The idea of listening into the body is nothing new. It has been present in various medicinal and philosophical paradigms for millennia. Today, Mindfullynessa and Alchemical Life are combining the woo with the woo woo, so to speak.
Science does not recognize energetic medicine as being a viable healing modality. History does. Energetic medicine is only viewed by many to be on the scale of “new” because science has systematically killed its acceptability, availability, scope of practice, and research-ability. As we open our minds to the possibility of body as teacher, we thought it might be good to philosophize into the living history of the western mind.
Let’s look at embodiment through the lens of one version of accessible history - a Classical Chinese Medicine perspective on the components of embodiment.
Chinese medicine has a long history of observing the connections between the physical body and the energetic body. In Chinese medical and philosophical terms, we say that the whole human spirit - 神 shén - is divided into several parts.
These parts include:
The primary self, the whole human spirit, the 神 shén, is ruled by the Heart.
The 意 yì is the intellectual mind. It helps us to recognize patterns and qualify decisions. Is is ruled by the Spleen/Pancreas.
The 志 zhì is our will, our ambition, and our survival instinct. The 志 zhì is the realm of the Kidneys.
Our 魂 hún is related to our Liver, and is called the Etherial Soul. It is Our Visionary and is known in the west as our subconscious mind.
The 魄 pò is looked after by the Lungs. It is the soul of the physical body. It relates to our capacity to be present with the sensory experience of the body itself. It is the 魄 pò, the Corporeal Soul that holds the Jellyfish from our previous article.
I personally love this idea that there are not only various components to the human spirit but that our connection to both the organs in our body and the energetic of these organs affects our ability to embody. Our body is with us throughout your entire day every day. It’s important to be able to be in relationship with it everyday and not take it for granted. Otherwise, what exactly is the point of having a body?
To me, the lens of Classical Chinese Medicine creates more choice, it makes the idea of human spirit and embodiment more complex but less overwhelming. You can ask yourself what you are choosing to embody into or what aspect of your human spirit you are wanting a deeper relationship with. Breaking the body systems and their energetics into parts creates more possibility.
Engaging your open and curious mind into your body involves making space to listen. The only way you are going to feel like you have choice of whether you can or want to listen to your body is if you create a space for this choice. You need to be able to track how your body sensations are interacting with what you are doing or how you are feeling. The body has to feel alive to talk to you. You need to know your baseline both in life and situations.
Shadow Messages Emerging
Ironically one of the reasons a lot of us don’t want to embody is either fear of the message or should I say fear of the messenger. What if embodiment means tapping into a disease process? What if embodiment means being overwhelmed by unwanted emotion? Of course there is a paradox here. By not tapping into the body, we have zero choice and no tools to work with disease processes or unwanted emotions. By learning how to be in relationship with the body, we can choose the timing for exploring the awaiting messages in the body - positive or negative.
Balance comes when you can delve into the shadow messages awaiting you when the timing is right for you, not just when your body forces it. You need regular time spent being open to what your body is trying to teach you. You need regular time enjoying being with your body. You need regular time having a relationship with your body. Shadow message time needs to be relegated to time you have, not time you don’t have, or enforcing time through crisis, drama, or disease.
If we look at this in terms of Chinese Spirits, our shadow messages are found in the realm of our 魂 hún - Ethereal Soul - and our 魄 pò - Corporeal Soul. The Corporeal Soul is literally the Ghost in the Machine - the part of us that relates to and through body sensations and pain. The Ethereal Soul is our Dreamer Self. It relates our experiences to our Consciousness through the dream world.
The regular every day relating you choose to do with your body offers you more than you can imagine - tools, space, choice, potential, and relationship. If you relate regularly to your body, then you get to choose how to engage with pain or trauma instead of having your pain and trauma force you to engage with it. If you don’t engage with every day relating to your body, you don’t get to choose when or how to listen to shadow messages.
It is necessary to engage in practices that bring you into your body and out of your brain. So much of what we can easily access is brain relating. Body relating is overlooked or taken as brain relating. As you relate more to your body, you can learn its language. This does not have to be a language of pain and disease.
Conscious listening space happens when you choose to cultivate your own unique relationship to what is going on in your body.
Healing Crises
No matter how much you listen to your body, you still might not be open to or able to understand its message. Usually this presents itself in the form of a healing crisis. A healing crisis can come from anywhere - thoughts, emotions, experiences, trauma, disease.
When you already have access to a toolbox of healing modalities and activities that support engaging with your body, a healing crisis is not as out of control. It’s a step by step process that brings you back to you.
A healing crisis has a myriad of lessons, images, limiting beliefs, and past life trauma to unwind. There is no formula, no patented answer, just you trusting your toolbox and the lessons your sacred vessel has decided to teach you. Trust that more tools will come into your toolbox through this process and also will show up externally if you can’t do this work on your own.
The 魂 hún connects memory to fantasy.
It is the lack of intentional connection to our Ethereal Soul and our Corporeal Soul that leads us to seek out mind altering substances, alcohol, addictions, social media, you name it. If we are seeking something unnamable outside of our selves, we are missing the mark.
With conscious engagement of the body sensations, regardless of their ‘goodness’ - pain, pleasure, numbness - we are engaging with the 魄 pò - Corporeal Soul.
If we look to our sleeping dreams and our waking fantasies, we are uncovering the things that dwell in the shadowed parts of our subconsciousness. We are engaging with our 魂 hún - Ethereal Soul.