This article was first published on April 26, 2012 on integralchicks.com, where Gayle is a monthly contributor.

Before I offer a discourse on this month’s article about embodiment, I want to thank Nicole and Kelly for inviting me to join Integral Chicks as a contributor. When approached, my body began to tingle, my chest opened, a soft delightful buzz filled my body. Of course, the answer was…”yes.” My body offered clear, clean, and direct feedback of the truth. This experience can be described as a “whole body yes” (*) and it is how I make decisions. It reflects a practice – a way of being – to live as an embodied soul. It is how I choose to move through a field of many dis-embodied souls. The exciting news is that our culture is moving toward embodiment; we simply have a few growing pains and practices to engage to gain full access to this way of being. This is why I am excited to start my contributions with this topic. My intention with each offering is to connect the body – to every situation – however clear or obscure. We’ll see what happens along the way!

Recently the “concept” of embodiment stared me in the face and rekindled one of my challenges with the term and use of the word. I was at a training on a fairly complex and edgy topic and the presenter spoke frequently about embodiment. However, as we all know, the map is not the territory. Yet all too often the head talks about the concept of embodiment. You will know, sense, and grok embodiment in yourself when you have a direct experience – in your body. And you will know, sense, and grok embodiment in another person when you are in the field of an embodied person. Their embodiment touches your own embodiment – there is ease and flow, alignment with truth, thought waves in and out – head, heart, and gut enliven the spine. I can promise you, he or she will not just be talking about it. Embodiment just is — it’s palpable — and supercharges all lines of development.

Embodiment is not a destination; it is the proverbial journey of claiming our human wholeness. Like a spiral that is oriented upwards but dips down and rises over and over again, we revisit experiences through our body until we eventually become whole. The simplest framing of embodiment is inspired by the classical Hindu Yoga theory of the Five Koshas. The stages are: Hear, Reflect, Understand, Practice, and Embody. As integrally informed people, we know that humans lead with the cognitive line of development. We first hear something, we reflect on it, and then we understand it. Each of these stages on the road to embodiment is keying up the cognitive line. Cognition is necessary, but not sufficient. Often when we come to understand something, we frequently make the mistake of “thinking” the concept is embodied, even when we know that practice is required for embodiment.

Most of my professional career has been steeped in the financial world. Financial folks, on the whole, are perhaps the best examples of disembodiment. My hand is raised, and I include myself in this category. I’m, perhaps, a recovering disembodied financial freak. I love facts. I love philosophy, psychology, money matters…scintillating conversations about the economy, world affairs, and Wall Street. There are so many ways to get further and further distracted from the body when it comes to money. If I counted the time I have spent in financial conferences – sitting and listening to a download of data – it would be counted in years, maybe even decades. Ouch. At the end of my life I don’t want to see that I’ve spent so much time sitting and listening to a talking head!

These conferences often include sessions to build human skills, such as, how to effectively communicate, how to build client trust or have the right conversation, or any number of ways to relate to others in various situations. After an hour and a half presentation, or maybe even a weekend course, we THINK we can now effectively manifest client trust through the data that we heard, but it’s just not so. While I am picking on my own breed, financial folks are not alone; there is a whole world of people (and professions) where this situation applies. Should I now pick on Coaching?

The first three stages of learning-to-embodiment, together, are a version of futurizing. After mentally digesting information, our minds immediately go toward HOW it can be applied. Our minds work so very fast that we are not aware of what’s happening. Futurizing is a form of predict and control – we predict and control to stay safe within our comfort zone.  And again, it’s just not enough.

What is the next move after hearing, reflecting and understanding? Opening. The fourth stage, Practice, begins with opening. When we open, practice is an elegant energy that naturally arises.  There is little compulsion to figure out the next move because it happens as a body impulse. We practice, experiment, discover, jump into the deep end, and eventually learn how to swim.

Life is a big playground for practice: this and only this leads to embodiment. Understand all of the concepts you want, fill your mind with facts and figures, read theories until your brain explodes. In the words of a rather crude and direct uncle, “it won’t make your pecker hard” – or, for you integral chicks, it won’t make your yoni wet! I apologize to those who are offended by the graphic language, but perhaps you can appreciate the metaphor – this is all about experience.

As your body is the vehicle in which you enact these practices, and have these experiences, it is helpful to drop in and consciously include it, regardless of what you are trying to do or learn. This will help supercharge your embodiment. It’s not so hard. Here are a few ways to play with this in the moment:

• Where is your body? Bring your awareness to the entire felt sense of it while you read these words. What do you notice?
• Find your feet, your legs, and your buttocks. Lengthen your spine. Open your chest. What do you notice?
• Feel gravity holding you. Rest your torso in the earth. Lift your chest and neck. What do you notice?
• Pay attention to the movement of your breath. Be with the sensations and movement and entire felt sense of your breath in your body. What do you notice?
• Continue to include your body awareness in all of your activities. When you “lose” your body, reclaim it in your awareness.

Your body is your ally, and longs to be included in your awareness, every moment. When awareness consistently includes the physical form, in all activities – from meditation to eating to mowing the lawn to web searching to relating to others – your way of being is embodied. Every new learning and capability starts with hearing, the first stage. Then we reflect and understand. Once our understanding is tapped, we open and practice. We practice and learn until our body-mind merge into one way of being.  Embodiment accesses all aspects of self thus catalyzing capacity in all lines of development. Your body offers more space to grow, to move, to feel, to love, to express, to create – in all situations.

Where is my body now?

Hmm, wow, I feel tingle and buzz coursing through my body, a whole body yes – in celebration of you, me, and all, toward embodiment.

* The phrase, “whole body yes”, comes from my study, practice and play at the Hendricks Institute with Dr.’s Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks.