What is Embodiment?

“When the body calls us back, we begin to find that we have a partner on the spiritual path that we didn’t know about—the body itself. In our meditation and in our surrounding lives, the body becomes a teacher.” —Reggie Ray

We may have grown up with the belief that in order to be spiritual we must transcend the body, or separate the spirit from the “flesh” and its longings. What if listening to the body not only informs our spiritual life, but takes us to our next level of spiritual development? This is embodiment.

In our culture we tend to want to change, fix or control the body instead of honoring it for housing our soul during this life’s journey. The sensations we feel can be teachers if we let them…during practice, during meditation, during life.

In our youth, if we were taught to numb, suppress, or ignore the sensations of the body, then we most likely will fear them.

Embodiment is trusting the body, trusting the feelings that come from it and honoring those sensations as the guideposts to our next phase of personal growth. Emotions are energy-in-motion and they always pass. They pass through us, and the body is their messenger. Staying curious with the sensations, and open to how they may change us, propels our evolution.

What may have been an advantageous approach to feelings in our youth - numbing, suppressing or ignoring - could be holding us back as adults on a spiritual path.

We have a choice now. Listening to the feelings as they present in the physical or emotional body can unlock nuggets of wisdom, if we just stay present and allow the waves of sensation to move through us. Our yoga practice not only exercises our physical body, but conditions us to be with sensation in all of its forms. It is in the form and the formless that we continue to grow.