It takes a lot of cognitive intelligence to succeed in most jobs these days especially the high status, financially rewarding ones. Logic, perspective, the assimilation and sorting of a great deal of information and the capacity to write coherently are all essential cognitive skills that need to be well honed. And that takes effort to accomplish, which accounts, at least in part, for why these jobs are so revered and high status.
But the development of cognitive intelligence comes at a cost. It needs focused attention for long periods of time. And inevitably that demand means there are things we could focus on for which there is no time. The skills that tend to be put on the back burner and are not well developed are the skills of embodiment; so people like me end up living in their heads and losing access to some very important life skills.
All of life’s positives – happiness, connection, gratitude, peacefulness, love and awe – to name just a few, are experienced in the body. The mind can tell us that we ought to be feeling happy because of this that or the other, but it is quite a different thing to be experiencing it. The body has an intelligence that the cognitive intelligence cannot grasp, one that deals with intuition, creativity, connection and experience. As Iain McGilchrist the psychiatrist, philosopher and author of The Matter with Things has illustrated so clearly the left hemisphere of the brain seems to have a capacity to question, deny and suppress the right hemisphere of the brain where body-based intelligence has its main connections. This leaves us feeling hollow and unfulfilled. But all is not lost. Happily the nervous system remains plastic for as long as we want to carry on learning. And the skills of embodiment can be learnt. If you would like to develop some of these skills, you can start by noticing your body; which bits can you feel and which seem to be numb; which parts feel alive and open and which bits feel contracted and painful? To get this inquiry to work you need kindness and patience. If your interest in your body is accompanied by criticism and judgement your body is not going to open up to you.
Do you open up to colleagues who are critical and judgemental? If you can be kind and then add curiosity about what your body is trying to tell you, or about why and how it got into that uncomfortable state you will have started the process of embodiment because as the neuroscientists tell us compassionate, curious, attention promotes neural growth and development.
And if you want to explore practices and approaches that support embodiment try one of my Embodied Prescence Process weekend workshops in Oxford 22 / 23 November 2025 and 7/8 of March 2026 and Bristol 28/29 March 2026. See more here
