by Mark Walsh
EMBODIMENT
– Moving beyond mindfulness
“Mark is the boldest embodiment facilitator out there.”
– Adam Wilder, founder of the Togetherness Festival
“Mark Walsh brings embodiment to life with passion, irreverence, and grit. It makes a body want to celebrate!”
– Ginny Whitelaw Roshi, CEO, Institute for Zen Leadership
“Although explicitly a technical book, in reading it one senses that Mark has lived his understanding from the inside out. The content of the book itself is his own embodiment. Brilliant!!”
– Guy Sengstock, co-founder of Circling
“Mark has written a down to earth accessible classic that’s much needed in our often numb world. Let’s face it, sometimes he is a twat yes; but I’m an ex rock star and this book is marginally better than groupie sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.”
– Jamie Catto, film-maker (One Giant Leap), author, workshop leader, ex Faithless singer
“Fun, accessible, fresh, while still grounded and full of profound insight, Embodiment is a must-read for all humans.”
– Jessica Graham, author of “Good Sex: Getting Off Without Checking Out”
“A brilliant book, distilling decades of embodied exploration with a unique blend of wisdom, wit, irreverence, and humour.”
– Joel & Michelle Levey, founders of Wisdom at Work, authors of “Mindfulness, Meditation, and Mind Fitness”
“I love Mark’s book! It is not a treatise but a poetic call to remember what it is like to be embodied. The mixture of the lyricism with clear educational practicality is exactly what is needed to get people to return to the body”
– John Vervaeke, Psychology and Cognitive Science Department, University of Toronto, author of “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis”
“The must-read book of the year in the Embodiment field. It offers a compelling, well informed, humorous and at times poetic feast of “tapas” to delight all appetites. Mark’s practical wisdom has helped deepen my own embodied leadership and I highly
recommend this powerful work to every other leader.”
– Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE, former CEO of the Centre for Excellence in Leadership, leadership coach and interfaith minister
“Mark Walsh offers a comprehensive overview of embodiment that is practical and empowering, and offers a platform from which this emergent field can and will continue to evolve. Embodiment is exciting, passionate, and useful!”
– Mariana Caplan, PhD., MFT author of “Yoga & Psyche: Integrating Yoga and Psychology for Healing”
“Mark has decades of experience in developing practical activities and principles for discovering embodiment. He has generously shared them in this easy-to-read yet expansive book.”
– Martha Eddy, director of Dynamic Embodiment
“This offering is less a book and more a string of pearls. It is a series of one page essays and poems that explain how cruelties arise out of body numbness. What is new and important in Mark’s book is his courageous description of his use of embodiment practices as part of his own work to heal his childhood traumas.”
– Paul Linden, PhD, aikido 6th dan, author, founder of Being In Movement® Mindbody Education
“Embodiment is very much a cut-the-crap book, charged with poetry, iconoclasm, personal anecdote, and a passion for helping us all recognise the sacred aliveness of the body’s intelligence. If you feel disconnected, if you yearn to return to a deeper truth in your life, pick this book up and welcome its provocations!”
– Philip Shepherd, author of “Radical Wholeness” and “New Self, New World”
“Classic Mark Walsh! A collection of decidedly irreverent pithy, probing critiques of our culture-wide dissociation from our bodies. Enjoy!”
– Roger Walsh (no relation), MD, PhD, author of “Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices”
“Mark is a man of big vision and powerful intentionality for bringing the great benefits of embodiment into the world. I am grateful for this offering. Enjoy!”
– Russell Delman, founder of The Embodied Life School
In Embodiment, Mark gives voice to a joyous, angry, sensual war-cry – the body ferociously reclaiming its primacy in a disembodied world.
– Terry Patten, author, “A New Republic of the Heart”, co-author “Integral Life Practice”
“This book offers a comprehensive view of the embodiment territory. The stories and suggestions range from raucous and racy, to tender and touching. There is food for thought and a plethora of helpful hints for student and facilitator alike.”
– Wendy Palmer, author of “Leadership Embodiment”
EMBODIMENT
– Moving beyond mindfulness
MARK WALSH
First published 2020, by Unicorn Slayer Press
© 2020 Mark Walsh
All rights reserved. The purchase of this copyright material confers the right on the purchasing institution to photocopy pages which bear the photocopy icon and copyright line at the bottom of the page. No other parts of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
ISBN: 978-1-9162492-2-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-9162492-1-9 (ebk)
This book is dedicated to all those that created the work that I love: Paul Linden, Francis Briers and Alexandra Vilvovskaya particularly, for their service on the Embodied Facilitator Course. And also, of course, the woman/mystery cat-creature, whose embodiment feels most like home.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
The gentle revolution of coming home to the body
1 The disembodied mess that we’re in
2 What is embodiment?
3 Some simple embodiment techniques
4 Foundations
5 Hope, encouragement and hard truths
6 Some specific applications
7 Traps on the path
8 For the professionals
9 Further considerations
10 More personal moments
Resources
About the author
Appendix
Postscript
This is why embodiment is trending right now: the times necessitate it.
• In times of chaos, the body is an anchor.
• In times of mistrust and “post-truth”, the body is a source of wisdom.
• In a time of disconnection, the body is where reconnecting begins. First to ourselves, then through that to meaning, then each other, and vitally, to the planet.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Standing in the ruins of writing this book, at midnight on the publication deadline, I find myself compelled to return to the acknowledgments. Writing this book took everything I had to give, and I am now satisfied that it is my best effort. There was literally blood, sweat and tears on the pages on many occasions; and I had to break and reform myself several times to finish it. The effort however was not solo, and there are many to thank.
I would firstly like to acknowledge the Embodied Yoga Principles (EYP) and Embodied Facilitator Course (EFC) communities for being the supportive laboratory for this book. Everything here has been tried, tested and developed in these communities in the UK and in Russia, as well as in workshops in over thirty countries. EFC UK co-founder Francis Briers was especially central to EFC’s development and worked closely with me to develop several of the models in this book, and Alexandra Vilvovskaya has clarified many of them with her Russian elegance. The EFC tribe as a whole, though, has been the vibrant, playful, intense peer-learning crucible where our integrations and innovations have o
ccurred, and hundreds of people have played a part. My close EYP colleague and friend Vidyadasa has also been instrumental and a huge support emotionally, more times than I can remember, and the ever-patient Catherine O’Mahony has held it together for many years with her frankly scary organisation and Walsh-whispering skills.
My gratitude also goes to my primary influences in the field of embodiment. Paul Linden has been a loving second father to me and has shown me that what really matters is kindness. He is perhaps the biggest single influence on me and the only one that I hold a direct lineage relationship with. Wendy Palmer of Leadership Embodiment and Richard Strozzi-Heckler (who led the way with working with the body in business and coaching are two big influences). Other major embodied facilitation inspirations that I would like to acknowledge include Stuart Heller, Ginny Whitelaw and Dylan Newcomb, all legends in this field and on whose shoulders this book stands.
I have had innumerable teachers in many body practices, but I would like to thank in particular: William Smith Shihan OBE, Philip Smith Shihan, and the Ren Shin Kan senior teachers, Don Levine (who saw potential in me when this was not obvious), Miles Kessler, and Tom and Maria Helsby from aikido. Also, Shinzen Young, Junpo Denis Kelly Roshi, The Thai Forest Sangha and Rob Burbea from meditation. In dance, I could name many tango teachers, contact improv teachers, and conscious dance teachers, though Adam Barley is a long-time friend and warrants a special mention. From yoga: Peter Blackaby, Gary Carter and Jim Tarren. From body therapy: Michael Soth, Russell Rose, and Beverly Nolan. From comedy improv: my EFC colleagues Rachel Blackman and Liz Peters, and Maydays founder John Cremer.
Acknowledgements go to the elders of the field of embodiment, who have contributed to building the somatic cathedral that exists today: Don Hanlon Johnson, George Leonard, Michael Murphy, Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen, and Anna Halprin to name but a few hugely respected figures. I could also mention the teachers of my teachers, such as Moshe Feldenkrais, Ida Rolf, Thomas Hanna, Matthias Alexander…but then we’d be into a history book! Suffice to say the embodiment field, while only just starting to come together, has been built upon the hard work of many lives.
The book itself is of course also a labour of many minds and hands especially my PA Agi, and also designer Matt, Karen “The Book Mentor” Williams, editors Wendy and Amber, numerous proofreaders and hundreds of people on Facebook (in some ways actually this book is a product of modern community “group-mind” and online co-creation, unlike books of old). They all played their part. Please forgive me for not mentioning you all by name! As ever, it takes a village, and I understand why artists in many eras did not sign their work, as viewed through lenses of practicality, embodied interrelationality and spirituality, the idea of having one name on the cover is absurd.
THE GENTLE REVOLUTION OF COMING HOME TO THE BODY
Welcome to the gentle revolution of coming home to the body. That’s all “embodiment” is: returning to our humanity – and that’s huge. The hour is late, the need is great, and a book is…just a book, but it’s a start that’s sorely needed. I dream of a world where cycles of numbing and violence are broken, where the cruelties of unfeeling abusers are imaginable, and where we care for each other and the planet as easily as we breathe. This vision is not just a possibility, but an inevitability as the wave of embodiment surges. In a cynical world to have such hopes may seem naive, but I see that a “movement movement” is firmly afoot.
This book consists of several years of thoughts, blogs, poems and social media posts assembled into something approaching a meaningful order. There are box-outs describing some of the most important embodied experiences of my life, so it’s deeply personal too. It is somewhat non-linear in nature, as is embodiment. There’s repetition and randomness, and it’s a beautiful, mildly chaotic collage! For this reason, it can be dipped into freely, and many seemingly “light” sections will deepen with rereading. Any book on embodiment is, of course, ridiculous if not put to practical use, so I’d encourage you to practise what’s offered within, engage with it personally, dance with it, read it to your lover in bed, whatever. To use a restaurant analogy: eat the food (the practices), not the menu (the words pointing to them).
For those seeking more structured and specific offerings about embodiment or related professional skills, please see later chapters and the resources at the back of this book. Otherwise, feast on the tapas1 of bodily musings here.
Embodiment is a birthright, a wild ride and a gentle but (make no mistake) revolutionary adventure of becoming. Enjoy.
THE BODY OF LOVE
– Long Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge, UK
I’m 16. A golden sun is sinking as we walk hand in hand into the little patch of woodland tucked behind our college. Light is shining through the trees and through us. Her hand is soft and alive, feeling into me. We leave the functional modernist classrooms behind – square boxes of banality.
We spend a long time just standing close, appreciating each other through the heart and the senses. Both nervous and awestruck. I nestle my face in her long dark hair, smelling the blossom, and time dies. There are no words.
It’s the first day of Spring and we kiss our first kiss. It’s not like anything I’ve experienced. Sally’s my first love, and a gateway to something much bigger. We melt. I hold her as the most precious, beautiful person in the world. I lose where she ends and I begin. No bodily borders, no embodied boundaries – we dissolve into each other. I lose myself, gain everything. Union. One taste.
There’s light shining out of us and it’s good. I’m alive for the first time in my life. Life! – gushing through our bodies like a river of electric pleasure. I feel whole, unified with her, myself and the divine – a stranger no longer. I’m home. I disappear. I can’t express it, words are too blunt.
Two weeks later we sleep together for the first time and become love and luminosity itself. The body opens as a mystic door and life is never quite the same again. I am already forever grateful, and already know that I’ll lose her. Again. And again.
THE DISEMBODIED MESS
THAT WE’RE IN
This book follows a simple structure:
I’ll give you my take on why we’re screwed up and how disembodiment is a root cause of that. I’ll describe what embodiment is and the solutions it offers. I’ll suggest simple practical tools. I’ll offer some real-life applications, and illustrate it all with some personal stories. I’ll state some things that can go wrong with this set of solutions.
So, there’s a logical structure here, but feel free to jump around or read one or two random bits each day, if you prefer. I’m imagining some of you will read this on the toilet, in fact a perfectly relaxing embodied location – inspiration in, crap out. Ahh.
Embodiment will be defined in detail shortly. For now, “dis-embodied” can just be taken to mean being disconnected from our bodies: cut off from ourselves.
So, let’s begin.
WHY BOTHER WITH EMBODIMENT?
When we start to see the body as the most accessible aspect of ourselves, we are profoundly empowered. We gain access to our own “operating system”. We can know ourselves to a new depth, can change our state and develop our being. We cease to be victims. We connect to and influence others more effectively. We become more ethical. Simply and profoundly, we reclaim our humanity and our birthright by coming back home.
TEN REASONS YOU MIGHT WANT TO DEVELOP YOUR EMBODIMENT
• To know what is blindingly obvious to everyone else about you
• To have a choice in how you are
• To manage your neurotic insanity and out-of-control emotions
• To be a bit less of an arsehole, a bit more of the time
• To be a more compelling leader, more sensitive parent, or more vibrant lover
• To heal the shit that your parents couldn’t so that you don’t pass it on
• To have more fun and deepen EVERY pleasure. Really, it all gets better
• To stop making eve
rything so bloody complicated and start enjoying the simplicity of relationships
• To be more creative
• To tune into a clearer sense of life purpose
SEVEN MORE…
• To feel deeply at home in your own skin. To have a bodily sense of belonging
• To play more freely with children, of all ages
• To get unhooked from addictions, large and small
• To be better connected to your own needs and values, to be less easily pushed around by others’ agendas
• To be more sexually attractive in a way that has nothing to do with your physique or standard societal beauty norms
• To (and screw every cynic who has given up on this) make the world at least a little bit better
• To feel fully alive, and to be fully human
Now, I’m quite aware this may all sound too good to be true, and embodiment isn’t a miracle cure, but all this is true. I go into most of the above points in detail throughout the book. Don’t believe me, do the work and find out for yourself.
THE TEN FS: EMBODIED ESSENTIALS
Here are ten embodied essentials required to function well as a human animal, and some practices that build them:
1. Feeling (mindfulness, emotional awareness, intuitive practices)
2. Freeing (self-regulation, e.g. centring, and deeper body therapy)
3. Friending (embodied connection, authenticity, empathy, leadership)
4. Fighting (martial arts)
5. Fixing (healing arts, bodywork)
6. Fleeing (running, parkour)
7. Fucking (romance, seduction, tantra)
8. Frolicking (humour, play and improv practices)
9. Funking (free dance, expressive arts)2
10. Feeding (restorative, sleep, breath and food practices)