What Is Embodiment?
Embodiment is a buzzword that is becoming increasingly popular in wellness and therapy circles. In fact, I describe myself as an embodiment therapist and believe that embodiment is central to wholeness and healing. So what is embodiment? Hillary L. McBride, Ph.D., in her book, The Wisdom of Your Body, describes embodiment as “a kind of re-membering of who we really are…a coming home, a remembering of our wholeness, and a reunion with the fullness of ourselves.” Being embodied means being fully connected to our body’s experience of moving in the world, being connected to ourselves from the inside out. McBride describes embodiment as “being fully alive.”
We now live in a culture in which most people have become dis-embodied. Centuries of Western philosophical influence, including Plato, Descartes, and the Gnostics, taught that the soul and mind are distinct from the body, and that we need to escape this world to find salvation. These philosophers believed that the body has its limitations but truth exists in the mind. The popular phrase “mind over matter” is an apt demonstration of current ideology. In fact, research has shown that up to 90% of people in western culture loathe their bodies (Hillary L. McBride, PhD).
McBride writes, “There is so much goodness and wisdom within and between us because of our bodies, the bodies we spend so much time trying to get away from, control, or blame.” So how do we go about reconnecting to our bodies, i.e., becoming embodied? As we are a thinking culture, perhaps it would be helpful to start with a new way of thinking about our relationship to our bodies. The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty is noted for his reframing of how we think about bodies: rather than saying “you have a body” as if our bodies are objects within our possession, it may be more helpful to think “you are a body.” Your body is not something that you merely possess; it is intrinsic to who you are. On this topic, McBride writes, “Embodiment is the conscious knowing of and living as a body, not as a thing distinct from the self or the mind.”
We were born embodied. Before we had words to describe our needs, we were connected to the physical sensations within our bodies. This is why babies cry when they are hungry or tired or want to be held. Their experience of their bodies is all they have. This embodiment is intrinsic to who we are as humans, and it is something that we can reconnect to even after our minds and bodies have spent many years separated and disconnected.
While an intellectual understanding of embodiment can be a helpful place to start, the actual practice of becoming embodied happens through lived experiences in our bodies. McBride writes, “Change does not happen through trying to trick ourselves out of a story we have been groomed to rehearse through our developing years. Rather, transformation happens from the ground up: when we have a new experience of ourselves and hold our attention on it long enough for it to sink in…Learning embodiment…requires curiosity, attention, sensation, and acceptance, which then allows us to develop a healthier and more stable relationship with our body as a whole.”
Think about a time when you felt fully alive.
For me, the memories that arise are of swimming in the cold Atlantic ocean, practicing yoga in my backyard, hiking through the mountains in Vermont, snuggling up with my dog in bed…just to name a few. What I notice about my own experiences, and what you may observe about your own experiences of being fully alive, is that these are moments in which I am fully present and connected to my body - the coldness of the ocean, the presence of being with my body while practicing yoga, the energy and strength of climbing a mountain, the warmth and softness of my dog’s ears. Embodiment is the experience of feeling fully alive.
