What Does It Mean To Be Embodied (Part II)
Photo by Kate DeBow 2014
Feeling our feelings serves us, the problem is, if you’ve been walking around numb to them for while, it might seem frightening or even impossible to regain connection with them. If we have had to endure lots of pain or emotional confusion, we tend to numb out from our feelings. As a coping mechanism, we become disembodied because the painful emotions felt intolerable and rather than become overwhelmed and incapacitated by our feelings, we checked out. Being disembodied or dissociating from one’s body, is a coping skill and it is only problematic when we continue to use it when the threat is over.
An embodied movement practice is a time that one carves out to not only do a movement based activity, but to do so with the intention of staying embodied while engaging in the activity. One practices focusing on and feeling visceral sensations. Initially, I used this practice of awareness of sensation in the gym so I could use the same awareness with ease sitting on my therapist’s couch while I was in treatment for post traumatic stress disorder. The intention or goal of practicing being embodied is what makes it an embodied movement practice. WIthout that intention, it is just a movement practice.
When we practice being embodied, we practice paying attention to our bodies’ messages and being able to tolerate them. Similar to how one can gradually add more weight to a barbell at the gym, the more we practice being with our feelings, even the uncomfortable ones, which in turn can allow us to have a richer experience of ourselves in the world.
The aforementioned article names practices such as Hatha Yoga, Tai-Chi, Qi Gong, the Alexander Technique, and the Feldenkrais Method as different ways to practice embodied movement, which my personal experience corroborates.* However, if you have been a regular reader of mine, you will know that I believe we can bring this sensorial awareness practice anything. RIght now, my regularly scheduled embodied movement practice is olympic weightlifting. It is a highly technical sport that demands the development of interoceptive, proprioceptive, and kinesthetic awareness. It is also physically stressful. As I move, I focus on form, and I do so from an internal perspective. What does this feel like inside of my body as I perform a lift? When I feel myself getting tired or distracted by sensory input coming from my environment—like a noisy barbell club—the practice becomes staying with what I feel in my body as I do the movement, as opposed to running with thoughts like, “I hate this song,” or “do it for Instagram.” I am feeling for my weight in my midfoot and muscle engagement throughout my trunk and legs. I am feeling for relaxed arms, so I don’t preemptively pull on the bar. And as I move, I am feeling for where the bar is so I know when I should increase my speed on the pull, and when to explode and then when to get tight again to catch the bar. I am also practicing feeling how uncomfortable I am but also how it is tolerable. And I am practicing recognizing when we have hit my edge of tolerance and honoring that. I may have a feeling of my heart racing similar to a panic attack, but I use other information—such as the actual movements I’m doing, and the smile on my face—to know that it’s not a panic attack. It’s just stress from exertion, or excitement that I am about to lift, and not anxiety. My guess is that as one becomes seasoned at this sport, there is less of a need to be aware of all of these sensations - muscle memory takes over - but I am years away from that stage.
I liken embodied movement practice to seated mindfulness practice. In a seated mindfulness practice, we are usually focusing on our thoughts as our bodies stay fairly still. There is often an object of focus that provides the “intention” part: whether that be our breath, a sound, a mantra, or even our thoughts themselves. The practice is to stay with that object, but to come back to it when we lose focus gently and without judgment. Mindfulness practices have been found to help regulate emotion, improve our interpersonal relations with others, improve thinking patterns, as well as boost immune response and one’s general sense of well being. It has been my own experience that embodied movement practices have benefited me, my friends, and my clients in many of the ways mindfulness practices have been found to benefit others.
In embodied movement we are focusing on bodily sensations as we move as opposed to thoughts as we sit. By building the capacity for, and ability to focus on bodily sensations as you move in your practice, you are preparing to be able to do the same as you move about the world - encountering ordinary and novel environments, people, and experiences.
As I was looking into what other folks had said about being embodied, I came across the following quote from therapist, trainer, and writer Linda Hartley: “To be present in our body is a form of awareness and it is a first step toward being kind to ourselves and others.”** This is why building my capacity to be embodied and sit with the information of feelings has been so important to my own recovery. Even though it wasn’t the easiest thing to do in the short term, it has been the kindest thing I could do in the long term—for myself and my loved ones. It helps to create the conditions I need to heal and thrive.
*Schmalzl, L., Crane-Godreau, M.A., & Payne, P. (2014) Movement-based embodied contemplative practices: definitions and paradigms. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. V.8. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00205/full
** Hartley, L. (1995) Wisdom of the Body Moving. P. xxvi.