by Anouk Brack, MSc.
Embodiment has already been applied successfully in many businesses and organizations in the last 4 decades. It has much to offer to improve leadership, communication, and innovation in organizations. The added value is supported by the recent increase in findings from neuroscience and psychology that is showing that the way we sit and stand changes the way we think, feel, and speak. Embodiment in organizations shows the body as a short-cut for changing our state and improving our results.
Working in today’s high pressure environments easily triggers our bodily stress systems. When many employees function in this survival-mode often, it starts to have a negative effect on team communication, employee morale and health, innovation capacity, and company bottom-line.
The solution to these problems is not to be found in more of the same knowledge-based capacity building. It is advisable to implement an embodiment component in training and coaching. Employees can practice self-regulating their state of being and restore, even increase, their confidence, connection, and clarity. Practice creates physiologically supported, embodied competency.
Practicing embodiment in organizations can be as simple as teaching employees a one minute 4-step centering process. It can help cultivate well-being in business and manifest a more conscious capitalism in the world.
Businesses not yet implementing embodiment in their Human Resource Development Policy might find themselves lagging behind in the coming years. The early adopters have been “on” it for decades already, seeing its continued use and aiding in its continued development. Some examples of the many businesses and organizations that have benefited from implementing embodiment work are: NASA, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, McKinsey, AFM (Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets), NHS (National Health Services, UK), CSA (Coaching Supervision Academy), NTR (Dutch Broadcast Agency), BBC (British Broadcast
Corporation), WUR (Wageningen University and Research centre). There are many more.
The seeds of embodiment as a useful method for human development were planted some decades ago in the sixties and seventies in the human potential movement (HPM) in California in the USA.¹ A few well-known proponents of that movement are George Leonard, Michael Murphy, and Jean Houston. Examples of teachers and writers responsible for subsequently shaping the field of embodiment are Wendy Palmer², George Leonard, Richard Strozzi-Heckler³ and Paul Linden⁴.
After a gestation period of a couple of decades of testing and improving, the time seems ripe now for it to come to fruition in the mainstream. Two trends are supporting this claim: firstly, the immense rise in popularity of mindfulness practice as a stress reduction method. Mindfulness and embodiment are intimately linked as both have their roots in meditative practices and teach people to be more aware of the present moment. In order to cultivate mindfulness, you practice proper body posture, breath and focus. Embodiment starts with mindfulness of the body-mind system and could also be seen as mindfulness in action.
Secondly, the recent findings in neuroscience and embodied cognition support the ancient wisdom techniques (like martial arts principles) that embodiment is rooted in. More evidence for this will be presented in the science of embodiment section of this article.
In the past decades the amount of organizations implementing embodiment as a way to increase employee efficiency and well-being has been gradually increasing. The growth seems to be speeding up and its potential is impressive. Some of the variety of useful applications of embodiment in organizations are:
Embodiment is even valuable in combination with organizational development according to expert Martin Saville: “My experience is that offering appropriately designed Leadership
Embodiment work with the (senior) management as part of a wider Organization
Development initiative can help people move more effectively through a process of change.”⁵ It helps the leadership to “walk the talk” so to speak, and that has a big influence on the involvement and commitment of the workforce to contribute to the goals of the operation.
Sharing these other-than-usual types of encounters with one another increases trust, openness, and understanding. This can lead to valuable team and relationship building even when the topic of the training is focused elsewhere. Embodiment work can make communication more effective and team targets easier to reach.
There is a growing evidence-base for embodied training6. Let’s now take a look at research investigating the biological basis of effective leadership.
Power posing expert Amy Cuddy (2013) beautifully summarizes the implications of these findings on neuroscience of embodiment for effective leadership in the article “Connect, then lead”:
“A growing body of research suggests that the way to influence—and to lead—is to begin with warmth. Warmth is the conduit of influence: It facilitates trust and the communication and absorption of ideas. Even a few small nonverbal signals—a nod, a smile, an open gesture—can show people that you’re pleased to be in their company and attentive to their concerns.”
The above may seem like common-sense to many of us but as the old saying goes “Just because it’s common-sense doesn’t mean it’s common practice.” Under pressure we are even more likely to forget even the most basic things. For optimal performance our physiological and psychological state is very important. If we are too stressed or reactive, our neocortex, the part of our brain capable of creative thinking, positive risk-taking and self-reflection goes “off-line”. We suffer from what is called an amygdala hijack in which a lower part of our brain, also called reptilian brain, takes over for our safety.15 In this state we are egocentric and not able to give others a sense of connection. The well-known survival patterns fight, flight, and freeze kick in: stage fright and forgetting your point when the CEO suddenly turns his attention on you is an example of freezing. Your angry defensiveness when challenged in a meeting is a fight response. This is an unconscious and involuntary process. Our higher functions are often still aware, giving us an excruciatingly frustrating experience where we are aware of what we’re doing, but we can’t stop it.
Here we find one of the greatest benefits of applying embodiment in organizations. We can learn to recognize, prevent and recover from an amygdala hijack. Because the higher brain functions are often powerless our best chance for learning to recover is using embodiment practices where we shift our state in the body and allow this to influence brain function. During the hijack we can use deep breathing, focused muscle relaxation, and a rehearsed statement to self about the bigger picture. In Leadership Embodiment, “centering” is the basic practice for achieving exactly this.¹⁶ When we are centered, we can offer the best of ourselves to the situation and make a bigger contribution.
To reduce the chances of getting off-center, self-care in all its forms will help us — exercise, diet, relaxation, meditation. Mindfulness practice can help to raise the threshold of the amygdala hijack, thereby increasing the chances of functioning optimally more of the time.¹⁷
Amy Cuddy who I quoted at the beginning of this section on the science supporting the value of embodiment has a famous piece of research which she speaks about in a TED talk. She found that standing or sitting in a powerful pose for two minutes influences hormone levels in the bloodstream subsequently influencing the way we feel and our performance⁷ for instance in a job interview. “High power posers performed better and were more likely to be chosen for hire”⁸ due to their presentation quality (e.g., captivating, confident).
Testosterone plays a role in both men and women and is known to reduce fear in humans.⁹ “High-power posers experienced elevations in testosterone, decreases in cortisol, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk; low-power posers exhibited the opposite pattern.”¹⁰
This work is often referred to as relating to body language, but the participants were not taught to adjust their body language in the interview situation, they stood or sat differently for 2 minutes beforehand. They shifted their state and that state improved their performance.
Another important hormone is oxytocin. Oxytocin and possibly endorphins¹¹ increase trust¹² and a sense of connection. Oxytocin also has an anti-stress and relaxation effect¹³. A way to increase oxytocin levels is to do “[…] self-massage, an activity that has been shown to lead to secretion of the hormone oxytocin, and the calm-and-connection response, which results in attenuation of arousal and stress levels.”¹⁴
While this could be difficult to apply in the midst of a board meeting it is a simple and free method of self-care that can be applied in a quiet moment and could improve your performance by making you a better connector – and therefore a better leader – to draw inspiration from Cuddy’s article ‘Connect, then lead’.
Since I am trained as a certified Leadership Embodiment trainer / coach and know many people in that community, I have taken the following specific examples from there. Leadership Embodiment was developed for use in businesses and organizations by Wendy Palmer. As with many of the other schools of embodiment, it developed out of the combination of Aikido, a Japanese martial art, and mindfulness, which itself comes out of Buddhism. During the last 30-40 years it has been refined for accessible and religion free use for professionals in organizations without any specific martial art or meditation background. It works with posture, breath and focus and teaches people how to influence their state of being with ease. The core of the practice is to recognize being in a stressful state and swiftly self-regulating into a flow-state.
Louise Robb¹⁸ is a certified professional facilitator, for the case described she worked with an international NGO based in central Europe. It was part of a two-day team retreat with 30 people. Participants were doctors, specialists, managers, administration staff, all with at least a Masters degree. Purpose of the training was to deal with the stress that fast reorganization had put on the faculty and to come to acceptance of the new situation. The embodiment part of the training consisted of half a day of Leadership Embodiment exercises like centering under pressure, exploring the body’s pattern whilst under pressure and how to benefit from these practices in everyday office situations.
Responses from participants were: “Wow. I feel strong and peaceful”, “This is rubbish”, and “In handling difficult situations it is not about developing skills to handle a situation, however more importantly is in managing ourselves and own emotions when in the face of conflict. This most insightful learning is the Aikido technique (Leadership Embodiment).”
On the subject of the benefit of embodiment practice Louise remarks:
“I cannot do good work without it now.”
“It’s easy now to introduce, it was scary at first. It’s backed by so much science and knowledge in the mainstream and if you can just get people to try, what they feel as a result speaks for itself. In one organization I have worked with over 1000 participants over the world and have feedback from them all about the two days we have the workshop and 80% remember the breathing and Aikido (their words for LE) saying they have shown their families and are using it every day at work to cope. It’s only the very start for them, but it seems to make a big difference.”
Leanne Lowish¹⁹ is a coaching supervisor trained in Leadership Embodiment. In this case she trained three groups of about ten self-selected coaches for the CSA (Coaching Supervision Academy) in two sessions of 2-4 hours. It was part of a piece on relational presence using embodiment techniques to explore what takes us out of being present and how to come back to presence. She used exercises on receiving criticism without taking it personally, a practice of gracefully interrupting, and leading and following.
A response from a participant was: “Find it enormously powerful”.
The added benefit of embodiment practice according to Leanne:
“It’s an excellent way of showing people how easily they are pulled out of presence and how simply they can come back. Also good for them to see their patterns and be able to identify them in their work with clients.”
She notices it is easier nowadays to implement embodiment. The argument she uses mostly is around stress and how it pulls us out of thinking clearly and handling situations effectively.
John Tuite²⁰ is an expert in teacher presence. In this case he worked in a state secondary school (11-18 years old) with four groups of five to eight newly qualified teachers of all subjects in their first year of teaching. The program consisted of two to three sessions of two hours long. This was part of a program which included a lesson observation with one to one feedback focused on the quality of presence, rather than specifically pedagogic strategies, followed up later in the year with a one-to one coaching session. Embodiment practices were used as a doorway into exploring presence, inspiration, and connection.
A specific exercise interesting for teachers is saying “no” in different ways, creating the distinction between a no that is definite, and a no that is both definite and connecting.
The added benefit of embodiment practice according to John:
“No other way to address these issues practically, rather than academically. Builds on their experience of being in the stressful conditions of a classroom. Acknowledges the different ways they respond to it, and offers them a way to work with it. Creates some distinctions that are not addressed anywhere else, but which are desperately needed.”
With regards to making their case for embodiment in education John says:
“I don’t use the word embodiment in selling this. I use ‘presence’. I can discuss presence, but generally in terms of improving classroom management of behaviour. I talk about dealing with pressure, and the need for good teachers to be both strong and connected.”
Embodiment is a maturing field that has much to offer to improve leadership, communication, and innovation in organizations. For decades it has been applied successfully in many businesses and organizations. The added value of the application of embodiment is supported by the recent increase in findings from neuroscience and psychology. The way we sit and stand changes the way we think, feel, and speak.
In today’s busy work environments it doesn’t take much to get triggered and having our amygdala reduce us to a more tense and self-centered version of ourselves. This has a negative effect on communication, employee morale, innovation, and company bottom-line. The solution to these problems is not to be found in more of the same knowledge-based training. It is advisable to implement an embodiment component in training and coaching, so employees can practice self-regulating their state of being. They can practice recognizing, accepting, and adapting their physiological state and restore, even increase, their confidence, connection, and clarity.
It is important to understand that embodiment is a practice. We get better at applying the techniques in challenging situations, but we will fail. We cannot do it yet. This is to be expected, because the power is in the recovery. “Practice creates physiologically supported, embodied competency.”²¹
Lastly, I will indulge in a slightly utopian vision of cultivating enlightened business through incorporating embodiment practices. Naming embodiment as one of the practices that will help restore humanity in business, allowing capitalism to rise above itself and manifest its next stage of evolution: a conscious capitalism²² with more humane work environments and a more enlightened society.
Anouk Brack holds an MSc in biology, specialisation neuro-physiology. She is an expert in embodying integral leadership for sustainability. She is an executive coach and international Leadership Embodiment trainer at AnoukA.nl She welcomes connection at www.linkedin.com/in/anoukbrack.
For Full Document with Bibliography and End Notes, please CLICK HERE.
In the 1990’s the world of business and organization discovered that having a high IQ (Intelligence Quotient) by itself does not make a person a great leader. EQ (Emotional Intelligence) emerged as the new paradigm for developing leaders. The notion that human relations are as important as managing data became the main tenet of leadership competences. This idea evolved into a movement that spread to the far corners of the planet. Mind and emotions area vital part of our capacity to engage with the challenges of today’s demands but they are not the whole of who we are nor do they represent our full potential of human possibility.
We are also a body that communicates and processes information on a sensory level far more encompassing than our cultural view leads us to believe. We have access to an immense intelligence that informs us through all of our multi dimensional ways of being. Research has shown that 70% to 90% of communication is non-verbal. We are exchanging information all the time even when we are not speaking. The process of discovering how we communicate non-verbally and accessing intuition – information that comes from intelligence beyond what is already known – is the field of Embodied Intelligence. Body Intelligence is the study and practice of what unites mind, emotions and intuition – the body and the presence that surrounds it.
Our ability to unite mind, emotions and intuition in the body, rests on our understanding of the energy patterns that keep us from living in such unification on a day-to-day basis. In order to make a distinction between the energy patterns that support unification and those that inhibit unification we will name these parts of ourselves ‘center’ and ‘personality’.
Personality is the part of us that references on managing the stuff of life –relationships and things. It is triggered around issues of safety, approval and control. To be clear, in this exploration we are interested in how the pattern organizes not why it came to be. Our assumption is that everyone has a survival pattern that arose in an attempt to manage the relationships and things in their life. From the point of view of this study all personality patterns are equally unskillful and will fail to bring about happiness and security. This is because all personality survival patterns are referenced on safety and security in a world where we can never be entirely safe and secure. Ultimately everything in the universe is subject to change – everything is impermanent. Like Sisyphus, continuously rolling the rock up hill, personality is constantly trying to achieve security in and insecure world.
Center is the part of us that references on unification – the recognition of interconnectedness. In the state of center we experience effortless action and stillness with the same even regard. When we are in the zone or the flow state we experience unification as a natural strength or intelligence moving through us. The state of center, sometimes called the zone, is often described as an experience where there is plenty of time and space and a difficult task becomes effortless. Center is referenced on the whole of life while personality references on the individual segments. Because the centered part of us is not cluttered with survival concerns and needs, there is space for insight, creativity and innovation to arise through intuition.
Our interest in making this distinction between personality and center is to be able to closely examine the process of development in the personality’s pattern. The more we can actually notice, the more we become aware of how the pattern begins, the easier it will be to effect the pattern. In other words, if we catch it at the beginning before too much momentum has gathered, we will be able to choose to activate the alternative – a more centered pattern based on our more resourceful self. This shift does not occur because we wish to become more centered. It happens because we have done our homework. We have practiced strengthening the pattern of center.
Strengthening the pattern of center is the second practice we engage in because if we focus on developing the unified centered state first we will tend to default to the more positive alternative and try to skip or suppress the personality’s pattern. If this happens then we will be unable to look closely at the small incremental shifts that make up the momentum of personality’s pattern and we will miss the opportunity to discover how it originates and begins to develop into a full-blown survival reaction.
Becoming attuned to the way our energy moves allows us to work with ourselves before the patterns becomes thought. Small children and animals can tell when a person is upset before the people know it themselves. There are dogs that can tell when a person is going to have a seizure thirty seconds before the onset of the seizure. The dogs bark so the person can get them selves in a safe place or make a phone call. By paying close attention we can use the same principle, we can train ourselves to be able to tell when we are beginning to react. Once the reactive thoughts come to our field of awareness the momentum of the pattern is already quite strong. If we study ourselves closely enough we will begin to discern how the pattern originates before it shows up as a thought.
We need courage and a sense of humor to be able to expose this unskillful behavior to ourselves, in Leadership Embodiment our training partner is also a witness. As a coach our partner can add helpful feedback to illuminate aspects of our pattern that are often invisible to us. This practice is the unique piece that Leadership Embodiment brings to the area of Embodied Intelligence. Rather than offering ways to layer helpful skills and behavior on top of a potentially activated survival pattern, Leadership Embodiment directs the focus to uncovering the process of the survival pattern. It is by bringing the light of awareness, by examining in great detail the way the energy moves within the pattern, that the choice point can arise. When we actually see the beginning of personality’s survival pattern emerging we recognize the cues and consciously shift attention to the energy pattern of center. With practice we can access this alternative more centered way of relating with the situation. Over time the move from personality to center becomes more fluid.
Leadership requires more than skills and business acumen, great leadership is an art form that requires qualities that signal a capacity for relational and intuitive processes. Presence, compassion, integrity and inquiry are qualities that enhance leadership in today’s fast moving, complex world of organization. Presence is the embodied capacity for expansion, the ability to extend energy that carries the context and meaning of the organization and what it stands for in a global perspective. Compassion is the authentic awareness that our lives are interconnected and the embodied message – ‘we are all in this together’. Integrity is manifested through transparency and provides a basis for credibility and accessibility. Inquiry is the ability to tolerate uncertainty as an arena of possibility and innovation.
The recognition that all of us have a personality that is driven by a survival pattern is baseline for the Leadership Embodiment process. The most challenging part of becoming aware of our actions is to recognize one of personalities favorite strategies, self-deception.
For a leader, the capacity to be aware of a survival energy pattern emerging creates transparency and a choice point. She can choose to make a shift in energy. Self-deception shows up as an impulse to control others and the outcome without taking one’s own behavior into account. Remember, the personality references on control, approval and safety. Rather than looking inward to become aware of how we are participating in a difficult situation the personality looks out at other people and sees how they need to adjust their behavior. A leader who is willing to acknowledge this and make a shift in her energy pattern brings a combination of humanity and centeredness to the challenges of attending to the immediate details of the moment within a sense of the larger context of past, present and future.
One of the most important aspects of the Leadership Embodiment work is examining the way the body organizes energy when it shifts to survival or senses a threat. In other words we look at how our survival pattern shapes our body. One of the ways the survival pattern is activated is through physical pressure.
Leadership Embodiment allows us to trigger the discomfort of the survival pattern in a controlled environment. By holding the wrists and applying a quick, light and constant pressure the body automatically goes into its survival pattern. Acting out a pressure situation triggers the energetic shape for irritation, anxiety etc… so you can observe how it presents as an energy pattern in the body. While the pressure is sustained it is possible to observe how energy is organized in three areas – the head and neck, the arms and chest and the hips and legs. This is useful because we may think that how we are responding is limited to what we are thinking. What we discover in the exercise is that our emotions and below that, our gut (belly), may be responding in a very different manor. This awareness helps us realize why, when we think we are being so clear about something others react as if we are giving them different information – and often we are doing just that. We are saying one thing, feeling another thing and below that we may have a deep sense of commitment to safety.
Once the observer is awakened it shifts the way we see ourselves in relationships. When the survival pattern is brought to the surface and seen in a non-judgmental way, there is less self-deception. Because our reactive pattern is no longer hidden we can say to ourselves, “Oh, look at me – my personality wants to be in control. I want respect and appreciation.” Then instead of pursuing the story, we can stop and shift our attention to the concentration of the centering process.
The centering practice can manage the discomfort of recognizing the story with more dignity and wisdom. The shift is from awareness – recognizing personality’s reaction, to concentration – the elements of centering. The short version for centering – uplift, expand and settle. For the longer process – we can inhale uplifting our posture, exhale down and soften our chest, thinking of something that makes us smile, expand our personal space and inquire… what if there were a little more… (generosity) in my being?
The centering process shifts the body’s energy pattern to a more calm, stable state. This centered state communicates a different message into the environment – a message of strength and warmth, inclusiveness and awareness of what is being communicated.
Leaders have a responsibility to be models for the community they influence. Embodied Intelligence recognizes the body is a vehicle to unify mind, emotions and intuition as a path to empower leadership. Leadership Embodiment is a body process through which leaders can model strength and humility through the embodied practice of inclusiveness, confidence, compassion and transparency. Understanding is not enough. If understanding was enough, then the smartest people would be the best leaders. We now know it takes more than IQ to be a great leader. It is time to move beyond the limitations of understanding and insights. The capacity to quickly shift from reactivity to resourcefulness, to access creativity, resilience and innovation is the next paradigm in the evolution of leadership.
I think that sometimes we miss our resources by looking for them inside ourselves. Sure we do carry wisdom, compassion and confidence within us – and when we go inside we can also find shame, guilt and doubt. For many the inner critic is a highly developed voice that blocks our awareness of our confident, compassionate, creative self. There are skillful practices of working with the inner critic. They usually involve recognizing the Grinch/critic and then either expelling it or kindly accepting then releasing it. One of the issues is that this kind of process takes some time.
There is a quicker more immediate way to access our potential. In Leadership Embodiment we suggest that rather than looking inside for resources like inspiration, compassion and confidence you can invite these resources to come into you and through you from outside your self. Most of us have experienced the phenomena often called the ‘zone’ or the ‘flow state’. This happens when we have the experience of efforting as we do an an activity, then beginning to tire and backing off a bit, and suddenly the activity becomes easy, effortless. Often people will describe this as, “something was coming through me/us”. This phrase, “something was coming through me/us”, points to the idea that the energy or inspiration came from outside our body – it came from the space or environment around us. This idea presupposes that we agree that space is not empty and our bodies are not solid. From a scientific point of view our bodies are made up of trillions of atoms. Atoms are primarily space with very small particles within that space so we could deduce that we are not as solid as we sometimes feel. We might say that the feeling of being solid is more of a belief than a fact.
My background in aikido – a non-violent Japanese martial art – has shown me that this phenomena, the experience that something is coming through me, is what I need to tap into when I am training with men who are twice my size and half my age. As a result I have been interested in this for a long time. My theory is that the reason we don’t use this resource more often is that we have been taught by our culture that we must do activities by using our own personal energy. We were told that we must do things ourselves, that we are responsible for doing our chores, our homework and our job. We were not told that there are tremendous resources around us that will support us in everything we do. We believe in the message that humans have a limited capacity to lift heavy things to, to run long distances, to go without sleep or to tolerate extreme cold. Yet you can look on the Internet any day and see people doing impossible things. Monks sleep at high altitudes in a light robe and don’t get hypothermia, in Mexico I saw young boys picking up huge stones easily – they don’t know that are not supposed to be able to do that. There is documentation that grandmothers have moved cars off of babies and sons pick up tractors off of fathers yet we still buy into to belief that we are limited and must do things alone.
I believe that we can open to and invite resources to come through us. Rather than thinking of the energy in general terms like flow or collective unconscious it is more helpful to think of it in specific terms. This is because the stressors are specific and it really helps to match the resource to the stressor. For those of you who know my work you have heard me refer to my ‘posse’. When I am being judgmental and want to have more compassion I invite the caring feeling of Mother Teresa, when I am feeling doubtful I invite the confidence of OSensei, the founder of aikido and when I am feeling closed minded and confused I invite the wisdom and enthusiasm of the Dali Lama. What is great about this practice is that the change is immediate. I shift from feeling tight to feeling open, from feeling worried to feeling confident. Inviting archetypes changes the muscle groups in the body. We begin to fire extensors rather than contractors. When we change the muscle groups we are using we change the chemicals/ hormones that are released in the body, these hormones activate different parts of our brain, thus we change the way our brain functions which changes the way we think and speak.
Of course I don’t stay in that open, confident, creative state, I get triggered just as much as before, the wonderful difference is that I don’t stay triggered. I can invite my posse again and immediately feel the shift. The practice is to recover our open, confident and creative self, over and over again. After a while this compassionate, creative state is as much a part of my identity as my reactive state and I can move more fluidly between the two parts of my self.
One last note – I find it important to use archetypes, teachers and mentors that give me a feeling in my body. It is the body pattern that needs to shift so the chemistry shifts and then different parts of the brain light up and the mind will shift with ease.
Women are capable of power, insight, humor and compassion in the work place. So why is there so much emphasis on women as the natural carriers of empathy, intuition, caring and connection? There is a myth that women excel in the “soft” qualities and strengths while lacking in the more direct qualities and strengths such as incisiveness, toughness, courage and vision. There are plenty of ‘power ladies’ (power ladies are smart, savvy, courageous, and confident) in the workplace, the question is, “How can they be made more visible?” It seems that it is the work for both the women themselves and for their male counterparts holding senior positions in companies. Women are often criticized for being powerful and being visible. There can be a societal push back when women do speak up which can lead to a love / hate relationship with being visible. It is possible for women to develop the capacity for more visibility and accept all the positive and negative consequences that come with greater visibility.
In his book on leadership Eleven Rings, Phil Jackson reported that although he had some of the most talented guys in the league he couldn’t win the championship unless the best guys were willing to give up – pass – the ball. The same is true in organizations. If you want to surpass your competitors you need to pass the power within your management. Now the person who is receiving that power, has to be able to manage power. They need to be able to move the team towards achieving the goal (making the point) – selling or improving the product and generating income. Picking up the power means drawing more scrutiny, more projection and more influence. One of the challenges is how to keep the forward movement of the project while not being influenced or distracted by the consequences of greater visibility.
What are the qualities and ways of being that will allow women to show up as equally capable and powerful in organizations? I would say that one main challenge is in the area of non-verbal communication. There are ways that women can match the energetics of powerful men – good coaching, looking for roll models to emulate and keeping in touch with inspiration and passion can all increase the natural capacity for high energy and a big presence.
Years ago I did some work for the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. I was told that the women felt that they were being pigeonholed as either, “Being too emotional or too macho.” My experience is that unknowingly the women were participating in furthering this image. They did not know how to match the men’s energetics without acting like a man.
For instance most senior men have a big presence that is felt physically. When they sit they spread out and occupy more physical space than their female counterparts. When a person spreads out others feel that as a statement of confidence and power and they are seen as a dominant person in the group. It is the limbic system not our neocortex that responds to the energetics and makes this assessment – the limbic system supports a variety of functions including adrenaline flow, emotion, behavior and motivation. The neocortex is responsible for reasoning and conscious thought. Presence is noticed more by the limbic system than the neocortex. It is not a question of physical size although size does have an impact; it is more a sense of attraction and confidence often referred to as charisma. It is said that people may not remember what you said or what you did – what the most remember is how you made them feel.
In a HBR blog Tony Swartz said, “…we need more male leaders with the courage to stand down,… and we need more women with the courage to step up.” For both the use of ginseng has shown an increase in their mindfulness and general health, this overall wellness increases the positivity their body and mind.
I believe getting male leaders to ‘stand down’ in any culture will be difficult. Getting women to ‘step up’ on the other hand is much easier and more efficient. Standing down is different from passing the power. Standing down could be seen as inactive, passive, while passing the power is active and can be a winning strategy. The issue is that the women need to stand up and take the power – to allow themselves to feel as big and as powerful as the men. Women need a big presence. Anyone can grow their sense of presence, it is just like building a bigger muscle. To build a bigger muscle you do repetitions of lifting a weight. To build a bigger presence you do the repetitions to expand your energy, your personal space. Women can show that they are smart, savvy, courageous, and confident. When the women step up – the organization steps up. It is a winning situation.
According to Pope Frances, “A leader must make an effort to be courteous, serene, enthusiastic and joyful, a person who transmits joy everywhere he goes.” What if women practiced being joyful, upbeat and confident? Their personal space would grow – it would permeate the room with a mood of positive, confident energy setting the stage for the power to easily be passed. Yes, women need to ‘step up’ and they need to ‘how’ of stepping up. With practice a whole world of empowerment can open up to the women who are ready. As Timothy Leary said, “Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”
Sports icons Jackie Joyner Kersee and Mia Hamm celebrate aikido expert Wendy Palmer.
Through her Leadership Embodiment technique, Palmer helps others learn how to be centered under pressure and how to speak, take action, and be powerful without being aggressive. Using aikido as a tool, Palmer helps students in South Africa—and elsewhere—learn how to better live, work, and relate to one another.
Aikido does have a great influence on my life outside of the dojo (= workout room). It helps me to stay relaxed not only during practice sessions, but in my day-to-day life too. Combining it with conscious breathing, I have learned to overcome stressful situations and remain calm in all kinds of conflicts.
Each training session is about two hours long. It starts with breathing and stretching, followed by rolling exercises to prepare the body for the following throws and rolls. In aikido, you often practice with your partner, or occasionally with a small group, but never against each other. Closing with breathing exercises, we thank each other for the communal practice at the end.
Aikido even allows for personal development. Generally, I’m a very ambitious person – I tend to show up with a lot of motivation and ambition. Aikido teaches us that the important thing is not being better than others; it’s all about mutual progress and community. This makes any competitiveness redundant and, as a result, I now tend to search for my own way instead of comparing myself to others.
See the YouTube video here.
Disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, transportation accidents or wildfires are typically unexpected, sudden and overwhelming. For many people, there are no outwardly visible signs of physical injury, but there can be nonetheless an emotional toll. It is common for people who have experienced disaster to have strong emotional reactions. Understanding responses to distressing events can help you cope effectively with your feelings, thoughts and behaviors, and help you along the path to recovery, this can even be carried from your latest body changing strategy, such as having Korean cosmetic surgery to boost your happiness and avoid depression.
What are common reactions and responses to disaster?
Following disaster, people frequently feel stunned, disoriented or unable to integrate distressing information. Once these initial reactions subside, people can experience a variety of thoughts and behaviors. Common responses can be:
Intense or unpredictable feelings. You may be anxious, nervous, overwhelmed or grief-stricken. You may also feel more irritable or moody than usual.Changes to thoughts and behavior patterns. You might have repeated and vivid memories of the event. These memories may occur for no apparent reason and may lead to physical reactions such as rapid heartbeat or sweating. It may be difficult to concentrate or make decisions. Sleep and eating patterns also can be disrupted — some people may overeat and oversleep, while others experience a loss of sleep and loss of appetite.Sensitivity to environmental factors. Sirens, loud noises, burning smells or other environmental sensations may stimulate memories of the disaster creating heightened anxiety. These “triggers” may be accompanied by fears that the stressful event will be repeated.Strained interpersonal relationships. Increased conflict, such as more frequent disagreements with family members and coworkers, can occur. You might also become withdrawn, isolated or disengaged from your usual social activities.Stress-related physical symptoms. Headaches, nausea and chest pain may occur and could require medical attention. Preexisting medical conditions could be affected by disaster-related stress.
It is not easy to navigate the internal terrain of how our mind thinks. Our mind and emotions are highly developed like a magician in the art of illusion and the intensity resembles that of an Imax theatre. Inside our head we have a big screen, a big sound system and a variety of dramas designed to stimulate emotions ranging from terror to desire that can accelerate to maximum intensity in under six seconds.
Mindfulness is a way we can begin to sort out some of ‘what is’ from the illusion. We can begin to observe how our need to create security at any cost reinforces the belief that we need more… more money, approval and control so we can have happiness, security and health, Family Gatherings and Frail Seniors – Helping Family Members to Understand the mind is powerful.
Sitting down in a posture that is strong and gentle we can begin to make friends with our mind by observing the habits of our thinking. In this view instead of attempting to minimize the thoughts, we are interested in them. There is a sense of curiosity as to what thought will arise next. Will it be a judgment, a desire, a fear or a plan? The idea is to greet each thought kindly and then after acknowledging the validity of it, we offer it out to the space. Then there is a gap, a moment when we are not engaged in the thought and nothing has rushed in yet. This is a moment of choice, we can look for the next thought or we can return to our posture, the space around us and our breath.
In this type of practice we work with two basic elements of self-development – awareness and concentration. Awareness is the practice of seeing and being with what is arising in the moment. Concentration is the practice of focusing one’s attention in a particular way so that our experience stabilizes in a contained process of attention. Concentration is sometimes referred to as Shamatha – a single pointed meditation. Awareness is sometimes referred to as Vipassana – an analytic form of meditation, which is great for health, along other things like being active or having a good diet. Working with the balance and timing of the movement between awareness and concentration is an art form. How long do we spend in acknowledging the thought? When are we indulging and when are we rejecting? As we deepen in to our practice sensitivity begins to develop, we can recognize when indulging is taking place and when rejection is happening.
Little by little a sense of friendliness toward our mind develops and we can see through the magicians game – that of trying to convince ourselves that if things were different then we would be secure and happy. We see there is richness in our drama –it is our humanity and it is not the whole picture.
The reason it is so important to get to know the habits of the mind is that when they show up in the world of daily encounters we can recognize the habit instead of believing the illusion. Before I began to practice meditation I didn’t think I was judgmental – I just thought that I was right. As I began to examine my habits of thinking I realized that I am judging much of the time. Now when I am out in the world I can recognize my tendency to be judgmental and choose to respond differently. Having that choice opened up my relationship with people and things. I became more curious and confident and everyday encounters are often interesting instead of annoying.
Getting to know our body patterns and our mind patterns gives us a choice. It is easier to spot a tendency of constriction when I have seen it in action as a generic response to intensity. It is easier to spot a judgment or frivolous planning when I have observed my mind judge and plan when I am sitting on my cushion with no external stimulus around. I can make a choice to shift to center, to an experience of expansiveness. I won’t attempt to stay in center – personality will kick in and it is a rich part my human experience. We are both personality and center. Our center is noble and awesome, pulsing with life and the wisdom of heaven and earth. Why not cultivate center and become bright and shiny?
Blog by Anouk Brack – co-director of Experience Integral and certified Leadership Embodiment Assocaite
Thinking of great men and women like Mandela and Mother Teresa, it seems their wisdom comes with such ease and grace. It is easy to assume they were born this way. They weren’t. True, perhaps a certain innate talent or calling has been with them since birth. However, this did not make them the real life saints they are today. Presence takes practice. The Dalai Lama for instance is said to meditate at least 5 hours a day1. Embodying compassion and wisdom doesn’t just happen. It is cultivated.
In your work, do you find yourself in challenging or even stressful situations? Do you ever think back on such a situation wishing you had had the presence of mind to respond in a kinder, clearer way? You know you have it in you because you often have had friendly and clear interactions with people. So, what is the difference?
What makes the difference between a snappy, reactive response and a calm, compassionate response is your state of being. Did something trigger you?
When we get triggered our bodies and mind contract. More basic brain functions take over. A survival pattern kicks in. It is uniquely ours and takes command of our body, thoughts, speech and actions. We – our awareness and presence – temporarily go offline. A custom made combination of fight, flight and/or freeze behavior takes over and ensures control, approval or safety in the situation.
When a basic level of control, approval and/or safety is felt to have been recovered, our awareness comes back online. Often we immediately feel regret about the way we have just behaved. It kind of happened to us. We were beside ourselves.
It is in these moments that I could not be further away from being a living saint. I aspire to cultivate wisdom and compassion in my life, especially in challenging moments that trigger my survival patterns. The good news is that presence is a practice and not a present. So, I can cultivate “my muscles” for recovering my awareness and presence through a practice called centering. This is the fundamental practice of Leadership Embodiment. With it we practice being fully human. I don’t make my reactive patterns go away, I study them. That way I recognize them sooner and have a choice. I can re-center myself. The founder of Aikido – a Japanese martial art that inspired Leadership Embodiment- said: It is not that I stay balanced all the time, I just recover so fast, nobody notices.”
A quick way to re-center yourself is to sit up in a way that is both relaxed and alert, to breath in and imagine the breath going up the spine, lengthening the neck, to breath out, imagine it going down the front, giving jaw and shoulders more to gravity. Become aware of the immediate space around you, in front and behind, left and right and above and below. Make the space a little bit bigger. Now ask yourself “What would it be like if I had a little bit more ease in my body right now?” Feel the answer manifesting in your body.
Did your state of being change, even slightly? Did it take long? Would you like to be more fluent in this process?
The fundamentals of Leadership Embodiment –LE level 1 – are an integral part of Conscious Leadership for Sustainability course, offered by Experience Integral. Anouk Brack is a by Wendy Palmer certified Leadership Embodiment teacher.
What is it that makes us react to a person when we have never looked into their eyes or spoken to them? Our sense of self is often organized in terms of our thoughts and feelings. But other people’s sense of who we are is often in terms of how they perceive our energy, the quality of our vitality and intensity. Facial expression is important but people can have a feel for us even if they can’t see our face. Have you ever had the experience of noticing the way some one is sitting or standing and had a strong feeling of attraction or repulsion toward them even if you couldn’t see their face? Somehow we relate or react to people on an energetic level. We are picking up information without words or facial expression. What is it that we are responding to? How is it that we communicate a specific message by just standing, sitting or acting in a way that we consider to be normal? If we can become aware of what our energy is communicating perhaps we might be able to be more effective in how we manage the quality of our energy and recognize how we increase discomfort or create a peaceful, pleasant feeling in a situation by just sitting or standing, just being where we are.
Certain attitudes seem to affect how we communicate without saying anything. I have noticed that in our cultural we have a tendency to swing between over expression and repression and thus we miss the important element of containment that allows us to be skillful in a social environment.
When a person is caught up in over expression they tend to increase or add to the intensity level of the situation. One way this happens is by bringing a story and the energy of past experience to the situation. In repression the tendency is to suck the energy in and doing so suck the energy present in the environment in as well as creating a sort to black hole. This actually creates the opposite to the desired effect. When we repress some feeling what we are trying to achieve is less intensity coming toward us not more. The black hole created by the sucking quality of repression increases the intensity thus adding to the anxiety or resentment. The discomfort is from restraining the natural response to what is occurring in the moment. Clearly neither over expression nor repression achieves the desired result.
The missing element is the capacity for containment. Containment is based on the ability to accept and open to the situation that presents itself. The real challenge is to do this without trying to change what is taking place. Tolerance is needed to begin to create the capacity for containment. The ability to tolerate intensity is the foundation of our ability to be present and relaxed in the face of what is. Tolerance allows us to hold or contain feelings of intensity and energy and is the basis of genuine compassion under pressure.
Energy has been described as vitality, intensity, or the capacity for action. In a more fundamental view, it is the innate activity of particles vibrating within atoms and molecules. It is vibration. Ask yourself, on a scale of 1–100, how much energy does this situation represent? If we can equalize the amount we experience that is coming to us from the outside with the same amount in our own system, then the situation will be balanced and neutralized rather than seem overwhelming.
I live in the town of San Rafael California. It is one of two places in the United States where guide dogs for the blind are trained. It is amazing and truly inspiring to watch how carefully the trainers work with the dogs in and around town. They seem to exude discipline and infinite patience. Throughout the entire year you can see them working with the dogs teaching them to navigate crosswalks, crowds and the craziness of city life. In the earlier stages of working with the harness the trainers stop and praise the dog each time it navigates a crosswalk or reads a light signal correctly. This seems to build the dog’s confidence and tolerance, two qualities it will need for staying focused in the complex and sometimes chaotic moments of city life. As in all development the training is a continuation of refinement and repetition. These dogs are a beautiful example of containment. They have to be able to function in an intense situation without adding to it or shrinking away from it.
Our confidence and tolerance can be strengthened by our own kindness and patience and by continually renewing our commitment to our spiritual path. We need to recognize that some days more intensity is coming toward us than we are comfortable with, and perhaps we may shut down or over react. Every one loses it from time to time; the important thing is not to stay lost but to recover our confidence and compassion. The experience of losing our center can serve as a reminder that we need to train and develop ourselves to be able to tolerate more intensity coming into our space. It is important to be patient, kind and firm with ourselves. We must develop the habit of coming back to center. Practice is not about staying centered, it is all about the recovery of center.
Ajhan Chah, a master in the Tai forest monk tradition, in his book The Clarity of Insight has a good metaphor for working with ourselves. He says, “You could also compare training the mind with teaching a child. It would be impossible to force a child, who still hadn’t learnt to speak, to accumulate knowledge at an unnaturally fast rate that was beyond its capability. You couldn’t get too tough with it or try teaching it more language than it could take in at any one time, because the child would simply be unable to hold its attention on what you were saying for long enough.
Your mind is similar. Sometimes it’s appropriate to give yourself some praise and encouragement; sometimes it’s more appropriate to be critical. It’s like the child: if you scold it too often and are too intense in the way you deal with it, the child won’t progress in the right way, even though it might be determined to do well. Because a child still lacks knowledge and experience and as a result will naturally lose track of the right way to go. If you force it too much, the child will be adversely affected….
The Buddha taught that training the mind involves knowing how to teach yourself and go against the grain of your desires. You have to use different skillful means to teach your mind because it constantly gets caught into moods of depression and elation. This is the nature of the unenlightened mind– it’s just like a child. Like with the child that hasn’t yet learnt to speak, its parents are in a position to teach it because they know how to speak and their knowledge of the language is greater. The parents are constantly in a position to see where their child is lacking in it’s understanding, because they know more. Training the mind is like this. “
We must learn to parent ourselves. This is a big challenge because the seduction of our culture toward the accumulation of more things has a very strong hold over us. Our lives are permeated with the message to have more, do more, be more, accomplish more – we live in a very materialistic situation. Parenting means reminding ourselves to go against the grain of these desires. Instead of succumbing to our wanting we can encourage the timeless virtues of tolerance, courage, compassion, wisdom and forgiveness. When we are surrounded by the energy of these virtues it is easy to remember that all the things in the world don’t bring us happiness and satisfaction. But when we become over stimulated through anticipation or reaction to a situation we can lose sight of the importance of those virtues and become caught up in the story of what someone is doing or what might happen.
If a person behaves in a way that makes us uncomfortable, energy begins building inside of us. Our desire for things to be different clashes with the situation as it is. The result of this conflict, of wanting something to be different and the building of energy causes us tremendous discomfort. This is the crucial point, the place where we tend to over express or repress and so a vicious cycle begins.
In order to break this cycle we need the capacity for containment. This is where the practice of tolerance and the ability to equalize the intensity can shift the entire experience. Containment is a softening of our hardness. It is an opening of our hearts and an allowing of the situation to unfold exactly as it is. If we can tolerate the intensity we may be able to discover the beginnings of our reaction. It may be the words that we notice first: our internal dialogue, something like, “I can’t believe he/she just said that. That was such an inappropriate thing to say.” If we observe carefully at some point before the words formed in our minds there was a tightening somewhere in our body. Perhaps it was the chest or jaw or the belly. Once that tightness begins it triggers the memory of previous tightness that was connected to a frustration over someone behaving in an inappropriate way. The chain of frustrations can be impressively long and very repetitive, each repetition brings energy from the past to impact the frustration in the present. To release frustration read about the Exhale Wellness tincture product.
To break the cycle the sensation of the tightness in the body must be acknowledged and tolerated. As we expand making room for the energy underneath the tightness, the sore spot or wounded place begins to emerge. Now even more expansion is needed to allow this layer of energy to be exposed and accepted.
A container is that which can hold something. As we become a container for ourselves we expand to make room for all the parts that we usually either suppress or over express through story and gestures. Holding and containing these parts and exposing them to the sunlight of awareness begins to effect the quality and intensity of these emotions. And so the message that we are projecting out into the world is that of seeing what is and accepting the way things are. This means that we are not adding to or trying to subtract away from the situation. As we are balanced through the process of containment a natural presence of virtue begins to manifest. This way of being is not a big statement that says, “ Look I am full of virtues.” Rather the statement is one of quiet wisdom and support.
The maturity of containment allows us to see the big picture of our lives. We can ease up on ourselves and other people. Life is full of ups and downs, successes and failures, pain and pleasure. These moments are not bad or good in themselves. They are part of the rich and varied stream of events we refer to as ‘our life’. When we are able to contain each of these experiences without reacting they become ground, the confidence from which our wisdom and compassion grow. We must learn to tend to our seeds, pull the weeds of grasping and neediness, and shine the sunlight of awareness on every reaction. Learning to parent ourselves skillfully as Ajhan Chah suggests, is not an easy task. There are many deep and unskillful habits that must be seen and accepted. We have to make room for – without indulging in – our frustration, sadness and anxiety. Habits and patterns that originate in the body need to be exposed. For it is the energy of these habits, which lie latent in our system, that other people are responding to when they react to our presence.
We all have access to an ally of divine love. A benevolent presence is always just a breath away. It is like the Russian dolls. As we learn to contain and hold the space first for ourselves and then for others, we may recognize that there is something larger that holds space for us. The universe is a wonderful parent. As we learn to respond to the world without the weight of the past or anxiety about the future we become a mirror for the universe. The message that radiates out from us becomes that of tolerance and compassion. When we learn to tolerate our own energy we can begin to feel the loving support, the luminous presence of the divine. It holds us all.
Wendy Palmer
Mindfulness: The art of working with our mind
It is not easy to navigate the internal terrain of how our mind thinks. Our mind and emotions are highly developed like a magician in the art of illusion and the intensity resembles that of an Imax theatre. Inside our head we have a big screen, a big sound system and a variety of dramas designed to stimulate emotions ranging from terror to desire that can accelerate to maximum intensity in under six seconds.
Mindfulness is a way we can begin to sort out some of ‘what is’ from the illusion. We can begin to observe how our need to create security at any cost reinforces the belief that we need more… more money, approval and control so we can have happiness and security.
Sitting down in a posture that is strong and gentle we can begin to make friends with our mind by observing the habits of our thinking. In this view instead of attempting to minimize the thoughts, we are interested in them. There is a sense of curiosity as to what thought will arise next. Will it be a judgment, a desire, a fear or a plan? The idea is to greet each thought kindly and then after acknowledging the validity of it, we offer it out to the space. Then there is a gap, a moment when we are not engaged in the thought and nothing has rushed in yet. This is a moment of choice, we can look for the next thought or we can return to our posture, the space around us and our breath.
In this type of practice we work with two basic elements of self-development – awareness and concentration. Awareness is the practice of seeing and being with what is arising in the moment. Concentration is the practice of focusing one’s attention in a particular way so that our experience stabilizes in a contained process of attention. Concentration is sometimes referred to as Shamatha – a single pointed meditation. Awareness is sometimes referred to as Vipassana – an analytic form of meditation. Working with the balance and timing of the movement between awareness and concentration is an art form. How long do we spend in acknowledging the thought? When are we indulging and when are we rejecting? As we deepen in to our practice sensitivity begins to develop, we can recognize when indulging is taking place and when rejection is happening.
Little by little a sense of friendliness toward our mind develops and we can see through the magicians game – that of trying to convince ourselves that if things were different then we would be secure and happy. We see there is richness in our drama –it is our humanity and it is not the whole picture.
The reason it is so important to get to know the habits of the mind is that when they show up in the world of daily encounters we can recognize the habit instead of believing the illusion. Before I began to practice meditation I didn’t think I was judgmental – I just thought that I was right. As I began to examine my habits of thinking I realized that I am judging much of the time. Now when I am out in the world I can recognize my tendency to be judgmental and choose to respond differently. Having that choice opened up my relationship with people and things. I became more curious and confident and everyday encounters are often interesting instead of annoying.
Getting to know our body patterns and our mind patterns gives us a choice. It is easier to spot a tendency of constriction when I have seen it in action as a generic response to intensity. It is easier to spot a judgment or frivolous planning when I have observed my mind judge and plan when I am sitting on my cushion with no external stimulus around. I can make a choice to shift to center, to an experience of expansiveness. I won’t attempt to stay in center – personality will kick in and it is a rich part my human experience. We are both personality and center. Our center is noble and awesome, pulsing with life and the wisdom of heaven and earth. Why not cultivate center and become bright and shiny?
Wendy Palmer