The Practice: Embodiment
“We think we know our own life, but what we know is only an edited version, colored by our emotions and narrow vision. How close can we come to the original draft?”
Daily Practice and Reflection:
In western society, we place significant value on cognition: thinking, analyzing, assessing, etc. We try to understand the world from the mind, thus coloring our experience by our thoughts. From this perspective, we are not a very embodied culture. It’s as if we live from the neck up, disassociated from our bodies while holding a tight cognitive grip on life.
Embodiment is the work of returning home to the physical body, moving from the thinking mind, and dropping down into the feeling body. By engaging in this practice, we relearn how to feel the sensations and emotions present in the body; engaging in our direct experience rather than a mind made construct. When we anchor our awareness in the sensations of body and breath, the very first foundation of mindfulness, we drop into the present moment, connecting to reality.
In contrast, when we are disembodied, it’s difficult to know how we are feeling and why we are feeling it, often causing us to act out. When we are unaware, it is difficult to learn from what is happening. When we are disembodied, we often feel disconnected from life, feeling isolated and alone. So, embodiment is a homecoming, a remembering and connecting from within. And as we sharpen this quality of attention, wisdom and compassion develops.
When we are embodied in meditation, bringing our full attention to one thing at a time, all the other stuff in our lives disappears for a moment: the stories, beliefs, doubt, uncertainty, even the pandemic. All of it dissolves away and we are gifted a break: a break from our thinking mind, a break for our nervous systems which provides rest and rebalance. This is why meditation feels so good, having taken the time to loosen our cognitive hold on life.
There is a Sioux Indian saying, “The longest journey in your life is the distance from your head to your heart.” Thus, our work is to move from the prison of judging mind to the freedom of love that resides within the body, in the center of our own hearts.
“The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The black mother within each of us, the poet, whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.”
Meditation Practice:
“Embodiment is learning to love all including that which is unlovable.”
“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.”
“What we are cannot be confined by any story.”
“Anything that is troubling you, anything which is irritating to you, THAT is your teacher.”