The Importance of Embodiment (Video) 2:40mins

[Transcript]

There's a great line in the book 'The Dubliners' by James Joyce that goes, "Mr Duffy lived a short distance from his body."

And I think that's a sentiment that we could probably all relate to at various times.

You know, when people are diving into mindfulness for the first time, one of the things that folks find surprising is the amount of emphasis and focus that's placed on the body.

I mean, after all, it's called MINDfulness, not BODYfulness.

And I can sometimes see folks thinking, "Well, I'm here to sort out my mind. What's my body got to do with this?"

There are many reasons for this, but here are two of the biggies.

Firstly, if we want to understand what's driving the activity in the mind, a huge part of that is understanding what's happening with the body.

We process the world through our five senses, and a massive chunk of that gets interpreted as a physical experience.

So being more attuned to the body and what the body is experiencing really highlights the ways in which the mind is responding or reacting to that.

And there's often a lot more there than we tend to realise.

And secondly, mindfulness is based on the premise that our minds are happiest and most settled when we are feeling truly present.

A mind that's not present, ruminating in the past or wrapped up in the future, or engaged in anything that's not actually happening now, tends to be more prone to distraction, stress and struggle.

So the best way for us to be present is for us to feel located in our bodies.

Because no matter what's happening, our bodies are always already present.

I mean, where else could our bodies possibly be other than right here, right now?

But that's so often not the case for our minds.

So by allowing our attention to to gather into the body, what we're doing is we're allowing our minds to join the body where it already is.

So my encouragement for you today is to pause regularly and just ask that question,

"Am I actually aware of my body right now?"

And then without any judgment, just simply allow your attention to hang out in your physical experience just for a few moments.

You're welcome!