Unlocking Body Wisdom: How Somatic Intelligence Transforms Decision-Making, Resilience, and Leadership with Dr. Amanda Blake Part 2 - podcast episode cover

Unlocking Body Wisdom: How Somatic Intelligence Transforms Decision-Making, Resilience, and Leadership with Dr. Amanda Blake Part 2

Jun 25, 202426 minEp. 114
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This is part 2 of a 2 part series where you will learn to unlock transformative insights into the realm of somatic intelligence with Dr. Amanda Blake, the Author of "Your Body is Your Brain."

Discover the transformative power of somatic intelligence and how it can elevate your leadership skills to new heights. Join us as Dr. Blake shares invaluable insights into how paying attention to internal sensations can bolster resilience, adaptability, empathy, and conflict management. Learn practical techniques like creating a personal list of sensation words to better understand and respond to physical experiences, providing a deeper connection to yourself and those around you. This episode offers powerful strategies to enrich your emotional and social intelligence, leading to heightened satisfaction and well-being in both your personal and professional life.

Master your emotions through body awareness by addressing physical reactions in stressful situations. Unclenching your hands or adopting relaxation techniques can be game changers, much like an athlete’s training. We share real-life examples illustrating how these techniques can revolutionize your career. She also emphasizes the importance of connecting these practices to meaningful outcomes to reinforce commitment and effectiveness.
Listen, practice, and watch your leadership abilities soar.

https://embright.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-blake-phd-892195/

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Transcript

Enhancing Leadership Through Somatic Intelligence

Sonnie

Hey there , what's up everybody ? Welcome to Evoke Greatness . This podcast was created for those of you who , like me , are driven by their curious nature and fascination with the champion mindset , if you have an insatiable hunger for growth and knowledge , or maybe you're just curious on how some of the most successful people have navigated their journey .

We share the ups and the downs , the highs and the lows and all the lessons learned along the way . It doesn't matter what chapter you are on in your story Maybe you're just getting started or , heck , maybe you're halfway through . What I know is , where intention goes , energy flows .

It's my most sincere hope that you will hear something in one or maybe many of these episodes that resonates with you and reminds you that you are not in this alone . As we venture into year two , I hope that you find a sense of connection and community when you're here , because we all deserve a place where we belong .

My name is Sunny and I am so glad you're here . If you're new , there's a few things you want to know about me . I am a huge book nerd and a wee bit of a control enthusiast , with an obsession for motivational coffee cups . I believe that a rising tide raises all ships and I invite you along in this journey to evoke greatness .

Your book talks about how somatic intelligence can enhance leadership abilities , which I think is a really big deal . Can you share some of those practical tips , just for those listening on ? You know how can someone utilize these to become more powerful or effective leaders through somatic practices ?

Amanda

Well , can I say I want to share a little bit about the research I've done since the book was published , because there's further research since the book was published and the upshot of that research is that in the realm of emotional intelligence and social intelligence , and actually even lying outside of those realms , there are a few major major things that seem to

grow . Certainly are correlated with strong embodied self-awareness is our capacity to pay attention to our internal sensations in the moment , with our eyes open , in a nonjudgmental way and like , respond to those messages . It's our capacity to use sensation and movement as sources of intelligence . Okay , so that's embodied self-awareness .

When embodied self-awareness , when embodied self-awareness is high , we also see that resilience is high , that adaptability is high , that flourishing , which is a measure of satisfaction with life and a measure of well-being , that flourishing is high . Why ? Because we're more in tune with our intelligence that tells us what we need , right ?

So all of those things are high . So are empathy , connectedness and conflict management right , and conflict management in particular , as a leader , I mean resilience and adaptability . Goodness knows like we desperately need that in today's world . We're in a constant onslaught of change , right ? And conflict management ?

Don't even get me started right On the sort of level of public discourse , like we , just we need to be able to engage with one another in ways that grant one another legitimacy , humanity , that we're being kind and deeply listening to one another , but not without like we also don't need to sacrifice where we stand on particular positions or points of view inside

the workplace , in society , etc . Right , so how do you actually develop those skills ? Well , embodied self-awareness appears to be like a really powerful lever where all of the skills of emotional and social intelligence that set outstanding leaders apart from average leaders can be developed .

Like , if you do this one thing , all these other things appear to come along with it . So that's a little bit why you ask for practical tips . So one of the things that you can do that is just very simple , very easy is to make and I I highly recommend making your own list .

You can go on the internet and and find a list , but I'm going to tell you why in a moment . Make your own list of sensation words . So what are experiences of sensation ? If I just ask you right now , sunny , three to five words of sensations that you might experience Excitement , excitements and emotion . Okay , yeah , what is the physical sensation .

Yeah , so the excitement between this is hard for us to do and the reason I'm suggesting doing it is because we actually have very we're not used to looking here , so we have very paltry language around . Some of us have very paltry language around . Emotions , right , and we can go like happy , sad , right . So think about sensation .

Words are things like temperature or weight or pressure or movement . So I'm going to challenge you , if you don't mind . I'm totally , totally out of this thought . But like what are some words that might describe physical sensations ? And even to get there , you might notice what's happening in your own body right now .

Sonnie

Yeah , and even to get there , you might notice what's happening in your own body right now . Yeah , so when my mind went to excitement , you know that . And then you talk about temperature .

That could even be like a rise in temperature , that could be an increase in heart rate , right , those sensations of what an emotion may cause in you , yeah , Okay , you might feel heat , you might feel fluttering or stirring or beating of your heart .

Amanda

All of those are sensation , orange , awesome .

Sonnie

Yeah , and I find myself , even as you're saying this , physically like leaning in , to be cut from a learning and a curiosity perspective , right , and really wanting to wrap my brain around it , and I think that almost causes a bit of relaxation , because there's not a , or you know , shoulders like dropping , leaning into the experience , not in a way of being

nervous or not having the right answer , rather being genuinely curious about the distinction between the two .

Amanda

Yeah , yeah , Great . And so there is this distinction and it's actually it's challenging for us to get at , like , what is the ? How do we tease it out ? What's the difference between sensation and emotion ? So why I'm saying write a list and why I'm saying do it yourself rather than just go look for a list . You could start by looking for a list .

It does something different in our brain when we have to kind of rack our brain to come up with it ourselves . And if you reference your own physical experience , well , what's happening in my jaw right now ? Well , what's the temperature in my feet ? Are my feet moving ? Are my feet clenched ? Right ? Clenched is a sensation . It's not an emotion , right ?

So , really , looking for those physical words , make a list for yourself and then go through your day and just every now and then look over at that list , check in with your body and go what am I sensing ? Not what am I feeling in an emotional way , what you're sensing might be tied to that , but what am I actually physically experiencing right now ?

That has a way of bringing you present . You can't experience sensation five seconds ago or five seconds in the future . You can only experience it right now . So it'll bring you into the present .

The more keenly clear you get about your language to describe sensation actually , the better you get at sensing it , because you have sort of like a better linguistic math that lays over the physical math of your body . It helps you in a sense see more , but by see here I really mean sense , physically sense more .

So just making a list for yourself of sensation words it's actually harder than you think and doing that and paying attention on a daily basis , that will start . That's a very sort of simple initial start down the path of building embodied self-awareness . Further steps are about contextualizing that .

So further steps would be , well , what's my experience in when I'm experiencing joy ? What's my experience when I'm experiencing confidence ? What's my physical experience of being in a difficult conversation , right ? So any of these particular situations in our lives we can start to go . What are my sensations ? What's my physical position in space ?

That's known as proprioception , right ? So , like I'm leaning in with curiosity and I'm interested and I'm eager , okay , there's like a physical lean in , so being able to notice those things in salient , important moments of our lives and then to build on the ones where we're at our best . Here's what it feels like to be confident .

This is my experience of myself . Here's how my eyes are , here's how my jaw is , here's how my shoulders are , here's how my stomach is in a situation where I really feel like I'm crushing it , situation where I really feel like I'm crushing it . Well , what if I were to just actually practice that five or 10 times a day , right , where I go ?

Oh wait , when I'm confident . For me , it'll be different for you , sunny , it'll be different for any of your listeners . We have our own unique responsiveness , some themes among humans , but in my case , confidence feels like relaxed . I'm aware of my back .

I can feel either my seat on the chair or my feet on the floor , like I feel certain heaviness or weighted ness . When I feel confident . Most of the time but not all the time my eyes are relaxed . Most of the time , my jaw and shoulders are relaxed .

Most of the time I'm a comfortable temperature , so I'm neither flushed and heated up nor am I too terribly cold , right . So what do I do to invite in confidence ? Oh well , I know that my shoulders are relaxed .

So can I relax my shoulders , can I relax my eyes and jaw , can I feel my seat and my back Right and then invite more of that embodiment of confidence into the next conversation ? But you don't do that by having an idea of it . In the same way , you don't like get a six pack by going to the gym one day . Right , you do that .

You get a six pack by going to the gym over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until your body is trained a different way .

So if you want to develop confidence , you are going to develop over and over and over relaxed jaw , relaxed eyes , relaxed shoulders right , or whatever the shape of confidence is for you is for you , and much like defining what that desired state of your body is .

Sonnie

If you so you don't just go to the gym and get on the treadmill one day and get on , you know , do some bench press another day , like you really have to understand how do you want to craft your body as you use that . The gym reference , like it , makes me think about identifying what your desired state is .

The practice that we just went through all these thoughts came flooding to me about whether it's when I'm at the dentist office and I have to consciously remind myself because I usually I'm holding on , not that it's hurting , but it is the meaning in which I've assigned going to the dentist is some anxiety , some stress .

Going to the dentist is some anxiety , some stress . And so I'm white knuckling the armrests and I'll look down and I'm like it's not , like , let go of that , loosen your grip up , sunny , it's not hurting . It's this meaning that I've assigned to it .

And so I love that you pulled that in so real time with me , because I think about , okay , how you know what is that desired state of how I want to feel , those sensations I want to have , and so now I'm able to piece those two together , because I do think most people probably lean into the emotion side of it yeah Like , but it's the emotion or that

feeling that actually gives us the sensation . So the discernment between those two really helped me walk through that just live .

Amanda

Oh , I'm so , I'm so , so glad

Mastering Emotions Through Body Awareness

. And it's true because , as I said , emotion is a combination of our interpretation and our physical sensations , and so we can actually , if we're having an emotion in a situation where that's not really our preferred experience let's say there are at least two doorways in , and one is to look at how we're interpreting the situation .

We actually tend to go there a lot , right , well , what did this person mean ? Well , what's my role in the situation ? Well , what if I'm thinking about it all the wrong way ? Like , is there a way I could reframe this ? And we're kind of used to going there .

Some of us could go there more often , right , like , sometimes it's really hard to get a new perspective on a situation , and sometimes we need the help of our friends or family or professional supporters , whether that's a coach or a therapist or somebody , a clergy person , right , somebody that you work with .

But we don't often go through the doorway of the body , so we don't often in the dentist's office , go . What I could do is just like unclench my hands right and maybe a different interpretation here , like I've never actually been injured at the dentist , if that's true for you . Right , so you physically shift and you shift your interpretation , and I'm so .

I'm like when's your next dentist appointment and are you going to call me afterwards and let me know how it goes ? Right ? Because the and that's why this stuff is actually incredibly practical , because in the , in the difficult moments , our thoughts move so fast it's often hard for us to remember like , oh , I could take a different perspective on this .

But if , over time , we've been practicing unclenching our hands in situations of high stress and even practicing unclenching our hands in situations where there's absolutely no stress at all , right , think about how an athlete trains they don't wait until the moment of competition to start training . Right , way before , and for many , many repetitions they're going .

I'm going to unclench my hands , unclench my hands , unclench my hands until the moment of I'm at the dentist , and now my hands remember how to unclench right , right , and I can do that more automatically .

And that is what it means to have a quality embodied , to have it emanate from you , to have it be second nature , and so we can , through these approaches , come to embody different qualities , including different leadership qualities , that help us in all aspects of our lives .

Sonnie

And that just happened to be what came to my mind was the dentist . Right , because I recognize that , the sensation caused by emotions in those circumstances .

But again , right , take that walking into a leadership meeting , sitting down with your board , that's where a lot of people experience those same type of emotions of stress and anxiety , and so you may be showing up in that same white knuckling manner in which I do at the dentist , in the boardroom , and so those , I think they're so transferable to the different

experiences that we're having , be it personal , be it professional , and so practicing those things leading up to that big board meeting , that big meeting that you're going to have , whatever that looks like , but doing the work , taking out your notes and really , after this podcast is over , or hit pause throughout it , to say , okay , what experience have I had that

I can identify right now , based on this experience that Amanda and Sunny just went through this practice round ? How can I identify that to myself ?

Amanda

Yeah .

Sonnie

And then the ability to actually practice that we all get better with practice .

Amanda

Yeah , and it's useful too to bear in mind , like because sometimes practice is hard . One of the hardest things about it is remembering to practice . This is not actually as hard as going to the gym and doing sit-ups or getting on the treadmill , but often remembering to do it as hard , and so it's helpful if it's connected to something we care about .

So if you think about , like , okay , if I'm white knuckling it through my next board meeting , what results are ? What's the likely outcome ? Right , and if I'm relaxed at my next board meeting , how might that affect the outcome and why does that outcome matter to me ?

And so , okay , let me , if that outcome really matters and the outcome is positively affected by me entering the board meeting more relaxed , how do I practice that relaxation in advance ? What does it look like ? What does it feel like ? And I do mean what does it look like in your body ? Are you leaning forward ? Are you leaning back ? Are you ?

You know how's your spine ? Are you a little bit collapsed , or are you stretching up or are you just sort of your natural height , right ?

So , really looking carefully about what it means to physically embody a state of relaxation that will support you in , for example , your next board meeting is a game changer and in fact , there's someone I specifically write about , a general manager at Microsoft , who did this very thing meeting with executives at Microsoft .

It was a total game changer for her career .

Sonnie

Yeah , and there are a lot of stories like that for the book , where you give these relevant examples of people in situations that I assure you anyone listening there is something in there that is going to completely resonate with you and you're like I'm them , I'm them , I go , I go through that same experience where I feel that same sensation or feeling .

And so , you know , lean into the experience . Oftentimes , when there's something that we don't have a great amount of knowledge around , we step out of it because we don't . We sometimes feel like we have to have the right answer . We have to fully understand it when , if we lean in with that openness and the curiosity around this topic , it may not .

You know again that discernment between what we just discussed . A lot of people may not really be aware of that , and so , you know , lean into the experience . You have a something that's applicable here . You have a stress to serenity guide . You want to share a little bit about that .

Amanda

Oh yeah , I'd be happy to . So that's actually a really useful resource . It's available totally for free on the Embrite website I'm sure you'll have a link to it in the show notes and it's seven sessions over 14 days of learning how to really feel your sensations and align yourself with what you care about . So it's a combination of those two things .

It's a particular kind of we might call it a centering practice and it's a . It's something that you can try on for yourself . That and it's me just leading you through in the same way .

You and I just talked Sunny right Like a seven step process of do this Now , now , now , whatever we just did together , go do it 10 times today and do it 10 times tomorrow , and then I'll send you another one , and it's just a little ad it's not something totally different , but a little ad to what we just did and then , a couple of days later , another

little ad until by the end of it , by the end of it , by the end of a couple of weeks , you have a really solid practice for yourself that lets you line up with what you're , what you care about , and when I say line up with or align , I mean like you're the whole of your intelligence is standing behind what matters to you , and then you bring that into

your board meeting , you bring that into your next performance review , you bring that into the next difficult conversation you need to have with your spouse or your child or your best friend and boom , there's something different available in the conversation from there .

That's why we see , when people do this work and the research I was referring to earlier surveyed hundreds of people right , and we just saw really consistently , when people dial up their embodied self-awareness , more resilience , more adaptability , better conflict management , more connectedness , right , all these really valuable qualities come along .

Sonnie

Yeah , and those are interwoven into everyone's personal and professional development .

I mean , there's not an area that it really couldn't serve , if really leaning into the practice , and that's the beauty of it right , for those of us who were like , okay , I really want to grow in X , y or Z way , this has the opportunity to serve you as much as you will allow it , and that's a really cool offering to be able to do through your own

practice and your own mindfulness around what is that ultimate desired state I want to be in ?

Amanda

Yeah , you know it's interesting because I say this somewhere near the beginning of the book and you're pointing to it now . I set out to write a book about leadership because that was my interest . That was a people that I was working with and I couldn't do it .

I totally failed , because we take our bodies with us everywhere we go , and it turned out it had to be a book about all of life , not just so there are a lot of leadership stories in there , but it's true , there's there's no aspect of our lives that isn't touched by our capacity for somatic or embodied intelligence , and so , wow , why not learn to use it

well ?

Sonnie

be it for your kids , your spouse , your friends that you're surrounded by , maybe your team . There is nothing better than a leader who really models that peak state , if you will . That is not just performance related , it's not just EQ related . It folds in the threads of all of that in one .

Amanda

Yeah , and there's some interesting stories too in the book about teams that have taken this on as a team and have gone into this kind of a learning for themselves , to to try and see , like how , when we are trying to coordinate our action as a team , when we're trying to communicate with one another like well , what if all of us are more centered , grounded ,

bringing more of our best selves , bringing more of what we care about , embodying a sense of , like , calm , clarity , confidence in whatever we're working together on . And teams that have done this work together have seen tremendous results .

There's , you know , in the book I write about , some of the amazing , substantial financial impact of teams that just work better together because they've learned how to , because they've all learned how to organize themselves , to be present , calm , open , connected with one another Well as we wrap up , I encourage everyone to grab the book .

Sonnie

Your body is your brain . There's also an audio book , so not everybody is a physical book nerd like me . Sometimes you want to be able to listen to it on your commute or on a plane or going wherever you're going . So there's an audio book offering as well . And will you share ?

I'll have all this linked in the notes , but will you share where everyone can find you connect with you .

Amanda

Yeah , you bet . So the easiest place to find me , my online home , is at mbrightorg E-M-B-R-I-G-H-T . Bright , light yourself up . And that is org . And there you'll find just tons and tons of free resources , links to more podcasts . If you ever decide you want to dig deeper , there's lots of free resources , links to more podcasts .

If you ever decide you want to dig deeper , there's lots of free stuff , so avail yourself please .

Inspiring Call to Action

Sonnie

Thank you so much for listening and for being here on this journey with me . I hope you'll stick around If you liked this episode . It would mean the world for me if you would rate and review the podcast or share it with someone you know may need to hear this message .

I love to hear from you all and want you to know that you can leave me a voicemail directly . If you go to my website , evokegreatnesscom , and go to the contact me tab , you'll just hit the big old orange button and record your message . I love the feedback and comments that I've been getting , so please keep them coming .

I'll leave you with the wise words of author Robin Sharma Greatness comes by doing a few small and smart things each and every day . It comes from taking little steps consistently .

It comes from making a few small chips against everything in your professional and personal life that is ordinary , so that a day eventually arrives when all that's left is the extraordinary .

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