Embodied Awareness: Can Early Deprivation Cause Someone To Lose The Ability To Experience Embodied Awareness?

Although someone has a mental, emotional and physical self, they might typically only be aware of the thoughts that are in their head. In fact, they might even see themselves as a being that is purely mental.

This is going to mean that they won’t have a good connection with their body. By being this way, they can often experience a lot of ‘negative’ and automatic thoughts.

Out of Control

If so, their mind is going to cause them a lot of problems and make it very difficult for them to be at ease. Another part of this is that they could often experience a fair amount of anxiety.

The feelings that they do experience, can relate to more surface-level feelings such as frustration and anger. Being this way is going to make it hard for them to live a fulfilling life.

Exte
al Support

Sooner or later, they could come to the conclusion that they need help to change how they experience life. If they were to reach out, they could end up having cognitive behavioural therapy.

This is then likely to be a time when the point of focus will be on what is taking place in their mind and their behaviour. If so, what is taking place in their body will be overlooked.

The Main Area

But, if they do mention how they feel or their sensations, they could be told that their feelings and sensations are a consequence of what is taking place in their mind. Their mind or their conscious sense of themselves will then be the part of them that is in control.

In other words, when it comes to change, their thoughts will be what matters, not their feelings and sensations. Now, after following this route and changing what is going on in their mind, they might become more settled but they are unlikely to become more connected to themselves.

Going Deeper

The reason for this is that for them to be connected to their feelings and sensations, they are likely to have a lot of pain to work through. It is likely to be this pain that played a big part in pushing them out of their body and caused them to live on the surface of themselves.

At one stage of their life, then, it is likely that it was too painful for them to feel and take life in, so they had to disconnect from it. But, while this would have taken away their ability to deeply feel and embrace life, it would have also kept them alive.

Another Part

Therefore, they had to adapt in this way to survive and keep it together and function. However, even though this would have separated them from their body, the pain that is held there won’t lie dormant.

No, this pain will put a lot of pressure on their conscious mind and this will cause them to experience ‘negative’ and automatic thoughts and anxiety, among other things. Their busy mind will be a reflection of the fact that they have a busy body.

Unclear

This illustrates how much of an impact their unconscious mind is having on their conscious mind. The reason that a cognitive behavioural therapist wouldn’t realise this can be because they are also in a shut down and disconnected state.

This type of therapy, with its focus on the mind, can be seen as something that has been birthed from a place of disconnection, not connection. Still, this is not to say that changing thinking patterns, beliefs and behaviour is not important, but, what is taking place in the mind and behaviourally is often an outgrowth of what is taking place in other areas of the brain and body.

Way Back

When it comes to the stage of their life that separated them from their body, this could have been during their formative years. This may have been a time when they were neglected and abused in a variety of different ways.

Either way, this would have caused them to be deprived and deeply wounded. Due to how underdeveloped they were, they wouldn’t have been able to handle the pain that they experienced.

A Natural outcome

If they were connected to their body when they were born and their time in their mother’s womb and their birth wasn’t overly stimulating, this would have gradually changed. As they were powerless and totally dependent, they couldn’t change was what going on or to find another family.

Their only option was to lose touch with themselves and what their senses were telling them and lose touch with reality in the process. Over time, being in a disembodied state would have become the norm and they wouldn’t have realised that they were estranged from themselves.

An Analogy

One way of looking at this would be to say that at one stage they were sitting in a car and as time passed, they ended up sitting on top of the car. This would have taken away the protection, comfort and, strength that they had and replaced it with a sense of vulnerability, discomfort, and weakness.

It is likely to take time for them to get back into their body and to not only be aware of their thoughts but to be connected to how they feel and their sensations. They are likely to have a lot of pain to face and work through.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for exte
al support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.