Books by Martha Love
"Although numerous books and articles have recently talked about the gut instincts as valuable in... more "Although numerous books and articles have recently talked about the gut instincts as valuable in giving us useful hunches in the decision-making process, "What's Behind Your Belly Button?" goes much further and explains how gut feelings not only have a psychological intelligence of their own, but are also understandably rational in their functioning. The authors explore how gut feelings are like a gas gauge in our guts indicating through an emotional feeling of emptiness or fullness how well the two instinctive human needs for acceptance (attention from others) and of control of one's own responses (freedom) in our lives are being met and how our behavior attempts to keep these two instinctive needs in balance at all times. They explore how these two instinctive needs motivate nearly all our behaviors all through our lives and that the feeling memory of how well these needs are met from moment-to-moment may be accessed through somatic awareness of our gut feelings of empty and full by using the Somatic Reflection Process the authors have developed.
In 1998, neurological research at Columbia University published the work of Dr. Michael Gershon that identified the enteric nervous system as a center of feeling-intelligence in the gut, which he called the "Second Brain". The authors carefully examined this material and accepted the research findings as pointing to the same universal feeling intelligence they experienced in counseling with hundreds of people. Utilizing the research of Dr. Gershon, the work of Dr. Lise Eliot who charts the development of children from conception through the first five years of life, recent research of their own in the Psychology Department at Sonoma State University, and their vast clinical experience, the authors have presented an interpretation of recent medical research into a Gut Psychology and a more accurate behavioral understanding of the Self and human nature than has previously been available. They share a complete protocol and results of clinical research findings for the Somatic Reflection Process that they have created and used successfully, with themselves and hundreds of people, to assist the process of getting in touch with the voice of the gut and learning to follow its wisdom toward a healthy life--unifying the body-mind split in the individuation process.
Over a period of 45 years, there has been a utilization of further graduate studies in Depth Psychology and Religious Education on the part of the authors, and giant steps forward in the fields of Neurology and Human Psychology, which help form a new more accurate image of human nature. The authors present this new image of human nature and the meaning of its understanding in making positive changes in our lives. They suggest that we are at the beginning of a Renaissance in human consciousness and that understanding our true human nature is the way to thrive in this present era. This book also discusses the implications of this new image of human nature in education and for rehabilitation of those incarcerated. The authors suggest that early in the child learning process, care be taken to offer the experience of freedom and acceptance to the preschool child to form a positive self-concept and to self-regulate his and her behavior as part of the learning process in becoming a loving, caring person.
After careful examination of life's processes, they conclude that of all the mammals in the animal kingdom, humans seem to be the only species that has been denied the open use of their natural instincts. Out of ignorance, fear or wanton control by others--"we are denied the use of the brains we were born with". This awareness is of growing concern since the absence of the use of the feeling intelligence of the body interferes with a major stabilizing force--built into the human system--that can affect human behavior, provide a sense of well-being, and the ability of the body to combat disease."
There are over 50 original recipes in Mom's Island Bakens and all are very delicious and healthy ... more There are over 50 original recipes in Mom's Island Bakens and all are very delicious and healthy foods—many entire meals. The recipes that I have included are from my personal collection that I have created over a 40-year span of time and that I refined to healthy versions for gut and heart over the years to reflect modern knowledge about excellent nutrition and well-being.
Best of all in this book, you will be given cooking tips throughout that will help you become a skilled and creative cook with gut and heart health in mind. Once you have learned these 50+ recipes, you will have not only a great daily diet, but also the ability to make up your own variations of a large selection of types of dishes and alter any recipe you find on the internet or otherwise into a healthy but very tasty version of your own that will serve your own dietary needs.
Journal Articles by Martha Love
Somatics Magazine-Journal of the Mind/Body Arts and Sciences, Apr 2008
"Love, S. (2008). Healing the trauma of the body/mind split through accessing instinctual gut fee... more "Love, S. (2008). Healing the trauma of the body/mind split through accessing instinctual gut feelings: A protocol for facilitating the somatic reflection process (SRP). Somatics Magazine-Journal of The Mind/Body Arts and Sciences, Volume XV, Number 4, pages 40-49. (Silver Love is same person as Martha Char Love, co-author of "What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct" on gut feeling intelligence)"
Somatics Magazine-Journal of the Mind/Body Arts and Sciences, Apr 2007
Love, S. (2007). Using somatic awareness as a guide for
making healthy life choices. Somatics M... more Love, S. (2007). Using somatic awareness as a guide for
making healthy life choices. Somatics Magazine-
Journal Of The Mind/Body Arts and Sciences, Volume
XV, Number 2, pages 40-43. (Silver Love is same person as author Martha C. Love)
Blog Articles by Martha Love
Blog article, 2019
Science has shown that elephants do have excellent memories that decode and identify survival ski... more Science has shown that elephants do have excellent memories that decode and identify survival skills and imprint important data to be used later when needed. And for the elephant, this memory seems to increase with age and experience, leaving the younger of the herd at risk if the elders are captured or killed by poachers. Let's talk now about how we humans can improve our memory retrieval system through awareness of gut feelings and body-mind unity, a process that can be used at about any age and is one that may certainly increase our health, longevity, and the connection to the awareness of our inner Nature. So much has been studied recently on memory and aging, on restoring memory and using brain scanning to determine how a variety of modalities to connect body and mind work (for instance meditation and hypnosis) and how they reduce stress. Stress has been found to be one of the main reasons for disease, includingAlzheimer's, confusion, and loss of memory. Over-secretion of stress hormones may impair long-term delayed recall memory. For decades we shared our experiences of using the Somatic Reflection Process with hundreds of people in counseling who were experiencing such high stress and confusion that they were having a difficult time making life decisions, particularly concerning career choice and relationships. By centering on the gut feelings of emptiness and fullness (and we are not talking about hunger but instead the feelings that are associated with the two human needs of acceptance and control of one's own responses and the impact of life upon us), and assisting the person to go back in time with their feeling awareness, people were able to be conscious of repressed feelings and examine the impact life had upon them with a clearer view than they did at the time of the actual experience.
Over the past four decades, many people have asked Robert Sterling and I about our relationship w... more Over the past four decades, many people have asked Robert Sterling and I about our relationship with and personal experiences with Isabel Myers, who created the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator along with her mother Catherine Briggs. We have written in What's Behind Your Belly Button? quite a bit about our lengthy history with her as a colleague in the 70s. As we were creating a career storefront center for students and the general public alike affiliated with the local community college, we used the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator with hundreds of people. And we met regularly with Isabel Myers and Dr. Mary McCaulley to give them, for their ongoing research on the MBTI, the data from the inventories we had administered and to discuss the meaning of the findings. The MBTI was quite important in our development of the Somatic Reflection Process and really, we are not sure that without the MBTI we would have ever seen the importance of past childhood experiences in understanding our human needs nor the need to recover the unconscious information stored in our feeling memories. So we wanted to share with all of you a few pages from What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct: that describes much about our first hand experiences with Isabel Myers and Dr. Mary McCaulley, director of the Typology Lab at the University of Florida, so you can get a true glimpse into the initial work of these amazing empowered women who struggled against lack of resources and how their work related to our work with gut feelings and the Somatic Reflection Process.
If you enjoy this excerpt, then you will surely enjoy reading the book where it is all further discussed in depth and a complete protocol for the Somatic Reflection Process is given. Type Indicator (MBTI). We mention the importance of the MBTI in our work because it was through interpreting our own results before using it as part of a battery of tests in the Career Gap Center that we first had a need to reflect on our early childhood experience to assess if our type results had changed as adults, and if so, what that might have meant in serving our needs as a person. We were in search of the understanding if our type results were true for us naturally or if our type had changed due to necessity and environmental adaptation. And if our type had changed, we were interested to understand if the early type was more satisfying of our human needs. This deep unconscious information could only be accessed through a reflection on our feelings, rather than our thinking process, beginning in childhood and brushing up to the present time. And it was in our personal exploration and validation of the results of the MBTI that the Somatic Reflection Process had its beginning and served as a further guide toward understanding a new image of human nature.. . .
Studies are now being conducted on the analysis of the gut microbiome of infants at Ohio State's ... more Studies are now being conducted on the analysis of the gut microbiome of infants at Ohio State's Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research to assess how intestinal bacteria interact with stress hormones. The importance of these studies by Lisa Christian, PhD, and microbiologist Michael Bailey, PhD, is to discover how stress hormones that have been found to relate to chronic illnesses later in life like obesity and asthma might start and impact the gut at an early age, and specifically how gut microbiome impacts personality and toddler temperament. The hope is to learn how to identify and prevent chronic health issues at an early age and to make positive effects upon personality and healthy development of the child. In this article, we would like to look at the development of personality in early childhood as it relates to gut instincts, all of which we see having an impact upon well being, including healthy gut microbiome. While researchers are finding that there is a communication between bacteria in the gut and the head brain at an early age, still much is unknown about which starts the communication — gut brain or head brain — or exactly how this communication functions. We have worked with hundreds of people in counseling, reflecting back in time on their gut feelings and the impact of early childhood, and it is our belief from this experience that for the researchers to understand the relationship of the gut to stress, we need to look at the instincts of the infant and how this effects early childhood development. So let's look at the maturation of the child from the point of view of the child and his/her gut feelings, instincts.
originally published on July 16, 2012
We found that if used with adults to recover childhood memories, the Somatic Reflection Process o... more We found that if used with adults to recover childhood memories, the Somatic Reflection Process on gut feelings is both a key to and validates the recent findings that children do have the ability to form memories and that these memories are formed around the impact of their experience rather than around the details in their lives, a bottom-up rather than top-down formation. We also know from our clinical studies that these memories are recoverable and the consciousness of them is valuable, perhaps even essential to good emotional and physical health and longevity.
Morals and Gut Instincts is a post written December 14, 2015, on the blog What Are Our Instinctua... more Morals and Gut Instincts is a post written December 14, 2015, on the blog What Are Our Instinctual Gut Feelings? It is a response to the recent research by Sarah Ward in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri, conducted to determine if people who are prone to trust their instinctive hunches and gut feelings, may at times be less likely to commit immoral acts compared to those who tend to discount their intuition. This response blog post explores the findings of the research and possible explanations of why those who listen to their gut feelings tend to be more moral. It is a response based on the ideas gathered from Love's and Sterling's own research on gut feelings and decision-making with hundreds of people in counseling.
First published on instinctualgutfeelings.blogspot, Jul 22, 2014
Robert W. Sterling has written the following essay with contributions by Martha Char Love explori... more Robert W. Sterling has written the following essay with contributions by Martha Char Love exploring the process of human learning and the two human brains or centers of intelligence—head (thinking, CNS) and gut (feeling, ENS) brains, as well as a philosophy of science of how this relates to human nature and our cultural life and organization. Robert is the co-author along with Martha Char Love of a revolutionary book "What’s Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct" (available on Amazon) on their work over 40 years in counseling and clinical research within an educational enviroment to explore the intelligence of the gut brain with hundreds of people and the implications for human development and wellness.
" Mamie " asked me to write a post for her blog because she knows that I have had years of experi... more " Mamie " asked me to write a post for her blog because she knows that I have had years of experience in counseling adults, many who have had child abuse in their backgrounds, and she thought I might have something else to add to tell all of you. But I must first say that Mamie has hit it right on the mark with her message "Never Give Up!" Rosemary "Mamie " Adkin's book "Reflections of Mamie " shares with the reader a powerful inner journey of healing from her own child abuse using the technique of memoir. Her work inspires us as she discovered over and over through writing her memoir that she is a survivor, an understanding that has given her strength and empowerment to move her life forward in a positive manner. And her message to anyone else who has experienced or is experiencing child abuse is that you too have the strength to be a survivor, so "never give up!" Child abuse often begins in the earliest years of our lives, prior to school age, even in our infancy. But try as we may, we cannot seem to find access to all of these very early memories (sometimes none at all) by simply thinking back in time to a very young age. Yet it is these horrific events of child abuse in our early lives that are still affecting us today in our feelings and perspectives, and even our lifestyle decision-making. Often we experience feelings of guilt, shame, and fear, even anger, as our feeling memories of child abuse are triggered in the present and current events of our lives. Therefore, in the present adult life, we often see our lives and ourselves through the lens of a child experiencing this abuse and so we interpret our relationships with others in the present time from the view of that old perspective. All of us want to be cleared of these difficult feeling so we may be more in the now.
TheWriteRoomBlog, Dec 4, 2013
"This article describes how we can use art to express feelings in a difficult situation and help ... more "This article describes how we can use art to express feelings in a difficult situation and help encourage creativity, even jumpstart creativity of an author having writer's block. If you are thinking of trying some painting, be sure and read the tips for beginners at the end of the article. This article first appeared on TheWriteRoomBlog on December 4, 2013 at: http://www.thewriteroomblog.com/?p=15..
Teaching Documents by Martha Love
The Six Phases of Somatic Depth Process was created and used by Silver (Martha) Love in a depth p... more The Six Phases of Somatic Depth Process was created and used by Silver (Martha) Love in a depth psychology study with human subjects in 2005 at Sonoma State University to assess the use of the Somatic Reflection Process as a depth process. The Six Phases are an excellent step-by-step method that may be used in research to explore other somatic therapeutic modalities as depth process. Much more is written on this the six phases in both the article in Somatics Magazine on the Somatic Reflection Process and the Body-Mind Spiit and the book "What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct".
This chart "Twelve Keys to Understand Your Gut Instincts and Overcoming Emotional Stress" is a gu... more This chart "Twelve Keys to Understand Your Gut Instincts and Overcoming Emotional Stress" is a guide to help people to identify their gut feelings and reflect upon their gut voice to overcome stress. Excellent to use one-to-one in stress-management counseling or used in self psychology classes as a handout.
The material in this chart was taken from our book "What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct".
Uploads
Books by Martha Love
In 1998, neurological research at Columbia University published the work of Dr. Michael Gershon that identified the enteric nervous system as a center of feeling-intelligence in the gut, which he called the "Second Brain". The authors carefully examined this material and accepted the research findings as pointing to the same universal feeling intelligence they experienced in counseling with hundreds of people. Utilizing the research of Dr. Gershon, the work of Dr. Lise Eliot who charts the development of children from conception through the first five years of life, recent research of their own in the Psychology Department at Sonoma State University, and their vast clinical experience, the authors have presented an interpretation of recent medical research into a Gut Psychology and a more accurate behavioral understanding of the Self and human nature than has previously been available. They share a complete protocol and results of clinical research findings for the Somatic Reflection Process that they have created and used successfully, with themselves and hundreds of people, to assist the process of getting in touch with the voice of the gut and learning to follow its wisdom toward a healthy life--unifying the body-mind split in the individuation process.
Over a period of 45 years, there has been a utilization of further graduate studies in Depth Psychology and Religious Education on the part of the authors, and giant steps forward in the fields of Neurology and Human Psychology, which help form a new more accurate image of human nature. The authors present this new image of human nature and the meaning of its understanding in making positive changes in our lives. They suggest that we are at the beginning of a Renaissance in human consciousness and that understanding our true human nature is the way to thrive in this present era. This book also discusses the implications of this new image of human nature in education and for rehabilitation of those incarcerated. The authors suggest that early in the child learning process, care be taken to offer the experience of freedom and acceptance to the preschool child to form a positive self-concept and to self-regulate his and her behavior as part of the learning process in becoming a loving, caring person.
After careful examination of life's processes, they conclude that of all the mammals in the animal kingdom, humans seem to be the only species that has been denied the open use of their natural instincts. Out of ignorance, fear or wanton control by others--"we are denied the use of the brains we were born with". This awareness is of growing concern since the absence of the use of the feeling intelligence of the body interferes with a major stabilizing force--built into the human system--that can affect human behavior, provide a sense of well-being, and the ability of the body to combat disease."
Best of all in this book, you will be given cooking tips throughout that will help you become a skilled and creative cook with gut and heart health in mind. Once you have learned these 50+ recipes, you will have not only a great daily diet, but also the ability to make up your own variations of a large selection of types of dishes and alter any recipe you find on the internet or otherwise into a healthy but very tasty version of your own that will serve your own dietary needs.
Journal Articles by Martha Love
making healthy life choices. Somatics Magazine-
Journal Of The Mind/Body Arts and Sciences, Volume
XV, Number 2, pages 40-43. (Silver Love is same person as author Martha C. Love)
Blog Articles by Martha Love
If you enjoy this excerpt, then you will surely enjoy reading the book where it is all further discussed in depth and a complete protocol for the Somatic Reflection Process is given. Type Indicator (MBTI). We mention the importance of the MBTI in our work because it was through interpreting our own results before using it as part of a battery of tests in the Career Gap Center that we first had a need to reflect on our early childhood experience to assess if our type results had changed as adults, and if so, what that might have meant in serving our needs as a person. We were in search of the understanding if our type results were true for us naturally or if our type had changed due to necessity and environmental adaptation. And if our type had changed, we were interested to understand if the early type was more satisfying of our human needs. This deep unconscious information could only be accessed through a reflection on our feelings, rather than our thinking process, beginning in childhood and brushing up to the present time. And it was in our personal exploration and validation of the results of the MBTI that the Somatic Reflection Process had its beginning and served as a further guide toward understanding a new image of human nature.. . .
Teaching Documents by Martha Love
The material in this chart was taken from our book "What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct".
In 1998, neurological research at Columbia University published the work of Dr. Michael Gershon that identified the enteric nervous system as a center of feeling-intelligence in the gut, which he called the "Second Brain". The authors carefully examined this material and accepted the research findings as pointing to the same universal feeling intelligence they experienced in counseling with hundreds of people. Utilizing the research of Dr. Gershon, the work of Dr. Lise Eliot who charts the development of children from conception through the first five years of life, recent research of their own in the Psychology Department at Sonoma State University, and their vast clinical experience, the authors have presented an interpretation of recent medical research into a Gut Psychology and a more accurate behavioral understanding of the Self and human nature than has previously been available. They share a complete protocol and results of clinical research findings for the Somatic Reflection Process that they have created and used successfully, with themselves and hundreds of people, to assist the process of getting in touch with the voice of the gut and learning to follow its wisdom toward a healthy life--unifying the body-mind split in the individuation process.
Over a period of 45 years, there has been a utilization of further graduate studies in Depth Psychology and Religious Education on the part of the authors, and giant steps forward in the fields of Neurology and Human Psychology, which help form a new more accurate image of human nature. The authors present this new image of human nature and the meaning of its understanding in making positive changes in our lives. They suggest that we are at the beginning of a Renaissance in human consciousness and that understanding our true human nature is the way to thrive in this present era. This book also discusses the implications of this new image of human nature in education and for rehabilitation of those incarcerated. The authors suggest that early in the child learning process, care be taken to offer the experience of freedom and acceptance to the preschool child to form a positive self-concept and to self-regulate his and her behavior as part of the learning process in becoming a loving, caring person.
After careful examination of life's processes, they conclude that of all the mammals in the animal kingdom, humans seem to be the only species that has been denied the open use of their natural instincts. Out of ignorance, fear or wanton control by others--"we are denied the use of the brains we were born with". This awareness is of growing concern since the absence of the use of the feeling intelligence of the body interferes with a major stabilizing force--built into the human system--that can affect human behavior, provide a sense of well-being, and the ability of the body to combat disease."
Best of all in this book, you will be given cooking tips throughout that will help you become a skilled and creative cook with gut and heart health in mind. Once you have learned these 50+ recipes, you will have not only a great daily diet, but also the ability to make up your own variations of a large selection of types of dishes and alter any recipe you find on the internet or otherwise into a healthy but very tasty version of your own that will serve your own dietary needs.
making healthy life choices. Somatics Magazine-
Journal Of The Mind/Body Arts and Sciences, Volume
XV, Number 2, pages 40-43. (Silver Love is same person as author Martha C. Love)
If you enjoy this excerpt, then you will surely enjoy reading the book where it is all further discussed in depth and a complete protocol for the Somatic Reflection Process is given. Type Indicator (MBTI). We mention the importance of the MBTI in our work because it was through interpreting our own results before using it as part of a battery of tests in the Career Gap Center that we first had a need to reflect on our early childhood experience to assess if our type results had changed as adults, and if so, what that might have meant in serving our needs as a person. We were in search of the understanding if our type results were true for us naturally or if our type had changed due to necessity and environmental adaptation. And if our type had changed, we were interested to understand if the early type was more satisfying of our human needs. This deep unconscious information could only be accessed through a reflection on our feelings, rather than our thinking process, beginning in childhood and brushing up to the present time. And it was in our personal exploration and validation of the results of the MBTI that the Somatic Reflection Process had its beginning and served as a further guide toward understanding a new image of human nature.. . .
The material in this chart was taken from our book "What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct".