The Woman's Belly Book: Finding Your True Center for More Energy, Confidence, and Pleasure
336
The Woman's Belly Book: Finding Your True Center for More Energy, Confidence, and Pleasure
336eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781577318118 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New World Library |
| Publication date: | 10/06/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 336 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Woman's Belly Book
Finding Your True Center for More Energy, Confidence, and Pleasure
By Lisa Sarahon
New World Library
Copyright © 2006 Self-Health Education, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57731-811-8
CHAPTER 1
Core Principles, Core Practices
This chapter equips you with five fundamental skills, or core practices, for reclaiming your pro-creative power:
* Giving Yourself Room to Breathe
* Locating Your Center
* Centering the Breath
* Naming Your Feelings
* Setting Your Intention
These five core practices enable you to begin honoring your belly in style. You'll encounter these practices in relation to five core principles, which will also guide you on this adventure.
Because this and many other sections of the book invite you to jot down your thoughts and make some drawings, I suggest you supply yourself with a pen or pencil, some colored markers, and some lined and unlined paper. (See Gather Your Supplies on page 8). For writing, I favor inexpensive notebooks; then I don't worry about being messy or making mistakes. You'll want to have at least a pen and some paper handy for the exercises that are coming up.
NOT A SELF-IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM
Here's one of my favorite sentences: This book is not and does not propose a self-improvement program.
Can we say this together?
This is not a self-improvement program.
Thank you.
How do you feel when you say or hear these words? Do you notice a tinge of disappointment? A shred of discomfort as something unfamiliar rises above the horizon? Do you hear a slight tearing sound as these words make a small rip in the idea that there's something wrong with you?
Underneath what may be a tad of disappointment or discomfort, you may notice other feelings. Maybe, at a deeper level, you feel relief, a release of tension. Maybe your shoulders relax and drop down an inch away from your ears. You don't have to defend yourself against charges of wrongdoing. You don't have to protect yourself from attack.
This book is not a self-improvement program. It's not about trying to shove yourself from some grimy Point A, where you are now, to a glittering Point B, over there where you'll be perfect. (We might ask, "Perfect" to whom and for what?)
This book is about discovering, affirming, and being true to who you already are. It's about coming home to yourself and developing the skills to return, again and again, to your center.
I say "again and again" because, after all, what's your purpose here? To finally reach some frozen state of perfection and paste yourself there, unmoving, unbreathing, unchanging? Death may work like that, but life doesn't. Life seems to be about enlarging our experience, expanding the scope of our self-awareness. We experiment, we make mistakes, we go overboard, we lose our balance, we leave home and lose our way for a while. We return. We return again and again, to our center. This book provides you with practical ways to do exactly that.
Sure, you may want to change some of the ways you think, feel, eat, breathe, value, choose, or move. That's fine. The point is to make these changes not to make yourself "better" or "different." The point is to make such changes because they enhance and nourish, amplify and magnify, illuminate and celebrate who you already are.
WHAT IS A "GUTSY WOMAN"?
What is your take on what it means to be a "gutsy woman"? Who are the women who inspire you? What are their qualities?
A GUTSY WOMAN
Let's consider this question: Who are your heroes?
On a sheet of paper, label a column "Women" and make a list, naming five to ten women you admire. Then make a second column titled "Qualities." Across from each woman's name, write down the qualities she embodies, how she inspires you.
Who and what did you come up with?
My list includes poets Alice Walker and Glenis Redmond, activists Rosa Parks and Julia Butterfly Hill, and playwright Eve Ensler. Each has overcome adversity, exemplifying wisdom, grace, and an enduring sense of humor in the process. Each has been outspoken, taking a stand for peace, justice, and the dignity of life. Each has embodied courage and an inner strength that doesn't depend on external approval. Their actions and their words inspire me. They make me feel all the more alive, more at home within myself. By my lights, these are gutsy women.
When I ask these same questions of young low-income single mothers preparing to reenter the workforce, the women often name their mothers — and themselves — as their heroes. They point to the strength and endurance that they and their mothers have demonstrated as they've raised their families with love, no matter how few resources or how little support they've had. These are gutsy women indeed.
Take a look at the list of women you admire and the qualities they embody. I'm guessing the qualities you've named can all be included in the circle of a single word: gutsy. What do you say?
Gutsy: brave, daring, courageous. Self-determined, purposeful. Steadfast, persistent. Sensual, earthy. Creative, compassionate. As the word itself implies, these gutsy qualities don't live in our heads. They're not mental constructs. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes in Women Who Run With the Wolves, a woman's instinctual knowing "resides in the guts, not in the head." A gutsy woman is a woman who takes charge of the pro-creative power dwelling within her body's center, her belly. Let's play with this some more.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Write a journal entry describing a day in the life of a gutsy woman. How does she walk, sit, breathe, move, dress, cook, eat, work, deal with conflict, relate to family, speak with friends, make love, sleep? As you write, you might think of the heroes you've named, or fictional characters, or yourself. Let your imagination run free. Whatever you write, you'll be describing aspects of who you already are.
A woman in one of my workshops wrote a poem as part of this exercise, including these lines:
She proudly struts her roundness The soft comfort speaks of all her strength
CORE PRINCIPLE
The best changes occur in our lives when we're nourishing and celebrating who we already are, when we're giving ourselves room to be and opportunities to flourish.
Without judging yourself one way or the other, just notice this: How are you breathing right now? Let's enter into our first core practice, which is all about breathing.
CORE PRACTICE
Giving Yourself Room to Breathe
Are your clothes stifling your breathing? If so, loosen your belt, unzip your zipper, let out your waistband. Take off the tummy-crushing panty hose, shed the tight skirt. Put on something that fits comfortably around your waist and hips.
You can do it. As one woman says, "I don't want to wear anything that interferes with my breathing. Bring on the elastic waistbands!" You deserve clothes that kindly give you room to breathe. Your physical health and your emotional well-being depend on your capacity to breathe deeply. And breathing deeply depends on letting your belly move out and in with each cycle of the breath.
When your belly is free to expand with your inhalation, you can enjoy the benefits of breathing fully, being fully alive.
GIVING YOURSELF ROOM TO BREATHE
1. Sit with your palms resting lightly on your lower abdomen. That's all there is to it. Simply notice the following:
* What happens as you breathe?
* Which parts of your body, if any, move as you're breathing in and out?
* What are your shoulders doing? Your ribs, your waist, your abdomen?
* What's the pace of your breath? Its depth?
* What, if anything, restricts your breathing?
* You may not notice anything. That's fine. Or you may feel your belly moving out and away from your spine with your incoming breath. You may sense it sinking back toward your spine with your outgoing breath.
2. Take a few moments to experience the rhythm of your breathing and how that rhythm plays out in the center of your body. Jot down notes about the sensations, feelings, or thoughts accompanying your experience.
Giving yourself room to breathe is a matter of the highest priority, important enough to be mentioned at auspicious occasions and significant rites of passage. As author Anne Lamott advised graduates during her commencement speech at the Berkeley campus of the University of California in May 2003, "Refuse to wear uncomfortable pants, even if they make you look really thin. Promise me you'll never wear pants that bind or tug or hurt, pants that have an opinion about how much you've just eaten. The pants may be lying!"
After reading about honoring my belly, I bought myself size 24 jeans even though I'm a 20, just to feel comfy!!
— Iona
You'll find more information on the benefits of breathing deeply in chapter 3, plus a whole array of designer breathing patterns in part 2. The way you breathe reflects and determines your well-being in body and mind. By breathing deeply, you kindle your belly-centered life energy, your power to promote creation.
THE BODY'S CENTER
Exactly where is the body's center, and why is it so pivotal? The body's center is of prime importance because what happens to the center happens to the whole.
Imagine that you and a friend are ice-skating. Your friend is facing you, standing still. You want to push her across the ice. What do you do?
If you reach out your arm and push on one of her shoulders, she'll turn but she won't cover any distance. But if you put a hand on each of her hips and push on the center of her body, her whole body will move at once, as one, and she will remain in balance. That's the way the world works: what you do to the center you do to the whole.
Your body's center is a point within your belly, a few inches below your navel and a few inches below the skin's surface, a place just in front of your spine. In the realm of physical science, this one point is your center of mass. When your belly center leads you into action, your whole body moves easily, gracefully, almost effortlessly. The whole of you moves as one.
I always run with my belly leading when I'm running uphill. It proves to me that the point of center, the point of power, is the belly. And when I come from that place, everything is easier and I can perform better, in any aspect of my life.
— Tricia
Your body's center is also your center of gravity, the one point that relates all of you to the center of the Earth itself. What happens after you jump into the air? You seem to fall back to the Earth's surface — and you do. The Earth also rises a teeny, tiny bit to meet you.
That's the gravitational bond between your belly center and the Earth's center.
But your belly isn't just your center of gravity. With its abundant supply of iron-rich blood, it is also the center of your electromagnetic field.
Women and men around the world and throughout time have energized the body's center through dance, healing rites, movement arts, and spiritual practice as a way to cultivate Source Energy. To name the body's center point and focus on its special significance, they have used phrases that translate, for example, from Korean as "Energy Garden," from Sanskrit as "Luminous Pearl," from Hopi as "Throne of the Creator," and from Chinese as "Sea of Vitality" and "Gate of the Mysterious Female."
In Western culture, references to "the pearl of great price," "the treasure hidden in a field," and even "the fountain of youth" may reveal our longing to rediscover the connection we make with Source Energy through our body's center.
Your body's center — this one point — is the address for your entire self. As Reverend Jeanette Stokes, director of the Resource Center for Women in Ministry in the South, likes to say, it's the "zip code of the soul."
CORE PRINCIPLE
We connect with Source Energy — our soul power, our power to promote creation — through our body's center.
CORE PRACTICE
Locating Your Center
Place your palms on your belly, with the tips of your thumbs touching at your navel and the tips of your index fingers touching below. Notice the triangle that your hands are framing.
Press gently yet firmly into the center of this triangle. What do you feel? Your body's center nestles here, deep within the volume of your belly.
Here's another way to locate your center:
LOCATING YOUR CENTER
1. Sit or stand comfortably. Place one palm on your belly, with your thumb at your navel. Place your other palm on your lower back, directly opposite.
2. Let your breathing deepen. As you breathe, imagine a string running from the center of one palm through your body to the center of the other palm. See the string, feel it, describe it to yourself.
3. Find the string's midpoint. Focus your attention at this point for several breaths. What do you observe? Notice the images and sensations that are occurring.
4. Now change the position of your hands and place your palms on your right and left hips, with your thumbs at the level of the bony knobs at the front of your pelvis.
5. Continue breathing deeply. Now imagine another string running from the center of one palm through your body, in front of your spine, to the center of the other palm. See the string, feel it, describe it to yourself.
6. Find and feel where this string intersects the first. Focus your attention at this point for several breaths. What do you observe? Notice the images and sensations that are occurring.
7. Gradually return your attention to your whole body and to the present moment. Write down something about your experience or use color, line, and shape to record the images that emerged and the sensations you experienced.
When you're upset, off-balance, or out of sorts, take a moment to locate your center and put yourself here. Come sit in this garden. When you have "butterflies in your stomach," beckon them to rest on the gorgeous flower that's right here, at your center point.
What other images portray the process of centering yourself? What did you hear as a child? One woman told me, "When I was upset, my grandmother would say, 'Go down and sit in the lap of your angel.'"
How do you name this pivotal point within your belly? Whatever you call it, remember that what happens to the center happens to the whole. Love your belly, and you're on the fast track to loving your whole self.
DO YOU HAVE TO LOVE YOUR BELLY?
Love your belly? Is that really necessary?
As I've said, this book is and isn't about bellies. It's about developing and directing the power to promote creation that's concentrated in your body's center — which, as it happens, is within your belly.
To tap into this power, you have to be willing to deepen your awareness into your belly. You have to let yourself be there, live there. You have to be willing to let numbness gradually give way to sensation, to allow blankness and silence to make way for whatever images and messages may want to emerge. You have to let your belly come alive.
For many, if not most, of us, this is a tall order. For respectable reasons, many of us have abandoned our bellies; we rarely visit or call. In chapter 2, I point to the cultural forces that have led us to make our bellies the objects of our self-hatred. No wonder we've kept our distance! Working with the exercises in part 2, you'll have many opportunities to reestablish your mind-belly relationship in a safe and playful way.
"Do I have to love my belly?" I can hear the groan that accompanies the question. You might think that loving your belly is impossible. Right now, I'll settle for your being willing to witness your judgments about your belly without judging yourself for judging.
Do We Have a Deal?
As you become acquainted with your belly from the inside out, you're likely to develop a certain appreciation, even a fondness, for it. As you experience more and more of the vitality, pleasure, creativity, and confidence that energizing your belly brings into your life, you may begin to feel a tad of gratitude. As you reap the benefits of belly awareness in terms of enhancing your relationships, developing your inner guidance, and clarifying your sense of purpose — well, you may find yourself loving your belly after all, no matter what its size or shape. When you're living from the inside out, the view from the outside in becomes irrelevant.
My daughter Francie met a friend for lunch. The woman confessed, "I shouldn't be eating. I feel so fat; my belly's so big." Francie replied, "If you found something so incredibly precious and powerful that it could bring forth life, how would you keep it? Wouldn't you want to wrap it in something soft and round, to cushion and protect it? That something soft and round is your belly."
— Virginia
The way I see it, my belly contains the most awesome power imaginable. It's the gateway to my soul, the truth of who I am, the source of every experience I value. If loving my belly is the riddle to solve on the way to uniting with this source, then I'm in.
And you?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Woman's Belly Book by Lisa Sarahon. Copyright © 2006 Self-Health Education, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of New World Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Welcome,Introduction: The Treasure Inside You,
PART 1: BEFRIENDING YOUR BELLY,
Chapter 1. Core Principles, Core Practices,
Chapter 2. A Cultural Exposé,
Chapter 3. What's In a Belly?,
Chapter 4. Secrets of Your Body's Center,
PART 2: SPARKING YOUR SOUL POWER,
Chapter 5. Practice Pointers,
Chapter 6. Vitality: Keep Looking and Feeling Great,
Chapter 7. Pleasure: Spice Up Your Sensuality,
Chapter 8. Confidence: Activate Your Self-Assurance,
Chapter 9. Compassion: Fill Your Heart to Overflowing,
Chapter 10. Creativity: Unleash Your Self-Expression,
Chapter 11. Intuition: Amplify Your Inner Guidance,
Chapter 12. Purpose: Make Your Dreams Come True,
PART 3: LIVING A GUTSY LIFE,
Chapter 13. Designing Your Practice,
Chapter 14. Restoring Your World,
Appendix 1. Women's Bellies in History and Culture,
Appendix 2. The Gutsy Women's Workout,
Acknowledgments,
Notes,
Illustration Sources,
Bibliography and Resources,
Index,
About the Author,