4 Doorways: Embodiment

In this second episode of the 4 Doorways to Presence series, we explore embodiment — the simple but profound act of coming back into the body.

Many of us live mostly in our heads: thinking, planning, worrying, solving problems. Meanwhile, the body quietly holds a powerful key to presence.

Dancers, actors, athletes, and even people facing illness often discover something the rest of us overlook: when awareness moves into the body, something shifts. Tension can soften. Energy can flow. The mind and body begin to work together instead of against each other.

Through meditation, breath awareness, and simple observation, the body becomes more than a physical container — it becomes a doorway.

A doorway to presence.

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Transcript

Speaker 0:13

Welcome to Third Eye on the Prize.

Speaker 0:16

This is the second episode in our series Four Doorways to Presence. Each episode explores a different way we naturally return to presence. Today's doorway is embodiment.

Speaker 0:29

The body can be a powerful doorway to being more present. Everybody gets this in a general sense, you know, not so much in the head, more in the body. But how do we really do that?

Speaker 0:42

There are certain kinds of people who show us this very clearly. Dancers. They're trained to use their body as an instrument. Also actors. Good actors use their whole body. Actors who perhaps aren't so great may just be saying lines, but the really great ones fully embody their character.

Speaker 1:06

I remember seeing James Earl Jones on Broadway years ago in August Wilson's great play, Fences. We weren't sitting close to the stage, we were pretty far back. And yet, for some reason I remember being aware of his little finger.

Speaker 1:23

The energy with which he embodied that character permeated his entire being. Of course, he has that amazing voice, too. But what struck me was how the character lived in his whole body. All the way down to the fingers and toes. It was thrilling to witness.

Speaker 1:44

Great athletes show us this. But even non-professionals do too. People climbing mountains or doing some of the extreme sports we see these days. They are so present because they have to be. Some of these things are dangerous. If you're not really alert and present, you could get seriously hurt.

Speaker 2:06

But another group of people forced to be in their body are those who are extremely ill or seriously injured. If you have a grave illness or injury, you can't easily ignore your body. But the rest of us, a lot of the time, can and do kind of ignore it.

Speaker 2:26

Especially if the work you do or your activities are very mind-centered. Lots of looking at screens, formulating, problem solving, ruminating, researching, heavy-duty mind activities. And you know, your body's there, but you're not really tuned into it until you get hungry or tired or realize the workday has ended.

Speaker 2:52

Body awareness is a key and central part of all the meditation traditions, and certainly yoga. You hear a lot about breath. Why so much emphasis on breath? Because when you're aware of breath, you're aware of body. They go together. You can't have one without the other.

Speaker 3:11

So it kind of snaps you out of that mind-centric state. And that's the whole point of it, right? But another thing you can meditate on are feeling sensations in your body. You don't have to be a trained dancer or actor or athlete to tune into your own body and receive the wisdom and guidance it's naturally designed to give you.

Speaker 3:38

I meditate every morning. And when I get out of bed, there's stiffness, partly due to my age, often in the hip. So the awareness goes right there. And amazingly, when you put the awareness on that, it eases it. It's almost magical. I sit on my cushion, I put support blocks under my knees, which helps, then I relax into it and it loosens.

Speaker 4:08

As opposed to if there's any kind of anxiety or resentment, it'll make it tighter. Or really what's happening is you're surrendering to it. Openly and hopefully compassionately. And it eases it. It hurts less.

Speaker 4:25

In fact, sometimes the places that started out hurting don't just feel better, they actually feel more alive. There is energy moving in there, almost like electricity, in the very places that were painful and tight. Wow, what's that about?

Speaker 4:47

It tells you how powerful our mind is when it's in partnership with the body. The mind in total partnership with the body, not as mind often likes to do, overriding or pushing through, like it's telling the body, don't be such a wimp. Not that. Partnership meaning mind and body unified as equals. A unified field.

Speaker 5:15

I think that's what that flowy, tingly energy actually is. It's the field where the stuff is flowing freely without being blocked.

Speaker 5:26

What blocks it? Resentment blocks it, frustration blocks it, anger blocks it, impatience blocks it, fear blocks it. Thoughts like, oh no, here it is again, I'm never gonna be rid of this. All that nonsense. Those thoughts block the flow of energy, so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Speaker 5:53

When we think those things, we actually help create the very situation we fear. There's the power of the mind again, right there. You don't have to jump through hoops to discover this. And here's another point of meditation: observing all these things in oneself. Observing when I'm open and non-resistant, and energies flowing. Observing when I'm blocking it in one way or another, and it's not flowing.

Speaker 6:25

Our bodies are this rich source of so much information. We are amazingly complex, intricate organisms, so many fabulous things happening simultaneously on their own. So another part of embodiment is appreciating all that too. Appreciating how marvelous it is to have a body. And that the parts are working as they're designed to do, if they are, and being thankful.

Speaker 6:56

If they're working, if you're healthy, wow, you really should be thankful for that. And it's also being present in the body now, not imagining next year I'm going to be blank years old, and my mother had this or my father had that. That's not honoring your body at all.

Speaker 7:18

In many spiritual traditions, the body is referred to as a temple. And we hear that and think, oh, it means we should take good care of our body. That's true. But think about what a temple actually is. And you can replace temple with other terms: church, synagogue, mosque, cathedral.

Speaker 7:43

There are places that some people go to experience something beyond the physical. It's a little paradoxical, isn't it? Be in your physical body and go beyond it. It's all of the above. It's not a one or the other situation.

Speaker 8:00

They are so deeply intertwined in our human experience. We can only honor presence in this container that we're walking around in for 70, 80, 90, 100 years. Maybe having glimpses that we're not even this thing, but we need this thing. And so sitting, we might say, in the fullness of that.

Speaker 8:24

The fullness of how reality is physical and non-physical. They need each other. And ultimately, what's really true is beyond both. So how is embodiment a doorway to presence? Because you can only honor your body in the present. If your mind is in the past or in the future, you're not in your body. You can't do both at the same time.

Speaker 9:03

Thanks for listening. Until next time, keep your third eye on the prize, and remember, truth is beyond belief.