In this weeks Shero Life Podcast we talk Embodiment - What does it even mean? It's spoken about a lot, yet few people understand what it really means and how to apply it.
Embodiment means Connecting to experience in a real and visceral way.
To be embodied is to be fully present aware in your body, emotions and culture
Physical Embodiment - Physically aware and connected to the experience of being in your body. Many people are disconnected from body, living completely in head.
Emotional Embodiment - Awareness of your energy and emotion. Being able to feel and safely express our emotions.
Cultural Embodiment - Awareness of how your culture, family, life experience affect your beliefs and behaviour.
Physical, Emotional and Cultural experiences and beliefs all affect our sense of self.
Without embodiment, you can't have empathy for people, animals or earth.
The embodiment equation:
Awareness + Choice = Embodiment
Self Awareness + a Choice to stay fully present and fully expressed is the key to Embodiment.
Embodiment Practises - Notice which areas you are not acting in an embodied way.
Use the practises in the area that you need most work, or use them all.
Physical Embodiment
Standing Shake -
Put on a 1 min timer
Shake, shake your arms and legs, shake your middle, shake big and little.
When the time is up just stop in stillness and notice how the body feels.
Feel the energy. Is there vibration? Is there warmth? What do your feet feel like grounded in the floor? Just notice the sensations. No judgement.
Kneeling Wiggle -
Begin kneeling on hands and knees (perfect to do kneeling on your bed.)
Put on a song that makes you feel something - ideally without words.
Start with moving your hips, play with direction and angles and just explore, add more of your spine and shoulders and neck.
Just wiggle and move along to the music in anyway that feels good.
Notice sensations and notice any resistance without judgment.
Walking Meditation -
Go for a walk
No phone, no music, no distractions
Give yourself this time to notice your body, your breath, your inner dialogue.
When you notice your mind traveling to your to do list
Bring your awareness back to breath, and sensation.
Notice the clouds, birds singing, children playing.
Allow yourself to be fully present in your body and this moment.
Gym Training
What muscles are you feeling?
Notice your inner voice. What does it say? Is it positive or negative?
Notice when you aren't in body, slow down and reconnect.
Notice your breath.
Emotional Embodiment
Emotions are Energy. Energy that needs to move through body.
Energy and sensation ARE the body language.
At a sensation level, when I feel sad how does it feel in my body?
Slow down to allow sensations without judgement.
Feeling Sadness
Put on a song that helps you feel the feeling you want to express. Allow yourself to breath and move into the sensations.
Let yourself express, cry, rage, shake - whatever fully expressing looks like for you.
Feel it all the way through.
Expressing Anger
Grab a pillow, and feel into the experience you are angry about
use the pillow to scream into, to punch, to hit.
Slam the pillow into a chair or wallAllow yourself to feel it all the way through.
Mood Meter - Emotion is all energy and vibration - we give them names.
The Mood Meter shows us the difference of energy and pleasantness with different emotion, plus expanded language for communicating what we feel.
Book Recommendation - Atlas of the Heart, by Brene Brown. It's a dictionary of emotions and such a powerful tool to give yourself more language for your human experience.
Cultural Embodiment
Get curious to how you and others were raised. Looking at your culture like an outsider.
Does my cultural lens align with the person I aspire to be?
Consider your family, schooling, social, religious cultures. You get to
Beware - "It's just who I am and how I was raised." This fixed mindset stops are from living an embodied life.
You get to choose the things from your community and culture that work for you, and that fully align with who you are and who you want to be.
What you learned you can unlearn. Embodiment is a choice. Want to hear the full conversation check out The Shero Life Podcast.
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