Embodied Leadership Basics

How do YOU embody leadership?  It might not be in the way you think.

I felt to publish this excerpt from the Dancing Freedom Facilitator Manual today as we launch into a two week training immersion here at Seven Seeds Farm.  We’re all in this lifetime together… and, if we want to co-create a viable future for our species and all of life, we have stuff to get done!  Let’s do it together beautifully.

 

Embodied Leadership Basics

 

Hey Embodied Leaders! Here are some basic principles that apply holographically to every aspect life and action. They are equally applicable to whole-being, psycho-somatic health, co-creating healthy relationships and co-creating healthy systems (businesses and institutions) that function in integrity with life. They are alchemical principles. Alchemy describes the actual process of being the change: when you change yourself, you change your world. And, as the world changes, you are also changed. (As above, so below. As below, so above. As within, so without. As without, so within.)

 

Leadership is both an archetypal position that some people hold and an attribute that all people have. Some people are simply “born leaders” – they radiate archetypal qualities that people trust and follow. They attract attention and move large amounts of energy. They are charismatic and easily take the lead. Not everyone has this quality. (Think of JFK, Gandhi, MLK or Winston Churchill.) OBSERVE: Who do you naturally “follow?” Why? How do people naturally follow (or not follow) you? How do you radiate the archetype of leadership?

 

On another level, leadership is an attribute that every person exercises in different ways at different times. Each of us leads through example as we co-create our lives in integrity with spirit, soul and all of life. We lead when we be, do, and create our lives as true expressions of our heart-knowing. You lead by being you. How do you embody and exercise the attribute of leadership in your home? Your workplace? Your relationships? Your communities?

Embodied Leadership means showing up in integrity with your core values, purpose and soul essence.   It means actually integrating who you say you want to be into your body, your personality, your habits of thought, word, and action and your ways of relating in the world.

 

Leading is not always about “being the lead.” It is also about following and supporting– being a strong follower, letting others shine, flowing with “the energy”, letting the collective heart lead, following divine directives, letting life lead. Much leadership is invisible. True leaders are not “out there for themselves”, they are great listeners, great followers. They place their lives and their actions at service to something larger than themselves.

 

Embodied leadership means having a certain level of integration – maturity. It is never “achieved”. It requires ongoing practice – living consciously in dynamic balance with life itself – with the changes, challenges and opportunities life offers. It means putting Embodied principles into practice daily as we structure our lives, our work, our relationships, our communication patterns and our social, economic and political systems. It is an ecological approach – a whole-being, inter-relational, life-centric approach to the harmony and interdependence of life.

 

Love,

Samantha

 

ps.  Check out this Summer’s VISION, Soul Quest, July 24-August 4, if you’d like an opportunity to more deeply explore your authentic path of leadership with me.

6 Tips to Make Your 2014 Resolutions Real

If you’re like me (and at least 50% of Americans) It’s likely that you’ve been dancing into New Year resolutions.  (Yay for positive growth and self-care!) 

 

This time of year is a great time for renewed commitment.  But, it turns out that 88% of Americans fail at meeting their New Year resolutions.   

 

Why?   

 

(What interests me about my resolutions – and yours – is what might cause us to succeed in keeping them.  So, I’ve done some research into the science.)

 

It turns out that motivation doesn’t function in terms of broad goals.  Our brains just get overwhelmed when we tell ourselves to do things like “loose weight,” “work smarter,” “eat healthier.”   

We are hard wired to change incrementally – in specific, manageable ways.   

 

In my coaching practice and in the practice of Dancing Freedom, which is a practice of self development and liberation, I like to say, “Non-specificity is a form of sabotage.”    In other words: 

 

We need to be specific about what we want to change, create, let go of or begin, if we are going to succeed in living the lives we want for ourselves. 

 

Here are 5 tips for making commitments to yourself for the coming year (or any time of year) that stick. 

 

1.)  Focus on intrinsic rather than extrinsic goals.  

We are more deeply motivated by goals that come from inside – goals like feeling good, having more intimacy, practicing gratitude or connecting with wild nature.  External goals – like looking good, having more friends or making more money – set us up to fail in our own eyes and in the eyes of the projected “other” who we are trying to please. 

 

2.) Be specific rather than general.

Get very clear about the habit you want to change, rather than setting a generalized goal.  Examples:

 

General resolution:  Dance more.

Specific habit:  I dance twice times a week – once on Sundays and at least one other class or event. 

General resolution:  Eat healthy.

Specific habit:  I make a green smoothie every morning instead of coffee and toast (yummm!).

General resolution:  Get in shape.

Specific habit:  I take a power walk every morning after finishing the kid’s breakfast and my first round of to-dos.

General resolution:  Manage stress.

Specific habit:  I take 5 minutes every morning to breathe and pray before I do anything else. 

 

3.) One goal rather than a life-makeover.  

Decide the one thing that is most important to you, then focus on that.  Example:  I’m focusing on radiant health.  This also supports me in secondary goals around spiritual practice, fitness, diet and stress management.  

 

4.) Doable rather than crazy ambitious.

Similarly, choose something you can actually DO, rather than thin about while you feel shameful and guilty that you’re not doing it.  My to-do is to exercise at least 5 days a week in a way that gives me joy (dance, yoga, hiking, riding my bike).

 

5.) Notice and affirm.

When you DO that one, doable thing, make sure you a.) notice yourself doing it and b.) affirm yourself for doing it.  This creates a positive loop in the brain that allows the habit to stick.  (It turns out that we are not that different from Pavlov’s dogs.)

 

6.) Create accountability.

Write down your goals or tell a few friends or loved ones who are willing to check in with you on a regular basis about your progress.

 

I hope this helps you focus your intentions and resolutions for the coming year.  As I move into my own intention of RADIANT HEALTH, I hope to see you in the dance!  

 

Love,  

Samantha

 

I found this useful, too.  🙂

How to make magic a way of life

What Do You Feed?

For years, I used to hear a little, quiet voice in my head saying,

Your life IS MAGIC.  It’s as magic as you think it is.  It’s as magic as you will let it be.

This little voice was telling me that it is up to me to allow and cultivate my true dreaming, my honest power and my real desires to be expressed and fulfilled as my life.  It was telling me that my beliefs yield real results.  It was telling me that I am, in fact, immeasurably powerful, and that if I focus my energy, attention and intention on co-creating through love, in alignment with the harmonics of the universe, unbelievably magic things will happen.  It was asking me to live the measure of my own faith and the full spectrum of feeling and wonder.

Finally… after falling down and getting up, after living and loving and loosing and realizing that my only true happiness resides in trusting soul and spirit’s path for me, after hedging my bets with God and discovering that God always wins… I surrendered.  I followed.  I CHOSE TO FEED THE MAGIC.  I CHOSE TO ATTEND TO SYNCHRONICITY, TO TAKE MY DREAMS SERIOUSLY (AND LIGHTLY!).  I DECIDED BOTH TO TAKE ROOT AND TO FLY.  In the a face of great loss and change… again and again… I chose love.

Everyday, I re-make this choice to receive my life.  Everyday, I ask to follow and receive God’s path FOR me.  I make the prayer.  Everyday, I practice meeting the pleasure and the pain, the shadow and the light, the grit and the grace, with curiosity and presence.  Everyday.

HERE’s THE DEAL:  we either embrace the whole ball of wax as the tapestry and opportunity of our lives, or we shut the magic out.  (Which also amounts to depression, despair, numbness, stress, anxiety and alienation.)

So, feed the willingness to meet what is and to co-create with the impeccable trajectory of your soul.

Let the beauty you love be what you do.

This is how Magic becomes a way of life.

Love,

~s.s.

In honor of magic, here’s one of my all time favorite pieces of wordspell from Leonard Cohen – for you, for me, for we:

GOD IS ALIVE

MAGIC IS AFOOT

God is alive, magic is afoot 
God is alive, magic is afoot 
God is alive, magic is afoot 
God is afoot, magic is alive 
Alive is afoot, magic never died 
God never sickened 
Many poor men lied 
Many sick men lied 
Magic never weakened 
Magic never hid 
Magic always ruled 
God is afoot, God never died 
God was ruler 
Though his funeral lengthened 
Though his mourners thickened 
Magic never fled 
Though his shrouds were hoisted 
The naked God did live 
Though his words were twisted 
The naked magic thrived 
Though his death was published 
Round and round the world 
The heart did not believe 

Many hurt men wondered 
Many struck men bled 
Magic never faltered 
Magic always lead 
Many stones were rolled 
But God would not lie down 
Many wild men lied 
Many fat men listened 
Though they offered stones 
Magic still was fed 
Though they locked their coffers 
God was always served 
Magic is afoot, God is alive 
Alive is afoot 

Alive is in command 
Many weak men hungered 
Many strong men thrived 
Though they boast of solitude 
God was at their side 
Nor the dreamer in his cell 
Nor the captain on the hill 
Magic is alive 
Though his death was pardoned 
Round and round the world 
The heart would not believe 

Though laws were carved in marble 
They could not shelter men 
Though altars built in parliaments 
They could not order men 
Police arrested magic and magic went with them 
Mmmmm…. for magic loves the hungry 
But magic would not tarry 
It moves from arm to arm 
It would not stay with them 
Magic is afoot 
It cannot come to harm 
It rests in an empty palm 
It spawns in an empty mind 
But magic is no instrument 
Magic is the end 
Many men drove magic 
But magic stayed behind 
Many strong men lied 
They only passed through magic 
And out the other side 
Many weak men lied 
They came to God in secret 
And though they left Him nourished 
They would not tell who healed 
Though mountains danced before them 
They said that God was dead 
Though his shrouds were hoisted 
The naked God did live 
This I mean to whisper to my mind 
This I mean to laugh within my mind 
This I mean my mind to serve 
Til’ service is but magic 
Moving through the world 
And mind itself is magic 
Coursing through the flesh 
And flesh itself is magic 
Dancing on a clock 
And time itself 
The magic length of God 

© 1966- Leonard Cohen.

Say NO to create a BIGGER YES.

Ok… so, I live inside a YES culture.  And, I love it.  I am ALL ABOUT the Big Yes to love, to life, to intimacy, to more life… I’m all about the delicious bio-chemistry of embracing my life.

But, really folks, have you taken a moment lately to celebrate NO?

NO it the other side of the big YES.  Without it… we’re just ceaseless, unbounded, amoebic blobs.  Without no, we can’t negotiate our time, energy attention, and intimacy.  Without no, we are unable to create healthy boundaries, to make coherent choices or to be effective in our leadership.

But, we are really afraid of the no. 

We are afraid we will disappoint, upset, off-put or loose out.  We are afraid to be perceived as negative.  We are afraid that NO will inhibit the yes.

We have equated no with negative.
What if no IS profoundly positive?
What if NO is the secret ingredient in a coherent system?
What if NO is the key to living a sane and healthy human life?
What if NO is also part of the BIG YES of oneness?

WHAT IF YOUR STRONG, CLEAR, NO FREES AND SUPPORTS THE BIGNESS OF YOUR YES?

Really… if I were a cell, and I only said YES, I would soon become a cancer.

• If I were a gardener, and I only said yes, I would only have a plot full of weeds.
• If I were a mother and I only said yes, I would exhaust myself, and my child would grow up without healthy boundaries or respect for others.
• If I were a woman, and I only said yes, I’d be recapitulating the same dysfunctional and abusive relationships I came here to heal this lifetime.
• If I were a leader and I only said yes, you would walk the other way….   Wouldn’t you?

I am here today to firmly and lovingly, joyfully and lightly, embrace NO.  Sometimes it takes a BIG NO to create an even bigger YES.

PRACTICE:

Take a few minutes today to contemplate where in your life you are AFRAID to say no?  Where are you withholding your truth in order to “keep the peace” or please another?  How are you overriding your no in order to please?  How are you holding on to more than you need to because you feel like you “should” be responsible or that you will hurt someone if you walk away?

How would your energy be freed up if you said no?  What would you really loose by saying no?  What might you gain?  And how would the whole situation be clarified and improved by your courage to set a clear boundary?  (Remember – sometimes there is no way to know the answer to this question in advance.)

NOW, pick up that phone, write that email, open that door, and say what needs to be said.  It is through this NO that we are able to create a BIGGER YES.

Travelogue… What is GROUNDING? In the numinous space between Ecuador & Guatemala

What Is GROUNDING?

Written in the numinous space between Ecuador & Guatemala.

 

Feeling totally in flux today…  really deconstructed.

I am learning to ground in the mystery… which is completely beyond grounding.  It’s  about birthing myself into a human being-ness that is spirit, soul and body all together – integrated.

This time is going to be a wild ride for humanity.  We’ve created quite a crucible for ourselves.  Sometimes I worry about it.  But, what I’ve learned is that it’s my job to love and to be happy.  And that, if I have any influence at all over the future, it is by creating the most awesome, soulful, authentic NOW I possibly can.

I have the ubiquitous feeling that EVERYTHING is changing.  It IS.  In the midst of it all, I’m sometimes not at all sure what I am passionate about.  I’m a really passionate person, but in these times, everything is up for renegotiation.  And, some new kind of stillness is being called for – and it calls me to pause, to be, and to unplug all kinds of stories about what has been meaningful and important and passionate in my life.  Sometimes I can’t tell if this is depression or awakeness…  I’m able to turn towards just about anything and be present, but sometimes I’m not totally sure what is motivating me.  It’s like there is an empty space inside.  Sometimes it is filled with a palpable sense of love, and sometimes it is just empty – totally neutral.

A lot of masters talk about this…  They say, “It’s not what you think it is… This love is beyond objects.”

I think what is going on is really about surrendering attachments and ego programs that make things “important” in a way that isn’t really real.  But/and, being human… sometimes it’s really hard to navigate without those attachments – like I’m a ship that could go anywhere.

It’s good to talk about this…

The question is…  What I am working towards?  WHY am I working.  Am I working to fill myself up because I am essentially empty inside.  Or, am I working as an outcome of the magnetic pull of love towards itself.  Life says – “turn towards life.”   Love says “turn towards love.” “Turn towards life.”

Here’s what I get.  I am stabilizing in love – not love for something, but love itself.  And, as a human being, walking the path will co-generate the stability.  Walking is a way of being.  As Bucky said, “I’m a verb.”  I am found in the finding which happens both in the being and in the doing of a self that is grounded in love.  That’s the nature of being alive.  That’s my opportunity.  That’s how we stay grounded and stay on the path:  we live on it and we love AS it.

I feel shaky right now because I feel vast shifts in my path AND in the world around me.   It’s natural to feel rocked when there’s no object constancy – within or without.  Yet, this is the blossoming of a deeper stability in and as love.  As I ground in this, I feel peace, and I experience the path unfurling naturally.  I respond and it’s OK.  Similarly, when I am really DOING something as an expression of my natural love – I notice that I’m “On track.”  And this, too generates its own form of soul stability -because I am BEing my dharma, behaving AS my true purpose.

I can find grounding BOTH from the angle of being and from the angle of the doing of my purpose, living what give me joy and being joyous in what I’m living.   And… I’m remembering that grounding that has an eternal and perfect quality.  It’s a constant.  If I’m present, I am grounded.

~s.s. with D.L.  9/12

Find out more about practices to GROUND in times of change at DANCING FREEDOM.

3 Spiritual Upgrades to CHANGE YOUR LIFE

1.)  Oneness excludes nothing.  No exceptions.  Unconditional love includes all things.  If we genuinely look into the mechanism by which oneness occurs, it necessarily EMBRACES the totality of creation.  No exceptions.  Oneness is the all-ness of the everything that is.  Period.

2.) Fear is the inception point of love.  Fear is life loving life, the root impulse of life protecting itself.  It’s the evidence of how much we care to continue to exist.  The human brain, however, has evolved to a level of complexity where we immediately INTERPRET our fears, and attempt to mitigate or make them go away.  It’s our interpretation and thinking about fear that quickly becomes dysfunctional – taking us into past and future thinking and running thought scenarios that are other than what is really occurring.  We then have a lot of feelings about these thoughts, and the dysfunctional loop perpetuates itself. LEARNING TO BE WITH FEAR IS AN EVOLUTIONARY PATTERN.  The root fear response is generally immensely intelligent and very much in the present.  The real path of wisdom is to have appropriate and mindful RESPONSE to fear, and to learn to inhibit secondary interpretations that create suffering about our suffering.  Then we can live awake – we can embody oneness.

3.)  The ego is NOT the enemy.  Our current spiritual story has lumped our whole personality into the category of “ego” and made the ego the enemy.  This is a really narrow view.  From a psychological perspective, the “ego” is a complex of sub-selves that make up the whole person.  These sub-selves are not in and of themselves a problem.  The problem is that they are largely unconscious, AND that there is a particular set of sub-selves we could call the “protector/controller” that are generally running the show.  The key is to develop an AWAKE EGO- to unplug the unconscious ways in which the controlling sub-selves manipulate and run the shows of our lives.  Once we begin to develop and Awake Ego, we can begin to surrender or repattern the negative and unconscious ego patterns that we commonly call “ego” so that we can live more fully awake, responsive, resilient and life-full lives.  Consider this:  the ego is a living operating system through wich we can convey soul and spirit.  It is the user interface between people, the vehicle through wich we navigate all of our relations.  We need it.  We are relational beings.  The real evolutionary growing edge for the human species is to relate coherently though personalities that are lovingly connected to ALL of who we are – both our humanity and our immensity as soul and spirit.

…think about it.  The implications are exquisite.

Why Being You Matters More Than Anything Else

Find Your Liberation! photo: Sean Stutchen

It is simply too painful not to be yourself.  Doing anything other than the expression of who you really are is just to deadening, too confining, and too damn hard.  Inauthenticity to self is a road to disease, a path we were taught so that we could be controlled and become instruments of contol.

We are not that.  WE are free.  We are love.  WE are the creative force of god.

And, we are the cutting edge of mainstream – the crest of the rising wave of a new humanity and a new way of doing civilization.  WE are evolution.  Who you are and what you bring is exactly what the world needs.  It needs each and every one of us to show up uniquely as ourselves.

This is the spiritual ecology of the universe:  each of us is a unique manifestation of the divine mind that has it’s perfect place within the greater soul-ecology of creation.  Everything, every person, has a perfect niche.  It’s simply up to us to know this – have faith in it – and to let it happen.  Then, we get to (as opposed to have to) create our lives and our work in ways that feel good and fulfilling, uniquely, to each of us.   Then we get to be liberated in each moment we live as a true expression of love.

The world needs us desperately.  The world needs people who are awake to their true nature as love.  The world needs soulful, healthy people who turn towards each other and towards life.  The world needs us to create our work and our lives in this Way.

All the flags, all the people, universal peace.

Remember this:  We are not a counter culture.  We are not “the opposition.”  We are the light and the hope and the innovation that world is desperately crying for.  If you struggle with your work or with feeling as though you don’t belong, stop and listen to how the world is calling for you, how it needs your creative contribution and your unique gifts in order to experience a greater wholeness.  WE are the song of oneness – all the notes of the rainbow symphony – every one.  Listen to how Life is calling to you specifically – your gifts, your affinities, your capacities and even your unique pains and struggles.  It is showing you exactly what you can, and already do, give.

There is no more opposition.  In the past, we opposed “our enemies.  In the past, we resisted fear, anger, pain, grief.  We feared our emotions; we feared others; we feared or own imperfections and covered them in masks.  In the present, we embrace everything.  We live as the water – resisting nothing.  We respond.  We are response-able.  Able to respond.

This is how we are living the compelling case for everyone, anyone, to join us – by living our joy.  We create ourselves as a compelling case by being awake and by totally enjoying it!  We live the practical case to join us by needing less and having more bliss, by getting more done with less effort, by creating sustained, authentic relationships and by allowing our lives to be as fun, beautiful and dignified as they really are.  We live the compelling case to join us by turning towards whatever challenges us as an opportunity for greater harmony.

"All of life is a circle." ~Black Elk

Oneness excludes nothing.  It opposes nothing.  It collaborates with everything.   We collaborate with everything.

Life opposes nothing.  It just wants more life.  Being like life is the same thing as living as god, is the same thing as living as love.

We did not get here alone.  We are the dreaming of our ancestors.  We are the ancestors of the future.  We are the ones we are waiting for, and we’re not waiting anymore.

Much Love,

Samantha Sweetwater

ps.  If you know your life purpose involves leading, healing, spreading awakening and and building community THROUGH DANCE,  then join us for the next Dancing Freedom Facilitator Training – EMBODIMENT: The Practice.  March 2-11, 2012 at the Harbin Oneness Institute in Middletown, California.

pps.  If you want individualized help to Live Your Path more abundantly, effectively and joyfully, contact me for Soul Coaching.

Living Questions #1: Intimacy

Living Questions Part 1:

Somatic Sensing and The Real Conditions Of Intimacy

Exquisite images: http://www.sukizoephotography.com

Think of yourself as an experiential scientist.  You are the researcher.  Your life and your experience is the laboratory.  The dance is the experiment.

In this laboratory called LIVING, what you can see, sense, feel, test out and replicate for yourself is proof, it is the evidence, the verification, of what works.  It reveals an experiential (or phenomonological) condition of reality.  It reveals the true conditions through which consciousness arises.  So, If it is true for the body & heart… it is probably TRUE.  If we can embrace this in mindfullness, we can actually start to live non-dually – in body and spirit, in transcendence and immanence, AT THE SAME TIME.

Here’s a collection of questions about INTIMACY that I use when teaching Movement Genius, Dancing Freedom, Contact Improv and Partner Yoga.  They are sourced from a lifetime of work in embodied leadership & practice, and from my coaching & healing practice.  The basic premise:  What is true somatically is true holographically.  We can test things out for ourselves through real experiences and integrate what we learn on a CORE LEVEL through somatic awareness and mindfullness.

If we can feel and know it through the body, we can learn how to apply it to life.  If some way of being is out of alignment with the body or heart’s well being, it is probably out of harmony with the universe, as well.

When I do this work, I create an agreement field that we are all on a level playing field in terms of our basic equipment.  In other words, in a class filled with able-bodied people, we are all equipped with with two legs, two arms, a spine, the same sensory organs.  We all have the capacity to move, the capacity to respond and the capacity to react.  Most of us are dealing with hidden bumps, bruises or pain – either physical or emotional.   We are all mammals; we are all people.  We are all Spirits in bodies.  We all have hidden vulnerabilites, and part of compassion is to allow presence for this.

We are all the same; and, each of us is an-other alive, creative & entirely unique self.

The only RULE is YOU CAN NOT DO IT WRONG.

For the first half of class, I ask you to focus primarily on the direct body-based experience, to dive into the minutia of our sensations.  It is important to slow down and build the depth of feeling and sensing (direct perception) before asking questions that take us emotionally and imaginally beyond the our immediate awareness.  Once the field of somatic sensing is awake, the the bridge between immediate somatic insights and the capacity to mindfully apply them to your life is totally open!

~ • ~

Questions:

Photo by Sean Stutchen ~ Epic Eden Hot Springs Retreat

• How are you listening to your partner?
• How are you listening to yourself?
• How are you meeting your self and this person in a new, fresh way?
• What do you know about them right now just by how they breathe and how they hold their body?
• Can you relax into connection to invite a deeper connection and trust from them?
• How are you bringing luminous awareness and presence to your actions?
• Where are withholding your awareness and presence?
• How are you attending to your body, to your own needs, boundaries and desires?
• Are you willing to articulate boundaries and needs?  Can you do this with an open heart?
• Are you moving from INTEGRITY?  Do you compromise basic needs for the sake of “the other” or in order to “get it right”?
• Are you willing to feel all the sensations that are present?
• Where is the sense of pleasure in your body?  Be specific.  Go more deeply into it.  Breathe and move from there.
• Where do you feel deadness, dullness, pain or stiffness in your body.  Be specific.  Are you willing be present with this and to move and breathe into this place?
• Are you willing to be vulnerable?
• Are you willing to NOT KNOW?
• What new possibilities arise when you stay present and curious with not knowing?
• How do you experience your CENTER in partnership?
• What are the motives behind your actions?
– Are you trying to please your partner or the instructor?
– Are you trying to prove yourself?
– Are you trying to “do it right?”
– Are you trying to control the situation?
• CURIOSITY.  How can curiosity support you to innovate, open and thrive?
• How is power showing up for you in this exercise?  What are you learning about cooperation, feedback, balance, listening, trust & levity in relationship to power?
• Can you give and receive at the same time?
• What does “giving” mean for you?
• What does receiving mean for you?
• The way you are experiencing this exercise is a reflection of how you experience relationship in every other aspect of your life.  What do you notice?
• Is competition showing up for you in this situation? How does competition support your success & excellence?  And, how might it undermine collaboration and compassionate leadership?
• Are you willing to trust your partner?  Can you trust yourself?  What do you get when you CHOOSE this trust?  What happens when you don’t trust?
• What is the difference between supple and rigid strength?  Can you cultivate one while releasing the other?
• Are you more comfortable leading or following?  Can you balance following withleading?  What does this mean to you and your work?
• Can you balance effort with relaxation?
• Where is the “sweet spot” for you in the balance between striving and surrender?
• Do you feel more safe, present or empowered when you are giving or when you are receiving?
• What does this tell you about the ways in which you lead and build relationships?

• How do you want to apply the simple lessons you have learned from your body and your experience of your partner in this exercise to your life and your work?

• How can experiences like this support you to work and play more from your heart rather than your head (your ideas & goals about projected outcomes) or your will (the desire to maintain control over the outcome)?

• What qualities do you notice are most supportive of collaboration, shared leadership and ease?

• What did you learn about your own impulse patterns, motivations and commitments?

• Where were your growing edges?  Do you want to commit to any particular mindfulness practices as a result of your experience today?

….Well, that’s maybe enough for a lifetime.

Next post: Questions on PURPOSE.

Love,

~s.s.