Discover the power of embodiment

Succeed while taking care of yourself

Our state of being (mental, emotional and physical) determines our ability to perceive and act wisely. It directly affects performance and impacts everyone around us – our collaborators, colleagues, clients and partners.

We cannot change our state of being with our mind alone. Saying to oneself “stay calm”, in a meeting is simply not enough to change the state of someone who has been triggered and is prey to the toxic hormonal mix that affects neuronal connections and shuts down access to entire areas of the neo-cortical brain.

“The way we sit and stand affects the way we think and speak”, says teacher Wendy Palmer.

Embodiment practices, starting with the way we sit, stand and move are the most direct way to change our state and access flow. Your body is the key to well-being, short and long term performance.

At the Presence & Leadership Institute you will learn how to use your body and its many resources more skillfully at work and in everyday life.

Learn how to integrate your body 

Until recently, the body has been the missing link in education and training, where the main focus has always been on acquiring intellectual knowledge or competences. Many of us use the body as a taxi that takes our brain to work, ignoring the central and constant role of embodiment. Cognitive science shows how the body shapes all human activities: perception, relationships, ability to speak and listen, abstract thinking and creativity, decision-making and commitment.

Intellectual knowledge about the body and the latest findings of neuroscience are insufficient to allow us to use our body differently. This is why we have designed a training laboratory to help participants learn about themselves and reprogram their automatic nervous system.

Learning comes from first discovering one’s automatic body reactions when facing ordinary triggering situations and secondly addressing the same situations from a different and wiser body state.

Integrating fully one’s body and embodying leadership require practice. You will be able to choose, test and adopt the set of practices that work for you.

What is embodiment and where does it come from?

 Embodiment is the simplest and most direct path to self-awareness, transformation and wise action.

This new multi-disciplinary and multi-facetted approach studies our functioning and living experience as a mind-body unity.

  • The Embodiment of an individual is the way he/she relates to the world and shows up. It’s the way we express who we are, through our character, behavior and posture.
  • Embodied Cognition is an emerging, trans-disciplinary academic field and one of the most advanced forms of cognitive science today. It studies the role of the body in human activity and particularly the way high level mental constructs (such as concepts and categories) and the performance of various cognitive tasks (such as reasoning or judgment) are shaped by aspects of the body.
  • Embodiment practices consciously use the body to help us know ourselves and grow as an individual. Embodiment tools help us respond skillfully to the call of each situation.
  • Embodiment techniques draw their inspiration from a large range of disciplines
    • Movement arts, sports, martial arts, theater, body therapies and body-psychotherapies
    • The ancient practices of mindfulness and holistic wisdom.

The 3 aspects of embodiment training

The Presence & Leadership Institute is a school of awareness and choice. You will learn to be aware of what you do and develop your ability to choose to operate from “flow” ; a state of performance and well-being.

You will learn to

  1. be mindful of your state of being, conscious of your feelings and aware of your reactive patterns ; in other words, learn to ‘be in your body’.
  2. shift your state in real time ; in other words, ‘use your body”.
  3. develop the qualities and state of being you want ; in other words, learn to ‘embody what counts for you’.