What is embodiment?
Embodiment simply means the full experience of being embodied on this planet, in this moment. Thought is a part of being embodied, yet only a part. Most of us live our lives as if it were the only trustworthy part, the most important part, and even the only part. Our thoughts matter, and they are, more often than not, the vehicle by which we see, understand, and experience the world. They can be catalysts for our emotions, and they can hold the stories we tell ourselves and others about how life is. Sometimes we can trust them, and sometimes they are simply not telling the truth, or at least, not the whole truth.
I like to think of embodiment as many bodies. Each body is a gateway into the way you are experiencing your life in the present moment. Each body is a part of your true self. They hold messages that, if listened to, trusted, and embraced, can help us be our fullest selves. The thinking body is but one gateway. There are others just as important. There is the physical body, the emotional body, the sensory body, the imaginative body, the moving body, the relational body, the energetic body, the memory body, the intuitive body, and the soul body. This is not a final list. There are senses such as proprioceptive (position and place) and interoceptive (sensing body signals such as thirst or hunger), and, actually, researchers have concluded that there are at least 27 senses, possibly more, that we are hardly aware of in our thought-driven society.
Another word that probably better captures the multitude of ways we experience our lives is the word Soma. Soma is often misinterpreted as meaning just the physical body. But Soma, the Greek word for body, refers to a different perspective of “body” than we have identified in our specialized way of thinking. It is all the parts of who we are and how they function, activate, integrate, and support the full expression of self.
Embodiment or somatic practice is the process of connecting with, building capacity for, and listening to the messages that all of these “bodies” offer us. When we are embodied, we are in a sensing place rather than a thinking place. All our bodies are connected. They are not separate at all. They inform each other and share with each other. When we have a physical ache, it is never only physical. That physical place in our body may truly hurt, yet imagine all the bodies that are also present in that ache. There are your thoughts about the ache, your memories of how the ache came to be (These memories can be thinking memory, sensory memory, even trauma memory), the sensations of that ache, both inside the ache and in the surrounding areas. There are emotions attached to the ache, relational experience that can be anything from feeling abandoned and suffering alone, to feeling held and cared for…I could go on.
This may all seem like a lot, and, well, it is a lot. We are a lot! We are complex, multi-faceted, deep, and wide. Yet the beauty of embodiment and somatic practice is that it can be very simple. Cultivating presence is at the core. This involves bringing awareness, curiosity, and compassion to all the parts of ourselves, to all our “bodies.”
When we tend to all of who we are, we can rise well and be whole.
