Cultivating a Soft Belly - How Abdominal Therapy Supports Lifelong Reproductive Flow

Bellywork is a global practice of massaging the belly, supporting womb and total-body healing. Learn how cultivating a Soft Belly can improve nearly all your symptoms, from Menarche to Menopause

The abdomen is very rarely touched in a typical massage. However, Bellywork is an ancient practice of healing, preventative medicine, and self-care that is performed all around the world.

In my practice I serve women with what I call Holistic Alt Gynecology. I see women for all sorts of wild and curious reasons, and I’m thrilled to tell them that nothing is wrong, their bodies (and yonis) are speaking to them. It’s just information. And Congratulations for listening!

I am so Impressed by my Clients.

I can almost guarantee, by the time a woman has made it to the point where she thought sometime was up, she wondered (or googled it) for a bit, and then she asked a few girlfriends, one of whom recommended me. Then she had to hear the recommendation at least one more, maybe two more times before she decided she was WORTH IT, and looked me up. Then she had to weather the storm of emotions between now and then, giving her all sorts of time to double-think and second guess her intuition one last time, before the day arrives when she hops in the car and drives to my office. Because she knows, she’s about to talk about her most shameful, private, mysterious issues with, in some cases, a near total stranger (me). BRAVE.

I fall in love with women every day in my office. This is a blessing and a precipice, as WolfMothering is a stringent affair. If I didn’t learn to diligently and worshipfully tend to my own body, removing one painstaking sliver at a time, opening up my tissues and womb as a channel - I’d be struck down by the lightening bolt of women’s rage and pain, daily.

Bellywork for the Win

There are three basic practices that I prescribe to every women in all reproductive phases of life. Bellywork is one of them, and here is why:

Benefits for Women

• Realigns a tilted or prolapsed uterus or bladder

• Relieves symptoms of PMS: Including menstrual cramps, depression, low back ache

• Regulates irregular menstrual cycles and ovulation

• Helps relieve painful menstruation and ovulation

• Relieves symptoms of endometriosis

• Aids in dissolving ovarian cysts and uterine fibroids

• Regulates abnormal uterine bleeding

• Aids in preventing recurrent bladder or yeast infections

• Assists with shorter, easier labor for expectant mothers

• Relieves symptoms of perimenopause and menopause

• Aids in attaining pregnancies for women who are having difficulty becoming and/or staying pregnant

Benefits for Men

• Alleviates symptoms of mild prostatitis (frequent, painful and/or difficult urination, incomplete evacuation of urine, pain in low back)

• Reduces prostate swelling in some cases of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

• Alleviates male impotence and erectile dysfunction (depending on the causes)

Benefits For Everyone

• Relieves chronic headaches/migraines

• Relieves common digestive disorders, such as reflux and heartburn

• Aids in increasing general energy levels

• Alleviates symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

• Alleviates symptoms of Crohn’s Disease

• Aids in reduction of chronic constipation

• Relieves chronic low back pain

• Alleviates restricted breathing due to anxiety and tension

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Going On a Pilgrimage

I’ve been practicing Bellywork for over 10 years, since I attended my first Arvigo Maya Abdominal Therapy training in Denver. I learned from an American woman, who learned from Rosita Arvigo, the American woman credited with bringing this therapy to the west. Dr. Arvigo studied in depth from Don Eliijio, a Mayan shaman from Beliz who was famous for his uterine massage. While I have loved this modality, I’ve since longed to travel to Central America, to learn more directly the original indigenous therapies.

Now, my dream is becoming a reality… in a few weeks, I will travel to the ‘homeland’ of this beloved technique, which has served many women in my care over the years.

I’m heading to the north east coast of the Yucatán in Mexico, on a pilgrimage of sorts, to a region of revered Maya abdominal and womb massage priestesses, and the island of the Mayan Goddess of Fertility, Ixchele.

I am going to apprentice in this Mayan womb care from two different healers while I’m there. I hope to receive Soft Belly codes of wisdom directly from these Maya lineage holders. I pray I am worthy enough to bring them home to you.

I also plan to cleanse my womb in ancient healing waters of the cenotes, bask my heart in the milky rays of the moon, feed my spirit in the equator sun, and call the soul of my future child to me. It’s a really big feeling I have in my chest right now, sharing this vulnerable last piece of my journey. Thank you for witnessing me. I would also like to take notes or blessings to the temple of Ixchele for any woman reading this, who is also calling in the souls of her children.

About The Soft Belly

I grew up in a culture of ‘mother-tuckers’ as my teacher Leslie Howard likes to say. All our devices for sitting put us into a tucked-pelvis position, which shortens and hardens the deep hip flexors like iliacus and psoas. On top of that, I grew up in a social culture that told us that proper female posture included sucking in the belly and sticking out the tits. On top of that, I grew up in a fitness & yoga culture that told us to squeeze the pelvic floor, tuck the tailbone, engage the core, and lift the heart. All of these related actions equated to me having pelvic and abdominal hypertonicity - meaning too much tone and the inability to relax.

After about 5 years of heavy yoga training and practice, my symptoms began to accumulate, including incontinence (even though I’d never had a baby), low back pain that took me out for several weeks at a time, irregular and missing periods, constipation and bloating constantly, food allergies, adrenal fatigue, hair loss, emotional volatility, and poor boundaries. I was really stressed with work during this time as well.

There was no buffer in me, not emotionally and not physically. I was wound so tight that I often spun out like a top. It was in this extreme moment of my life that I had my feminine awakening. And this wasn’t an orgasm-in-the-middle-of-yoga-class kind of awakening. No, it was a descent. It was a naked-breakdown-in-the-middle-of-the-rain-stormed-street. Like the story of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna, it was a step down the spiral stone stairs that lead to the dungeon of all my buried trauma.

He told me, “You need to go see a therapist,” and he was right. It was in this moment that I realized I needed to tend to my pelvis. This led me on a journey of awakening - dissolving the dense wall between where my physical and spiritual bodies meet.

That was almost 20 years ago now, and for the past two decades I’ve been learning and then intuiting tools and practices to help women like me with buried trauma, disconnected from their core and womb, physically holding on for dear life.

I work with a lot of brave women, including women who have done therapy for decades, but haven’t yet gone into their bodies. I’m telling you, through the Belly and Pelvis is the most direct and potent path. It’s not for the faint of heart. It will make a warrior out of you, but one with a soft belly instead of armor.

Global Perspectives on the Abdomen

In the medical tradition of Japan, Hara refers to the soft belly, and it refers to the emotional cauldron.

Tan tien (Dantian) is a Chinese term identifying the energetic core of the body and the place where our physical and spiritual bodies meet.

A sobada de matriz, commonly referred to as a sobada in Mexican Spanish, is translated as “womb massage” and is still practiced throughout many historically Mayan lands today.

Chi Nei Tsang, or Thai-style bellyworktreatments, involve using a gentle, soft yet deep touch to the abdomen to detoxify, tonify, and energize the internal organs to work more efficiently and to deal with unprocessed emotional energy.

How Bellywork Enhances the Body’s Healing Capacity

Along with the rest of the body, the uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes are self-healing. When the tissues get congested or stagnant, our healing potentials atrophy.

Bellywork can move fluids and fascia to catalyze the body's self-healing systems. When blood, lymph, nerve communication, and energy flow powerfully and abundantly, internal organs can better heal and balance themselves. In fact, many invasive procedures can be avoided by practicing regular Bellywork.

Bellywork is a gentle, non-invasive form of massage on the abdomen, low back, and sacrum. The techniques help reposition organs that have shifted and disrupted the flow of blood, lymph, nerve communication, and qi. Stimulating the liver specifically helps the female body process excess hormones and improves the elimination channel that is necessary for consistent, healthy menstrual cycles.

Bellywork releases fascial adhesion that glues the digestive and reproductive organs down, limiting their function, but also locking in stored trauma signals. Working to release this armor physically releases unprocessed emotions and nervous system vigilance in the brain. Space is created, new patterns and relationships around triggers emerge, and women find emotional freedom tickling them from the insides.

The Connection Between Qi and Anxiety

Anxiety can be correlated with qi stagnation in the system, or unprocessed emotions, which create dissonance in the female reproductive system. Anxiety is an emotion that has a particular resonance in the body, one that causes protection patterns, armoring, tension, and a general imprint of “caution.” When the body’s sympathetic nervous system is activated this way, the body de-prioritizes digestion and reproduction.

The blood is sent out away from the organs of the abdomen to power the limbs in case self-defense is necessary, causing the functions of the vital organs to slow and sometimes pause entirely. That’s why women sometimes stop menstruating altogether in times of stress.

If this anxiety pattern is sustained for long periods, it can result in stress-related fertility issues, unexplained infertility, tubal blockages, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, hormonal imbalances, menstrual irregularities, menstrual pain, PMS, fibroids, hot flashes, insomnia, incontinence, cystitis, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, IBS, headaches, low back pain, varicose veins, and more.

All of this can be remedied by the hands of a well-trained Bellywork therapist, and even through self-massage. (Watch a 55-minute guided abdominal self-massage practice.) Doing Bellywork can be a powerful way to encourage a womb cleanse, releasing stuck material from the uterus and unprocessed emotion from the Hara, thus refreshing reproductive and elimination pathways. It can ease menstrual cycle discomfort, balance menstrual and reproductive irregularities, boost fertility, and support postpartum healing. What better time than spring for such a cleanse?

Bellywork with the Infradian Rhythm & Reproductive Phases

Regarding timing, women in their reproductive years benefit from Bellywork in different phases of their cycles. Following a lifestyle and self-care routine that syncs with the menstrual cycle is also called infradian rhythm syncing. The infradian rhythm is a sister rhythm to the circadian rhythm, but instead of a 24-hour solar cycle, it's a 28-day lunar cycle.

The infradian rhythm affects female biology uniquely. As women learn to listen to how their bodies respond during different phases of the reproductive cycle, they become deeply connected to themselves and nature's rhythms.

Follicular Phase: Practice Bellywork here to slowly and gently warm up the tissues, supporting the body’s production of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), and estrogen. Optional: Precede Bellywork with some gentle movement, including the rocking of the hips and rolling the spine.

Ovulatory Phase and First Half of Luteal Phase: Practice Bellywork here to stimulate and clear stagnation in the Hara, support ovulation, and help the body produce progesterone. Optional: Move the body vigorously, getting the heart rate up for 20 minutes before lying down to massage.

Second Half of Luteal Phase and the Menstrual Phase: Practice Bellyworkhere to support the down-regulation of energy toward the cocoon time of menstruation. Hormones are declining, and the liver especially needs support to keep the elimination pathways clear in order to process all those excess hormones. Touch should be very gentle and nurturing. Optional: Do some diaphragmatic breathing and gentle shaking to encourage lymph flow.

Pregnancy: It can be very grounding and soothing to stimulate the belly during pregnancy. It helps the tissues stretch, the body receives loving touch, and the endorphins created are shared with the baby. It’s an absolutely remarkable way to synch up with your baby’s energy.

Postpartum, this practice is essential in helping the uterus reseat properly inside the pelvis and to support hormone regulation, digestion, tissue release, and overall nurturing. It is recommended in Ayurvedic medicine that postpartum women have 40 days of intensive postpartum care that includes Bellywork every day.

Perimenopause is a modern day issue that is common but not normal, and it’s a sign that we as a culture have forgotten how to nurture women through the golden opportunities of their reproductive lives. Over-stress, over-exercise, over-working, raising children alone, sexual abuse & trauma, eating disorders (including vegetarianism), domestic abuse, hormonal birth control, overly invasive and medicated birth experiences, toxicity sprayed on our food, endocrine disruption in food, water and air… I am not saying that perimenopause isn’t real… it isn’t normal for a woman to be experiencing 10 plus years of dysregulated hormones! The medical system is so inept at recognizing the symptoms for what they are - toxicity and emotional backlog, they either prescribe HRT or other drugs, or offer to remove women’s uteruses. It’s absolutely devastating to see my sisters loose their vital wombs due to this ignorance. If you are experiencing trouble with this transition into your crone years, I can help. Bellywork is especially important here, getting in to see a therapist monthly would be my recommendation. In addition, at home bellywork at least weekly.

Menopause (Hysterectomy): Practicing infradian syncing and Bellywork according to the rhythms of the moon can help non-bleeding women feel connected to their rhythms. (Imagine the body bleeding with the new moon and ovulating with the full moon.) Women who have lost their uteruses benefit from cycle synching (as described above) as their body is still practicing some cyclical hormone functions, and this will keep you connected to the phase of your reproductive timeline that you are actually in - Maiden, Mother, Muse, Crone. Regular Bellywork in this phase is like flossing your teeth. It’s wonderful whenever feeling density in the lower body systems, fatigue, insomnia, or hormone disruption symptoms.

I hope this was informative and inspiring! Look for practitioners trained in these modalities, and remember that they sometimes are also massage therapists, doulas, midwives, energy therapists, and pelvic health specialists.

I love to serve women in my practice with Mayan Abdominal Massage techniques (Arvigo), as well as Thai Bellywork techniques. As I said, it is one of the top three reproductive preventative care practices I recommend every day. Come see me for a treatment that will be most transformative and refreshing, in Traverse City & Beulah Michigan.

love love,

sarah wolfmother

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