Embodiment In A System That Benefits From Your Disconnection

If you feel like you’re moving through life on autopilot, disconnected and overwhelmed, this track is for you. It’s a reminder that nothing is wrong with you. The system keeps us chasing, comparing, and pushing through. Here, you’ll be invited to slow down, reconnect with your body, and remember your power. Embodiment is not a luxury. It is a way back to yourself.

Transcript

You wake up,

Immediately check your phone,

Rush through the day,

Checking the tick boxes,

And by the time the day ends,

You feel exhausted.

And you feel like you haven't been the active participant of your own life.

You've been reacting to life.

You've been feeling unautomated,

Disconnected from yourself,

And disconnected from all those around you who you love and care.

And then you feel this guilt in you,

And you're wondering,

What is wrong with me?

Why?

Why am I feeling like this?

I have everything that I could be grateful for,

But I am not feeling it.

I feel numb.

I feel disconnected.

There must be something terribly wrong with me.

My friend,

There's nothing wrong with you.

It's the system.

I'm not saying this to blame something so you become the victim of it.

I'm saying this to invite you into a greater responsibility for yourself.

And this path is not an easy path.

You need to be able to be in your body to be able to create change,

To feel your life,

To feel that you are an active participant of your life.

You are the creator of your life.

And we won't be able to connect to that part of us,

That divine part of us,

If you're being exhausted by the system.

We live in a world that profits from our disembodiment,

From our disconnection,

Where we are busy chasing deadlines.

We're busy chasing the next productive hack.

We're busy with social media and trying to break the algorithm or comparing ourselves with other people and what they have accomplished in our lives and how far behind we are.

The whole productivity culture and the whole consumerism and capitalism.

And worse,

The habit of internalizing all of this and making it as if something is terribly wrong with us.

That's the most disempowered place to be.

And I always say this and I'm going to say it again.

In a system that wants you to survive,

Choosing to thrive is an act of bravery.

In a system that wants to turn you into high-functioning robots,

Remaining human is an act of bravery.

In a system that wants you to be stuck in the perpetual state of stress,

Fear,

Self-doubt,

Choosing to connect to your body,

Trust your body,

And lead with pleasure is an act of leadership.

And the world needs that more than ever today.

If you're here,

You probably already know why our system encourages disembodiment.

The attention economy thrives on keeping us in our head,

Disconnected from our body,

And show us all the things that we don't have and we're missing.

And all the ways that something is wrong with us.

So we stay on our phones,

Doing scrolling,

Every moment that we get to be connected to that greater energy that is present in every single one of us.

Dopamine-driven apps make us attach to our phones and train us in a way that creating a life and envisioning a life almost becomes boring.

Because when you're addicted to that rush of dopamine,

Constant dopamine,

Doing work that is requiring you to go deeper can feel extremely difficult.

The pressure of being productive 24-7,

Disconnected from our bodily cues to an extent that we forget to eat,

We ignore our hunger cues,

We forget to even go pee,

We forget to move our bodies,

And we learn that we gotta push through exhaustion without taking a moment to reflect on what is actually going on on the inside.

What do I actually need?

Growing culture glamorizes doing more at the sake of our well-being.

And you see everybody,

They hit the burnout point and then they decide to create changes.

Why is that?

The beauty and diet culture,

As someone who's been in the health and well-being space for the past nine years,

I've seen it all.

That they tell you,

This is your answer.

And you need to pay this money,

You need to be doing this.

And they have those fear-mongering approaches to get you hooked that make you feel like you don't know what is good for you.

Don't get me started on fast fashion,

Anti-aging products,

All the kinds of surgeries that fuels our obsession with disembodiment,

Our obsession with figuring out all the things that is wrong with us and needs fixing.

And a medical system that thrives on figuring out the symptom and never addressing the root cause of all that we're dealing with.

And we became so lazy that we're looking for those quick fixes because we don't know what we don't know.

And also,

We have a system that makes it really hard to learn and be able to heal ourselves on a fundamental level.

I'm not saying all of these to make you wrong.

I'm saying all of these to remind you that the system benefits from all of that.

And we can be either a victim or step into becoming gods in flesh,

Becoming the creator of our life and becoming the most embodied we've been.

And embodiment is not a destination.

It's a daily choice.

It's a key with all that information that comes at us.

You may wonder,

What is embodiment?

Embodiment is fully living in your body,

Fully being in your body,

Staying connected to your senses,

To your feelings,

To the physical self,

Rather than being stuck in the head in your thoughts.

And I notice for me,

One of the cues that happens is all my energy gets hijacked into my head and I keep thinking,

Evaluating.

And I'm almost always stuck between two things.

The good and the bad.

This or that.

Wrong or right.

Signs of this embodiment could look like moving through the day on autopilot and not feeling present.

Feeling deeply disconnected from yourself and what you're feeling.

Feeling very numb.

I work with a lot of clients that they feel numb more than they feel emotional.

We made emotions so wrong that now our way of surviving is through numbing ourselves.

Ignore our biological needs like rest,

Eating good food,

Going out,

Connecting with people.

Feeling so disconnected from our emotions and like suppressing them long enough that suddenly they start overwhelming us.

Why you being embodied is the most important thing.

You can do for yourself and for the collective.

When you experience embodiment and practice embodiment day in and day out,

What happens?

Your sense of self-awareness and the awareness of the world increases.

You start seeing things that you didn't see before.

You're coming out of that place of victimhood or becoming a follower and feeling that you need to be following specific rules to be feeling whole.

You no longer over-identify with a belief system or with a way of being as your truth.

You realize that you're an evolving human and your belief system,

Your needs,

The way you lead your life can change.

And you get to handle change a lot more effortlessly.

And the most important thing is you're constantly reminded that you're human.

We live in a world that wants to turn us into superhumans or high-functioning robots,

But remaining human gives you humility and trust into something greater than you.

We live in a world that we glamorize not believing in something greater than us.

We're too educated to believe in anything that is of divine.

And it's been a journey of returning to this place of trust and connection to something greater than myself.

From a place of not believing in anything and being a full-on atheist,

And especially coming from a culture that Islam and religion was used to suppress people,

Take advantage of people,

Control people,

Especially women.

It's been a long journey of me retaining to my wholeness.

And only through embodiment,

We can open ourselves to a greater connection of divine.

And when we operate from that place,

And when we bring our wholeness into the space,

When we bring our gift into the world,

The world becomes a better place because you exist.

You feel connection to the world around you,

To the people around you,

To your community.

You're probably going to be giving a lot more to your community because your energy is not coming from the outer world.

Your connection is coming from this right here.

And you recognize that this energy is infinite as long as you're being embodied and honoring your humanness.

The question is,

How can you become more embodied?

What are the practices that you get to incorporate into your life?

I will categorize them in three main categories.

Number one is physical practices.

Number two is emotional practices.

And number three is lifestyle shifts.

So my favorite ways of returning to my body and becoming more embodied is through physical activities,

Like any form of exercise,

Walk outside.

And probably my favorite is dancing.

So you can dance for a minute and see the change in your state,

In your physiology,

And how you feel your senses becoming a lot stronger.

One of my favorite things,

Especially on days that I'm working throughout the day,

And I'm sure so many of you are working as well,

Is doing the Pomodoro technique and dedicating that five-minute break to a dance session and just making a massive party.

And that's going to change how you feel in your body.

You might feel like a lot of emotions are coming out of you.

And I've also seen in my practice,

As many years being a personal trainer,

That sometimes people,

After the session,

They feel like things have been moved through them and some emotions want to come.

That's why I love getting people into mindfulness and meditation practices after a workout session.

I find that to be extremely powerful because they're deeply connected to their human body.

But at the end of the day,

Choose what is accessible to you and what you love to be doing and get yourself moving as frequently as you can.

The other physical practice that I love is breastwork.

Breastwork has changed my life.

I tried so many different modalities of breastwork,

And I teach so many of those modalities myself.

But if you wanted to keep it super simple,

It's like just sitting,

Feet grounded on the floor.

Or if you're sitting on the ground,

Just feeling your bum really touching the ground beneath you.

And starting to inhale and exhale,

Deep,

Soft inhale,

Full exhale out.

And every time you breathe in,

Feeling you're bringing all your energy and attention to your body,

To your breath.

Imagine your breath is the cue to return back to your body.

It's the cue that brings the mind back to the body where it belongs.

So every time you breathe in,

You're landing into your body to slow a bit deeper.

And doing that five minutes every day can be a massive game changer in how you're connecting to your body.

The third thing in the category of physical experiences is sensory awareness.

What is sensory awareness?

It is really activating your five senses.

It's like,

What is it that you're seeing?

Paying attention to the texture,

To the detail of the things that you're seeing.

Maybe the texture of the clothes on your skin.

How does it feel on my skin?

The sensation of air on my skin.

How does it feel on my skin?

When you're eating food,

Just really be feeling and tasting the smell,

Tasting the texture,

Tasting the taste.

And practicing ways in which that you can really cultivate that sense of awareness,

Because we can only be aware of our senses if you're present.

And that awareness of the senses can be a really good clue to come back to the body,

Come back to this present moment.

The next category is emotional practices.

Number one in this category is learning to scan your body.

Just sit still for a second here.

And really bringing your attention to your body right now.

And start scanning and noticing your body from the top of your head,

Sensing the area on top of your head,

On your facial muscles,

The back of your head,

Down around your neck,

Your throat,

Back of your neck,

Your chest,

Your shoulders,

The back of your body,

Your whole spine.

Down into your ribcage,

The back of the ribcage,

The front of the ribcage,

Down into your belly,

Into your pelvic floor,

Witnessing your body,

Feeling that connection to your bum,

To your legs,

Upper legs,

The front and back,

Your knees,

Front and back,

Your shin,

Your calf,

Your ankles,

Your feet,

And the bottom of your feet.

Maybe connect to the breath,

Imagining yourself,

Witnessing yourself from the outer space,

And now bringing that person that is witnessing you on the inside of the body,

Now feeling all that you're feeling on the inside.

Connecting to that body scan from the inside and noticing the difference.

Beautiful work,

Everybody.

The second thing that is super accessible is orienting exercise.

You could also say this is more of a physical exercise,

But I would also feel like that's an emotional exercise as well.

Like you just sit in your room and you start orienting yourself,

Or wherever you go,

Like maybe you go out for a walk,

Instead of maybe looking down on your phone,

Or getting occupied with the thinking mind.

Don't do that.

To look around you and just really seeing everything as they are,

And notice yourself,

Like the thoughts that are coming up,

Or the feelings that are coming up,

And can you be super present with all the things that you're witnessing?

And maybe in your home,

When you feel anxious,

For example,

Or even outside when you feel anxious,

Instead of getting all wrapped up in the head,

Take a few breaths in and start orienting yourself in the room,

Just noticing maybe the picture frame on the wall.

I see my calendar on the wall.

I see a bag on the back of the door.

Maybe I see the painting that I created.

Maybe I look outside of the window,

And in that orienting,

Reminding yourself that you're safe right here,

Right now.

No matter where your thoughts are going to take you,

Just bringing yourself back to the body and to that sense of safety that,

Yes,

There might be some threats,

Or at least my thoughts are projecting that,

But I'm safe here right now.

The third exercise in this category that is probably one of my favorite,

And by far was one of the hardest thing that I learned over the years to do,

And that was allowing the feelings to be.

Because we're so conditioned to try to fix everything or ignore everything,

And the whole positivity notion also made us believe that our emotions,

Or especially negative emotions,

Are wrong.

So we found so many different mechanisms to push them away or ignore them,

Or telling ourselves that I don't want to go to the darkness.

But instead,

Can you hold the space,

Like imagining a child having all their tantrums,

Like they're emotional,

They're exhausted,

They're tired,

Maybe they didn't sleep,

Maybe they didn't have food,

Maybe they didn't get the toy that they wanted,

Whatever that is.

I want you to,

Every time that you feel those emotions coming up,

Becoming that parent to yourself.

And a good parent would allow the kid to feel what meant to be felt.

It's just a wave.

They're going to ride it,

And then they stabilize.

And that's when you provide what the kid actually needs.

Maybe a kid needs to sleep,

And then from that place,

You're like,

Yeah,

I feel you.

I feel you.

What if we go and have some rest and see what happens?

And sometimes,

Obviously,

The kids could be more stubborn,

And you need to be practicing that so you can understand your parenting style and your kid's language,

So what your kid actually needs,

Or the inner kid in this case.

I find when I allow my emotions to come in and I hold space for them,

I can move on a lot quicker.

But when I try to fight with them,

I go to war with them,

I try to fix them,

I try to change them,

I try to discredit them,

Then that's when I get stuck.

Because I don't become this channel for things to move through me.

I get all tensed up,

And I want to go to a war.

If you don't know where to start,

I have an inner child meditation practice on my channel.

You can go check that out.

That could be a good place to start from.

The third thing is lifestyle shift.

And it's probably one of those things that is being more overducked because we're so looking outside of ourselves for solutions and for proving to ourselves all the things that is wrong with us that sometimes we forget to cover the basics.

The basics of having food regularly and find ways to have your blood sugar stable throughout the day,

Maybe by adding more fiber and protein into every meal that you have.

For example,

If you have coffee in the morning,

Can you have something that is filled with fat and fiber or maybe protein before you have that coffee that creates that spike in your blood sugar?

And also throughout the day,

Making sure that if,

For example,

You have sweet or you have fruits that have something that counterbalance that,

That helps the blood sugar.

For example,

If you have a piece of fruit,

Maybe have some nuts with it.

So that allows for a better stability of your blood sugar throughout the day.

And that also helps with a lot of emotional stability as well.

The other thing is having boundaries with your technology.

I find that for me the best way,

Especially with the work that I do,

I still want to create,

I still want to support my community through the work that I do.

I don't have any social media apps on my phone and I don't check social media through my phone and that automatically creates resistance.

And I know when I find my phone nearby,

I'm not going to be distracted by that or I'm not going to be sucked into that.

If you feel like you've been in a phase that you've been intoxicated by fast dopamine,

Maybe a reset can be helpful.

And I find that to be amazing because only in a few days your mood can change significantly when you come off fast dopamine and go back to slow dopamine and resetting your relationship with fulfillment and gratification.

And what does that mean?

It's like instead of starting your day with quick dopamine,

Like social media or notifications and things like that,

Working on a project and moving something forward for yourself,

Maybe you exercise or you work on the project that needs your attention.

So you're putting that effort into something that really shifts your attention from fast dopamine to slower dopamine that is going to be lasting you a lot longer.

The other thing that I highly recommend is getting out in nature.

I know for those of us who live in a colder climate,

It can be really hard.

But even on those days that I feel like the sun is out,

The temperature is a little bit moderate,

Maybe every few days,

I make sure to literally drag myself out into nature and get some fresh air.

And I know in colder season that's a lot harder because we have a lot more resistance to it.

But just really making sure that you're doing that for yourself.

Last thing is rest and play.

It's so funny that we need to tell people that you gotta rest,

You gotta take time off,

Maybe read that little cozy little book that you enjoy reading,

Or do some painting or play music and dance around,

Or maybe just deeply connect to the people around you.

And for me,

It's been very difficult because I moved to a new area,

Into a new country,

And not having friends and community around me has been really difficult.

But my work is to be able to actively take steps towards meeting new people and building that community that I deeply desire.

So where is it that you need to take charge of your rest and play?

If you listened this far,

Thank you,

My friend.

We need you embodied where we're going.

The world needs you embodied more than ever before.

Our future needs you,

Your world,

Your community needs you embodied.

And remember,

You are not a mind living in the body.

You are a body meant to be lived and breathed through and created through.

And I hope you choose to return home to your body,

Where you can find peace,

Where you can process your emotions,

And where you can hold space for all of us as we navigate this human life in a system that wants us to be robots.