What Your Immigrant Parents Didn’t Teach You: How To Connect With Your Body
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t grow up learning to intuitively connect with my body. I actually learned to ignore my body’s natural cues.
For example: my Asian immigrant parents were massively afraid of food waste and me being hungry. Thus, they told me to eat all the food that was put on my plate. If I told them I was not wanting to eat it, they said “too bad.” If I said that I was already too full, they said “eat it all anyways. There are starving children out there.”
Because children always choose attachment rather than disconnect, they will most often choose to obey rather than to lose the connection with their caregivers. I chose to eat all my food, because I was a “good girl” who always obeyed my parents.
What happened as a result, is now, I learned how to bypass/suppress my natural cues and to not check in with the messages that my body was sending me. I just ate and ate so that I would fulfill my parents wishes.
Fast forward to the present, I have had to do a lot of work to recognize my hunger cues, fullness cues, thirst cues, etc. There is still a lot that I am figuring out with deeply connecting to my body when it comes to food. It has been healing to eat intuitively. For my family, I put food out (family style) and give my kids the chance to eat as little or as much as they want. Sometimes they don’t eat much, sometimes they eat a lot. It all balances out at the end and they are very aware of when to stop or when to eat more.
How does this apply to healing work?
Part of the healing work with adult children of immigrant parents is that we require more intentionality with the work related to connecting to our bodies. Our bodies store different experiences, memories, stories, stressors and most of it is not conscious.
A lot of our trauma in our immigrant families doesn’t necessarily come from things that are parents did… most of our parents were necessarily abusive, but most of our families were probably emotionally neglectful and encouraged us to suppress our feelings and connections to our bodies.
Somatic Experiencing + Internal Family Systems therapy is a body focused therapy approach developed with the intent to address and heal trauma that is imbedded in the body and out of the conscious mind. It focuses on healing trauma that is impacted by the nervous system. Somatic therapy + IFS helps individuals release stored stress and energy from the body to restore balance and harmony.
What are the main principles of Somatic Therapy + IFS?
Trauma is stored in the body, not just in our thoughts or mind.
When something really overwhelming happens, out bodies react to keep us safe. Maybe our heart races, we freeze or feel numb. If the event is not addressed in a way that brings closure to our bodies, the body can hold onto that energy and store it somewhere in our bodies. In the long term, it can cause us to feel anxious, tired or out of sorts. SE works on helping our body let go of this stored stress and tension.
Small steps
Trying to tackle the trauma little by little rather than chunk by chunk helps us to not be re-traumatized. It helps us feel safe and controlled throughout the process
Body knows how to heal (resourcing)
Our bodies know how to heal and are incredibly smart. Somatic therapy helps us use our inner resources, like safe spaces, inner sanctuaries, memories of comforting people, when we need an increased sense of safety while working on difficult things.
Moving between stress and calm (pendulation)
Healing doesn’t mean jumping into the trauma and working through the hardest feelilngs. It’s about the gentle rocking between stress and calm so that we don’t shock our bodies with letting out all the tension all at once.
Noticing what your body is saying (felt sense)
Our bodies are always sending us signals, but we don’t notice them. For example, we might feel tightness in our chest when we are anxious or having a heavy feeling in our shoulders when we are sad. SE helps us to pay attention to these sensations and use them as clues to understand what we’re feeling and what needs more attention and connection.
Letting the body finish what it started (completing responses)
When something scary happens, our bodies might of wanted to respond in a different way or receive something that we didn’t get from our caregivers. SE helps us safely release that energy by allowing our bodies to finish what it couldn’t do before, like shaking, crying or taking a deep breath.
Balancing the nervous system
Our nervous system has two main settings “on” and “off”. The “on” switch gets us ready to deal with challenges and the “off” is the resting and digesting mode. Trauma can cause us to stay on the “on” mode longer than is helpful. SE brings the nervous system back into balance so we can respond to being “on” or “off” on our terms, versus being “on” ALL THE TIME.
Why is this work important for adult children of immigrant parents?
This skill of connecting to our bodies, sensing and understanding our bodies signals like hunger, thirst, heartbeat, muscle tension or the need to rest, allows you to understand what is happening IN REAL TIME to your body so you can respond appropriately and in a timely manner.
Being aware of your own body and it’s cues and responding accordingly is of paramount importance for several reasons:
1) It helps us recognize early signs of physical health issues-
a. Fatigue or dizziness- warning signs of dehydration, low blood sugar, exhaustion
b. Shortness of breath- warning sign of breathing issues
c. Chest tightness- warning sign of rising anxiety or potential heart issues
2) Helps us avoid burnout and overwhelm- capitalism often pushes us to ignore our body’s signs for rest and emotional release. With good mind body connection, we can pause before burnout, not after burnout. Feel when our energy is low and eat and rest accordingly. Pay attention to stress signals and employ calming strategies immediately. By honoring these signals little by little in the present, we can prevent long term damage to our physical and emotional well being.
3) Supporting healthy regulation in our bodies- mind body awareness can help us connect physical sensations to emotions. Our stomach might hold fear. Our shoulders might hold grief. Our feet might hold anxiety. When we notice these sensations, we can better understand and respond before it overwhelms us and uses our bodies to stop our daily activities in the form of illnesses.
4) Enhancing self trust and decision making- when we listen to our body and their signals, we build trust in ourselves. This connection can guide our decisions around:
a. Who we decide to be in relationship with
b. How much food or water we eat
c. What kind of foods we might be sensitive or allergic to
d. Whether or not a person feels safe or unsafe to be around
5) Help with trauma recovery- trauma causes disconnect from the body as a survival response. When someone loses touch with their body awareness, they might not notice the physical effects of stress or danger. Our bodies really can tell the difference between safety and danger and doing this work of building more mind body connection and helps us choose who we want to engage with further.
At the core, the heart of the work involves being able to hear and trust the messages your body sends. It prevents small problems from turning into bigger problems. We become adept at understanding what our body needs and it helps us to care of our bodies better.
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