Inhabiting in oneself

Most of us spend a surprising amount of time somewhere other than where we are. You open a book and begin reading. Twenty minutes later, you realize you haven't noticed the chair beneath you, your feet resting on the floor, the weight of your neck or the sounds coming from outside. For a while, you were completely immersed in another world.

The same thing happens while driving a familiar route, watching a film, scrolling through your phone or thinking about tomorrow while someone is speaking to you. You were there, but you were also somewhere else.

This is a human capacity. We move constantly between being immersed in the world around us and returning to our own experience. Perhaps this movement is more familiar than we imagine.

Arte Org approaches this experience through the concept of corporeality.

Corporeality is more than the physical body. It describes the way we exist bodily in the world: how perception, attention, movement, imagination, emotions and relationships continuously shape our experience. It is almost as if corporeality were the environment where life is experienced, rather than the body alone.

This perspective becomes especially meaningful when we consider the conditions in which people live. Many spend years responding to demands that leave little room to notice themselves. For immigrants, racialized people, LGBTQIAPN+ communities, caregivers and many others navigating unequal social conditions, the effort to adapt is rarely an individual experience. It is shaped by environments that often require constant adjustment in order to belong, remain safe or simply be recognized. Care, in this sense, cannot be separated from the social conditions that shape everyday life.

Corporeality does not mean to remain permanently focused on our bodies. Throughout the day, our attention moves naturally toward work, the people we love, our responsibilities, our projects and the countless situations that require our presence. Moving away from immediate bodily awareness is part of being human. The question is not whether this movement happens, but whether we are still able to accompany ourselves while life continues to ask us to move.

This is one of the reasons I am drawn to body-oriented work.

Its purpose is not to intensify emotions or uncover hidden parts of ourselves. Through movement, breathing and perception, it creates conditions for corporeality to reorganize itself. Often, the practices are remarkably simple: walking without rushing, noticing the support of the ground beneath the feet, allowing the breath to soften, or letting the eyes rest on the horizon after hours in front of a screen.

Nothing extraordinary needs to happen. Yet these ordinary experiences can gradually change the way we accompany ourselves through everyday life.

People may begin to notice that they have been holding their breath while answering emails, that they worked through the afternoon without realizing they were at the same position, or that they automatically said yes before recognizing they wanted to say no. They may recognize how their shoulders tighten every time they feel they have to prove themselves, or how difficult it has become to rest without feeling guilty.

These are moments when perception becomes available again, and they are not considered problems waiting to be fixed.

From there, something subtle can begin to change. Not because life suddenly becomes easier, but because our relationship with it becomes different. We may recognize our limits before reaching exhaustion. We may notice when we need support instead of continuing alone. We may experience rest as part of living rather than something to be earned after productivity.

Body-oriented work helps us remain in relationship with ourselves while we continue living them. Perhaps this is what it means to inhabit ourselves: not to stay inside the body all the time, but to keep finding our way back to our own experience, even as life continues to ask us to move.

Witten by Juliana Camargo

References

Camargo, J. (n.d.). Arte Org (unpublished teaching materials).

Kim, J. B., & Schalk, S. (2021). Reclaiming the Radical Politics of Self-Care: A Crip-of-Color Critique. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 120(2), 325–344.

Lorde, A. (1988). A Burst of Light and Other Essays. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books.

Tronto, J. C. (1993). Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York: Routledge.