First let me bring you into a body centered view based on my understanding. When a child is conceived and develops, they are not separate from chemistry, tissue and body formation. From my view, these different aspects influence each other and continually form and reform based on genetic influence and environmental impact.
A neophyte is born into a context that transmits information. There is much argument about whether a new born is impacted by and altered by their initial experiences. Having done much altered state process work as well as body work, I am convinced this is so.
That impact is often stored in what I would call cellular knowledge. I want to invite you to allow yourself to let down into an imaginary process aimed at gathering an understanding of this type of perspective.
I want to invite you to let go of your intellect. Sit comfortably in your chair, breathe deeply and tighten and relax your muscles several times. This is an imaginary process where you must allow yourself to slide under your ego, your thinking self, and allow a different kind of exploration to take place. You may gain sudden information n concerning your own early experience, that of your own children, loved ones, or clients.
So again, breathe deeply and relax. Imagine your are in a womb, and what this might be like. Imagine the possibility that your have some sensory experience like hot or cold, pressure, and even the possibility of some type of awareness of your host and her emotional experiences.
over time, the container that surrounds you is getting tighter. There is more and more pressure. The birth process once begun, begins to introduce chemicals that are quickly changing your environment and making exit imperative. This process may involve for you a tremendous increase in pressure and may even cause an experience of the possibility of threat to survival.
Since the cognitive systems are not in place, this can only be registered at the most primal levels.
You are born to a room, where the warmth and contact you receive may or may not be adequate. Are you spanked, are you held, can you breathe immediately or do you experience a battle for your first breathe. Is your mother there? Is she aware of you, happy to see you or is she angry, frightened, or drugged??
Are you suddenly alone with the sounds of screaming? Does the time seem endless and are your cold? Maybe your with your family, they are warm and happy. You are offered a breast and the milk is warm to the taste and makes you full and sleepy.
So this is the beginning. Lets just imagine the possibility that these experiences have formed a basic somatic position. One of movement toward life, or movement away from life. A basic positive or negative, and approach or avoidance on a deep intrinsic level.
Now you are home. You are experiencing a climate nor energy which permeates the people your sensitive to. Is it excited or calm. Is is abrubt or soft. Are you wet, cold or hungry. or is it warm, and secure. Are you held close to a warm body. As you experience these elements, you are forming biochemically and physically. If you are startled a lot, hungry and crying, etc... this influences your physical self.
Babies gaze at their significant caregiver. When you gaze in the eyes of the other, open and seeking, do you find joy, warmth and welcome or does the other look away, look angry or hostile, or just bored? Are you received, are you welcome, are you even seen?
If not how do you form around the resulting experience. Do you pull in energetically toward your center? Do you seek return to the womb or elsewhere? Do you begin to pull out of contact seeking an inner world that feels more like home?
As these experiences are repeated over and over, they become reality. As the next stage begins, you will bring this template with you into the stage of seeking sustenance. Of learning to cry, and demand food, warmth and contact. Your body will begin to reflect your understanding. Are you always hungry, always seeking contact, never able to feel satiated? Or, are you gaining weight, laughing, accepting contacting and sitting in your Buddha like joyful nature. If you are in this type of experience you will not be tense, your body will develop a flexible open stance as you begin to crawl and walk.