EMBODIMENT DURING PREGNANCY
Building A Safe Harbor For You and Baby
Embodiment journeys are a “coming home” experience; a coming home back to your body, back to safety with your inner experience, back to the wholeness of who you are within. For many of us, they are life long journeys, unraveling all the parts and slowly putting the pieces back together so that we can become our own safe harbor for all of life.
This journey back home to your inner safety is a potent journey, but what about when your body becomes an actual, physical HOME for new life inside of you?
What then does the personal embodiment journey look and feel like when it’s no longer just your own experience of reconnection taking place?
This is a question I’ve been asking myself as I deepen into my 5th month of pregnancy with my 3 rd child, especially as I begin to actually FEEL this new life kick inside me. And with this journey I have realized that embodiment isn’t just for me anymore, but it’s for the complete nourishment of the sacred bond between mother and child. The bond of being the safe space, the safe home for my child.
This sacred + ancient bond is one of the most important connections you will ever create in your lifetime as everything happening inside of you is also happening at some level for/with your child that is calling you HOME.
You get to become that safe harbor for your baby long before they are ever born.
“When a child is born so is a mother.”
Their body is being formed from YOUR very body.
Your nervous system IS their nervous system
Your emotions are their emotions.
Your nourishment is their nourishment.
Our relationship with our body is felt on every level by our developing child within, physically and emotionally. But as our body changes and shifts, it can feel like it’s no longer yours or perhaps even foreign to you. This can leave us feeling disoriented within our own body if we don’t stay focused on coming back home to the safety of our body.
But what is home to you?
What does it mean to you to be a safe harbor, both for yourself and for your baby?
To me, home is the place where safety + comfort meet. Where your body and heart feel the rest they can’t get anywhere else. Where you get to slow down and breathe and feel and unwind. In this season, your body gets to become this very space for your baby.
This home is the state of your nervous system, it is your relationship to your emotions, it is the way you nourish yourself, it is the way you love on yourself and those in your life, the way you breathe and move with life. IT IS EVERYTHING.
And because this stage of the journey is so important to truly form this new life in all its capacity, it is vital we do not rush through this stage of motherhood. It is time we deepen into and relax into pregnancy as the bond is truly formed here in utero. Your baby right now is attuning to you, is feeling you, is learning from you in the most incredible of ways.
It is time we bring back the sacredness of creating new life and seeing just how vital finding safety in our body and our experience is for the development of this growing child.
Who we are and who we become and heal in this stage sets the tone for yourself and your child even beyond the process of birth and growth.
Here are my 3 top pregnancy embodiment practices that I’ve made part of my daily life to help me grow as a safe harbor for myself and baby:
1.) Breath Focus
Every morning and throughout my day, I bring my focus and awareness back to my breath as it is the true indicator of where our body and nervous system are residing. I want to continue to build safety in my own system so that my child also feels the safety of home deep within mama’s body.
Every morning I practice lung stretching (watch here) to bring more expansion into my body and practice deep parasympathetic breathing throughout my day. This way, I can nourish the cells of my body, bring restoration into my system, and ultimately bring safety back into the womb for my growing + thriving child.
2.) Orienting practice with developing body
One of the greatest challenges of pregnancy is learning to shift your relationship to the physical appearance of your growing body. Things don’t look the same as your pregnancy develops so learning to accept the way your body develops Is vital to keeping your system and emotions in line with a bond safety + connection.
As my body grows and changes, I take time to “orient” or get acquainted with my body each time I notice a new shift. This might look like spending time with my image in the mirror while working to release judgment or fear. It might look like spending time just caressing my belly or tracing new stretch marks with my fingers.
And daily, I love to place my feet on the ground, deepen my breath, and just begin to slowly move and stretch my body. Feeling it all, my limits, feeling the new weight in my belly, feeling the slight pain or tweak here. This is the process of orienting to your new body while still staying rooted in safety and grounded. Knowing and embracing that every shift is part of the journey.
3.) Attuning to your biological rhythms and impulses of rest and activity
As we grow in our pregnancy, there is SOO much happening under the surface that most of us don’t even comprehend. The growing of new life requires SO much out of our body, pulls minerals out of our bones, draws nutrients out of our cells, and shifts our hormone and energy production. We are literally running a marathon 24/7 for 10 months straight. And because of this, it is so important to listen to the waxing and waning, the ebb and flow of your energy levels.
Now isn’t the time to push through, but to relax into your limits + sink into the moments your body is calling for restoration. Our body has a natural rhythm called “ultradian rhythms” which happen every 1.5 to 2 hours. We ebb and flow naturally throughout our day. Moments of activity in our system followed by needed moments of rest. Expansion and contraction all day, every day.
Being able to attune to these rhythms and honoring them is vital so that we don’t override our body’s self regulating ability, which is necessary to keep running the beautiful marathon of pregnancy!
Throughout your day, I invite you to begin tuning in. Follow your impulse to maybe close your eyes when they feel heavy or get that short walk in when the burst of energy arrives. Not forcing the energy to be what it isn’t, but truly waiting for the signals and arrival of the energy type and then actually following and honoring them.
In this process, we attune to the natural innate wisdom of our body and then we surrender ourselves to whatever energy is present. Learning to ride the waves…Trusting in what is taking place and being created within us, which brings a whole new level of safety and connection for both mama and baby!
I hope these tips have been helpful and that you never forget how sacred the bond is that you are creating with your own body! You are the safe harbor.
Written by: Courtni Allison
Courtni Allison is an Emotional Wellness Practitioner who specializes in nervous system care, breathwork, and a special energy healing technique called Mind Body Spirit Release. Her current offerings include self-paced courses on nervous system healing and breathwork as well as 1:1 Mind Body Spirit Release sessions! You can find out more here.
and also check out her Youtube channel here.
