Guide to the "Answering The Call Ritual"

A walking meditation practice to being each summer, spring, fall and winter with a renewed sense of inner purpose, power, and presence.

“The ideal of warriorship is that the warrior should be sad and tender, and because of that, the warrior can be very brave as well...Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others.” 

― Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrio

The Root of The Answering The Call Ritual

At the beginning of every Embodied Leadership Training retreat, all leaders meet in our first arrival circle. This circle is in a dirt parking lot with a long winding road going off a mile into the woods. As part of this ritual, each leader will individually walk up that road together and alone, with about 5 minutes between each person, recreating the circle in a yurt where we will do deep work together throughout the weekend. 

Together and alone is essential because each person must take radical responsibility for themselves, and they are the only people who can truly do this work. Still, he is also doing it with a group of other courageous leaders who have stepped forward to do this work with him. As you are about to discover, our nervous systems' protective parts have adapted to need other nervous systems' presence and access to the embodied Self to relax, let go, and grow. Because you are reading this, you will likely be one of these leaders and stand in this circle one day. 

You are being invited into this circle right now. We call this ritual “answering the call.” We learn to bring this answering-the-call ritual home with us in our retreats into our lives and relationships. Still, before we do this together, I'd like to share what I see happening in our bodies and psyches during this ritual to set the view of what you will learn in this program

The Circle - Gathering In Your First Circle 

When we gather in this first circle, I start us off by leading all of the participants through an arrival practice of three rounds of deep breaths in their noses and out of their mouths. The first breath is to appreciate all they have been through to get to this moment standing together. The second breath is to extend that sense of appreciation out to the individual person in front of him and then the entire group. On the third breath, I ask the people to look into the woods behind the person standing before them and scan the woods for danger. Then, as we take that final breath, I ask all of them to open to receive the care and protection of the person in front of them who is scanning the woods behind him for danger. I will ask them to recognize any protective parts that do not trust this person or the situation and allow them to be present. It is important we learn to honor these protective parts of us - for they have allowed us to survive to get here.

The Circle - Safest Shape For The Human Nervous System. 

At this stage of the circle, we are all standing and looking across at one another. Then I will say something like: The circle is the safest shape for the human nervous system. We all survived to get here. Along the way, we developed protective parts of ourselves to help us stay safe and manage the challenges, tests, and traumas of our lives and relationships. Our nervous systems are scanning the environment below our conscious awareness, looking for threat/protection or safety/connection. This process is called neuroception. 

Our nervous systems were shaped to look for threats or protection before safety and connection in order to survive. As adults, we are learning to reshape our nervous systems autonomic switch to look for threats and protection first by working together in ways many leaders have never directly experienced. When a person in front of you scans the woods behind you, and you open to receive their care and protection, we use co-regulation to allow our protective parts to begin to trust us and relax. The magical and paradoxical thing is that our nervous systems actually need the other nervous systems to relax, and the circle is the only shape that allows all of our nervous systems to do this simultaneously. 

At this point in the program, I don't expect you to try to understand everything I am pointing out, nor do I want you to. I intend to point you toward realizing the depth and meaning of what you are doing, how utterly connected your body is to the environment, and how beautiful the mastery practice of embodied leadership truly is.

How To Perform an “Answering The Call Walk” 

Conjure your embodied Self. Begin the unblending from your protective parts while listening to what the environment of your life and work has to say to you. 

Directions: 

This ritual is performed at the beginning of each new season (summer, spring, fall, winter) to invite us to open to what the environment of our life is teaching us and to access a more profound and deeper connection to the qualities of the embodied Self. 

Find a path or particular space outdoors with three stops. Print out this workbook, read each section of this ritual to yourself, and familiarize yourself with the questions. Then go for your answering-the-call walk. Stop on the path to read and journal about your answers to each question. After you answer each question, read what you wrote and notice what you are feeling on or in your body to conjure your protective parts. 

Without anyone to teach you how, call on the qualities of your embodied Self, accessing Compassion, Creativity, Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, Calm, Connectedness, Clarity, Presence, Persistence, Perspective, Playfulness, Patience, and Purpose. Then, use an embodied movement (such as a touch of your heart or cheek) to give your loving awareness to the parts of yourself that are activated and close your practice with a celebration (a smile or double high five over your head) before moving on down the path. 

Creating your own answering-the-call ritual is an embodied leadership skill that allows you to access the qualities of the Self and invite in another season of transformation and change. In many wisdom traditions, changing seasons is a natural anchor that triggers us to actively pause and bring attention to what is most important in our lives.