiest of pathways - a ready-made project, existing equipment, previous success and every reason to continue what his older brothers had started. He said no. And that mattered just as much as all the opportunities that had received a yes. Because unschooling and alternative education lose something important if “follow your interests” quietly becomes another version of adults deciding what those interests ought to be. The same is true when a child shows real talent. The temptation is to accelerate it, professionalise it, find the best teacher, maximise the potential. But sometimes the person who helps a child love something is more important than the person who could make them exceptional at it. That is where this conversation gets much bigger than homeschooling. It becomes a conversation about autonomy, consent, trust and the kind of adults we place around our children. About learning to notice when they are engaged, when they are uncomfortable in a useful way, when the fit is wrong, and when something they once loved has simply run its course. For parents wondering how on earth they could ever provide everything their child needs to learn, this episode offers a much more spacious possibility. You don’t have to know everything. You do need to know your child - and stay curious enough about the world around them to notice who might help with the rest. Free prompt sheet from this episode: Finding Your Child’s People - six small prompts for finding the people who can help your child learn, waiting in the free QuantiMama Village: https://www.skool.com/quantimama-4458/about Take The Leap, the course for parents behind these conversations: https://quantimama.com/take-the-leap/ Send us Fan Mail Support the show Loved this? Come deeper. QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family. Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com Preparing for birth — wherever you are High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices. → quantimama.com/highvibebirth Planning for postpartum Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation. → quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery Questioning school or considering homeschooling? Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first. → quantimama.com/take-the-leap Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

    Alchemising Education - How to Find Mentors for Your Homeschooled Kids
  3. Sep 23

    What does 'Living In Alignment' really mean?

    Living in alignment sounds lovely until life gets involved. It’s easy enough to talk about following your joy, trusting the flow and choosing what feels right when the choices are spacious. It gets more interesting when there’s a mortgage, four kids, a job somebody has to show up for, competing needs inside a family, grief that arrives without asking, and mornings where nobody is particularly enlightened. In Episode 69 of Faark the Shoulds, QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiPapa McGill pull apart the polished version of alignment — the one that can start to sound suspiciously like peace, ease and feeling good all the time — and ask whether the real thing might be much broader than that. Because sometimes alignment looks like doing work you wouldn’t necessarily choose, while still knowing you’re free to leave. Sometimes it’s recognising that what serves the family as a whole won’t always be the thing that serves you most in that exact moment. Sometimes it’s letting a child have the full force of their emotions without rushing in to make them smaller, neater or easier for everyone else. And sometimes it looks nothing like happiness at all. A hard week brings that idea into sharper focus for Jodi, as she watches someone she loves move through wave after wave of grief without fighting the fact that it hurts. It changes the question. Maybe alignment isn’t about arranging life so discomfort disappears. Maybe it’s about how honestly we’re able to meet what’s actually here. That opens up a bigger conversation about choice, resentment, relationships that quietly become scorecards, the freedom of having an exit clause, and the difference between supporting somebody and trying to rescue them from their own experience. Jodi wonders whether coherence might be a better word. McGill leans towards flow. Either way, neither of them is interested in a version of alignment with what Jodi calls “slight Valium energy.” They’re interested in the whole kaleidoscope. The joy and the grief. The freedom and the responsibility. The surf that resets your nervous system and the job you still have to turn up for afterwards. The moments where you nail it, and the ones where you get knocked sideways and have another go. For anyone who has ever wondered why “follow your joy” somehow made them feel like they were failing at being spiritual, this one widens the frame. Alignment might not mean feeling good. It might mean being fully in the life you’re actually living. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Loved this? Come deeper. QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family. Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com Preparing for birth — wherever you are High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices. → quantimama.com/highvibebirth Planning for postpartum Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation. → quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery Questioning school or considering homeschooling? Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first. → quantimama.com/take-the-leap Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

    What does 'Living In Alignment' really mean?
  4. Sep 9

    Alchemising Education - School and Homeschooling: What 3 Young Adults Actually Think

    Adults talk about kids constantly. What’s best for them. What’s damaging them. What they need to learn, who they need to become, and which path will give them the best shot at a good life. But how often do we actually ask them? In Episode 68 of Alchemising Education, Faark the Shoulds’ sister podcast, QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiMama Kerri hand the mic to three freshly minted adults — Charlie, Annabelle and Tom — and ask them to look back at their own education while it’s still close enough to remember clearly. Between them, they’ve experienced school, homeschool, and a fair bit of both. And their answers don’t fall neatly into either camp. Charlie loved school, but struggled with being forced to learn at everybody else’s pace. Annabelle is grateful for the opportunities school gave her, while questioning why university was presented as the obvious next step. And Tom’s strongest reflection on homeschooling has little to do with curriculum at all: it’s that having more time at home strengthened his relationship with his parents. What emerges isn’t a verdict on school or homeschooling. It’s a much more interesting question: what changes when young people are treated as individuals and given a genuine say in how they learn? They talk about pace, pressure, sleep, homework, social connection, extracurriculars, family time, finding what lights you up — and why an education that works beautifully for one child may be completely wrong for another. For parents wondering whether their child is genuinely thriving, merely coping, or quietly asking for something different, this is a conversation worth hearing. Three young adults. Three very different educational experiences. And one message that keeps surfacing without anyone needing to force it: Maybe we should spend a little less time discussing kids — and a little more time consulting them. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Loved this? Come deeper. QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family. Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com Preparing for birth — wherever you are High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices. → quantimama.com/highvibebirth Planning for postpartum Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation. → quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery Questioning school or considering homeschooling? Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first. → quantimama.com/take-the-leap Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

    Alchemising Education - School and Homeschooling: What 3 Young Adults Actually Think
  5. Aug 26

    You Were Never Meant to Mother Alone - Part 2

    Unapologetic Mothers with Riona Seehusen, Bellagreen Organic Farm. Somewhere along the way, mothers were taught to be softer, quieter, nicer, more accommodating, and less animal. Which is odd, really, because have you seen a mama bear, particularly when her cub is threatened? In Episode 67 of Faark The Shoulds, QuantiMama Jodi continues the conversation with Riona Seehusen from Bellagreen Organic Farm for Part 2 of “Unapologetic Mothers”. This one moves deeper into maternal instinct, family culture, raising capable children, community, birth, postnatal depression, and the wild little truth that mothers are allowed to protect what matters without asking permission first. Riona is a mother of five and an organic and biodynamic farmer on the Bellarine Peninsula. Through Bellagreen Organic Farm, she brings mothers and children together in a way that is practical, earthy, and quietly radical: kids free range, mothers get their hands dirty, and everyone remembers community does not have to be complicated to be meaningful. This episode is full of those excellent, inconvenient reminders that family life is not meant to run like a productivity spreadsheet. Connection is not linear. Children are more capable than we often let them be. Boundaries can make childhood feel safer, not smaller. And mothers do not need to rescue their children from every scrape, sadness, discomfort, or tiny public inconvenience. Inside this episode:  why family culture becomes the water children swim in  how boundaries create safety, not deprivation  why children need chances to become capable  how mothers can stop rescuing everyone from discomfort  why postnatal depression is not a personal failing  how birth stories shape what women expect from themselves  why maternal instinct has been pushed down, but not erased Jodi and Riona also wander into Women Who Run With the Wolves, animal mothers, joyful birth resources, and the kind of mother fire that says, very politely or not, “No. This matters.” This is for the mother who has been told her instinct is too much. Maybe it is not too much. Maybe it is exactly the thing your family needs. Resources, as promised:  Bellagreen Organic Farm — local to the Bellarine? Experience the best local, seasonal produce from Riona and the team at Bellagreen Organic Farm: bellagreenorganicfarm.com.au  Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés — discussed as a rich resource for women, instinct, initiation, mythology, and the wild self.  Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin — mentioned as a go-to birth resource full of varied, empowered birth stories.  The Big Stretch — an Australian birth film/resource by Jenny Blyth, mentioned by Riona as a joyful birth resource she watched during pregnancy.  Video compilations of mothers in the wild — suggested as a reminder of maternal instinct, fierceness, and protective power.Send us Fan Mail Support the show Loved this? Come deeper. QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family. Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com Preparing for birth — wherever you are High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices. → quantimama.com/highvibebirth Planning for postpartum Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation. → quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery Questioning school or considering homeschooling? Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first. → quantimama.com/take-the-leap Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

    You Were Never Meant to Mother Alone - Part 2
  6. Aug 26

    What Changed When I Stopped Apologising for My Kids - Part 1

    Unapologetic Mothers with Riona Seehusen, Bellagreen Organic Farm There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from mothering while constantly checking whether everyone else is comfortable with it. Is the baby too loud?  Are the kids too wild?  Are you being too much?  Too soft? Too firm? Too visible? Too honest? Too bloody inconvenient? In Episode 66 of Faark The Shoulds, QuantiMama Jodi is joined by Riona Seehusen from Bellagreen Organic Farm for a gloriously honest conversation about unapologetic motherhood, postnatal isolation, community, judgement, birth stories, and the tiny-but-massive question every mother eventually needs to ask: “Do I actually have to?” Riona is a mother of five, organic and biodynamic farmer on the Bellarine Peninsula, and a magnificent should-farker. Together, she and Jodi talk about the way modern motherhood can become deeply extractive: people coming to take from the mother, judge the mother, advise the mother, and somehow still expect the mother to make the cup of tea. Wild. Truly. This episode is for the mum who has found herself apologising for her child existing loudly in public. The one who feels watched in the supermarket. The one who is tired of earning imaginary medals for coping quietly. The one who suspects there might be another way to mother without shrinking herself to make everyone else comfortable. Inside this episode:  why mothers apologise for children who are simply being children  how postnatal culture can become extractive instead of supportive  why women often bond over birth trauma, but hide beautiful birth stories  how judgement pulls mothers away from their own instincts  why “says who?” is a wildly useful parenting question  how community can become an access point back to yourself This is not a neat little parenting tips episode. It is a conversation about instinct, responsibility, power, pause, and the kind of mothering that stops outsourcing its authority to the imaginary judge in the room. Press play if you are ready to stop apologising for taking up space as a mother. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Loved this? Come deeper. QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family. Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com Preparing for birth — wherever you are High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices. → quantimama.com/highvibebirth Planning for postpartum Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation. → quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery Questioning school or considering homeschooling? Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first. → quantimama.com/take-the-leap Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

    What Changed When I Stopped Apologising for My Kids - Part 1
  7. Aug 14

    Planned Caesarean Birth Meditation | Empowered C-Section Rehearsal for Calm, Trust & Connection

    Prepare for your baby's arrival with this guided planned caesarean birth meditation and C-section rehearsal from QuantiMama's Jodi, creator of High Vibe Birth. Designed for expectant mums preparing for a planned caesarean, this gentle visualisation helps you mentally rehearse the experience of your baby's birth before the day arrives - from leaving home and arriving at hospital, to meeting your care team, seeing your baby for the first time and settling into connection, recovery and rest. Rather than experiencing caesarean birth only as a clinical or surgical event, this meditation invites you to experience it as something deeply personal, intentional and connected. You are guided to visualise yourself arriving at hospital feeling prepared, recognising the people around you as your team, connecting with your baby, trusting your body and allowing yourself to feel calm, supported and present as your baby's birth unfolds. Throughout the rehearsal, you'll be invited to practise: connecting with your baby before birthbreathing into calm, trust and anticipationvisualising your arrival at hospitalfeeling welcomed and supported by your birth and medical teamrecognising the extraordinary work your body has already done growing your babyremaining present as your baby is bornimagining the first moment you see and meet your babynoticing the reassuring sounds and activity around youallowing your body to move into recovery and restorationvisualising closeness, touch, skin-to-skin and bonding with your babysettling into rest, stillness and connection after birthThe meditation gently reframes a planned caesarean as the birth of your baby - an experience in which you can still feel involved, connected, supported and deeply present. Use this rehearsal regularly in the lead-up to your baby's birth. You may listen quietly as a guided pregnancy meditation or use it as an intentional visualisation practice to make the environment, emotions and transitions of your planned caesarean feel more familiar. The aim is not to control exactly how your birth unfolds. It is to give your mind and nervous system a familiar pathway to return to - one grounded in breath, trust, connection and confidence. This free meditation forms part of the QuantiMama approach to empowered birth preparation and complements the deeper practices taught through High Vibe Birth and QuantiMama Birth Immersions. About Jodi and QuantiMama Jodi is the founder of QuantiMama, a birth educator, former Advanced Life Support paramedic and clinical instructor, mother of four and creator of High Vibe Birth. QuantiMama supports families to prepare for birth with practical tools, nervous-system awareness, informed choice and a deep respect for each family's individual birth pathway. Whether you are preparing for vaginal birth, caesarean birth, hospital birth or another supported pathway, the goal is not to prescribe one "right" birth. It is to help you feel more informed, connected and capable of meeting your baby's birth in a way that feels right for you. Explore more QuantiMama birth resources and support through the links in the show notes. Important: This meditation is a supportive pregnancy and birth-preparation resource. It is not medical advice and does not promise or guarantee a particular birth experience or recovery outcome. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Loved this? Come deeper. QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family. Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com Preparing for birth — wherever you are High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices. → quantimama.com/highvibebirth Planning for postpartum Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation. → quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery Questioning school or considering homeschooling? Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first. → quantimama.com/take-the-leap Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

    Planned Caesarean Birth Meditation | Empowered C-Section Rehearsal for Calm, Trust & Connection
  8. Aug 14

    Positive Birth Meditation & Guided Birth Rehearsal | Natural Labour, Calm & Confidence

    Prepare your mind and body for birth with this guided positive birth meditation and natural labour rehearsal from QuantiMama's Jodi, creator of High Vibe Birth. This is more than a relaxation meditation. It is an embodied birth visualisation designed to help you mentally and physically rehearse labour before the day arrives - building familiarity with the sensations, breath, movement, partner support and inner steadiness you may draw on during birth. Through guided breathing, body awareness and visualisation, you'll rehearse moving through waves of labour, relaxing and surrendering between surges, connecting with your baby, changing positions instinctively and receiving loving support from your partner or beloved. The rehearsal takes you from the early sensations of labour through increasing intensity, downward pressure, birth and finally the moment of meeting and holding your baby. You'll be guided to practise: slowing and lengthening your breath through labour surgesrelaxing, releasing and conserving energy between wavesmoving instinctively and finding comfortable labour positionsconnecting with your baby throughout labourreceiving affirmations, light-touch massage and physical support from your birth partnervisualising your body opening and your baby moving downtrusting your own inner knowing as birth unfoldsimagining the powerful transition into meeting your babyAt the heart of the meditation is the intention: Your baby is born in a way that is for your highest good and your baby's highest good. Use this birth rehearsal regularly during pregnancy, either on your own or together with your partner. You may listen quietly as a guided meditation, or make it a physical rehearsal by moving, breathing and practising the positions and partner-support techniques as they are described. Repeated birth rehearsal can help make the experience feel less unfamiliar - not by controlling how birth unfolds, but by giving your nervous system a practised reference point for meeting labour with greater calm, confidence and connection. This free meditation is part of the QuantiMama approach to empowered birth preparation and complements the deeper practices taught through High Vibe Birth and QuantiMama Birth Immersions. About Jodi and QuantiMama Jodi is the founder of QuantiMama, a birth educator, former Advanced Life Support paramedic and clinical instructor, mother of four and creator of High Vibe Birth. QuantiMama supports families to prepare for birth with practical tools, embodied confidence, informed choice and a deep trust in their own capacity to make decisions that fit their family. Explore more QuantiMama birth resources and support via the links in the show notes. Important: This meditation is a supportive birth-preparation and wellbeing resource. It is not medical advice and does not promise or guarantee a particular birth outcome. Send us Fan Mail Support the show Loved this? Come deeper. QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family. Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com Preparing for birth — wherever you are High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices. → quantimama.com/highvibebirth Planning for postpartum Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation. → quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery Questioning school or considering homeschooling? Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first. → quantimama.com/take-the-leap Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

    Positive Birth Meditation & Guided Birth Rehearsal | Natural Labour, Calm & Confidence

About

"Faark The Shoulds" plus little sister podcast, Alchemising Education - Inspirational, practical, transformational conversations from QuantiMama.com's wife and husband team, Jodi & McGill together with their 'sister from another mother' Curious QuantiMama Kerri on High Vibe Birth, Parenting, Relationships and Life. It starts with noticing the "shoulds" in your life; what that means and how to remedy that programming to live honestly, authentically and embody pure love and most importantly, master the ability to 'fark the shoulds'. Join the fun; be challenged, be inspired, get curious, be entertained by this refreshingly honest and intoxicatingly insightful smorgasbord of conversations, peppered by the odd swearword and abundant with seed sprouting and lightbulb moments. Check out QuantiMama's courses: High Vibe Birth; Take The Leap (to Homeschooling); countless other awesome offerings.