Leading from within

You can also watch this video on youtube https://youtu.be/82tisIDH0uQ 

Every month, I facilitate and host a free online retreat and webinar for coherent leadership. The focus of that is to assist and support leaders in the new paradigm to connect more to their innate creative genius and unleash and liberate their known as well as maybe still hidden superpowers. It gives them the opportunity to start becoming more creative and to acquire and develop new skills. It also offers my clients who have completed the one on one coaching (3 months package) a possibility to keep continuing with the work besides downloadable workshops. This month I decided to put my focus on leading from within and embodied leadership.

I would like to invite and encourage you to create a new habit in the month of July and really focus on leading from within and start asking yourself the following questions. How do I lead? How do I lead from within? Do I even lead from within? How do I follow? Can I follow as a leader? Who do I follow? Do I follow any innate impulses and anything that comes from within?

What does it look like and what would it look like if I did that and if my decision making was not merely based on impulses from the outside, as well as following others, but instead I was becoming aware of what wants to come from within me? Innately you have an incredible amount of wisdom and knowledge. I would really like to encourage you to start focusing on that and exploring it. In the upcoming retreat on Sunday June 28, we are going to do exactly that: explore this leading from within. You can register by clicking here https://www.simplympowering.org/coherent-leaders-retreat

I had a really interesting experience in 2018 when I was doing my level two and embodied leadership training with Tamalpa Life Arts in California. We had many amazing teachers in the programme and one of them actually did a brilliant exercises with us. He said: I would like you to keep your body still for a while and just follow the impulse that comes from the inside. Now I found that to be a totally amazing experience. I came to understand and realise that my body moves on its own without me having to do anything. There is a natural innate impulse and then you follow that and see what develops out of that.  This is something how I actually run and lead my business and lead my life. I am listening inside to hear what wants to unfold and what wants to be created. It comes from this wisdom inside of me. 

It was really profound to observe how your body knows how to move on its own without you having to do anything. I talked to a friend afterwards who was also participating in that programme and I shared what an amazing experience that had been for me. Her reply was that she actually moved her body and parts of her body with intention. I came to realise and understand that this really means letting go, letting go of control and surrendering and then starting to observe and listen and allow that impulse to happen and then follow that impulse.

It is not a very easy thing to do in the beginning because we are so used to control and we are so used to follow others and we are so used to follow impulses from the outside. For example when we are dancing we listen to music and with that the impulse comes from the outside. We might observe people who are dancing because we might feel we don't know how to dance so well and we want to learn so we observe others and watch and then we follow them and copy their moves. This can be beneficial if you want to learn how to dance and sometimes this can also be beneficial in your business and life because you are learning from somebody else. However, what it can also do is to remove you from your innate wisdom and from the natural impulse that you have. You might have a great idea or something might come through you in terms of how you want to lead your life or how you want to create or lead your business. Then you get an impulse from the outside and somebody says: "Oh no that's not such a good idea" or "No, you shouldn't be doing this" and suddenly you drop the whole idea. But it has come from inside of you, like a deeper inner knowledge. 

It doesn't mean that we have to follow everything that comes from within us and that surfaces as an idea but very often we tend to be much more on the outside. Ask yourself how you make decisions? If you are making a decision based on your gut feeling then that also comes from the inside and in order to do that you need to start connecting to your body. What a lot of people and maybe leaders do is to make those decisions only from the head. When they see what others are doing sometimes they follow those decisions and does it mean that it is a good decision just because everybody else is doing it? Sometimes you might have to be the rebel and really do it differently. Sometimes you are the pioneer who starts something new and creates something new and leads in a different style. 

Whether it is self-leadership or creating new habits, whether it is leading a company or your business, whether you are the leader as a mother, father or a teacher, whatever you are as a leader, I would like you to start really reflecting on how you are leading. Are you leading from within or are you leading merely based on what happens on the outside? In that case the environment is determining your leadership style rather than you being connected to that innate wisdom, innate knowing and to that knowledge that you have. Your whole body is feeling that this is the way to go but your brain is kind of deciding "oh no, everybody else is doing something else". Embodied leadership means to also listen to your body as it might also be telling you when not to take action or showing you discomforts around situations, people or decisions. 

I am absolutely fascinated when I observe how things unfold in my life when I remove all the distractions and go within and when I am allowing this impulse to come from the inside. There were times in my business and life when I saw other people doing following strategies and I said: "Yeah, this is the way to go and I should be doing this too" and  yet I was feeling unsettled around it. Why? Because I felt like I should follow what others as this seems to be the usual approach and yet there was something inside me that was saying "no". It was a process to really clear any programs where I was following what others are doing and instead listening to my own impulse. That does not mean that as a leader we should not be following others at all because we do also need to be able to listen and follow but we need to know when and who to follow instead of following blindly. As a teenager I used to train for competitions for Latin American Dance where the man leads - just like in tango that's become more popular again. You can explore that - what does it feel like when somebody else is leading and when you are leading? When can you follow and how do you follow? Do you follow everyone or maybe only certain leaders?

What comes from within and do you follow what comes from the inside? Can you lead from within? Can you hear that inner voice?
Can you feel what your body is telling your or are you so disconnected that you are only allowing your head to make the decisions and telling you who to be, what to do and how to lead? 

During the month of July I would like you to start observing your leadership style. Whether this is self-leadership, whether this is at home, whether this is in your company, as a father, as a mother, as a partner, maybe as a dancer, as a manager. It does not matter who you are and what you do. How are you leading your life? How are you leading your business?
Is it focusing merely on the impulse from the outside or can you connect to that innate impulse from the inside and see what wants to emerge and follow that impulse from within. This is really really powerful stuff, trust me. I have experienced it and it is amazing. I am absolutely aware that for many people this is very difficult in the beginning.They really struggle to let go and surrender and trust the natural process, trust their body and trust their innate wisdom. We have not learned how to trust. All we have learned and all we have been programmed to do is to listen to the outside authority that tells us who to be and what to do.

There is a lot to explore and I will be diving deeper into this subject over time. Take this month of July or if you are reading this at another time dedicate a whole month to observe and focus on how you lead from within. What does it mean for you to truly embody leadership from within?

If you would like to join the free retreat/webinar please click here to register: https://www.simplympowering.org/coherent-leaders-retreat