I’ve been talking about embodiment a lot lately.
I’ve run into people randomly (synchronistically?) who seem to have a big interest in what I’m doing and want to really understand what embodiment is, and how it works.
I love getting to talk about this work, partly because I find it challenging to do so.
Putting such an intangible and powerful experience into words isn’t easy but the more I talk the more I find ways to help people understand what it’s all about.
That’s how I realised this simple truth: Embodiment is about learning the language of your body.
We are multidimensional beings.
We operate on various different levels, and all of these different parts of us tend to speak in different ways. Our mind speaks to us through thoughts in the language we have learned.
Our body speaks to us through physical sensations. Our emotional body often speaks to us through energies that move through our being. Our energetic self sometimes speaks through a general “sense” that we can’t quite pinpoint, but can feel all around us.
Very often these different parts work together, and we receive messages from many different places at once. For instance, on a dark night, a shadow passing by us may cause our skin to tingle, our stomach to lurch and our mind to ask “what was that?!”
When our bodies and energies are loud, we tend to take note of them - like when we’re under threat. But day to day, we’ve been highly trained to listen to our minds, sometimes at the expense of our bodies.
We spend years, sometimes even decades, in education learning to hone and sharpen our minds, accumulating knowledge and developing skills in problem solving and analytical thinking.
But during this process sometimes our places of education teach us to ignore the messages from our bodies, and prioritise the mind. We’re taught to ignore our urge to pee, to eat, to movement, to change activity and instead stay focused on the task at hand.
The world of emotions, intuition and energy is treated as secondary to the world of logic, reason and evidence. It’s no wonder that we never learn to listen to the parts of us that speak to us in different ways, when we are continually taught to shut down their voices. Over time some of these parts stop communicating with us altogether because they know we aren’t able to listen.
Imagine you went into a forest and you only listened to the sounds the birds made. You ignore every other creature, sound, texture and sight, and try to navigate using only one thing. It wouldn’t be long before you were frustrated and lost - in fact you may even put yourself in danger.
This is what happens when we try to make our way through life using only one part of ourselves. We cut ourselves off from a wellspring of insight, information and support, and then we shame ourselves when things don’t seem to work out for us.
Through embodiment we begin to re-learn the language of our bodies, emotions and energy. Firstly we re-sensitise ourselves to what is beneath the surface so that we can begin to hear and feel what is happening. Then we begin to go deeper, inviting these parts of ourselves to teach us their ways and reveal their truths to us.
Once we have started to learn the language of all parts of our being, we’re now in a position to begin to let it transform through our awareness.
If you have ever practised mindset work of any kind you’ll know that when you start bringing your thoughts to light, it starts to get easier to identify which ones are true and which aren’t. Sometimes all it takes is the light of our conscious awareness to burn away a belief that has been running your life for quite some time - in seeing it, you see through it and it disappears.
Have you ever noticed yourself having a thought that sounds exactly like how your mother or father used to speak to you? Once you realise the voice that’s talking isn’t yours, it’s suddenly a little easier to distance yourself from it and stop letting it create your reality.
This is exactly what we do through embodiment work, but using the language of the other dimensions of ourselves.
Instead of meeting a word based thought with our awareness, we meet the language of sensation - tightness, lightness, movement, stillness, numbness, vibrancy. Not only does this help us to more fully understand what’s driving our external lives, but this act of bringing our conscious awareness to these sensations allows them to transform, and bring us closer to our deeper truth.
This happened to me earlier this week. I was confronted with a scenario that has regularly shown up in my life. My mind immediately went into overdrive trying to figure out the best course of action. After realising that I was stuck in a loop I dropped down into my body and decided to simply sit with whatever was there without trying to change it.
Straight away I felt a deep sense of powerlessness and hopelessness. They felt like my body being pulled into the ground, melting away and a sense of tiredness around my being. I stayed with these feelings as they got stronger until I noticed an impulse in my body - my feet were starting to move and stomp into the ground. At first I didn’t know why this was happening, but I allowed it to happen anyway.
As I stomped my feet I noticed a defiant feeling of power starting to rise through my body. It spread from my feet up through my legs and through my whole body. The feelings of powerlessness had transformed into a powerfulness and it was now clear that I had many more options for how to respond to my situation than I previously realised. The idea that I was powerless now seemed strange and a little silly - it was so obvious that I had plenty of power and, what’s more, I now knew how to use it.
Simply by meeting the sensations in my body on their level, I was able to recognise the false story that was creating my reality, and allow it to be transformed into truth.
Learning the language of your body gives you more opportunities for transformation.
In my opinion, it’s exactly what the world needs right now to create the transformation humanity needs to keep living on this planet and create a healthier, happier world.
Through my embodiment coaching sessions I support you to resensitise to your inner felt senses and start learning the unique language of your body.
It’s easier than you think - all we are required to do is listen.
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