Those who have followed my work know about my passion for embodiment, and how important I believe that awakening through the body is.

Spirituality done in an embodied way (actively doing, living out, felt emotionally) results in transformation of identity and daily life in a way that more intellectualized paths do not.

We may understand spiritual concepts or any type of deep magic intellectually before we understand it in an embodied way. This is part of the path– contemplation before action. 

But so many of us stop ourselves in the contemplation phase and so our understandings do not result in the radical transformation of mind, body, and spirit that really digesting and knowing something to be true on a visceral level provides.

We have a lot of conditioning that tells us that spirit isn’t real, that our bodies are something to be ashamed of, and that feeling anything but love and light makes us terrible people

A lot of this has to do with fear– fear of change, fear of the unknown, and the protective nature of an ego that defends ourselves against thoughts, beliefs, and understandings of reality outside of the sort of bubble we have constructed for ourselves (or had constructed for us by family, ancestry, place, time, and societal/religion/social structures).

On a deeper level this very much has to do with the societal fear, shame, and separation from spirit, from nature, and from the human form.

We have a lot of conditioning that tells us that spirit isn’t real, that our bodies are something to be ashamed of, and that feeling anything but love and light makes us terrible people.

It takes a real willingness, and typically some type of calling, to put the “head back on the body” (discussed in my Shadow book, but a term popularized by Marion Woodman talking about how the end result of the spiritual path is a pairing of feeling/intuition/knowing with our intellectual/mental capacities).

Many people explore spiritual paths on some visceral level understanding that the emptiness that they feel is a disconnection from soul. But on an intellectual level they cannot break free from the conditioning described, as it would put them at odds with society and other forms of conditioning to do so.

We have become so disconnected that we can no longer name this disconnection properly, and we tend to go about our spiritual lives and paths in name only, with no awareness that there can be a profound connection to something divine, something greater than ourselves.

One of the most significant “secrets” to making any form of magical-spiritual work to work is to engender as much flow and as much presence as possible through the physical form.

Consider the body as the ultimate altar, and that the movements that we make, the purposeful stillness we can emanate, the power and flow that comes from embodiment, can create significant change, healing, and awakening in ourselves and others.

Our bodies are nature, and if we sink into them, the natural wildness and passion for life can re-emerge, or perhaps emerge for the first time.

This is achieved in part by physically taking care of our bodies– this does not mean our bodies need to be a particular shape or weight, but that we treat our bodies well through movement and lifestyle.

It is also achieved by understanding that awakening does not happen outside of the physical body. We can awaken each part of our bodies; each organ, each cell, every energetic meridian in our human forms until we experience a sort of brightness and stillness that fills our bodies and our energy fields.

Our bodies have shut down, closed off, disassociated from their natural vibrance and flow due to past pain, trauma, and conditioning.

While we may have learned to armor ourselves, to defend ourselves against reality due to pain and traumatic events, we also go through an immense amount of conditioning in our families and educational-social institutions that teach us to cut off parts of ourselves as they would not be socially approved of.

We learn that we are not enough as we are, and so we spend our lives looking towards others for approval and acceptance.

When we take back the energy we have given to others to approve of us, to tell us we are worthy, we bring that energy back into our physical forms.

When we heal, dissolving the armor we have erected, the defenses against experiencing the same type of pain we have experienced again, we bring that energy back into our physical forms.

When we heal inner children, frozen in development, stuck in time, we bring that energy back into our physical bodies and into the present moment.

We have all of these aspects of self that are stuck in the past: ancestral, inner children, mythic and archetypal selves that cannot find wholeness, that means that we are living split in many times. By healing these parts of ourselves they integrate.

We come more and more into the present moment, and more into our physical bodies.

Consider the body as the ultimate altar, and that the movements that we make, the purposeful stillness we can emanate, the power and flow that comes from embodiment, can create significant change, healing, and awakening in ourselves and others.

We also have parts of ourselves stuck in the future– in the “what ifs”, the projected imaginings, the anxieties we have personally and collectively (for example, about the environment). 

When we heal those anxieties by accepting the inevitability of our deaths, we take back that future energy and bring it back into the body in the present moment.

When we understand that we only control so much regarding ourselves, let go of the desire to have control over everything, and let the waves of our lives, the chaos and stillness, arise and move back down in the great ocean of our being, we can stop being so enmeshed with the temporary sufferings that happen in all of our lives and gain perspective on impermanence.

When we are able to truly feel, knowing that our feelings are not dangerous, but something that can simply be felt, on our terms, we awaken the physical form. 

This is true magic, that feeling. As if we let ourselves feel, the subsumed creativity, life force, intuition, and all that is mystical regarding life and the divine will open up to us.

During awakening we take back all of this energy we have placed in other places, other times, and bring it back into the present embodied moment.

When our energy becomes more embodied, we naturally come more into the present moment. 

Stillness, feelings of peace, and a flow of energy that brings us vitality, and focused intention to create a life of our choosing are then naturally brought forth as a result.

This is a tall order for anyone, but know that each time that you give yourself permission to feel, and each and every step you take towards healing is bringing you back into your body, into your life, and more into the present moment.

Mary Mueller Shutan is a spiritual teacher and author of several books, including Shadow Work for the Soul, The Spiritual Awakening Guide, and The Shamanic Workbook series.