by Natasha | Sep 27, 2024 | Body Image, connection, Intimacy, Raising children with a healthy sexuality, Sex and mothering, Vulnerability |
As I work with clients bodies helping them learn to feel safe in intimacy, I’m brought back to my time in Kenya learning that our roots of intimacy grow from our initial familial relationships. I sometimes wonder if instead of working with adults I should go back to supporting parents in learning to attune to their infants unique language of expressing needs. But then I realize, I’m playing a part in reparenting the infant inside each of the adults I have the privilege of touching. This story is based on what I learned from the Maasai mama’s that I think so perfectly describes the potential for intimate wisdom that can come from our earliest relationships.
Nashipai spends her days with her four month old baby Kimaren, strapped to her back while she milks cows, cooks, repairs the walls of her cow dung home, and connects with others in her village. From his position on her back he can see the world as Nashipai sees it, experiencing all that she experiences. He feels her muscles flex and bend as she prepares food, fixes walls and goes about the tasks of daily life — absorbing a sense of capability from her movements. With his little body folded fully around her back, he feels the confidence in her posture and a sense of rightness in what she’s doing. Kimaren’s body connects to this feeling and intuitively holds his own back naturally and comfortably straight against his mamas. Sometimes, when her movements become rhythmic — like when she’s mixing porridge or milking the cow — he gets mesmerized by the sensations of their shared rhythm, belly against back. The rhythm of their movement creates a hum deep inside him, something he’s later surprised to realize is there, even when they aren’t moving. Sometimes his hum will start buzzing without mama starting it, and his round little body will wiggle. Responding to his movements, Nashipai laughs, sways and twirls as Kimaren lets his head fall back, giggling with joy at these simple moments together.
Other times, Kimaren will feel a change in his mama’s movements that don’t feel free or flowy like they normally do. This happens when Nashipai is learning something new and isn’t skilled in it yet. On his perch on her back, he clunks along with her clunks, learning in time that as long as they keep going, the clunks will eventually become confident, swift and knowing movements. It’s uncomfortable getting there and he much prefers when she confidently flows, but each time it happens he gains capacity in the unknown that comes before the knowing.
When Kimaren feels an uncomfortable emptiness in his tummy, he wiggles against Nashipai’s back for help to make it go away. Nashipai, who’s learned what this wiggle means, slides him around to her chest and offers her warm breast for nourishment. Feeling the soft roundness of her breast against his cheek, Kimaren opens his mouth and begins to suckle. The empty feeling in his tummy is replaced by the warm milk and, once full, he contentedly falls asleep. This symbiosis helps him at times when the uncomfortable emptiness arises and mama is in the middle of something that she can’t stop right away. Using her soft, soothing voice she tells Kimaren in words he feels but can’t understand, that what he needs will come in just a few more minutes. It’s uncomfortable but, because she always responds, Kimaren has come to trust his needs will always be met. So he waits.
Later, he’s woken by an uncomfortable feeling of fullness and again wiggles to tell his mama. Nashipai, feeling the difference in this wiggle, responds by gently lowering him to the ground and holding his knees up to his chest. Recognizing the cue, Kimaren lets the water fall from between his legs onto the dirt underneath until his tummy feels comfortable again. Mama always knows just what he needs because she’s always listening.
Nashipai knows everyone in the village, and with Kimaren’s cheek resting on her shoulder, he gets to know them too. He especially loves to see the faces that make mama’s body get soft and warm and he notices his own body become soft and warm in response. One face in particular lights mama up so much it feels like there’s a fire burning deep inside her. Kimaren watches this face and notices the way their eyes and body open towards mama like they’re inviting her in. His heart beats faster with hers and he recognizes a shared truth between the three of them; the truth of just how special mama is. His hum hums, and even though he can’t see her face, he knows mama is smiling.
Kimaren is most curious though about the faces that make mama tense and tighten, her hum go quiet and her fire dim. He notices that their eyes and arms are closed and they look down on her instead of welcoming her in. Kimarens body tightens against his mamas in response, and when she feels that, her hum starts buzzing inside her. All the muscles in her back go solid and he feels her body get bigger with every breath she takes. Even though the face was higher than mama before, it now seems like she’s looking down on them. Kimarens body softens in response to mama’s buzzing hum, and he settles against her curves, unafraid, soaking in a deep sense of her knowledge, capability, softness and strength. Being so close to mama, Kimaren is always listening too.
At night time, while mama lays beside Kimaren in their sheepskin bed, she traces her hands over the dips and curves of his whole body. Mama’s fingers are rough from hard work, but her touch is soft and curious and Kimaren senses her own pleasure as she lingers extra long over the grooves and folds of his chubby legs and neck. His body softens more the longer she touches, and he sinks deeper and deeper into the bed. Kimaren notices his hum is constant, like the purr of a cat. The feeling he has when mama touches him this way is something he can’t understand until he recognizes it later on in life when he’s a man touching his own wife and children in the same way that his mama touched him. Skin to skin, body to body …… this is the wisdom of intimacy.
by Natasha | Sep 9, 2024 | Intimacy, Intimacy Coaching, Posts, Raising children with a healthy sexuality, Sex and mothering |
“You just plunk yourself down beside me and that makes me feel safe. Like there’s nothing wrong with me or my body. I’m just normal.”
“The way you rested your hand on my leg while you were touching me with the other hand, made me feel like you’re not scared to be close to me and that you’re okay with touching me.”
I’m a mother. I touch you with the same comfort that I touched my five babies. Carrying them on my back, breast feeding, sleeping beside them for years on end — I’m comfortable beside your body and I’m comfortable touching your body.
Legs overlapping legs.
Baby suckling my breast.
Inhaling sweet milk breath while I sleep.
Baby on my back.
Smelling sun sweat on their heads.
Covering the pee spot with a blanket until morning so I don’t have to get up.
My half asleep hands reaching in the dark to make sure they’re all still warm.
It wasn’t delicate. It wasn’t careful. It was normal life. It was getting the job done…..
Well…. sometimes it was delicate, and sometimes it was careful.
Tracing the contours of their skin with my fingers, over and over.
Feeling and learning their bodies textures and grooves like a map I never need to look at to remember.
Knowing who needs an extra hand of support today and who doesn’t, without asking.
Imagining the best possible reason for their behavior.
Empathizing with their emotions.
It’s an immersion in intimacy. It’s mothering. I didn’t learn it in any training or in any book. Others might, but for me this comfort came from living it with my children and then later learning to feel it with my own body. Mothering has been my greatest teacher.
by Natasha | Aug 16, 2024 | Raising children with a healthy sexuality, Sex and mothering, Vulnerability |
Based on a true story:
There once was a beautiful little girl with big brown eyes that, from the moment she was born, was the delight of her mama. Observant and contemplative, mama marveled in experiencing through the little girl the wonder she saw in the world around her. The little girl loved closeness, being touched softly, cuddling and sleeping alongside her mama. She had a special connection with her grandpa who, with the strength of a carpenter, held her in his strong arms beneath the trees in their yard — watching the leaves above them blow while the breeze touched her face.
As she grew into a toddler and began interacting more with others, mama noticed that she often held back, taking her time to settle in and feel comfortable with new people and experiences. Being such a beautiful and curious little girl, many friends and family wanted to hold her and while she enjoyed them, she didn’t like feeling pressured to go to them. When this happened, her natural curiosity turned off and her body stiffened as she retreated back into the safety of her parents arms. Witnessing this, mama asked the people to simply invite her towards them with open eyes and smile — allowing space for her natural curiosity to draw her forward in her own time. The ones who listened to mama, delighted in the softness of the the little girls chubby legs as she sat on their lap, and the sing songy sounds of her voice as she chatted away. The ones who insisted on rushing her, were left disappointed that she chose to enjoy them only from the lap of someone else.
As the girl grew, so did her circle of people and she especially loved playing with other children. As always, she took her time at first, sitting on the edge, observing them and waiting to feel, without pressure, the readiness in her tummy drawing her closer. Invariably it would come and she would run off to play for hours and hours — occasionally looking back to check that mama was still there. Mama loved her little girl more than life itself and the only thing that could get in the way of that were when her own unresolved childhood wounds showed up. On one particular day, mama felt the pressure from other parents insisting her daughter play before she was ready. Feeling the need to please them, mama pushed her little girl to go and almost instantly was brought back to presence by the sight of her daughters little body contract and harden. Acknowledging her wrong doing, mama apologized and felt the little girl soften and settle against her chest as she held her, welcoming in space for her to reconnect to the feeling in her tummy that told her when she was ready.
The little girl grew older and taller, loving school, friends and spending time outside in nature. Sometimes, mama would watch her through the window laying on a blanket under a tree and looking up at the leaves above her. Intuitively mama felt that this was one of the ways her little girl connected to herself just as her grandpa, now passed, had taught her to do all those years ago. Other times she would, like any other kid, explore the world with her siblings, climbing trees and testing her body. Every so often she would stop and look at mama —questioning with her eyes how high she could go or what her body was able to do — and mama would respond “listen to your tummy, it knows best.”
The girl grew into a teenager who cared a lot about the world and the environment around her. She was tall and beautiful and, along with her contemplative and quiet nature, this made some people perceive her as aloof. She wasn’t at all — she just knew she needed space alone at times and to take time to pause and listen to her tummy’s wisdom.
When the girl began dating she listened to her tummy to set the pace of what felt right for her and knew that no one else’s desires were more important than what her body needed. “No ones gonna die if I say no to them” she told her mama. This seemingly simple statement touched something deep inside mama. She recalled her life long pattern of pleasing and as a result, internally bracing and guarding from touch that came from the feeling in other peoples tummy’s but not her own. Feeling unable to say no, made it hard for mama to feel when her tummy said yes. When had she forgotten to slow down and listen? Why had it taken her to this moment to remember that the wisdom she supported in her daughter, was innate to all of us?
Pondering this, mama went to her room, laid down on the bed and — with her hand on her tummy, turned her eyes towards the trees outside her open window — watching the leaves move and feeling the wind on her face. It took some time, but soon enough she felt something faintly familiar in her tummy — a resonance that she remembered feeling way back when she was a tiny little girl herself. “Listen to your tummy, it knows best.”
by Natasha | Feb 22, 2022 | Body Image, Raising children with a healthy sexuality, Vulnerability |
**Inspired by a breast cancer survivor I worked with, who asked me to share with other cancer survivors how I helped her accept her body again. I helped her in much the same way I helped myself, so here’s my story.
I started hating my body was when I was a teenager. My legs were too big and muscular, my breasts didn’t touch together like the women in magazines, and I knew I hated my vulva without even looking at it. I found ways to hide these things by wearing pants all year round, using my arms to push my breasts together during sex (yes I’m serious) and never looking at my vulva. As the years passed and I became a mother, I added a cesarean scar from 4 births and endless stretch marks that made my skin wrinkled to my “hate list.” I hated my body.
One day, while touching one of my five children, I wondered what he felt receiving touch that stemmed from a source that I loathed. Sliding my hands over his perfect little body, I wondered if he felt the love in my heart for him or, if he could feel my hatred of the body it came from. Worse yet, did it feel sourceless like tea pouring from an empty pot? There’s nothing I love more than my children and I wanted them to feel that love in every touch of my hand. So, I decided to try bringing the love I felt for them — towards myself, and see if I could fill up my own tea pot. If I could do that, I would be confident in the love they were receiving from my touch.
Making the decision was one step but the question of how to find love for my body when I hated it, was another. I thought of all the ways I showed my children love by looking at them, touching them softly and offering them kind and loving words. So (with the term “fake it til you make it” in my head) I imagined I was touching someone else I cared about, and slowly began to touch my body. It was really difficult at first — excruciating actually — and often brought me to tears. I’d avoided my body for so long and now here it — no she — was and the depth of how little I knew her and how much I’d rejected her, was right in my face. With commitment, I touched her everyday and started to remember the stories of the scars and stretch marks and other remnants of journeys I’ve been on.
Lines on my face reminded me of the sun in Kenya and all the beautiful relationships I had there. “Thank you my body.”
The loose skin on my belly reminded me that it was the first home for four of my children and I wondered about the belly of the mama who birthed my 5th child. “Thank you my body. Thank you Selam’s birth mamas’ body.”
I felt my cesarean scar and the lack of nerve endings across it. Slowly, finger by finger, I replaced the shame of my body not working properly to birth my children, with compassion for what my body went through to bring me 4 of my children. What a journey we’ve been through and you’re still here carrying me. “Thank you my body.”
Years later, I discovered I had thyroid cancer and the tumor, along with my right thyroid, was removed and there was a new scar with new feelings of shame. What had I done or not done to make myself get cancer? What am I doing now that could make it happen again? Why me? Why has my body failed me? Thinking again of my children and imagining how much love I would give them if they had cancer or a scar, and how I’d feel even more love for that part of them — I gave that to myself. I touched my neck gently and expressed appreciation for helping me find my voice that had been silent for so long. I spoke to her and under my touch, felt her soften.
“I see you and I know you’re here even if some of you is missing. Thank you my body”
It’s been 12 years from that first time I touched myself, and now I know my body so well. She’s my best friend. She’s honest with me when I eat something that doesn’t feel right for her and she’s taught me that she likes to be seen and validated and loved too. Sometimes I get caught in the trap of comparing her to others or of wishing she looked different, and I just come back to her and how she feels under my fingers and the stories she’s carried me through. When I do this, I can’t help but love her. Thinking of how I love my loved ones unconditionally, I remind her of all the ways I love her unconditionally. I love her scars and stretch marks, the thyroid still here and the one that’s gone, and her beautiful vulva. I tell her that she’s made perfectly and that I wouldn’t want her any other way, and with my touch and my words, I feel her soften under my fingers. “Thank you my body”
Today, when I touch someone else, I don’t doubt that they feel the source of this love coming through each of my fingers. With this love, I filled my own tea pot.
by Natasha | Feb 4, 2018 | Q&A, Raising children with a healthy sexuality |
Dear Natasha,
I’m the mom of 3 girls ranging in age from 7 to 15. I’ve told them the basics about sex in the terms of making babies but never anything about pleasure. Do you have any advice on how to talk to my daughters about pleasure? I don’t know where to begin.
K.
Dear K,
Great question! The fact that you’re asking this says a lot to me about the kind of parent you are. 🙂
Having a conversation with our daughters about pleasure can be extra difficult because we’re culturally conditioned to think of pleasure as shameful and bad — especially in reference to females. It isn’t uncommon to hear a mother joke about her son who can’t keep his hands out of his pants. However if she said the same about a daughter others may think there’s something “wrong” with her, or that somethings been done to her to make her “that way.” The fact is that masturbating for pleasure is a part of our sexual development that begins even before birth.
“We recently observed a female fetus at 32 weeks gestation touching the vulva with fingers of the right hand. The caressing movements were centred primarily on the region of the clitoris. Movements stopped after 30 to 40 seconds and started again after a few minutes. Furthermore, these slight touches were repeated and were associated with short, rapid movements of pelvis and legs……. We observed this for 20 minutes.”
— The Story of V, Catherine Blackledge
So how do you start? Start by using correct terminology when discussing their sexual anatomy and avoid “dumbing it down” with terms like “front bum” or ”pee pee.” We use these terms to lessen our own discomfort and in fact they just feed the already imposed cultural shame around our genitals. If you don’t know the correct terms then please learn them before you talk. You can explain to them about their clitoris and how it’s the only organ in our body that’s sole purpose is for pleasure. I’d tell them that masturbating is normal and natural and that basically everyone does it and that it’s a 100% safe way to have sex. (only say the safe sex part if it’s age appropriate) I’d even go so far as to say that you and your friends masturbate so they know that you’re not just speaking rhetorically. This may feel a bit awkward to say at first but I think you’ll notice from their response that they appreciate hearing it. It also helps for them to know that pleasure through masturbation is normal at different stages in life. Of course discussions about masturbation should also include discussions about appropriateness and safety and you will most likely have a different conversation with your older girls than your younger one.
With your older daughter(s) I would also tell them that the pleasure they experience through masturbation can and should also be experienced in sexual experiences with others when they are ready. This bit of information was a missing link for me as a teen because I masturbated for pleasure alone and had sex with my boyfriend without pleasure. It didn’t even occur to me that pleasure had anything to do with sex or that I could have both at the same time because no one told me that was possible. I want my daughters to know this. Sex for my own pleasure was a completely foreign concept and I see this carry through with adult women who talk about “good” sex. When questioned on what this means it is often apparent that “good” simply means not awful and has very little to do with actual pleasure.
I hope this helps as a starting point for the conversation with your daughters. I find in my Orgasm Coaching practice that the best indicator of sexual satisfaction as an adult is if the woman masturbated as a child. If you have any other questions or would like some anatomy diagrams to print out please don’t hesitate to email me again. You’re a wonderful mother to be seeking this information for your daughters!
Love Natasha
by Natasha | Jan 16, 2018 | Bodysex workshops, Posts, Raising children with a healthy sexuality, Sex and mothering, Vulnerability |
As I continue to grow and learn and get more comfortable incorporating parts of myself and my beliefs into my life and my work, I’ve started to feel uncomfortable using the word “heal” when referring to what I hope to help women achieve through my work. The definition of heal is “to become healthy or sound again” and to me that implies that we were once healthy and whatever we did or was done to us needs to be fixed so that we can become healthy again. I don’t believe that any of us need fixing. I believe that our pain, “brokenness”, trauma, and shame are just as valid parts of ourselves as our greatness. In fact often our greatness is a direct result of our brokenness.
I can see now that when I feel like I need fixing it’s usually because I’m waging battles — both consciously and unconsciously — with my stories and experiences that I deem shameful and bad. By not accepting or allowing them to be a part of me and my view of myself, I become fragmented — and a separation is created within me. It takes a great deal of energy to keep these parts separate and much of my energy is fed into hiding these perceived imperfections from others. Hiding and living in shame creates not only a separation within but a separation with out — and essentially distances me from the people that I most want to be close to.
I saw examples of this separation in my daughter whom we adopted as an older child. When she first came home she tried her best to be perfect and any time she made a normal mistake she would either apologize profusely or do whatever she could to hide it. The behaviours she used to cover her mistakes were often far more damaging than the mistakes themselves and after awhile trust between us became a problem. She seemed to be putting her energy into separating her “flaws” from herself and in doing so, was separating herself from me. Sensing that she felt the need to be perfect in order to be loveable, I began to praise her for making mistakes. I expressed my love for her “flaws.” Her spilled milk, forgotten lunch containers and messy room. Then I took things a step further and told her that I didn’t need her to be perfect or “fixed”, as adopted children often believe, and that it’s okay that she may always feel a sadness or brokenness about losing her birth family. I acknowledged that her wounds from this loss may never fully heal and that no matter what, I accept and love her as she is. I didn’t want her to think she “should” be anyone other than herself or that I needed her to feel better in order to love her. To deny the painful truths in her story would be to deny a part of who she is. I can honestly still feel her entire body sigh with relief upon hearing this.
I’ve carried this understanding with me ever since as a reminder to not gloss over or try to “fix” her or my other children’s pain or shortcomings, but instead to acknowledge and accept them as a part of their whole being. I don’t need them to be any “better” than they already are.
Through my work these past few years and in particular the shared vulnerability that happens within a Bodysex circle, I’ve learned to stop hiding in shame and acknowledge the parts of myself that aren’t so pretty to look at. In this acknowledgement and in the acceptance mirrored back to me from the other women, I’ve largely come to trust and stop fighting those parts of myself that I’m in battle with. When I stop resisting, the stories lose their power and — like a tapestry with many different threads — they become just another part of the intricate story of my life. They integrate into me. The meaning of the word integrate is “to put together parts or elements and combine them into a whole.” To be whole I don’t need to be perfect.
If you choose to sit in the circle with me or work with me in any capacity — I will not proclaim that you’ll be healed because I don’t believe that you need fixing. I don’t and won’t see you that way. I won’t pretend to have all the answers or that I’ve “arrived” at a place that you should also be. I will however, do my best to allow you to see me as a whole person with many curves and corners of both darkness and light. In the end, maybe healing is just realizing that in spite of my brokenness, I’ve been whole all along.
*** people who know me well know that I love words and their meanings and I don’t take it lightly which words I use. Just because this is how I feel about the word heal, doesn’t mean I think you’re wrong for using it. This is just what fits for me.
