Welcome to Embodied Witnessing!

What is embodied witnessing?

Witnessing consciousness is described in ancient traditions.  Witnessing is an ascendant practice, residing in a state of inner stillness and enough spaciousness to be conscious of experience without getting stuck in reactivity, fusion, or avoidance. Ascendant practices are correlated with discernment, the masculine principle, or Father Sky.  Ascendance can also be understood as opening to potentiality:  what is possible and not yet manifest.    

Embodiment connects us with the fullness of life through our bodies:  sensing, feeling our emotions, subtle and physical movement, and connecting and relating with each other and with our world.  Embodiment is a descendant practice  which is correlated with the feminine principle, Mother Earth, and rooting or grounding.  Embodying connects us with wisdom integrated from the past:  individually, ancestrally, and collectively.   

Both ascendance and descendance yield gifts and contribute to an experience of interconnectivity.   

Embodied Witnessing Practice ...

• Implies both ascendance and descendance, an internal alignment with what is also known as kundalini energy and the river of life. 
• Brings us into relation with all parts of our S/selves with heartfulness, compassionate inquiry, and respect.
• Includes interpersonal relating, sensing, and group "we space" practices.
• Connects internal and external awareness practices to harmonize inner-outer coherence.
• Is an ongoing moment-to-moment practice.   Since life is a movement, embodied witnessing is a practice of flowing with the inner movements.
• Deepens presence which includes noticing when we experience more or less spaciousness without making that wrong.
• Opens the possibility of recognizing how we are relating physically, emotionally, and mentally in a given moment - when we are flowing, freezing, turning towards or turning away from what is happening.    
• Disrupts trauma-based ideals such as hyper-individuality, shame- and pride-based identifications, perfectionism, scarcity.  
• Creates a felt sense of connection and resourcing.  
• Awakens us to new possibilities and perceptions.
• Expands compassion.

Results people describe from the practices:​

• Deepening capacity for presence in difficult situations
• Experiencing more possibility personally and in our world
• Learning, developing, and integrating through the practices
• Feeling somatically present, grounded and resourced
• Heartful in regard to the whole spectrum of emotions
• Increasing gratitude
• Increased mindfulness and spaciousness
• Supporting integration and inner freedom
• Experiencing a sense of meaning and purpose, ability to contribute through presence 

"This innermost core of the body feels like the center of our being.  It feels like we are living in the center of all our experience as a witness and completely immersed in our life at the same time.  In this subtle core, we gain our deepest perspective on our environment (because we are perceiving it from the distance of this innermost core of ourselves) as we experience oneness with our environment.  The subtle core of the body also integrates all of the qualities and functions of our body and being.  When we live in the subtle core, we can think, feel, and sense at the same time.”
-- Judith Blackstone