Unlocking Body Wisdom: How Somatic Intelligence Transforms Decision-Making, Resilience, and Leadership with Dr. Amanda Blake Part 1

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Welcome back to another episode of Evoke Greatness . I am excited to hop into this topic . Today . We have Dr Amanda Blake with us . She's the author of your Body is your Brain . Leverage your Somatic Intelligence to Find Purpose , build Resilience , deepen Relationships and Lead More Powerfully .

Amanda is not only an accomplished author but a pioneer in integrating somatic intelligence into that personal and professional side of development . She teaches us how to use our bodily wisdom to find purpose , build resilience , deepen those relationships .

Our bodily wisdom to find purpose , build resilience , deepen those relationships , advance ourselves in so many of the different facets and lead more powerfully . Amanda , welcome to the show . Thank you for having me . Well , I would love to kick off . How did you jump into what you're doing today , the current version of ourselves ?

Oftentimes it's like , okay , you know , the fascinating part is what led up to where you are now .

I've always had an interest in the relationship between biology and psychology , dating back to like when my mother was pregnant with my baby brother , so from childhood really , I grew up as an athlete and I grew up in a medical family and I thought for both of those reasons that I would go into sports medicine and I started down that path and happened upon

perspective on the world that interested me even more , which is the major that I was in in college really took the point of view . Major that I was in in college really took the point of view .

It was a human biology major but it took the point of view that we can only understand humans by looking at us them , we through the lens of both the natural and the social sciences .

So I had a lot of education in biology and psychology and then on sort of a community level in the relationship between culture and nature or ecology and anthropology , and that was just deep fascination for me in my very early formative years and people did all kinds of things with that degree .

But it's certainly and it's interdisciplinary enough that it doesn't lend itself to an easy , obvious path or job , and I had many , many interests . So I did a tour of duty in education . I did a tour of duty in Silicon Valley , because that's where I grew up , you know .

I did a tour of duty as an outdoor educator and guide because that was a big part of my life . Ultimately I landed in leadership coaching and executive coaching and it seemed more and more like this is kind of maybe the right fit in my career .

And along the way somebody handed me a book that was about a body-oriented approach to learning and I went to study with the author of the book and have subsequently studied with many other people who do this kind of work and what I found was a place to finally bring all of my fascinations , passions and interests together , where now I get to support people in

finding how they can be at their best their finding how they can be at their best , sometimes in situations of very high pressure , leadership situations , challenging personal situations , like how can we tap our best by leveraging the whole of our intelligence .

And it turns out we have a lot more intelligence than we think we do , all the way out to our fingers and toes . So I can talk a little bit more , if you like , about that specific , like how I came to write the book and that part of the journey . If you think that would be interesting here , yeah , absolutely .

You know , I kind of stumbled into this more body oriented approach to leadership coaching and my own life was radically upgraded , like radically . I suddenly was able to speak up for myself in situations where I hadn't been able to do that before .

I suddenly was able to take risks on behalf of what I cared about , take risks to play bigger in my work and my career . I was able to just do some things in the world that I hadn't previously been able to do and , frankly , it was better for me and better for everyone around me .

And so , as one of my teachers used to say , right , it's better for me , I'm really better for everyone around me . I just became not that I wasn't a nice person before , but a nicer person , especially in stressful situations . And at the same time , I was super skeptical .

I was like this shouldn't work , like why would it be that when I lower my chin or I pay attention to the way my feet are contacting the floor , or I put my shoulders over my hips , like why does that change how I show up in high pressure situations . Why does that change ?

You know what I'm able to do on behalf of a mission or a goal that I hold , so I was actually pretty skeptical and that was the genesis of the book your Body is your Brain . I had to go figure out for myself what's underneath all this . I could see that it was having a huge impact in my life .

As I started using these practices with clients , I could see that it was having a wildly huge impact on them . But I was like I don't understand it . So I wrote the book , partly so I could understand it , but also because I felt like you know , this is very powerful .

But if I don't understand it and I was resistant at first , you know I'm not the only one and people should have access to this . They . I would have needed . It would have helped me to have like a clear explanation of why it makes sense that you can actually change , change yourself and support behavioral learning through embodied practice .

We hear about things like , oh , get this playlist , you know , get these something to to really trigger your mind , to get you amped up , and those things , though , they work in some situations .

Sometimes it's about better understanding why they work , and so that's why I love to dive into topics that go deeper into this , and so , for listeners who may be new to this concept , can you break down what somatic intelligence entails and why is that crucial ? How can it really shift our personal development ?

So , when we're looking at what cognition is , there are intellectual aspects to that , right , like understanding a spreadsheet if you're making financial decisions , right . But there are also social and emotional aspects to that , like understanding if the person across from you is ready to hear what you have to say to them Kind , constructive , whatever it may be right .

And so there are different forms of intelligence and we're used to thinking about that like that . There's , there's mathematical intelligence , there's kinesthetic intelligence , some people are auditory learners , etc . Etc .

We have a whole form of intelligence that in the academic world is referred to as embodied cognition and it's a way of gathering information about experiencing and understanding and then choosing to act in the world , or sometimes automatically , sort of habitually acting in the world in ways that are based on that gathered sensory information .

So we have this capacity for sensory intelligence and it actually influences everything we do . There's not a way for us to turn it off . It plugs straight into our decision-making neural architecture . It plugs straight into the neural architecture that helps us understand our own emotions .

It's plugged straight into the neural architecture that helps us empathize with other people . And so we actually have this vast source of intelligence that , in contrast to all of our years in school kindergarten , through graduate school we spent a lot of time training our intellect .

We actually just don't spend time training our capacity for embodied cognition , and that was true for me . I was an athlete . I spent a lot of time training my body for specific athletic feats , but that's very different from embodied cognition .

Likewise , you know you might spend a lot of time paying attention to the body , or you might know a lot about the body . If you work in healthcare right and have certain ways of intervening with medications or with different kinds of medical devices , all kinds of things that you can do to intervene in the health of the body , that's also really different .

What I'm talking about is an intelligence that comes from our fingers and toes , and one of the ways to think about that is like when the hair stand up on the back of your neck right . That's metaphorical , but also very real .

We'll have these moments where we just have some spidey sense or like , in the same way that you know you stubbed your toe , you will know if you , in a manner of speaking , stubbed your heart , and so we have an embodied knowing , but we don't have 12 or 24 years of education that help us discern what it's telling us , help us make intelligent use of those

messages . Then apply it , specifically in the leadership realm , and there's lots of other places you could apply it . It matters for parenting , it matters for decision-making about your own life , it matters in I mean , our bodies come with us everywhere , so it matters everywhere .

Right , but burnout , I guess really , when you think about it , when you talk about that spectrum , isn't necessarily just for adults . Kids can experience those types of things as well . Maybe they show up in different ways .

When you think about those that may be experiencing things around burnout and stress and anxiety , how can people utilize somatic intelligence to navigate through those types of challenges that are sometimes , they almost feel , a little more emotional than physical ?

Well , do you feel anxiety or do you feel excitement ? And the way you know has to do with your evaluation of whatever the situation is , right . So there's a physical sensation heart fluttering and there is kind of an interpretive evaluation , like I'm really excited about what's ahead or I'm really nervous about what's ahead , right ?

So emotions are kind of a bridge between the conceptual and the physical , and we actually don't experience emotion in the absence of physical sensation . But because of our neural architecture and also because of a number of different cultural pressures , we're not as used to feeling those sensations .

They tend to be more subtle unless there's something very significant going on that's making us really nervous , for example . And so all of those physical sensations are kind of put on autopilot by nerve cells that are part of our interoceptive nervous system . Some listeners may know that term , others may not .

It's basically the equivalent to our five senses , but inside of our body , right . So we're getting information from inside of our body , but those nerve cells are actually smaller , they are unmyelinated , meaning they don't have this insulated , fatty sheath that helps the signal travel faster .

So , compared to our capacity to pay attention to the world outside our own skin , our capacity to pay attention to the world inside our own skin is kind of sensorily dampened . It's quieter , which is why we often close our eyes or go somewhere quiet , right , to try and get in tune with ourselves or get in touch with ourselves .

So , all of that is to say , there are challenges and obstacles to sensing ourselves , but when we do , we actually gain all kinds of information . Okay , so let me make sure I'm on track with your question . You asked about burnout and stress and overwhelm and how we can respond to those situations .

So , knowing that these quieter signals and these can be signals like hunger and thirst , they can be signals like physical exhaustion , but they can also be signals like the emotions that you mentioned in your question , right , which is , you know , one of the symptoms of burnout is emotional exhaustion and kind of a depersonalization of the people that you work with ,

the people that you're with every day . It's like kind of treating them like a number , because I just can't kind of face my daily responsibilities so that level of burnout .

A lot of times we'll either have strongly heightened emotions , so we'll get really emotionally reactive , maybe with a lot of sensation behind it , or alternatively , we might have really dampened emotions with a lot of dampened or numbing of sensations . Both of those things can happen .

And one of the things that I think is really really useful for contending with all of that and this I'm speaking from personal experience here , because I ran into a period of pretty severe burnout where I actually had to step out of working for a period of time .

It was pretty significant and one of the really important lessons that I learned from that is the importance of rest and the importance of quiet .

Now , that's a luxury that not all of us can find , but where it's possible to put your body in a circumstance of rest , so really downshifting and a circumstance of quiet , it makes it much easier both to hear those signals and to respond to them and it also serves a really important restorative function for the physical body that needs literal physical healing and

reconstruction in situations of burnout . Healing and reconstruction in situations of burnout One of the things that I personally found really useful was to was actually to just do puzzles , which is not something I've ever really done much of in my life .

But there are lots of different forms , like very simple doodling , artwork or doing puzzles , the kinds of things that are not about giving your brain a lot of input , but allowing your brain to concentrate in a focused way , but not in a way that's like super high stakes , right .

So doodling , coloring books , puzzles , whatever your sort of preferred form of allowing your whole brain and body to rest In a kind of active way . Right , it's not just sitting in a hammock , although that can help too , but sometimes that's not even quite all that we need .

A big thing for us nowadays is our phones , our devices , and the number of notifications and the number of times we actually physically touch and pay attention to our phone can be physically and emotionally , psychologically draining .

And so I have found that when trying to focus on something or really trying to just like have that time do not disturb on your phone , where you're just not getting those notifications being shot at you , Sometimes it's like enough to give your brain and your body just a little bit of a break from those constant sensory stimulations .

So for me personally , notifications are mostly off and the ringer on my phone is off for most of the day unless I'm expecting a call , and I'm really deliberate about that because I'm an extremely distractible person . So I actually need all of the support I can get to .

You know , look , when I need to look at the news , I can go look at the news when I have time to look at the news . I don't actually need to have that incoming at all times .

So different people will have different requirements , but I definitely encourage , as a way of supporting your own capacity , to listen , to hear experience I don't even want to say listen to it makes it almost sound like somehow I am separate from my body but like to actually experience your own somatic intelligence .

The less input you can have , the better somatic intelligence . The less input you can have , the better , and one of the things that I want to point out here that I think we tend to lose sight of is . It's worth remembering that our bodies are and I mean this incredibly literally made of earth .

We're not made of anything else , although you know we're like 70% water and the rest of us is materials that come from the earth . Right , so we are made of earth , we are part of nature and if you look at the pace of life in nature , right , like what is an organic pace ? What is happening in your garden ?

What is happening in the trees that grow on your street ? Even if you live on a city block , they'll flourish in the spring and lose their leaves in the winter . They go into a period of dormancy , they have a period of rest , right ? So really looking at what nature needs and treating your body with the same sort of care we might want to treat the earth .

We are made of earth and it's worth remembering that we are nature and we go want to treat the earth .

We are made of earth and it's worth remembering that we are nature and we go best at nature's pace , and so much of our lives are consumed by trying to keep up with a mechanical pace of living , and that actually really compromises our capacity to tap our somatic intelligence , our embodied cognitive capacities .

You know , when we're trying to have a meeting , like there's people coming in . You know , hey , just just got to ask you something real quick , we're just being bombarded .

And so I think the intentionality and what I it's reminds me of something I tell my kids , which is be careful what you put in your ear gates and eye gates , eye gates , and you know what are those things that we're paying attention to .

To , uh , to your point , if you want to know what's going on in the news , like we can actively take the action of going in , either turning the TV on or looking , you know , at our favorite news site or whatever , if we want to seek that out .

But just , I guess , not being aware of how much is coming at us all the time and how much of an impact that has , I really would challenge people to have the intentionality around . What are you allowing in and how is that serving you , your body , those around you , how you're showing up , how you're feeling , how you're thinking .

You know there's just there's so much to it and staying even just on that , on that side of factoring these things into our leadership .

Many years ago I lived in a really small town in Alaska where we this was sort of pre-cell phone era . It was a very small town , we didn't have phone lines in the town itself and we got mail once a week .

So in the event of an emergency , yes , you could get across the river and , in the space of like several hours down a dirt road , get to a hospital , but really our communication with the outside world was mail once a week .

Really , I have to say that totally reset things for me personally around how responsive I need to be to the world , because everything went on just fine without me and and I got on just fine without the daily onslaught and I went back into my daily life right , and there's news every day and things to pay attention to and demands on my time , and that's fine .

I could respond to all of those . But it really changed my orientation to I'm in the driver's seat , and not everything actually needs my immediate attention right now .

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 .

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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 . Thank you .