In todays day and age there is easy access to and a plethora of scientific and intellectual information on just about anything that peaks your interest. I am beyond grateful to have had the privilege and access to such mind sculpting information. It has given me a strong framework for understanding the interconnectedness of mind, body, heart, and spirit. However, one of the biggest issues we face in the midst of this era of information and knowledge is that very little of that information is descending in to body knowledge. Meaning that very little of the wisdom can be understood or used in an embodied or experiential way. The knowledge does not generalize or permeate into the ways feel or behave.
For example:
If I were to say: One of the most important parts of working with: trauma, traumatic grief, grief, addiction, eating disorders, relational wounding, etc, is the presence of safety. Most of you would agree and maybe even think, duh… tell me something I don’t already know.
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But if I were to ask: How does safety live in your body? How would your body describe the presence of safety? How do you use the felt sense of safety to help you process and move out of the ruminative cycles of your trauma, grief, addiction, relational patterns or protective mechanisms? Would you know?
The knowledge and concept of accessing and embodying safety is easier to understand intellectually today, than many years ago. However, it is now of great importance that the work begin to shift from being intellectual knowledge into a living breathing experience inside you. The work now is bringing the power and construct of the mind to focus and attend to the building structures, a tangible presence of safety, in the body. Once the body understands safety, a beautiful foundation has been constructed for even more healing experiences such as the felt sense of: love, abundance, joy, peace, and bliss.
There are many ways to begin this process:
Working with a professional that has done this work themselves and understands how to work with others in embodied and somatic ways
Start asking yourself these questions:
How does safety live in my body?
How does joy live in my body?
How does abundance live in my body?
When I am looking for the presence of safety (joy, abundance, peace...ect) What is it that I find?
Can I imagine the presence of one person or one moment in time where I felt loved, held, or free? As I imagine that, how does that experience take shape in my body.
Are there scenes in movies, or books, that I can remember feeling a response to? When I think about that scene, what’s the experience I FEEL right now as I think about that scene?
Some more neutral and less emotionally charged ways of creating the mind/body connection is breath-work. The breath helps create both sensation and movement in the body is more tangible ways. By using the focus of the mind to attend to the sensation in the body we create ways for the mind to be curious and interested in the experience inside the body.
Start feeling the breath and sensation of the breath at the tip of the nose. Stay with that attention on the feelings:sensations and movements of the breath for 10 breath cycles.
Feel the inhale, and ask yourself questions
Is there a temperature, is there a rhythm or movement, is there an intensity or pace to the movement
Feel the exhale and ask yourself the same questions
Feel the space between your breaths and ask yourself the same questions
These processes can bring up really challenging experiences and emotions. It is not uncommon at all to feel frustration, sadness, anxiety or any number of uncomfortable feelings when we first start out with this work. In face for many of us, we will feel the presence of the pain before we are able to connect to the presence of safety. It’s part of the process. So again, I do encourage working with a professional as you begin this work or having some kind of stable and compassionate support around you.
Happy Embodying!
Please reach out if you want any guidance during your process
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