Reconnecting with Your Body Postpartum : The Soft and Supportive Approach
Makayla Mcintyre
Somatic Therapy Practitioner
and Certified Prenatal/Postnatal Yoga Teacher
A Gentle Beginning
The postpartum period is usually talked about regarding recovery and bonding. But, for many it can feel overwhelming, exhausting and unfamiliar. Whether you gave birth recently or years ago, you may find yourself feeling disconnected from yourself and your body. Through a somatic lense, healing after birth isn’t about pushing through or “bouncing back.” Rather, It’s centered around reconnecting with your body in a soft, supportive and loving way at the pace your nervous system is ready for.
Disconnection is Real
However your birthing experience came to be, it’s an influential physical and emotional event. For many, the postpartum experience can create a disconnection from the abdominal and pelvic muscles and an overall “out of body” feeling. Over time, this can lead to an emotional disconnection and difficulty trusting physical sensations. Rapid physical changes can sometimes lead to shame and difficulty with how your body has changed. From a nervous system perspective, these responses and reactions are your body's way of protecting you and assessing changes to keep you safe. Your body is so wise and adaptable. Leading with compassion and curiosity is the best way to start growing the connection to your body again. No matter how you’re feeling, you are not alone.
The Somatic Approach
Somatics is the practice of listening to your body to reconnect to its sensations in order to regulate the nervous system and create more body awareness. In somatics, we use tools such as breath, movement, visualization and more to facilitate healing and connection. The somatic approach encourages and offers permission to move slowly, rest often and find safety in your body. Somatic practices embrace ease and stillness rather than forcing or pushing. This approach helps to facilitate allowing yourself to feel your emotions fully, be present and find true long lasting healing.
Yoga for Postpartum Healing
Yoga offers a mindful, intuitive and gentle approach to movement and breath. Postnatal yoga focuses on rebuilding trust and strength in the pelvic floor and core. Using breath awareness and techniques to stimulate the vagus nerve and diaphragmatic breathing to strengthen and release tension in the pelvic floor. Throughout a postnatal yoga practice a variety of poses are used to help to release tension in the hips, shoulders, jaw or anywhere else you’re feeling tension. Yoga uses gentle movement and breath to reconnect yourself to your body and pelvic floor muscles. Yoga shouldn’t be centered around perfect yoga poses and flexibility, but rather finding presence, stillness, healing, self compassion and mindfulness. Yoga is always there to hold space for you no matter what stage of life you’re in so you can show up exactly as you are in each moment.
Slow Down for your Nervous System
Postpartum healing is deeply tied to nervous system health. Most of us live in a chronic state of “doing” and rarely live in a state of “being” to allow our bodies time to rest. A healthy nervous system is resilient and can handle most things you throw it’s way. In order to have a resilient nervous system that can work well in the face of stress, it's important to prioritize finding moments of stillness. Somatic practices help you to shift out of fight or flight, feel safe enough in your body to rest and cultivate more joy through simple rituals. These practices can happen for just 5 minutes a day, while on your couch, your bed or even while holding your baby.
Gentle Ways to Start at Home
Here are a few somatic and yoga based ways to start reconnecting to your mind, body and the world around you.
Deep Breathing: Breathe deeply and notice without trying to change. Notice how you feel, sensations in your body, the sounds or smells around you, notice anything in your surroundings just to take a moment to ground.
Rocking or Swaying: Gentle rocking of the pelvis or body, swaying side to side standing up or tracing the hips in a figure 8 all help to soothe the nervous system.
Sighing, humming or singing: Stimulates the vagus nerve and helps you find an overall sense of calm.
Supportive poses for rest: Child’s pose, legs up the wall, knees in your chest hug or supported bridge.
Body Scan: Check in with your body, how are you feeling? If you have some free time, can you honour something your body is quietly asking for? Maybe it's rest, hydration, time outside, short walk, snack, little stretch, breathing deeply, warm bath, connection etc. If you don’t have time, can you incorporate something you have to do with something your body needs? Bring your big water bottle with you for bath time, answer emails from outside, facetime a friend while you tidy the house, take a few deep breaths while you are feeding, etc.
Feel to Heal: Sometimes we overcomplicate emotions, when we feel sad we don’t think we should feel sad so we end up feeling guilty or overthink wondering why we are feeling sad to begin with which often times ends up taking more time than simply allowing ourselves to feel the emotion and let it go. By letting the emotion move through the body, we allow the emotion to be felt and noticed without attaching it for the rest of our day. Feeling sad? Let yourself cry or be held by someone. Feeling angry? Scream in your pillow or shake out your muscles. What you resist will persist and taking a few minutes to feel what you need to will help to let that feeling go and leave space for new emotions.
In Conclusion,
Every small reconnection is a win. There doesn’t need to be any pressure to add more to your plate, just presence, curiosity and compassion for yourself while you navigate these changes. You are not alone and you don’t have to rush. Whether your birth experience was complex, joyful, traumatic or empowering, you deserve support and slowness finding your way back to your body.
If you're interested in more ways to reconnect with your body, I would love to support you through this journey. I offer private somatic therapy, yoga for postpartum and complimentary 15min discovery calls at Proactive Pelvic Health Centre.