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.

Family Support for Individual and Collective Integrative Healing

Because therapeutic journeys can offer reparative experiences in ways that enhance both relationships and nervous system functioning, using a family lens and family approach—whether it’s chosen family or family of origin—can help to re-feed these reparative experiences so all members of a family have potential to restore deep nourishment emotionally, psychologically, mentally, physically, spiritually and relationally.

From group therapy, to one-on-one sessions with individuals, to family sessions and family meal groups, one can have reparative family experiences and more sustainable bodily functioning. But within these therapeutic relational journeys, it’s important to take a closer look at how autonomy and client’s preference can still be valued by those who have built-in power authority.

Did you know 70% of our love dynamics involve mismatch, being out of sync? This includes parent/child interactions! (Tronick/Gold, The Power of Discord)

Did you know that co-regulation from parent to child and the child's development of Social Engagement system functioning needs more than just “staying calm?"

While seated meditation might work for some, and while endless dancing might work for some, and while ceremonial beverages might work for some, they don’t work for all people, especially when they lack relational support. When we do practices seeking presence, deep urges for support get stirred. If we transcend the need for support, we are likely to disembody.

In other words, if you feel foggy, dreamy, peaceful because you have lost parts of yourself, that might be your system’s way of saying:

“I feel overwhelmed. I need more relational support.”

You might wonder,

“How do I invite relational support into my meditative practice?”

Re-parent Your Nervous System Functioning

Learning to provide (relational) Support, helps us play. It helps us playfully “dance” through our lives, finding creative solutions for challenges. It helps us find the pathway, sensing the importance of Play. 🧠👣🌟

M-Bodied® Parenting focuses on womb-to-walking-and-beyond parenting stages. However, the challenging, oppositional patterns and worrisome coping mechanisms tend to cause most distress to parents, which also often benefits from therapeutic support and/or relational repair. M-Bodied Parenting psychotherapy and embodiment coaching offers experiential somatic practices that involve exploration of polyvagal theory, trauma response and attachment. We look at how the intersection of the three can shed light on common experiences and reactions of both caregivers and children. Using specific trauma-informed co-regulation practices that are relational and developmental, we explore how those oppositional response patterns can be better supported and embodied—versus pathologized—for both caregivers and children.

Instead of racing to the quickest fix to solve distress, to eradicate unruly behavior, to demand a child to focus, or to stop a tantrum at any age, what about listening deeper for the relational and developmental cry for help? Here’s an opportunity for caregivers to get curious to pause, to stay with the heat that arises, and to invite embodied connection that celebrates the mismatch. If mismatch, sometimes viewed as “opposition” is not relationally met in a trauma-informed way, it’s bound to appear later in another form.

Co-Regulation: Teachers/Caregivers/Helpers as Holding Environment

In a relationship where an understood power differential is present (teacher to student, parent to child, helper to client), a predictable, ongoing environment of co-regulation from the caregiver is necessary for executive functioning and eventual development of self-regulation for the student/child/client. Despite our culture’s overemphasis and premature expectation of self-regulation, developing resilience and a robust Social Engagement System requires a steady dose of co-regulation. The caregiver with the power authority is the “holding environment,” the safe place to land (match), and ideally the safe place to push away (mismatch).

“Fighting Rhythms” as Innately Developmental but Historically Over-Controlled ….

Healing is relational. From womb to walking, we learn to parent ourselves when someone is there to healthily (re)parent us. Regardless of our upbringing—whether we experienced steady nurturance or a chaotic childhood—Many times we need these emotional redos and inner-parent fine-tuning when as adults….This can help you regain your own creative energy for life to help offer your children the deep nourishment and attention they crave.

Pandemic Eating and Drinking Struggles: Using Mindful Movement to Self-Soothe ~ M-Bodied: Mindful Movement as Mothering Medicine™ offers a virtual embodiment series for sustainable self soothing and reconnection with the body with a trauma-informed, HAES approach

Did you know that an embryo attaches to a yolk sac for nourishment before the placenta forms? And — How can we use this information in a body-based way to reclaim our intuitive movement and feed our deeper hungers?

Sometimes I hear clients say, “If I could just think differently, I wouldn’t feel so stuck with food/body/exercise!” I say, "What if it’s not all in your head? What if we invite you to shift from your Head-brain to sensing with your Belly-brain?"

Instead of viewing the matching as “good behavior” and the mismatching as “bad behavior," is there a way to appreciate both? The matching experiences might seem like the easy and desirable parts of parenting. But, when the battles begin (over food, screens or sibling spats), might parents learn to appreciate the child’s urges?

The pressures parents face due to COVID can feel overwhelming. The limitations kids of all ages face right now can make them seem like monsters at times! What gives? It can seem like a never-ending cycle. Parents want relief, kids want and need safety and predictability.