belly has collected a lifetime of experience, including pain and pleasure, wounding and healing, conflict and resolution, difficulty and triumph.

Befriending your belly includes inquiring—gently, respectfully—into its personal history. As you recall the events that make up your belly's biography, your body's center can emerge more clearly and fully into your awareness. When your belly is no longer a stranger to you, you can begin to give it the amiable attention it deserves, developing a relationship of mutual appreciation, compassion, and trust.

Here is a process for discovering your belly's personal history, one which I've adapted from Ira Progoff's At A Journal Workshop and Tristine Rainer's The New