I Had No Idea What a Sophrologist Was. Jack Sparrow Could Have Said It and I Would Have Believed Him.

Written By Jessica Gabrielzyk

Annette introduced herself as a sophrologist.

And I want to be honest with you. In that moment, if Jack Sparrow had said that word in Pirates of the Caribbean it would have made just as much sense to me. I nodded. I smiled. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

You may remember Annette from the Coffee with Expats post. The one where I said we should start next time from the things she did not do. Turns out there was still more I did not know about.

So I looked it up.

Sophrology is a structured practice combining relaxation, breathing techniques, and mindfulness-based exercises. It is used for stress management, anxiety, sleep, performance, and — this is where it got interesting for me — pain management during childbirth.

Because here is the thing. When I was writing Maternity Abroad I spent a significant amount of time researching how women around the world help themselves through the pain of labour.

Photo of a woman birthing during birth

The first pain management technique I wrote about was breathing. Controlled breathing patterns — slow and deep, or fast and shallow depending on the moment — used to manage pain and promote relaxation during labour. It appears across cultures and across birth philosophies in different forms. Sophrology is one of those forms. A structured, named version of something women have been doing instinctively for a very long time.

And then Annette mentioned that her work includes helping expectant mothers stay grounded and present. That sophrology gives women a tool for exactly that moment when the body is doing something enormous and the mind needs somewhere to go.

I did not know what a sophrologist was forty eight hours ago. Now I am sitting here thinking about all the women who found their way to something that helped them through labour and never knew there was a name for it. Or found a completely different name for the same thing. It is good that there are many ways in. Not every woman finds the same door and not every door works the same way for every body.

I went into that meeting looking for a mentor and came out knowing what sophrology is. Both useful. Unexpectedly.
Annette's work is at trulybalance.com if you want to know more. Maternity Abroad, which includes a section on breathing techniques and pain management approaches from around the world, is available on Amazon.

Jessica Gabrielzyk

Jessica Gabrielzyk

Jessica Gabrielzyk is a Brazilian writer living in Switzerland. She moved there with her husband and daughter, who was three months old at the time and had strong opinions about the whole thing even then.

She writes about change.

The visible kind and the kind that happens inside a person, while everything on the outside looks fine.

Her first book, Maternity Abroad, explored what it means to become a mother far from the system you trusted. It has reached readers in more than fifteen countries across five continents. Parenting Unpacked, her second book, follows the experience of parenting through major life disruption, whether that's an international move, a career loss, a new baby, or a life that simply stops responding the way it used to. My First American Coloring Book was created to help toddlers engage with daily life in the United States through play and familiar imagery.

She is a member of SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, and the International Academy of Brazilian Literature.

She writes for the parent who is still inside it, getting through the day, and wondering somewhere underneath all of it who they are becoming.

When she is not writing, she is walking forty minutes uphill with a stroller, telling herself the exercise is the point.

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