The body is the doorway

From the perspective of our work, embodiment refers to our capacity to merge present-time awareness within the physical body. This can mean simply paying attention to our regular movement in a more “magnified,” mindful way. It also means cultivating mindful awareness to different levels of sensation and experience within the body.

The body is an incredible machine. Because it contains the nervous system, it is also a storehouse, a memory bank of unpleasant or even unmanageable moments from our earliest days through the present moment. The nervous system, nestled throughout the bioform, reacts to experience through the lens of memory and may cause us to develop tension within the body.

When start to become embodied, we may discover deeply held energetic/emotional contraction and tension within the muscles and tissue within. We've likely been carrying this tension for decades and we really didn't know about it. This kind of tension may not respond to the "doing" energy of stretching. It's old and extremely vulnerable. It gradually unwinds when we become aware of the somatic, felt sense experience and learn to investigate and allow with awareness. The unwinding happens because of the awareness - like an ecosystem that can rebalance itself when left undisturbed. Embodied mindfulness is a lot like letting our inner ecosystem rest undisturbed. When we sit for long periods of time, we may begin to notice a kind of healing mechanism within us. But we're not "doing" it. We're just creating the conditions for it to happen.

The body is the region where pain can be met with love and composted, alchemized, and integrated into the whole being. The function of mindfulness is to learn to prompt this healing. Freedom, enlightenment, or a reliable and deep happiness is not some kind of light, bliss-filled, temporary “spiritual” experience. It is ease within the reality of being human with a human body. It’s standing in the grocery line without feeling like anything needs to be added or subtracted in that moment. This is embodiment.

The body reveals the mind

While the mind may be the culprit regarding stress and suffering, we are not aiming to fix the mind, think more positively, or even reduce the mind’s production of thought and judgment. We do aim to see the nature of the mind clearly; seeing prompts release from the mind’s patterns.

 The body offers us:

      i.         A structure to help us detect and understand our conditioned patterns as exhibited through movement, body language, and posture.

    ii.         An intelligent, healing ecosystem when inhabited with mindful awareness. We can reduce suffering by gradually (and with great care) observing the sensation-based experience within the body. It is important to note that we are not doing this healing. 

The healing does not happen through thought, evaluation, or analysis, but through embodied awareness. We can cultivate embodied awareness externally and internally.

• External Embodiment: Developing present time awareness of movement, body language, and posture.

  • Observe Movement: Become aware of all movement – walking, turning, washing, shifting, adjusting, reaching, pulling, pushing, standing, sitting, etc.

  • Observe Posture & Body Language: The body is always in a posture. Start to become mindful of posture - the angles, stances, micro positions, etc. This does not mean change anything; just notice. Awareness may prompt natural change. Bring awareness to posture throughout the day and evening— sitting, standing, and lying down. Notice expressions, gestures, and body language.

• Internal Embodiment: Developing present time awareness of physical sensation.

  • Observe Gross Sensation: Bring awareness to obvious sensations, such as physical pain, temperature on the skin, water from the sink, etc.

  • Observe Subtle Sensation: Bring awareness to less obvious sensation within the body. Small vibrations, tingling, tension patterns, emotion-based sensations (which may be less subtle at times).

Additional Notes & Contemplations:

• Embodied Awareness: Be open to the idea that awareness—though it may seem like a mind-based faculty—does not live in the head. Prompt towards an embodied awareness - an awareness that drops deep into tissues and cells.

• Equanimity: When you notice sensation, the intention is to develop not only awareness, but balance, non-opposition, and equanimity—being with sensations as they are—not trying to increase or decrease what is arising.

• Journal: What is my relationship to my experience of the present moment—thoughts, thinking, sounds, sights, and emotions—when I am aware of physical sensations?