Pip: Welcome to Musings of an internationally-minded citizen — where we ask the big questions, like: what exactly is holding you together, and did your mother’s hormones have opinions about it?
Mara: Dr. Jen Wyman-Clemons, MD takes that question seriously in this episode. We’re looking at the soma self — the body’s connective layer, how it gets shaped before we’re even born, and what that means for who we become.
Pip: Let’s start with the soma self and the Year of the Snake.
An analysis of Soma Self — the body that forms before we know ourselves
Mara: The central question here is how the body — specifically the mesodermal, connective layer — gets programmed, and the answer starts before birth, inside the womb’s acoustic and hormonal environment.
Pip: And the framing is precise. The post describes the mesoderm as the layer that “take orders” from autonomic, hormonal, and cortical signals — the middleman between mind and organ, constantly remodeling to deliver what the mind wants and doesn’t want.
Mara: The verbatim grounding comes early: “We are literally formed by what she puts in her mouth — proteins, carbohydrates and fats — and also what comes out of it.” That’s not metaphor. It’s a direct account of how maternal diet and voice co-author the infant body.
Pip: So the upshot is that your soma’s first curriculum is your mother’s physiology — her meals, her stress hormones, her vocal patterns — all arriving before you have a name for any of it.
Mara: The post is careful to distinguish confusion from chaos here. In utero, patterns build layer by layer over nine months, all unnamed and inarticulate. Sound arrives as vibration through fluid; the heart, described as the first large autonomic plexus to form organized blood vessels after the gut, is positioned as the body’s original listener.
Pip: The heart as front-row audience to every family drama — before the eyes open, before language, before anyone’s been formally introduced.
Mara: After birth, what was diffuse becomes associated. Sensory stimuli link to sounds and activities. Myelination stabilizes those associations, making them near-permanent. The post notes that “taboo” experiences — things parents treat as private — stay confused and liminal in the soma, even though the body retains their imprint.
Pip: And it doesn’t stop with the family. The post identifies teachers, clergy, and doctors as the next major programmers of the soma — each conditioning the body through measurement, moral framing, or clinical deficiency-spotting.
Mara: The post also flags media and astrologers as extensions of a ruling-class logic that belittles ambition and drive. The closing practical note is direct: place your hands over your heart, hold attention for about eighteen seconds, say “I love you” aloud three times, and listen. The post calls this noticing — and says you’ll feel a difference.
Pip: The Year of the Snake, then, is a fitting frame — shedding what was laid down before you could consent to it.
Mara: The soma self doesn’t forget. It just waits for you to listen.
Pip: Next time — more on what the body holds, and what it’s quietly trying to say.
Helpful feedback is welcome!