What is Embodiment?

Being Embodied

Embodiment is most certainly a buzz word these days. I have heard it described as multiple things. I mean, as humans, we are always technically occupying a body. However, what shifts is our connection to its various intelligences.  

Over the past several centuries, humans began to equate consciousness with the brain and the body as a vehicle to manoeuvre the brain around. Because of that, humans have excluded the nuanced forms of intelligence we can find in the systems of our bodies. For example, cells don’t need the brain to tell them divide. There is an underlying intelligence that drives the cells. What if we could consciously inhabit this wisdom and allow it to more fully support us in each moment?

Embodiment does require some level of meditative surrender into the unknown. In many instances, embodiment is the unknown. Often because it has been trained out of us by modern culture that teaches us to override the innate wisdom of the body. Learning to be fully present means exactly that. As yoga teachers, what we teach reflects our inner processes. The more of us that is here, the more we can support the innate wisdom of our students to come forward as well. The more we can make space for the various and unique experiences of our own body, while recognizing oneness, the more we can make space for the various expressions of humanity while still holding our oneness.  

The path of Tantra is one of a liberated embodied being. Because the Tantrikas placed value on the human experience. Unlike previous iterations of yoga, the goal wasn’t to escape the human life. But rather, to deeply come alive. And the body was the technology for that awakening. 

At I Am That – Yoga, our  Beyond Asana Immersion / Advanced Teacher Training, focuses on this conversation around coming alive. We believe that the technology of awakening is already within you, and we want to support it coming forward.