Your Body Needs Your Touch

One of the things I have viscerally learned since becoming a mother is that my body requires my own touch. We hear a lot about how mothers can get “touched out.” And as a mother who has breastfed for over 3 years straight and tandem breastfed for a lot of that time, I understand how much touch can sometimes feel like another thing constantly pulling on you. However, touching my own body with love and attention has actually been the antidote. Gentle and attuned self massage and bodily touch has been the exact balm to my edginess and over stimulation brought on by mothering two small children. When we touch our own skin lovingly we connect to our own tissues, bodily fluids, and regulate our nervous system. The key here is that when we slow down and connect with our bodies through touch we invite movement. Matriarch by Clara Wisner is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Movement of blood. Movement of lymph. Movement of emotions. Movement of nutrients. Movement of water. Humans are made up of seventy percent water. We are, quite literally, a body of water. Our inner world is forever flowing and undulating. Our organs are supposed to gracefully slide and glide in tandem with our breath and each other. Our lungs taking in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. Expanding and contracting. Lengthening and shortening. Our hearts pumping surges of blood that move throughout the body. Compression and extension. Fluid moving through the cell walls into the cell and back out again. Vitamins and minerals and cellular wastes moving to their appropriate places in or out of the cell. Our physical forms are not static. They are in constant and very dynamic movement. When we touch ourselves lovingly and start what I call a ‘physical touch conversation’ with our own tissue we are encouraging and freeing up space for movement at a cellular level. Just rubbing our hands together creating heat and then pressing one warmed palm to one of our own cheeks can start to encourage blood to move to the surface of the palm and cheek. Try it and notice the sense of aliveness and electricity in both hand and cheek afterwards compared to the opposite cheek that wasn’t touched. This is one of the cheapest, simplest, and most profound practices we can do for our well-being. From physical pain to digestive issues to emotional aches, touching our bodies and hydrating our tissues helps enormously. Our bodies crave and require our tending and love. All of our pain, emotional and physical, is our selves and our body crying out for our attention. Touching my own body with a willingness to go slow, be non-judgmental and with a care-fullness has allowed me to digest and integrate huge changes in my life with grace and compassion for myself. The physical and emotional are not separate. If we have big emotional waves moving through our lives we can be sure that our physical body needs support and space to digest those big emotional waves. Our lives happen in and to our bodies. Our bodies happen because of our lives. Our bodies and our lives are inextricably linked. We cannot have one without the other. As I went through the emotionally and physically uproarious process of becoming a mother, not once but twice in two years, and all the deaths and rebirths that come alongside motherhood, I started a practice of just laying in my bed doing nothing but breathing and letting my body speak to me about what it needed. The frequency that came to hold me through this process is what I now call HOME BODY. Eventually this frequency shared with me a process of self massage, shamanic journeying and sound that became deep medicine for my body and allows me to digest and listen to myself in a way that bypasses mental ideas and connects me directly to my body and it’s needs. HOME BODY is a balm for exhausted and tight bodies. It is a remedy for overworked and overstimulated minds. It is a practice that allows me and you to drop in, connect, and allow movement where there has been stagnation. It is heart and soul medicine served through the body. I am offering a group HOME BODY session this coming Sunday, April 16th at 9-11am PST. $44. If you feel called but have questions send me a message. This is very gentle and soothing practice and ceremony. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe