What is Embodiment?

“Everything you need to know is within you. Listen. Feel. Trust the body’s wisdom.”

~ Dan Millman

How do you create or recover a relationship with your body after years of ignoring or not trusting it?

How do you deeply connect to the wisdom and perception of your whole body (not just your head)?

Developing an intuitive relationship with your body takes time, tools and practice. We live in a disembodied world and many of us have been taught to ignore our bodies for years. So it is absolutely okay if this feels unfamiliar - it probably is! You’ve probably spent your whole life learning to think and intellectualise and analyse so it’s natural for you to need some time to learn something different. 

The good news is that this is a remembering. You know how to be embodied. You know how to listen and trust; as disembodied as many of us are, we still experience gut feelings. This is a practice of remembering and deepening.

What is Embodiment?

Embodiment is the way we are. It is how we see, think, feel, create, relate and act.

One aspect of embodiment is awareness. But embodiment is more than simply mindfulness of the body as a thing, as an “it” we might listen to more in moments of meditation. We only experience the world through our senses and our bodies. Embodied awareness is experiencing life as a body, as “I”.

Our bodies are more than tools to help us do stuff in our lives, directed by our heads. Our posture, movement and body language - our shaping - determines how we experience the present moment and the choices we have available to us to shape our future. The way we hold our bodies, move around and interact in the world is also habitual. It becomes a way of managing and expressing who we are; our self-identity is inseparable from our embodiment.

Embodiment means becoming conscious of our usually unconscious personal shaping, developing a range of options in this regard, and having the freedom of choice as a result.

This is an excerpt from my new e-book, Listening To Your Body. In it, you'll find the foundational embodied tools I use most often with my coaching clients. If you're curious about how to start (re)building a relationship with your embodied wisdom, these are the tools I recommend you start with. Oh, and like all my Rebel Guides, it's totally free to download.

Credit and thanks to Mark Walsh and the Embodied Facilitator Course for teaching me about embodiment.