The term “embodiment” is thrown around far too much lately. We often speak to ideas without really understanding them, using catch phrases we’ve heard and mindlessly recycling empty words.

We talk about becoming embodied without giving that process the gravity it deserves. This is not a simple task, my friends! True embodiment in today’s world is a rare skill. So many of us are completely disconnected from our own bodies in such a way that we have no idea that we’ve lost all grounding in our physical selves. There are continuous warning signs, alarm bells ringing within us, and we either misinterpret them or overlook them altogether.

Have you ever thought about what it might feel like to truly settle into your own skin?

I struggle on a daily basis to inhabit my own body. For years, I literally felt awkward in it, uncomfortable, constantly trying to pivot and shift for a world I believed needed me to be something, anything but what I am. Thinking back to my childhood, I wonder sometimes when I stopped understanding that I am allowed to take up space with the solid presence of my own bones. It was at a young age, that much I know.

So I ask, are you connected into your body? Do you even know? Can you intuit whether your physical form feels like a friend or an enemy? I believe that many of us have a contentious, conflicted storyline here. We know that we should love and respect our bodies and feel grateful for their incredible, intricate design, and once in a while we actually do experience those sentiments. On the other hand, our world inundates us daily with messages that insidiously slide into our subconscious, telling us we should feel less than, that our bodies are something to tame, fight, control and manipulate.

This is not the way. There is no happiness, no fulfillment here, but we keep pushing, straining, desperately trying to be something other. We spend our best years judging ourselves, dissatisfied with the smallest details, ignorant of the gift we’re given when we inhabit a body. And for what? So that we can look back with regret for all that time wasted? So we can understand, all too late, that we were always perfectly made after all?

Sit with yourself and be with your body, and then notice if that brings you discomfort. Notice if you can simply be without judging it or critiquing it. If you can’t – and let’s be honest, you probably can’t – see where you can find compassion for yourself in this process. You are reversing years of conditioning. It won’t happen overnight.

Gentle gentle. It is possible for you to reconnect with and truly inhabit your own skin. And what a beautiful journey it will be. You are perfect exactly as you are, even if you don’t believe it in the least right now. I’m here to remind you, and I love you.