The Art of Embodied Presence

Your body is the only real home you've got. When I was homeless for 3 years, bouncing around teaching and learning, I really got that in a profound way. And I have no doubt that 3 years as a gypsy were meant precisely to teach me the essence of truly living at home in this body temple.

It is here, in this vessel of your spirit, that your feelings, your sensations and your life experience carve themselves into everlasting somatic memories. Your body can either come along for the ride of your life, or your body can be an enthusiastic navigator in the dance of your dreams weaving themselves into realities. It is yours for the choosing how you wish to dance or do your life.

What I hear from many of the women that I have sat and danced in sacred circle with is this: "For the first time since forever I am living in my body again" and "I am dancing for the first time in years and loving my body" not to mention "my partner is loving me loving my body" and "I am remembering what it's like to be a woman."

Remembering? As if the body could ever forget. It's only a chronic referring elsewhere for the answers that stops you from enjoying the delicious aliveness that your body always has access to.

Here are 3 tips to keep you in touch with the wisdom of your body's remembering that is ever available to you, yearning to be heard and honored:

1. Notice the distinction between your feelings, thoughts and sensations.

2. Hang out more in the sensations that correspond to your feelings, instead of the thoughts that justify them.

3. Savor the sensations, both pleasant and unpleasant, and watch the pleasant sensations expand and the unpleasant sensations fade. Miraculous but true.

I'll explore each of the above 3 over the next while so stay tuned for more juicy body wisdom dancing your way!

Love and sisterhood,
Leela