The philosophy of embodiment and somatic-divergence

Embodiment philosophy suggests that our understanding of the world and our sense of self are fundamentally shaped by our physical, sensory, and motor experiences. This concept has significant implications for identity, agency, and consciousness. Notably, philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty emphasized the importance of the body in perception, arguing against the dualist separation of mind and body, and highlighting how our embodied experiences influence our understanding of reality. 

We live in the world as a body, as a mind body as a body mind, but we often experience the world as a mind dragging a body around… but the reality is that the body lives and the mind is lived. Many of us can’t feel our body’s and aren’t aware of our body to really feel the life of our body, and much of therapy centers on “getting into your body”. This can be really intimidating for someone who is new to opening to their body, “what does getting into your body even mean”. But the good thing is that just by asking this question we are already starting to open it up, curiosity is the path back to our body, realising we have one we cannot feel is the opening up. So keep asking the questions and open the curiosity, what can you feel? Can you feel your feet and your toes if you wiggle them, can you feel when you are cold, or hot, can you feel hunger, thirst, frustration… we don’t need to search for anything in particular, but just see what is there available to us. 

Play with it, be curious, something like how Heidegger emphasises ‘‘I cannot see my eye and my seeing, and by no means am I able to grasp them… in seeing, the eye itself is not seen, whereas the hand, when grasping, cannot only be seen, but I can grasp it with my other hand. This might seem obvious or superfluous information, but what it is doing is starting to ask our brain to pay attention to our body, and once our brain builds those neural pathways to noticing our body, the possibility of subtle and not so subtle sensation is back online. 

Deleuze's philosophy questions what a body is capable of, and how it can be defined. He argues that we don't even know what a body is capable of, and that we prattle on about the soul and the mind without knowing what a body can do. Our bodies produce energy, physical action and reactions, feelings, ideas, concepts, stories, and so on, like a machine. 

Ask yourself the question, what can my body do… what can it do well, and what can it not do so well, and what can’t it do… and what do I think it can’t do, but maybe it can. Are there parts of your body that are flexible, are there parts that are stiff and achy, not only what can your body do, but what is it doing now… what is your posture like, is your body tense, is your body clothed, is your body comfortable… and if it is comfortable, how do you know it is comfortable, and if it is not comfortable, how do you know that? 

What also comes to mind with the notion “we don’t even know what a body is capable of” is neurodivergence, a neurodivergent brain will have a neurodivergent body - a somatic divergence… we feel differently, when asked what do we feel we might just say “I don’t know” but is this partly because we are comparing our experience alongside the neurotypical language for emotions - what if the language of somatic divergence is yet to be discovered, and is something we don’t need to seek external authority on, but is something we are the authority on. Allow ourselves to have it, be curious and watch it grow. 

Nietzsche viewed the body more metaphorically as a collection of corporeal and psychic forces, including emotions and instincts which are in a continual and often conflictual interplay. The term "body" is a metaphorical way of describing the self not as a soul or simple substance but as an aggregate of forces or drives. 

What forces do you notice at play in you, do you have crashing emotions, heavy moods and intense drives, in a leaden body… describing here, my own AuDHD experience. And what of the conflictual interplay… we so often want one thing to hold as a constant, I am sad, I am happy, I am tired, I am energised, but what if we really do exist as a conflictual interplay where we can be all things at once. I often find myself feeling as happy about something as I am sad about it, or excited about something to the same level I am also terrified of it, and dreading it - this can create a felt sense of chaos - is chaos even an emotion you can feel… it is within somatic divergence! 

In Derrida’s work, there is an intrinsic connection between the body and writing. He critiques the traditional Western philosophical dichotomy that prioritizes spirit or mind over the physical body. Derrida asserts that both body and writing have been historically marginalized, regarded as secondary to the abstract ideals of speech and thought. 

I feel that Derrida offers a practical portal to accompany the unfolding of embodiment, and that is writing. In writing we make the abstract conceptual thought into physical form, and if we use a pen or pencil to paper, we are really engaging our soma (body) in an alchemy of formlessness into form. Both in the sense of idea and thought into written word, but unconscious drives, feelings and emotions into conscious felt sense. Writing about our feelings, and felt sense can be a great way of opening and connecting different parts of our brain and excavating previously inaccessible information (beliefs, words, judgements, feelings, sensations, emotions) in our accessible conscious awareness. This is not always comfortable, but being open and curious with what comes up is all we need to do. 

The path to embodiment can be hard won and full on, but the gentle invitation through curiosity is a really good place to start. There can be very good reasons we either stopped feeling, or never learnt to in the first place, so there is no rush with this, and what we are really working to do is build safety… safety with our unconscious that it is ok to open up to feelings again.