Discover What You’re Really Hungry For
While there are so many mixed messages about food, eating, exercise, heart and bone health, hormone balancing and exercise recommendations, there is a way to get clear on what satisfies and sustains you. But, it’s not another diet, or a specific number of steps, or the best gynecologist (or otherwise influencer) who has the crystal ball prescription for your settling your mood swings.
I’m human like you, and I was almost shaped by the diet and power-over culture that tries to tame people:
I grew up in the humid step classes at the YMCA in the 90s bombarded with cottage cheese pressure—but my “steps” now are walks and other movement practices that birth clarity, creativity and self empowerment.
I was taught to praise systemic power-over prescriptive cultures—but I now listen to my body and respect my gynecologist (and science) because she honors my choices emphasizing there are no one-size-fits-all regimens for birthing, nursing, hormone dips and dives.
So while I now have a relationship with food that fuels and satisfies me, and I love a variety of movement practices that invigorate my aliveness, and I can listen to my body while also tending to preventive and medical care when necessary, it’s not always been easy to nourish my body, my voice, my gut.
From personal and professional experience, there is hope, a circuitous yet enlivening path to finding peace with food, exercise, body image and mood swings all supported by an appreciation for reconnecting with body wisdom.
I know that feeling of being stuck and buried with food cravings, protein diets and compulsive exercise. Feeling too big, too much, too sensitive, too aware to swallow what I assumed others could do so easily. I am familiar with systems and people who employ power-over principles that can shrink one’s development and appetite for life.
I began reading Geneen Roth in college as I began seeing a counselor as I struggled with food and exercise wars. Being “enough” was a common theme that played out in extremes with diet and exercise for me. But as soon as I started exploring therapy, and reading a lot of literature on how food issues were symbolic parts of me, food and exercise began to have less power over me.
That doesn’t mean I ever suggest a quick fix, but it does mean I believe in the capacity to move toward your sense of self, your center, the truth at your core, your own unique practice of Intuitive Eating, in radically new way. 🌀
Once you are able to experience how the food and exercise noise can dissipate, you will likely discover a treasure chest of growth and repair and preference. Initially, relational support, with someone who isn’t quick to pathologize but someone who is ultra patient and serves as steady support, can hold your hand as you sift through all those layers of pain or wonder than can be transformed into possibility.
While the world or your inner life might feel chaotic around you, while you might have battled food, exercise, body image or mood challenges for many years, there is a way to tune into your unique center, feed yourself deeply, and strengthen relationships without losing yourself. 🌀
PS, I recognize Geneen Roth and many authors of the 70s/80s/90s had blind spots about fat phobia and inclusivity on many levels. In celebration of complex thinking and appreciating our ability to grow and expand to be more inclusive in our movements and messaging, I still value many of her core tenants of staying committed to reclaiming your true self to help challenge and resolve old, unhelpful patterns.
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We develop and learn how to move from our center-outward in our earliest relational experiences. To move with more ease, to discover the integrity of your bones, to appreciate the suppleness of your muscles and the fluidity of your blood, to recognize your core, your truth, is all an exploration and continuous practice of Navel Radiation: the ability to sense, connect and move from your center-outward. 🌀
Navel Radiation is the first Emanation of Embodiment that offers a foundation of exploration in the somatic therapy and coaching that I offer. It’s about exploring how okay, or not okay, is it to consciously return to getting to know your deepest, most truthful, most whole you.
While somatic and cognitive techniques are invited, this embodied approach goes beyond words. While we indeed might just talk, or we might explore bold practices like you see in the photo above, you might try on micro-movements that only you can sense or feel. However, the relational and invitational experience is initially key to help repair, reclaim and reconnect you to your own aliveness, agency and appetite for life. 🌟
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Monday Movement Group: Mindful Movement as Mothering Medicine
With Caroline Gebhardt, LPC, RYT, Registered Somatic Movement Therapist & Educator
1:00-2:00pm Kirkwood/ATL
Ongoing, closed group
3-month commitment
Interview required
$200 month
All bodies, 18+ welcome
No experience necessary
Register: Caroline@MBodiedTherapy.com
https://www.mbodiedtherapy.com/events/m-bodied-monday-movement-group
Along with developmentally-significant yoga shapes & sequences, members get to explore somatic movement practices including:
• Navel Radiation: Move from your core with fluidity
• Contralateral Movement: Explore blockages & invite more energy to flow
• Gesture: Discover your energetic skin for presence as well as boundaries with others
• Handling: Expand your movement vocabulary for a more satisfying and eventual self-supported experience
Caroline Gebhardt, LPC, RYT, is also a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist/Educator with ISMETA. She developed M-Bodied: Mindful Movement as Mothering Medicine® as an offering of movement and shapes based on developmental and relational patterns for deep nourishment from the inside-out.
M-Bodied is grounded in the principles & practices of the somatic trauma healing method Chi for Two®, which groups and sequences early relational embodiment practices as symbolic redos for nervous system functioning and healthy relationships.