Somatic Therapy for Family Nourishment - Part 2
Connection Trumps Control
In my Somatic Therapy for Family Nourishment - Part 1 blog post, I wrote about the relational process of invitational care and how it offers more sustainable bodily and relational healing. I used examples of my experience working at an eating disorders treatment center in an effort to highlight how the relational process, the capacity for the caregiver to offer a Circle of Support to one in need, sets the stage for integrative body-mind healing and nourishment.
In this post, I’ll specify a little deeper how caregiver connection trumps control, particularly as it relates to a robust quality of embodiment we all deserve to experience to live with satisfaction, empowerment and authenticity.
Embodiment from Womb-to-Walking-and-Beyond
Over time, when one can practice tuning into their deep core hungers, their Belly-brain, their gut instincts, they become more adept at moving through the world with others and within themselves with more authenticity, empowerment and satisfaction. Many times this takes practicing these developmental dances in relationship with someone who can hold the Circle of Support as one's new movement, new "ahas,” and eventual self-regulation, wakes up a little at a time, over and over. Sustainable, self-supported growth of one’s hunger for life—sustainable pelvic-jaw alignment as well as pre- and post-pubescent embodiment—takes time, curiosity, compassion and care.
Ideally, the embodiment of one’s hunger for life, as well as their capacity to eventually self-regulate and individuate, takes place with primary caregivers and a community of support from toddlerhood, throughout puberty, and then continues throughout the late teen and early adult years. However, due to a variety of limitations—cultural, familial, developmental, systemic, to name a few—sometimes people need to redo these developmental embodiment dances in an effort to re-inhabit their body and more fully experience being their unique self.
How Specific Somatic Practices Can Help Heal Complex, Attachment and Multi-generational Trauma
Over the past several years, I helped co-develop a polyvagal-informed, multigenerational, trauma healing method called Chi for Two®—The Energetic Dance of Healthy Relationship. In addition to being based on scientist Stephen Porges' understanding of nervous system anatomy and Peter Levine’s understanding of trauma patterning, the practices draw from the work of major attachment theorists (Ainsworth, Tronick, Hazan, Shaver, Mikulincer), as well as the infant development understanding of Bonnie Bainbrige Cohen, creator of Body-Mind Centering, and the developmental rhythms identified by child psychiatrist Judith Kestenberg and colleagues.
“Recent studies and discoveries increasingly point out that we heal primarily in and through the body, not just through the rational brain. We can all create more room, and more opportunities for growth, in our nervous systems. But we do this primarily through what our bodies experience and do—not through what we think or realize or cognitively figure out.” ― Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
Because the Chi for Two practices are all invitational, they celebrate the awakening of inhibited infant developmental rhythms that include not only the needs to connect but also to separate, to individuate. The latter can often present in various ways as more percussive, staccato, biting—especially if they awaken due to trauma response. Being mindful of offering practices in an invitational way allows for clients to move at their own pace, to consider their preferences, to ease into new movement or expressions that might feel like, “Is this okay now?”
When clients try new ways to embody their “fighting” rhythms using specific Chi for Two practices, they experience not only the movements but also the relational experience as a symbolic redo to help re-parent their nervous system functioning. Clients gain more movement expressions that are mobilized by the nervous system state called Play/Dance, which helps to expand one’s capacity for a more rhythmic digestive pace.
When Choice v. Compliance is Supported, Nervous System Regulation Expands
Similar to the photo in this blog post, the Chi for Two practices are designed to be offered from the caregiver as a symbolic redo. Like this playful but important spoon-feeding photo, when a caregiver can literally or figuratively get more curious and even playful about inviting movement expression, the one on the receiving end is better able to show more preference and feel more celebrated rather than resort to trauma responses such as performing and/or dissociating due to shame.
The freedom of head and neck to make the gesture No when one does not want to do something allows them to make choices. If one does not feel free to say No, Yes is not a choice.
This “No”, this turn away from the caregiver, or what the caregiver is offering, can frighten those who have built-in power authority. That’s often where the knee-jerk reactions of control, compliance and fear come into play. This tends to result in co-dysregulation. However, the invitation to offer choice is not about letting go prematurely but more about the caregiver loosening their grip in an effort to allow the one in their care to take up more space, to express needs and wants, to birth the parts and feelings that have had to remain dormant, tiny or weak. When those movements and expressions feel more connection within supportive relationships, they can be channeled into more sustainable practices, resulting in less trauma response.
When one is able to feel secure enough to Know their No, to twist away from trusted support in an effort to consider other possibilities, they’re better able to digest and metabolize the eventual scaffolding that happens in development because they sense more support, more stability, more predictability among the waves and stages of life.
When No is an option, Yes is a Choice.
Therefore, the turn of a head to express a No has more possibility to be celebrated as one’s unique preference, which allows for more movement expression of individuation. Ideally—less parts are hidden, more feelings are allowed, more acceptance is felt, more movement expression is normalized. We move away from the pressure to be solely be “calm” and move toward a more robust quality of celebrating moving, eating, thinking and feeling from the inside-out.
These new movement expressions, this settling into the support of a caregiving system that embodies Social Engagement System functioning (aka: nervous system regulation), births more co-regulation, more sustainable bodily functioning. For those struggling with eating issues, peristalsis, a rhythmic pace to digestion and elimination has a greater capacity to occur and sustain.
When connection, support and celebration surround us, we can better move into our bodies rather than away from our bodies. We move toward authentic connection—showing up as our uniquely mismatching selves—rather than toward compliance and people-pleasing. We move toward what we want rather than run away from what we don’t. We Reach for our deeper hungers to stoke the fire in the belly that keeps us hungry for life. 🔥🌀
For more info on professional trainings, visit ChiforTwo.com
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