Update on the film

Since someone asked, coinciding with recent decisions, I thought I'd just do an update.

Thu Paul asks:  "How and where can I get a copy of this film?"

When distribution happens I will post it here but the actual purchasing will be on my website, www.theothersideoftheglass.com.

In working through the obstacles (completion details, finances, logistics, technology) of getting this film out there, and extensive researching on online distribution, I've decided to distribute it online prior to DVD production. 

First, I want to honor my commitment to the donors to "be first to get Part One". They will get online access first, before I open it up to the world.  People who donated will always get the best deals and access, and donations are accepted until I am ready to distribute for sell.

$100 donors still get a screening right, a copy, and business name in credits, and online access.
$500 or more are listed Associate Producers.
$1000 or more are listed as Co-Producers.
(listed in credits until it is uploaded, a week or two)

Secondly, I have realized that online download and rental for mobile devices is the way the world is going.

DVD distribution is very intensive and costly, especially the green DVD products I want to do, as plastics in the environment and water quality are a major concerns of mine. 

DVD production requires many steps that is not required to begin online sells, and in the world today, it makes total sense to do online distribution. People can download to their mobile device. I can see that men in particular are more likely to watch when they can, on their mobile device rather than sitting down to watch a DVD.

Thirdly, this film is my deep, deep personal healing story and my family's story.  The plan I am developing allows me to begin distribution, to get it out there, and importantly, to have a sense of control over. This is important to me, as a human being:  while I am still in such a vulnerable place, so impacted by this five year labor and birth;  while I deal with the world's perceptions, expectations, and complaints; and while I process and deal with the personal and financial impact that doing this film continues to have on me and my daughter.   It continues to be the hardest, most amazing, most rewarding thing I've done in my life. It is my life's purpose, and what a blessing to know and do that, and to have so much love and support from around the world.

Lastly, the bottom line is, mostly because of finances, if I don't distribute it online first, the film ain't happening.

The Kickstarter campaign done a year ago was for finishing funds" when I did not yet know that Part One was yet to be birthed in fall and winter, 2012.  Part One, finished in December, will be available online in a membership format. All the donors will have access to it.  I have much to do yet to figure this all out and get it set up online. My learning curve is long. Until and unless an investor or major donor comes along, this is my process.

I am always and forever deeply grateful for and appreciate the people who have made this film possible with their financial gifts. Like pre-viewers say, it's going to change the world, and they say it changes them immediately. That is why I was able to continue, for five years, and why people cared enough to support it.   We will and are making a difference. We will heal earth by healing birth.

I appreciate your patience and support.

Watch Your Language and End Male Violence

In order to change the climate of birth women need to get clear on some things about the baby; and, it needs to be reflected in the language so that women and all people get it. If we truly want to end violence against women we need to end violence against baby boys.

While it is the woman's - the mother's experience of giving birth - and this is a mighty thing, birth is the baby's birth. Being born is a monumental, defining experience for a human being. Baby experiences everything. The mother experienced her own birth; and, her experience will contribute to her experience of birthing her baby. A woman is on some level re-birthing herself when she births her baby. A "mother is also being born."

Men/fathers do not have this opportunity to "heal through birth" of their child, nor to be "birthed as a father" regardless of where birth and who the caregiver is. The role and needs of men are in need of serious consideration. Men don't get "rebirthed" through their experiences. Their "stuff" is just "out there".. unspoken and unseen, and unacknowledged. Aren't men good at "stuffing feelings? Isn't that a main complaint by women in relationship with men? This is the result, I implore you to consider, of never being acknowledged as a feeling, sentient being from the womb forward.

How long has this anger at women been going on? A long time. This inability of men to bring forth life and to be healed by it, and to be discounted for providing the seed of life, well, it must be a source of deep anger. It must be why the men in the Church and in Medicine joined forces to conquer nature, via women's bodies in the 14th and 15th centuries. The war is deeply entrenched now.

Now, in 2013, women's mantra is, "Its MY body!!" While women fight for their body integrity rights daily, and in birth, the average women, even midwives and doulas, do not use proper language to support the autonomy and body integrity of the woman .. as a baby girl, certainly not for the baby boy. The understanding of biology and neuroscience of the primal period is completely lost on the majority of people, especially and ironically, the medical birth caregivers.  WHO the baby is  - at least physiologically - in the womb is a fascination and amazing study in the field of "fetal programming." However, this profound body of recent verification of the early primal human being, and the understanding of the functioning of the nervous system/brain is totally forgotten by the researcher's obstetric colleagues during labor and birth. Or ignored, because they can, because it is lucrative, and importantly, because it creates an unconscious, collective agenda of disempowering human beings.

"If we hope to create a non-violent world where respect and kindness replace fear and hatred, we must begin with how we treat each other at the beginning of life. For that is where our deepest patterns are set. From these roots grow fear and alienation ~ or love and trust." - Suzanne Arms

We know this!! When we reeeeeeally know this, we stop harming because we know WHO the baby really its. We've been quoting it for as long as I've been in this field specifically looking at the roots of violence via birth. Thirteen years. And violence against women, at birth, is ever increasing. This means the violation of the baby, in the most foundational time is increasing and wiring humanity for fear and alienation.  Change starts with our thinking and our language, and then new action based on that.

Our current language that focuses only on mother is symptomatic and the feminine consciousness is where we can begin to change violence - violence against women and violence of boys and girls. Honestly, when I look around and I hear the stories, all I see, is profound wounding of the masculine and desperate, dire acting out, reaching out to the Feminine to heal. From the time I was in a violent relationship, and before that, ironically, where I finally convinced the board of directors at the violence shelter where I was on the board that abusers are abused and I developed a program for men ...  all I see in the angry men is deep pain from profound wounding. 
Violence is a result of boundary violations of the powerless. Baby boys and baby girls are powerless. Birth is where we need to go to address the roots of violence. We can start by honoring who the gestating, laboring, birthing, and newborn baby really is. We can start by adjusting our language to reflect this.  The waters and the membrane are the baby's tissues. The cord and placenta are the baby's tissues. These are the baby's body. The gestating, laboring, and birthing baby's body tissues - BOUNDARIES - need to be respected.

When the WOMAN only sees herself and not her baby, she is violating a sacred, critical boundary that has huge ramifications for humanity. Monsanto is a result of this. It's that big. And, it's that simple and yet so damaging. "My water broke". "They broke my water, cut my cord, and I encapsulated my placenta, I healed me with the VBAC, etc, etc, etc" ... it's all about me, the woman, me, me, me. It all IMPRINTS in very early self a DISCONNECT between mother and baby.  Men are saying, "Heeeelll no, it ain't just about you." And, based on his early wiring of being violated, separated, wounded -- most likely by a lot of women from his labor through circumcision, he is trying to regain is power. And, we call it all Love.

The physical, emotional and spiritual job of all us as humans beings is to differentiate ourselves from the woman who birthed us, while maintaining this most defining and Divine connection in human existence. It's a lifelong job and it is damn hard when we experienced violence and no one acknowledges it. And, it all shifts big time when the women get who the baby really is.

When the woman does not get who SHE was as a baby and who her baby really is, and I mean, deeply get and honor this, she is creating an imprint of boundary violating and she is disregarding her baby's personhood. She is programming her baby to feel as she has felt because our culture has long ignored this in the violation of birth and boundaries of women. Her waters, her bag, her cord, her placenta. We can and do deeply love our babies, I am not saying that, but who reading this does not have the deep, deep desire for his or her mother "to just get me?" "Just see me." "Just acknowledge me?"

This discussion is very significant to our extreme issues with boundary violations in relationships, with passive-aggressive communication and behavior the norm. It is critical in the discussion on the never-ending, but worsening violence against women and girls. The old psychological theory of the man acting out his relationship with his mother is well known, even if discarded by the theorists and psychologists (99.9% who do not "count" their conception through early infancy as important). This understanding of the needs of gestating, laboring, birthing and newborn baby to be seen, felt, heard, acknowledged and boundaries respected is critical, big stuff.

So, the woman is able to reclaim something for herself in birth, but in doing so without regard for the baby, the mother is doing some "bad" programming when she disregards her baby's physiological body boundaries. Both the girl and boy child are effected when the mother does not acknowledge the baby's body, but the boy who grows up to be a man has no way as a man to reclaim himself through birth, "to heal himself" as is the common mantra today. Multiply this wounding if the mother chooses to circumcise her son's penis with no regard for how his body is HIS, and the foreskin is HIS.

As a society we need to STOP THE HARMING. One of the things women and caregivers must do is GET WHO THE BABY IS and stop violating the boundaries of women and babies in most of their medicalized care. WE, non-medical caregivers and adults can begin to use language that honors the physiological boundaries of the baby. This is the precursor to great skills as caregivers and as parents, and to healing after being violated in the medical system. If the mother and father are speaking to the baby, "We know it is your cord and placenta and we are fighting for your right to have your blood" or if the mother communicates WITH the baby about what is happening when the choice is made for her, or she feels it's necessary, they mediate the impact. This is a very valuable mindset, understanding, and skill for mothers and fathers to help their child throughout life -- to deal with the boundary violations done to them "by the system" as they came into the world. It requires that they know their own baby woundings.

As a society we need to HELP THOSE WHO'VE BEEN HARMED TO HEAL. When an adult gets clear on what happened to me, my membranes, my waters, my cord, and my placenta, they can "be with" their baby's emotional states.

The claiming of one's body as a baby, as an adult, gives one the ability to differentiate one's own baby emotions from their new baby's. This allows the mother and father to understand their newborn's emotional state separate from their own issues. Otherwise, the adult, the mother and father, often struggle with baby's, cries, for example, and unresolved it effects them throughout life. This is particularly true for the man, the father. He has not had the direct connection with baby and his early self is so wounded. It pokes big time at that big festering boil of stuffed emotions. It is very critical for men to heal their early wounds and learn these skills.

This is where the discussion of violence against women and girls and children by men needs to go ... People need to embrace their own sweet little baby's experience and claim, process, and own their own baby's story. From here, one can rewire those early imprints. So, the title is simplistic, but the job is huge. The wherewithal to heal one's own self requires a deep desire to not be in the pain, and to see that pain is inevitable but misery is optional.  It requires the deep desire to find that inner connection -- to the Mother and it is doable. 

We have to heal ourselves and to stop the harming.