Being embodied means being fully present in your body.

So what does that mean?

It means being fully aware of your thoughts, and being fully aware of your (emotional) feelings – rather than being unconscious or disconnected from them.

Here’s the thing: if you are unable to tolerate emotional energy and emotional sensations in the body…

1. you will eventually develop some kind of body malfunction – especially if you’re unaware for a long time;

2. you will avoid experiences and relationships that trigger those emotions – this makes your life less juicy and more anxiety/depression prone;

3. you will have a brain that relentlessly searches for solutions to these anxieties and depressions, because it is unable to detect the meaning in the shut away emotions.

Research shows that when you can allow the sometimes scarily intense feelings and sensations of emotions to be really experienced in the body, then your brain has access to what they are about; you gain insight and understanding.

In other words, in order to put to bed traumatic or stressful memories, you have to be able to embody the emotions that those memories generate.

In our ‘civilised societies’ we are the only animals on the planet who routinely scare the shit out of our offspring – usually without meaning to and certainly without realising how much damage it causes. In doing this we teach them to constrict against emotional experience.

Freely feeling emotions and the movement of emotional energy in the body

leads to;

Satisfactorily processing stresses and traumas and intense experiences

which leads to;

Less bodily illness, less anxiety, less depression

and;

More presence, more understanding, more relaxation, more fulfilment.

Are you embodied?