What I learned from Leadership Embodiment Book By Wendy Palmer and Janet Crawford (954 words)

“The nonverbal is a huge part of the communication for us human beings.” Wendy Palmer starts one of her speaking events.

In Leadership Embodiment we learn that the awareness of the vibe and body language is important. By standing straight, shoulders relaxed, and body at ease, our body releases oxytocin and testosterone. Janet Crawford backs up this concept in the second section of the book. She explains “What’s clear is that there is an intimate interplay between gesture and neurotransmitters, the chemicals that determine our emotional states. It is not an accident that we feel more powerful when we stand tall. In very short order, that stance increases our testosterone levels, equating with higher confidence.”

Leadership Embodiment (LE) introduces an essential concept on mind-body connection, the important role of our body in our communications. Palmer suggests the connection between LE and the Mirror Neurons theory. Mirror Neuron theory indicates that bodies mirror each other subconsciously when they are communicating, and it impacts the posture of the body and consequently the emotions aroused in the person. In short people pick up each other’s moods from body language. LE brings awareness to this phenomenon and suggests practices that could help deeper connections with others and with life.

LE teaches us about personal space and expanding it to include others and to switch from personality dominated body pose to centered body pose. The simple practice of noticing, standing, or sitting up right where your head, heart and core are aligned and relaxed can go a long way. It doesn’t mean that always sit up or stand straight because we get distracted or stressed during the day, but the trick is not to remain stressed. We need tools to use stress as a source of strength. The sooner we notice the easier we can transform it to strength. However, we don’t want to wait until we are stressed and do the practice. We need to practice centering all the time. The more we practice the deeper the body remembers it.

Centering practice as mentioned in the book could be as simple as 5 to 20 seconds of 4 steps each time.

1. Inhale and uplift the posture
2. Exhale slowly and relax shoulders
3. Balance in according to gravity
4. Expand personal space to feel the room

You can feel an ease immediately and the more you practice the deeper you sense the ease in your body that results more confidence and broader perspective.

Palmer also offers a practice in communication when a person being pushy towards the other. You can watch this video and practice it with friends. When someone begin to put pressure in us in any type of communication, we tend to have a posture that is either collapsed to make us feel smaller or chest extended that could make us feel defensive. In this practice, she teaches us to bring awareness to our posture, switch to a straight posture, and look further than the person to make our perspective bigger.

She even goes as far as when we don’t have the energy to expand ourselves. She explains, “I’ll invite someone with great wisdom, kindness, and strength to come through me with their energy. I use that person’s energy for my inspiration.”

Palmer emphasizes that repetition is the key to create a new habit. She suggests setting regular short practices to make the new habit by checking our muscles tension at least 10 times per day to notice which muscle groups are tense, and to notice when our head, heart, and core are not aligned, and we are in personality dominated posture. Then we can shift to center.

Centering practice is a small practice that can bring big results into our lives. In the second section of the book Crawford stands, “Leadership Embodiment practices help us develop a fine level of somatic awareness with regard to our emotional state. We can name the emotion we are experiencing and reshape our bodies to transform our emotional expression.” And then she clears that with saying, “Leadership Embodiment practices give us repeated somatic experience of navigating formerly overwhelming neural triggers in a more resourceful way, allowing the brain to record previous triggers as less dangerous than they were once experienced. As we practice with Leadership Embodiment tools, we are training our nervous system that we can withstand the input.”

The more we practice centering and expanding our personal space, the more we include others in our space with confidence and respect that doesn’t cross our boundaries. When we allow bigger space, then we could even put people’s aggression in that space rather than directly in our body. Then we can look at it objectively. And others also mirror our body posture and communicate through connectedness. There will be more response than reaction and the ripple effect of it could make a better environment. Palmer mentions that best leaders lead with warmth of oxytocin, confidence of testosterone, and the strength on their back. Doesn’t every one of us need to cultivate self-leadership?

I have benefited of doing this practice feeling the change in my body. I encourage friends, family members and clients to practice it. Throughout the session with a client, I remember this a few times and switch to centered posture. It is interesting to see the subtle effect of it on the other person. I think this book could be a great starting point for somatic awareness especially for people who are not familiar with it at all.

As my mentor coach shared this video with me, I encourage others to watch it as well. Watching Wendy Palmer and her beautiful body language gives the book a deeper effect.

Let’s celebrate life!

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