Maybe we do wallow too much in our pain and neglect the positive in ourselves and our experience. My current research has to do with evoking hope and positive affect. Also, I've been thinking about the comments on being alien to the earth and the birth trauma. Midwives and obstetricians tell me that babies may smile when they are born. Maybe they cry in greeting and not in dispair.
Children are extremely resilient.
We need not be perfect around them. They certainly can sense an authentic attempt even if mistakes are made in the process. Yes, I too think that womens' experience may not be the same. Perhaps our task is not to delve into the swamp since we live more experientially there, but to recognize the territoy we are in and to tell a story not of navigation and survival, but of moving beyond. Maybe we need a guide not into the meaning of the swamp, but permission to find meaning beyond the swamplands.