You are already an embodiment.
We all are.
We begin this life by becoming an embodiment of our spiritual essence and our innate and inherited constitutions. Over time we begin to embody affinities, sometimes born of love and sometimes born of trauma. These might seem as though they’d be separate, and they are separated by our view of it, but they reside on (for the purposes of this post) a continuum—our natural expression at ease on one end and under duress on the other.
Looking through the traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) lens of the seasons, organ systems, and emotional resonance within them, right now in the northern hemisphere we are in winter and, whatever you’re feeling in your personal experience, you may also be noticing it against a backdrop of fear, the emotion associated with winter.
Our cultural conditioning would have us believe that we can think our way into a different body, emotional experience, or a different set of circumstances and while we do have a great deal of influence, this line of thinking can be problematic in a couple of ways, both exacerbated by fear. First, we often try to get from thought to embodiment while skipping over the body altogether, dictating its experience with our mind without questioning the quality of our thoughts rather than understanding it via curiosity and rapport. Secondly, it can be tangled with an ableist perspective that tells us that the only physical experience of value is the one we can dictate, harness, control, direct, exploit, or otherwise manage.
A more nuanced approach is to understand our body as inclusive. Our bodies will often make a home for the full range of experience including what we give our attention to the most. Does that mean that we’re at fault if we experience physical challenges? I don’t believe so and often find that the question itself betrays a stance that will serve to perpetuate the distance and disturbance between our bodies and our minds, creating emotional pressure and potentially adding trauma to trauma. In addition to our innate and inherited constitution we may also have acquired conditions that add complexity to our embodied experience. The gem here in looking at the body as receptive and inclusive is to pause and notice that it includes the mind, whatever state it happens to be in, and if the mind can also include the body it begins to shift away from the either/or, black/white thinking that creates even more tension and bracing in the body to something more holistic.
What if instead of trying to cleave off some part of ourselves or striving to be something we’re not currently prepared to sustain, we asked “What would I like to embody more of?” as a means of inviting more of it in and cultivating ourselves as someone who can embody that? Then, we can witness what flowers from our invitation as well as what begins to yield to it. My experience is that as we to begin to develop a more holistic, regenerative way of cultivating ourselves wherein a working balance is restored, some of our challenging beliefs and behaviors begin to loosen their hold.
What if that is the missing link? The wholehearted belief that there is nothing wrong with our body, no matter how much our minds tell us that we have to power over, power through, dominate, discipline it. Culturally, we’re supported in treating our bodies either like raw material or a traitor rather than ensouled wisdom. If we can begin to entrain our minds to include our bodies the whole question changes and instead of thinking we’re at fault for our body’s expression of our life force, flowing or stunted, we begin to see beneath the surface. Instead of thinking “I’m an expression of every negative emotion I’ve ever felt and therefore I’m never going to feel another negative emotion, I’m only going vibe high.” Or “I’m an expression of my trauma and there’s nothing I can do about it.” Instead of getting locked into an either/or worldview which is very much a function of the mind left to its own devices, it can be tempting to swing wide the other direction when we get wind of this and attempt to disown our minds and our thinking capacity as harmful but this, too, is ultimately an attempt to bypass actually dropping into and experiencing our minds through our bodies.
My question for myself and clients when we’re struggling with this is “Do you feel more connected to yourself or more separate?” The more we do this work of embodiment, the easier it is to tell when some part of us is held separate.
The way through is not to keep hammering with the mind but to invite the mind to be included, to understand it’s not alone in this and doesn’t have to figure this life out on its own. There is more resource in the body. There is wisdom that is speaking, perhaps quietly, that can ground our thoughts and clarify our beliefs, clearing away what is in excess, allowing the mind to experience our essence and fullness and its place in our personal, inner cosmos.
If we were living in a different culture and only paid homage to the body and relegated the mind to the corner, over there somewhere else where we didn’t have to deal with it, then I would be advocating for a better relationship with the mind. In fact, I do but with the recognition that it’s the body that has been devalued, subjugated, and exploited in this culture in ways gross and subtle. We do this on a daily basis when we bend it to our mind’s will, to what we think it has to do for us so we can have the things we think we want when, really, if we can drop into our center and our innate wisdom we might reassess what we think we want and are aiming for because we’re now aiming from a place of wholeness and reconciliation rather than from within the agitation of the split.
Here is an invitation, a bridge into greater presence and embodiment.
As this is winter and, as I mentioned above, is associated with the emotion of fear in traditional Chinese Medicine and the organ system of the kidneys. One way to drop into our bodies and attend to this seasonal backdrop where fear may be amplified is to begin with parts of our body that are associated with the kidneys.
The sense organ associated with the kidneys are the ears. Here is an exercise from my program The Intimacy of Attention: Orienting Through The Senses for Safety and Pleasure that you can try to tune into your body and your senses when you find yourself absent or distant from your body and experience:
Listen for sounds close in. This may include your own heartbeat or breath. Observe these sounds for a moment, say, 8 breaths. Next, listen for sounds in the mid-range. These may be in the same room or building you’re in. Again, observe these for eight breaths. Finally, listen for sounds further out, perhaps in your neighborhood or on a nearby road, observing these sounds and any somatic shifts that have occurred since you began.
Gently massage your ears as you consider the possibility that you are capable and growing the capacity to meet whatever arises from within and without. Try saying this, or your own version of it, aloud: “I am capable. I am always growing in my capacity to meet what is next.” Noticing how these words vibrate and resonate within you. It isn’t so important that you use my words, what is most useful is for you to develop your ability to listen for how words land in your body and choose the words, phrases, and affirmations that call you into a more expanded, grounded state while still resonating as true enough for you to believe you can bridge the gap.
If you try this exercise for a week or so, I’d love to hear how it goes for you.
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