What is Embodied Integrity?
First, let’s begin with definitions of the two terms:
embodiment
noun
US /ɪmˈbɑː.di.mənt/ UK /ɪmˈbɒd.i.mənt/
a tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling
integrity
noun [ U ]
US /ɪnˈteɡ.rə.t̬i/ UK /ɪnˈteɡ.rə.ti/
1. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles
2. the state of being whole and undivided
To be honest, whole, and undivided; to be a tangible or visible form. In other words, to be an honest, whole and tangible form of you. Not somebody else, not living a lie, not abiding by societal messages, cultural pressure or ‘shoulds’, but a whole and solid version of you. That is embodied integrity.
But it’s not that easy. We grow up getting splintered and divided. Our very notion of ourselves gets battered and bruised by our upbringing. From birth we are enveloped by messages, pressures, criticisms, fears, beliefs, traumas, expectations, our parents’ desires for us, cultural norms and dogma…the list is endless. We are born and raised in a world that doesn’t always enable us to be whole, because if we were, it would mean that we could be our unique elves. What sort of modern society really encourages people to be uniquely themselves? We’re told to go to school, get top grades, aim for good jobs, get married, be a good worker, make money, have kids, buy a house. It’s not to say that these things are inherently bad, but these expectations certainly do not facilitate us going off on our own path and finding our own version of happiness and freedom. How often do you stop and ask yourself,, what do you truly and deeply want in your most authentic self? What sort of life do you really want to create for yourself? Who would you really be if you were completely and utterly free?
At the same time, our modern day Western culture pushes us to become so horribly disembodied. From a young age, so many of us are told to think, think, think our way through problems. That to be in touch with our emotions is a weakness, far better to be hyper-rational, to get things done. To listen to our logic and reason above all, to look fondly but suspiciously at that crazy thing called the heart. To ignore that little tapping in our being saying ‘but something feels off!’ and ignore the anxiety, loneliness, or disconnect we feel when we find ourselves ploughing on through life to fulfil the expectations society’s laid out for us. Instead, our bodies are seen as annoying entities that get in our way and get out of control – and so we have to control them. Keep them quiet, stuff them with substances, and zealously meditate our way through any discomfort or inner spidey sense that something is off. Make them thinner, make them stronger, make them prettier. Make them work harder, try to stay awake, no, go back to sleep, eat less, drink less, no drink more, get drunk! Now run 10 km!!! Stomp down the anxiety, get over it, ignore, ignore, numb it, numb it, numb it.
By the time we’ve left school, we are likely good little workers wired for productivity, who fit the societal mould, and know what the path to ‘success’ looks like. Many of us are also likely to be deeply, deeply unhappy. Are the kids alright at least? Well, even before the 2020 Pandemic (which no doubt increased anxiety amongst kids), nearly 10% of kids in the US had been diagnosed with serious anxiety problems and 4% with clinical depression. And that’s children, a demographic unburdened with decades of hard experiences and trauma. As we get older, those anxieties pile up as the pressures of ‘real’ life mount, and our support systems crumble. Above all, we’re profoundly disconnected with ourselves, our bodies, and what we truly want. We are far from embodied. We are very dis-embodied. And in being dis-embodied, we’re unable to truly feel and act upon the quiet murmurings of our body telling us we’re going off track from living our most authentic truth. Functioning through life often on autopilot (jumping through the show-pony hoops of success, I like to call it), we rarely stop to check in with ourselves. Our bodies quietly scream with low-level anxiety, insomnia becomes a familiar friend, along with our best pals alcohol, tv, and Instagram. We become acquainted with grooming and manicuring our bodies, our lives, our dreams, to fit the expectations of others. We are thoroughly disembodied – disconnected from ourselves, from our true needs, dreams, desires, from who we truly are. Do we even really like our job, our communities, our partner, our lifestyle? Who knows.
In 2013, as part of my journey of self-discovery, I did the Hoffman Process, a long residential retreat in Connecticut aimed at helping people free themselves from past traumas and unhealthy connection. It was there that I fully came to terms with just how disconnected from myself I truly was. Rather than one single entity (me), I learned that I was composed of four distinct entities – my intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual selves. Four distinct Katarina’s, all of whom are eagerly waiting to align together. When I began to drill down into each part of me, I realised with a lot of discomfort that they weren’t in alignment at all. My body was exhausted. My intellect was running the show. Like some overzealous task-master, she was whipping me into shape to get things done. She was good, for sure, but she was also tired. And anxious. She didn’t like being in charge all the time. My emotional self was frail and weak, a childlike remnant that didn’t have any strength to speak up, and my spiritual self was numb. My physical self was exhausted after years of keeping myself slim and lean, working out when tired, and underfeeding myself (whilst overindulging in other ways). She was also deeply distrusting of me and felt coerced and cajoled into following the draconian orders my intellectual self was yelling at her. As I began to do the Process work, I began to heal – and realised that in this coming together, I was gaining integrity. And in letting my authentic self, in all of her components, she started to speak, be heard, and my authentic shape began to take hold. My body suddenly became a vessel for my authentic truth, for all me – for every aspect of my personality. My emotions had a body through which to flow and my intellect had emotional intelligence as another source of direction and wisdom. My spiritual self gained a vehicle through which to communicate to my entire self. And slowly but surely, each of the four parts of me aligned and I became a whole, unique version of me – embodied as my most authentic self. An embodied version of the real me. I embodied integrity.
We can all do this. We are all whole deep down and our bodies, as Bessel van der Kolk so eloquently put it, ‘keep the score’. The starting point, though, is to get back into the body. This is where it all begins. This is where the spiritual self can quietly communicate through us, where our emotions can come to life, and what our intellect loves to run. It’s our body that is the vehicle through which we live. So, we need to reconnect with it as a vessel, an entity, a channel for communication from the deepest recesses of who you are. Your mind, your spirit, your emotions - and the living, breathing, soft animal that you are. This, my friends, is where we start the process of coming home to ourselves, of becoming whole again – of embodied integrity.
