One of the things I said in my previous Medium story “The Problem with the Polyvagal Theory” was: “We don’t always need (and will not always find) neuroscientific evidence for why certain therapies or embodiment practices work.” And this is certainly true.
But there are some interesting things to learn about embodiment from the neuroscience, from what we know about fear, and our responses to fear and stress, to what we know about how certain practices, such as mindfulness, actually change the brain, and lots of other things as well.
I’m going to spend some time here, over the course of the several months, highlighting some things we know from neuroscience about embodiment — that connection between our bodies and our brains, particularly, our conscious and unconscious minds.
One of the problems that we’ll encounter in this endeavor is definitions. What is embodiment anyway? What does that even mean? Webster’s is actually no help. “1 : one that embodies something // the embodiment of all our hopes. 2 : the act of embodying : the state of being embodied.”
Barbara Nordstrom-Loeb, a dance/movement therapist, has this definition:
“The dictionary defines ‘to embody’ as ‘making visible,’ and for me that is exactly what our bodies and movement do. We all have bodies and we are always moving, even if it is just breathing. Our movement and body makes visible all of who we are: our mood, personality, history, family, and culture… There are many approaches and practices that help us find harmonious relationships with our embodied self.”
That last part, I think is what I think of as embodiment — a harmonious relationship with our embodied self — with our bodies.
