Embodied Living
What is your relationship with your body like?
How do you support your child’s relationship with theirs?
Embodied practices and parenting can support the mind/body connection and lead to a healthier, happier life.
Child’s Pose
The disconnect between body and mind in Western culture
Western culture tends to be quite cerebral - focusing attention on what happens in the mind and aiming to control the body and suppress bodily needs. This can cause a disconnect between body and mind, leaving us feeling stressed and even unsafe.
Children in schools (and other settings) are told when to eat, when to move their bodies, when not to move their bodies and even when to go to the toilet.
Consent and bodily autonomy for children are not necessarily requirements in many situations. How many times were you emotionally manipulated into hugging someone you didn't want to, eating something you didn't fancy or wearing something that felt wrong or made you too hot?
All of these factors, as well as stress and trauma, can lead to disassociation with the body. As adults, we might eat more or less than our body needs, forego rest, wear uncomfortable clothes and a whole host of other things due to societal pressures or not being able to read the cues our body is giving us.
One way of processing emotions is to utilise a safe, physical vessel to manifest them in and hold them in. If we can allow an emotion space in our body, attend to the sensations, stay with them and respond to those sensations with movement or some other action if needed, powerful healing can take place. If you do not have a secure connection with your body, this is much harder.
My journey
About 10 years ago, I realised that I did not have a strong connection to my body. One symptom of this was that when I was pregnant I put on a lot of weight and since then I had struggled to really notice the satiety signals my body was giving me. At almost every meal, I would eat more than my body needed and then feel horrible afterwards. Thinking about it now, that may have been because I was undiagnosed coeliac at the time and my body was trying to get the nutrients it needed! Whatever the cause, I still have to be aware when I eat that I am not just going through the motions and consuming more than my body wants.
With this awareness I changed my parenting to include elements of embodied practice. I would model taking time to sense what my body needed and then providing myself with that. On an emotional level, I talk about how I am feeling using not only words to describe my emotions or my thoughts, but also how they feel in my body - where they manifest, what sensations they manifest as, and what I think might help me process them.
This was not an easy practice to adopt, it took concerted effort and time. I had to make time (just a few minutes will do) to close my eyes and really focus on what I could feel in my body. I find lying down in the quiet is best but I have also done it in crowded waiting rooms, on buses and with kids running around me. The more you practice the easier it gets.
My aim has been to raise my son in a way that would repair the disconnection that occurred during his short time in school and when I was parenting in a different way, and support his connection to his body going forwards.
In practice this looks like:
Modelling embodied practices such as asking my body what it needs and exploring emotional responses in my body.
Bringing my son's attention to the messages his body is giving him (we all know that wee-wee hop young children do when they really need the toilet but are too interested in what is happening to go!)
Supporting him to work out what his body needs when the message is unclear. When this happens with my son, the thing he most often needs is to have a bath with some essential oils!
Honouring him when he tells me what his body needs and doing what I can to make sure he gets it. Many of us may have been taught to have a "stiff upper lip" and "just get on with it" when we were feeling unwell but I want my son to know that his body's messages should be listened to and complied with as much as possible. I had to work through some of my embedded messages from childhood to get to this place!
Creating a consent-based environment. He doesn't want to wear a coat - fine. If I think its really cold maybe I will take one along just in case. He doesn't want to eat broccoli - that's ok, we'll find some other delicious dark green veg to enjoy (he has asked me to add that he doesn't eat broccoli due to an unfortunate caterpillar incident). He doesn't want to hug someone - cool. How would you feel about a high five, or a wave?
Informing him about his bodily needs. Having said all the above, I must introduce some nuance. There are certain things that bodies and minds need - nutrition, exercise, hygiene practices, connection. Rather than forcing these things on my son "for his own good", I educate him about them. I talk about research I have heard about, and recommendations. I tell him if I am feeling worried that his body is not getting a need fulfilled and work out an agreement for how that need can be fulfilled in a manner that feels comfortable (and ideally enjoyable) for him.
Body positivity. Did you know that the BMI was never supposed to be applied to individuals? It was designed to assess entire populations and is not fit for the purpose it is currently being used for, particularly because it does not account for gender or race. Yet the NHS seems to be obsessed with it and will often recommend weight loss rather than exploring symptoms further or offering treatment. Of course, we also have to deal with the effects of the media (including social media) and marketing, which tend to favour a certain body type (although this is getting marginally better). I am careful to model body positivity or, at least, body neutrality. I avoid any kind of judgmental language or behaviour about bodies that we see around us, or mine. Again, I have had to do a lot of work myself to come to this place and still have unkind thoughts about my body in the privacy of my own head but I think I do a pretty good job of keeping these away from my son.
Mindfulness techniques. Things like body scans are fairly easy to talk a child through and great for getting them ready for sleep! Maybe I will do a little reel on that later...
A word of caution
I hope that I have convinced you of the importance of embodied living, both for you and your child. As always, the important thing is how you and your family feel about this and it is important to remember that we use disassociation as a protection technique so if being embodied feels very difficult for you or your child it might be worth going gently with it or seeking some professional support so as not to become overwhelmed. People who have been masking for a long time, particularly, may experience a lot of sadness or anger when working through this and need solid support.
More information
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