My Sense of the Divine Is In My Embodiment

God, whom I prefer to call Living Presence, shows up in the nuances of the Felt Sense of my life.

Living Presence is within me and as such, I feel the subtleties of the invitations to movement, freedom, and healing love. Listening and sensing inward has become my practice of embodiment. This knowing has grown along with me as I have deepened my spiritual life.

This’ Felt Sense Knowing’ has always been apart of me, as far back as I can remember. Though I could not have articulated it then. Hidden, like a precious pearl within me, I was not cognitive of its existence, but there was a shy subtle something. My child-heart longed for union with God. It felt like an ache I couldn’t seem to soothe. Over decades, with self discovery, patience, tenderness and gentle care, the Divine and I have unearthed this hidden pearl together. 

This discovering is my life long journey.

Childhood forms us and from the outside we looked like an average, white, upper middle class family. From the inside there was consistent, volatile conflict. Emotional and sometimes physical abuse was common. Also, from the moment of my conception, I was awash in the amniotic fluid of my mother’s despair, fear, anger and deep sorrow. The very toxic vibrations of our home were absorbed into my body as well as my siblings.

This is not a condemnation of my parents. They did the best they could in the situation they found themselves in and with who they were at the time with their own trauma and embedded cultural lies. Most sad of all is that they chose to stay in dysfunction for 52 years until my mother passed away.

Our bodies take in approximately 70% of the data from our surroundings, sending it to our brain. Our brains take in approximately only 30% of information. Our bodies feel and sense into the environment, the smells, sounds, and sights. They carefully register the facial expressions and movements of the other. They even feel into the nervous systems of the people around them. All this information is sent unconsciously to our brains, which then asks:

Safe or unsafe?

Calm or chaotic?

Rest or run?

Fight or collapse?

Held or neglected?

Seen or unseen?

In order to survive, our bodies adapt our behavior and way of being in such a manner as to keep us safe. This is an incredible intelligence, of which I give God praise!

My mother and father’s nervous systems were in consistent, explosive chaos. This shaped me. And that deep longing for Living Presence, which was already embedded in me, ached, and communicated through subtleties of felt senses. I discovered this first in nature or what I like to call, Mother Earth.

Many of my ‘Felt Sense’ memories of being held, safe, loved and in a state of wonder were found lying in the crook of a pink, feathery mimosa tree. Or it was during the long summer days spent exploring the rocky banks of a rushing, glacial river and its surrounding dark, green forest. It was here that I felt embodied or in myself. Home. It was here in the nuances of the bright, green, inchworm and the wonder of watching it climb up a bough, that the Felt Sense of the Divine came to my awareness. It was an enchanted place, vibrant and alive. It would take me years to understand that I too am a part of nature, created by the Divine. 

I too am vibrant and alive!

When I began to take yoga classes, I knew intuitively this practice was healing to me. I was able to be in my body. This felt sense capacity of what it was to be myself grew. When I studied the Christian mystics, I learned that others long before me, also noticed nuances, and subtleties of Source within themselves and the Divine Presence in the Earth. When I sat with my spiritual director, I was held with such tender, compassionate openness, that I could relax into myself and speak of the things that brought confusion. Bit by bit, clarity came. As I studied trauma and somatic healing, I leaned into trusting my body. It knew what it needed to heal.

I’d sense into my pre-verbal baby-ness by allowing my body to move as it wanted to move. Something would shift. Healing. I’d enter a somatic meditation and sense a larger universal truth about my narrative, which shifted me out of my microscopic story. A reframe. More healing. Sometimes, I was drawn to creating collage or to splatter colorful paints on paper. Maybe a symbol came and I’d draw and refine it, revealing another layer, so that love poured in. Soon, I found a rhythm of listening into the Felt Sense and trusting the flow of Embodied Living Presence within me.

Another name for ‘Felt Sense’ is Interoceptive Awareness. It can be as simple as hearing and feeling your stomach growl with hunger or as subtle as a sense of something behind your heart that feels pained or hurt. This could be a deep emotion that needs tending. The nuanced work is to ‘be with’ the sensation without judgement, agenda or goals. This gives room and space for whatever is there to arise to our awareness. In a sense, it’s what we do as spiritual directors, and we can be with the ‘Felt Sense’ in ourselves. We companion others as they move inward and feel into their inner selves. This Self in Presence and companioning awareness allows Love to enter in and healing to happen. Sometimes it’s such a tiny nuanced expression that I wonder what happened, but later I notice a small transformation.

Writing about this type of experience of Living Presence is difficult. It’s challenging to find words that explain nuances and subtleties. We are body, mind and soul. That’s the whole of us created by God. In the Christian tradition and our Western culture, the body has been ignored for many reasons. Sadly, this has caused disconnection from Self and disconnection from Presence. Despite this, Love is always flowing, showing us through science and spirituality, nature and our bodies that we are made for healing. In fact, another name for God might be ‘Forward Moving Energy’. This to me, is the consistent gentle beckoning of Living Presence towards liberation, healing and love.

I can feel it vibrating in my body right now! Can you?