Let’s dig deeper into the Chi for Two® practices of Push and Reach/Grab/Pull

It was lovely presenting Chi for Two® - The Energetic Dance of Healthy Relationship with my son and Tai Chi teacher Stephen Wagner at the Dance Therapy Advocates Summit this weekend. We spoke about the value of understanding the innate interactions between wild mammal mothers and their babies. 

 Afterwards, as I stood in line at the grocery (6 feet from the person in front and behind, in my mask, which can feel like being muzzled), I noticed the cover of the latest issue of O: The Oprah Magazine. I was drawn to the words Don't Blame Mom! The therapy that focuses on your future—regardless of your past. I thought about the way that Chi for Two® invites us to look far into the past, to examine the historical struggles within human culture to attempt to civilize our animal urges—trying to learn to live and work together.

 Chi for Two® practices offer an appreciation of our evolutionary animal programming—our intense visceral or habitual urges, sensations or needs. When we better understand and appreciate our animal programming, we can shift our urges to fight with our mothers. Like many other mammals, our baby hands are wired to cling to the-body-we-come-out-of. Our arms and legs are wired to push against the-body-we-come-out-of. When we can healthily challenge our caregiver and they can healthily handle all of our feelings and pushes, we develop our own sense of self. It is through pushing into what is Not-Me, that I find Me! 

When we shame our animal urges, our expression of the natural clinging and pushing moves become repressed. Often, they will then show up later in life in our romantic dances complicating our relationships with lovers. 

How Our Bodies Are Wired

Polyvagal understanding of our nervous system functioning helps us recognize that shutting down movement is a dorsal vagal function. Coming out of dorsal vagal Shut-down requires a burst of Fight/Flight. When we shut down mammal clinging/fighting urges in childhood, reawakening grasping and fighting moves for lover dances can become confusingly intense. While there are many examples, one classic example might be when a person finds it could finally be safe to express opinions freely to a romantic partner versus staying silent and small like a child with a caregiver, and that sense of safety confusingly awakens irritation and even angry outbursts toward this safe-seeming lover.

It helps when we understand and appreciate that our mammal bodies awaken Shut-down moves with a burst of Fight/Flight. When we know that the intensity we feel grasping for and fighting with lovers comes from unfinished mothering interactions, we are less likely to have an intense WTF experience.

When we are able to recognize and honor the infant hand born to grasp as well as our cranky-baby wrestling—designed to attach us to and differentiate us from the-body-we-come-out-of—we can bend those actions to new targets. We can grasp onto and push into basketballs, paint brushes, drums, guitars and piano keys. When we can redo these attachment energetic dances in body-based ways and find engagement and empowerment from the inside-out, we are able to expand our sense of self in healthy ways that allow us to ultimately mother ourselves.

Porges—creator of the polyvagal theory—helps us appreciate what he calls ventral vagal Social Engagement functioning. We develop our Social Engagement system functioning in these developmental dances with the-body-we-come-out-of. 

A-hah! That's why we want to blame Mom! (But let's not shame her!)

When we honor rather than shame our urges to cling to and fight with the-body-we-come-out-of, we can also realize that humans require a much longer time to mature into functional adults than all other mammals. Humans need many mothers. 

Humans need adopted mothers, fathers who mother, therapists who mother. We need babysitters and teachers to supplement our mothers and give our primary mothers a break so they can mother themselves. We also need grandmothers to mother the mothers, so that all human mothers can sense the limitations of human mothering.

We need all humans to better understand the wild mammal mother/baby dances. Resolving the Me/Not-Me dances in childhood facilitates social justice.

Social Justice

When we therapeutically redo the developmental dances that help us find ourselves, we become more curious about others and less goading when trying to engage others. When we have ample opportunity to experience opposition in early childhood, we feel less threatened by others who might challenge us. We are more able to playfully wrestle with our "littermates." We can more productively challenge others to consider new perspectives.

· I can argue that rule A is best. 

· You can argue that rule B is best. 

· As we play around with ideas as we argue, we find rule C that resonates with us both. 

We can follow the suggestion, "Don't blame Mom!" when we appreciate why we want to blame mom, and we bend those animal urges into sports and the arts. When I play with my flute or toss a ball from hand to hand, I learn what in the Serenity Prayer is called the wisdom to know the difference:

· What can I control? 

· What is beyond my control? 

· How do I release my urge to grasp for a mother who I can push into thus finding myself? 

I can reach toward and claw at my computer keys, creating a post about my wonderful experience presenting alongside my tai chi teacher son.