Perinatal Coaching for Shifting Fears: From Fear Reaction to Confidence Creation
As a doula trainer, I teach my students that for our clients, every day can feel like Halloween. A new day can bring a new fear to face:
- Fear of pain
- Fear of losing control
- Fear that something will go wrong
- Fear of making the wrong decision
- Fear of not being a “good enough” parent
Sometimes, our clients know exactly what they fear. Other times, fear is running the show before they even realize it.
Traditional birth work often addresses fear through tools such as breathwork, relaxation, and affirmations to help clients manage the fight-or-flight response. As perinatal coaches, we can go further. We help clients recognize their fears, understand the thoughts and mental images behind them, and practice new ways to respond to repetitive, fearful thoughts. Through coaching, we can help them reprogram their minds and responses, creating greater confidence, choice, and agency.
This is the perinatal coaching formula for working through perinatal fears:
Fear → Awareness → Coaching Technique → Practice → Embodied Confidence → Agency
Fear expressions are opportunities to coach!
As perinatal coaches, we don’t view expressions of fear simply as invitations to share more knowledge or opportunities to dismiss a client’s concerns with a reassuring saying. When a client says, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle the pain,” or “What if something goes wrong?” we don’t immediately reassure them or give them more information. Instead, we can get curious.
What is the fear? What picture is the mind creating? And what would it look like to create a new one?
Students in the Transformational Perinatal Coaching program learn to recognize our collective bias toward danger and fear and understand how fear works. This knowledge helps them coach clients during pregnancy and postpartum to recognize their fears, understand their thought patterns, and practice new ways of responding to fear.
What happens when your clients are afraid?
As birth workers, we’re familiar with the fight-or-flight response to labor pain. Fear is the mind and body’s protection system. When we perceive a threat, our attention narrows. We may freeze, become hyper-focused on what could go wrong, or struggle to think clearly and make decisions. When fear becomes the dominant mindset, simply giving someone more information or reassurance doesn’t necessarily make it go away.
That’s where transformational perinatal coaching can make a difference.
It gives us strategies to help clients change not only what they know, but how they think, feel, and respond to the experiences ahead. In our Transformational Perinatal Coaching program, I teach three types of coaching strategies to help clients work through their fears:
- Mind-engaging techniques, such as creating a new mind picture to replace a fearful mental scenario with one that reflects confidence and capability.
- Body-work techniques, such as stepping into a superhero position to practice feeling strong, grounded, and confident.
- Coaching conversations and exercises, such as the Context Exercise and the Math of Labor Pain, which you can find in the practical section of my guide, The Art of Coaching for Childbirth. These exercises help clients explore their fears, challenge limiting assumptions, and develop new perspectives.
The mind that can imagine a fearful scenario can also imagine a different one
As a hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner, one coaching strategy I teach my coaching students is how to intentionally create a new mind picture. Instead of repeatedly picturing what they fear might happen, or the worst-case scenario, clients can practice picturing a new mental picture—one in which they see themselves feeling, having, or doing what they wish for during their experience.
Try this with your clients:
- Identify the fear:“What are you afraid might happen?”
- Notice the mind picture:“When you imagine that happening, what do you see?”
- Create a new picture: “If you could picture yourself responding with confidence, what would you see instead?”
- Practice the new picture: Close your eyes and imagine yourself in that situation. This time, respond with the confidence, support, and resources you want.
The mind that can imagine a fearful scenario can also imagine a different one
Why practice matters
This process is sometimes referred to as suggestibility. Mental rehearsal helps make a new response more familiar. When clients repeatedly practice imagining themselves responding with confidence, they strengthen that mental picture and create a more familiar pathway for responding when a challenging situation actually occurs.
We’re not asking them to pretend that fear doesn’t exist. We’re helping them practice a different way of responding to it.
The more intentionally we practice a new response, the more familiar it can become.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer a client isn’t another piece of information
Let’s bring the body into it
Fear isn’t only a thought. We experience fear in our bodies, too. That’s why we can combine mental rehearsal with simple physical cues that help clients feel grounded and reconnect with the empowering message they’ve created.
- Try the “Gorilla” Tap: Invite your client to gently tap their upper chest, around the thymus, with an open hand, like a gorilla beating its chest. The tapping can serve as a simple physical cue to help them feel strong and grounded when facing a potential challenge. While tapping, invite them to take a few steady breaths and repeat their positive affirmation or imagine the new mind picture they’ve created.
- Try the Superhero Position: Stand tall: Feet grounded. Chest open. Arms raised in a “V” shape. Head up. Invite your client to mirror you and take a few steady breaths as they step into a posture that communicates: “I am here. I am powerful.” Then invite them to repeat their affirmation while holding the position.
Simple?
Yes. And that’s the point. We’re giving clients a physical cue they can practice and return to when fear starts taking over.
This is the power of Transformational Perinatal Coaching.
We aren’t trying to eliminate fear. We’re helping clients become aware of it, understand how it affects them, and practice a new way to respond. And ultimately, we’re helping them move From Fear Reaction to Confidence Creation, the title of our free downloadable coaching guide.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer a client isn’t another piece of information.
It’s a powerful coaching question that creates a lasting difference in how they approach their perinatal experience.
Happy Halloween—and happy coaching! 🎃
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