Embodied Presence: Find Freedom from Your Thoughts and Emotions “To be alive is to totally and openly participate in the simplicity and elegance of here and now.” ~Donald Altman Embodied presence probably sounds superfluous. How else would we be present but in the body? If we leave our bodies, then we are by definition deceased. No longer present. The simplicity of this embodied presence idea belies its depth though. The issue isn’t that I’m ever literally disembodied, but that I’m often unaware of my body-mind connection to the point that I’m not sufficiently mindful of the moment. I know I’m not unique for this. We all do this. It’s called being distracted. I can get so lost in my thoughts that I lose touch with what’s actually happening, right now. For example, not too long ago, I was sitting at home one evening. I was feeling really peaceful and at ease. Then, my iPhone chimed alerting me to an email. It was a message from my boss. I read the email and my whole emotional state changed. My heart pounded, energy surged through my arms, and my chest and face felt hard and tight. Based on my body’s response, it would have seemed my life was in danger. I attached meaning to the email I read. My interpretation registered the email as a threat. My body did what it’s supposed to do when I perceive a threat. I immediately started typing my reactive email response. It was sharp and curt. Then, I stopped. I paused. I’m not sure what triggered my drop into my body’s senses, but that drop into my body saved me. My awareness dropped from my thoughts to my body’s current sensations. With that drop, I was present in the moment. The investigation of my body’s sensations—the pulsing, tingling, hardness, tightness—was so interesting that my drive to immediately react dissolved. After that body investigation, I labeled my emotion. It was anger. I was feeling angry because of a perceived threat. Then, I slowly responded to my boss’ message. I still felt the anger, but I wasn’t blindly driven by it. I decided to carefully respond to the content of the message without indicating my reaction to her tone. She responded later that night. Her message was so gracious. She simply misunderstood something and my reply clarified it for her. That was all. There was no problem. My initial reaction was rooted in my own story about her email. “It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 14:53:07 +0000
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