A NEW PARADIGM IN LEADERSHIP

How does being aware of our immediate felt sense, our posture, our breath, our internal and external physical sensations - our embodied selves - challenge who we think we are and what we think we are capable of?

We are bones, body and breath first, and then mind. We have to finally accept this and come to terms with

 Descartes' fatal error:  "I think, therefore I am." 

Rather it should be:  "I am, therefore I think." 

Only then will we rewire the mechanics of our minds. 

Only then will we be able to stabilize and not react to unpredictable events,

 changing unstable emotions, unjust systems, and a culture that 

stigmatizes and discriminates against people with 

mental and physical health conditions and disabilities who often shrink

 in the face of judgment and criticism, losing their internal locus of control to others,

 further disabling them, to where their 

dreaming ends and they become followers instead of leaders.

Knowing one's body, posture, breath, and physical sensations intimately is where we can finally assert our power and strength. 

When we feel anxious we can allow ourselves to pause, to feel, to remember who we are.

 We can slowly move our arms and legs, allowing a quiet peace in the silence as we witness ourselves move from here to there, while knowing who we are. 

Then, we can free the breath caught in our chests or the butterflies in our stomach.

 Only then, the desire to pop another pill, pick up a cigarette, drink another glass of beer or wine, will not feel necessary.

 Being able to viscerally recognize what is good or bad for us 

will become natural without thinking, without will or force.

Could it be possible that we have been doing this mental health thing all wrong? 

Going to therapy to cognitively process our experiences can disconnect us from the 

felt sense of why they matter if what we are trying to work through is not physically experienced in some way. 

And what we hear goes in one ear and out the other, and no concrete progress is made. 

Another hour of one's life, and a three hundred dollar session, often not covered by insurance, is wasted. But physically experiencing something in our body gets etched in our brain immediately, when nerves are activated, we wake up, we act, and then we can heal.

We need a paradigm shift, we need somatic expression and awareness to be part of our cognitive processing. 

We need to break open the container of our hearts and feel in a way that includes motion, sight, sound, and touch.

 Along with silence, space, and time being a witness of one's experience. 

This is what we do in this program. 

This is where leadership rises. 

From one's felt sense and this space of awareness. 

This challenges who we think we are and what we think we are capable of doing.