Our bodies are living systems. How we feel and move through the world in them is a powerful tool for justice. Yet, in these times of rapid change and high-pressure work, we often take our bodies for granted.
“We’re often walking around with bodies that are on high alert. Defensive. Protective. Depleted. Every day can start to feel like a roller coaster,” notes leadership coach and Spring Co-CEO Archana Deshpande.
Somatics (derived from the Greek word sōma, meaning “body”), can help us tap into our body’s wisdom as we navigate waves of disruption in the world.
“Somatic intelligence is the capacity to notice and interpret, and skillfully work with, the information coming from our bodies—and using that to guide our thoughts, emotions and actions” says Archana.
With somatic awareness, we can work more intentionally with our energy and access more choices of how we could respond deliberately to any situation, instead of reacting without thought. For social and climate justice leaders, this repertoire of expanded possibilities offers a new path for transforming unjust systems.
“The world we long for must begin in our own bodies—by transforming what is harmful into what we long for: presence and love,” says Angelika Arutyunova, a somatic practitioner with over 20 years of experience bridging philanthropy and movements. She recently joined Spring’s leadership community for a mini workshop on somatic embodiment.
As we build the capacity to notice, interpret and work skillfully with information coming from our bodies, we are more able to stay connected to our needs, emotions, values and behaviours—and those of other people in our lives. This awareness allows us to build healthier patterns in our ways of being, our personal relationships, and the way we work with our colleagues. From here, we can disrupt harmful patterns, choose our responses, and invite healing into the spaces we inhabit.
Embodied leadership like this is transformative, especially in moments of disruption, uncertainty and crisis. As Angelika highlights, leaders and teams who are doing their own healing work are more able to adapt, reinvent, and be with uncomfortable questions surrounding change.
Angelika knows the tension of high-urgency human rights work in a challenging funding environment firsthand. She has co-founded pioneering funds such as FRIDA: The Young Feminist Fund and, more recently, Dalan Fund, and held leadership roles at the Global Fund for Women and the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID), where she led landmark research on “Where is the Money for Women’s Rights”.
It was during her days as a young feminist that she realized she needed a new way of relating to herself, the work and all of the injustice in the world that she was up against as a feminist resource activist.
“I was definitely intense and angry and very driven. But that was very destructive for me, my relationships and sometimes my work,” Angelika remembers. “I was operating from a place of trauma. It made my actions messy. It made my attention scattered. My relationships were suffering because of my unskillful communication.”
One example she vividly remembers comes from when she was Program Director for AWID’s International Feminist Forum in Brazil in 2016.
“I was running on empty and so was my team. We weren’t attending to what we needed as human beings and we weren’t in good relationships with one another,” she recalls. “It was like a forest fire: it accomplishes a lot, but it leaves so much destruction behind it.”
Untangling herself from this dynamic began with starting yoga to deal with chronic pain. Relief from this pain allowed her to look at her life and behaviour with fresh eyes, to feel her choices in new ways. Studying somatic therapy and embodied leadership further facilitated her healing journey and ability to set healthy, generative boundaries.
“I’m not consumed by anger anymore,” says Angelika. “I’m informed by it and I recognize it from a centered place that allows me to act, and not react.”
And how she’s now pivoting toward studying and working directly with wealth holders—a direction that might have been unimaginable to her younger self. Leveraging her training, she is supporting courageous, curious and embodied approaches toward intergenerational resource redistribution and system change.
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“Change is hard. I think we, as humans, forget that change is normal. Many of us are trying to make sense of the unraveling that’s happening in the world right now. The direction bending toward the arc of justice isn’t changing, though the way we are doing our work can be shifted.” - Angelika |
Try it out for yourself! In the 5 videos below, follow along with Angelika as she guides you through “Centering in Action”, practices that help build somatic awareness. If you would like to try all 5 practices uninterrupted, you can also watch the whole video (31 minutes here).
These practices can help you better understand some of the habitual emotional responses and protective armour you carry—an awareness that’s a gateway to showing up with more kindness and clarity for yourself.
1. Centering in Action (13 minutes)
Align your body physically and mentally across four dimensions. First, your core and purpose (your centre of gravity). Second, your length, representing your dignity. Third, appreciate the space you take up by centering in your width. Finally, your depth, from your physical back (and your past) all the way to the front of your body—how are all these holding you? In this video, find practices you can do at home or on the go to stay grounded and connected to yourself.
2. Bowl (2 minutes)
How can you embody a bowl, representing the demands the current moment places on you and the leadership that you need to demonstrate? As you hold all this, is there anything you can soften?
What clarity can an embodied yes, no or maybe create for your own sense of peace? For effective communication with other people in your life? If, like many of us, you have difficulty saying “no,” then this practice may offer you new awareness and opportunities to shift that tendency.
This time, after we return to the bowl and the softening in our bodies, we will bring the energy of an arrow, which represents precise, focused energy: direction, precision and determination. How do these capacities for breadth and focus feel? Which is needed, and when?
A great practice for orienting yourselves individually and in community. Reflect on the direction you are heading in, why and how it feels? What are you longing for along the way? How does a change in the direction feel?
You can add these practices to your leadership toolbox to stay centered, to recognize when your body and mind are aligned (or not), and to create more choice in how you respond to challenges.
We hope they bring you a wider sense of possibility—even in turbulent times.