Month 2: Power

“The Great Wisdom Dwells Within The Body” 

The Primary Message of Zen & Tibetan Buddhist Lineages + All Somatic Teachings.

To be alive—is Power— 

Existence—in itself— 

Without a further function— 

Omnipotence—Enough … 

To Be Alive – is Power 

By Emily Dickinson

“...we were at its mercy. As was my custom in such elements I hunkered against the rain, drew my head into my collar, turned my eyes to the street, tensed my footsteps and proceeded in misery. But my hosts, I soon noticed, reacted in quite another way. They strolled calmly and smoothly, their bodies perfectly relaxed. They did not hunch away from the rain but rather glided through it. They directed their faces to it and did not flinch as it drummed their cheeks. They almost revealed in it. Somehow, I found this significant. The Zillers accepted the rain. They were not at odds with it, they did not deny it or combat it; they accepted it and went with it in harmony and ease. I tried it myself. I relaxed my neck and shoulders and turned my gaze into the wet. I let it do to me what it would. Of course, it was not trying to do anything to me. What a silly notion. It was simply falling as rain should, and I a man, another phenomenon of nature, was sharing the space in which it fell. It was much better regarding it that way. I got no wetter than I would have otherwise, and if I did not actually enjoy the wetting, at least I was free of my tension. I could even smile. What I smiled at was the realization that I had been in the Zillers’ company less than fifteen minutes and already their example had altered my behavior. Surely, I was on the right track.” 

―Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

Perspective 

To review, during the first phase of our seasonal Embodied Leadership Training Process, we are entering a stage of purpose. 

We start by reconnecting with our inner purpose by intentionally returning to embody the qualities of Self. For many people, this is in and of itself a realization. Realizing our Unshakable purpose is to literally do the work we are currently doing, which gives us an internal locus of control that propels our growth and development. 

At first, This realization can be challenging because we "Think" we are being ourselves (notice how I didn't capitalize it) all the time. Still, our protective parts have been running the majority of our life experiences. We are fixated on getting things right, accomplishing tasks, making our partners happy, or trying incredibly hard to get everything done so we can have time to be with our kids, and yet - never making the cut. We are trying and stuck in a Sisyphean, hedonic loop of consumption and gratification—no wonder we are entirely or mainly blended with these protective parts. We have strong, vigilant parts of us that have kept us safe and allowed us to become successful, high-performing executives, but this is not all of us. We are so much more than that as we discover another way, a path that leads to lasting fulfillment, growth, and development by learning to soothe and care for the protective parts of ourselves that block us from showing up fully and completely in our lives and relationships.

***Note: As we become more Self-led, we often find that what we thought we needed to be happy and fulfilled changes drastically. We find that we can feel more joy, peace, patience, and wonder by simply being alive. This, in turn, allows our freed-up energy and awareness to be placed on doing the deeper work of uncovering what's in our shadow, or we find we can step into doing things we never thought we could do, like bringing our vision to life! (This program and these retreats are that vision for me) This is all an allowing process. Trying hard really does get in the way. I know that's confusing. Stick with this, you'll see. I'm in this with you. 

In week 2, we move into a stage of returning to practice and learning to bring our awareness of our awareness back into our bodies in the present default flow of our everyday lives and relationships. We do this primarily by asking: "What am I feeling?" "Where do I feel it on or in my body?" "What does it need or want?". Again, this is an ongoing lifetime practice of learning to come into the body to be with what is happening on and in the body in increasingly sensitive and attuned ways. This active process opens a door or gateway into our life by opening a gap between what Victor Frankl would call "The stimulus and the response." Our non-conscious patterns are the reaction, and creating a tiny space between the stimulus and the reaction is where the qualities of our embodied Self can begin to peek through. This gives us access to new tools that our protective parts do not have. In Frankl's words,

"Between the stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our responses. In our response lies our growth and our freedom" (Frankl, 1946)

In our Embodied Leadership practice, this gap or moment is called a "trailhead," and the active process of getting to know our protective parts is called "Unblending." In the next stage, we begin to learn how to move down that trailhead. When we do this, we will access the hidden gifts, talents, and resources that lay dormant within our golden shadow when we have access to the qualities of Self. Our shadow and gold mission is to commit to doing the work to take responsibility for our protective parts so we can find the gold and bring it out into the wild of our default life and relationships so everyone can receive the leadership and gifts of our embodied Self. 

In week 3, we targeted trailheads and started to be able to see these protective parts. If you are new and you are overwhelmed and confused because all of this is new and this is only your third week, we pointed out how witnessing another person can be extremely helpful to help us move through this process. 

Looking ahead: 

In the power phase of the program and process, we will again move through three stages/weeks. 

Week 4: Embodied Stretches 

Week 5: Uncovering Shadow 

Week 6: Going Deep 

Week 4 is embodied stretches. Embodied stretches are not conceptual ideas; this means learning to form and perform tangibly embodied movements, ways of responding, and ways of self-resourcing to take courageous action in our life, work, and relationships with access to the qualities of our embodied Self.

Week 5 is uncovering shadow. As Jung said: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate." Practicing embodied Leadership is an active form of shadow work. In our answering-the-call practice, you read the line: 

"You are crossing a threshold and entering a liminal space. A liminal space is a space between worlds where transformation and change can occur. You are leaving your default world and social environment and going to a place where the normal doesn't work. This is an opportunity to let go and to uncover your hidden gifts just like the hero who leaves his home to go into the abyss … are you ready and willing to start your adventure?" 

You've come to a threshold when you begin to notice trailheads and parts of yourself that are hijacking your life and relationships. When you bring these to the group, and we learn to work with these while being in the presence of your embodied Self, you can start to see new ways of showing up, you can then commit to giving it a try, and you step out into your life to attempt it - You will uncover what will stop you. Only now, we know this will happen, and we are priming ourselves to be more aware of what gets in our way. 

This is the transition from week 5 to 6 and going deep. Let's use the hero's journey as an example. 

The hero's journey is a narrative framework that Joseph Cambell outlined. It came out of something called "hero myth pattern studies." What's important to notice is how this pattern takes place across almost every popular work of our times, from movies and television to major literary works. If you want to dig deeper, you can, but this is not a course on the hero's journey or archetypes. I want you to notice how the hero's journey relates to your body and nervous system and the cycle the hero goes through.

The known protective parts are logged in your body and nervous system. They know only what they know and react to environmental challenges from places of fear, insecurity, doubt, and shame. These protective parts have helped us survive. In Wild Mind, one major part is our loyal soldier. The loyal soldier part helps us show up on time, right ourselves, and stick to plans. Still, he also keeps us doing things the old way and gets anxious if we try something new, even if it's in our best interest. 

Note: For most high-performing leaders, we will first learn to work with our loyal soldier part

"Blended parts give us the projections, transferences, and other twisted views that are the bread and butter of psychotherapy. The Self's view is unfiltered by those distortions. In Self, we see the pain that drives our enemies rather than only seeing their protective parts. Your protective parts can only see the protective parts of others. The clarity of Self gives you a kind of X-ray vision, so you see behind the other person's protectors to their vulnerability, and in turn, your heart opens to them." - No Bad Parts, page 31

Another perspective I enjoy returning to at this stage is from the Eastern wisdom traditions. In this talk by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche, he shares the handshake practice of working with beautiful monsters. The handshake practice is an embodied practice of being with a protective part. As with all of these practices, it unfolds deeper and deeper at each stage of your practice, just like the process of moving through this process will for us. As I will summarize in the next paragraph, he talks about befriending the guards. In Wild Mind, Bill Plotkin maps the relationship between the human psyche and the rest of nature; he talks about winning the war with your childhood protective parts, which opens the door to do the deeper work of the Self and then, in turn, the soul's gift to the world. I intend to compare and contrast glimpses from two respective healing facilitators with what we are doing here. To be “wholing,” practices must connect us to everyone and everything while making space for our exiled parts to fit in or transmute, so I set the view of what we are working through together to ensure that I convey the depth of what we are embarking into. This is the work of a lifetime we are stepping into. I feel that in my bones and deep into my seat and the earth underneath me.

Notice any cognitive distortion that limits the depth and breath of what we are learning and practicing here together and alone. The work we are doing together in this program can allow you to make the complete journey toward your whole Self. (Dig Deeper: Practice of pure awareness, by Reggie Ray Phd) To summarize why I share this with you now, I love how Tsoknyi Rinpoche says we are all sausages made up of pieces. He says, laughing, "If you aren't a sausage, you aren't normal." He's speaking to a British audience and uses an example of attempting to talk with the Queen and how if you ran into talk with the Queen, all the guards would get alert and block the gateway inward. You'd get stopped by those guards. But if you show up each day and notice the guards' alertness and befriend the first guard, he would start to like you and not notice you walking through to the next guard. Eventually, you get to work with the beautiful monsters or meet the Queen, and they have one thing to say to you. Their wisdom is always the same thing. It is spoken as a phrase. The phrase is "It's real. But not true. It's real. But not true. It's real. But not true." 

A look ahead: Notice how “Noticing” and “befriending” are the first steps. In the power phase we will learn the BASIC method based on Polyvagal Theory and The Autonomic Nervous System to: Befriend, Attend, Shape, Integrate and Connect. Later, in your second season of practice, I will want you to be able to be able to describe and relate each stage of the BASIC method to your embodied practice when you perform stretches in the default world. In your second season of this program this will show me you have begun to integrate this work into your own life practice.

In the language of embodied leadership, parts work, and our nervous system, this aligns perfectly with how protective parts are formed and what we discover in our groups working together during the power phase. When we can notice these trailheads as opportunities to awaken the qualities of our embodied Self, and we have access to other people who can hold that container with us to make that experience "real", and I mean real as "directly experienced on and in our bodies" while being in a container with access to the qualities of our embodied Self. We can see how what our protective parts tell us is not true is natural and, like an inner child, not something we need to react to so intensely. Instead, we can extend ourselves out in a mixed state, finding new and creative ways to give ourselves what we need and responding to learn to respond to challenges from a place of wholeness. 

As we see here (see below), by exploring the emotional episode timeline, priming yourself to respond constructively is a magnificent, almost magical event that leads to generative growth and development. Not only do you limit or end the repetitive destructive behavior patterns, but your body gets better at doing what it repeatedly does. So you prime your entire perceptual database can shift, opening you to see the world in new, exciting, almost "Unbelievable" ways. The way we see the world feels "unbelievable" when we learn to be Self led because the protective parts of us that have run the show have an entire way of seeing the world; when we take Self leadership over that, our world gets brighter, bigger, and more vast. The way you see the world changes!

In week 6, we will learn to recover and realign by calling on the resources of your embodied Self to self-soothe and self-resource with the intention to go deep for one more push before entering the presence stage of your seasonal flow. 

Now, back to the hero's journey, the threshold of the hero's journey are the Trailheads in your life. Go look at the photo and make the connection between a trailhead and the threshold in the image. The return/gift of the goddess are tools and skills discovered by accessing the qualities of your Self. The helpers are the men in this community, me, and those who join you in this transformational journey. We often call what you make most important, your creative gift to the world, children, intimate partners, or your traumas and wounds, your tor-mentors. They are mentoring you through torment. They are helping you find the places inside that need your care and attention. 

So here we are at a threshold. We are entering the power phase.

Learning Objective: 

1. Craft embodied stretches, work statements, and lines of inquiry to find creative ways to respond to trailhead moments in new and powerful ways. 

2. Get to know your protective parts, learn to ask them what they need and want, learn to listen to hear what was previously non-conscious coming from your parts. 

3. Recover and realign by calling on the resources of your embodied Self, learning to use each stage of the BASIC method, to self-soothe, self resource with the intention to go-deep for one more push before entering the presence stage of your seasonal flow. 

Embodied Practice: 

Write a shadow and gold mission statement to honor your practice.

Journal Questions: 

1 . As you reflect on the work you’ve done so far, where are you learning to bring your awareness when it comes to meeting the demands of your work, life, relationships, goals and dreams? 

2. What's bringing you energy?

3. What is taking energy away? 

4. How do you want to stretch yourself to show up in a more empowering way

5. What do you notice that blocks you when you attempt to stretch into a focus area? 

6. What is an example of a trailhead moment that you’ve discovered and worked with  this season?