Embodiment vs. Therapy
Have you ever seen God within a single human being? Have you ever stood in front of a man or woman and stripped layers of your heart moment-to-moment, revealing your yearning for protection, love, warmth, and presence? Have you ever swayed your hips, holding eye contact, presenting yourself as a sorceress, seductress, queen or a sexy little minx? Have you ever skipped around a room like an innocent little girl in pig tails or screamed into the faces of 70 people with your greatest Goddess Kali energy?
Some of you, yes. And for many of you reading this, probably not.Life usually does not allow space for our fullest expression if we are not creating it ourselves. Our family and friends normally do not try to hold eye contact with us for a full hour as a way to deepen connection. Our lovers normally don't demand us to give a two minute sacred temper tantrum as a form of releasing the complaint festering within.
Over the past two years, this is the work I've been doing.
I've learned how to twerk as an offering AND call the masculine back into consciousness when I feel him dropping my heart as I share this offering. I've danced with women and shown them how to move in a way that will open them. I've cried and danced and giggled like a little school girl in front of a lot of people. I've pushed myself to do the things that the world has told me not to do because now I know the power of embodiment.
I just completely my fifth intimacy event with my two teachers John Wineland and Kendra Cunov, where they facilitate containers for this kind of sacred, all-out expression. One thing they say often, which I fully believe in, is that there is the therapy of healing (which we are all familiar with) and then there's the yoga of it. The yoga of it does not involve sitting, talking and processing per say (though debriefs can be helpful) but rather, it involves doing an INSTANT healing of the nervous system by using the body.
For example: a person who struggles with stubbornness and pride as an adult may have a history of being repressed in childhood. So, as an adult, they are subconsciously always rejecting people who try to guide them, love them or dare I say, discipline them with heart. It would make it very hard for this person to be led in relationship or led from their teacher.
In case you can't tell from this very clear example, this has been my challenge.In therapy, there's a lot of processing and unpacking that happens to make sense of all of this and to rationalize it. But for many, myself included, the body doesn't change its response to the trigger just by mentally understanding it.In embodiment, (or as my teachers call it, the yoga), we use the body to send an instantaneous signal to the nervous system that heals and makes room for a new possibility. A new way of living.
For the stubborn person, the medicine could be in holding eye contact with someone who keeps whispering, "I love you, I'll lead you anywhere" over and over while someone else holds this person from behind to they can fall back and be held. The medicine for them could also be on the polar opposite end, such as receiving a spanking from someone who loves them and safely healing the "discipline" wound. The medicine can arrive in so many way when using the body.
THIS is embodiment. And it's powerful. As I'm flying back from my fifth intensive with John and Kendra, I'm feeling so much love in the air, in my body, in my heart, and in others.
This is the work I'm devoted to bringing to you my loves... and the only way I can keep bringing it is by doing all this crazy, heart-opening, wild, powerful work myself. :)
In other news, did you catch last week's episode of the podcast with Dr. Justin Lehmiller about sexual fantasies? He preformed the largest American study on sexual fantasies, with over 4,000 people, to learn about how common certain fantasies are and how we can begin to validate our desires to create more space for connection and pleasure.Listen to that episode HERE. We are getting some very fabulous feedback on it, and I don't want you to miss out.
My event with Jamie Wollrab, which will also involve EVERYTHING I wrote about above, is coming up in November in NYC! Apply HERE.