by Mark Walsh
As someone who has been to the depths of alcohol abuse, survived dangerous countries, clinical depression, and lost many to suicide, being isn’t a given. As someone lucky enough to finally be with his wife after recent visa trials, but who also not long ago, lost a father, it is also not a given to be with the ones that we love.
Sometimes a little yoga, martial arts or body meditation isn’t so little; it’s a stand for existence. So, let me dedicate this to the gift of being that practise constitutes, and to all those who struggle with this, whatever the threat.
“Give yourself the gift of being” may sound like some cheesy bullshit, but I mean this from my heart. To come home to the body is a defiant act of great courage and consequence. I support your right to be.
COMING TO LOVE THE ARCHETYPAL FATHER
– Cambridgeshire, May 2018
A lot of my life has centred on first fighting, then coming to love the archetypal father. In a feminised society, where boys are largely raised by women, and masculinity is mocked, repressed and despised by Hollywood and advertisers, this is a hard journey. The world now embodies the supposedly caring but tyrannical mother of both state and counterculture. She will look after you and keep you oh so safe. All she demands is your balls. It has become fashionable to, with ingratitude, blame “the patriarchy” (from the Greek for “rule of the father”) for many horrors; but this is the most feminised time in recorded history. Whatever % of politicians or CEOs are men, this is not the age of men.
My teen years extended far into adult life, as I tried to kill Dad in many ways. And look at the state of the world – who wouldn’t want to reject the norms of a sick society?! This anti-father urge is at the heart of so many of my “alternative” friends too, and they suffer for it. I came to love my father, but I was not well-raised to be a man by him. This sad fact is the norm – as is some alcoholism, on top of the usual lame, disempowered dad syndrome.
My adult life has also been about ways to re-father myself. The severe discipline of Japanese martial arts was excellent for this. I honour my many fathers there who initiated me, especially Don Levine, William Smith and Paul Linden senseis. I had to go to war zones and test my edge. My mother hated it but, to her credit, never tried to stop me. Taking on the challenges and responsibility of running a business aided further.
I also wonder if this re-fathering urge is in all those yogis lining up to be told what to do. And in all the lost hipsters dressing like lumberjacks, and sporting beards and tattoos. I see those looking to find meaning and ethics in the East. We long for manhood. We long for discipline, morals and responsibility, though they are almost dirty words now. Note: the arms of the far-right and Islamic extremists also await our youth who are seeking these things.
I was lucky enough to heal my relationship with my actual father before he died, and also with society. I see what is strong and beautiful about my nation and societal norms. I am married. My inner teen rebel is still strong, but the man behind him sits on the throne and smiles wryly. Thank you to all my fathers for not making this journey easy. The way of ease is the way of weakness.
My fathers have prepared me for the world. Thank you again.
THE THIRST NEVER LEAVES
The thirst that held my throat, and led me to the edge of suicide
while claiming to be my closest friend.
It cursed me alone in a crowded world
while embracing me warmly every night
Promising all
by delivering nothingness
That wrecked my body like a broken ship,
smashed on rocks of longing
Poisoned every cell so deeply that all life tasted of was nausea
That took everything
The thirst warped my heart and mind past measures
into the demon version of myself
Make no mistake, by the way…
the devil is a part of you just waiting to take charge
The true horror is that you will witness
the carnage you cause, helpless
A junkie will steal your wallet and then help you look for it.
The dregs of hope and care that remain, ensure the torture is total
The thirst took me places that I will not share for the shame
stooped my spine and sewed my eyes shut
And my parched throat tried to call out the names of the divine
But managed only to take another drink
I see now from the other side,
thirteen years sober by grace
That the thirst was my soul seeking love in all the wrong places
A mistaken shortcut to connection
to myself, others
and The Mystery
The sheer stupidity of addiction is worth laughing at
That such smart people try to find spirit in spirits;
In a needle, in a stranger’s arms, on social media, or whatever
In a way, it’s a gift
To have a loaded gun at my head daily
That insists that I don’t isolate
Insists that I do the work
That casually offers me a choice between
My wonderful life and a slow painful death
The devil inside says, “That beer looks refreshing.
One won’t hurt.”
And waits in the wings
I smile. Incline my face to the sun. And walk on
God’s hand on my back.
Still
Thirsty
OLD AIKIDO FRIEND
Back grabbing my old aikido friend
Our dead teacher in both our bodies
I notice the first liver spots on my hand
Spring light and bird song outside
My knees ache a little more, but I also smile more fully
With each passing year and throw
RETURN TO THE ORDINARY
– Brighton, August 2019
I’m back from another trip to the wonderful unspectacular. Embodiment is often a similarly ordinary homecoming, not the fireworks of state-chasing that may first appeal, or the special exotic wisdom we sometimes imagine.
In the café, I enjoy not standing out. This isn’t Cheers, not everyone knows my name and that’s lovely. My wife is pleased to see me, of course, but doesn’t unfurl a banner. She asks me to do the washing up and I do. The man at the corner shop has the same jokes. A traditional English curry still tastes good. How wonderful to return home to the everyday. This is where the real deal is – not on mountain tops, Goan beaches, or exciting workshops in Bali.
Giving up being special is a luxury. Prophets may have no honour at home, but wankers also get overly praised abroad. The body is ordinary. Magnificently so.
“Let It Be” comes on the radio.
MY GREED
– London, September 2019
Here are my professional embodiment goals:
• Reaching 100 million people on the Internet
• Training 100 facilitators to be better at this work than I am
• Making Embodied Yoga Principles (EYP) available as an option in major yoga studios in 1000 cities in 100 countries
• My grandchildren not understanding why my job existed
All these are well underway. Thank you for your support. “Success” isn’t a dirty word.
AND, my ambition as an embodiment teacher, is also just to take a full healthy breath, before my breath moves on.
WE’RE ALL FROM THE SAME PLACE
– Berlin, January 2019
One grandfather soared in the air and dropped death on Germans. He screamed in his sleep until the day he died. The other was from a fishing village in Ireland. He spent his youth braving U-boats, sweating and shovelling coal in the bellies of warships to get his children to England. His wife held broken bodies from the war as a nurse, and later started a driving school – something as a woman she wouldn’t have been able to do in Ireland at that time. She sent both her boys and girls to university, and cheated on her taxes.
We’re all trying to get somewhere. We’re all immigrants.
My mother and father worked with drug addicts and many, many children. They ran a youth club for kids from West Indian families and ran interracial discos. She started the UK’s first girls’ football team. He cheered for Liverpool Football Club’s first black player, while others threw bananas. He was on the wrong epilepsy drugs his whole life and drank too much, to quiet his head. She was a nun and ate the body of Christ, until they met. I joked with my dad that he was no saint. He’s been dead a year now. I imagine his stooped body in a more peaceful place – though he was an atheist. I’ll scatter his ashes on a hill in his hometown this weekend. We’re all of the earth, eventually.
My cousin and dearest university friend both ended their own lives. I carried her body at her funeral and for a long time. I lit candles for them in Jerusalem, in the heart of a foreign religion. Sometimes, lighting a candle from another flame is all we can do. I dance with her often now, and fight with him from time to time. Bodies go into other bodies. Our dance passes on.
I married a girl from Ukraine. We met because of another war. Cousins break each other’s bodies there, just like the Irish did. My best day’s work was teaching ex-terrorists from both sides in Belfast – at the barracks my uncle was a soldier in during the Troubles. There, people ask you what side of the road you’re from, to see if you’re friend or foe. I travel the world, I’ve sweated in aikido dojos and yoga studios on five continents, and people of all nations come to me these days too. I joke with my quiet, Finnish student that my grandfather said they were good people to have on submarines. I flirt in Russian with an old woman who lived through communism. My grandfather used to sneak food and weapons past Hitler, from the USA, to her parents in the USSR. I train the first teacher in our system from the United States. Someone is speaking German and smiling. I imagine the beautiful children of a mixed-race couple on the course – they live as digital nomads and have more shades of lush brown between them than the fertile, farmland soil where I grew up. Who knows what colour eyes their kids will have, or what land they’ll play in?
I cry the same sea tears as all of them, thinking of family sacrifice and pain. I fire-up the same red blood, like my grandfather in the furnaces. I think of the eyes of a sick Ashkenazi44 mentor – “The same Jew eyes”, Shakespeare or my mentor Don Levine might have said. I hear Paul Linden’s voice making sick jokes about other kinds of furnaces that took members of his family. We reclaim what pain takes, with humour and with love. We need to keep learning this over again it seems. But eyes and hands can meet across the divides. We breathe the same air. Our feet all walk on the same earth. Until we enter it.
We’re all from the body. We’re all from the big body. We’re all from the same place. Enough division.
THE BODY OF MATURITY
– I’m 40. Rural East Anglia.
In the flat green field James hugs me. A smelly man hug, the likes of which you can only have after many years of friendship. He’s a carpenter and reeks of weed and work. His hands are like gnarled wisdom, his face looks ten years older than mine, but our birthdays are days apart, and we’ve known each other since we were both three. Now we’re having our 40th birthday party together. I’ve come home.
James’ kids and partner Kate hug me. They’re excited to see cool uncle Mark and pull on my legs. I’ve been bringing them cool shit from around the world from my work travels for some years. I usually get the oldest, John, knives and skulls and things he loves and hides from his mum.
Daria is here of course too. She hides behind her long dark hair, as the party develops. She can be confident when she needs to be, and is sure tough, but she’s an introvert kitty at heart. She slinks between the shadows and avoids the fuss. She has one paw somewhere else, but will hold me human enough, as she has on many nights now. We heal in love, nothing else.
My sister is here smiling and my niece runs ahead and demands “upside-down hugs” (where I pick her up and spin her around), which are getting more difficult as she gets bigger! I try and be a good influence in her life. We both have ADHD, it turns out. She loves me and I her.
Some colleagues from The Embodied Facilitator Course are here. Some are not, I piss too many people off with my drive and honesty…and the Russians couldn’t make it due to visas, but Lee and Karin are here. He’s a big bearded men’s group leader and she’s a softly spoken Dutch Buddhist. They seem to be sharing a tent this weekend…interesting. I smile. We’ve done a lot of good work together…really changed some lives. God knows how we’ve kept the business afloat for 13 years now! People are starting to regard me as a grown-up and no longer the enfant terrible now, I hear.
I’m still sober of course. I note that my wife and I don’t argue like my parents did. She hints to a story from the Ukraine that doesn’t bear telling. Generation by generation things can get better.
There are a lot of people here and a lot not. Many people that I grew up with are present with their kids. Same faces but with fewer lines. I blow Sally, Kasia and Rachel a kiss on the wind, and tip my glass of juice to my dad, to William Smith Sensei and to Don Levine. I feel them all in me. I’ve come home. I hug Daria again. I breathe. I’m glad we made it.
RESOURCES
There are a range of resources and trainings available if you want to learn more about embodiment. If you’ve enjoyed this book, the first thing I recommend is to go to www.TheEmbodimentBook/extras to get an extra chapter, listen to interviews on the writing process and get my newsletter to hear about future books (there’s already another more or less done, and a third one half written). I have also written several e-books, some of which are freely available online (available for download from www.embodiedfacilitator.com)
If you’re a facilitator looking for embodiment training, see the Embodied Facilitator Course (EFC), which runs annually (www.embodiedfacilitator.com). If you’re a yoga teacher, you may be interested in Embodied Yoga Principles (EYP) training (www.embodiedyogaprinciples.com).
I also recommend books and courses from the influences I’ve mentioned:
• Dylan Newcomb
• Ginny Whitelaw
• Paul Linden
• Richard Strozzi-Heckler
• Stuart Heller
• Wendy Palmer
I have made more videos than I can remember (these are available on my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/IntegrationTraining), and have recorded various workshops and webinars that you can buy at the EFC site. It is often easier to see and hear embodiment techniques on video than to explain them in print so I recommend this medium for actual techniques.
Many of the ideas presented here are also fleshed-out on my podcast, The Embodiment Podcast (freely available at www.embodiedfacilitator.com/the-embodiment-podcast, as well as on iTunes and the usual platforms). Podcast episodes feature me and a host of guests talking about various aspects of embodiment, as well as solo episodes and are great if you like learning on the move.
I also lead The Embodiment Conference, a massive online event, which features many facilitators from a range of embodiment fields. Easy to Google.
Finally, if you’re interested in accessible, in-person, peer-to-peer embodiment training, see if there are any ‘Embodiment Circles’ near you (www.embodimentcircle.com).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Walsh has dedicated his life to embodied learning. He founded the Embodied Facilitator Course (EFC), Embodied Yoga Principles (EYP) and Europe’s first embodied business training company, Integration Training. He has taught in fifty countries and made embodiment available online through a YouTube channel with over 14 million hits. More recently, he founded The Embodiment Podcast, and in 2018, launched the ground-breaking Embodiment Conference, which was attended by over 15,000 people (and 150,000+ are expected in 2020). He has also published articles on numerous websites, such as Elephant Journal, and been featured on many podcasts. As a speaker, he has keynoted the International Coach Federation’s annual UK conference
, and spoke at Moscow State University psychology department.
He has an honours degree in psychology, an aikido black-belt and has trained with various body-mind masters and in many approaches, including yoga (for 25 years), NonViolent Communication, Feldenkrais, conscious dance, Being-In-Movement, Improv, MMA, Leadership Embodiment, body psychotherapy and meditation.
Generally, these days he dedicates himself to teaching other facilitators and mentoring young embodiment teachers, but his past clients include IKEA, Unilever, L’Oréal, Virgin Atlantic, AXA, Shell, Sussex University and The House of Lords. He has also worked in peace and trauma projects in Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the slums of Brazil, East Africa and with the Sierra Leonian Army.
Based in Brighton UK, he likes cats, curry, his wife Daria, and feels ridiculous writing about himself in the third person.
www.facebook.com/mark.walsh.9256
www.instagram.com/warkmalsh
www.twitter.com/warkmalsh/@warkmalsh
APPENDIX
– Beyond mindfulness?
While it makes for a snappy title, I have some caution in presenting the idea of embodiment being ‘beyond mindfulness’, or of presenting mindfulness as just being aware of a body. It is, however, unfortunately, presented like that in various lightweight modern secular expressions, and there are some body-hating parts of traditional Buddhism (which recommend seeing the body as nothing more than a decaying corpse for example), so it is still a fair subtitle.
There is, however, a richer tradition of how mindfulness meets bodily experience and this is worth noting, to be fair and balanced. In some texts, the explicit foundational practice of everything that comes under the umbrella of mindfulness – as laid out in the Satipathana sutta for example – is to establish embodied awareness (yonisomanisikara), literally ‘womby’ attention; attention that suffuses bodily experience, grounded in the belly centre. This is explicitly much more intimate and integrated than just being aware of the body. The first foundation of mindfulness practice is called kayanupassana, which we can translate as ‘tracking bodily experience’, and which the Buddha repeatedly expresses as ‘knowing bodily experience from the inside’. Sometimes ‘knowing the body in the body’ is a translation from the Pali that sounds very much embodied. Traditional Buddhism could, therefore, be argued to be much closer to an embodied approach, despite some very anti-body quotes in early Buddhist texts. Later Buddhism likewise includes both strong body-celebrating elements (e.g. in Tibetan Buddhism and some forms of Zen), as well as transcendent elements that see the body as nothing more than meat to rise above. Equally some early yoga texts can be seen to be very embodied (especially from tantric traditions), while others very anti-body (e.g. some verses from Patanjali’s famous yoga sutras).