What is yoga? What is embodiment and why have I put them together?
Some of you will already know that Yoga has been translated (to us) as Union. Union of so many things, breath with body and movement, you with yourself and your environment, the options are endless.
Embodiment can also mean many things, for me, it's about a deep connection to my body, my bones, muscles and connective tissue. The feeling of your own body from the inside out.
There are two words that help with this:
Proprioception: Ability to sense your surroundings and orientate yourself within a space.
Interoception: Ability to feel your internal sense, your inner body.
In some cases, this seems to go without saying and yet as humans it doesn't seem to be so natural. For many, the body is not a safe place. This can cause us to dissociate from our bodies and try to leave it. We explain this through the fight, flight, freeze response where (sympathetic nervous system) our body doesn't feel safe or right, all we want to do is leave it.
This is where Yoga as Embodiment seeks to assist you. Through my 10 years of yoga practice and meditation, I have learnt that the answer to this life and its challenges is in your body. To honestly feel what your body expresses to you. I say often when I am teaching, what does it feel like? This is a question directed to your senses and intended to be answered by a feeling, not a thought.
A few years ago I did Somatic stress Release training with Scott Lyons. In this training I found a deeper understanding of the body and what it needs. I learnt the meaning of a truly Somatic Embodied experience. An understanding of " the living body from within." Scott taught us (amongst other things) the power of movement to release. This movement was not specifically directed but embodied and entirely intuition. When you feel something in your shoulder, your hip or a gut-wrenching feeling, rather than thinking what can I do to get rid of this or change it or tell a story about, what if you felt it and it told you how it wanted to move or be.
So often we find ourselves consumed in the story of our discomfort, trauma, pain, relationships, and life. The practice of Yoga as Embodiment asks you to leave the story and go right into the body where experience is held, past and present. This can look many ways, you do not have to feel it all at once. We have a practice called titration where we slowly feel small amounts. Little by little you meet the discomfort, perhaps you start with 2% of your experience or less The idea is to slowly make your way in.
Everything we experience in life passes through our body, sometimes it stays, sometimes it leaves impressions and sometimes it goes. Nicolai Bachman in his book The Path of the Yoga Sutras states "Every time we act or think or speak, we draw from our memory. Therefore, what we remember directly affects our behaviour and the way we perceive the outside world." These memories can be in your mind and can be stored in your body from moment to moment.
Everything we experience in life passes through our body, sometimes it stays, sometimes it leaves impressions and sometimes it goes.
Our daily life is constantly at play in us, from past memories to the physical activities we undertake. The more we are in our body, the more we can learn and understand this house and this body, that carries us from here to there and everywhere.
Here is a body scan to help you get a sense of this practice- Copy and Paste the Link.
https://insig.ht/4PiTUnNc1ob?utm_source=copy_link&utm_medium=live_stream_share
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