The Practice of Embodying

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<table rules="all" frame="box" cellpadding="7" border="1" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="width: 15%; background-image: none; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">90 min. design </td><td valign="top" style="width: 35%; background-image: none; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">8 hour design </td><td valign="top" style="width: 50%; background-image: none; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">5 half-day sessions </td></tr><tr><td valign="top" style="width: 15%; background-image: none; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"> </td><td valign="top" style="width: 35%; background-image: none; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">The purpose is to briefly introduce participants to the Practice of Embodying, to let them experience and discover it for themselves through activity, reflection, discussion.</td><td valign="top" style="width: 50%; background-image: none; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;">The purpose is to briefly introduce participants to the Practice of Embodying, to let them experience and discover it for themselves through activity, reflection, discussion.</td></tr><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="1" style="width: 15%;">There is no 90 minute design for this practice like the Practice of Recognizing. This is because the Practice of Recognizing is an introductory session, and should precede all other practices. </td><td valign="top" rowspan="1" style="width: 35%;"> </td><td valign="top" rowspan="1" style="width: 50%;">CHECK-IN (30 min.) <ul><li>Look at last week's paintings (if you kept the paintings stored in a truck or in a room since the last session). </li><li>Let participants comment about how different they are. This is a good opportunity to give them photos from the previous week's painting, so they can see the differences -- to see the practice of unfolding, how time changed the paintings without any action on their part. </li><li>If some, or many things, have the possibility of changing without any action on our part, how does that affect how you think about what you do in your work?</li></ul>REFLECTION: My Personal or Business Challenge <ul><li>How has the definition of your personal or professional situation changed, if at all? </li></ul></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" rowspan="1" style="width: 15%;"> </td><td valign="top" rowspan="1" style="width: 35%;"> </td><td valign="top" rowspan="1" style="width: 50%;">PERFORMANCE <ul><li><a title="Performance script" target="_blank" href="WikiEditor.im?doc=The-Practice-of-Embodying-Performance-Script">Performance script</a></li></ul></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" style="width: 15%;"> </td><td valign="top" style="width: 35%;">SET-UP (15 min.) <ul><li>Earlier today, you may recall the feelings in your body as you moved through the painting process? When did you feel most free? When did you feel tension?</li><li>Share a story from your first calligraphy painting experience.</li><li>Mark's story: The first time I did a painting in calligraphy, I noticed that my mind, created something, the brush strokes I made would try to recreate it Often times, it did not. It took me many, many efforts to realize this. Sometimes, I would stare at the painting to see what it wanted to create. As if, an image was supposed to magically appear, then all I would have to do is color in the lines. Usually that was an okay experience, but not quite enough. It didn’t feel right. I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like, but I knew that what I was feeling wasn’t it. So, I began to see if I could let the brush reveal the image without my mind trying to figure it out first. Again and again I kept trying. For many practice efforts, I tried. Each time my mind would somehow sneak in right as I started, and my brush would try to color in the lines that my mind saw Then, finally it happened. My mind got out of the way. The brush soaked up the ink, and I didn’t know what was it was going to happen. The brush moved towards the paper and I still didn’t know The first stroke was made, then another one wanted to be created, so it did. It was as if the brush contained all the energy and I was just a prop to support it. When I was done, I was surprised and inspired.</li><li>The practice of embodying is about the coherence or alignment of body, mind and heart.</li><li>Our bodies are sources of information. But, sometimes our head can be saying one thing, our heart another, and still yet another in our bodies. Is it detectable? </li><li>Sony has developed technology to analyze a calligraphy painting. Calligraphy ink is made of carbon. Carbon is a bunch of pluses and minuses, the essence of energy. Sony magnifies a painting 5,000 times and they can see the carbon molecules. When a zen teacher has done a painting, all the molecules are aligned, when done by a student, the molecules are scattered.</li><li>Demonstrate simple techniques, emphasis is on observing oneself as you choose and modify these techniques</li><li>Layout the paper, smooth side up, find the top</li><ul><li>Place rocks where you feel is best</li><li>Poor ink, just a little, it goes a long way</li><li>Poor water in small plates, and water down black to shades of gray</li><li>How to choose a brush</li><li>How to hold a brush</li><li>Making movements, brushstrokes, etc.</li><li>Using rocks, paper towels, etc.</li><li>Ask participants to wash their brushes and clean their water, to prepare for the next painting, and to this generally after each painting effort.</li></ul></ul></td><td valign="top" style="width: 50%;">SET-UP, DEMONSTRATION, AND ROOM RE-SET (20 min.) <ul><li>Today is about the practice of embodying</li><li>Share a story from your first calligraphy painting experience.</li><li>Mark's story: The first time I did a painting in calligraphy, I noticed that my mind, created something, the brush strokes I made would try to recreate it Often times, it did not. It took me many, many efforts to realize this. Sometimes, I would stare at the painting to see what it wanted to create. As if, an image was supposed to magically appear, then all I would have to do is color in the lines. Usually that was an okay experience, but not quite enough. It didn’t feel right. I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like, but I knew that what I was feeling wasn’t it. So, I began to see if I could let the brush reveal the image without my mind trying to figure it out first. Again and again I kept trying. For many practice efforts, I tried. Each time my mind would somehow sneak in right as I started, and my brush would try to color in the lines that my mind saw Then, finally it happened. My mind got out of the way. The brush soaked up the ink, and I didn’t know what was it was going to happen. The brush moved towards the paper and I still didn’t know The first stroke was made, then another one wanted to be created, so it did. It was as if the brush contained all the energy and I was just a prop to support it. When I was done, I was surprised and inspired.</li><li>Demonstrate simple techniques, emphasis is on listening as you choose and modify these techniques</li><li>Layout the paper, smooth side up, find the top</li><ul><li>Place rocks where you feel is best</li><li>Poor ink, just a little, it goes a long way</li><li>Poor water in small plates, and water down black to shades of gray</li><li>How to choose a brush</li><li>How to hold a brush</li><li>Making movements, brushstrokes, etc.</li><li>Using rocks, paper towels, etc.</li></ul><li>Let's prepare the room and your painting area for your first painting.</li><ul><li>Ask participants to help set-up the room, if needed, according to the <a title="Preparation" href="/Preparation.html">preparation</a> directions. </li><li>Ask participants to get the following for their painting area:</li><ul><li>One black wool felt</li><li>One plastic container for water</li><li>One bamboo scroll with three paint brushes</li><li>One bottle of india ink</li><li>Four rocks</li><li>One stack of paper (enough for the number of paintings) </li></ul></ul></ul></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" style="width: 15%;"> </td><td valign="top" style="width: 35%;">INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY (15 min.) <ul><li>Let's get familiar with the brushes, the paper and the paint.</li><li>Paint, "the source of your action and contribution." </li><li>Here again, be mindful of observing and listening to self, and others, and of letting go, being pulled, and building upon within just your painting. Being pulled, can be as simple as which brush to use, building upon can be the mere sequence of what you express.</li></ul> </td><td valign="top" style="width: 50%;">INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY (60 - 90 min.) <ul><li>PAINT: Who am I? This can also be anything simple about the individual, e.g., Who am I as a leader? What is my role on the team? in the organization? </li><li>Hold it up and just look at each painting – how unique? How different? How similar?</li><li>Ask participants to wash their brushes and clean their water, to prepare for the next painting.</li><li>Also ask them to do these after each painting. To clean their brushes, clean the water, prepare a new sheet, and if possible, to do this without disturbing anyone else throughout the day. </li></ul>Explain the practice of embodying <ul><li>Last week, you may recall the feelings in your body as you moved through the painting process. When you did you feel most free? When did you feel tension?</li><li>That was the practice of embodying. </li><li>The practice of embodying is allowing the whole body and mind to speak as one, not just the mind. </li><li>Our bodies store much more knowledge and wisdom than we may know or be conscious of.</li><li>Most of the time, it happens so quickly that it can go unnoticed But, if you pause for a moment and become aware of how your body feels, you have a moment to engage your entire body in your actions. </li><li>Sony has developed technology to analyze a calligraphy painting. Calligraphy ink is made of carbon. Carbon is a bunch of pluses and minuses, the essence of energy. Sony magnifies a painting 5,000 times and they can see the carbon molecules. When a zen teacher has done a painting, all the molecules are aligned, when done by a student, the molecules are scattered.</li><li>How do we align ourselves?</li><li>One way is to be connected to ourself, and the other is the way that we are connected to each other.</li><li>Our bodies are often limited in the ways to affect our thoughts. Or maybe it’s that our minds are so overly involved that it overrides opportunities for the bodies to respond. A quick replay of our day draws attention to the amount of sitting that we have in our lives. All that sitting has limited our abilities to draw on our body’s knowledge. </li><li>Let’s start with how we are connected to one self.</li><li>The heart’s connection to the mind and the body.</li><li>The heart:</li><ul><li>At San Diego-based HeartMath, president and COO Bruce Cryer and his teammates have gathered an impressive array of research about heart-brain connections. “The heart literally influences brain function in profound ways that have implications on decision making mental clarity, communication skills, and overall effectiveness and productivity,” says Cryer. (Ruth Palombo Weiss, “The Mind-Body Connection in Learning,” TD, September 2001, p. 61-67.)</li><li>“The heart produces the strongest electrical signal in the body – 60 percent stronger than the electrical output of the brain. If you think of the body as an electrical grid, the heart is the main power station and the brain is a substation.” (Ruth Palombo Weiss, “The Mind-Body Connection in Learning,” TD, September 2001, p. 61-67.)</li></ul><li>The mind:</li><ul><li>“We often say that the world is so hectic that we cannot hear ourselves think, but the real problem is that our brain is thinking so hard we can’t hear our heart think, so we are unable to tune in to our cellular memories of the natural healthy rhythm of life.” (p. 66, The Heart’s Code)</li></ul><ul><li>Meditations and prayer, practiced throughout the world for tens of thousands of years, can also induce a state of relaxation, which proves mentally and physically beneficial. Dr. Herbert Benson of the Mind-Body Medical Institute at Harvard Medical School has conducted dozens of studies on the efficacy of meditation. “the relaxation response comprises an assortment of physiological changes: a decrease below resting levels in oxygen consumption, heart rate, breathing rate, and muscle tension – plus a decrease in blood pressure in some people and a shift from normal waking brain wave patterns predominate,” she says. “instead of feeling like a cork bobbing on the sea, regular practice of the relaxation response leads to a sense that emotions –and the physiological reactions that go with them – can be brought under your control.” (Ruth Palombo Weiss, “The Mind-Body Connection in Learning,” TD, September 2001, p. 61-67.)</li><li>Ratey explains what happens physiologically when the body reacts to meditation or other altered states of consciousness. “sympathetic nervous system activity decrease and metabolism slows down. The brain’s own electrical activity also changes. Instead of supporting a decentralized storm of signals, a large number of brain neurons fire in a pleasing synchrony. Finding our individual synchrony in life is equally important to a healthy brain. It’s crucial to letting our talents blossom and important for getting us away from the addictive behaviors that abound in life.” (Ruth Palombo Weiss, “The Mind-Body Connection in Learning,” TD, September 2001, p. 61-67.)</li></ul></ul>INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY <ul><li>Guide participants through a standing 5 minute breathing or meditation exercise </li><li>Then ask participants to again paint to the same question or thought that they painted before.</li><li>Reminder: Let the brush be the extension of your entire body, your heart, mind and body.</li><li>PROCESS NOTE: If the participants are an intact team, then go to the section below labeled, "GROUP EXERCISE." </li><li>PROCESS NOTE: If at this point in the workshop design, you feel that participants need to spend much more time as individuals, then use a series of quotes and music for individual paintings, or choose your own quotes or music. The objective of this sequence is to create enough material for reflecting and sharing about one’s self. </li><li>"Let's do a series of paintings," read the quote, by prefacing, "please paint (and read the quote)," then read it again. When you are finished, please wash brushes, get clean water, a clean sheet of paper, so that I know when everyone is ready. </li><ul><li>Sequence of quotes and music (see the <a title="Quotes" target="_blank" href="WikiEditor.im?doc=Quotes">Quotes</a> page for more choices).</li></ul><ul><li>”To guide us toward the love we most desire, we must be taken where we could not and would not go on our own.” St. John of the Cross (1542-1491), Spanish monk and mystic.</li><li>Shostakovich's 2nd movement from the 2nd Piano Concerto in F Major </li><li>I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. -- Helen Keller </li><li>Nickelback's song, "If Everyone Cared"</li></ul><li>Time permitting, let participants share their paintings with other persons in the room, 10 minutes/session. So, if you want to have each person share with three others, it would take approximately 10 minutes/session. At the 4 minute marker, give them a 1 minute warning before switching and listening to the other person at 5 minutes, then a warning at 9 minute, then a command at 10 minutes to move to another person. </li><li>Do as many of these as possible.</li></ul></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" style="width: 15%;" rowspan="1"> </td><td valign="top" style="width: 35%;" rowspan="1">GROUP ACTIVITY (15 min.) <ul><li>With calligraphy, you'll have a more explicit sense of your body, of each movement, hopefully, even of your mind, and your heart.</li><li>"The deepest level of trust when we really have enough self-trust in ourselves that we do not have to prove it or draw unnecessary attention to it. That we can trust that the wisdom is resident in our minds and our bodies, and that we will give ourselves the opportunity to act when moved." -- Stewart, Thomas A., “<a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2002/11/01/331634/index.htm" target="_blank" title="How to Think with your Gut">How to Think with your Gut</a>,” Business 2.0, November 2002, p. 99-104.</li><li>To feel the practice of embodying, let's do a group painting.</li><li>Explain these directions:</li><ul><li>Move to a table where there are 5-10, take your brushes, rocks, and water with you. </li><li>Here is a large sheet of rice paper.</li><li>Place your brushes, rocks and water where you feel is appropriate.</li><li>When you are all settled, take a moment, to check in with yourself and with each other, silently.</li><li>Then let the painting begin.</li><li>This is a silent exercise, in order to remove any distractions so that individuals can listen and observe and be aware of their own bodies.</li></ul></ul></td><td valign="top" style="width: 50%;" rowspan="1">GROUP ACTIVITY <ul><li>The other way of being aligned is how we are connected to each other.</li><li>Last week, we saw that in how the paintings were connected to another by a color, or a line, or a shape. Today, it is more about how you relate and project yourself without saying anything, and eventually, how this influence your sense of the entire group, and your place within it. </li><li>To experience how you relate and project yourself, you will each do a painting of the others in your team or group. (Depending on the time available, and the size of the team, or group, set the expectation that they will do up to 8 individuals. Give them guidelines, depending on your observations of the group, about who to choose. Someone you most trust, someone you know the least about, someone who you are most encouraged by, someone you are most challenged by, etc.). </li><ul><li>Quote: "Sometimes what artists want to explore is something created by another artist. Making art about something created by another human being is a way to engage intimately with how another human being believes or sees or feels or thinks or wants. It can also be really fun." -- Rebecca Brown </li></ul><li>Directions:</li><ul><li>The person being painted just stands there.</li><li>The person who is painting, takes their time to create a painting of the other person.</li><li>When the painting is done, he or she gives it to the other person without any explanation.</li><li>Then, they switch roles, and repeat the process.</li><li>This is not about the paintings, it is about the process, it is about the practice of embodying, of noticing and using the wisdom of your body in your actions.</li><li>Reminder: Let the brush be the extension of your entire heart, mind, and body </li></ul><li>After finishing those paintings:</li><li>Collective virtuosity is about being connected to something bigger than who we are as individuals, and maybe even who we are as a department, a group.</li><li>Let's do a series of paintings, painting that connect you to something bigger.</li><ul><li>For the first painting, ask all participants to create a painting of the entire group. </li><li>For the second painting, option 1: For leaders of an organization, you might want to use this quote: "Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does." – Peter Drucker</li><li>For the second painting, option 2: a quote by Janet McCloud, Tulalip Tribe, Washington state in the book Simply Living: "The great thing I learned from the Lakota people is “mitakuye oyasin”: all my relations. When they say that, the way it was explained to me, it’s so beautiful. It’s so immense because it includes everyone who was ever born, or even unborn, in the universe, all the two-legged, the four-legged, birds, animals, rocks, and everyone who’s here today. The trees, plants, mountains, sun, moon, starts, and everyone who ever will be born! How immense can a statement be? All my relations. I marvel at the beauty of that word; it’s so powerful." Please paint, "mitakuye oyasin." </li><li>For the third and final painting, let's come back to the individual. Please paint to this quote: "I shall celebrate my life in the world and the world in my life." – N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa (p. 180, Simply Living)</li></ul><li>When you are finished, please complete the reflection (see questions below) and evaluation in your notebooks, clean up your painting area, returning all materials to their separate locations, wiping off ink on the plastic, and folding up plastic on the floors.</li></ul></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" style="width: 15%;" rowspan="1"> </td><td valign="top" style="width: 35%;" rowspan="1">REFLECTION and DISCUSSION (15 min.) REFLECTION In your notebooks:<ul><li>What did you notice about the connection between your mind and your body?</li><li>How did your awareness about the connection between your mind and your body evolve or change with your awareness?</li></ul>DISCUSSION <ul><li>Ask for any comments or thoughts from the group.</li><li>If possible, draw attention to comments that illustrate how one's connection to their feelings and awareness of their body resulted in what showed up on the rice paper.</li></ul></td><td valign="top" style="width: 50%;" rowspan="1">REFLECTION, DISCUSSION, EVALUATION, and CLOSING (20 min.) REFLECTION In your notebooks:<ul><li>What did you notice about the connection between your mind and your body?</li><li>How did your awareness about the connection between your mind and your body evolve or change as you continued throughout the day?</li><li>How did your experience in today’s group exercise differ from last weeks? If you didn’t attend last week’s session, what stands out for you when you were participating in the group painting exercise today?</li></ul>DISCUSSION Note: the nature of this session, the silence is often very powerful for participants to linger in. If you feel the need to, here are some questions to use to close: <ul><li>Did you have an experience with one or more painting that surprised you, that inspired you about what you thought was possible? Was it the result of letting the brush create for you, and you just had to support it.</li><li>Collective virtuosity does not have to be just the result of something that we do together at the same time, it can also be the result of many individuals doing different things and finding a way to share and recognize. That is also a powerful experience of collective virtuosity. </li><li>How do these ideas above relate to our work?</li><li>When you did the group paintings, what was uniquely different than last weeks? How does that apply in your work environment?</li><li>How is collective virtuosity different or the same from the previous weeks’ experiences?</li></ul>CLOSING <ul><li>"The deepest level of trust when we really have enough self-trust in ourselves that we do not have to prove it or draw unnecessary attention to it. That we can trust that the wisdom is resident in our minds and our bodies, and that we will give ourselves the opportunity to act when moved." -- Stewart, Thomas A., “<a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2002/11/01/331634/index.htm" target="_blank" title="How to Think with your Gut">How to Think with your Gut</a>,” Business 2.0, November 2002, p. 99-104. </li></ul></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" style="width: 15%;" rowspan="1"> </td><td valign="top" style="width: 35%;" rowspan="1">GO TO THE <a href="/The-Practice-of-Enacting.html">PRACTICE OF ENACTING</a> </td><td valign="top" style="width: 50%;" rowspan="1">GO TO THE <a href="/The-Practice-of-Enacting.html">PRACTICE OF ENACTING</a> </td></tr></tbody></table>Use any of these quotes, as you feel are necessary: <ul><li>“Our bodies don’t exist to carry our hearts around. Any thinking has the whole body participating,” says Dr. Candace Pert, author of Molecules of Emotion and research professor in the department of biophysics and physiology at Georgetown University School of Medicine. (Ruth Palombo Weiss, “The Mind-Body Connection in Learning,” TD, September 2001, p. 61)</li><li>Some pioneering research done by Candace Pert revealed that our lives are contained in the cellular structures found in over 80% of our bodies. Why is it then that when we don’t’ notice it more often? And, if we did, imagine what resources we used that we have access to? </li><li>George Soros, the international financier who made billions in currency speculation, feels opportunity in his back, according to his son Robert. "The reason he changes his position on the market or whatever is because his back starts killing him," Robert said in a book about his father. "It has nothing to do with reason. He literally goes into a spasm, and it's his early warning sign."</li><li>Our bodies are sources of information. But, sometimes our head can be saying one thing, our heart another, and still yet another in our bodies. Is it detectable? </li></ul><h2>Notes:</h2>Excerpts from Thomas Stewart's article, “<a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2002/11/01/331634/index.htm" target="_blank" title="How to Think with your Gut">How to Think with your Gut</a>,” Business 2.0, November 2002, p. 99-104. Businesspeople retell these parables to refresh their faith in sturdy virtues like risk-taking and creativity. But to researchers who study how managers think, the tales carry an obvious moral: The most brilliant decisions tend to come from the gut. While that observation is not new, it is now backed by a growing body of research from economics, neurology, cognitive psychology, and other fields. What the science suggests is that intuition--or instinct, or hunch, or "learning without awareness, or whatever you want to call it--is a real form of knowledge. It may be nonrational, ineffable, and not always easy to get in touch with, but it can process more information on a more sophisticated level than most of us ever dreamed. Psychologists now say that far from being the opposite of effective decision-making, intuition is inseparable from it. Without it we couldn't decide anything at all. The practical implications of all this are profound. People who make decisions for a living are coming to realize that in complex or chaotic situations--a battlefield, a trading floor, or today's brutally competitive business environment--intuition usually beats rational analysis. And as science looks closer, it is coming to see that intuition is not a gift but a skill. And, like any skill, it's something you can learn. But Van Riper noticed that in the swirl and confusion of war simulations--let alone actual combat--rational decisions always seemed to come up short. "We used the classical checklist system," he says. "But it never seemed to work. Then we'd criticize ourselves for not using the system well enough. But it still never seemed to work, because it's the wrong system." Frustrated, Van Riper sought out cognitive psychologist Gary Klein. At the time, Klein was studying firefighters, who operate under conditions quite like war. To his consternation, Klein learned that firefighters don't weigh alternatives: They simply grab the first idea that seems good enough, then the next, and the next after that. To them it doesn't even feel like "deciding." Today the Corps's official doctrine reads, "The intuitive approach is more appropriate for the vast majority of ... decisions made in the fluid, rapidly changing conditions of war when time and uncertainty are critical factors, and creativity is a desirable trait." Conditions, in other words, not unlike those in which many business decisions are made today. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, these so-called behavioral economists have shown not only that many of our economic decisions are irrational, but also that our waywardness is predictable. We get more satisfaction from avoiding a $100 loss than from making a $100 gain, for example, and we compulsively find patterns where none exist. (This stock has gone up for three days; therefore it will continue to go up.) Go ahead, point it out to us. It doesn't matter; we'll make the same mistakes over and over again. Thaler and others speculate that these logical lacunae are the product of a brain wired for survival on the savanna, not for hyperrational calculation. Machines do deductive and inductive calculations well. People excel at "abduction," which is less like reason than inspired guesswork. (Deduction: All taxis are yellow; this is a taxi; therefore it is yellow. Induction: These are all taxis; these are all yellow; therefore, all taxis are probably yellow. Abduction: All taxis are yellow; this vehicle is yellow; therefore this is probably a taxi.) Abduction leaps to conclusions by connecting a known pattern (taxis are yellow) to a specific situation (this yellow vehicle must be a taxi). Compared with computers, people are lousy number crunchers but superb pattern makers--even without being aware of it. Indeed, much of what we call instinct, psychologists say, is simply pattern recognition taking place at a subconscious level. Damasio was already aware of the astounding fact that people who suffer damage to parts of their brains where emotions are processed have difficulty making decisions. None of us have the advantage of a handy SCR detector to know when we're getting a hunch. But gut knowledge has other ways of making its presence felt, and it's often physical. Howard Schultz shook when he had his caffe epiphany. George Soros, the international financier who made billions in currency speculation, feels opportunity in his back, according to his son Robert. "The reason he changes his position on the market or whatever is because his back starts killing him," Robert said in a book about his father. "It has nothing to do with reason. He literally goes into a spasm, and it's his early warning sign." What exactly is Soros's back reacting to? That question bedeviled Flavia Cymbalista, an economist who specializes in uncertainty in financial markets. Soros invests only when he has a hypothesis--a story that explains a trend in the market. But as Soros himself has theorized, markets don't yield to analysis, because they are continuously changing--and this is one reason Soros has learned to trust his back. "There are things you can know, but only experientially and bodily," Cymbalista says. What does this mean for making decisions in real life? Research suggests that neither nose-in-the-spreadsheet rationality nor pure gut inspiration is right all the time. The best approach lies somewhere between the extremes, the exact point depending on the situation. Naresh Khatri and H. Alvin Ng, of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand, surveyed nearly 300 executives in the computer, banking, and utilities industries--meant to represent three different degrees of business stability--and then compared what executives said about their own decision-making styles. Intuition was clearly the favored strategy for computer-industry execs. Planful approaches were the norm in the relatively staid, rules-driven utilities industry. Getting in Touch With Your Gut It's simple, really: Just get out of your own way. Psychologists have a term to describe people who are in unusually close contact with their gut feelings -- "high intuitives." While you can't teach such skills the way you teach multiplication tables, everyone can hone their instincts to some degree. Here are a few guidelines: Practice, practice. This is the most important thing. "Gut instinct is basically a form of pattern recognition," says Howard Gardner, a Harvard professor and psychologist. The more you practice, the more patterns you intuitively recognize. List decisions you've made that turned out right -- and mistakes, too. Then reconstruct the thinking. Where did intuition come in? Was it right or wrong? Are there patterns? Highly intuitive people often let themselves be talked out of good ideas. "Generally you're better with either people or things," says Manhattan psychologist and executive coach Dee Soder. If you're intuitively gifted about people, write down your first impressions of new colleagues, customers, and so on -- you want to hold on to those gut reactions. Learn to listen. People come up with all sorts of reasons for ignoring what their gut is trying to tell them. Flavia Cymbalista has developed a decision-making approach adapted from a psychological technique known as "focusing." She calls it MarketFocusing, and she uses it to teach businesspeople to find the "felt sense" that tells them they know something they can't articulate. "You have to express your willingness to listen to what the felt sense has to say, without an agenda of your own," she says. Tell stories. Fictionalize a problem as a business school case or as happening to someone else. That can free up your imagination. Dave Snowden, director of IBM's (IBM) Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity in Wales, has been working with antiterrorism experts and finds that they think more creatively if he poses problems set in a different time -- the Civil War, for example. Another kind of storytelling is what cognitive psychologist Gary Klein calls a "pre-mortem": Imagine that your project has failed and gather the team to assess what went wrong. Breed gut thinkers. Dismantle the obstacles that prevent people from using their guts. High turnover rates, for example, are inimical to developing the deep expertise that hones intuition. Since gut feelings are inherently hard to express, don't let people jump on a dissenter who hesitantly says, "I'm not sure ... " Instead, say "Tell us more." Some leaders go around the table twice at meetings to give people a chance to put hunches into words. To sharpen your intuitive thinking, you have to get out of your own way; to foster it among those around you, you have to get out of their way too. <h2>Other Miscellaneous Notes:</h2>Richard Strozzi Heckler, “The Unity of Action and Being,” Center: A Unity of Action and Being, p. 45- In aikido training, we are continually reminded to move from center, to attack from center, to defend from center, to fall from center, to bow from center, to sit from center. (p. 45) All living things have a center of gravity and we’re most physically effective when we move from this center. When we unify our mind and body we increase our capacity for skillful action. (p. 47) Centering at this initial stage introduces us to the power and flexibility of our attention. By scanning our body and locating our center of gravity we begin to see how our attention can be willfully organized and directed to bring a greater vividness and control to our life. By focusing and organizing the attention we’re able to shift our moods, listen with greater depth to the concerns of others, move in accord with natural laws, and increase our choices. (p. 47) A practice of attention training teaches us the two foundations of self-organization: First, control follows awareness and second, energy follows attention. (p. 47) Energy follows attention means that feelings, sensation and aliveness increases and becomes more vivid at the place where we direct our attention. (p. 47) The capacity as human beings to stand upright place us in extraordinary balance between emotional vulnerability and the power of being at the top of the food chain. (p. 49) When the individual’s relationship between the downward hold of the earth and the upward call of the spirit is in disorder the living body will reflect this in one of two ways. (p. 49) A generative vision, symbolized by the upward thrust of the head, draws power from the connection the legs have with the earth. There is a circular flow of energy that connects our biological roots with our inspiration and imagination. Living from this river of energy our temporal, daily life is personified with meaning and virtues. (p. 49) The somatic dimension of depth represents the relationship between the emerging self and the physical form. When there’s balance between the physical container of the body and the unfolding of the self there’s a unity between the images generated by our inner life and our actions in the world. A rich inner life finds form and expression in the living body, while the body, neither rigid nor collapsed, is continually nourished by one’s inner life. There’s no separation between what’s inwardly experienced and what’s outwardly expressed. This is the person who lives in dignity and integrity without conceit or complacence. (p. 51) We often comment that this person seems comfortable in themselves. Their bearing is the mark of someone who embodies an authentic self-acceptance, yet we don’t think of them as smug or self-satisfied. There’s also a daring that is not forced or reckless. They’re like the hungers and gatherers of fold who knew what had to be done and acted simply and decisively. Their judgment is connected to a powerful inner core that allows them to act spontaneously without being careless. (p. 51) When the inner life and the outer manifestation are out of balance we see, on the one extreme, one who is coiled inward. In an effort to fulfill an inner ideal they’ve turned in on themselves, centering on their thoughts, fantasies, and expectations. In a desire to know and grow the self they’ve withdrawn from the world, often without knowing it. Their musculature is ineffective in reaching out and coordinating with others. They’ve become isolated within their own ideas and perceptions. This person often appears sallow and brooding, as if the blood and vital fluids are restricted from flowing to the extremities. Held prisoner in their own mind their actions are constipated and the posture is caved in, they lack animation. Absorbed in their inner world they appear meek and unapproachable. (p. 51) On the other extreme is the individual who doesn’t allow their inner life to build and mature. When there’s an awakening in the inner realm, it’s immediately acted out. What is perceived internally Is not allowed to grow and come to fruition in a rhythmic way. This person appears strained and pushed forward, there’s a missing correspondence between their actions and their speaking. This individual is avoiding their inner life by staying busy and hurrying from one thing to another. (p. 51) What is lacking is a set of practices that allows the body to coherently express their changing values and ethics. (p. 51) In both of these extremes the inner life and the outer form do not work together to support each other. They’re seen as a duality and live in conflict with each other. When there’s a unity in this dimension we see a person’s inner life reflected in their posture and actions; and in their actions we see what the self cares about. (p. 51) When the first two distinctions of center are not embodies we find a distorted expression of spiritual alignment. Imbalance to one extreme is the person who lacks sufficient boundaries in their form. This is the individual who is vague and ephemeral in their spirituality. They speak of “coming from the heart” but it lives only as a mental notion. They cannot gain a foothold in the world in away that can ground their intentions of “heart”. In fact it’s often the case that others have to take care of them. They’re overpowered by their emotions and there’s no internal shape to contain their experiences. In intimate moments they confess to a deep sense of emptiness and a life without meaning. They hid a profound sense of emotional poverty behind a “spiritual life.” (p. 53) To embody unity of being and action it’s necessary to join the dark waves of our biological roots with our transcendental longing for wisdom and universality. (p. 53) Masaka Agatsu, true victory is victory over the self. This is the one who serves life by allowing life to move through him. (p. 53) Richard Strozzi Heckler, Somatics in Business, Strozzi Institute, http://209.85.129.132/search?q=cache:2ztKB9R-05EJ:www.thetransitionscoach.com/SomaticsinBusiness.pdf+the+unity+of+action+and+being,+richard+strozzi+heckler&hl=cs&ct=clnk&cd=11&gl=cz&client=firefox-a Many people saw the good sense of taking personal responsibility for their health through practices that produced physical fitness, emotional balance, and spiritual fulfillment. People in all levels of the company have the choice of receiving bodywork, guided visualization, instruction in yoga, or a conversation about how to deal with stress at work. The employees report increased well-being and the employers declare that the health, mood, and productivity of the employees have increased. But, if the body is viewed as something to be simply aligned, relaxed, adjusted, or strengthened, it’s possible to practice bodywork while reinforcing the Cartesian notion that the body and the self live as two separate non-interacting entities. Somatics is a way of living in which the self is the embodiment of generative interpretations of the world. While somatic practitioners and theorists have designed practices oriented towards a unified, holistic approach to health, performance, and learning, it is inside a culture that continues the fragmentation between mind and body, process and content, journey and goal, principles and techniques, the world and the sacred. As they are practiced now, somatic disciplines live outside where and how we spend our time. Most people spend the majority of their time in the workplace, where much of our meaning, value, and relationships are created. Yet the workplace is not organized to include our concerns for physical, emotional, and spiritual well being. At work we are asked to leave our personal self at the door, and at home we leave our professional self at the office. The learning in the Leadership Dojo™ falls into three distinct categories: Pragmatic Wisdom, Grounded Compassion, and Skillful Action. Pragmatic Wisdom is a fundamental principle at the foundation of human life. Foremost it is the capacity to act beyond the concerns of the individual self. It is the skill of putting one’s personal desires, wishes, and preferences aside for a larger good. Pragmatic wisdom is recognizing our limitations as well as honoring our transcendence; it is the capacity to listen deeply to the concerns of others; to acknowledge that which exists before reason and language; to know when to act and when to exercise restraint; and to live in a state of being which is inwardly peaceful and externally prepared for action. Skillful Action consists of the skills required to take care of the concerns of one’s work and professional environment. This includes the specific skill set needed for one’s professional role, such as the computer competency necessary for an internet provider, as well as the social skills for coordinating with others, creating cooperative teams, making and managing commitments, resolving conflict, building trust, and having conversations for innovation and action. Grounded compassion is acknowledging the legitimate existence of others. It is the embodied commitment and respect for the life others have inherited, as well as the life they are designing. Grounded compassion produces openness to diversity, an acceptance of differences, an acknowledgement of sameness, and gratefulness for life. To interact with others in this mood of openness and acceptance creates an environment from which innovation and entrepreneurship can emerge. Will James, Book Review: The Spirituality of the Body, by Alexander Lowen http://www.pastoral-counseling.org/Articles/Body.htm To Lowen, health is a feeling of aliveness and pleasure in the body that leads to joyfulness. In such a state we feel a connectedness with all living creatures and the world. This kind of health is manifested by a gracefulness of the body. According to Dr. Lowen, a part of our cultural heritage is the belief that the mind is superior to the body. This leads to the intellectualization of spirituality and the reduction of the body to a machine. Such a division of mind and body is not natural, and leads to a fall from grace. The author says, "Feelings are the life of the body just as thinking is the life of the mind." Lowen is grounded in his faith and it's impact on illness. He says that tension is inherent in the human, and it is a tension between the knowing mind and the instinctual body, between control and faith. Lowen believes: "When someone establishes a connection with the universal, which is the same as feeling the love of God, his energy becomes so heightened that it floods his body, radiating outward in a state of joyous excitation . . . And since this excitation or energy is the source of life, it can sometimes overcome the destructive effects of illness." Faith allows us to be open to the healing process. My own belief is that sensuality is an essential attitude for one to develop as part of one's spiritual journey. http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/qa/qahealth/qaheal43.html <h1> </h1>

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