Creating an Embodiment Practice YOU Love

There are so many reasons you might want to develop and embodiment routine that you love. Essentially, through this more formal practice, you will develop the skill of connecting with your body’s messages. 

Your body helps you to have access to data your mind alone might not. We also know that the mind is highly conditioned and therefore doesn’t always present a full picture of things but rather one that promotes the current stories and identities that you hold for yourself which may be problematic when you want something different. 

The more you tap into your body, the better you become at making aligned decisions for yourself, the more unapologetically self-honouring you will be which means more self assurance, more inner strength and so much more. It’s a practice in responding to your experience instead of reacting.

Embodied practice framework

Step 1: Create your relative safety

First, let’s amend the term just a little to relative safety or more ease. Some of us who do not feel safe would never get to a place of relatively more safe if we didn’t start somewhere. So do consider looking at this step as how you can create more safety or ease to do your practice.

When I know I am about to journey inwards, I tell my family that I’d like some time because I don’t feel great when I’m afraid I’ll be interrupted. I’ll also lock the door of the room after I’ve done a quick scan. This may seem like a lot or not at all. 

Your turn: What might that be for you? What are some steps or changes in the environment you are in it would help you to make it easier for you to feel relatively safer?

Step 2: Presence

Once you’ve created that more easeful space for your practice it’s time for more presence. Presence is being in the current time in space; not dwelling on the past or the future. In my experience it’s usually my head that keeps me out of the present, it’s a form of disassociation.

While I’ll typically start with deep breathing to bring me to the here and now, I sometimes also do a brain dump on paper. 

Your turn: What tends to keep you out of presence? How could you support yourself towards more presence?

Step 3: Awareness

Presence naturally shifts into awareness. As you are present, you become aware of what your body feels like at this moment. You might be only minutely aware or hyper sensitive or anywhere in between, no problem. Anytime it feels too much, you can retreat a little and any time you wonder if there’s more, you can lead with curiosity, not judgment, to help you to explore further or just be exactly as you are.

The awareness piece is that noticing in full presence, the messages coming from SELF.

Step 4: Expression

What do you do with what you notice? Well that brings us to the expression piece. Of what you became aware of, what desires to be expressed? Maybe nothing and it may be something. I really want to emphasize that there is no right or wrong way to express what you’ve become aware of. It’s not a specific set of movements or sounds, it’s whatever feels interesting for you to try.

Creating an embodiment practice you love

Let’s look at one last piece of the puzzle because this episode is about not just creating an embodied practice, but one you love. 

For this to become your experience of the embodied practice, that’s the intention that you want to approach the creation from. If you build it thinking it will be an arduous process, you are much more likely to have an arduous practice that you then you give up on. 

My intention is to be even more connected to self and be even more SELF guided so when I create my practice that’s what I keep in mind. If I have any concerns, I’ll ask myself how I can adjust my practice today that will create even more connection?

So before you use this framework, anchor yourself in your intention for having this embodiment practice.

For more deets, listen to this SELF Guided podcast episode here.

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Transcript

Creating an embodiment practice you love

Hello everyone and welcome to the fourth episode of the first season of SELF guided. This week, I am sharing with you the framework that I have relied on to create my own embodied practices. 

Intention

My intention with this episode is that you can then use the framework and support yourself in experimenting with your own embodiment practices. I’ll also share with you what has been my experience and some of the important insights I’ve realized to help you as much as I can on your journey.

Before we go on with the episode and now that you know what this week’s topic is, take a moment to decide what you intention is. No intention is better than another, it’s just important to know what it is so that you remain in the driver’s seat of your experience today with this episode.

Why an embodiment routine

There are so many reasons you might want to develop and embodiment routine that you love. Essentially, through this more formal practice, you will develop the skill of connecting with your body’s messages. 

Your body helps you to have access to data your mind alone might not. We also know that the mind is highly conditions and therefore doesn’t always present a full picture of things but rather one that promotes the current stories and identities that you hold for yourself which may be problematic when you want something different. The more you tap into your body, the better you become at making aligned decisions for yourself, the more unapologetically self-honouring you will be which means more self assurance, more inner strength and so much more. It’s a practice in responding to your experience instead of reacting.

Do note that embodiment cannot be rushed. Yes, you can put a timer for your practice but I mean that moving through things or releasing tension or coming closer to sensations, none of that can be rushed. And there’s never anything wrong with where you are in the practice. Hold grace for yourself and get to know YOU. It’s entirely possible that my examples don’t resonate with you, that doesn’t mean that I’m right and you’re wrong, it only means that we have different and equally valid felt experiences or awareness of these.

Embodied practice framework

When I break down the different embodiment routines I’ve had in the last year or so, I notice they all have the same 4 core elements; number 1 safety, number 2 presence, number 3 awareness and number 4 expression.

Let’s talk about each element in more depth, keeping in mind that the steps might not always be sequential, actually, when it comes to embodiment, a linear experience is rather rare.

Step 1: Create your relative safety

Step one is safety. What is safety and how does one create safety? First I’ll amend the term just a little to relative safety or more ease. Some of us who do not feel safe would never get to a place of relatively more safe if we didn’t start somewhere. So do consider looking at this step as how you can create more safety or ease to do your practice.

When I know I am about to journey inwards, I tell my family that I’d like some time because I don’t feel great when I’m afraid I’ll be interrupted. I’ll also lock the door of the room after I’ve done a quick scan. This may seem like a lot or not at all. 

What might that be for you? What are some steps or changes in the environment you are in it would help you to make it easier for you to feel relatively safer? 

For a while, I would only do embodiment when I was home alone but I’m sure for someone else, it could be the opposite that creates a deeper sense of ease to be able to practice. 

A good way to find out what might contribute to more ease for you is to ask yourself why doing it now seems like a bad idea. All of the objections that will pop up would actually be showing you what you could address to create your ease. 

For me, those objections were that others would walk in and jar me out of my practice and the other one was that I was going to get so wrapped up that I’d skip over the next item on my calendar. That’s why I now lock the door and put on a timer where music plays and then stops at the end of my timer so no jarring. Answering the question of why I couldn’t possibly do the practice gave me the information I needed to adjust my environment to create more safety.

If, at any time during the practice, you start to lose hold of this relative safety, come back to this step and anchor again before continuing. You are always free to retreat.

Step 2: Presence

Once you’ve created that more easeful space for your practice it’s time for more presence. Presence is being in the current time in space; not dwelling on the past or the future. In my experience it’s usually my head that keeps me out of the present, it’s a form of disassociation. It happens even when I’m in this container that I have created for myself. 

While I’ll typically start with deep breathing to bring me to the here and now, I sometimes also do a brain dump on paper. 

What tends to keep you out of presence? How could you support yourself towards more presence? 

I can imagine that back when I really disliked my body, I’d have had a harder time being present in it because my brain would have likely taken the opportunity to point to all my body discomfort. Knowing what I know now I would help direct my focus towards feeling present in only the places I felt safe within myself even if at times, those were my fingers and toes. That’s where I would have a begun, fingers and toes. 

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to love every part of your body to be present in your body. You can start small, it’s OK. So in this example, you are asking yourself how do I be more present or what is one relatively safer place in my body where I can bring my focus to where I am more likely to be present? Can you think of any other supports that you might need? Be honest with yourself and allow yourself to utilize these.

Step 3: Awareness

Presence naturally shifts into awareness. As you are present, you become aware of what your body feels like at this moment. You might be only minutely aware or hyper sensitive or anywhere in between, no problem. Anytime it feels too much, you can retreat a little and any time you wonder if there’s more, you can lead with curiosity, not judgment, to help you to explore further or just be exactly as you are. 

Your body will speak to you through your felt experience which may include one, many or all types of felt sensations from the headspace with visuals or images, to the physical with held tension or comfort or discomfort, to the emotional with internal vibrations or even the energetics such as a knowing or a wave. There’s so much more and all of these are here to tell you something. The awareness piece is that noticing in full presence, the messages coming from SELF.

Step 4: Expression

What do you do with what you notice? Well that brings us to the expression piece. Of what you became aware of, what desires to be expressed? Maybe nothing and it may be something. I really want to emphasize that there is no right or wrong way to express what you’ve become aware of. It’s not a specific set of movements or sounds, it’s whatever feels interesting for you to try. 

I mentioned it before, you would likely find me moving my body and making all sorts of sounds, sometimes the expression is hardly noticeable, that doesn’t mean I’m not expressing as I can and desire in that moment. 

One of my client like to shake it out,  another goes for a walk in the woods, another does calligraphy. You can journal, you can draw, you can write a song or sing one or hum. The expression piece is how you complete processing the felt experience and allowing your emotions.

Creating an embodiment practice you love

Let’s look at one last piece of the puzzle because this episode is about not just creating an embodied practice, but one you love. For this to become your experience of the embodied practice, that’s the intention that you want to approach the creation from. If you build it thinking it will be an arduous process, you are much more likely to have an arduous practice that you then you give up on. 

My intention is to be even more connected to self and be even more SELF guided so when I create my practice that’s what I keep in mind. If I have any concerns, I’ll ask myself how I can adjust my practice today that will create even more connection?

So before you use this framework, anchor yourself in your intention for having this embodiment practice.

To recap, there are four steps 1) relative safety, 2) presence, 3) awareness, and 4) expression. You may want to come back to this episode again and again for the questions or you can always download the show notes which you’ll find the link for right in the app where you are listening from in the description of the episode.

Your practice will evolve and change with you and this simple framework will help you to meet yourself where you are, not asking for more than you’re available for or less.

Until next time, love to each and everyone.