You Are Your Body
By Dr. Hillary McBride
Shared With Permission
You are your body.
Most of the time I say this, there is some push back, some fear, some disgust that surfaces. Usually, that emerges because when we hear “body” we have learned to think “appearance” or “what others have said about body” or “our traumas”.
You are your body.
There is no thinking, sensing, loving, longing, relating, remembering, developing self that is not a body. Our bodies are the place of our experience of being human.
Our resistance to this is an indication of the cultural legacy of fragmentation we have inherited, the traumas we have endured, and the spiritual and cognitive we have used to distance ourselves from the truth our bodies are telling us.
Embodiment is the practice of remembering what our culture, coping, and cognition has asked us to forget. It is the gentle mending of the divide, moving back inside the bodily self that has been here all along.
Our bodies are so much more: Our bodies are the pleasure of a good meal, the sweaty sensation of a good dance party, the rhythm of our beating hearts and wake-asleep-awake cycles, the dry mouth that tells us we are thirsty, the tingling or arousal, and the wet tear on our cheek that says in a wordless way “I am in pain”. Our bodies are the place our mind exists, the memory of who we are and what we have been through, the link to the people we come from, the place where we experience connection and the longing for connection, and our capacity to be present, and be in relationship with space and time.
When we remember our bodies in this way, we begin to heal ourselves and each other.
Dr. Hillary McBride is a registered psychologist, a researcher, author and podcaster, with expertise that includes working with trauma and trauma therapies, embodiment, and the intersection of spirituality and mental health.
Want to hear more from Hillary? Sign up today for the 2023 Beyond The Wound summit!
