When Embodying Includes Losing Yourself

By Trish Briggs

Embodying is something completely different from channeling, although the two can easily be confused.

To embody something is to give spirit or energy a physical form - to allow it to become expressed through you in a lived, ongoing way. When I channel, I allow spirit or energy to move through me for a period of time. I remain who I was before the experience. My authentic self does not change. However, when I embody something, I take it in and it becomes part of me. This includes both the qualities that feel aligned and those that are more difficult. In that process, I change.

Embodying can be a powerful self-healing experience when what we are embodying truly belongs to us and have a strong sense of self. However, it can become problematic when we are not aware that we are doing it, or when we believe something is ours to carry when it is not.

For example, when we work with our trauma, there comes a point where we accept that it belongs to us. In doing so, we embody it. When it is internal, we can begin to work with it more intimately, gaining acceptance, understanding, and eventually forgiveness. Our trauma becomes part of who we are, and in that way, it reshapes us. We are no longer who we once were - we are a new version of ourselves that includes those lived experiences.

Not everything we embody, however, is ours.

Embodiment As A Lived Experience

I would like to share a personal experience with embodying that, over time, became something I needed to unravel.

As a child and young adult, I was very open to spirit. I did not have clear boundaries between the spiritual world and myself. When I became pregnant with my first child, I prayed that I would be the best mother I could be. I understood that raising a child was important and would come with challenges. I wanted my children to feel safe and protected in a way that I had not always experienced, especially given my own sensitivity.

With my heart open to both the spiritual, to motherhood, and a youthful sense of self - I embodied what I now understand as the divine feminine. At that time, I had no awareness of working with energy, discernment, or boundaries. I did not know there was a difference between accessing an energy and becoming it.

In embodying this energy, I took in all of it. I became fully devoted to my role as a mother. I consistently placed my children’s needs ahead of my own. Self-care became almost nonexistent. I worked full-time nights while also homeschooling them and supporting their transition into adulthood to the best of my ability. I am not saying that I was perfect - there are aspects of the divine feminine that are not without challenge - but I did the best that I could with what I understood at the time.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder if that level of embodiment was necessary. Both of my children were highly intuitive during a time when that was not widely acknowledged or understood. Perhaps it served a purpose. I do not know.

What I do know is that even after they left home, I was still embodying that energy without realizing it. People would ask me what I had done differently in raising my children, and I never really had an answer. I would often say that I was simply present, but in truth, I was present through that energy. It was not something separate from me - I had become it, and I did not know where it ended and I began. And as everyone knows my life suddenly changed and though the shift, I was able to see myself and the spiritual world from another perspective.

It was in my sixties that I began to recognize the divine feminine energy had become so integrated that it was overriding the part of me that was uniquely my own. There was very little room left for me as an individual.

In my desire to be a good mother, I had allowed this energy to take the lead in my life without ever establishing boundaries. I had not realized that I could remain connected to it without losing myself within it.

Moving Beyond Embodying

At that point, I knew I needed to find myself again and begin writing my own story.

This required me to gently discern what was truly my energy and what was not. Although they had been intertwined for many years, they were not the same. In hindsight, the divine feminine energy was something I had embodied unknowingly.

Once I became aware of this, the process of shifting was not as difficult as I might have expected. Awareness itself was the most significant step. The energy was familiar to me - I had lived alongside it for decades - so learning to recognize it as something separate came naturally over time.

Now, I experience that energy differently. It is still present, and it is still something I can access and use to inspire me or offer another perspective. I feel comfortable with with it (her), but it no longer defines me. It exists around me rather than is me.

In creating that separation, I have made room for myself again.