I found Soul Motion over 10 years ago (and 8+ years before I retired). My engagement with Soul Motion started (and continues) as a personal practice and when the opportunity to apply to the Soul Motion Leadership program came up, I thought, “Yes!” I wanted to dive deeper into this practice and teach Soul Motion after I retired. And, while I achieved that goal, there were ways that Soul Motion showed up in my life I hadn’t expected… 

Soul Motion taught me about being mindful and in the present moment; this resulted in a shift to (mostly) doing one thing at a time - doing it slowly, deliberately, and intentionally, until it was complete. (I remember one assignment was to eat one thing very slowly. That strawberry was the most tactile, interesting, delicious strawberry I ever ate.) Shifting to doing one thing at a time also meant focusing on what was being presented at a meeting, really listening to a colleague, and receiving what was being shared - no multi-tasking and waiting until they were complete to formulate my response, if one was necessary.

I learned the value of focusing on the current moment and what was happening versus what might happen while, in my case, still seeing the big picture. The corollary to this learning included shifting my noticing to “what is” - without interpretation, without judgement, without story. This affected my perception of myself (much less judgment, much more accepting), and enabled me to look first for the facts and lesson to be learned, versus who to blame when participating in failure review boards. It also gave me confidence to speak to what is relevant “right now” and from my knowledge, not worry as much about memorizing planned remarks.

I learned about the beauty of the pause and putting space between between things, which made my life feel more full - not because it was filled with more doing but because I allowed myself short burst of just being, which made my life feel more well-rounded and complete. When I consciously pause, I notice my breath and connection with the ground beneath my feet which also gives me a sense of, “I am here. This is the ground I stand on. This is my space.”

When traveling, 360 degree awareness and the ability to move through corridors cultivated as part of my Soul Motion practice come in handy as I quickly navigate the too-long-distances-and-too-little-time to get to my gate through bodies in motion, bodies standing still, bodies coming from the right and the left, bodies with extensions (e.g., baby carriages, luggage, backpacks), bodies suddenly changing directions… I am better able to avoid collisions in these situations using my eyes and skin and all my senses to notice what is happening around me and slip through the openings.

One of the most important things I learned from Soul Motion is the concept of “practice” as in performing an activity regularly in order to improve or maintain proficiency. In all honesty, I had to go back to my some of my old notes to remind myself of what I learned at the time of my training and be able to write this note. Some of those learnings have become habits, some are still practices (note the qualifiers like “mostly” and “generally” above…), and some have faded  somewhat and are worth revisiting.  

For me, Soul Motion is both a conscious movement practice and a philosophy of living in the everyday dance. While I was still working, I taught short Soul Motion classes to engineers at my company and a local university under the title of “Developing Leadership Presence” focusing on embodiment as the core factor of leadership presence. The Soul Motion Embodied Leadership Program is for anyone who wishes an alternative, experiential approach to personal and/or professional development. The philosophy and practice integrated into this program allow space for anyone to enhance the quality of their personal leadership and leadership in any field (e.g., engineering, education, business, health care, other conscious movement modalities, counseling arts).