Embodiment, Self-Confidence and Freedom

This particular photo, and others of me moving, were taken on a super busy pedestrian street behind Borough Market in London in the middle of the day. Right in front of a restaurant, no less, where people were eating at tables outside and watching us. Tons of people, locals and tourists, were walking by, and quite a few of them actually stopped to look because we were obviously doing a photoshoot and they were curious. 

Let me be very, very clear: NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE FOR ME A FEW YEARS AGO!

There is no way, before I started my embodiment journey, that I could have found the courage to move like that in a public place. I don’t even think I could have accessed the freedom to move my body like that in private, let alone on display in front of other people. 

When I look at these images, I see a transmission of embodiment. I wasn’t posing. The photographer, bless her young heart, wasn’t even giving me cues. I was simply inhabiting my body and moving with presence. 

It’s not that I’m any “good” at dancing. I even woke up that morning and had started bleeding, and I normally hide in bed on day 1 of my cycle. Because of my practice, I was able to drop-in to my body and my expression that day, which resulted in these beautiful and authentic embodied images. 

I don’t live 100% in that place. Frankly none of us do, and the idea that we will arrive at some level of being fully embodied all the time is idealistic and unrealistic. Embodiment is not a 1/0 binary. You’re not either embodied or not. It’s more like a spectrum of being and experiencing life. And no matter how deep your practice is, it’s normal to move around on the spectrum.

Same with some of these other states we want to access - they aren’t 1/0 binaries. Feeling empowered, expressed, free, safe - it’s healthy to expect we will move around the spectrum of those states. Not always moving the needle up. We aren’t made for constant expansion, that’s actually pretty toxic. 

With embodiment work, it’s our practice that creates a readiness in the body to call up those states. It’s practice - actually putting the body through the motions - that allows us to easily move into them when desired. It’s practice that allows us to rest at a baseline that’s closer to the desired states.

If you want to learn a really easy 5 minute embodiment practice, I have a sweet little meditation for you - and it’s completely free. It seems simple but can have really profound effects for awakening sensitivity to your body’s wisdom and intelligence if you do it regularly.