What is Maternal Bodyfulness?
What’s your relationship with your body since becoming a Mother?
Let’s chat the maternal body - a very necessary conversation for Mothers and those that support them (both personally and professionally).
What has your relationship been with your body since becoming a Mother? Stressed? Connected? Confused? Frustrated? In awe? Deep appreciation? A combo of it all...?
I want to introduce you to a theory by Dr. Helena Vissing of which provides additional opportunities for reflection and perspective...
Maybe if you've been struggling with and within your body throughout Motherhood, this perspective might help to shift some stuckness around (or the help of a clinical or medical provider as well! This blog is NOT clinical or medical advice - simply educational in nature.)
Here are direct quotes from Helena Vissing, Psy.D. about the theory of maternal bodyfulness…
“Maternal bodyfulness is the antidote to the forms of bodylessness that are particular to the perinatal period: it is the cultivation of a deeper experiential and reflective knowledge of one’s embodied subjectivity as a mother where mothering is discovered as an expression of self as opposed to a role prescribed by cultural expectations.
Maternal bodyfulness is the development of a deeper experiential knowledge of one’s subjectivity as a mother. This is more than sensory awareness; it is about developing an embodied and reflective relationship to one’s new maternal identity where one’s mothering is discovered as an expression of self as opposed to a role prescribed by cultural expectations. Based on a bottom-up perspective of appreciating body experiences and narratives as the foundation for any sense of self, it is a vision of asserting oneself as a maternal subject through and with the body.
Maternal bodyfulness is a feminist and somatic practice aimed at preventing and circumventing the effects of maternal bodylessness. It is the concretization of asserting maternal subjectivity.
Sensory awareness is central to maternal bodyfulness, as it is about building trust in sensations as possible healing agents. Maternal bodyfulness is the appreciation of sensations as fuel for an embodied sense of self and, by extension, perinatal sensations as foundational to a maternal sense of self. Here, perinatal sensations are not seen as obstacles to be overcome or polished into positive forms, but as the underpinnings of the experience of coming into one’s maternal subjectivity.
The healing of working towards maternal bodyfulness can be understood as a creative struggle.”
I love this theory, this idea...this notion of "maternal bodyfulness". For me, it really brings the BODY back into a (at times and not for everyone) bodylessness experience - at least in those first years postpartum...but truly, throughout the maternal lifespan.
What do I mean?
So much of becoming a Mother is about the baby - how are WE, as women, caring for OUR bodies so that we can have the healthiest baby...then once the baby is here...it is naturally very depleting on the mothers' body - the lack of sleep, the lack of time to eat nutritiously, the hormones...the Mother tends to fade into the backdrop once again...
Not to mention the messages she might hear to "bounce back" or lose the baby weight...
Her body is NOT her own. (Again, some of this is natural and necessary, but some of it is also the pressures of Patriarchal Normative Motherhood AND lack of systemic and cultural support too...all too often, she unintentionally neglects her body, detaches from it and disconnects from it - in nearly every way - survival, pressure and unrealistic expectations motivate her as a Mother.)
If she feels much of anything in her physical body - it is often pain, discomfort, annoyance, disappointment and fear - "will I ever be the same again?"...(hopefully some profound awe and gratitude as well!).
This detachment can create a bodylessness - the hustle, the go-go-go, the expectations, the never enoughness...as the Mother strives to be everything to everyone, she gives all of herself and her relationship to her body AND her body itself...can suffer for it - and this can (and often does) persist long outside those first few years postpartum.
So how does she reclaim it?
Through maternal bodyfulness - the intentional somatic act of curating an intimate (re)relationship with herself - her body and mind...this is a feminist act - an act of resisting Patriarchal Normative Motherhood.
I often say that the maternal body is a physical representation of her transformation that is matrescence - it is to be expected for her to feel uncomfortable in her body...everything has changed. It is expected for her to feel surprised by what she sees in the mirror - ambivalent about her physical appearance for a while...for EVERYTHING has changed within and outside of her. Her body is SHOWING her the full transformation that is matrescence - there is a natural disorientation and REorientation (Athan)...eventually.
So what might this look like in practice for you? It will look different for every person, but generally, the more attention and intention you can bring into your body through your senses etc., the more presence within yourself you can cultivate - again remembering this is a practice (and maybe best suited with a clinician) - the more aware you can become of your body - its space, its sensations, its expereinces, its feelings, its functioning...- the more empowered you become as a Mother AND a whole person.
And through this ART, this creativity, you can begin to reclaim your matrescence and become a WHOLE person within your body that is defined and created by AND for you. This is an act of resistance - for when you CHOOSE your relationship to and with your body, you create a power within you that is greater than any patriarchal Motherhood "should" or expectation.
Want to learn more? Check out Helena Vissing's work and listen to episode THREE of the Re-Imagining Motherhood podcast with Dr. Vissing herself!
(Note - The theory of bodyfulness was first coined by Christine Caldwell author of "Bodyfulness: Somatic Practices for Presence, Empowerment and Waking Up in this Life".)
Interested in learning more about how YOU can resist patriarchal normative Motherhood and re-imagine Motherhood for yourself? Or simply interested in diving more into these theories and concepts for your own experience?
The Becoming Mama program is now self-paced and available to YOU right now! (Just without the group aspect, which I must admit, is necessary as one hopes to resist patriarchal Motherhood - but the education is key too!)
PLUS, listen and follow the Re-Imagining Motherhood podcast available on Spotify - Episode three is with Dr. Helena Vissing herself and you won’t want to miss it.
And if you are a professional that supports Mothers, The Matricentric Way training is for YOU! Come explore this paradigm shift - how incorporating the theories of Matrescence and Matricentric Feminism (Motherhood Studies more broadly) can be used to change the way we show up to support Mothers these days! Interested in the self-paced training program? Email me to stay in the loop!
