I’ve been working with one-to-one clients since 1999, which is quite a long time.
During these many years I’ve noticed similarities within the bodies of my clients (and mine too). Not just that we’ve all got legs and lungs, skulls and spines etc. but that associated with certain areas of the body are emotions, feelings, energies. Not things you can cut out and put under a microscope but they’re there, all the same. Whilst not all of us will have the same feelings associated with the same areas, there’s one that comes round again and again, shame. Shame in, or more accurately connected to, the abdomen. So, when I’m blithely saying, “let go in your belly”, to stop holding it might not be quite as straightforward as first hoped.
Time to stop holding on to old ideas
My teenage years we in the 1980’s. There were some odd ideas around, especially regarding women. Even more so, for the women doing their best to climb to the top, in a world framed for men. Power dressing was big. We had a woman Prime Minister, showing us that women could make it to the top in high profile roles. Leading the way, you might say. It all looked so promising for a woman on the up!
But there was a cost.
To get to the top of industry, finance, politics (fill in the blank) a woman had to be like a man. And in our striving for success and equality, in the workplace and the home, we lost our inner self to the outer world. There was no self-care, no nurturing, no softness, no femininity; there was gritting teeth and putting up with misogynistic jokes. It was linear thinking, rather than emerging feminine ideas. Female body objectification was the accepted standard, the male standard; instead of respect and honouring the whole person. To get ahead you needed to be ready to throw your female colleague under the bus – there was only so much room allowed at the top, for women.
The natural feminine skills and the natural feminine shape were shamed, ridiculed and humiliated. Fact finding took over from intuition and inner knowing. The female body became standardised – long slim legs, petite waist, small bum, flat belly. Every magazine was telling you to go on another horrific diet, wear high-heeled shoes (to make your legs look longer), and to hold your belly in to get that coveted flat belly shape. Every magazine was telling you that what and who you were was wrong, unacceptable, not desirable and not worthy of the all-important male attention.
And whilst this was all going on, quietly and slowly the women shut down. They shut down the parts of themselves that were feminine, soft, curvaceous and womanly.
So, when you notice yourself holding your abdomen and gently ask yourself to “let go in your belly”, remember that you’re re-establishing your feminine self. You’re shaking off the remnants of a world that went down a strange road and left its mark, not just on you (if you’re in your 50/60’s), but on your mother and even your grandmother.
Be gentle with yourself – connect to the feminine qualities that bring nurturing and caring, you might need a gentle reminder more than once to let your body be the shape that it needs to be. You may want to practice some positive self-talk, a reminder that you are perfect just as you are. Make it clear to yourself that what you have to offer the world is valid and good, and worthwhile.
Reclaiming the parts of you that shut down can take time – you deserve the time and space to do the work.
Not all gripping in the abdomen has come from a story like this. There was a rumour, a while back, about holding your belly to strengthen your core. If you’d like to understand more about the pointlessness of holding your belly in, here’s some fact-y stuff from Professor Eyal Lederman