Dare to Be Born

Being born is not a moment, but a process. And it happens several times throughout life.

For human beings, birth has to do with detachment from another forever. Cutting the tie that ties us to someone. Entering an unknown world and assuming the condition of individuality and, therefore, of solitude.

Throughout life, we often find ourselves in situations similar to those we experience at birth. Big breakups, farewells, new beginnings…

These are situations that are wonderful and terrifying at the same time. A real challenge that tests everything we are. Life is what puts us in front of this type of experience most of the time.

But birth can also be a voluntary process. A decision we make when the evidence shows that a great cycle has died and it’s time to inaugurate a new one.

The trauma of being born

Much has been said about the trauma of birth. At the same time, little is known about it. It is presumed that the baby goes through something very close to trauma at the time of birth.

The need to break through, to come into the world in the midst of troubles and difficulties, is a dramatic moment. We gamble with our lives, literally, at that moment.

Crying announces that we are out. Now we are an individual being, thrown eternally into solitude, after having enjoyed the fruits of symbiosis with our mother. The world we enter has a lot of hostility.It does not create the same warmth.

In this new stage, there is cold, there is hunger. They are new sensations. In the womb we had never experienced them.

Before, we did not need to ask for anything, but now we do. They may attend our call, maybe not. They may understand our needs, but the opposite may also happen. We go f rom complete security to uncertainty.

Being born again and again

We will never be as helpless as that first time we were born. But we will have to be reborn repeatedly. And the air of trauma that accompanies these processes will also be repeated. It is an inevitable cycle of life.

Again and again we will feel that we are inhabited by two competing forces. One of them suggests that there is a big world beyond known borders. It is a force that invites us to explore, to risk ourselves.

The other force, on the other hand, draws us towards everything we already know. It emphasizes the advantages of keeping us tied down.

Many times we will not have a choice. We will be thrown into a new stage, into a new world, without anyone consulting us. The death of a loved one, for example, is not something we can accept or reject.

It simply happens and takes us, once again, to a hostile place where we will have to reinvent ourselves. The same thing happens with any great loss or with any radical change.

The big step…

Sometimes we are the ones in charge of managing ourselves and deciding the time and place to be reborn. It happens when we’ve finally accepted that we must complete the process of individualization. Yes, with all its wonders and all its limitations.

It happens when we leave our parents’ house, for example. Or when we decide to end a relationship that had promised to be the answer to all our loneliness.

Or when we recognize the necessity of starting again in an unknown environment, perhaps thousands of miles from home. The same happens when leaving an addiction behind or some dream that we finally see as wrong.

It is impossible to be born again without some trauma. These processes are not carried out in complete serenity and with total control. On the contrary, they are decisions that cost us. They cost tears, strangeness, doubts and expenditure of our energy.

However, just as when we were born for the first time, after we passed through that long tunnel, a whole new world awaits us to explore.

Within each of us lives that adventurous navigator who sails a thousand times to discover new worlds. There is also the frightened child who calls for their mother every time she opens the door to leave the house.

It takes time and effort to decide to be born. But there, outside, everything that we are capable of being awaits us.