Cześć! How did you find yourselves in here? Not important. Stay, if you:
- You want to learn more about mindfulness through/and embodiment.
- You are highly theoretical and very disconnected from your body.
- You like philosophical and societal undertones, as this has many.
Some things happen for a reason, so if any of the above applies to you, keep reading!
Table of Contents
“To start, let’s do a solo with our index finger…”
Within Altera Lab’s welcoming upper floor, I looked at our trainer, @Sebastian_moves, for any hints of humor in his instructions.
There was none. That was what he meant for us to do.
So I followed, soloing my index finger in random motions up in the air, experiencing a shame that was only momentary, as I looked around the room, to see my fellow participants do the same.
Then the other fingers followed; one by one, they started moving. Then the wrists, the elbows, the shoulders, the neck, the head, the chest, the legs, and the body as a whole. Shaking, sometimes gracefully and others not, attempting to follow the rhythm, experiencing the creation of once stale, mechanical, familiar movement.
Was I… dancing?
I was. Clumsily as it may have been, it was still myself.
Liberating.
An introductory note for the people of the mind, like me
I intend this to reach an audience of “professionals”: of the serious, theoretical people of the mind. My sort of kin.
As I am one of them, I am accustomed to writing for them.
And maybe we are all a bit of that. Modern life trains us to ignore our bodies. We’re glued to screens, confined to chairs, and praised for mental performance over physical awareness.
To borrow a page from philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s “A Burnout Society”, modern life traps us in constant doing, thinking, and acting, without leaving space to process or contemplate.
We, serious, theoretical people of the mind, of the current day and age of a viva activa (a life of constant activity), tend to ignore the body, to our own dismay.
We can stay entrapped in our thoughts, believing that they always hold the rational, the explainable, and the predictable.
The mind, yes; the brain is a beautiful tool to expand on. A wonderful place to be; yet, for us, isn’t it our safe place to be as well?
Rationalizing, contemplating, thinking over thinking, overthinking; isn’t what we’re mostly accustomed to doing? Isn’t that our getaway, our automatic pilot?
Do you recognize yourself in these words? And, if you do, how does this focus on the mind work for you?
Because, for me, that last decade has been marked by disconnections, you see. Something was not unified, and my experience was fragmented. A writer myself, I had a comment recently that my writing is purely in the mind, lacking any kind of physical movement, and they were right – for that, I need to experience it myself, somehow. And the mind I was so glorifying? It was sending me pain signals on the daily – a chronic suffering I choose to never name again, feeling it or not.
If you empathize with what I’m writing, stay with me. You may find some solace or inspiration for your own journey.
An Introduction to the Benefits of Embodiment
I’ll start with the obvious to this audience: if our minds are the artists, our bodies are the canvases. That’s self-explanatory through any resource about our body language, but it’s a more reciprocal relationship than that.
Research in embodied cognition shows that our physical sensations, gestures, and posture directly influence how we think, solve problems, and process information. Here’s an example from even the simplest of body movements: gestures. “Gestures children spontaneously produce when explaining a task predict whether they will subsequently learn that task.” (Gesturing makes learning last, Wagner Cook, Mitchell & Goldin‑Meadow, 2008).
Another example is how somatic experiences, like those we had in Armenia during a mindful retreat filled with meditative activities, can shift awareness and mindset. They also have a prominent place in my self-confidence boosters article!
Of course, these benefits go far beyond calming anxiety. Two areas you might be interested in? Boosted creativity (Embodied Metaphors and Creative “Acts”, Leung et al., 2012) and decision making (The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Damasio, 1999)!
All this science suggests one thing: our bodies shape our minds more than we realize.
I didn’t discover this purely from books, though. I experienced it firsthand in Armenia, through the Feldenkrais method.
Embodiment from a Judo Master & Engineer’s PoV; the Feldenkrais Method
I feel that a special focus on Feldenkrais is helpful, not only to disseminate the experience – we focused a lot on the method – but because of its accessible focus on small, simple movements.
And as a writer and “storyteller”, I could not not notice Feldenkrais’ upbringing in his method.
The practicality of engineering and discipline of a Judo black belt master doesn’t hint at a person who would go on to create an embodiment method, maybe, but that’s the beauty of human beings – and a fuck you in the face for all determinists, I feel like.
Although what led him to develop his method was a personal tragedy, he faced a flipping-coin 50/50 chanced knee operation that he chose to avoid. Instead, he attempted to use his experience through the newly acquired lenses of anatomy and awareness. Slowly, he proceeded with what could be called mostly a “learning how to learn” process, more than therapeutic.
That is what makes Feldenkrais’ method especially appealing for analytical minds like ours: it is essentially an experiment. A systematic exploration of cause and effect in how we move, with no mystical dogma. It’s all about curiosity, observation, and subtle adjustments to how we feel ourselves.
It focuses on two parts:
- Awareness Through Movement (ATM): Group classes with verbal instructions guiding participants through gentle movement sequences to enhance body awareness.
- Functional Integration (FI): One-on-one sessions where a practitioner uses hands-on techniques to address individual movement patterns.
Overall, it’s a process of listening to and exploring your body. It helps you notice your habits, discover hidden tensions, and see what you might want to change.
Is there scientific criticism? There’s always that. But, critically speaking, practice focusing highly on individuals (both on the practitioner’s experience and effectiveness, and the participants’ willingness and patience, difficult to quantify and measure on a large scale, are usually facing such backlash.
Thankfully, our instructor was solid and passionate about the method. Thus, we had a pivotal learning experience, one that I will begin sharing below:
Embodiment and Mindfulness from the uninitiated’s PoV.
Okay, perhaps not entirely uninitiated; I’d already explored mindfulness quite a bit, and even dipped my toes into embodiment.
I’ve already described this, and what Erasmus+ projects are in my previous article about the Navigating Chaos 2.0 project.
Yet, that week in Aparan, Armenia, in Altera Lab, had a harmonious coexistence of both, acting as a fruitful (re)introduction.
The awareness through movement activities in the Feldenkrais method is this harmonious coexistence.
When you are called to move something as specific as a finger, or to reimagine your limbs as gigantic or tiny, and how this influences the way you walk, the rest of your body, you are placed in a highly mindful, meditative state. Even I, someone who usually struggles to concentrate in meditation (and in life), found myself fully immersed, focused only on the sensations and movements.
Nowadays, I find myself to be more accepting and open in trying new things; I somehow, along the way, found the discipline to follow when prompted, and not to think or criticize. But I can think of my younger self facing such instruction with some skepticism; of meditation’s effectiveness, of the need for embodiment, or from the general vibe.
Nevertheless, I feel that even that old, already patched version of myself would have understood that, after such activities, there’s a change within you. We had a whole play-fight session where, step by step, we practiced each element separately, such as partner dynamics while hugging, avoiding hugs, contact through backs or shoulders, gentle pushing, or balancing on one leg. Concepts that, in a vacuum, seem silly and useless; put them together, and we were able to have a full playfight session between us all at the end of such a session!
I’ve been to a judo lesson once, and I now connect the dots; in judo (and I suspect in other martial arts), you practice each element very carefully, movement to movement, to be able to synthesise everything into the one grapple that lands the opponent on the floor, or the right way to fall so you won’t hurt yourself. And, remember, Feldenkrais himself was a judo master!
Of course, not everything was only from Feldenkrais, or so we were told. But the logic of practicing the elements of something separately, to be able to recall them later on, is highly applicable. When you cook, you need the right ingredients; even one wrong piece of the puzzle can destroy the whole dish.
Put together, these activities activated us and our bodies.
Put together, we were left with a lasting effect once back home. Matter of fact, I’m still dancing around when I have the chance!
Outcomes & learnings for my fellow rational people
Obviously, it is very difficult to transfer my experience through words, for such a subject that is.
Embodiment is something you have to try for yourself. Better, if you do it in a group setting, so that not only do you feel less silly, but so that you can explore the dynamics with other people, and satisfy your curiosity about how others interact with their bodies. Even better if you have a great instructor to guide you through the process properly.
Looking around, I am pretty certain you can find embodiment resources, like YouTube tutorials, to follow along.
But it doesn’t even have to be this structured. It’s a matter of taking the space and time to pay attention to yourself; not because you have to do something actively, but because you can take the space and time to contemplate what’s happening with you and around you.
Because meditation or embodiment themselves won’t make you less stressed, more alert, smarter, stronger, or whatever you’re seeking.
It’s the process of listening to who you truly are, and of understanding the value of a more passive state of awareness.
Unless you’re a theoretical, passive, contemplating person already, like I am;
If that’s who you are, then… You need the movement, my friend.
Give it a try. Your body holds wisdom your brain alone can’t invent. A wisdom your mind will thank you for discovering.
Special thanks:
- To Altera Lab, for being our home in Aparan for this transformative experience
- To our lovely trainers, Sebastian and Laura, for making this happen, guiding us gracefully (and mindfullylly) through the process.
- To Lian, not only for her on-site support, but for her PoV in photography and videos, which captured our best colors.
- And to Jakub & Change Your Self NGO from Slovakia, for the transportation support.
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