How to Embody the Life and Future We Want to Create
What Our Embodiment Tells About Our Stories
We are always embodying something.
It might be the forward urgency of our hectic schedule, the relaxed openness in our heart in moments of joy, or the way our body’s shoulders tighten when we feel stressed.
So much of what we embody isn’t chosen consciously.
It’s shaped by our history, our family, and the culture we live in.
Often, the patterns we have practised are what allowed us to get through, to cope, to keep going in challenging moments. They are deeply intelligent responses that have helped us to navigate life. Responses that we have unconsciously honed and perfected through repetition.
Embodiment is also practice.
Every day, in the way we move, speak, rest, and respond, we are practising how we live. And practice, repeated over time, leaves its mark. It forges deeper and deeper ‘grooves’ that become our new ways of being.
When we look at our lives, we can often see the evidence of what we have been practising. If life feels hurried or draining, it may be because those ways of being have been rehearsed again and again.
But the power of embodiment is this: we can change our ‘shape’. We can choose to practise something different.
We can begin to embody ways of being that feel more aligned with who we are becoming, and with the kind of life we want to create.
How Our Culture Lives in Our Body and Shapes Our Embodiment
What we embody isn’t only personal.
Our bodies also carry the imprint of the culture we live in.
Many of us have absorbed the shape of a society that values speed, productivity, and doing over being.
We’ve learned to override tiredness, to push through discomfort, to measure our worth by how much we can achieve or give. Over time, this becomes not just an idea we hold, but something our bodies practise every day.
The result is that our personal embodiment often mirrors the collective one.
Our culture lives in our bodies.
A culture of urgency creates hurried bodies.
A culture that undervalues care creates people who struggle to rest and feel uncared for.
A culture of disconnection creates loneliness.
These aren’t just individual patterns but reflections of the wider environment we have grown up in.
And yet, just as we can choose to practise new ways of being in our own lives, we can also begin to imagine and embody a different collective shape. One where rest, connection, and care are central. One where slowing down and living in rhythm with our bodies and the earth becomes the norm.
Through simple embodiment practices, we can begin to shift from inherited patterns into ways of being that more closely align with the life and future we desire.
And when we shift what we embody on a personal level, it not only changes us, but it also plants and nurtures seeds for the kind of world we want to live in.
The Possibility of Practising Something New Through Embodiment Practices
If embodiment is something we are always doing, then the question becomes: what do we want to practise now?
We may not have chosen the patterns that shaped us. Many of them were inherited, taught, or simply necessary for survival. But from here, we can begin to choose.
Every day, life gives us opportunities to embody the ways of being we long for. Each time we pause instead of rushing, or listen to what our body needs instead of overriding it, we are rehearsing a new pattern. Each boundary we set, each moment of joy we allow ourselves to truly pause and feel, each deeper breath we take… These are small but powerful practices of a different way of being.
Over time, these choices add up.
They begin to shift how we feel, how we move through the world, and how we relate to others. They become evidence of the life we are creating, rather than the life we have inherited or been conditioned to live.
And this isn’t just about us as individuals. When we practise new ways of embodiment, we ripple those changes outwards.
A more rested, attuned, and alive way of being has the power to influence everyone we touch, and eventually the culture we live in.
Change is always possible, and the body can help us pave the way for these new ways of being to create the kind of life, society and future we desire...
A Simple Embodiment Practice to Experiment With
The beautiful thing about embodiment is that it doesn’t require a huge overhaul.
It lives in the small, repeated choices we make each day. Here are a few invitations to begin experimenting with:
1. Pause and notice
Take a moment today to ask yourself: What am I embodying right now? Is it hurry, tension, striving? Or is it presence, ease, care? Simply noticing is the first step to creating change.
2. Practise one small shift
Choose one micro-shift that feels possible. Maybe it’s walking more slowly, taking a full breath before replying to an email, or letting yourself lie down for five minutes in the middle of the day. These little practices of a new way of being begin to re-shape us over time.
3. Ask your future self
Imagine the version of you who is living the life you long for. How would she move through this moment? What choice would she make here? Practising even one of those choices today brings you closer to her.
4. Imagine the collective shape
Take a moment to wonder: what would it feel like if our society embodied rest, care, and belonging? How would that shape our workplaces, our families, our communities, our rhythms of life?
Let yourself feel into that possibility, even for a moment.
These are small rehearsals, ways of gently embodying what we long for, here and now, without any of our circumstances changing.
Embodying The Future We Desire
Our lives are shaped not only by what we dream about but by what we practise, day by day.
And because we are always embodying something, the question becomes: what do we want our lives, and our world, to be evidence of?
When we begin to embody presence instead of hurry, care instead of depletion, rest instead of relentless doing, something shifts not only in us, but around us.
Our personal practice ripples outwards. Our family, community, family, community and workplace feel it too.
This is how change takes root.
Not in grand declarations or sudden transformations, but in small, intentional embodied choices repeated over time.
The life you long for, and the kind of world you’d love to live in don’t have to feel like impossible dreams. They can begin here, in the shape of how you move through today.
So the invitation is simple: notice what you are embodying, choose one small way to embody what you long for, and let that practice begin to re-shape both your life and, in time, the collective we all share.
This is how we create the future we long for.
An Invitation to Work With the Body to Practise More Expansive Ways of Being
Your Body is a portal.
Whether you are seeking to heal, to grow, to expand in your leadership, to embrace your Sacred Legacy as an entrepreneur, or simply to feel more at home within yourself, the body can offer a powerful doorway.
If you are curious to find out more, I can support you along two pathways:
One-to-One Somatic Coaching - A compassionate, attuned space where together, we will explore the patterns you are desiring to shift and pave the way for new possibilities.
The Wisdom Within™ Somatic Coach Training - Learn to work with the incredible intelligence of the body, to hold somatic spaces for others grounded in attunement, compassion and presence, and elevate your resonance and impact as a practitioner.
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