My favorite definition of Embodiment comes from Hillary McBride, in The Wisdom of your Body, who describes it as:
the experience of being a body in a social context
Dr Hillary McBride
Category: Holistic mental heath/wellbeing
We rely on our senses to pick up on cues of danger or safety in our environment. Much of this happens out of our conscious awareness. A smell, even if it’s fleeting or faint, can quickly whip us far away from the present moment into a thousand different places, stories created from memories of long ago. Sometimes these places are kind, familiar, warm and safe. Sometimes less so.
The main interest of your autonomic nervous system (ANS) is your safety.
If you are ever anxious, frightened, sad, unsettled, overwhelmed or angry, but logically can’t make sense why, you might feel frustrated or betrayed by your body and mind… like they’re conspiring against you to make life hard.
Intuition and evidence tell us that our physical and mental health is influenced by a complex interaction between genes, germs, injury, aging and EXPERIENCE but do we fully understand and accept the links between emotions and biology?
Safe connection for whole health
A relationship to others is the single most important mechanism for the survival of a new born human baby. Without the messages shared within and between that bond, an infant would simply not survive.
Applying knowledge of the nervous system to invite the body into regulation
In Polyvagal Theory, the “vagal brake” is the slowing down of a threat response by using cues of safety to hold us when we might otherwise slip into fight, flight or shut down.
Why moving your body can be one of the fastest ways to regulate your nervous system
If we view the physical manifestations of stress, fear and anxiety with an evolutionary lens (i.e that our nervous systems are preparing us to fight or flee in response to a perceived threat) then naturally the clever human system has an effective process of discharging these physiological changes (using up stress hormones etc).