Embodiment (Part 3): Returning to Your Body with Somatic Practices

What is Embodiment and Why Does it Matter?

Embodiment is the practice of fully experiencing and connecting with your body in the present moment. Instead of living in overthinking, perfectionism, or anxiety, embodiment helps you: 

✅ Feel more grounded and present.
✅ Regulate your emotions with body awareness.
✅ Develop self-trust and emotional resilience.
✅ Reconnect with the joy and ease you felt as a child.

How We Lose Touch with Our Bodies Over Time

As children, we naturally embody presence—we play, explore, and feel without overanalyzing. Over time, however, stress, social conditioning, and emotional outsourcing can create disconnection from the body. This can look like:

🚨 Prioritizing external validation over internal awareness.
🚨 Suppressing emotions to keep the peace.
🚨 Living in chronic stress and over-functioning.
🚨 Feeling disconnected from your physical sensations.

Embodiment practices help rebuild the mind-body connection, allowing you to feel safe in your body again.

The Role of the Nervous System in Embodiment

Your nervous system processes stress, emotions, and safety cues before your conscious mind does. It operates through:

• Sympathetic (Fight or Flight): Activated by stress and danger.
• Parasympathetic (Rest and Digest): Supports relaxation and connection.
• Ventral Vagal (Safe and Social): Allows for calm presence and engagement.
• Dorsal Vagal (Freeze and Disconnect): Leads to shutdown and numbness.

If your nervous system is stuck in fight, flight, or freeze, embodiment can feel difficult. Somatic practices help shift your nervous system into regulation, making it easier to feel safe in your body.

Understanding Functional Freeze and Emotional Disconnection

Many people experience functional freeze—a state where they seem fine on the outside but feel emotionally shut down inside. Signs include: 🚨 Feeling numb or emotionally distant.
🚨 Struggling to experience joy or relaxation.
🚨 Overworking to avoid uncomfortable emotions.
🚨 Feeling exhausted despite getting enough rest.

Somatic healing helps rewire these patterns and bring awareness back to the body.

How Emotional Outsourcing Affects Embodiment

Emotional outsourcing happens when we rely on others for validation, emotional regulation, or self-worth instead of turning inward. This pattern leads to:

✅ Overanalyzing how others perceive you.
✅ Suppressing your emotions to maintain connection.
✅ Losing trust in your own body’s signals.

Reconnecting with embodiment teaches you to trust yourself instead of seeking external validation.

The Connection Between Safety and Body Awareness

Feeling safe in your body is essential for embodiment. If you grew up in environments where emotional or physical safety was unreliable, it makes sense that embodiment feels challenging.

To cultivate safety in the body, try:

• Grounding techniques like feeling your feet on the floor.
• Gentle movement to reconnect with physical sensations.
• Self-compassion practices to create internal reassurance.

Simple Somatic Practices to Reconnect with Your Body

Somatic practices don’t need to be complicated. Try these simple exercises to increase embodiment:

🌿 Hand on Heart: Place a hand on your heart and take slow, deep breaths.

🌿 Body Scanning: Notice areas of tension and gently release them.

🌿 Breath Awareness: Inhale for 4 seconds, exhale for 6 to activate relaxation.

🌿 Mindful Walking: Focus on the sensation of each step hitting the ground.

How Breathwork and Movement Support Embodiment

🌬️ Breathwork: Conscious breathing helps shift your nervous system from stress to calm. Try:

• Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 2 seconds, exhale for 6 seconds.
• Focus on how air moves through your nose and chest.

🌀 Gentle Movement: Stretching, slow walking, or even rocking side to side reconnects you with physical sensation and brings you back to the present moment.

Thought Work vs. Somatic Healing: How They Work Together

Many people start their healing journey with thought work, changing beliefs and cognitive patterns. However, deep transformation happens when you combine thought work with somatic healing.

🔹 Thought Work: Changes limiting beliefs and mental narratives.
🔹 Somatic Healing: Releases stored stress from the body and nervous system.

Together, they create lasting emotional and nervous system resilience.

Want More Support?

If you’re ready to deepen your embodiment practice, join The Embodied Learning Lab—a 12-week program designed to help you reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system, and build self-trust. Learn more at BeatrizAlbina.com/thelab.

Your body is your home. Reconnect, heal, and feel fully alive.