Sophia is a coach, hypnobirthing and yoga teacher who empowers women to embrace calm – whether that’s during pregnancy or in everyday life. She’s a birth and life optimiser!
We start by discussing Sophia’s own journey leaving her unrewarding jobs and letting go of the fear holding her back from starting her yoga training. Sophia’s journey is fascinating – from radio newsreader to NHS communications officer to confidence coach to hypnobirthing teacher. Sophia shares how as an empath / highly sensitive person she has learnt to regulate her emotions and help those around her.
You cannot not influence your birth experience
Sophia was a confidence coach and yoga teacher before becoming a hypnobirthing teacher, which was a natural fit as hypnobirthing is yoga. We discuss the ways in which hypnobirthing can help change your birth experience and the importance of being treated with dignity, compassion and respect.
We also discuss recovery from birth, whether you’ve had a c-section or a vaginal birth and how there is so much pressure to get back to normal life.
But hypnobirthing isn’t just about breathing during labour so we discuss the ways in which hypnobirthing can help you influence everything including your parenting and other life experiences.
The breath is the bridge between your body and your mind
Several years ago Sophia was diagnosed with an atrial-septal defect – a 3cm hole in her heart. It’s an amazing story and Sophia shares how hypnobirthing / yoga helped her prepare for and recover from her surgery. You can’t not be inspired by Sophia’s incredible resilience and positivity.
We also talk a lot in this episode about the importance of language – whether it’s the language used during birth, how our internal self-talk can influence how we feel or talking to our children. Sophia mentions a Japanese belief that children shouldn’t be told “no” during the first two years of their lives – how different would the world be if all children were brought up in this way?
Even if you aren’t pregnant or planning to get pregnant there’s plenty of takeaways from this episode.
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Mentioned in this episode:
- Hypnobirthing
- Yoga
- C-section birth
- The Prenatal Snug Podcast
- Emotional freedom technique
- BRAINS
- Fear-tension-pain cycle
- Neuro-linguistic programming / NLP
- The Prison Doctor*
- Brene Brown*
- Cold water therapy*
- Swamping
*affiliate links – read my policy on affiliate links here
Sophia has created The Prenatal Snug – an online sanctuary for pregnant women to find reassurance and a whole load of wonderful resources for getting through pregnancy and preparing for birth and that includes weekly prenatal yoga.
You can also find Sophia at www.sophiahanson.com and on Instagram @the.prenatal.snug
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