A Conversation with Carista Luminare-Rosen
(The complete Flip interview, with only minor edits, not found in the book)

Carista Luminare-Rosen, Ph.D., is the founder of the Center for Creative Parenting (www.creativeparenting.com), a holistic preconception, prenatal, and early parenting educational service offering counseling, workshops, trainings, and products for those preparing for motherhood. Her holistic-health perspective offers potential parents the opportunity to create a unique preparation plan, integrating their personal and professional needs, whether they prefer to conceive naturally or with the assistance of medical technology.

She is the author of a comprehensive book, Parenting Begins Before Conception: A Guide to Preparing Body, Mind, and Spirit – For You and Your Future Child, which shows future parents how they can lay the foundations for a healthy and happy life before a child is conceived and born.

When do a person’s emotions first begin to be influenced and shaped? Carista responded, “We all know the cumulative effect of childhood experiences on adult lives. Yet some of these effects begin before the child is born. Years ago, after studying many of the great models on human development, I began to realize that something fundamental was missing in the fabric of the family, education, and healthcare system. Why do so many adults spend the core of their creative life in reaction to the effects of their childhood experiences and traumas? What an inefficient use of adult life – to spend it healing yourself from your childhood pain. If all of those resources – time, energy, and money – could instead be utilized to empower the true nature and full potential of the individual, that would be a much better use of one’s life.

“In the American culture this experience of childhood as something to heal from is clearly the norm. What has been profoundly lacking in our social consciousness is a holistic model that can help prevent an incoming child from experiencing unnecessary trauma and can facilitate the awakening and integration of the soul with the human personality.

“Our healthcare system is somewhat immature in its full understanding of human development, from my experience. Not enough value is placed upon the development of the child from conception to birth. It’s been scientifically studied and validated, yet there’s still insufficient understanding and education about what can happen in utero to create lifelong imprints on the fetus. I often hear people say, ‘Back to the womb, when it was safe and everything was nice and quiet.’ That’s not true. Research shows that the child is a thinking, feeling being the first trimester. By the second trimester, the child can actually feel the anxiety and other extreme emotions of the mother. Fear, anxiety, depression – these are all hormonal reactions, and the child marinates in the mother’s hormonal environment. The child who experiences a uterine life where the mother is in a constant state of ambivalence, anxiety, grief, or despair, will have difficulty feeling safe and secure from the beginning of life—which is not at the moment of birth—it’s really from conception onwards.

“If the soul can’t come into a healthy, loving and safe experience, it’s very hard for that child’s essential nature or spirit to really ground itself to her human personality. On the other hand, if a child begins life with parents who care for her whole health, she will innately know some of the intrinsic elements for creating a life of well-being. And since each and every human being is conceived and born, this potential crosses all cultural barriers. It is literally the starting point of preventive medicine. I believe it is every child’s birthright to have a family and culture that support her essential nature, the true self – body, mind, and soul.

“When I began this work two decades ago, there was not much support medically/publicly for this understanding of prenatal consciousness and human development beginning in the womb before birth. With the advent of ultrasound, we’ve been able to see that the child is a thinking, feeling being even in the womb. We can measure its heart rate and observe its facial grimaces. We now know that the auditory system is developed sixteen weeks in utero. Many hospitals have begun offering prenatal bonding classes and teaching parents how to communicate with their developing children.

“Some people don’t really take on the responsibility of optimizing the whole health of their future child until once they’re pregnant and suddenly they get off their addictive substances—which is very late in the game. But it’s never too early and it’s never too late to become a conscious parent. The moment that your heart opens to caring for the future of your child, the bonding has begun.

“Really, the initial preparation for parenthood – the preconception phase – begins the moment a woman or man feels, ‘I want to learn how to optimize the whole health of my future child and make myself as healthy as possible to be a parent.’ The preconception phase can also begin for many people right when they know they’ve found their partner and it’s time to have a child.”

How can parents – or potential parents – set the best possible stage for the birth of their child? Carista responds, “Preconception healthcare is preparing future parents for the arrival of their child. It’s really looking at inspiring and educating the parents, whatever age, to prepare their own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies to be as healthy as possible as vehicles for this future child, because out of that sense of their own whole health they’ll be able to have a greater sensitivity to the developmental needs of their child.

“The Hindu tradition really understands the whole notion of preparing for parenthood, because it embraces the concept of the soul and is open to the possibility that one can commune with the consciousness of this future child. The goal is to nourish and develop each child’s full glory from the beginning of its life. I know many parents around the world who share this sense of deep respect and honor for the divine nature of their children. These parents want to create conditions that celebrate the beauty of – and demonstrate their reverence for – the process of life coming to the human form. Anyone spiritually-minded can prepare for parenthood by embracing this perspective that the child is a soul with very specific developmental needs. Parents can connect and even communicate with the soul of their future child – much as they would with their own soul or higher self – through their preferred meditative practice.

“For those who are not so metaphysically or spiritually oriented – who perhaps don’t even believe in the existence of the soul – and just want to look at how to optimize the physical and the emotional health of their child, there’s a great deal of valuable information available on the web and in most traditional pre-conception books.

“Prospective parents should ask themselves what they can do to prepare their child before she is born or even conceived. Unhealthy parenting has such a negative impact on the adult personae; so conversely, a prebirth holistic model for parenting can produce positive, healthy children. To care for a human life before it has even been created can become a realistic goal of prospective parents and a basic building block to any holistic health care system.

“There’s really a lot potential parents can do to optimize the emotional development of their child. The first place for them to look is at their own emotional health as individuals and as a couple. Have they spent adequate time healing their own childhood wounds, addictions, or abuses? Unaddressed ambivalence and low self esteem can be transferred to the child through the parenting experience. I ask parents to take a very conscious inventory of where they still feel vulnerable, unhealthy or wounded. If the child will be coming into a couple, I suggest that the parents look at the health of their communications and the whole emotional environment between them. I ask, ‘Do you feel that your life circumstances and relationships are such that you can guarantee your child will feel loved and safe twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? If you were a newborn coming into your relationship, where would you feel that you were vulnerable to not receiving the love and care that you needed? What might you need to heal or change in order to really offer your child an ideal environment?”

We asked Carista if having a baby at home versus at a hospital might affect the newborn. “Regarding the birth itself, it is a major rite of passage of great complexity for the baby and the parents. Yet in the Western world, during the past several decades, technological interventions and advances have placed most births in hospitals focusing exclusively on the physical health of the child, denying the psychological and spiritual aspects of birth. No one was aware of or even cared about psyche or soul during your birth. This is significant because we all have physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies needing attention during this extraordinary life event. Traditional models of human development are primarily focused on physiology and biology. But it’s not just your physical body that requires nurturing. Each of your bodies – physical, emotional, mental and spiritual – has very specific developmental needs that, attended together, optimize the health of your whole self; they allow you to embody your true nature as a soul in human form.

“Honoring every birth as a rite of passage sets the blueprint for each human being’s first experiences of life in this world. It can determine whether he of she feels loved, or frightened and insecure. There is a growing movement of conscious birth educators and assistants who value the first movements of life as the blueprint for a child’s first beliefs about life, love, safety and security.”

Does Carista see future generations flipping their approach to parenting? “I am inspired, driven, and guided by a vision of all children being conceived in a state of conscious love by parents who really want them and will do everything they can to optimize the full embodiment of their child’s divine nature from the beginning of life. Most children learn to survive, but the Right-Side Up world of living is about being able to authentically thrive. In the future, Right-Side Up parents will do whatever healing work they need for themselves prior to bringing a child into the world. This preparation and awareness will optimize the full potential and whole health of their child. Consider how remarkable it would be if every child had the opportunity to flourish in a world of consistent love and security from the beginning of life. There is so much a parent can do to nurture and empower the essential self to become a fully realized human being. It’s never too early to prepare oneself to be a parent.”

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The Flip, by Jared Rosen and David Rippe, illuminates a clear path to a vibrant enlightened world where millions of people already live and thrive. It describes in vivid detail and real examples evidence of an upside down world in decay and a Right Side Up world of authentic beings bright with possibility.
The Flip is an owner’s manual for the twenty-first century full of insights, conversations with recognized experts, thought leaders, and visionaries, and actionable exercises and tips you can use to begin your own personal flip.

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