What Is Embodiment? The 5 Bodies Explained
When I talk about embodiment, I’m not talking about something abstract. Embodiment is alive. It’s something you practice every single day.
For me, there are two aspects to embodiment. The first is living, breathing, speaking, and acting in alignment with your values, especially what you say to others. In other words, do I embody what I invite others into?
If I teach meditation but don’t sit on my cushion, that isn’t embodiment. If I speak about rituals but don’t practice them myself, that isn’t embodiment. It’s easy to teach something from the mind, but embodiment means living it, breathing it, and practicing it continually.
The second aspect of embodiment is awareness of, and connection to, what I call the five bodies.
The Five Bodies of Embodiment
1. The Mental Body
The first body is the mental body. Almost everyone knows this one, it’s where most of us live. The mental body is the home of our thoughts, ideas, judgments, stories, and knowledge. It’s the ‘sense-making machine’.
The mental body is beautiful, but it can also be destructive. The key is not to mistake yourself for your mental body. You are not your thoughts. You are not your stories. They are a part of you, but they are not all of you.
Embodiment here means cultivating awareness: Can I witness my thoughts without being consumed by them?
Most people live their whole lives in this one body. But there is so much more.
2. The Physical Body
The second body is the physical body, this beautiful suit we get to wear in this lifetime.
Your physical body changes as you move through life. Sometimes you may feel vibrant and strong. Other times, tired or unwell. Embodiment doesn’t mean perfection, and it’s not about how toned or fit you are. Many people go to the gym every day and still aren’t embodied.
Embodiment here means: Am I aware of and connected to my body right now? How does it move? How does it feel? When I stretch out my arm, can I sense the back of my body opening, my chest expanding, my breath flowing?
3. The Emotional Body
The emotional body is where we hold our feelings. For many, this is the hardest body to connect to because we were never taught how to in a healthy way.
There’s so much shame around emotions. Men are told it’s not manly to feel sadness. Women are told they’re “too much” when they express what’s alive inside. We often keep our sadness to ourselves not allowing others in and we learn to repress our grief, fear, or rage. The challenge with this is that what we repress will eventually express (usually either emotionally where it will come out sideways like passive aggression or it will show up in dis-ease and sickness in the body).
Emotions are simply energy. They want to move through you. If you push them down, they get stuck. If you give them space, they can transform and make room for more life force to flow which is essentially where our life force comes from.
Embodiment here means creating safe containers to feel. Practicing emotional hygiene. Allowing the tears, the shaking, the laughter, the sound, so emotions can move instead of leaking out or shutting down becoming numb.
4. The Energy Body
The energy body is one of my favorites. It’s like your Jedi superpower.
Ancient traditions spoke of prana, qi, and life force. Today, science measures the electromagnetic field around the body, a field that grows stronger with practices like meditation, qigong, tai chi, yoga and tantra.
The energy body is essential for boundaries. Most boundaries are crossed energetically long before they’re crossed physically. When you become aware of your energy body, you notice how the field shifts when someone enters or leaves a space. You sense how breath moves energy through your organs and limbs, and even beyond your skin.
Embodiment here means remembering: I am energy, radiating and connecting beyond my physical form.
5. The Spiritual Body
The spiritual body is your vertical connection to something greater. You may call it God, Source, Goddess, Universe, Consciousness — the name doesn’t matter.
The first three bodies (mental, physical, emotional) live on the horizontal line of everyday human experience. The energy body weaves through all of them. And the spiritual body is the vertical axis, the thread that connects you to the mystery, to divinity, to synchronicity, to the quantum field.
Embodiment here means living in the awareness that you are not separate. You are part of something vast and sacred.
The Erotic / Life Force Body
When all of these five bodies are awake and integrated, a sixth body arises: the erotic body, or the life force body.
This is not only sexual, though it can be. It’s eros in its widest sense. It’s the aliveness that streams through when your whole being is connected and turned on. It’s when your creations, your passions, and your joy beam through you effortlessly.
This, to me, is the essence of Tantra. Being absolutely awake, alive, and open to the flow of life force.
The Path of Embodiment
Embodiment is the art of descent. Before we can ascend into higher states, we come home here, into the felt reality of our mind, our body, our emotions, our energy, and our spirit. We land in the truth of what is, now. From this rootedness, the natural ascent happens on its own.
When we live this way, life force awakens. Presence deepens. Integrity becomes embodied action rather than a concept. Wholeness is not something we chase, it’s something we remember. We don’t just talk about alignment; we live it in our words, our boundaries, our breath, our relationships, our service.
Practice Inside a Living Temple
Embodiment is not something we need to master alone. It’s tender work, sacred work, and it deepens when we are witnessed and supported. Having a space where you can return again and again — to practice, to be held, and to remember — makes all the difference.
That’s what the Temple of Radiance Online Membership offers: a living temple you can step into whenever you need.
Inside, you’ll find:
- Live practices and rituals that help you connect with your mental, physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual bodies
- A rich library of on-demand recordings to support your rhythm, wherever you are
- Sisterhood and community that celebrates your becoming and holds you when things move
- Embodiment tools rooted in Tantric wisdom: breath, sound, movement, meditation, and ritual
If your body is longing for a space like this, you are welcome here.
Bring Clarity, Alignment & Action into your life to make the law of attraction work for you.
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About the Author
My passion is finding the best ways to "hack" the law of attraction for effortless manifesting.
Amanda Biccum is an Embodiment Mentor, Tantra Teacher, and Holistic Guide devoted to helping people come back home to the wisdom, pleasure, and intelligence of their bodies.
With a background in yoga, holistic nutrition, and nearly a decade of living and studying in Asia, Amanda weaves practices from Tantra, Taoism, and somatic experiencing to support deeper intimacy, presence, and aliveness.
She shares her work through courses, retreats, and 1:1 mentorship, creating spaces where clients can release old patterns, awaken their life force, and reconnect with their truth.
Instagram @theamandabiccum.
