Last night I was reading Brooke Warner's piece about "Flipping the Script." One of the suggestions she made was to create  mantra for the year. 

This morning, while working on my memoir, my mantra was there, looking right at me. It's a passage from about three quarters of the way through my memoir. I am in labour for the first time, having a terrible go of it.

 “Stop,” I screamed. “I don’t want this life. Please. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be married. I don’t want to live this life. Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!”

             Another contraction hit. I rode its wave of pain, begged for my life to rewind. This wasn’t how my life was supposed to unfold. I stopped pushing. I tried to suck my baby back up inside me, as if this would reverse the decisions that led me here.

“What have I done? What have I done?” I whimpered. “No, no, no!” I screamed.  My body became more rigid with each negative incantation.

            “Change the No to Yes,” Irene said looking into my eyes. “You have to change the No to Yes.”

            With that first Yes I felt my body yield a fraction. More yield with the second Yes. By the third Yes my baby’s head began to crown.

Irene’s advice saved me that day. Not only did she save my labour, I used her mantra many more times in my life when I was afraid and couldn’t find my way out of dark corners of my own making.