the center will not hold::
on motherhood & core mutations
As we entered Aries season, I made it my business to **spirit fingers** reclaim my core. This was not a philosophical decision but a physical need: I have an enormous child(!!!) He is somehow both squishy and dense.
And my back hurt from picking him up and putting him down and swinging him around repetitively. One of my ribs kept pulling out. My arms couldn’t do it all. I needed a source of power to pull from. To rely on. I mean, the child is only nine months old, and though it seems like many parents I know have surrendered to a somewhat injured reality, I do not plan on being slightly in pain for my entire adult life.
If there is one thing I learned from the inimitable Ana Forrest, it is that aging is not synonymous with pain // or // it doesn’t have to be. We can actually utilize aging to our advantage if we can tap into the ever-deepening well of wisdom afforded to us as we get to know ourselves and our bodies more and more intimately.
It’s the art of understanding what it is we need, at any given moment, in order to grow in continual wellness, rather than accumulating trauma.
This is my definition of sustainability.
It doesn’t mean lasting forever or nothing ever hurting.
Rather: as things fall out of wellbeing, you tend to them.
You stretch what is too tense and you strengthen what is too weak and you massage what is too strong and you whisper tender hellos into what has numbed out, teasing it back into remembering it is part of you; and needed, too.
I have had a complicated relationship with my solar plexus. It once represented to me the rejection of my own power. A period of self betrayal (shameless plug here to read Bread Of for more there). It took me the whole last decade—through a devotion to yoga & a creative re-wrestling with certain ingrained narratives—to actually integrate my center. To wake up a being in a body that finally felt like a synchronized organism.
And then pregnancy happened. And it felt like all I had worked so hard to assemble as my nucleus was suddenly & radically dispersing itself. What had been central made itself into lining; so that the core of my selfhood opened up this wormhole for a whole other being to come tumbling in through; making a home out of me.
I loved being pregnant, but it was most disorienting to watch this carefully cultivated core displace itself in a matter of months— & to watch myself as if from afar—cheering as I felt it happening.
After giving birth to Asher, it felt like I had purged myself yet again; dumped (—a rather crude but prudent word choice?—) my entire interior out into the material world. The baby was now a separate, othered thing (& where was I?)
What had been my center was now my center by proxy.
Outside of me. Yet still demanding the totality of my attention & the ability to keep my balance while carrying the both of us.
The ability to hold us, steady somehow still,
though I was now hollow(ed).
As a woman who bleeds and a poet who dreams obsessively, the moon is an ever relevant metaphor. My child is 9 almost 10 months old now/ & I’ve found myself needing to fill out again.
I want to be a mother with a core. A strong one. With core values and an unshakable foundation into which I can root tremendously, and from which I am able to move flexibly.
I want to be able to carry my child, my family, and myself, fiercely— and fearlessly. Fearless in the sense that I can rely on, and trust in, my Self. To hold and to nourish and to nurture. To bend without breaking. To pick up & to put down. To be the solid trunk to whatever limbs need to sway reach grab wipe pluck caress or cull.
And there is, as we know, endless needing.
So, leaning into the heat of this past Aries season, (yes I am aware of how late I am publishing this!!!!) I focused on the subtle yet persistent strengthening of my core. Essentially: ab work. Cliche and unglamorous and sort of embarrassing to say aloud ((—somewhere in my subconscious I associate the notion of postpartum fitness with a hyper superficial bounce back culture vibe I do not in any reality ascribe to nor want to be affiliated with. But I digress…))
To stave off boredom, I experimented through different ab avenues: Forrest, pilates, MWH, EveryMother, an array of youtube fitness vids, and mostly: five-minute-naptime abs. I can do anything (and bear the inspirational catcalls of any influencer) for 5 minutes.
Lo and behold, an amazing thing happened: my baby-induced back pain is mostly mitigated. My core feels stronger, and I, more centered. More able to cart my perfect cinderblock of a baby up and down the stairs, as needed.
So, my offering, for this cycle is a humble and poorly filmed: 6 minute core work on the wall. I do these with a range of clients: elderly, injured, tired, hungover, postpartum. I turn to the wall myself when I simply want to take it a little slower or feel a little more supported. [ FYI, PSA: It’s not lazy to go slow, nor to give yourself ample support. Sometimes it’s the more ‘advanced’ choice. Often it allows for deeper work. ]
Here’s the video. It jumps right in, so turn your mat to the wall & grab a prop like a block or a pillow::
»» 6 minute core on the wall ««
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I think I speak for us all when I say:
HELLO, DEAR SPRING~
I love you~
Gabby