I posted recently on Linked in about Embodiment. I was suggesting that if you wanted to change you needed to interrupt your embodiment. It raised, understandably a few eyebrows - metaphorically that is.
Embodiment is one of those terms that we kind of know what we mean and then when asked to define our own embodiment we draw a blank - a say whaaaat….?
So let me put some meat on the bones (notice the Body based metaphor 😃) by inviting in a little imagination….
Imagine you grow up in a household where you learn that conflict is dangerous.
You learn this from your parents who grew up vicariously exposed to the dangers of war.
They themselves as children learnt that keeping quiet was the safest way to be. Protection from exposure, from persecution and betrayal even. Over time, they withdrew from widely asserting their opinions always checking first for the safe places where they could do so.
Asserting a view contrary to the ‘commanded wisdom’ is dangerous. Becoming tight lipped (another body metaphor) is the safest way to be in the world. Overtime, the body takes on this form also, the musculature shaped to be quiet and small, un-noticed. It becomes collapsed in on itself, perhaps a little contracted through the chest and the rib cage. A little loss of dignity and the right to be heard disappeared.
And then you join these parents already shaped by the need to keep their heads down, to not cause a fuss. To blend into the background.
You however, grew up in a different time. A world no longer ravaged by war, a more liberal period of opening up again. And you rebel against this familial timidity.
You fight against this handed down parented wisdom. Your own unconscious drive is to speak up, to stand up, bring it on! But, there is a but.
Before you found your own psychic drive towards asserting your own world view you’d absorbed unconsciously the shaping of your parents. You’d absorbed that speaking up wasn’t safe, although you didn’t have words to explain it this way - this was unconscious learning.
The messaging you received that the world was dangerous shaped part of your own internal embodiment to protect against conflict - to hunker down inside, contract a little, keep safe. This, conflicted with your own need to be heard, to be seen, to offer something that matters. You own volition and move towards taking a full seat at the table.
This then becomes part of your embodiment.
Almost two positions on a continuum. At one end the shaped in embodiment of contraction, keep small, don’t make a fuss. ‘Inherited’ we might say and locked deep within, not often seen in the world - literally, invisible to others, but it is there.
At the other end a rebellion against this way of being, paired with a powerful personal drive and motivation for justice, fairness and respect. Forceful enough to show up as an outspokeness, a fight for the underdog and an orientation towards having to always fight.
The fight is held in the intellectual domain with the use of argument for what is ‘right’. Sharp, quick, incisive. A powerful gift.
You have learnt how to create a particular space for yourself in the world.
Everything that you are is there for a reason. It’s worked so far. And.
How long is this way of being sustainable? How long can you continue approaching the world through this lens? What is the cost benefit analysis? What are the wins and the losses? How long can you fight hard whilst at the same time inwardly bracing ready for the blows?
What when you meet another person who is a natural ‘fight’? Is there space for both of you? How do you compromise?
How, when something that really matters to you, does fight/brace support you?
What if instead you could ‘fight’ for what you wanted from another place? A place in which you set down the learned tensed embodiment of ‘move away/stay small whilst move toward/fight’ and instead learn to embody a way of being that was centred and grounded. A ground from which you could assert and advocate for what you needed, you could even fight for coming from centre rather than out of that place which rebelled against keeping quiet, avoiding conflict. Not being like your parents.
And this, I fear is as far as I can currently take you through the medium of the written word. Centre and ground is not some written conceptual idea. It’s not even an intellectual concept. Not if it is to be lived, to be part of a way of being. It is a felt sense, created within and lived from within the body.
A previous post on this (https://bit.ly/3jSafEr) invited the reader to consider their own embodiment. It might sound complicated. Many of us, me included have a propensity to over complicate and intellectualise. No need. Instead, just feel and observe. To take one of the examples from the original post…
How is it for you to say No? To say no to someone you care about? To someone you do not care about? How is that experience lived in your body? Literally what does your body feel and where is that? What do you feel moving in your body? Can you even feel your body?
And for many, the answer sadly is no. Conflict maybe one of the ways in which we have learned to shut down from our bodies, hampering our learning and capacity to lead and grow from a place of genuine compassion and authenticity.
And that is another post.
