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What is Embodiment? Embrace Slow Living to Reconnect with Yourself
- Vanessa Marie
- Oct 17
- 7 min read
Your body feels it before you consciously notice it. The tightness along your spine, the restless hum in your stomach, the weight pressing at your temples.
You’ve been moving through your day without pause. There’s an undercurrent, a constant pull, a subtle tension you can’t ignore.
Your body is listening, waiting for you to pay attention to the sensations.
And when you begin to notice how it feels to live inside your own body, your awareness stretches beyond tasks and lists. Your subjective experience guides how your choices ripple through your body, how simple movements and pauses shape your feminine energy. It is not about doing something new, but about sensing, responding, and living each moment fully.
That attention is the doorway to embodiment.
What is Embodiment?
In contemporary psychotherapy, embodiment implies prioritizing our physical awareness – learning to notice our body, our emotions, and our needs in real time, as the primary path for emotional healing, growth, and transformation.
French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty laid the groundwork for this idea. He saw the body as more than a machine, understanding it as the central way we experience the world, where perception, thought, and feeling are all intertwined.
Today, embodiment is used across psychology, neuroscience, and somatic studies to highlight how closely mind and body are connected. It’s not just a concept but a lived practice – slowing down, paying attention to yourself, and responding with awareness.
Embodiment helps you connect to your whole self and make choices that feel aligned, even when the world around you is moving quickly.
In personal growth or coaching, it often refers to living a truth or value, not just understanding it intellectually. For example, someone might embody confidence not by saying “I’m confident,” but by standing tall, speaking clearly, and moving in ways that reflect self-assurance.
In a broader sense, embodiment connects your mind, emotions, and physical presence. It’s about being grounded and aware of what’s happening in your body—your sensations, breath, posture—and letting that awareness guide how you show up and respond to life.
What is Slow Living?
What does slow living mean for you?
Slow living doesn’t mean doing less. It means living with attention and intention. Asking how to live a slow life becomes a practice of noticing, choosing, and acting from a place of clarity. This ability to truly take notice is called emotional regulation.
Emotional regulation is central to embodiment, helping you understand your body’s signals and respond with awareness rather than reacting automatically. Practicing emotional regulation supports slow living and helps you move through your day with clarity, balance, and self-trust.
Embodiment practices are the tools that help you slow down and connect with your whole self. These practices can be as simple as mindful pauses during your day or daily anchoring exercises.
Part of this connection comes through somatic embodiment, which specifically focuses on feeling your body’s sensations and tuning into what your nervous system is signaling. It allows you to notice tension, comfort, and energy shifts that often go ignored in a busy life. Feeling safe in your body allows these sensations to be received fully, creating a sense of wholeness and balance.
When slow living becomes intentional, every action becomes meaningful. Even small choices, like taking a moment to breathe before a meeting or savoring your morning tea, reinforce your commitment to live life slow. Ask yourself, what do I need in this moment to feel fully present?
Feminine Embodiment and Living Well
Feminine embodiment isn’t about appearances or perfection, it’s about honoring your whole self. By slowing down, you create space for self-trust, confidence, and self-esteem to flourish. Incorporating embodiment practices helps you align your daily habits with your body’s needs, making nourishing choices, that support a high vibration as you move through your day.
When you live with intention, you notice how restorative habits, spacious days, and simple rituals feed your energy. Feminine embodiment invites curiosity about your experience: how am I showing up for myself today?
Feminine embodiment supports emotional regulation by encouraging connection to your body and your decisions in a consistent, centered way.
How to Live a Slow Life Through Embodiment
Slowing down allows embodiment to take root. Ask yourself, what is slow living to me? Learning how to embrace slow living means choosing an unhurried life over constant movement, making time for presence over pace. Embodiment practices help you engage fully in this process, teaching your nervous system that it’s safe to pause, rest, and reset.
Mindful Shifts to Support Embodied Living
Journaling: Note feelings, energy, and bodily sensations.
Check-in questions: Pause and ask, “What do I feel? What do I need?”
Affirmations: Repeat statements that reinforce self-trust and presence.
Visualization: Imagine moving through your day with ease and awareness.
Reflective pauses: Pause before decisions to respond from awareness.
It’s less about stopping completely and more about creating intentional pauses to tune in. You can practice this even in small moments—like before a meeting, during a walk, or while drinking your morning coffee.
Incorporating these habits through slow living helps strengthen embodiment practices, making it easier to live at a slower pace without guilt or stress.
Embodiment in Everyday Life
You might wonder, how can I practice embodiment every day? It starts with noticing your physical body and mind. Embodiment practices can be brief but impactful: a few deep breaths, stretching, or simply feeling your feet on the ground.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I thrive on days I can walk outside in nature. Stepping away from my desk, and from duties at home, is a loving choice I make for myself.
Mindfulness in the form of movement is a gift that, when practiced regularly, makes it easier to integrate embodiment practices into your routines. Soon you will embrace slow living as it will become second nature, and questions like how to live a slow life feel less theoretical and more practical.
10 Embodiment Practices to Add to Your Daily Routine:
Stretch during breaks or after sitting for long periods.
Take micro-pauses throughout the day to relax tension in your jaw
Step outside for a short walk to connect with nature.
Move or sway intuitively to music.
Notice your posture while sitting at your desk or doing tasks.
Pause before responding to a message or starting a new task.
Practice mindful drinking of water, noticing its sensation.
Take moments to feel your heartbeat or breathing, especially after stress.
Engage in daily grounding rituals, like pressing your feet into the floor.
Move your body intentionally with gentle stretches or walking.
Taking actions like these, cultivate feminine and somatic embodiment helping you live life slow while staying connected to your body.
Disembodiment: Losing the Connection with Self
Disembodiment happens when we move through life disconnected from our body, often acting on old patterns or limiting beliefs rather than our true needs.
The body knows when it is hungry, thirsty, in pain, or in need of rest and care. When we lose that connection, we lose access to its guidance and wisdom.
Neuroscience shows that when the nervous system is overstimulated or chronically stressed, the brain can down-regulate bodily awareness as a protective response. You might feel numb, detached from your sensations, or unaware of tension, fatigue, or subtle stress signals.
Other signs include difficulty identifying emotions, reacting impulsively, or feeling disconnected from your decisions and desires.
The Pathway to Self-Trust
Embodiment can be a pathway to self-trust. When you are fully aware of your body—your sensations, emotions, and impulses—you start to recognize what feels authentic and what doesn’t. Over time, tuning into your body helps you notice subtle signals about what’s safe, right, or aligned for you.
By responding to these signals consistently, you begin to rely on your own internal guidance rather than external validation or overthinking. That consistent alignment between your awareness and your actions is essentially self-trust.
Why Embodiment Requires Slowing Down
Developing true embodiment usually requires slowing down. When life is rushed or constantly distracted, it’s hard to notice subtle sensations, emotions, or intuitive nudges in your body. Slowing down allows you to:
Feel your body: Recognize tension, comfort, excitement, or discomfort.
Notice patterns: Observe how you react to situations physically and emotionally.
Respond instead of react: Make choices from awareness rather than habit or impulse.
Build trust: Over time, noticing your body’s signals strengthens confidence in your own guidance.
When you slow life down, your nervous system can regulate itself, your energy aligns, and your emotional clarity increases. Slowing down gives you access to intuitive insight and self-trust.
Through embodiment, you can feel your internal feedback, notice tension or ease, and learn how your body communicates. These moments support feminine embodiment and help answer the question, what is embodiment in practical, lived experience.
Creating spacious days and prioritizing nourishing choices strengthens your connection to your body. By honoring your nervous system’s need for rest, embodiment helps you respond thoughtfully instead of reacting.
Daily grounding, restorative habits, and balanced flow encourage presence over pace. Feminine embodiment encourages self-reflection and awareness, reminding you that whole self-care and living well become easier when you consistently slow down.
Life Coaching to Support Slow Living
Life coaching provides a space to slow your pace and reconnect with yourself, guiding you through embodiment practices to help you feel less stuck or unsure about where you are in your current life path and exactly how to reach your goal.
Through embodiment practices, coaching helps you recognize what your body and emotions are asking for and respond with awareness.
It’s about learning how to live a slow life while honoring your energy, your needs, and your boundaries so we can fully experience the world around us.
By prioritizing presence over pace, life coaching helps you make intentional decisions and fully embrace living life slow while cultivating a sustainable and fulfilling well-being.
Bringing It All Together
Embodiment, slow living, and slowing down are deeply connected. Practicing embodiment helps you live intentionally, connect with your body, and respond thoughtfully to life’s demands.
Ask yourself: Am I living with presence over pace? Am I making choices that honor my whole self?
Each pause, slow breath, and mindful action reinforces slow living while building self-trust and self-empathy.
By slowing down and embracing embodiment, you create a life that is nourishing, balanced, and aligned with your true needs. Listening to your body and responding with awareness allows you to reconnect more deeply with who you are.
Life coaching can support this process, guiding you through embodiment practices to help you feel less stuck and more confident in your decisions. It’s about honoring your energy, your needs, and your boundaries, while learning to live a slower, more intentional life.
If you’re interested in how I apply embodiment and slow living through my framework, Awaken the True You™, or want to explore my coaching program, you can learn more here: Vanessa Marie Life Coach.
