An embodied body can experience one’s actual body instead of the conceptualized version of a psychosomatic body. Many people suffer from body dysmorphia, which is the inability to experience one’s body in its actual size. We all have a conceptualized version of our bodies, which may or may not be accurate.

An embodied body means we’re in touch with our bodies as they are, in sensation and in feeling awareness. As a result, we can accurately experience our bodies in the present moment as they are. We begin all contemplative processes of being present in one’s body from this ground.

To accurately express ourselves in language and to be able to sense what we feel emotionally, we need to be embodied in our speech. Embodied in speech means we use the body to identify sensations, feelings, and emotions as they are occurring. Therefore, our speech needs to arise from the body first to find voice and have agency.

To be aware of and eventually know our minds, we need to access our minds through our speech and our mind’s origins in the body. The embodied mind senses the nuance of awareness as it shifts in the present moment, fluid, porous, and open. We cannot experience our mind and its capacities fully without a body.

Learning to synchronize our body, speech, and mind in the present moment leads to discovering our intrinsic health or basic sanity.