Leadership Embodiment
by Wendy Palmer and Janet Crawford.

This book has given me an insight and tools to practice being centered, recognizing when one is off center and shifting back to center quickly in various circumstances. It offers useful distinctions like “personality and center” to illustrate the energetically different ways of relating to the world. The way it was brought across using examples of body postures made it more comprehendible and enabled me to start paying more attention to the way I hold my own body throughout my day. It also was really helpful in the work with clients as I could notice when the clients were shifting off center. There were centering exercises in the book which I found complemented well my “arsenal” of practices at hand. During coaching encounters I could use them in situations when I noticed myself or the client shifting off the center. What I found was that this tends to happen as experiential avoidance kicks in when entering areas that are not too pleasant.

The next major take-away from this book was the “personal space” and one’s ability to include others in their personal space when speaking. I believe this distinction was particularly useful for me as again it opened doors to experience of two different ways of relating. In the book there is an illustration of the bubble one creates when expanding their personal space so it includes others. It reminded me very much of the coaching demonstrations during PCC sessions when the guest client was invited to imagine a bubble surrounding the coach and the client. The felt sense of being included and an essential part of the present happening. It feels like sharing the experience or holding hands in the experience. Practice of expanding personal space has been rich as my personality pattern is that during stress my personal space shrinks and leaves everything at a safe distance. The practice of expansion works in the opposite direction. The connection with the client or any given person or event is what seems to be most influenced by becoming aware of and skillful in expanding my personal space. I feel like this level of relating talks to those parts in us that feel left alone. In a contracted state – when such a part has taken the major space in my mind the sense is that all I got is me and all I can trust is me and everyone and everything else is suspicious in one way or another. I can relate to it as the Loyal Soldier part in me, the protector, that draws the boundaries to push everything that has the potential of destroying me outside. When I am expanding my personal space the sense of me becomes vaster, the illusion of the boundary dissolves and as those things that were experienced as to be kept away have become an integral part of the sense of myself, the loyal soldier no longer is triggered. I feel like this skillfulness is essential for someone to develop the capacity of centered listening. The book had a beautiful illustration of that when encountering criticism. In a contracted state the criticism went directly in the head of the listener, triggering the personality response, which for me might be something like described above. However, when listening from center the criticism went in front of the person as an object, something that can be shaped and interpreted, it enables one to remain in touch with the larger space, to step back and notice the background as well as the given content – to hold the complexity of the whole situation, which I feel like is an essential part of the skillfulness called for being a coach.

Another something that fascinated me was the part about challenge of success. This reminded me of Kegan’s “Immunity to change” that I read couple of months ago. However, here it was considered on an energetical level. It was quite weird to realize in this way how we are not really ready to receive what we desire. Noticing the overwhelm and the relief that different levels of success cause opened a new dimension in the way I am checking in with my-self. “… the resistance is equal to the speed and scope of the change (..)”. Sabotaging one’s own success to return to status que, that seems to resonate with me on some deep level. I can sense myself to have done it multiple times in the past and am eager to keep an open eye on that tendency and experience of moving towards success in the future.