FEBIassessment_4up

Science of Somatics: Interview with Amanda Blake

Posted by Anthony Attan

Dec 7, 2012 12:14:00 PM

Amanda Blake is a FEBI-Certied Coach who is doing some amazing work around the Science of Somatics.  I recently caught up with Amanda about her work with leaders, her forthcoming book and how she utilizes the FEBI patterns in her work.


Amanda Blake HeadshotTell me about Stonewater Leadership.

I started Stonewater to support social change by helping people become more deeply embodied. New research is revealing - and yogis and martial artists have been telling us for generations - that as you increase self-awareness in physical, emotional, and mental domains all kinds of benefits open up, from increased health to reduced stress to greater empathy.

In my line of work as a Master Somatic Coach I primarily apply those insights to the challenges of leadership. When done right, cultivating mindful embodiment can have practical leadership benefits as well as personal benefits.

Through Stonewater I work with two groups of people: practitioners who want to learn more about the science of embodiment, and leaders - primarily social entrepreneurs - who want to increase their capacity to lead during these challenging and turbulent times.


What can we expect in your forthcoming book, Your Body Is Your Brain?

The big promise behind the book is that it will help people get smarter about what matters to them by harnessing their full intelligence, including the wisdom of the body. Your Body Is Your Brain surveys the research landscape in a wide variety of fields - biopsychology, embodied cognition, neuroscience, and psychoneuroimmunology, to name a few - and connects that research to powerful and compelling stories of change told by somatic coaching clients worldwide.

In the book, I explore how leaders can cultivate the social and emotional intelligence they need to effectively galvanize people around their vision, manage their mood when the going gets tough, handle conflict when it arises, and so on. Most importantly, I explore why it’s imperative - really, truly non-optional - to include the physical body in any kind of personal development. There are sound neurobiological reasons why this is so, and in the book I explore those reasons.


During a recent FEBI Certified Coach webinar, you discussed how subtle changes in body posture can induce powerful changes in ourselves and those around us. Can you speak more to this phenomenon?

Sure. Dr. Stephen Porges, a prominent researcher focused on the autonomic nervous system - a part of our nervous system involved in stress and relaxation - collaborated with bodyworkers to study the effects of Rolfing on stress. They found that changing the angle of the pelvic bowl from a slight anterior tilt to a more balanced position was associated with a sustained increase in parasympathetic tone. What this means, in lay terms, is that people experienced a greater sense of calm when their hips were in a healthier and more efficient anatomical position. This is because the parasympathetic nerves involved in calming physiobodybrainbehavior V2 resized 600logical systems run right through your pelvic bowl. Your everyday posture actually plays a role in your resilience to stress.

So what does this have to do with leadership and organizations? What I and other somatic coaches consistently see in our clients is that as they make sustained postural changes, several things shift in conjunction with that, including their typical mood, their sense of confidence, and their capacity to take actions that were previously difficult for them. This can include speaking up in meetings, or modulating their flashes of anger, for example. This claim that posture impacts more than just physiological health is supported by Amy Cuddy’s research on power postures at Harvard Business School, which I mentioned during the webinar.


How are you utilizing FEBI in your work? How do the patterns connect with your work?

Obviously, FEBI is a great fit with my work. Most of my work is about helping people learn how to be in their body in a new way so they can take different actions. FEBI is the only instrument I know of that goes beyond increasing self-awareness to help people actually move differently in the world, both literally and metaphorically. For this reason, it’s the only leadership assessment that I use.

I often play a little game with myself: I tend to guess at people’s FEBI profiles by watching them move, and then when I have a look at their FEBI results, I check how close I was. This has really helped me hone my ability to see how clients’ behavior and personality shows up in their gestures and comportment. Sometimes I teach in programs that don’t include use of the FEBI. In those circumstances I’ll still observe participants through the lens of the patterns and help them access new options and actions through other qualities of movement. Overall, I have found the FEBI to be a really helpful tool.

I should also add that I have written about the patterns in Your Body Is Your Brain and I refer to them as well in my Body = Brain practitioners class. I interviewed Betsy Wetzig, Ginny Whitelaw's co-author on Moving to Greatness, to get a deeper understanding of how she came to her understanding of the patterns. And several FEBI coaching clients have been generous with their time and stories as well. Many thanks to all of the wonderful folks at Focus Leadership for supporting the effort!

more

Topics: FEBI, Focus Energy Balance Indicator, Coaching Tool, FEBI Certified Coach, leadership coaching, energy patterns, leadership development, embodied learning, managing stress, mindful practice

Energy Patterns Helping To Form New Habits

Posted by Anthony Attan

Feb 9, 2012 9:18:00 AM

We are now five weeks into the New Year and for many this means resolutions are beginning to fade in lieu of old habits.  What is the best intention on January 1st often becomes just another a failed resolution by now.  By March, many of us have for forgotten them all together.  So, what will make this year different?

I should first point out that I am not against resolutions.  In fact, quite the contrary, I think it is really important to take the time when the calendar changes to reflect on the past year and verbalize goals for the future.  Take the time to stop and reflect on all that you have accomplished in the past year, what your greatest challenges were and your greatest victories.  I find myself getting so caught up in the daily grind that I lose sight of all that has occurred over the past year.  So I encourage everyone to take the time to reflect, celebrate those victories and learn from those struggles.  

Next, think of what you want to accomplish this year.  What needs to happen so that on January 1st, 2013, you will look back on your year and say, “2012 was a great year!”  The energy patterns can help with this effort.  Enter the Visionary pattern to help you broaden your thinking to be more future oriented and picture what would have to happen to make 2012 a successful year.  Stay in this pattern and envision what the emotion is and really feel into what a great 2012 would feel like.  You don’t have to do this alone, in fact, you shouldn’t do this alone.  Enter Collaborator and share your thoughts and this feeling with others, building on the collective energy of those around you.  Next, enter the Organizer pattern and capture what needs to happen to make it a great year.  Think of the steps that must occur for those things to happen and write those down too.

So, how do we prevent this year from being just another year of broken resolutions?  For this we will summon our inner warrior, which we call the Driver energy pattern.  The key is to turn good intentions into habits that define us.  The Driver energy can help as the best way to form a new habit is to start today.  It’s really that simple: every day enter Driver and get it done!  If ‘it’ is working out, the best way to form an exercise habit is to workout TODAY!  Not tomorrow, not next week, but today.  And tomorrow will turn into your new today so guess what, it's again time to summon the Driver and workout today.  Eventually, this will become a habit, as the activity will occur with minimum thought and more psychological distress will arise when not doing the activity - even when the activity is hard.  Until then, let your Driver be your inner warrior, fighting for today.

As we see in leadership, the patterns can support your efforts in making 2012 a great year.  Just as whole leadership has shown to be best practice in business, so can all the patterns support you in forming new habits, reaching goals and creating an amazing year.  This year, let your whole self, with all the potential within you and all the support around you, make it the best one yet!

MiniFEBI Button

more

Topics: FEBI, Focus Energy Balance Indicator, energy patterns, leadership, leadership development, whole leadership development, energy, whole leadership, managing energy, managing stress

Welcome to the FEBI Learning Lounge

The official FEBI blog

The FEBI Learning Lounge is the official blog of FEBI Assessment.  In this blog we discuss all things related to the energy patterns of FEBI, digging more into each of the patterns of personality and discussing various applications that can benefit from a pattern perspective.

Also visit the Zen Leader Blog

tzlcover1

 

Subscribe to Email Updates

Recent Posts