INTEGRAL EMBODIMENT
In 2021 I founded the concept of Integral Embodiment as I was exploring bodywork and embodiment practices, trying to find a system that unified movement practices, various bodywork modalities and somatic awareness.
As I took this holistic approach to body-based practices and self-development, the idea started to develop.
The term Integral comes from Ken Wilber’s ‘Integral Theory’: a meta-theory that seeks too unify all theories of reality and the human experience into a complete, integrative framework.
It’s something that has influenced all aspects of my personal growth and professional life.
However, as I developed the concept further, it dawned on me that Integral Embodiment was much rather an approach to personal transformation than it was just a holistic system of body-based practices.
Integral Embodiment as a coaching framework addresses 3 levels: the mental level (shifting your dominant world paradigms); the psycho-emotional level (healing your unhealed wounds); and the embodiment level (turning your insights into a lived-reality).
Integral Embodiment is also an evolving system that captures how to approach embodiment from an integral lens; as well as how to embody integral stages of consciousness. Although a current focus, it's area of application is not limited to men's work.
The Philosophy is expressed in its terms:
Integral = to be whole; having all the parts that are necessary to be complete
Embodiment = to express something in tangible form
Integral Embodiment = to express wholeness / completeness through the body
This is the kernel of all human development. But why is this so applicable for the people-pleaser / nice-guy?
Due to his internalised shame, the nice-guy is someone who hides from showing their wholeness. Their darker sides, their weaker sides.
They struggle to integrate the sides which they believe would cause discomfort in others, and they are thereby relegated to the shadows were they then wreak havoc as they seep through in unconscious behavior patterns.
Nice guys struggle to integrate the aspects of themselves which would give them the power to live the truly fulfilling life they yearn for.
Yet, whilst being unintegrated, those traits remain underdeveloped, their power is never tapped into and the nice guy remains stuck. Integrating these shadows is to become whole, it is to become empowered. Becoming integrally embodied is the nice-guy’s healing path.