What is an M-Bodied Deep Nourishment Practice?

An Invitation for Belly-brain Messages

We often get so many messages from the outside: We should, we ought to, go this way, move that way, don’t you think? Sometimes when we lean on outside messaging too much, we forget to pay attention to what messages might exist from within our wisest, most intuitive place in the body. And that's our Belly. Our Gut. Our second brain.

What are You Really Hungry For?

If you are someone who tends to either diet or not eat enough, or perhaps habitually overeat, tuning into Belly-brain messages helps expand the possibilities for what might satisfy our urges. When we consciously invite a sense of awareness of the messages our body provides, we begin to create a non-judgmental inner witness. As we can begin to witness our Belly-brain urges without judgment, this witnessing creates a mothering type of container of support that holds us along the journey back to our body, back to meaning-making of the shape-shifting. We become M-Bodied, using mindful movement as mothering medicine.

M-bodied draws from the partner practices of Chi for Two® - The Energetic Dance of Healthy Relationship, with a special focus on our relationship to food. We develop our eating patterns in our earliest dances with parents. M-bodied helps us shift how we parent ourselves using Chi for Two® practices in which we relate to Mother Earth, to the leader of the practice, to others within a group practice, and especially family members and/or romantic partners who participate with us during practices.

Womb-to-Walking Relational Dances

Inheriting the cultural conditioning and cellular memories of our parents and grandparents, we begin our journey of embodiment when we are first conceived. From womb to walking, our nervous system receives feedback from our parents that patterns our sense of how okay and not okay we feel in our world. Even with the most ideal parents, we humans inherit a few bumps along the way due to imperfect efforts to socialize our children. We could all use some repair work—with our relationships to ourselves as well as our relationships to other people. These relational dances can be re-patterned through body-based techniques that focus on postures and movements that are key in infant/parent interactions.

Developmental Movement and The Mother

Influenced by developmental movement practices that yoke body and mind (like yoga), we make new meaning of relational movement. We do this by inviting an awareness of The Mother. When we talk about The Mother in Chi for Two® practices, we are inviting the “mothering quality" of the neuropeptide oxytocin. When levels of oxytocin are raised in mammal bodies, mammals become more M-bodied—more likely to care for offspring.

In the past, oxytocin was only associated with birthing and nursing. We now know that oxytocin plays a major role in signaling safety within our Social Engagement system functioning—the part of our nervous system that facilitates healthy relationship. Therefore, those who identify as female, male, or non-binary may offer “The Mother” quality.

(Yoga) Shapes Experienced in a New Way

In order to invite this conscious experience of The Mother, we explore postures, shapes and movements key in developmental parent/child dances to help offer a new experience of being deeply nourished within a supportive container. Some of these postures, shapes and movements might look and feel familiar—like yoga postures. However, Chi for Two® partner practices consciously invite awareness of these postures, shapes and movements as mothering medicine—as the path to becoming M-bodied.

No Right or Wrong Way

While there’s ultimately no right or wrong way to “do” this practice (besides some suggestions for keeping your body safely aligned), this practice offers a container for the big feelings that can be birthed here. In other words, this practice offers ways to consciously push back, to show your teeth, to sigh in exasperation, to have the tantrums that might have been put in Shut-down and need room to breathe and take up space.

Mindful Movement as Mothering Medicine

Remember, this is Mindful Movement as Mothering Medicine—but we get to play with finding bodily support and satisfying relief with a practice that offers a dance with The Mother. You discover deeply nourishing ways to be free to be you.