Today’s dance was another of those deep lessons of why I bother with embodiment.  It is absolutely possible to live our entire lives at the command and attention of our minds, our body a mere automobile for the boss that shouts from the top of our shoulders.   I know survival with this mind-driven strategy is factually possible because it is exactly how I lived out the first 40 years of my life.  The mind is great at survival.  My brain got me into and through medical school and eventually into an amazing relationship.  I thought my way into many great decisions and at the end of the day I was unable to sense and feel the joy and satisfaction of all the wonderful things that were happening in my life despite all my great thinking.  I had a million reasons to celebrate and I simply couldn’t feel them.  In all honesty, I couldn’t feel much below my neck as even my feelings remained lodged in my head.  

Interestingly in a brain-driven existence the louder and ungrounded emotions feel even bigger.  The stressful emotional pathways without a body to sense and feel and release instead run amok.  I ended up with feelings that ran circles within my mind, making it nearly impossible to sense and feel anything to completion.  I was literally carrying the feelings, the stories, the trauma of a lifetime inside me at all times and it was exhausting.  Landing in our bodies is required for an emotion to be fully expressed and released.  Otherwise feelings remain like undigested fragments stirring themselves into a confusing mess as they make gremlins with unhelpful thought processes.  Again, the mind is incredible at survival.  She isn’t the best at thriving.  As anyone that has asked hard questions knows, these two things are the results of very different choices surviving vs. thriving.  The latter often being the result of the harder choices.  The mind dislikes discomfort.  This is simply who she is and how she was made.  It is part of her being.  If we live only within our minds we learn nothing of the actual value of the discomfort of being human.  And, the discomfort is a critical piece of thriving in this complicated world.

So today just a simple embodiment offering.  As you move today, occasionally sense the soles of your feet wherever they are touching the ground beneath you.  And, when you get home tonight and slip out of your shoes, just pause for a moment to sense that release for a couple of seconds, and the floor of your home touching your feet and notice sensation.  Embodiment doesn’t need to be a big drawn out deal.  It can be this simple.  The soles of the feet are a magical gateway for sure though as they draw energy down and away from the Thinker.  Just play in the safety of your own home and see what happens…