Are you in your physique?
Pause and study your expertise. Proper now. Earlier than studying additional.
I don’t imply that I need a catalog of your sensations, your ideas and feelings. Observing and cataloging is one strategy to join along with your somatic expertise. It’s a core method in lots of mindfulness practices.
However observing and cataloging remains to be one step away from really experiencing your physique, from really being in your expertise.
So are you in your physique?
Our Physique as a Bridge to the Current
Reginald A. Ray is a Buddhist trainer and tutorial. In his e-book “Touching Enlightenment: Discovering Realization within the Physique,” he explores why being embodied is central to being enlightened, current, and awake.
He writes that one of many causes our meditation follow turns into stale and hits a wall is that we don’t absolutely embody our expertise. At totally different occasions, we could have ideas about our our bodies or we could observe the sensations we’re experiencing. However typically, we maintain ourselves at arms size from true embodiment by remaining conceptual.
Because of this, Reggie feels meditation isn’t sufficient. To be absolutely current, it’s a must to be absolutely and utterly in your physique.
In my lessons, we regularly discover what it means to be embodied. We use our our bodies as a bridge to the current second. Our bodies don’t reside previously or the long run–solely now. So by absolutely inhabiting our our bodies, now we have a strategy to expertise what is really taking place now.
“Embodiment” in Trendy Yoga
If I requested you join along with your physique, you may reply “yoga”. Yoga is known as a thoughts/physique follow and it typically contains meditation. It is sensible that it could be a way to embodiment.
However sadly, many yoga practices (and lessons) fall wanting educating this. Full of wild, contorted, stretchy-bendy poses, ego-driven flows, and up-regulating sequences, these practices educate you grasp your physique–not inhabit it.
Utilizing yoga poses like this produces a whole lot of sensation and a whole lot of narrative. You turn into hooked up to the poses and and the way in which you’re feeling throughout them. Your thoughts wills your physique to carry out. And when the bodily exertion is just too intense, you withdraw and contract from the expertise. When the bodily exertion isn’t sufficient, you lose interest and disengaged.
In impact, you be taught the other of embodiment.
True Embodiment in Yoga
Simply because some yoga practices don’t educate embodiment, doesn’t imply all of them don’t. You simply want to seek out those. It is advisable discover yoga that understands the poses not as bodily shapes however as alternatives to inhabit your physique.
It’s not onerous to offer this a strive.
Decide a pose which is pretty straightforward for you. Mountain pose, Canine pose, or Warrior II are good locations to begin. You may even simply lie on the ground.
Assume the pose in a approach that’s snug in your physique. In different phrases, in case your hamstrings are tight, bend your knees in Canine. If Warrior II is strenuous, don’t bend your entrance knee as far. Don’t fear about creating the precise form that you simply see within the yoga books. Simply approximate the posture in a approach that’s snug in your physique.
Upon getting the form, relaxation in it.
In the beginning, you’ll most likely discover all of the sensations. That’s regular as a result of they’re most evident. Chances are you’ll really feel your hamstrings. Chances are you’ll discover the burden in your toes. Perhaps you’ll really feel your jaw clenched or your shoulders tight.
After you catalog your sensations, go deeper. Draw your consideration to the non-sensations. What elements of your physique really feel nothing? What does it really feel wish to really feel nothing? For instance, if the again of your head feels nothing, what does that nothingness really feel like?
Simply be Current
And eventually, after exploring the dearth of sensation, enable your thoughts to relaxation and simply be current. There’s no have to tweak the pose or repair your alignment. There’s no have to deliver consciousness to your physique. In reality, there’s no have to do something in any respect. Simply expertise being within the pose–no matter that’s for you.
With this type of yoga, you’ll discover that the form of your physique performs a minor function. Your physique could be straight or flexible, upside-down or rightside-up. You’re merely utilizing the pose as a way to expertise your physique. And finally, you’re utilizing your physique to expertise being current.
You’ll be able to perceive yoga in several methods. In a method, yoga is a sequence of postures. You progress your physique into varied shapes and work to realize mastery over the postures.
Within the different approach, yoga is a way to discover embodiment. You progress your physique to discover what it means to actually inhabit it. You utilize your physique to be current and absolutely awake.
The subsequent time you suppose your meditation follow feels caught or stale, strive one thing new–strive being current in your physique. Take a yoga class and as you do your follow, ask your self in case you are in your physique. Use the poses to discover embodiment. Perhaps, as Reggie Ray writes, being in your physique will take you nearer to being actually current.
