By Rachael Bonaiuto, LPC
“Spirit lives in you; it lives within your body, in every cell. You can touch the great Spirit by touching into your aliveness.” – Brooke Medicine Eagle
How do we touch into our aliveness? I ask myself this question often… My best guess is embodiment… to be in our bodies, to feel our cells and tissue, to directly experience our senses, to be in the present moment, to be one with our breath and our heartbeat… this is embodied presence and embodied presence is aliveness.
This morning it was snowing… this afternoon I laid down on the ground, basking in the sun. Aside from the peculiarity of Colorado weather, I felt a deep sense of connection to the Earth, lying on her moist bed, feeling the sun warm my skin, the pulse of the land beating with my heart… I felt Spirit alive within my being… I felt my Soul connect with the ground and the sky… I felt alive.
Being in my body does not always prove to be blissful. In fact, the body is also home of pain, trauma, heartbreak, illness, dis-ease… It can be rather uncomfortable to be embodied at times… But it is never dead. It is always alive, growing, changing, transforming, and regenerating… The body has endless information; it is the gateway to awareness and the bridge to consciousness. It is not a question of pleasure or ecstasy alone, it is a question of how we want to move through our lives… do we want to exist or do we want to LIVE? Do we want to be in our bodies – know, trust, listen and allow – or do we want to live fearful of what might be reveal if we awaken to our embodied experience? It takes courage to LIVE in our BODIES, and it takes presence to make contact with our world and be alive for our experiences.