Inhabiting

In Awakening in Life the word ‘inhabiting’ is the favored term over embodiment simply because embodiment might be taken to only refer to our individual, somatic body. However, inhabiting includes collective we-bodies, as well as the planet and universe we all share as a world-body.

Inhabiting and embodiment is the experiential meeting point of all of our humanity. We awaken to timeless presence in a body. We heal in a body. We relate to others and the world in our body (individual and collective bodies). Our ways of understanding the world develop and evolve in a body. We live as a part of this planetary body.

Because of this, the practice of inhabiting does not rely so much on a stage model of development, but instead is considered a permeating practice and principle that pervades all practice and experience, and a practice that continues without end given that we and the world continually change.

Even if we were to develop a stage model of inhabiting, this body and the world will change, and we will have to own, integrate, and live as this new emerging body. As such, the aim is to continually anchor ourselves in our body(ies) in all practice and experience.