Embodiment, Prayer, and Mindfulness
[00:00:00] Welcome to Rose. One topic I talk a lot about in my coaching work and my work with clients, and my own personal life is embodiment; I speak about it so much because this has been one of the most key components for my personal healing journey, and I can't stop talking about it with everyone I meet.
Being present within our bodies is a gift that most people don't seem to have. I know I didn't have it until a few years ago, and when I started to understand what embodiment is and to experience it myself, everything started to change. So I'm just gonna take some time today to talk about embodiment, what it is, what somatic work is.
And how it affected me in my life and how it might even help you in your life, especially when I embed it within the context of Islam as [00:01:00] religion, as a practice. Islam is an Orthodox religion as well as Orthodox, but Islam really is tpr, which means a religion that follows a certain set of practices as well as beliefs.
Islam is a very embodied religion. It's just that Muslims aren't often taught to see it that way. Now, Muslims who pray and who follow Islamic rituals are moving their bodies because they've been taught that way. But are they actually understanding and experiencing what it means to move your body as a way to remember and praise God?
Most aren't. So I wanna talk about my embodiment journey and then how that fits into my identity and practice as a Muslim and how it might impact your life as well. Now, as I've [00:02:00] discussed before, for many years, I was an academic and a professor, and I was a person of the mind. I loved. Reading and writing and thinking and analyzing and deconstructing and spending a lot of time understanding text, understanding films, deconstructing them to understand their perspective, what they had to offer, and playing them in dialogue with other scholars, with other primary sources.
I a lot of time reading medieval Arabic texts, Persian texts, really beautiful historical texts, mystical texts, poetry, literature, philosophy, and theology. I spent a lot of time reading a lot of books, a lot of manuscripts, a lot of different forms of text, and then writing my analysis [00:03:00] of them. Where was I during that time?
During those years as an academic, as a student, graduate student, then professor, I lived my mind. I was neglecting my personal wellbeing. My health was pretty poor during those years. I fed my mind well. I had good conversations with people. I read good books. My personal life wasn't so great. I was in a marriage that drained me, that sucked all my life energy, and I didn't even know why.
I always was tired, and I couldn't focus. that's for another story.
But as much as academia and being intellectual fed me and nourished me and nourished my mind, there's something missing that I didn't realize. That was being in my entire body and not just my mind. Now, academics, we treasure our minds. We praise other people for their [00:04:00] intelligence. They're always competing with one another to show who's smarter, who can name drop, more scholars, more theories.
That was tiring for me. I kept up in academia because I have really strong grit. Really strong willpower, not because I'm the smartest person in the room kept up because I couldn't quit. I wouldn't let myself quit. I worked a lot more than other people, perhaps, and I think my work was really inefficient too.
So maybe that's why I worked more. I didn't have good focus organization. I didn't feel good physically, and all that led to me using my time inefficiently when I was in academia. Because I just thought if I worked harder, if I read more if I just spent more time on a computer, my work would be better.
What I didn't realize is that if I spent time taking care of other parts of my life, especially my body, maybe that would help me actually succeed, have better focus, feel better, have clearer thinking, and so on.
[00:05:00] So the process began. I remember that when I left my ex-husband, I was so lost and devastated having to transition to being a full-time single mother. He quickly moved across the country. I had to do everything on my own and a long commute. I was exhausted. My son was very young. He was a toddler in preschool when I became a single mother.
I was burnt out beyond comprehension, and I didn't understand why. I didn't know the solution. I did start with a therapist a couple years before I left my ex-husband; that did help. My therapy was talk therapy. It was conventional talk therapy. It helped me understand my thought process but didn't go beyond that.
One of the most powerful experiences I had when I became a single mother was taking a self-defense class at my local martial arts studio. And I started to learn some self-defense techniques, but a large part of it was [00:06:00] kickboxing. And I just remember we go around kicking with our punches, with our arms and wrists and with our legs, the big punching bags, and it felt.
So good to let out my anger and frustration, and grief on that punchy bag. It felt amazing. I didn't understand why. I didn't understand the psychology behind it, but I just know how cathartic it felt, how amazed I felt in that martial arts studio. That was really opening for me. I remember then sometime around that time, I also started with a somatic therapist who was such a gift to me in my life.
I'm still so grateful, and occasionally, I'm still in touch with her. She opened me up to the possibilities of understanding my body, being in touch with my body, letting my body. Express itself. And now, it might seem silly because a lot of people are already very in touch with themselves and their bodies without thinking about it.
But in my case, I was really suppressed. I didn't dance. I hardly did [00:07:00] exercise at this point. I mainly sat at my desk. I went for walks occasionally; I mainly sat at my desk and did my work at my office or at my home. I didn't know much about my body except that it was often in pain. It didn't serve me well, and I didn't know how to take care of it well.
Yeah, I had a good diet relatively. I've been a vegetarian for most of my life. I had a decent diet, probably not as good as it could have been. But I wasn't truly taking care of it. I didn't understand what it meant to be my body. I remember she would ask me to do things like roar, yell or move my body in a way that could express inner feelings.
God, that was hard. That was really hard for me. I didn't move. I felt so uncomfortable to me.
I think that as a Muslim, especially when I was quite conservative, more very modest clothing, very loose clothing, I was able to hide my body so no one could object. Defeat, [00:08:00] objectify me, as I like to say, but also because I could hide my body and hide even my connection to it. I always avoided dancing, even if I went to the Women's section of a wedding where all the women were dancing.
I always refused. I said I couldn't dance, and I never had the confidence to learn. I don't know why I thought dancing was impossible for me my entire life. Remember trying dancing out when I was a kid. Maybe in middle school, high school, I might have gone to a couple dances, but I was so embarrassed by my inability to dance.
It's funny because I think I remember in high school, I was learning how to swing dance. I used to take lessons, but some along the way. I think when I came into Islam and was connected and deeply meshed with my ex-husband, I lost all connection, and the sense of embodiment was lost during all those years because clearly I had a little bit more when I was younger before him.
And so the path to embodiment for me was the healing from that very difficult and [00:09:00] abusive marriage, healing from the shame. That I experienced, that I embodied, or that I was inculcated within me when I became Muslim and not just Muslim. It wasn't Islam that did this to me. It was certain kinds of Muslim perspectives and viewpoints that I really found were very damaging to me.
That women should not be seen, should not be heard. Our bodies are shameful. Therefore, we have to cover ourselves because of the shame associated with our bodies and our voices; everything about us is shameful. Therefore, let's just ignore and hide away our bodies ourselves. So there's a lot more depth to unpack here, but you just get the sense of what I was struggling with and what I had to work through in my healing journey.
So when I was working with my mathematics therapist, like I said, she would have me role play and reenact inner emotions through my body, and it felt so awkward. Slowly, I began to understand it [00:10:00] more, and slowly, I began to do more things.That felt really good. Now I've been doing yoga, and I used to go to the gym.
It's not like I neglected my body, but I started to take that more seriously. When the pandemic started, I had a daily yoga practice with a group of other single mothers on Zoom. For a year or even more every day. Most of us would be meeting regularly to carry out a short yoga practice.
That felt amazing. That year I felt really good Physically. I was doing Pilates, I was doing yoga. I. Felt good. Just felt good to express myself. Now, ever since I moved to Turkey over two years ago, I've also been working on things about my body. I do different things for the sake of my body. I enjoy walking.
I enjoy getting massages. I enjoy cuddling my son. I enjoy cuddling the cats, and I continue my somatic work. In fact, recently, I even started with a new healing approach. [00:11:00] Somatic dialogue. Working with a young Turkish woman who's helped me get into my body even more. This work never ends, and the more skills and methods, and approaches I learn, the better able I'm able to bring this into my life and share it with my clients as well.
Now, what's been really powerful, the more I learn and embody my body, the more I step into my body and feel its presence, the more I can share with others. It's the most powerful thing is learning to live through my body. And not just my mind. The thing is, have you ever noticed that when you're thinking, and you're overthinking, it's hard to make a decision.
You're always confused; you just can't get clarity. You're bullying yourself, whatever it is. Our minds are confused. Our inner critics are loud. It's hard to have self-compassion. The thing is with the body and never lies. So our body's a much more trustworthy companion to have in learning to live our lives.
Whereas our mind takes a lot of battling, even in SOAs, and we call it , our minds are ego is all [00:12:00] part of this intellectual side. Our body. Is a side that's the more natural side, the side that actually tells the truth. But the thing is, most of us modern humans can't read. We can't hear, we can't understand our bodies.
So my advice to you is to learn how to read, listen to and understand what your body is telling you. The more you can be within your body and listen to it, the more you'll have deeper intuition, the more you'll be able to make decisions that feel good to you. The more you'll walk through this world feeling confident, feeling attuned to your own energy, to that of others, to knowing what's good for you, what's not.
What's really interesting about how this connects to Islam is that, again, like I said, Islam is an ortho prax religion. It's a religion that has a set of practices. Now, for example, you take Christianity's practices in terms of prayer are not formulaic. Different Christians pray differently. Some are just sitting, and [00:13:00] they can pray anywhere.
The Catholics have a more formal way of praying, but there's no set formula for how Christians pray. Unlike Muslims, wherever you go in the world, there are slight differences between Shia and other Muslims. But overall, all Muslims are gonna have the same. Set of movements when they pray, the same way that they hold up their hand when they make Noah when they make applications.
How beautiful is that? A Muslim can walk into a mosque, into a Muslim community anywhere in the world, and they'll be able to join it. The same goes mainly for Jews, depending on what level of religiosity there are. But for Muslims, it's amazing. I've been to mosques around the world. Never need to worry about it.
The prayer movements, I know what's gonna happen with slight differences between Sunni and she practices, and a few of the schools a lot within Sunni Muslims. So our religion is in a body religion. We're commanded to move our bodies intentionally, [00:14:00] mindfully, five times a day if we so choose and if it's part of our daily practice.
How beautiful is that? literally, we have a commandment from God in the Quran to move our bodies? First of all, to purify our bodies with water, which is the universal way of purification, of cleansing one's mind and body. Then we make the intention. So we make intellectual intention, reminding our mind that we're gonna be quiet now and focus on the body.
And then we recite with our tongue some prayers in Arabic, some verses of the Quran. And we move our body in amazing ways, in ways that many of us know resemble yoga asez or positions as many people like to talk about. The positions of Salat and prayer are really remarkable. In that, a lot of healers and somatic practitioners who have nothing to do with Islam, who know nothing about Islam, recommend similar positions. When we're on, when we're kneeling on the ground with our four [00:15:00] heads on the carpet or on the ground, our hands, we're in submission, just giving ourselves to God. What a beautiful act of submission it is with our bodies.
We're literally acting out what submission to God. This means rather than just praying like this, being on our ground, giving ourselves up to the divine, how beautiful is that? How beautiful would it be if, instead of prayers being mechanical and having a sense of burden ,many Muslims associate with prayer?
Prayer seems so difficult for so many Muslims. Nearly every single Muslim I speak to struggles with carrying out their daily prayers. If you're a Muslim, you might relate to this, right? Why is it so difficult? Why? Because of the way we're taught about prayer, be it if you were born and raised as a Muslim or if you became a Muslim later on in your life as a young person or as an adult.
We're taught about prayer. Intellectually. We're taught; here's the set of prayers. You do these movements; you pray. That's it. The [00:16:00] thing with Muslim scholars is that they're intellectuals. They're not embodied practitioners, right? But they're teaching us an embodied practice as well as just regular Muslims who teach their children.
They're teaching us an embodied practice without teaching us an embodied part, what it really means. Yes, we understand the intention. What does it mean to pray with intention, with deep mindfulness? What does it mean before we start to pray? We did a very quick mindfulness breath practice, and what if, while we're praying, we really took a moment to understand what it means, what each gesture, what each position means during our prayer practice.
When we're doing this, what does that mean? We, Jude, what does that mean? What if we really intentionally. Took this gentle approach, this mindful approach that every moment of the prayer practice, our mind and body, our union, our in mindfulness, and we are in complete [00:17:00] submission and attentiveness.
To the divine. What would that mean? That might sound nice, right? Nice to you. If you're a Muslim, yeah, it's really hard to pray. I enjoy it, and when I pray, I feel so good. Yeah, because you're doing this embodied practice. It's a somatic practice. You're reciting Quran and Arabic, which is a very healing practice.
You're doing some physical movement, you're making attention, and the goal is to be mindful. That's what prayer is. It's a mindfulness practice with some Arabic prayers. It's nothing different than other prayer practices and other traditions. Now, the Quran recommends that Muslims pray doesn't.
They pray throughout the day because what is it? A lot of Muslims pray because they've been told that if they don't pray, there are dire consequences, though. They should be scared of the fear of punishment of fire and brimstone. I used to have similar fears. I was. Caught by people who had these fears about [00:18:00] prayer, and I was scared about if I ever stopped praying what would happen.
But what I've tried to do in the past years on my healing journey is instead of being scared of prayer, I've tried to realize that this is a gift given to me by the divine. It's an age-old tradition. That's been proven to work. I have a set of tools given to me. It's the same as any other somatic practice, but here I have some really ancient ones that are more than the 1400-year-old traditional practices that resonate with me.
I feel deeply drawn to prayer in Islam when it feels good, and the more I approach it with intentionality, the better it feels. So I've been given this gift. God doesn't need me to pray. God doesn't. Want me to pray for the sake of God. God doesn't need anything from me, but God gave us this act of prayer throughout the day because it helps us and us alone.
No one benefits from us praying. No one except ourselves because it gives us a short break in the middle of the [00:19:00] day, in the middle of this material world where we got to just commit and make our intention just. To the divine and remembering that divine, what a gift that is, how beautiful that is.
So my proposal is that we. Reframe our sonian prayer, connecting it to somatic work embodiment, and as I work on this more, as I have conversation partners who I speak about this with, as I journal about it, as I practice it myself and try out different things to see what feels best, to what, feel, help, to see what helped me feel the most present.
In different ways of approaching this. It's really healing for me because there was a time that prayer was deeply beautiful and just gave me so much, and that there was a time that prayer felt mechanical and like a burden. And I'm really working. There's a time that I did stop praying, or I prayed minimally because I just didn't feel good anymore.
I didn't know what to [00:20:00] do. And now I'm working on having prayer feel good. And, of course, not at all times, it feels good, but I realize what a gift I have from the tradition I've chosen to be part of a set of tools. Yes, we can take tools from other modern somatic practitioners, people like Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of somatic Experiencing Practice, for example. But what a gift. We have this ancient set of tools from Islam. And if you're Jewish or Christian or Boo or Hindu, you already have a set of tried and true tools for meditation, for mindfulness, for prayer that, if you approach them with a certain perspective, can be mind-blowing and body-changing.
Just think about that for a moment. Think about it more. For more than a moment. I actually invite you at the end of this episode; perhaps sit with yourself for a moment. Take some time to see how it felt for you to think about prayer and embodiment and what it [00:21:00] means to be in your body, to listen to your body to act.
In this world, in attuned with your body, what would that be like? And if you're Muslim or from any other tradition, think about what it would mean to approach your prayer, mindfulness, or meditation practice from a perspective of embodiment. Can you step into your practice in a more embodied way?
What would that look like? What would that feel like? Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear from you if you have anything to share about your experience with embodiment and prayer Mindfulness.