🔼: #### 🕯️ Embodiment Embodiment is a pretty vast topic. Broadly speaking, it's [[⭐️ Body|somatic]] awareness – how we're feeling and our sensory experiences and behaviors. Our [[⭐️ Body|⭐️ bodies]] are taking in an enormous amount of information at any given time that we don't notice – like the feeling of your body against your seat, or your clothing against your skin, or your chest or belly raising or lowering as you breathe. Learning to attune to those experiences and to notice our physical habits helps us embody. We are born embodied. As children many of spent nearly every waking moment fully attuned to our bodies. But as we experience [[💡 Trauma|Trauma]] or wounding, as we have [[⭐️ Emotions|⭐️ emotional]] experiences that we were ill-equipped to digest and were not given adequate support to integrate, we become fragmented, take on [[🛡️ Emotional Armoring]] , and get pushed out of our bodies by [[💡 Protector Parts|Protectors]]. When we're disembodied we're out-of-touch with what's going on inside of us or what's true for us. We may start to prioritize our thoughts and rationality over our [[⭐️ Emotions|emotions]] and feelings, rather than our cognitive and more somatic parts working together in concert.[^1] Western culture and education both encourage us to leave our bodies and to rely only on our rational, cognitive parts. We prioritize critical thinking, understanding, conceptualization, and problem-solving over feeling, relating, and attuning. This gives our cognitive parts too much responsibility. - [[🔑 Psyche and Soma are not separate]] - [[The Six Core Dimensions of Embodiment]] ##### Embodiment Practices > "The human body is a living web, an extensive network of intricately woven bone, tissue, viscera and fluid which constitutes a vast sensory field susceptible to environmental injury from pre-birth onward. In response to injury, [[💡 Protector Parts|protective parts]] can block body awareness and [[🛡️ Dissociation|dissociate]] from sensation which, in turn, can affect the full range of sensual experience. > > ...Awareness of the body can bring laser-like focus to one sensation or it can be global. When parts regard the body as an object, their agenda tends to involve [[🛡️ Criticizing|judging]], changing, containing or [[💡 Proactive Protectors|controlling]]. Exploring the body subjectively facilitates a very different relationship in which sensations and movement are met with non-judgmental [[☀️ Curiosity]]." > — [[👤 Susan McConnell]] If we've done certain physically deliberate practices such as [[Massage]] or [[🛠 Self-Massage]], [[👟 Yoga]], or [[🕯️ Qigong]] we have likely experienced the before-and-after. We re-enter our daily life feeling much more [[🕯️ Embodiment|embodied]], only just now discovering that we were ever disembodied or [[🛡️ Emotional Armoring|🛡️ emotionally armored]] in the first place. The world feels different. Embodiment practices are all about making ourselves at home in our [[⭐️ Body|⭐️ bodies]]. Much like a house, we can either help the people who in it through [[⭐️ Parts Work]] or we can do something to restore the house itself. That could mean [[⭐️ Self-Maintenance]], going to the doctor, [[🕯️ Movement and Exercise 👟]], or buying new clothes our [[💡 Parts|Parts]] actually like and feel good about. We can even decorate our body, surround ourselves with things that make us feel good, remind us of people we love, or put some paint on the walls. The house is yours – make yourself at home. The key is *deliberate* practices. Most of the time when we go into the gym we see people doing things *to* their body. It's about "feeling the burn," stress testing, optimizing, and getting maximum performance. People go running or to the gym while wearing headphones. Others might exercise to "getting out of their head and into their body." While better than doing nothing, these are all disembodied ways of treating our bodies which only further fragments body and mind. [[🔑 Psyche and Soma are not separate|🔑 Our bodies and minds are meant to work in concert]]. Somatic practices are ideally *connective*. Run in nature, without earphones. Breathe, connect to your body, feel the strain in your muscles. Feel the environment – the air, the sun, the rain, the ground below you. When we work this way, embodiment naturally, massively increases and we discover our [[⭐️ Body|⭐️ Body]] has an incredible connective capacity with the world and with other beings. We begin to feel more at home in our bodies and much more connected to ourselves, to others, and to the world. - [[🕯️ Breathwork 💨]] - [[🕯️ Somatics]] - [[🕯️ Mindful Moments]] - [[👟 Stretching]] - [[🧘 Body Scan]] - [[Massage]] or [[🛠 Self-Massage]] - [[🕯️ Unblending]] - [[🛠 Wavy Wiggles]] - [[🕯️ Qigong]] - [[🕯️ Tension & Trauma Release Exercises (TREs)]] - [[🧘 🎧 Richard Schwartz - IFS Daily Practice - Unblending and Embodying]] - [[🧘 🎧 Richard Schwartz - The Path]] - [[🧘 🎧 Richard Schwartz - Heart Meditation]] - [[🦮 How to feel your feelings]] ###### Resources - https://embodiedpresent.com/ [^1]: [[📖 ✅ Atlas of the Heart (Show)]] Episode 5