It felt like a few years ago it got to the point with the wellness girlies that they were advising us to even buy embodied yogurt. Very liberal and slutty usage of the word embodied was abounding pre-pandemmy before people understood better why you might want to peace the fuck out of your bod at times. As someone who spends a lot of time fat with only fleeting moments of skinny I also felt really targeted by America’s Next Top Cult Leaders that if I could just learn embodiment I’d lose weight. It got brought up unprompted A LOT. That embodiment was the answer to all my prayers. I suspected a lot of those people were using the word embodiment incorrectly and guess what they were! Never mind the fat phobia. I don’t have time for that rant today.
Embodiment (which truly pro guest Mari said “should we define embodiment first?” like 10 mins into the episode cause I just dove in), means “a tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling… The representation or expression of something in a tangible or visible form.” What I was missing in all the embodiment quests… I was embodying myself. I wasn’t disembodied. the message I was wrongly being sent was what I embodied wasn’t good. I should seek to embody something else (thinner) to really be whole.
Embodiment is complicated and I don’t know that we can always freely choose it for ourselves for a lot of reasons. The idea of embodiment really being rooted in what we give shape and form to makes me happy because there are a lot of pathways into that. You don’t have to be x to be embodied, and while there are a lot of benefits you’re not a better person. Lets get rid of the moral shit and just figure out what we want to make tangible. What do you want to give form to in your own precious life?
xx. A
Thinking about:
Great news Mari’s got a substack now Internal Landscape
This is exactly why I adore Mari, when I asked her what she wanted to share in the substack I love that it’s not just her meditations but starting with exploring our numbness. YES THANK YOU that seems helpful? and logical…From Mari “Since we talked about embodiment, I'd love to leave the link with some of my meditation recordings. I'd recommend the practices starts with the body or even exploring our numbness”
Also from Mari for deep and meaningful conversations around embodiment : Finding our way podcast with Prentis Hemphill
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