Shape Shifting, Embodiment, and Human Movement

The art of shape shifting is a path to self creation. It's a skill that allows the practitioner to feel, understand, and then direct their own life experience. It can reshape your life and in a very literal way, reshape your body. One of the first steps on this path is physical embodiment, the ability to be with and in your body, fully and joyfully. It's an ability we naturally have as children. You can see it in their joyful use of some of the most basic human experiences. Your body is the very vehicle of this life experience, and if you find yourself distanced from it you won't have an enriching experience of your own life. In this short article we will introduce some of the leading issues people face when attempting physical embodiment and some of the paths for corrective action.  Listed below are some of the leading issues...

1. Cultural Guilt- In the western cultures in particular the  body and its pleasures have been demonized for centuries. One need only look at the history of the christian dominated Europe to see this illustrated. Many of the bodies pleasures and natural experiences were labeled as sins and even opening and viciously persecuted. This has left a cultural scare in the psyches of western people ever since. The usual manifestation is guilt, guilt for being a person with a body and feeling its natural drives and instincts. This is incredibly stressful to the organism and is commonly "dealt" with by becoming extremely disembodied, either through psychological distance from life or from the use of numbing drugs and alcohol.
2. Psychological fear- People are often afraid to be involved in their own life. Fear of emotional pain is quite common, the more involved in living you are the more likely it is you will have to "feel" emotions and sensations. If you have grown up in any kind of abusive situation, or even just an unsupported situation it is common to develop an underlying fear of how these abusive people can make you feel. The fear, when learned at an early age especially, is then applied to all of life like a wall that separates us from the experience around us. It goes without saying that this can be quite alienating and lonely. There are many other reasons for developing these kinds of fears, but all could be described by the blanket term "fear of living".
3. Physical pain- In our modern world we are often not kind to our bodies. The body thrives on movement, it was indeed intended and designed for movement. Look at any animal and you will notice one thing common to all, they constantly MOVE towards what ever they desire. Yet today its the common experience for children to sit in classrooms for 8 or 9 hours a day, or employees to sit at a desk. Even when we do move its usually nothing more than some walking and some light use of the hands and arms. This type of lifestyle has been shown time and again to create imbalances, dysfunction, and eventually pain or even disease in the body. When it becomes painful to move, we tend to move even less, creating a cycle of ever increasing disembodiment and distance from life.

Enter Movement Training:

For most people living a modern lifestyle, human movement training is a great first step towards reclaiming their joy of life. It is a type of training that naturally begins to restore function to the body so that it may move in all the ways it was intended to. This creates a feeling of physical health and brings the joy associated with being able to express oneself with the body. How often does someone look at an athletic feat, or a graceful dancer and think of how much fun that kind of life must be. Movement training gives this natural human ability back to the individual. 

I have seen people 50 years of age climbing a tree like a child, martial artists who can still strike swiftly and powerfully well into their 70's, and senior citizens who still surf the waves of California. And I have yet to see them do it without a massive smile on their face and an obvious joy of life. This is a basic human right and something that can easily be restored with a little bit of guidance. 

Further Evolution of Embodiment:

When people feel free of pain and dysfunction, and can move and express themselves with ease, it begins to open them up to things that many people have completely been shut off too. Things like physical sensations and the joy they bring, emotional release through self expression and the lightness of being that comes from it, and possibly most important it reconnects them with who they really are and allows them to experience the true nature of themselves. Nothing connects one to their true individuality like enjoying life. It's an insight into your very identity to understand what brings you happiness in this life experience. 

In this very real sense, shape shifting and embodiment are about reclaiming the self, reclaiming your identity and you joy. Once you KNOW from experience (as opposed to disembodied thought) what excites you and makes you happy, you know what direction to take your life in order to maximize it. You will KNOW what shape you and your life experience wants to take.