Sacred Birth Journey - a class for couples

Sacred Birth Journey Instructors are schooled in how to bring deep connection into the couple's experience BEFORE baby comes, so they feel more solid in their relationship and more mentally + physically + spiritually ready to welcome a new baby into their home.

Next class starts August 10th, 2016 in Fort Collins, CO

This is not your typical birth education class. This class is designed to give you as a couple tools to create and maintain a deep connection to each other as well as your coming baby. It will also cover some of the topics you would expect from a birth education class, but it is more about helping you to connect with yourself, your partner, and your baby to create a beautiful birth experience.

The 5 week “sacred birth journey” courses are for pregnant couples and explore the following topics:

Week ONE : STANDING AT THE EDGE

sacred space + couples connect + birth visualizations + vision cards + mala making + mantras

Partner Projects : birth vision cards + making a mala & mantras + heart to heart connection with beloved

Week TWO : SURRENDER

TRUST + fear release + LOVE HORMONE "oxytocin" + 'surrender' with the power of the senses

Partner Projects : mother wisdom + animal wisdom meditation + diving into the senses + finding your "sacred scent" (smell) + surrender with chocolate (taste) + birth song (sound) + sacred kiss (touch)

Week THREE + FOUR : BIRTH

Birth Talk : PRACTICE limp & loose + stages of labor + birth videos + ohm-ing + Love LABOR METHOD + creating a SACRED HOSPITAL EXPERIENCE + SACRED KISS

Partner Projects : LOVE labor method + practice deep voice toning & ohm-img + learn a few rebozo techniques for comfort + birth ball + date with nature

Week FIVE : RITE OF PASSAGE

Rite of passage + mother roasting + salt bowl + bow meditation (claiming parenthood)

Partner Projects : salt bowl + crossing the threshold into parenthood + learn traditional sacred belly bind

This is not your typical birth education class...this class is all about getting you out of your head and back into your soul and your body.

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Sacred Pregnancy Manifesto (from Sacred Living Movement founder Anni Daulter)

Your Sacred Pregnancy is a journey. 

Our classes hold space for pregnant women to connect with one another and their pregnancy experiences in meaningful and personal ways. Sacred Pregnancy groups are being held all around the world and are the NEW WAVE of the pregnancy + birthing future. We are hell bent on changing the birth conversation as Sacred Pregnancy classes bring back the age old tradition of women sitting with one another during pregnancy and birth, getting EMPOWERED, witnessing each others process and BEING there for one another during an incredibly power-FULL rite of passage…becoming mothers.

Sacred Birth Journey classes are a special place for pregnant women and their partners to gather together, for 5 weeks later on in their ‘pregnancy journeys’. Each week is spent exploring pertinent topics that naturally arise for most women as they walk down their pregnancy paths and encourage deep sharing, exploring ART, expression, laughter, honoring and CELEBRATION. Pregnancy is one of the DEEPEST DRINKS life has to offer, and should always and in all ways be treated as SACRED!

Each woman’s pregnancy pot gets stirred with various emotions and we all need a safe place to process those tides and sip some sanity from the community cauldron. We want to take the pregnancy + BIRTH conversation through winding unsure roads, down unbeaten paths, out on adventures, for a slow dance, get sexy BEAUTIFUL with it, down and bloody with it, cram it with herbs, tears, passion, love and FRESH PERSPECTIVE, crack it open for new rays of sunlight to shine down and help enlightened visions grow, and mostly have fun pouring over all this juicy goodness together, in the new sisterhood we are creating! We are going old school in order to meet women where they need to be met!

The Sacred Pregnancy movement is blossoming because of two things:
1. women are calling for change

2. biz as usual isn’t enough! WE WANT MORE, WE DESERVE MORE, WE CRAVE MORE… and we are waking up to how to GET MORE! And what is this MORE I speak of?

MORE : honoring, love, sisterhood, good food, accurate cutting edge information, peace, calm, less needles and and cranky vibes, JOY, sexy, goofy, flowers, empowerment, creativity, round full gorgeous bellies, herbs, tinctures, soup!, BLISS, good tears, sweet tunes that MOVE us to dance and sweet babies born into our loving embrace.

Classes begin August 10th sign up online by going here

Birth Story Witnessing & Mother's Journal

How does a woman process her birth journey?

There are many ways, but telling her BIRTH STORY is the first critical processing of starting the transition into motherhood.

SHE NEEDS TO BE HEARD! THEN HONORED!

For a new mama to take the time for deep reflection, to look within, find her HEART song, sing it to the world and her babe, and scribe it...gives her the POWER to process!

It allows her freedom to work out the kinks of what she liked and what she didn't like. It opens her to reflection and thus HEALING.

Journaling will increase your conscious AWARENESS and will help you contact your spiritual guidance and higher self.

Why journal?

Journaling brings to life clarity and tenderness as you witness yourself. New mamas can easily begin down a path of having a running stream of inner thoughts that tell them they are not doing it right, or they are not as good as other mothers. Putting a pen to paper can calm negative chatter by allowing for an affirming place to grow that will help uplift instead of tear down.

When you sit with another person, one who can bear witness to your story, it is often more freeing than simply journaling it on your own, which is why we offer Birth Story Witnessing and Tea Ceremony as a part of our service offerings.

Written by Master Mother Roaster Sara Harkness

To find out more about this please visit our Services page or send an email to Sarah: SarahJosey@GoldenPoppyHerbs.com

Postpartum Relationship Tips

Written by Dr. Alyssa Berlin, perinatal psychologist, certified gottman educator

Everyone wants the best for their baby. We want our little one to be happy and healthy and we want to be good parents. It may be surprising to you that one secret to being a good parent is to have a happy relationship with your partner.

However, after we welcome our new addition, there tends to be such a strong focus on the baby that it’s easy to forget about the couple’s relationship. Yes, we want to be good parents but not at the expense of being great partners.

Improving relationship satisfaction between partners is crucial throughout the transition to parenthood. Little else poses the same threat to a relationship more than having a baby. We will discuss the main ways that becoming parents changes the partner relationship and how to strengthen and enhance your bond with one another.



There is no getting around it; your relationship with your partner will change when you have a baby.

1. The primary change that happens surrounds the new roles that you each have now that you are officially parents. As new parents, there is a tendency for roles within your new family to become more traditional; one person often assumes the hunter/gatherer role while the other person focuses on nurturing and care giving.

2. A number of physical and emotional changes occur as well. I am sure you have heard the rumors regarding the scarcity of sleep when your new bundle arrives. With the loss of sleep that commonly occurs comes a cessation in many important relationship sustaining behaviors, such as a reduction in sex, spontaneous conversation, date night and self-care activities. Bottom line, any activity that has to compete with sleep in those early months will lose.

**Unfortunately when we stop nurturing ourselves and our relationship, it is common for partners to withdraw from one another. This often leads to feelings of distance and isolation and marks the beginning of the downward cascade in relationship satisfaction.

3. After a baby is born it is common for dad or the non-birthing partner to inadvertently become marginalized. Commonly, mom is enveloped in a circle of love and support by female onlookers, all with the best intentions of helping mom acclimate to her new role. However, it may leave little room for the nonbirthing partner to join the party. As such, the non-birthing partner will likely retreat and focus his or her efforts on the newly assigned role of hunter/gatherer and financially providing for the family. The non-birthing partner’s immediate withdrawal from the family leaves mom feeling abandoned and alone and will be another precipitating factor in their relationship discord.

4. Many couples struggle with the perceived “loss of freedom” that is born with the new addition to the family. Specifically, couples will struggle with the inability to maintain their former social life prior to baby. This will be compounded if there is a discrepancy between partners as to how much of their former night life should or should not be traded for diaper duty.


There are numerous ways that you can strengthen your relationship with your partner, even before the baby’s arrival.

1. Take a deep breath, let yourself off the hook, and recognize that what you are feeling is NORMAL. This is a crucial component, because with the realization of normalcy comes a lot of internal calm and peace of mind. Recognize that birth and parenthood are powerful, life changing moments and there will be a NORMAL period of adjustment that accompanies these milestones.

2. We want to keep partners involved from the beginning. Prior to the baby’s arrival, sit down with your partner and discuss specific jobs and/or bonding moments that will be designated for your partner, and only for your partner, irrespective of the well meaning (pushy?) family and friends that just want to “help out,” i.e. bath, massage, story time, play.

**It is interesting to note that Mother Nature clearly defines mom’s role: she will carry the baby for 9+ months, give birth to the little bundle and if inclined, she will breastfeed the baby. However, the non-birthing partner’s role is more ambiguous and up to each individual family to define. As such, when you discuss with your partner what role he/she wants to play, you help to clarify his/her role and anchor them to the family. This can minimize feelings of confusion, loneliness and isolation and enhance the bonding process between partners and baby.

3. It is really important to restore emotional intimacy to the relationship ASAP. This alone is the key to relationship satisfaction after baby. You can accomplish this in three pivotal ways: date night, sex and talking.

**People are confused about date night. The assumption is that it has to take place out of the home and must occur at night. Wrong. The purpose of date night is to rekindle the spark between two people. This can happen at any time and any place. Right after your baby is born it may feel daunting to go out for the typical “dinner and a movie” date that your remember from your pre-baby days. Simplify. Stay home as long as you are accomplishing the goal of enhancing the closeness between the two of you – it counts as a date. Remember, anything that has to compete with sleep will lose. So let’s save date night by having a date in the morning or afternoon or any other time of day that is feasible for you.

**Sex adds a different level of electricity to a relationship and is a big proponent of a couple’s emotional connection with each other. Therefore, I encourage you to resume physical intimacy when it is feasible and mutually desired by both parties. In the interim, “nonthreatening massage,” cuddling and touch are invaluable ways to stay connected and minimize feelings of isolation and loneliness.

**Talking is a great way to stay in sync with your partner. It’s the day to day interactions, the small things that really lay the foundation of love, romance and happiness in the relationship as a whole.

**Set aside a specific time (not at night) each day to talk to each other.



I suggest connecting with your partner on 3 levels:
**Emotionally: how is your partner feeling?
**Cognitively: what is your partner thinking?
**Physically: How is your partner healing?

Take turns listening and supporting each other in a nonjudgmental way. With all of these in place, the postpartum relationship can start its journey with more ease and with conscious awareness.

New couples should spend time EVERYDAY lying NAKED with each other, if even for 10 minutes...This does not have to lead to sex but can provide intimate physical connection while a woman's body is healing. This is a good life practice to maintain the heat connected between two lovers.

*Institute Naked Time into your daily routine with your partners. 10 minutes a day for at least a week, and journal on how it impacts your relationship.



Here is a COMPASSION 'Go-To' LIST from Sacred Relationships created by Tim & Anni Daulter

When we get into entanglements with our beloved, SOMETIMES we don't respond from our highest selves...This is a good PRACTICE to kick start the conversation from RIGHT MIND! I hope it helps!



Please share and print out if you think this could help you get started from RIGHT MIND when having hard talks with your beloved

About Us

About Sacred Living Northern Colorado:

Sacred Living Northern Colorado is a sister of the national Sacred Living Movement, founded by Anni Daulter. The Sacred Living Movement is all about inhaling the beauty of life and recognizing that all aspects of our life journey need to be  honored, marked, and seen as sacred.

Sacred Living Northern Colorado is managed by Sarah Josey a Clinical Herbalist & Nutritionist and owner of Golden Poppy Herbal Apothecary.

The Sacred Living Northern Colorado blog and newsletter will be filled with up-to-date educational information and inspiring topics related to fertility, pregnancy, birth, parenthood, nourishing foods, and all things relating to bringing the sacred back in to our everyday lives.

About Sarah Josey

Sarah began her journey as a healer when studying biochemistry at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Part way through the program she felt a need to find a healing method that was closer to the rhythms of nature; one that worked with a person’s body and the wisdom innate in us all. Shortly thereafter she began attending the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism in Boulder, CO where she completed their two year program to become a Clinical Herbalist and Clinical Nutritionist.

Her love of working with clients, as well as being in an environment where people could come to learn about natural health options, inspired her to open the Golden Poppy in Fort Collins.
A few years later she discovered the Sacred Living Movement and again felt a desire to bring this to those in her community by offering Sacred Fertility, Sacred Birth Journey, and Sacred Postpartum rites and programs to those who are seeking a deeper connection to themselves.

Sarah’s practice combines a blend of traditional herbalism and wisdom as well as the latest research and knowledge on herbs and nutrition. In this way she has the ability to use what has worked for centuries by traditional healers as well as the many advancements that the modern health field has to offer, creating a blend that is as adaptable and personalized as each of her clients.