Embodiment with Self and Community

Got a body?   Checked in with it recently?  Is it integrated with your intellect and spirit?  Have you taken this sense of embodiment out into the larger community? 

Ken Wilber along with Rob McNamara discuss a concept called mature integral consciousness that I'm going to attempt to share with you today.  My level of embodiment has grown over the years, but is far from perfect.  I struggle with these concepts on a daily basis.  Here we go. 

The three circles above symbolize the three processes of Embodiment.  To embrace requires outward movement:  arms stretched out and around or a mind extended outward encompassing complimentary and contradicting polarities of experience.  To inhabit demands being inside:  inside your body, not outside looking in.  It is an intimate, multidimensional experience of inner you.  The last process is movement.  It is a dynamic process of ebb and flow within human form.  It is a creative cycle that underlies your most intense sense of what it means to be alive. 

Lets take this theoretical baby for a walk.  Homeless man approaches me while I stand on an empty subway platform, waiting for a train home.  He lunges forward to grab my bag off my shoulder.  In that exact moment of extreme stress I'm outside mentally looking at the situation and not inhabited within.  Nothing about the interaction feels real or authentic.  Separation has occurred and is part of my mechanism to combat the many conflicting polarities of thought involved.  Later, maybe I'll replay the scene and inhabit and integrate the experience.  Or maybe I'll choose to ignore that piece of the three pronged embodiment experience. 

Over time, choosing not to inhabit the body in stressful situations becomes habitual, destructive, unproductive.   Disengagement occurs not only within the self but in the larger community. 

Theoretical baby takes another walk in the park.  Same homeless man, same subway platform, same lunge forward to grab the bag.   I recognize and inhabit within myself in that split second all of the conflicting sensations and thoughts, embrace the possibility of mental and physical contact with the homeless man as well as move my body and mental options around for a win, win outcome.  Is he hungry?  Compassion kicks in and I offer him the left over sandwich from lunch while moving away both from the tracks and the guy.  He takes the sandwich, my train comes and I'm embodied in the moment as I head on home. 

What fascinates me about this embodiment model is the act of integration into balanced and mature consciousness.  Also the recognition that embodiment is community oriented.  When I'm embodied I don't stand in a mental, physical or spiritual vacuum.  I stand integrated with the community as well.