Disembodiment and Embodiment
Everyone has experienced disembodiment at some point in their lives. Whether a result of trauma, a disconnect from the inner landscape, or a disconnect from the natural and spiritual world, there are many ways that disembodiment can come to grip us. Disembodiment lacks a solid, widespread definition or understanding. It is often described as leaving the physical body in the form of soul or spirit.
Disembodiment relates to a lot of dis- words, dysregulated, disturbed, dissonance, disintegration, disorientation, and the list goes on. A disembodied person will walk around with the light from their eyes missing, feeling dull, emotionless, and lifeless. In disembodiment, there is a lack of direction. There is no alignment with purpose and personal power and because of this, disembodiment can feel as if one is watching a movie of their life rather than living it. Disembodiment can feel like floating; it is as if consciousness has gathered solely in the mind. There is a disregard for the mental and emotional state of ourselves and others.
Disembodiment can also look like a term known as dissociation. Dissociation can be resourceful when experiences or emotions become overwhelming, yet there comes a time when this protection is no longer needed. When one stays in a state of dissociation too long, or becomes over reliant on it as a defense mechanism, this is when disembodiment occurs.
It can feel impossible to climb out of the hypothetical hole, which could lead to feeling stuck. The truth is that one can never really be stuck. The movement towards embodiment begins with the awareness to recognize when disembodiment occurs. This recognition may be the most difficult part of the embodiment process. There is a tendency to remain blind to the disharmony because one has become used to, and comfortable with, the way one has always lived. The exploration through awareness is what gives one insight into why their own disembodiment is occurring.
In the movement from disembodiment to embodiment, sometimes it can feel painful when acknowledging trauma, feeling into emotions, or learning boundaries. The healing and the magic happens when those wounds are cared for with a mindful, loving, and curious embodied approach.
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The term embodiment means the lived experience of showing up to every aspect of life fully. Embodiment is being in one’s own body. Embodiment leads to a life lived fully. It is not turning away or backing down from any aspect of the human experience. It is knowing personal power and purpose. In Nature and the Human Soul, Bill Plotkin describes what it means to live embodied. He describes it as living from ultimate place:
“If your soul is your ultimate place in the world and you need to live from that place to be fully yourself, then the world cannot be fully itself until you become fully yourself. … As individual humans, we must, when developmentally ready, wander deeply into the world in search of our ultimate place, a place that may or may not have anything to do with a particular geographical location. As far as we know, only humans can fail at embodying their souls. All other creatures seem to take their ultimate place instinctively, unself-consciously, and without struggle … Everything in the universe seems to have been brilliantly designed to take just the place that it does” (pp. 32-33).
This wandering is the approach of the process to discover what it means to live from ultimate place, a life of embodiment. It is the immersion into the depths to find growth, making the unconscious conscious. A note can be taken from nature. It can be remembered that everyone and everything is always exactly where it needs to be when living from ultimate place, embodied.
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When movement is made from disembodiment towards embodiment, one can learn that the forces at work against oneself can be used as a transformational portal into the root essence of suffering and the source of healing in the physical, emotional, and energetic body. Having an awareness of what it looks like and means to be disembodied on an individual level creates an opportunity to choose to learn from and lift each other up in the collective movement that’s occurring from disembodiment to embodiment. The movement can most certainly be made.
Photo Courtesy of Joy’s Mother Debbie - Arwen, one of her rescue horses, that has since found a new, loving home
