Recently I worked with an executive leader who was struggling. She felt that her body is not supporting her enough when she was leading, encouraging, managing, and motivating her team for driving results and meet challenges. Or let’s say she didn’t use the body wisdom because she didn’t know how. 

MIND & BODY ARE INEXTRICABLY LINKED



In our current culture, our head is the important bit. The body is what brings it around from meeting to meeting, and if our body’s lucky, we’ll take it to the gym or yoga studio occasionally and look after it. That’s common sense in our culture, and when we think about leadership, the body may have something to do with it – body language for example – but the head’s the important bit; right?

What if, however, that’s not right? What if the body does play a very important role, and this goes beyond just body language?

Many body language experts teach executive leaders about facial expressions, fidgeting, head movements, hand gestures, body posture, physical distance, etc… But in reality, the body plays a much more important role and goes far beyond just body language.

It goes into emotional and kinaesthetic intelligence, energy, intuition, instinct, … and it’s about the embodiment of all of it, to be whole, to be more convincing, to achieve more with less energy, and to consciously lead with ease, even in most stressed and improvised situations.

Because when an Embodied Leader shows up, you can feel the whole person, their mind and body are inextricably linked, and their energy radiates. You see a conscious, intuitive, creative, and confident self that communicates powerfully with authenticity who they really are and what they want. And you feel trust, clarity, and inner peace.

SO WHAT IS THIS 70-93% OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION?

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Leaders with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior and communicate powerfully with authenticity. 

Consider for example emotional intelligence: when you have an emotional reaction to something and it makes you e.g. angry, the reaction you experience doesn’t appear as an idea in your head, but as a feeling in your gut. It’s an ‘embodied’ reaction. Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. 

And the good news is… everybody can develop and enhance emotional intelligence.

KINESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE

Leaders with kinesthetic intelligence are skilled at using their bodies to convey feelings and ideas. 

They use a lot of movement to gain knowledge about their own selves, their mental, emotional, and physical abilities, as well as their surroundings. They have a natural understanding and sense of how the body should react and act in a physically, emotionally, and mentally demanding situation. They also have a strong sense of body awareness and internal movements. They possess a lot of grace, agility, suppleness, and speed. They love physical activities and are therefore keenly interested in dancing, yoga, sports… or enjoying activities that make use of hands, like carpentry and sculpting. They usually follow their gut instincts and do not like to be told what to do.

And the good news is… everybody can develop and enhance kinesthetic intelligence with some guided practice.

ENERGY

One of my clients said: “Now I sense where my energy is in my body when I give directions and I am more clear and determined when I want something.” 

Because If we drive all our energy just into the mind and work daily for many hours just from that place… we eventually feel emotionally & physically disconnected, exhausted, frequently off-balance, and on the way to burnout. But if we consciously activate our core energy through breathing & movement exercises, we tap into our inner power and deep potential, balancing our mind, emotions, and body, while working within the flow of the energy through us and around us. And this is the space where we can start to work, lead and manifest effortlessly. 

And the good news is… In the last 15 years, I developed a very powerful core activation exercise, a mixture of Pranayama breathing, Tai Chi, and Chi gong ... and everybody can learn how to raise their energy with core activation and breathing techniques for 15 min. daily to flow through life & work with ease, besides 100+ Dance Alchemy tools that anybody can train and use.

INTUITION

Intuition is the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning or what Paulo Coelho wrote in The Alchemist: “Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life”. 

We all know that decisions from instinct and intuition are much faster and more precise than decisions coming only from the mind, which we first analyze, calculate the possible outcomes, and then make action from. 

Do you know how we can use our instinct and intuition to make clear decisions with our leadership? What is happening between two people in a highly intensive field where decisions and reactions are happening? 

Check Dance Alchemy Teacher Training HERE

And again, where we can find and sense our intuition and instinct? In the BODY.