Your body is constantly in communication with you, sending signals to propel you into action or inaction in the form of sensations and feelings. The basis of living a full life as a human is the ability to be in the body and to translate the information you receive using your mind. These are your emotions, your signposts. 

Using felt sense and thinking together will help you to navigate your life with the most information available (information from both the body and the mind), which is useful when making decisions, regulating yourself, knowing what you need to eat, how to raise children, or in almost any part of life. 

This feeling and thinking together is the basis of embodied living. Embodiment is a fundamental tool to be optimally functioning in the world. It means being sensitive to the signals your body sends; that you can feel and also translate what you feel to something usable.

Sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? Feel your sensations, and use your mind to translate them so you can take action to better your life. 

So where do most of us go wrong? Answer: With the ability to process difficult feelings and sensations.

In many of us, that ability has been reduced due to trauma, adverse circumstances, or unfortunate events in our past. We may have never learnt how to manage difficult feelings, or due to our experiences, we don’t believe that we can take them. As a result, we want to get rid of them by bottling them up, by numbing them, by pushing them away (denial), by distracting ourselves from them (addiction), or by minimising them (bypass). 

But what are the consequences when we don’t face our emotions? When we don’t hear and translate the sensations in our body, we are not able to take appropriate actions. Emotions become a nuance rather than signposts.

The good news is that we always have the ability to widen or strengthen the capacity to feel and process difficult feelings. 

The first step towards being embodied is to be able to feel and recognise sensations in your body. The problem with our modern lifestyle is that due to all the environmental stressors and distractions (background noise, social media, not enough downtime, constant doing) the sensations in your body aren’t heard! The only time you hear them is when it is too late when the body needs to scream to be heard in the form of an illness or burnout. 

The way to get out of this cycle is to:

• Sensitise yourself to your bodily felt senses using embodiment practices, e.g. centring, body check-in, deep bodily listening, meditation, pleasure practices 
• Reduce the environmental stressors that provide the background noise, e.g., taking time off social media, switching of all electronic devices for the weekend, taking time off daily to rest and reflect without tuning out in front of Netflix.

Here at Centrd Life, it is our aim to help people navigate through difficult emotions, to help them understand how emotions can influence behaviour and how using embodiment practices can help you develop emotional intelligence, emotional resilience, and a happier, more balanced life. 

Start your journey today at The School of Emotions with simple self-study courses that you can do at your own pace in the comfort of your home.