Amba means Mother
Amba means mother, and we can think of it as the love of the divine mother, or the unconditional warmth that we feel in the presence of God.
Amba can also be thought of as your Inner Leader, the quiet voice of truth and wisdom that’s always guiding you, yet to hear it requires dropping down and into the body, getting quiet and still, receiving breath, and listening deeply.
Amba also stands for the 4 simple steps of this embodiment method, which we do in every practice:
- Attune
- Move
- Breathe
- Allow
Embodiment is about how you inhabit your body. It’s not so much *what* movement you do, but rather, the intention and degrees of presence you give to the movement that you’re doing.
The Amba Method of Embodiment trains you to fully and deeply inhabit your body with an exquisite level of presence, while you’re going about your life.
As you inhabit your body more fully and learn to soften and fully receive breath, you become attuned. Attunement, or the ability to listen somatically, is the first step of the Amba Method. When you learn to listen with this high level of presence, your bodies feels you “home”, not checked out, not vacated, not dissociated, not caught up in your thoughts. Your body feels you IN it and WITH it.
Once you’re attuned — present, dropped in, listening — the next step is Move.
Movement in the Amba Method isn’t about choreography or performance. It’s about letting your body move the way she wants to, so that your stress tension, and emotions can be properly digested and metabolized. Sometimes that looks like more active, vigorous movement like hiking or dancing or lifting weights. Sometimes it’s soft, gentle movement like what we do in LUMA. Sometimes it’s stillness with only the tiniest inner current as we practice in SOMA. Movement is how your body speaks, digests, and restores your natural vitality.
From there we come into step 3, Breathe.
Breath is the bridge between your body and spirit. When you stop trying to take a breath, and instead soften and fully receive breath, as it’s being freely given by God, you open up the in-body somatic experience of being loved and provided for. Breath is not “taken” as it’s always being freely, generously given. How you breathe is the quickest way to tell what state you’re living in. Breath also regulates your nervous system, awakens your bio-intelligence, and is the vehicle that carries you from the limited realm of the earth into the timeless realm of spirit.
And finally, we come to step 4 of Amba, Allow.
This is where your movement, breath, and presence integrate. This is flow state, where you access the creativity and abundance of nourishment and living wisdom that flow from the spirit, into your body. To allow is to let your body be moved, to let your breath flow freely. When you get to step 4 of allow, you feel an inner unity and a dissolving of perceptions of separation, limitation, and struggle.
So the 4 steps — Attune, Move, Breathe, Allow — are not just practices. They are doorways. Together, they guide you into a life where you feel at home in your body, deeply nourished, and awake to the fullness of being alive.