Dive into your belly and get free of the tentacles of the past

We are all molded by and carry the histories of our families. There are aspects we are well aware of. These are the parts we can consciously choose to let go of or the to keep growing up. Other aspects are somewhat more hidden inside of us.

These are the parts we absorbed without words. Attitudes we took on just by copying and adapting as best we could.

Some of those absorbed aspects, work in us in strange ways. They disguise themselves inside our own personal experiences and we confuse them to be our own. They sneak into the ways we interpret and read different situations. These can be the moods, feelings, sensations, fears and atmospheres that found their way into us from our family and culture.

They are similar to an insisting slight odor that accompanies us everywhere.

One we smell but cannot find where it comes from. One that is at times there and at times not. Or it can work its way like a cloud or some fog that hovers above and around us, taking away the light. When we try to touch it, we cut right through it and cannot grasp it or move it away.

If I look at my path as a woman trying to find her voice, strength and presence in the world, I had to go through many layers of undoing. I had to learn how to move through fears that occupied me and that were part of my cultural and family heritage, socialization and trauma.

We carry those family /cultural fears and traumata in us unknowingly. Their dark tentacles spread into different parts of our lives. They can be experienced as a sense of constant stress, lack of confidence, uncontrolled rage, a sense of depression, needing to compete and become hard and unbeatable and many more.

We try to cut one arm of that monster and are surprised when it rises up again somewhere else.

For us to be free to be who we are starts with us daring to meet the “head of that monster”.

For that we must be ready to meet all that is within us – especially all that we try to avoid, numb or suppress.

This is our only chance to best cultivate a state of inner freedom, independent of the circumstances.

This “monster” is great in convincing us that to survive, we need to obey it. It shows us what happened and lets us believe it is the only outcome possible. It robs us options. It robs us the sense of trust in us and the vast options the world offers.

It wants to trap us in a small repetitive world. In a vicious cycle of the known.

We end up, like dogs, running around our tail of justifications, to avoid fear. To avoid our vulnerability and many other emotions and parts of ourselves. It takes away our ability to move freely and feel capable.

In this hypnotizing circular movement, we collect more aggravation, more self-hate and a dependency on being in control. By running away from what we learned we should avoid, we stay trapped in an effort to be something we are not.

To be free starts with stopping this cycle. Stop running away. Being ready to be thrown into the unknown of who we are. To take the chance of meeting the sensations, and feelings we thought are unbearable for us.

If we do so, we step away from reacting and be triggered but rather find choices and options no matter how pleasant or unpleasant the situation we experience is.

We create a deeper clarity within us. Our intentions and what moves us in life becomes freer and clearer. Instead of being moved by fears or a need to resist everything we cannot control, we are instead moved towards what we can give and create.

Freedom starts by letting all that there is, to be.

This is the way we start to dismantle the power that those restrictions have had over us.

From that state, we can then act for a larger change.

We can collect all of who we are and transform our fears, our hurts, our disgust, hate and so much more into energy that can become nourishing and strengthening, as it shifts to a different state.

This is why the belly is a wonderful place to find all of that.

Our bellies carry so much.

So much of what is unspoken but felt.

So much of the incomplete and not-lived emotions and fears of us or the ones around us.

So much of our strength and sense of self.

So much of our ability to read life and sense things that our eyes cannot see.

It is the mysterious, wordless place that connects our deepest rawest power with our ability to move and act in the world.

It is like healing waters. We need to learn how to bathe in it. How to let it move around us, enter our pours and stay fluid in our joints and breath.

The belly holds those healing waters we need to tend to and clear from the “old junk” that was thrown there.

The belly is also our soft spot. We try to harden it or to stuff it. who likes to touched there? How often do you protect it?

No wonder our culture puts that part down….. or tries to correct it….

Your true freedom, your sense of independence, your ability to deal with the unknown and the unexpected situations life throws at you, starts in the belly.

Your ability even to expand your awareness and consciousness has deep roots in your belly.

Would you like to be free from the burden you were “fed” with?

I suggest you start by connecting to your belly.

Start by having time taken out of your day to feel the belly.

Activate it. Sense it. Listen to it.

Let what it express what it needs and be felt, not restricted by your mind.

It is like being led by water. It is forceful and soft, giving and holding. Changing and consistent.

It is best to start with 5 –10 min. where you simply put your hands on your belly and breath. Take the time to quiet your mind so that you can finally feel the belly.

Let your hands feel your belly and let your belly feel your hands.

With time you will start to feel …more and more. Like diving into the ocean and slowly starting to be able to get quiet in those deep waters. When the water clears up from your frantic movements it reveals so many depths. So many things that hold a sense of beauty and knowledge about yourself and life.

It may start with some unpleasant memories and/or sensations. If you manage to breath and let them be there, let them move while you try to simply follow rather than control or avoid, they will soon start to shift and change.

It maybe that you will be feeling nothing at first, because you trained yourself to disconnect and numb.

Just stay with it.

Take time to convince your belly you are there ready to feel and listen.

Keep on doing so.

Breath and feel your hands on your belly. Feel your hands from belly.

You can always move your hands gently on the belly to bring more sensations if that helps.

Let the history you carry unfold.

Support your belly to move it all and digest everything.

Give it the time and the attention.

Everything you feel in you, you would like to get rid of, remember this is what your belly is doing best if you let it. Your skin helps you in the same way. It has the ability to let all that move out of your body and away.

It is a slow movement at times in this experience. Catch yourself when you become impatient, angry, needing it to be more defined and clear. All of that is how you disconnect, hold onto the illusion of control that is actually rooted in helplessness.

Then simply breath and feel your hands touching your belly. If you need to move do that. If your voice needs to be heard, let it.

If everything in you wants to tighten, do it for a moment with awareness and choice and then let go.

If tears run down your cheeks, let them fall.

Breath and let it be.

After a while you can take away your hands and let it all rest.

Just like after stirring water, you just want to feel and observe the movement calming and setting into a new state of feeling and being.

You can complete it with saying: “it is ok. I listen. I am here. I am ready”.

Repeat this for a week and you will feel the difference in your state of freedom.

(You can always take a moment before hand to think of your family or where you grew up in, to see what comes up. Enter the exercise with the clarity that you want to feel and give back all that got trapped in your belly.

Yours,

Anna

Photo by Antonia Lombardi on Unsplash