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“There is a point where, in the mystery of existence, contradictions meet: where movement is not all movement and stillness is not all stillness; where the idea and the form, the within and the without, are united; where infinite becomes finite, but not.” - Rabindranath Tagore "To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe." “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” –Viktor Frankl |
Embodied Mindfulness: A Somatic Approach to Lively Stillness
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At the stillpoint of the turning world, there the dance is.
And without the point
that stillpoint
there would be no dance
and there is only the dance. - T.S. Eliot
What if stillness wasn’t the absence of movement but the fullness of presence? What if mindfulness wasn’t a silent observer, but a body humming with aliveness?
Welcome to Embodied Mindfulness - an easily repeatable daily sitting practice designed for the modern body/mind.
Developed by Jamie McHugh over the past 25 years, this somatic approach to lively stillness uses focused somatic activities of breath, vocalization, self-contact, and movement to occupy the mind so the body can settle.
This attention to the body is a sensate respite from the outer world. Repeated over time, respite becomes a predictable reality. As conscious stillness embeds in the nervous system, the brain reconfigures its stress responses, taking the edge off of life’s challenges.
"There’s a swing and sway in the breath that replicates the swing and sway of emotional and mental responses. People can experience their stories in a less emotionally charged way, find new pathways for problem solving, and find acceptance of their circumstances, without falling into the numbness of dull resignation or the problematic dynamic of impulsive reactivity. Embodied Mindfulness practices access the wisdom of the body, shifting that wisdom from the localized sensations of the movement of breath to the globalized array of choices available for change in one’s life."- Kate Cleary, Embodied Mindfulness practitioner, dance artist and poet
Read about Embodied Mindfulness and its origins HERE
Attend Embodied Mindfulness Foundational Module 1 here
Explore Embodied Mindfulness Leadership Certification Online Training here
Find Certified Embodied Mindfulness practitioners HERE
Purchase an Embodied Mindfulness audio HERE
Jamie McHugh
"We have a rich cross-cultural legacy of both contemplative and expressive practices at our disposal. How do we draw upon and update them to meet the conditions of the modern mind living in an industrialized body within an urban environment?" -Jamie