ABSTRACT
The act of mothering has a physical impact on us throughout our mothering journeys, from the wild cocktails of hormones that mothering elicits (oxytocin, adrenaline, testosterone, as well as those involved in pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding if these are part of our mothering journey) to the temporary and permanent marks left on our bodies from this act (biting, kicking, punching, bashing, as well as pregnancy and birthing). In this creative response Breathnach reflects on her embodied experiences of mothering and health from a somatic perspective. She focuses specifically on her nervous system, which is constantly aroused by the children who call her “Mum” for the hundredth time in an hour. Just this word alone activates her sympathetic nervous system, which she feels alighting and crackling across her back. She enters into alert mode easily, quickly. It's the Mother of all switches. Single-mothering, working, and home schooling in the pandemic has brought this into sharp focus. Breathnach creates a series of playful enquiries using a range of inventive approaches to explore how she might minimise the impact to her nervous system in these mother-child encounters.
