A SOFT MOBILE, BREATHABLE BELLY
You are designed to deal with stress.
You are brilliantly equipped to deal with fear.
When your body contracts, it is preparing itself for imminent pain.
When you find yourself bracing, clenching, tightening it does this because it believes that to be vulnerable is dangerous, that it is a matter of survival.
Tension is a somatic response to fear. We need tension. Tension may help save you from immediate danger.
But tension is useful until it isn’t.
Animals come into tension but then once the coast is clear, they shake it off and the moment is gone. Humans with their multi layered and complex nervous systems, struggle to shake it off.
For so many of us we get stuck in the memories of events, somatically our body is still living in that moment of danger. Somatically that moment of contraction; the words that were swallowed, the tears that were held back, the movement that was restricted; it forms a memory. This memory is held deep in our cells. This memory becomes a pattern, it becomes something to come back to next time we feel the fear again. Before we know it, we are repeating the pattern. These patterns become rigid lines in our sense of self, like steel girders they run through us, immovable and unshakeable.
So how can we find a way into embodying a vulnerability without it meaning weakness, a vulnerability that does not represent danger? How can we find a way to letting those fault lines of rigidity, soften and sway, to ebb and flow like water.
I am constantly curious about the idea of a soft belly. A soft, mobile, breathable belly. One that is not constrained, nor restrained by any ideal, any system, any method or any person.
What would that feel like? What would that look like?
Try this - sit in a chair or on all fours.
Allow your belly to soften without changing the shape of your spine.
Notice what you feel.
Notice what happens. The rebounds. The breath. The tightening. The pushing.
Does it feel safe to soften?
Please know that if it does not feel safe, that is not your fault and it is not because you are flawed or broken. It is simply where you are. You may wish to consider working with someone to help you create that container of safety or you may wish to create a place at home, that feels safe.
Where you are is where you are.
In peace