Embodiment Begins with Acknowledging Your Body Exists

The Body is Your Vehicle

Our vehicle in life is always with us. Ideally, we would view it as a friend and a tool that can help us navigate through life as we grow. In order to make that even a possibility, we need to build a relationship with our body. It is our one vehicle in life that we can’t get out of or trade in the way we do a car. Our body is a living ecosystem with trillions of simpler consciousnesses that are dynamic and adaptable, trying, like us, to not only to survive but also to thrive.

The body is always oriented toward health. For every part of the body that is struggling to thrive, there are more parts that are in excellent health. The perspective to hold is that your body is your ally, not your enemy. And like in any good relationship, there’s a give and a take done through negotiation.

Acknowledge Your Body Exists and has Value

In order to negotiate with your body, you have to first acknowledge that your body exists. You are not your body and you do have a body. Something along the lines of “yes, this is my vehicle in this life.” It doesn’t matter whether you like or dislike your body, you first need to acknowledge it exists. From there it’s essential to acknowledge that your body is the reason your current life is possible. Without your body you’d be nowhere, not living this life or experiencing the world through your filters. There would be no you in the physical world, and therefore no life to boast about or complain about. Besides making it possible for you to exist here, your body is also performing hundreds of thousands of functions every moment flawlessly – so flawlessly you have time and space to live your life the way you want without having to worry about things like beating your own heart or digesting your food.

The baseline thinking or attitude to adopt is one of awe and appreciation for your body. I know that can be a very hard perspective to get on board with especially if your body is in a lot of pain, you are severely ill or you’ve lost function of a part of your body. Having appreciation and awe for your body doesn’t negate the fact that you may be struggling right now. You can hold that duality. It’s not a contradiction.

Collaborate with Your Body

Once you have established an acknowledgment of the value your body has in your life (no body, no life), then you can begin to relate to your body through felt sense. Felt sense is the objective cognitive perception of sensations produced by your body: “a body sense of meaning.” It’s the physical body’s perspective and experience of life before those sensations are interpreted and judged by the mind. Most felt sense is filtered out by the brain as “useless” information. The rest that isn’t filtered out, our mind gets to pick through and decide what to concentrate on, remember, forget, let go of or become attached to.

You want to build a bridge between your body and you, however you define or experience yourself, so that there’s a two-way street of communication, and you begin to live a life that is the product of you and your body’s collaborative efforts to put your best foot forward.

If this doesn’t quite make sense to you, imagine your body as a teammate in a sports game or a colleague on a career-defining work project. You can’t play a team sport without teammates, and you can’t wear all the hats at work without some help. The success of your life is dependent on you and your body working together. You feed the body daily, and the body has energy to tackle the ever growing and changing to-do list you have, just to give one example.

Be Grateful You have a Body

Once you’ve built the bridge in your mind so you truly understand the value of your body and how you cannot live without its help, you finally have the mental foundation and fortitude necessary for the process of becoming embodied. Like in everything that is fruitful in life, you must have the will to withstand the valleys and troughs you’ll inevitably encounter along the way.

From now on, regardless of how you feel about your body, wake up first thing and think, “I’m grateful I have a body.” You will start your day with that relationship in mind, knowing that you are not your body and you have a body. The distinction will create just enough separation between you and your body, that you can observe it and recognize that not everything you feel and think are you. The emotional ups and downs could just be hormonal fluctuations. The foggy headedness or difficulty concentrating could just be a nutrient deficiency. The looping daily thoughts or behaviors could just be automated sequences from neurological patterning.

Do Your Best Together

Embodiment is a type of freedom. Freedom from believing that your car is you. To attain that freedom, you have to learn to master driving your car, but you can’t do that if you think you are the car. So, first thing in the morning, acknowledge you have a body that is necessary, valuable and helpful, a teammate or an ally. Be genuinely grateful for it. And then begin your day knowing you’re not one, but many (really you plus trillions of cells on the inside) working together. The infinite number of ever-changing variables make each day unique. Today, together, you will do your best, and that’s good enough. You will do that today, tomorrow and so on until your body perishes. This is what it truly means to be embodied.

To get started on your embodiment journey, here are some guided meditations: