Embodied Relationships
Embodiment involves a mutual intention to attend to and communicate from our inner experience. It suggests that the primary source of our self-awareness emerges from a practice of sensing and expressing emotions and needs, recognizing what is happening in our nervous system, and processing our reactions to the world around us. Becoming “embodied” is a process and a practice that never ends. It takes us well beyond the capacity to cognitively understand one another. Karden Rabin states:
“Before embodiment, I knew I loved my wife, after embodiment, I could feel my love for her.”
All About the Practice
Authentic connection involves the capacity to experience and communicate our entire range of emotions. What creates safety and closeness with our partner is our ability to empathize with what they are feeling and vice versa. When couples connect in a way where they feel safe enough to share a multitude of reactions and parts of themselves, they flourish.
As relationships move further into a committed phase, more complex emotions emerge, making communication more challenging to navigate. Becoming more embodied in relationships first starts with ourselves- understanding our own feelings, sensations and reactions to our partner.
In our work, we support couples from moving from protection to connection. We pay close attention to how their protective walls show up somatically, and we work congruently with body, mind and emotions. Embodiment, in this regard, means learning to trust and reveal the signals and messages that emanate from the neck down.
Brian and Marcia Gleason CSW’s, created the Embodied Relationship approach because intimacy is hard to navigate! They have spent the last three decades learning to dissect complex relationship dynamics, and create simple, easy to use concepts and tools for couples, and ourselves! To authentically relate to one another, accessing the wisdom of our embodied selves becomes an imperative.