Written by: Liana Buzea, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Currently, there is a trend in personal growth that addresses embodiment. Embodiment, in the context of wellness and personal growth, is understood as how one carries themselves psychologically, emotionally, and somatically (physically, but in a broader sense than just movement). Usually, this closer look is in relation to a topic, an area or a situation in one's life. This closer look is also about how one transforms themselves through consciously integrating the body into the process.
Basically, in recent years, merely talking about past or current challenges, issues or wounds, has become insufficient to help one transform. Most personal growth modalities look at how one embodies themselves in a situation, usually a recurring one, or in an area of their lives. Embodiment, through the body, not just in the mind or in the verbal communication.
What is embodiment?
First thing is first, here's what embodiment isn't. When an event suddenly occurs, the body responds automatically. It does so given the situation at hand and how the body is caught in it. The physical reactions the body has are simply that–reactions–but they are not embodiment as personal growth. They can serve as starting points for a growth path, but the reactions are not the growth path itself.
Embodiment in the sense of growth and development is the intentional practice of working with the body to transform, gradually and organically, something about oneself.
If you wanted to work on embodiment with a practitioner, to transform something about the quality of your personal, professional or social life, this person would help you look at two key aspects.
Firstly, you would examine your thoughts or beliefs about yourself in relation to the topic or situation you chose to work on.
Secondly, you would look at how you feel (emotionally) and what you perceive (physically) in relation to the chosen topic, about yourself going through it, and about what it would take from you to transform yourself regarding that topic.
Let's dig into it!
The physical form in embodiment
When analyzing what you perceive physically in relation to a topic you're seeking to transform (for instance, how you show up in public presentations) is what is known in embodiment as physical form. When you work with an embodiment practitioner, you are guided to feel into this form and work with it.
Your physical form refers to details like posture when talking about the issue you’re working on, body tics that come up at various times, fluctuations in tone and volume of voice throughout the conversation, vitality overall and also when doing inner work, breathing patterns, speed of body movements or gestures, physical sensations when working on the issue and what they mean or show about you, and so on.
In embodiment, your physical form is looked at from the perspective of presence–what is in the here and now, and the perspective of the quality of your presence in your form–how well you can perform in your life with your current physical form.
Your physical form, still from an embodiment perspective, naturally shifts with the events that you go through, with the stages of a situation you are in, with the stages of your relationships, or with the stages in your life. So, your physical form is fluid, and depending on how easily it can support you in navigating your situation, you could say that it has more or less fluidity, meaning it changes depending on the circumstances. But it’s also important to remember that not all change is healthy or supportive for your life, so you have to keep in mind your physical form and its level of fluidity.
When working with the example above, public presentations, let's just say that your form will change according to how old you are (a 5-year-old will present in public differently from a 20-year-old, a 40-year-old or a 60-year-old). Depending on what else is going on in your life at the time, the quality of your presence (spontaneity, vitality, connection to the room, etc.) will change. Even people who are really good at holding challenging emotions pent up will still have fluctuations in their physical form while presenting publicly if in their personal life someone has passed away, or someone is ill, or they are going through a breakup or divorce. Form fluctuates even if we try to keep it under control. It's only natural that it does. The practice of embodiment accepts that, as it does not seek to control the physical form in a strict manner, but gently guides it toward better outcomes for all involved.
Working with your physical form in embodiment is not about what actions you need to do in the future to fix a situation. But rather, the work is in determining how your physical form needs to shift in order for you to be better or better navigate a given situation or stage of your life. This is a different approach than the classical coaching or personal growth perspective. It is particularly helpful in managing stress reactions and, ideally, identifying what needs to be let go of or transformed in life for you to prosper.
The body's memory in embodiment
In embodiment, there's also a discussion about the body's memory–your body's capacity to record sensations it felt or held in the past and use them to guide you through life. Much like the brain stores memories and information, your body, at least from the perspective of embodiment, stores sensations and uses them as references or as navigation mechanisms.
The recorded sensations in the body can be of all kinds: expansion, pleasure, energy, tension, pain, numbness, tremor, discomfort, etc.
Where is it all recorded? In the fascia and in the nervous system.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, the fascia is the "very thin casing of connective tissue that surrounds and holds every organ, blood vessel, bone, nerve fiber and muscle in place." From an embodiment perspective, your fascia stores sensations that your body can use as a reference. Also, fascia, like anything else in the body, is activated and moved by the nervous system. These two elements in our bodies, the fascia and the nervous system, connect everything. They make our body a whole in and of itself.
So, once your sensations are recorded, your body's memory can function in a variety of ways:
On the one hand, it can support you in times of distress by recalling a more positive, stable feeling and helping to navigate you toward that particular stasis. If your form is fluid and you work with it for the better, your memory of balance and equilibrium (on all levels) will be your compass when going through negative situations. This will make it easier for you to let go of any unpleasant or negative sensations and act differently in those situations.
On the other hand, your body’s memory can mean keeping a sensation in place instead of allowing it to move or shift. In most cases, a stored physical memory can result in the inability to unwind or to let go. Translated into what your body does, this can manifest as tense shoulders, hunched back, clenched or easily clenching fists, tense jaw and bruxism–clenching or grinding of teeth, being "touchy" overall, or having no sensation at all–numbness.
This last part, no perceivable sensation in your body, can lead to a lack of awareness of your physical form, and the assumption that it is just how you are. So, in your perception, there's nothing to improve because you feel like you've always felt. Sometimes you might be carrying tension that you are simply unaware of. And in those cases, there could be ways of working with your body to discharge that tension and ultimately feel better.
Both of these ways of the body's memory–a constructive reference or a hindrance to perception–have a direct impact on your perceived quality of life.
A third possible scenario could be that, seemingly out of the blue or in normal daily situations, challenging emotions can come up to the conscious level. These might be triggered by a sound, a word, a tone of voice, or you see a movement to which you overreact in some way, like defensiveness, confusion, disorientation, fear, attack, flight, shaking, crying, fainting, and many more. Some reactions might be subtle, undetectable to others, while others might be obvious. I'm not speaking of medically caused reactions, but of psychologically and emotionally induced ones–stress responses through a physical or bodily manifestation. This is how the body's memory can operate, as seen from the embodiment perspective.
How do you work through embodiment?
The key component of embodiment is that wisdom is within yourself. This means your entire being (psyche, emotions and body) holds the answers. A professional can help you recognize the signals and solutions and translate them into action–to embody them.
In embodiment, transformation unlocks a natural cycle of life:
inception,
growth,
peak of maturation and
retraction, rest or death (literally or figuratively).
All living beings, and all interactions between living beings, follow this cycle. Embodiment allows an individual to live all stages of this cycle as healthily as possible, and then move on to the next cycles with more wisdom, understanding and perspective.
We, as human beings, navigate a variety of cycles in our lives, in different areas of our lives. If imbalances come, they are most likely caused by the need to suppress, skip over, or freeze in certain stages within a cycle.
The solution is thus to move within all stages of a cycle, and to move from one cycle to another in a fluid and harmonious way.
So, when one embodies change or transformation from within, at their own pace, they use the wisdom of their entire being (psychological, emotional and somatic) to grow and flow through complete natural cycles and release all tension or pent-up emotions, strained postures, suppressed breathing patterns, silenced or diminished tone of voice, and so on.
This is how embodiment can support you.
What embodiment methods are out there?
In recent years, the concept of embodiment has reached the mainstream.
In most cases, this means that modalities as those presented above become known to more and more people, and larger audiences integrate them, as much as possible, into their lives. This is something that I strongly encourage all of us to open our eyes and minds to, especially as the technological and digital world becomes more present in our lives.
In the Western personal growth community, the embodiment trend has been building itself organically since the 20th century. It has been doing that through incredibly beautiful fields like somatic therapy (Somatic Experiencing), somatic coaching (including but not limited to my training of Sexological Bodywork), somatic movement (Feldenkrais and Alexander methods, TRE, Pilates), breathwork (Holotropic, Rebirthing, Wim Hof, to name a few), structural integration (Rolfing), osteopathy, chiropractic or myofascial release, dance therapy (5Rhytms, Ecstatic), and others. This field is massive and I too am still expanding my understanding of it.
Most of the above are modalities that are mainly unknown to the general public, though they each have great potential for one's holistic health. For those of us that are open to trying more than talk therapy or counseling, any of these are worth giving a bit of time (so more than just one try).
Hopefully, you now have a much clearer understanding of embodiment in the context of personal growth and wellness. As you begin to hear or read more about it, do keep in mind that it is about our human nature and our interaction with our natural environment through our bodies and physical forms.
In the next article, we will take a look at how we can gradually work with our physical form to either navigate our daily challenges better or to get closer to our relieved and expansive selves.
Liana Buzea, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Liana is the Holistic Intimacy coach and Rebirthing Breathwork practitioner. Her work is an everyday resource for personal healing and transformation. Her work comprises of daily somatic practices and breathwork practices to help the individual become anew. She coaches women on topics pertaining to sexuality, in ways that honor and support human nature and their reputation. She is also facilitating Rebirthing Breathwork as a powerful tool to help people overcome deep psycho-emotional wounds (traumas). Prior to this, she has activated for 17 years as an environmental activist in her home country—Romania, South Easter Europe (a state from the former communist block).
