Embracing Embodied Living

How are you?

It’s a question we hear all the time – in passing from well-meaning folks, on the phone with friends, sometimes even from strangers. It’s a phrase used almost interchangeably with “hello” and has become more of a greeting than an actual query.

In a lot of ways, our flippant use of the question has made it less meaningful. We all know that (usually) the person asking isn’t truly interested in what we have to say. At my work, for instance, it’s often asked as people pass by each other in the hallway. By the time you respond, they’re already too far away to hear the answer. And so, we regurgitate the same responses we’ve said time and time again – I’m good, feeling alright, never better. We answer the question with appropriate, but perhaps dishonest, words and keep on moving.

But today, I actually want to know your answer. How are you, really? What feelings are bouncing around your brain and living in your body today?

And how do you know?

What does it feel like in your physical being?

If you’re anything like me, you can struggle to answer those questions. Sometimes you stop and really try to think about what you’re feeling and come up short. Or, maybe you can cognitively recognize what emotions you’re generally experiencing but have a harder time giving it a more specific, accurate name and identifying the signs in your body.

When I was going to counselling a few years back, my therapist regularly asked me a) how did _____ make me feel and b) what did that emotion feel like in my body? I could usually tell her a basic emotion, though it wasn’t always super accurate and sometimes took me a while. But how did it feel in my body?? I had never stopped to think about that before. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had spent my life up until that point ignoring and suppressing my physical experience of emotions so I could hide them away from myself and others. It's taken me years to notice how my body reacts to feeling a certain way and even now it’s still difficult to identify. I joke that I feel things from the neck up. The rest of me? It’s a mystery.

But I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

I believe that we are designed to be embodied people – connected to our bodies, aware of what they are experiencing, mindful of what they need.

I don’t believe that culture as a whole supports that inherent design, however. Instead of teaching us to respect and listen to our bodies, social media and consumer culture train us to distrust ourselves. We receive messages like, “Your body looks like that? You’d better change something.” Or, “You feel sad? Hide those feelings away so your life can look perfect.” Because it’s hard to sell to people who are content with themselves. And so, we inherit and inhabit lies that take us out of our bodies.

Friend, what disembodied lies are you believing today?

Perhaps you’re like me and you struggle to name and feel your emotions because you’ve been taught to hide their physical expression. Or maybe you’ve internalized a distrust of what your body needs or wants to eat, controlling and suppressing your hunger instead. Whatever it is, my invitation to you today is to take a minute to become aware of your body.

Therapist and writer Hillary McBride mentioned in a podcast once that she refers to her body as “she” rather than “it.”[1] I found this so interesting and somewhat ground-breaking, even though it also feels rather obvious. Our bodies are beings, not things. McBride acknowledges this and intentionally names her body as a part of herself, her identity. We are so disconnected from ourselves that we’ve normalized identifying our bodies with inanimate objects rather than a living, breathing being.

How can you relate to your body as a live part of you today? What is one thing you can do to feel more at home with your physical self? To allow him, her, them to speak to you?

Perhaps you can move your body. Go for a walk, do some yoga, stand barefoot in the grass. Or maybe you need to sit still, becoming aware of tense muscles and knotted thoughts. Whatever it might look like for you, what if you took time today to honour your body and begin to live embodied?

And then, what if you did another thing, even just for a minute, again tomorrow or later this week?

I hope you know and learn to feel that your body is a good gift, worthy of being listened to. That “how are you?” is a question referring to all of you, because who you are, friend, is a being with a body waiting to be heard.

May we learn to listen to our bodies, these vessels that carry our physical beings and our intangible souls. May we honour their nudges and nuances, making space for the messages they have for us.

[1] Hatmaker, J. (Host). (2017-present). For the Love of You [Video podcast]. Apple Music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaoJtRkJhH0