Somatic Intelligence - a lens for Leadership?

After I joined the conversation Michael Chender started on Comlpexity and Complication some of you have asked about my take on Somatic Intelligence.

I wrote a piece for Fieldnotes and sent it to somebody and somehow it seems to have been lost in the either net. I have attached the paper although after reading it again I realize that the conversation on Comlpexity and Complication has given me much to consider and eventually would merit a rewrite of this paper.

Meanwhile I am interested in learning what others have uncovered in this area. Below are my initial thoughts at the moment.

As humans we have a body that is the container for our insights, emotions and intuition. This container has a capacity. When we are exhausted and overwhelmed our system shuts down and we can no longer process information, complex or otherwise. I believe the capacity to tolerate the discomfort of uncertainty and groundlessness is the key to accessing our wisdom. Wisdom in this sense is different from intelligence, it is not about processing data. It is the ability to appreciate the paradox that we are separate and interconnected, that we know everything and nothing and that life is at once simple and complicated. If we are not overwhelmed in the midst of intensity, if we have a strong container we can pursue our inquiry and meet out challenges with more depth and precision.

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Permalink Reply by Wendy Palmer on April 25, 2009 at 11:34am

sweet ride - is it yours?

Thomas Arthur said:

Thank you Wendy for your gracious and to-the-point replies. I am a vehicle of understanding. :o)

I look forward to tasting your approach to increasing my capacity to more fully tolerate and transform stress. It feels clear that your very presence carries elements of learning that will bring me closer to expressing my own wisdom and compassion.

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Permalink Reply by Alexander Ross Milne on May 13, 2009 at 3:45am

Just noted this new thread and suggest page 42 of Jill Bolte Taylors book

... I found it odd that I was aware that I could no longer clearly discern the physical boundaries of where I began and where I ended ... I no longer perceived myself as a whole object separate from everything."

Food for thought or my existence exists yet my consciousness gives me form?

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Permalink Reply by Jane Kelly on January 6, 2010 at 10:59am

Michael Chender asked: Wendy, is there a progressive understanding/experiencing of the body that allows for a deepening and unfolding of somatic intelligence?

An interesting question. I find myself compelled to follow it a bit. I enjoyed an amazing book in this area, titled "Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self," by Anodea Judith. It is well written, an in-depth review about each chakra and psychological developmental wounds as they relate to the chakras. Personally, it provided a language and context for connecting with and recognizing my physical experience of emotions and moods in my body.

A brilliant massage therapist taught me that sometimes just being present in my body, giving my thinking mind a break, can bring a sense of clarity in my experience that thinking alone won't give me. The physicality of meditation also seems to reveal a certain dynamic between my thinking mind and my body. Sometimes when my thinking mind (which is very smart, mind you) has an insight, I feel grabbed by it. It seems this is caused by the process of identification. In meditation, it seems the physical experience of my practice keeps me mindful of just being present. I suspect experiencing my body this way in meditation or massage is experiencing the "body body" as Trungpa Rinpoche called it. I appreciate being able to discuss these things with everyone. Thank you!

Michael Chender said:

This container business is a huge topic. As I see it, one way of talking about it that might apply is as the conditions that allow a situation to fulfill itself, or that allow the inherent wisdom (or life-energy) of a situation to be inspired and most freely circulate. I’m going to follow Susan’s suggestion and start another thread for it. I also don’t want to go too far off-topic from this rich inquiry.

As for the body, I still am regularly surprised, despite decades of body awareness practices, to discover that I have/am involved with such a thing! So a powerful question for me is what do we/you/I mean when we refer to “body” in tour own experience? Trungpa Rinpoche pointed out that what we call body is generally a mental projection, and few of us experience directly what he called “body body.” (Don’t know what that means) Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing points to the intelligence inherent in “felt-senses,” described as vague backgrounds to our feelings of emotions, aches and twinges. Are these body? mind? both? neither? (Does it matter?)

Wendy, is there a progressive understanding/experiencing of the body that allows for a deepening and unfolding of somatic intelligence?