Is embodiment the answer to everything?
What are the risks of embodiment?
Is it possible to over embody?
There seems to come a time in everyone’s healing journey when a question arises about whether what they’ve been doing to heal is actually still healing to them, or not so much. And if not, is it simply over, or is it that a balance needs to be found? Even the degree to which we feel our own feelings is subject to this quandary. We are complex creatures in complex situations that change throughout our lifetimes, so there is no catchall easy answer to this. An easy answer one time, might not work for you another time. It is an exploration, in the moment. What I can offer here is a way for you to find your own answers, as well as some points to consider.
TL;DR: As this question comes up, are you able to hold yourself in compassion? If not, it may be safer to put it down for now. If it’s important, it will come up again. If you are holding yourself with compassion and curiosity, then you are already connected with the wisdom needed to know if you should stay with it or not.
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What does it mean to be embodied?
For the most part, western civilization is a relatively disembodied culture. Children are raised in a relatively disembodied environment. So for many of us, when we are being guided in embodiment or consciously choose it for ourselves for the first time, it can be a fairly profound experience. Disowned emotions can come rushing in, for better or worse, or even just the sensation of our own hand, alive, can tingle our whole being with excitement. Other people may warm up to it slowly over time. But generally this shift from being disembodied to a more embodied state – it feels good.
So when might you not want to emotionally embody? There are times including, but not limited to:
-When it’s overwhelming
-When it causes a net increase in toxic shame
-When it would reinforce an undesired pattern
-When it’s not safe
-When you need more support than what’s available
Safety
Obviously if you are in immediate physical danger, it’s probably not a good time to go into a deep self-reflective process. But that’s not what I’m talking about with safety in this context. I’m talking about whether or not it feels safe to go in to your own emotional content given where you are, who you’re with, and how much time you have. Generally our own intuition will figure this part out for us, but not if we’re pushing ourselves to be more embodied based on an idea around it and end up overriding intuition. So if it doesn’t feel right, just take a moment to ask yourself “do I feel safe enough right now to go in to this?”
There are a lot of emotions that can be really vulnerable to feel. That vulnerability can be a beautiful part of the healing process. It’s almost as if the deeper the emotion is, the more vulnerable it can be to feel it, and the more potential healing can take place. However if it is not respected, there can be re-wounding and setback in the healing process.
Overwhelm
If you’re working with a good therapist, they are tracking your capacities to deal with what comes up and how close you are to overwhelm. This is a key feature of modern somatic therapies because once a person is overwhelmed, the ability to learn and adapt (and therefore to heal) comes to a grinding halt, and it becomes potential grounds for re-traumatization. While some older modalities have the “push through” ideal, these have largely been abandoned as unethical, and catharsis in general has been found to have an addictive, rather than therapeutic, quality to it.
Shame
Often it is our deepest, most hidden emotional states that offer the most healing potential. However it is common for shame to show up on the heels of such states. Shame can act as a gatekeeper to these states, threatening to repeat past habits until a soul arrives brave enough to accept all that awaits them beyond the gate. There is no rule, though, that you can’t bring someone with you. Unfortunately people’s aversion to addressing shame properly is one of the features of our society that make it systemically disembodied. If shame seems insurmountable to you, you may want to find a somatic therapist educated in complex or developmental trauma.
De-embodiment
Those are just a few examples of when you might not want to deepen in embodiment. Other examples might include (but not limited to) timing, social situations, active care-giving, or just plain old habits coming up that you’re in the process of letting go. It is times like these when we might consciously choose to de-embody. I coin the term “de-embody” here to differentiate it from “disembody”, which has the connotation of being an unconscious process.
Here is where the art of discernment gets really subtle. While de-embodiment can be a useful tool for a self-aware individual to maneuver through life, it can also be subconsciously co-opted by one’s own defensive strategies and habits. That is, you can tell yourself you’re choosing to de-embody for a reason, but really it’s a way of avoiding something uncomfortable. So how do you know when you are genuinely de-embodying, or secretly disembodying? You are the only one who can answer that for yourself. It’s a matter of getting to know oneself. How honest can you be with yourself? It’s a journey, not a destination. That’s why I referred to discernment as an art.
Fear
Oftentimes we move away from embodiment due to fear. Whether it be fear of the unknown, fear of pain, fear of a bottomless pit of emotional despair, or fear of change, there are ways to face these fears. While fear plays an important role in survival, the fears in this context are emotional in nature, and perhaps should be referred to more as anxieties. In any case, they are not reasons on to themselves to de-embody, since they can be worked with as long as they do not become overwhelming beyond one’s window of tolerance.
While choosing to move through an anxiety may naturally lead to it being “not so scary after all”, there are times when one can get caught up in and amplify the anxiety itself. If it’s not possible to maintain some sense of curiosity in a state like this, then it is likely to lead to overwhelm. This is another situation in which a skilled therapist would be invaluable.
Dead-ends
I think of states that don’t have a sense of emotional movement toward resiliency as dead-end states. They are often states that feel all too familiar, but the individual doesn’t know where to go from there. The looping anxiety can be an example of this, and depression is another widely-known sort of dead-end state. There can be such a strong feeling of timelessness involved in these types of states that we can actually believe that it will be like this for ever. It can even be humorous to notice this in such a state, as few things are more fickle and mutable as human emotion!
But, not everyone will see such humor. Indeed we will all have our own experience. The question here is, are you having compassion for yourself? In the “fear” example above I mention curiosity. Curiosity about one’s inner workings is a form of self-compassion, and it’s particularly potent when dealing with fear. Even taking the time to read an article like this is a form of self-compassion (whether you take it or leave it), and it can be important to recognize that, particularly for people with low self-esteem.
A note on being overly embodied
Perhaps the opposite of de-embodiment would be “being overly embodied”. A person on the embodimental path might get overzealous in their attempts to embody their own emotions. The thing is, as soon as a person tries to embody something, what they are embodying is someone who is trying to embody something. It’s never quite the same as embodying what is truly present. That being said, it can be fun to overly embody. It can even lead somewhere therapeutic. The key when doing that type of work is having the awareness of how much of what you are doing deviate from what is truly authentic for you.
Making the choice
Hopefully this article has given some food for thought, or better yet, fruit for embodiment! The intention here is not to give out answers for life, but rather to open the discussion. Here are some things to consider when working with deep emotional states:
Am I able to hold myself with compassion right now?
Am I treating myself as well as I would treat a friend going through the same thing?
Do I have the energy to see this through right now?
Is this too big for me to handle alone?
How honest am I being with myself?
What is my heart’s desire?
These kinds of questions are useful when having this discussion with oneself. AND, we can discuss it together on the Embodimental Health Community group on Facebook. If this topic interests you (and I imagine it does if you’ve read this far), please join the community. By having this discussion together, it helps society itself become aware of such things. Perhaps one day it will even shift our society to be more authentic, embodied, and therefore harmonious.
May it be so!