Connecting Embodiment and Intersectionality
Are you familiar with the concept of “embodiment”, or being “embodied”? There’s a certain popularity with the phrase in various circles, so you may have heard of it (or not!). For a general definition, you can see the Oxford Dictionary entry below:
em·bod·y // verb
past tense: embodied; past participle: embodied
- be an expression of or give a tangible or visible form to (an idea, quality, or feeling).
Our visible form is, in a very real way, our bodies. Embodiment explores what it is to live within our bodies, and to allow our physical selves to provide tangible, visible form to who we are and what is within us. Unfortunately, this can be daunting, as many of us are filled with disconnects and internal blockages that work to disallow a fully embodied experience.
As Kate Daigle, MA, LPC, CEDS notes:
To heal from this disconnect between mind, body and soul, we strive to become more “embodied”, to literally attach ourselves to our bodies once more, as we were when we were born. To find a way to be accepting of our internal and [external] experiences and thus more accepting of ourselves.
While reading about embodiment, I was struck by the powerful ways that being personally embodied may allow us to more fully understand, identify, and examine our personal intersectional identities (and to allow that knowledge and experience to transform us). I also see connections between embodiment and the ability to build intellectual empathy.
Perhaps, beyond simply naming or expressing awareness of our own unique identities, we would benefit from really learning to embody who we are, and to allow ourselves to live fully, and with freedom.
As Daigle concludes:
What does it mean to “be embodied”? Being “embodied” signifies:
feeling at home in your body
feeling connected to your body in a safe manner
an increased ability to be in your body in the present moment and to feel all of its sensations (emotional and physical)
Safe and healthy expression of needs, desires, fears and wants through the body
an increased ability to self-soothe when feeling escalated or agitated
an ability to identify inner needs and tend to them appropriately
Connection to and acceptance of all parts of your body and of yourself
Connection to your sense of self; your soul
Ability to recognize and correct cognitive distortions related to your body
Could it be that we would find some of our dogmas and unexplored beliefs are less appealing when we attempt to embody them? Might we find areas in our lives that feel much more constricting than we previously realized? Would we find that embodiment can allow us to honor and accept our various identities and intersections in a way that empowers us on a personal level to be better, fuller version of ourselves (even as there is still more work required on a larger, social level)?
If those are potential positive sides to being embodied, what happens when we are not? Marriage & Family Therapist Barbara Nordstrom-Loeb aptly notes:
For most of us today, disconnecting from our bodies and movement might feel like the only option available to us. We privilege our thoughts and minds, without being curious about their relationship to the rest of who we are. Doing this, we end up feeling out of balance with our community, our world, and ourselves.
In adreinne marie brown’s outstanding book, Pleasure Activism, she includes an interview with Suguey Hernandez in which the concept of intersectional identities and the transformative power of embodiment is addressed. Suguey says:
During a time of intense surveillance, when our bodies are policed along the border and in our communities — and while living under a regime that reads Latinx bodies as criminal, illegal, deportable, as disposable labor, a society that renders women/femmes of color as the primary receptors of physical and emotional violence….in this time, expressing embodied joy, practicing revolutionary love, self-care, and having mindfulness of our well-being and health are the most radical acts we can perform. […] Taking care of my spirit and body in this way allows me to continue doing the work that matters — whether it’s organizing in the streets with our communities or advocating for our enfranchisement through formal needs. (brown, pp 380–381)
In her quote above, Suguey names many social identities that have historically and personally intersected to create pain, fear, anger, and violence. Rather than attempt to ignore, diminish, or internally punish those identities, (all of which can be coping mechanisms in the face of trauma) Suguey shares that she creates space for personal embodiment. She names this embodiment as radical, and I fully agree with her. She also points to the reality that engaging in radical personal embodiment work fuels her ability to also engage in large scale organizational efforts to create systemic change.
I wonder:
- How would wide-scale personal embodiment, as related to our many personal intersectional identities, change the way we interact with ourselves and the world?
- Would we show up differently if we owned and lived within the fullness of who we are?
For those of us who hold intersections that traditionally offer more power and advantage:
- Would a practice of embodiment render us incapable of holding ourselves apart (physically, emotionally, and intellectually) from the pain and trauma that has been created by systems that have benefitted us while harming others?
- Would we find that embodiment would make it much more difficult to numb ourselves to the pain experienced by others at differing intersections to our own?
- Would we have more empathy for the paths of others?
- Would we be less likely to jump on the social justice bandwagon when things are really heated, and then fall off when we “lose interest” and quit seeing daily headlines, if we were embodying a deeper, richer fullness of who we are and desire to be?
For those of us who hold intersections that historically tend to culminate in more disempowerment and disadvantage:
- Would a practice of embodiment increase our ability to more fully/frequently extend to ourselves the love, care, compassion, and joy that we deserve?
- Could embodiment assist in helping us maintain forward momentum and work without burning out and/or becoming consumed with cynicism, rage, and disenchantment?
- Would a practice of embodiment assist in healing wounds from generational trauma, even as we continue to live in a culture that does not always recognize those traumas or commit to fully stopping their perpetration?
As Alyssa Mandel noted in The Chalkboard,
People can get attached to coping mechanisms, and this attachment can inhibit access to the root of the suffering. Presence and neutrality in a supportive situation can provoke the physical body to actually begin processing trauma without needing to talk about it.
Embodiement allows us to sit in meditation where we’re actually allowing some of that emotional intensity to process out of the nervous system — literally move through the synaptic space, arrive at our conscious awareness and, when faced without the defense of fear, eventually fall away. The body starts to become more present, and the influence of trauma is revealed without threat so the ability to approach it with precence and compassion is available.
Mindfulness is a learning to sit comfortably with oneself as sensations rise and fall away. Our capacity for presence and stillness can be limited by trauma and unprocessed emotions. The body might learn to only feel certain sensations. Embodiment can increase our capacity to be sensitive and also grounded, so as to not get lost in the sensitivity to stimuli or past experiences.
To continue learning about how to practically bring embodiment to your life, check out this course, Coming Home to Our Embodied Presence, by Michelle Cassandra Johnson, the author of Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World.
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With I Am Intersectionality, I hope to provide thought-provoking resources that will help us understand more about our own personal intersections, and what those intersections mean in the historical and social moment we are living in today. If you’d like to get an occasional email with articles and resources on intersectionality, sign up here!
