Reclaiming the Body in Times of Collective Trauma
How embodiment, attunement, and savoring can build resilience, empathy, and resistance against dehumanization
Reclaiming the Body in Times of Collective Trauma
By Jamie Azar, Certified Sex and Relationship Coach
The world is literally on fire. Our collective body is suffering from incessant violence, denigration, and dehumanization. The people are under attack. Safety is threatened. And our bodies are listening. And internalizing. Consciously and subconsciously.
The pain. The deceit. The manipulation. The fear mongering. Hyperstimulation. And it’s wreaking havoc on our nervous systems, whether we’re aware of it or not.
Empire wants to weaken the people by any means necessary. Capitalism ravages the body.
I’m not here to tell you to regulate. Fuck regulation right now. We should be angry at what’s going on in the world right now. Don’t confuse numbness for peace.
It can feel conflicting to focus on pleasure and feeling good in the midst of warfare and threats. It can make us feel guilty.
The machine thrives off of a deteriorating body and tired soul. One of the greatest acts of resistance is reclaiming your body from the bloody hands of capitalism and white supremacy.
We can do that partly through the practice of
Embodiment
Attunement
Savoring.
And while this type of presence can bring with it great pain, when eroticized and alchemized, we can unlock greater healing and power in ourselves to build greater resilience to both survive and resist societal oppression and violence against our bodies.
Embodiment
The fascist empire thrives off disembodiment. When we become shells of ourselves, we become weakened and complicit. What is embodiment? Embodiment refers to bringing your full attention and awareness into your physical sensory experience, the feelings of breath, touch, movement, and bodily presence. Modern distractions pull us out of our bodies and into a state of liminal oblivion, a state of ignorance. Embodiment is a path to awareness. We don’t just notice the body, we feel as the body, allowing us to not only connect and empathize with others but also strengthen us to become resilient against warfare and capitalistic conditioning. Embodiment grants us agency and choice and allows us to both create safety and build resilience, granting us both softness and collective strength.
Attunement
Generally, people think of the idea of attunement or synchronizing deeply with someone else in a romantic sense. However, we can also be attuned to people platonically; we can be attuned to the natural world as well. To synchronize deeply with another person is to meet them with openness, curiosity, and compassion. To attune is to take the time to listen to another person when they may not be speaking, to see them when they can’t see themselves. To feel the heartbeat of the world as she weeps at the ravaging, the destruction, the disregard. Attunement grants us empathy. It allows us to know that no one can own another person, no one owns the land. It gives us the power to feel for others, even when their struggle may be far different from our own. Attunement catalyzes oneness.
Savoring
Savoring is the act of deliberately paying attention to and fully appreciating positive experiences, often by slowing down and immersing yourself in the sensations, emotions, or thoughts associated with them. It can involve enjoying the taste of food, or a loving touch, or delighting in the warmth of the sun’s rays on your face. Savoring reminds us of what’s important. It stops us in our hurriedness to remind us that when we take the time to slow down, we can remember who we are and where we came from. It reminds us that everyone deserves to delight in safety, nourishment, health, clean water, fresh food, a warm home, vitality, and access to a thriving natural world that we seek to honor and protect.
Reclamation of the body from collective violence builds resilience and empathy. In a world that thrives on our disconnection, disconnection from our bodies, from one another, from the Earth, the return to sensuality is not frivolous. It is radical. It is necessary.
Embodiment sharpens our awareness.
Attunement expands our empathy.
Savoring roots us in what is sacred and worth protecting.
I’m not advocating for a whitewashed, sanitized version of Westernized healing. I’m advocating for reclamation in a time when the body is under siege.
Your body is not the enemy. It is the site of your power.
It’s time to take your power back.