As we journey with somatic self-love – the embodiment of love, our bodies can become the Mother/our Mother. The trapped energy of mis-attunements, of developmental abuse and lineage trauma create behavior loops in our nervous systems that no longer serve us as adults, but have trained our bodies to believe it is the way to…
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In his work Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, legal scholar Kenji Yoshino describes covering as any activity used “to tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream.” Hi, my name is Daniella Matutes and I am a recovering cover. In order to survive my childhood, I developed many strategies and…
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So many of us sacrifice our self-worth and well-being to ‘belong’ in a culture that teaches femmes that our worth is based on our output, serving others and looking sexy (among others). We spend large parts of our life grasping for love and belonging from parents, teachers, men, partners, friends, employers, and clients. Striving to…
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Self-love can feel dangerous, selfish, vain and even terrorizing if you’ve grown up in an abusive environment. Caregivers may have spent an excessive amount of time negatively focused on us, using our so-called ‘flaws’ as an excuse for the abuse. Or punished us as we asserted boundaries, teaching us that self-love is dangerous. We may…
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Learning how to love ourselves is transgenerational and transmitted to us before we learn to talk. Before we have the ability to “regulate” our own nervous systems. Essentially, from inside the womb until about age 5, we learn to love ourselves through the transmissions of our caregiver’s nervous systems. They literally send us their own…
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