You can expand your capacity as a mother and take care of your mental health by moving with awareness
Postpartum time is often very intense. Our exhaustion, excitement, overwhelm, happiness, uncertainty, unconditional love, sadness, loneliness, fatigue, confusion, physical discomfort are all happening at the same time. We find that no amount of baby gadgets and things can help us feel supported, empowered, intuitive and able to expand our capacity to show up for the demands of this transformational time. When it all gets to be too much, our mental health can take a blow.
What helps is building our village of support: a postpartum doula, family and friends (who show up and support) and specialists like lactation consultants, pelvic floor physio, a chiropractor. What’s also extremely useful is finding our own ways to increase our emotional resilience and physical strength from inside out. How can we do that? Somatic movement, or moving with awareness is one way of expanding your resources. Strength training, yoga, pilates, running and pretty much any movement modality, including everyday functional movement, practiced with awareness, can be really powerful in expanding your capacity. Awareness is key. Moving with awareness, mastering the skill of sensing your body is what makes all the difference. Awareness does not require a specially reserved time and space, a particular outfit or a lot of money. We can learn the principles of somatic movement – the gentle, focused way of noticing and controlling subtle movements in the body, feeling where our body is in space and how our body parts relate to each other – and practice it in tiny amounts throughout our busy day without having to be away from our baby. What is also truly special about somatic movement is that it helps us regulate our nervous system, be more connected to our intuition, and be more present for ourselves and the ones we love.
To give you a simple example: if our shoulders and neck are stiff and fatigued from feeding the baby, our breath is likely to feel shallow and stuck in the chest. This kind of breath signals to our nervous system that we’re not safe, puts us into the high alert mode, restricting our shoulders and neck even more, perpetuating the cycle of tension. Tension shrinks us both physically and mentally decreasing our ability to show up for both challenges and pleasures of motherhood.
Here is how somatic movement can help. Try this simple movement explorationand learn to sense and move your shoulder blades. Once you are able to move them in various planes, you will start improving the health of the surrounding tissues and release tension in and around your upper back. The rib cage underneath the shoulder blades will bit by bit be able to move more freely and allow for deeper breaths with less effort. Play with it regularly and be kind and curious just like you are kind and curious with your baby. Before long you will notice that the ribcage can move in a way that allows your diaphragm to reach a new range of motion, accommodating fuller, deeper, more delicious breaths, which in turn will make your nervous system feel safer. The layers of tension will start melting away, opening up new and exciting options to feel and to move.
There’s no limit to nuance once you start practicing moving with awareness. Somatic explorations like this one help you feel in tune, connected and grounded in your body. Each experience will offer new insights into your body, and leave you feeling a tiny bit more more confident, more resilient and more able to show up for your life as a mother.